I stayed up til a little past seven this morning, working on the final paper for one of my classes. I got up three hours later, and I swear all I must’ve done while I was sleeping was dream my way through the paper and wander some dreamscape paper cut-out of my house, because all day long I’ve been plagued by deja vu.

My darling seester likes deja vu, because she thinks it means she’s on the right track. And so all day I’ve felt oddly reassured, even though part of me worries that this is some sort of Donnie Darko scenario, where I’ve already been squished by a plane toilet in some alternate reality, and the reality I’m experiencing is just some faint echo of my last days.

Or maybe I just need a nap.

Brian and I have just gotten back from a gallery talk, and are hanging out in his studio, settling down for a long winter’s paper writing and sculpture carving. All of a sudden, we hear voices in the alley. Drunk voices, yelling “Whaddaya doing?” “I’m peeing!” “We’re all peeing!”

In unison, we spring in to action. Brian goes for the door, I hit the lights. Two women are squatting in the alley, pants around their ankles, their bottoms glowing in the moonlight like the face of the Timex watch I used to wear back in college. “Uh oh,” one cries, her bare bottom disappearing around the corner and into the darkness. “Uh oh!”

Here it is again, the hotses and notses for the week, inspired, as always, by Loobylu:

Hot:

Library school: Like, sizzly hot. Like water sputtering across a hot pan hot. Like, too much work to even think about hot. Plus it’s time to select courses for next semester. How much can I realistically put on my plate? And the reference class I wanted to take is all full up. Poop.

Not:

Communication: My cell phone’s still MIA (I’m sure it’s around here someplace, but where?). I can’t access one of my email accounts. Seriously, how much more out of touch with my life could I be? And speaking of which:

NaBloPoMo: As you may have noticed, I fell off the blogging wagon for two days running. So much for blogging every day in November. Oh well. It’s not like I ever win any of the prizes anyway.

More from the Social and Cultural History database:

Letter from Lydia Maria Child to Anne Lynch Botta, 1839

Providence, R. I., 1839.

Dear Miss Lynch: I thank you for your kind invitation to visit you, with Mr. Furness. If I ever went anywhere, I certainly should have come. But for ten years past I have made no visits and formed no new acquaintance. I am considered a very odd woman; but my only oddity consists in an unaffected love of seclusion. I have not the smallest particle of social ambition. I would not take the trouble to go to two parties for the sake of obtaining the most flattering honors society could confer. It would, in fact, be taking what I do not want; for I have the most sincere aversion to being conspicuous in any way. To this natural love of keeping out of sight, is added weariness of spirit. Life has been to me a hard battle, and I would fain rest by the wayside. I am careful to do injury to no one, by act or word; and I strive to do, in a noiseless way, as much good as my limited means will allow. From what I am told of your independent character, I think you will admit that I have an undoubted right to live in retirement, since the choice springs from no imagined superiority and no deficiency of kindly social feelings.

The world has tried hard to fasten its fetters somehow upon me, but it is quite as much to the purpose to pour water on a duck’s back. I wish well to everybody; I delight in beauty wherever I meet it; I am thankful I am poor; and I do not want a single thing that the world can either give or take away. With the most cordial wishes for your happiness, I am truly your friend,

Lydia Maria Child.

May I present: Owl in a Box! (Found via the ever-enlightening Mimi Smartypants).

And can I just tell you that the first owl photo looks disconcertingly like Brian when he’s annoyed? (And how is it I never noticed that I’ve paired off with X the Owl? Does that make me Henrietta Pussycat, meow meow? And while we’re comparing people to puppets, have you seen this?).

I’ve got three assignments due this weekend, and I still can’t find my phone. Over and out.

I think he must have rolled in something at the park. OOoo-eeee!

