Flotsam

I must say, I am enjoying this “free time” business. I have managed to exercise, and to bake a batch of cookies, and I am planning to catch up on email this weekend and possibly clean the house. Sadly, this will be the first time I have thoroughly cleaned since we moved. In June. Perhaps I will even get around to unpacking the last of the boxes. Though, come to think of it, those boxes are all of books, and we still don’t have any place to put them.
Well, perhaps I will buy some extra bookshelves this weekend.
Or maybe I won’t, and will instead spend the weekend walking around my neighborhood looking at the pretty, pretty leaves.

These are all possibilities I may toy with, because with the exception of a flurry of end-of-semester paperwork due this weekend, SCHOOL IS OVER until November, and the world is my mollusk.

The problem with doing so many things at once is that you end up doing all of them poorly. School, work, this website, my personal hygiene—all have suffered over the past semester. But none of that matters now, because I have a whole month to catch up on all that I have neglected.
Even work has slowed down a bit, and I took advantage of this by beginning to clean off my desk. I eventually had to stop due to exhaustion and also lunchtime, but I did manage to uncover my giant desk calendar (which, no lie, said “APRIL”), so surely the actual desk surface cannot be far behind.

I saw two wild turkeys wandering around on a neighbor’s lawn this morning. A turkey or two seems to show up every year around this time, and they confound me. First of all, don’t they realize that fall is a dangerous time for turkeys? And secondly, where do they come from? I do not live in a rural area. The skyline I was in the middle of for my recent vacation can be seen from my neighborhood. It is peaceful and residential where I live, to be sure, but there are no wooded areas or secluded fields of the sort I imagine wild turkeys to frequent. And yet there they are, gobbling along. Last year I saw a turkey walking down the middle of the street, all succulent like, in November. Very mysterious.
I am choosing to view the turkeys as a symbol: the seasons are changing, and while that does mean I will be subject to my seasonal passing-of-time (turn, turn, turn) melancholia, it also means potential for a fresh start and the occurrence of unexpected things. If turkeys can waltz through urban neighborhoods, surely I can get pregnant, or keep my kitchen clean, or finish an essay.
Next week I am going to start writing again—real, live writing, with narrative arcs and everything. And my next semester is all writing credits, no more biology or evolutionary theory. I am back to autobiography disguised as essayistic insight, and overuse of the em-dash!
Huh. When I put it that way, it doesn’t sound nearly as appealing.

Still, I am full of plans and ideas, and am in the throes of feverish list-making. I am so determined to make this month count, and not fritter it away as I am wont to do. I want to get enough done that when I start school again in November I will not be frazzled and desperate-feeling. Last semester I moved in the first weeks of class, and I never quite recovered my equilibrium (or, you know, finished unpacking).
It is difficult, because after the brouhaha of the past few months I am So. Very. Tired, and it is tempting to curl up with some pasta and my Tivo-esque and doze happily until the start of the next semester.

But for now, I am optimistic and content. Also hungry, but that is beside the point.
Things would be even better if Hacky McHacksalot, the editor adjacent to me at work (and yes, that is her real name, why do you ask?) would stop launching phlegm loudly at her computer screen every fifteen goddamn seconds. This has been going on for weeks and weeks. Shouldn’t she be dead by now? When the Actually calls me at work he thinks it’s HILARIOUS that he can hear her Hack! Blech! Achgrhugh! noises through the phone, but believe me, it is significantly less amusing when you can’t have one minute of peace uninterrupted by the sounds of mucous tearing it’s way out of the throat of a disagreeable coworker, punctuated by the wet honk of vigorous nose-blowing. And she smokes, which I normally couldn’t care less about, but as it is obviously prolonging her cough I grimace each time I see her heading for the smoking area. I have taken to clenching my hands around my stapler and pretending it is her fat, snot-filled neck.
My god, there she goes again. As if she knows what I am writing and is coughing for emphasis!