Between school and the beginning of my shift at work tonight I stopped by a local pub in Ann Arbor for supper.  Sitting at a table by the window I watched the world go by.  I noted the Christmas lights in store windows, and the wreaths and greens attached to the some car grills, the people walking by, some with Christmas packages, some with  holiday red Starbucks coffee cups.  I saw people walking alone and in pairs, talking animatedly on phones or staring at their feet.  I felt very seperate, as if I were watching a movie.  A sense of not belonging, of just being an observer.

It’s the same feeling I’ve had this year as Christmas approaches, that I’m an observer, and not a very happy one at that.  That Christmas is sneaking up in an obvious sort of way and that I’d rather it didn’t.  Even though I’m going through the motions, planning a big meal for the in-laws, even doing Christmas shopping, I feel a seperateness.  I’d so much rather it didn’t come, Christmas.  I think I’d rather pretend it wasn’t on the way and then just sleep through the day.  But Christmas is hard to ignore.

So another year has gone by, and for whatever reason this year feels like it might be tougher than last year.  It’s harder to ignore Christmas.  But I still feel like an observer in the wings rather than a particpant on the stage. 

I’m sitting quietly at my computer here at home, trying to get ready for a presentation that is happening later today.  For many reasons I haven’t spent enough time preparing for this presentation and this morning is my last chance to go over my portion and figure out what I can say that isn’t already on the slides.  Katie was not cooperating, wanting to play, and it’s too cold to put her outside so early this morning. 

So I picked her up and told her I had to go, gave her a cuddle and put her into her crate in the bedroom, closing the door behind me.  I pretended to go to work and then crept quietly back out to my computer.  She howled for a bit but now she’s quiet.  I don’t want her to hear me and start barking.  So I am very quietly studying my slides and typing speaking notes.  Darn keyboard seems overly noisy this morning.

I stayed up last night, dug the offensive one page paper out of the backpack and began the edit.  Katie snuggled up next to me in bed as I mashed words around until it resembled something that wasn’t half bad.  I left it on the dresser to marinate overnight and today tidied it up a bit.  So.  The last paper of the semester is officially complete.  All that is left to face is tomorrow’s presentation in government docs and the final exam next week in archives.  Both are somewhat intimidating, but previous experience tells me they will turn out fine.  If I prepare.

I don’t have much to say tonight.  Lots of feelings and snippets of thoughts rolling around at the back of my mind.  All cohesive thought is interupted either by Katie or a hot flash.  Sometimes both.  Not a good night for inspiration I guess, which doesn’t bode well for my last one page paper due Thursday.  I wrote it while at work last week and I think it is garbage, so much so that I haven’t even dug it out of my backpack to review it.  I couldn’t get it saved to my thumbdrive that night, so I just printed it out the old fashioned way.  I guess I should hope it’s actually in my backpack somewhere.   In reality I think it is so much a piece of garbage that not much would be lost if I can’t find it and I have to start over.  But starting over on it tonight in my uninspired mood would probably mean I’d generate more garbage.   On the other hand I’ve written some of my best stuff late at night when I was tired.  So maybe I should just stay up and work on it.  You never know what will inspire you.  Or when you’ll be inspired.  I just hope inspiration hits prior to Thursday.

Darn.  I turn around tonight to check on the dog in preparation for going to bed and she is SO CUTE!  She is sleeping upside down, head curled around, on her pillow by the window.  It almost makes me want to find something else to do (which wouldn’t be that hard) rather than wake her up to go to bed!

The long  paper is done and I am feeling relieved.  It’s 21 pages plus a 2 page bibliography.  Actually I think it’s pretty good, except for one paragraph that doesn’t make sense to me any longer and I am not sure why it’s in there.  I may take it out when I reread it tomorrow.  Or it might be brilliant and I’m just too tired to see the connection at the moment.   Hard to say.

I’d be feeling even better than pretty good if I hadn’t just read the instructions for the paper, making sure I got it all covered, and realized that I forgot I have to write a one page summary for this thing.  DRATS.  I am definitely too tired to do that tonight.  It will probably go easier if I do it right after I reread the paper tomorrow.  Right now I’m not for real sure what the paper is about!  (KIDDING!)

It’s sleeting outside my window, sometimes the sound of it startles me as I work.  Katie has finally settled down on her pillow to sleep.  She has been extra antsy tonight and asked to go outside a whole lot more than I wanted to be out there.  Which is to say she wanted to go out more than once.  We went out three times, it was miserable out there each time.  There were moments that I considered putting her out in her kennel in the sleet because that’s where she appeared to want to be, but I’m not that bad a mother, so I just told her NO about a hundred times and now she has given up.

So, time to get some sleep myself, though I hate to wake up the dog to go to sleep.  The odds are that once up she won’t go back to sleep so easy.  Sort of a parental dilema I guess.  At least I don’t have to get her into her pj’s!

