How else do I spend my time when there's real work to be done?

Not really feelin' the semester: not just yet. Perhaps this owes to the non-transition from winter break to now; the shatty weather; the cold of death which is slowly but steadily taking over my respiratory system, keeping me awake nights with its phlegm-producing capabilities (gross, I know: I am sorry); or the fact that Januaries are always the least fun month of the year, in my experience [my experience beginning Junior year of high school, that is, prior to which January was just another month - a cold month, it is true, but a month just the same]. Before I get too whiny - which I feel I have been lately, and for which I apologize - I should mention some random, awesome, and awesomely random things about myself, my environs, and etc.:

1) About 100 pages into This is Not It and it's sort of hit-or-miss, but in the best sense. The sense that some passages/narratives are a little "meh," but others just floor me. Like this one, for instance:

"It is the night of the world. Life is dark and hidden from me. The animals cannot sleep. The mountains are complacent and stalwart. The caves are shy, without light. The plains don't want to be flat. The desert is listless, waiting. I have been sitting here a very long time listening to the wind as it races past. It is howling and wailing, it is crying. It pules. It shakes the glass in the windowpanes. I stare out into the dark night. I am completely alone, my hand caresses my neck. The beauty of the world stretches away from me" (57).

How could a person not be moved by this? I wondered as I sat in the grad lounge this afternoon, listening to the water tick in the radiator, eating a soggying sandwich. These gorgeous, declarative sentences.

2. Today, the career counselor advised I buy a suit for interview purposes. (This means I need to be interviewed, right? Heh.) I was excited by this suggestion: how many times have I fondly looked through the "suiting" section of J.Crew, only to flip to something more relevant to my lifestyle, like flip flops? Well, friends, now that I have the permission of someone trained to advise such things, I will no longer feel ashamed when lingering over those previously-forbidden pages. (Aside: for the record, I'm not going to buy a J.Crew suit: not that any of you thought I would. I don't have that kind of $$$! I'm looking for a real job! But, I will consider Banana.)

3. I am obsessed with "Crocodile Rock."

4. Not normally the type to daydream about vacations, I keep punishing myself by conjuring images of Tahiti/Cancun/Pensacola/California/THE EQUATOR/anywhere else that doesn't have snow. I'm baffled by this fantasizing; after all, I grew up in MN, which is a lot colder than where I am now. And my apartment is adequately warm, and I just bought onehellofa coat. What gives?

5. E. and I went to brunch this past weekend for the first time in a long time, and it was the nicest. I wore a zip hoodie and had three cups of coffee.

6. The trotting animal can restore red hearts to red.

7. I don't know about you, but I'm getting excited for the Superbowl, if only for the culinary opportunities it affords.