SNOW DAY and other listworthy items.

1. SNOW DAY. Happy snow day, everyone. It's my first snow day since that weird day in Winona when classes were cancelled and then the sun came out and it was an amazing winter day. Also: Remember what a bitch the Sheehan parking lot was? God, the bitches in that dorm could not park.

Anyway, Mr. O called me this morning at 5:30 and said no school! Go back to bed! And so I did. (And I think it's the greatest thing that he calls me, so I don't have to wait 7 hours for my 'puter to get started in this freezing house to discover that I just get to crawl back under the covers. A phone call that says: go back to bed, no school and then pulling the covers tighter and shutting the alarm off? Possibly the greatest feeling in the entire world.) It's noon, I woke up at 10:30. I think I'll go back to bed, then wake up, shovel, build a short, fat snowman in the front yard to wave at the passersby on Wabasha County 25 and then pack for my Christmas break, starting early tomorrow morning, since I have to make it to Albertville in time for an early church rehearsal for the mass on Christmas morning. So far, so good.

2. I fucking hate my computer.

3. I am loved; I am so loved in fact, that I must break this down into a sublist.

• Messages, notes, words of love from friends. Comments on my last post that just made everything okay, even on an overly anxious day where I was so out of body that I didn't recognize myself.
• Phone calls from Jenny, the messages I got this morning: I'm here for you. I know you're not asking me for help, but I love you and I'm here.
• Emails from the X: Complete with research about Minnesota programs--research that she most certainly didn't have to do, but that I wouldn't have even known how to do on my own, research that, for me, takes away the anxiety of research and that feeling of high blood pressure, of giving up, or feeling helpless. Words of love, secrets as to how one can obtain anxiety meds, secret pacts about committing insurance fraud, but not really in case any police happen to read my blog (like when Lance wrote about his night in jail on his blog and then the Minneapolis downtown police found it and left comments).
• Sue, Kris, Laura, the program cohorts. Sue, on Tuesday, who I pulled from her plans to calm me down in the PALS room, her soothing demeanor, her advice.
• Sue, who, the next day left me a gift on my chair in my office--amazing cookies, pens!, and a beautiful lined journal that I'll use over break to organize my lesson plans for my first unit with the juniors.
• Kris, who left an amazing secret package in my box at Century with a mason jar of homemade soup and a recipe--one that I'll save for a perfect night at the end of January when homemade soup will cure all, especially when coupled with a french baugette and fresh mozz.
• Drinks with the above mentioned ladies, Laura who reads her email from RPS even less frequently than I do, our consensus of the gentle abuses we take at school, them, much, much more than me. Thank God for them.
• The "bottle" that Mr. O snuck into my office when I was teaching first hour, the clog-wearing santa card, the note on the inside that read Jean, we both need a little vacation and a lot of wine. The accompanying chocolate, much of which I ate in one sitting to confirm my ridiculous fatness, the "bottle" which I will likely consume in one sitting as well. And also without sharing.
• Mr. O., again, because who else would just lead the class because I'm so dizzy, who else would at hearing any cough come from my throat command you're sick, stay home. Either he really hates having me there, or he really is concerned I'm not taking enough time for myself (ironically, of course, that's all I take). Anyway, I was really dizzy yesterday morning and he took over the technology part of the lesson and he stood in front of the class where I couldn't, and he paused the 1968 R & J at a point in the balcony scene and reiterated how important it was to "come up for air" in the midst of passionate, young kisses. I pointed out that if any of you wear a dress like Juliet has on to school, please be aware that you'll be sent home in about 5 seconds.
• My mom sent me a text last night that said have fun shoveling today. Aw.

4. Yesterday at the pub a woman was carrying around a little black puppy, and illegal as it was, it was essentially the most darling puppyish puppy I'd ever scene. Also, I love how I spot puppies from across the room and scream puppy! in the middle of a conversation. This is a side effect of having lived with Liz. A glorious side effect.