In other news, I haven’t seen my cell phone in two days. And my (main) computer up and died on me. Reviving the computer and recovering the  therin looks to be a bit spendy, so I’ve decided just to sit on my dead computer for now (not literally. That’d be weird). I’ve got my cheap and tiny pc, and right now nothing’s on my Mac that I need too desperately. Luckily, it died at just-the-right moment in the semester: there’s nothing on it that hasn’t been turned in or can’t be recreated quickly and easily.

And there’s a scrap-it-all luddite inside me who feels kind of liberated. Computer breaks? Computer gone!  Ha!

I was walking along Walter Street today when a big gust of wind blew past, scattering leaves and papers and making a cute toddler, who was tromping sturdily along the curb and holding her father’s hand, giggle and clap with delight.

It was just getting dark, and as I looked up at the porch lights of the houses, admiring the dark stained glass panes on the doors and decorating imaginary homes with dark, cozy rooms, I got such a feeling of there-ness, of Cambridge, or Somerville, of streets and houses and fall nights, and the snow and the smell of it, and oh, I just wanted to go home. Home home, twenty years ago home (though now that I think of it, not twenty years ago, because twelve was kind of awkward).

Anyway, Christmas will be here soon enough, and Brian and I will be holed up in my old bedroom, and I can sit awake at night and look out over the porch roof at the bright pools the streetlights make on the snow. That’ll be nice.

Just when Library School was getting all dry and stressy, the simple joys of research come to the rescue.

Among the many cool databases my school library subscribes to, I found Alexander Publishing’s North American Women’s Letters and Diaries collection. Which is basically just what it sounds like: a database of letters and diaries, all available online with full text and searchable by date, subject and author, as well as historical and personal events.

I searched for mentions of the Titanic’s sinking, and ran across this letter (written on my birthday, as it happens), that I knew was written by a Quaker before I even got past the date:

Fourth month 23, 1912.

Dear Gertrude –

Theodore Roosevelt spoke in Greensboro yesterday; Joe Dixon was with him. I did not hear or see either one of them. I was asked to make another speech in Greensboro on education, and I had to prepare my paper on very short notice. On Seventh day afternoon Virginia Ragsdale invited me and several other friends to supper at her house. We had a lovely time. The dogwood and Judas trees were so pretty. As we went along in the train, it looked as if we were going through a park. On First day I had a nice visit at David White’s. I spent the night at Aunt Gertie’s and came home about seven o’clock yesterday. Thy father met me at the trolley. Rachel is rather upset over her ocean trip since the terrible Titanic disaster. I think travel will be safer now than heretofore, but one contemplating a voyage just now would naturally feel uncomfortable, I suppose.

I have been hard at work on the yard whenever the weather permits. I am so interested in it that I do not like to do anything else. This afternoon I expect to go to Todd’s and get some tomato plants, egg plants and a few shrubs for the public school ground. I have not had much done on thy tennis court yet; I hope to put Al at that job after he plants corn. He is very busy now plowing the bottom land at the farm. He and Walter think that they have cleared a very fine strip of land. I hope it will produce enough corn to feed our horses and cows.

Lovingly,

Mother.

From Hobbs, Mary Mendenhall, 1852-1930, Letter from Mary Mendenhall Hobbs to Gertrude Mendenhall Hobbs Körner, April 23, 1912, in Letters to Gertrude, 1910-1913.. Shamburger, Mary I.. Philadelphia, PA: John C. Winston & Co., 1936, pp. 175. [Bibliographic Details] [4-23-1912] S7477-D095

And there you have it: history, happening someplace offstage while meanwhile at home the yard work gets done and the dogwood and Judas Trees are blooming at Virginia Ragsdale’s house and no one has time to listen to Teddy Roosevelt.

Things I have:

1. A computer that won’t start

2. A back up computer (thank goodness)

3. A headache.

4. Two assignments due tomorrow, two more this weekend.

5. A slipping GPA.

Scientists agree global warming is real.

Scientists agree world faces mass extinction.

Scientists agree it’s in his kiss.

Scientists agree ocean acidification is caused by humans.

Scientists agree Denny’s is dangerous.

Scientists agree — Star Trek wins.