Flotsam

I am in the weeds. Far, far in the weeds. Is that a golf metaphor, or something to do with war? I don’t know, but I know I’m there, where it’s weedy.
Yesterday, I was skipping along, innocently thinking my innocent thoughts, when it occurred to me that my papers were due soon, for Professor Taskmaster. “My,” I thought, “My papers are due a week from Sunday! December 3rd sure got here quickly!” And then some bluebirds flew over with a calendar.

December 3rd is, in fact, NOT a week from Sunday. Rather, it is this coming Sunday. In layperson’s terms, this is three days from now. So, I lost my mind, briefly. And then I went scrambling for my syllabus, which is when I noticed that the five page cover letter that must accompany my packet of work is to be five SINGLE SPACED pages, not double spaced, as I had thought. So, before Sunday I must write:

1. Five page (SINGLE SPACED) cover letter
2. Comparative paper on Montaigne, Charles Lamb, etc. (Charles Lamb is hilarious by the way–highly recommended)
3. Edible Hot Pants essay (last third still remains, plus obsessive editing)
4. “Optional” essay on another book HA! Ha Ha HA!

This evening after writing 3/4 of a page in four hours (No, really. That’s how bad I am) I took a bath to try to relax myself, only the water was cold. And there was half of a spider on the wall. There are many things I love about our duplex, but the bathroom is not one of them. It is missing tiles, has chunks of unsanded grout hanging from the walls, and the woodwork is painted an uninspiring mustard. Also, we have very little hot water, so baths are rarely more than tepid. In my bathroom, I feel like the star of my own Lifetime movie, “Low Rent,” about a plucky prostitute struggling to raise her children in squalor. Without the children, of course. Or the prostitution. But what I lack in children and prostitution my bathroom more than makes up for in squalor.

BUT, deadlines and squalor aside, today is a day for celebration–it is the last day of NaBloPoMo. Oddly, I am not as relieved as I expected to be. I enjoyed seeing what people did with the post-every-day challenge. Personally, I think Schnozz deserves an award for best use of NaBloPoMo for doing one, enthralling, 30-day-long story.
I’m a glutton for punishment, I suppose, but I think I would like to try to continue posting more frequently. Not every day, but not the four-days-between-posts stupor I had sunken into previously, either. I want to finish this story, and Christmas should be worth a post or two, if it’s anything like last year.
Thanks for putting up with All Alexa, All the Time–personally, I’m sick to death of myself after thirty days of posts, so I can’t imagine how you feel.
Tomorrow we all get a day off–I am officially declaring it National No Blog Posting Day!*

*NaNoBloPoDa(y)