Tell the wind not to blow

After putting on work clothes, I stepped into the kitchen and saw the snow flurries out the window. I immediately felt a wash of relief, like the emotional tension broken by finally saying something. The day has been holding its grey over us for a few days, and so the swirls of white were finally a release. On the train into work, when the doors would open, it would swirl inside, a few bold flakes would make it all the way to my face, my pant legs.

Tonight is fried chicken for dinner at work, and I admit, I'm a little excited. Its not really the best fried chicken in the world, but it is free and I didn't have to cook it, so there are benefits.

I had plans for making a savory pie today, of my own invention, but worried it would take too much time, it was too much procrastinating on this residency application that I'm sending out tomorrow. Now is the season of summer workshop applications and fellowships and story contests and whatnot. I mean, I suppose technically some of those things are year-round, but there tends to be a higher number of them between January and April. I vacillate between feeling completely hopeful and inspired to utterly beaten down and doubtful, but even in the latter moments, I figure it out anyway. With this residency, I had to solicit two letters of recommendation with quick turnaround and I had two people who stepped up and did it for me, so I couldn't really punk out and drop the ball on my end. Besides, just because I feel a certain way about my writing sample doesn't mean the words themselves have actually changed. A few weeks ago I really liked them. In a couple weeks I will probably like them again. Right now I just need to make sure that I didn't forget the apostrophes in "it's" and all the verbs are present tense, and then just send it off and hope for the best. I'm actually maybe less nervous about this particular application and more nervous about the next one I'm sending out in a few weeks, which is a academic year fellowship that might be absolutely and utterly perfect. But then again, everything is perfect in my head, and my tendency toward fantasizing outcomes is a sign that maybe I really want this thing and that's okay, that wanting. Its a reminder that hey, maybe I'm doing all this for a reason.

When I was working out on Sunday, I realized that my role in the universe of gym caricatures is That Guy Who Is Too Into His Ipod.

I'm a nerd. With awesome friends.

You know what's awesome? When you're talking to your friend on gchat about playing scrabulous and the 7 letter word "etaerio" and that while making a pie, you started talking to the berries and explaining that they are, indeed, etaerios, and then that friend goes and makes a comic strip about your life in the Facebook graffiti function (which is basically MS Paint).

It's so awesome, that I need to post it here too.


Thanks, limenal!