Night all…

I am on my way out, not looking forward to the drive to Ann Arbor today in the wind and cold.  I have a 3 hour class that will only go two hours, and then 4 hours of work.  I am essentially done with the work for the class I will attend today.  There is a short paper on philanthropy due next Thursday, but I’m looking forward to writing that this weekend and don’t feel pressured.  I have a “presentation” tomorrow morning, but in actuality our group will just stand by our (magnificant) poster as the class wanders by.  The threat there is that the professor may ask a question about our featured database that we can’t answer, but I doubt it.  And I have a presentation next Wednesday but a group member has completed the slides and my part is small.

So basically I feel like this semester has ended, though I have a week and a couple days of classes left..and of course that final exam.   I will use this weekend to get organized for that exam so that maybe it won’t be as stressful as it could be.  Other than that, and finalizing the big paper due Tuesday that sits finished in my laptop, I will spend this weekend sleeping.  Sounds like a plan.

It’s busy busy busy at work tonight.  I guess library patrons took a holiday like everyone else and now they are back in full force.  I am working till 9 at the fiction desk.  The woman I took over from at 5 said it had been quiet.  Maybe they were all waiting for me!  I have had a steady stream of people looking for items since I sat down, sometimes two and three people waiting for me.  But it’s more fun that way, so I don’t mind as long as they are patient.  Mostly they are, which is why this is so different from managing a teller line at a bank, or running an underwriting department in a mortgage company.  And why it’s so much more fun.

Tonight I helped a woman find a book, and as I pulled it from the shelf I recognized that it was something I had read.  She asked if I remembered the story line and I said no, so she let me read the jacket.  I remembered what it was about but told her I wasn’t going to tell her, she had to read it for herself.  She left laughing, which caused the next man, waiting for me, to start out his question with a smile.  That’s the way to do it, keep those smiles connecting.

Smiles are just another benefit of becoming a librarian.

The big paper is done!  My archival class paper, all 21 pages, is finished.  It’s not perfect, but I’ll do a bit of editing during the week.  Since it’s not due till December 4th I’m feeling pretty good about how things are going.  Of course I haven’t actually read it on paper yet.  In our paperless society we do so much of our work while looking at a monitor.  But somehow the written word cadence is more precise and lyrical to me when I read it on paper, so I expect to spend another hour or two doing editing so that it flows eloquently.  When I can I like to turn in papers that flow easily, in the hopes that a professor reading something like that will get into the prose and give me a higher grade.  Don’t know if that works, but it can’t hurt.

Also complete are two one page each critiques of my group member’s  grant proposals.  Those papers were both easier and more difficult to write.  Easier because it was a simple assignment, and short; more difficult because they are papers that the other students will be reading and I wanted to be constructive as well as critical.   Those are due next Thursday and it’s good to get them out of the way.

So what is left this semester you ask?  One final exam, two questions, five pages each question to be written the week of December 10th.  One short one page paper on my feelings about philanthropy which I could probably write in my sleep but will likely labor over, two presentations, one this week and one next week.  That’s all.  Then a lovely break spent here at home.

Katie the puppy comes home from the kennel tomorrow.  I am enjoying this puppy free day, but missing her all the same.  Life will get back to normal tomorrow.  Today I revel in completed projects and the smell of fresh baked from scratch brownies as they come out of the oven.

My trip home was more difficult emotionally this year.  I don’t know why.  It was hard to be in my parent’s house and hard to be at my brother’s home as well.  Everywhere I looked were memories of parents no longer here.  Which could be a good thing I suppose, the memories, but for me this weekend it just made for a continually tight chest, frequent sheen of tears in my eyes, and a slight headache that constantly threatened to overwhelm me.  I both wanted to be there and wanted to never be there again.  Today I am glad to be home, and yet I wish I were still where their memories are so strong.  It was good to touch things they had touched, cook in Mom’s kitchen, read in Dad’s chair, walk on their beach, look at their view, talk to their neighbors.  But each activity reminded me of other holiday visits, conversations we had, conversations I wish we had had, time I wish we had still.

As we drove back to the Atlanta airport early this morning in the predawn light I watched a planet low in the sky shine down on us, racing us through the trees along the side of the freeway.  It was as if it were following us to the airport, along the road that Dad had traveled in the dark that morning, much like we were traveling it now.  As we approached the crash site the morning was just beginning to arrive, the sky deep appricot and purple and the planet was beginning to fade.  I wanted it there for some reason as we got closer to the site and the inevitable tightening of my chest increased.  Hang on, I thought, just stay with us until we get past the bad part.  And it did, the sky lightening to turquoise and gold as we passed the spot where Dad left us, my husband and I silent, the planet shown down for me, a bit dim, but still there.  I offered it my thanks as we made our way on to the airport.  Thanks for hanging there with me, getting me through the bad moment…as it faded from view and the sun came up I was grateful for what seemed to be its support.  Strange as it seems, it was kind of like Dad being there, which was comforting.