5. I'm feeling better. I've noticed that my heart rate still goes nuts with one little sign of frustration, but I'm doing slightly better at keeping control. Of course, I don't have to be back at school until 2009. But still.

6. I have about 4 poems in the queue, and I can't fucking wait to write them. I've been waiting so long to write them.

7. James is moving to France next summer. This isn't good news, but this is a "stuff" list, not a good news list. It's just odd! How one moves to France, I don't know. It's odd that someone else will be in this house come the start of next fall, someone else will be tending to that garden I started. Of course, I cannot buy this house--as I have come to loathe Elgin in the winter as much as I love it in the summer, and I have no credit or money, and I could never take care of such a place, and if I stay in Rochester I'll have to live in town--but now I think of what I'll think of it in five years, that year I lived with James in that farm town, that summer I started my first flower garden, came home with a car full of green and fertilizer and dirt, the dirt roads, the neighbor's horses. It feels, somehow, like I've lived here for so long. Jenny and I drove by the Chicago Ave. house last weekend; also odd to think of it, mostly that cold, cold winter, the buses, the planes, the lake. The Lake Nokomis, the walks with Liz around that lake, talking about high school and work and the men on the bus who offer to massage Liz's feet. The Chinese food across the street, the night, about a year ago, that I came home from that disastrous date. Christmas always makes me so sad.

8. A great day at school yesterday. I joined the knitting club and learned how to suck at knitting. Sue was so kind in teaching me, explaining the slip knot and the casting on over and again. I'm going to buy a pair of size 10 needles today, and use the gift they gave me the first day--a cute little roll of brightly colored "tape" fabric. In the future, all of you can expect oddly knitted sqaures, which you will be required, on principal, to love. Also, we had a good time laughing with the freshman, Mr. O brought them candy cane treats. And I had my last day of tutoring with the ELL girls, which ended wonderfully and also sadly, as I won't be with them for awhile, if again at all. But they were the best students. They called me Miss because they couldn't say my last name, and they loved Laffy Taffy jokes even after I poorly explained them, and they scared me for understanding, after only a year and a half in this country, the phrase friends with benefits. She started out explaining to me--they are..beneficial--I no know how you say it--friends beneficial? And I fell out of my chair and said friends with benefits?! How do you know what that means!

Also, the juniors watched the last of Hamlet that dang scene with all the poison, and after Mr. O handed out the candy canes and the juniors shoved them in their faces, I said hey, Mr. O remember when we poisoned the candy canes? Heh heh.

9. Jenny came last weekend, for one of the most amazing weekends of all time, she came to school with me on Friday and I introduced her to my freshman, and she sat in the back of the room and listened to me talk about Romeo, and we went to Tony Sims and we went to Holidazzle, and she left me on Sunday morning only to go home with the stomach flu. It was the next morning that I was so dizzy I went home early, and I am fairly certain that it was just withdrawal from each other that made us so sick. But I'll see her again, soon. And, again, we'll come up with German alias names to former colleagues of the MFA program, again we'll (probably) watch Home Alone, again, we'll turn on Christmas music and find that most of the songs on the Sirius channel are performed by the "Wind Machine" and have a good laugh at all of that, again we'll long for the X, again we'll personify the pictures that Mark took of his video game machine--one from the front, one from the side, one from the other side, one with the lights off--as though they're inappropriate sex photos and the video game machine was crying while Mark was saying, from the back end of the camera, Oh yeah, baby, give me some more, oh yeah, glow blue, baby.

I have pictures, of course--pictures of the fake mustaches I bought because I'm amazing, pictures of us on a drunken Friday with too much food and whipped cream fights. And of course, my computer is officially the douche master 2000, so I'll post 'em later.

Just know that there is nothing better than a good fucking mustache. Worn by sexy ladies, in public, amongst strangers in the line to see the Macy's A Day in the Life of an Elf Christmas display.