Jeez, is it the first day of December already? How did this happen so fast? (The smartass response comes to mind: Well, see, the Earth revolves around the sun...) It feels like the semester just started, and I'm already at the last week of classes. This coming weekend will be another sequestered-in-the-apartment couple of days as I finish writing one paper, revise another, and revise a short story. And somehow, I'm going to have to wake up early enough to get to class at 8:00 Wednesday and Friday morning of this week (in exchange for getting an extra week to work on our research papers). At this point in two weeks, I'll be done with finals, and the semester will be officially done, and I can shut off my brain for a while.

Thanksgiving was fun. My grandmother came in from Illinois and my sister came in from Noo Yawk Sitty. I picked Kristin up from the airport Wednesday night, and we had vegetarian lasagne upon arriving at my parents' house in Fuquay-Varina. The next day, we busted out the appetizers (crackers, various cheeses, potato and tortilla chips, bean dip, salsa, Triscuits, marinated herring) around noon, then ate the big dinner (turkey, chestnut dressing, barbecue green beans, seven-layer salad, jello mold, two kinds of bread) at 4:00. Afterward, we all sat around in a stupor as tryptophan worked its way through our bloodstreams, then we woke up and drove to the Celebration of Lights. Friday, I stayed home and read Thoreau's blog (a.k.a. Walden), and my mother, sister and grandmother came over in the early afternoon so my grandma could see the apartment and look at the digital photos Janet took in Singapore and Bali. Then the ladies left for home and naps, and I spent the rest of the afternoon reading.

Friday evening was my ten year high school reunion. So I got all cleaned up and dressed in my navy blue suit, blue shirt, purple iridescent tie (a birthday present from Janet's parents), and kickass buckled dress shoes. I looked pretty damn good. Got to the shriner's club in north(ish) Raleigh around 7:30, and quickly met up with everyone I wanted to see while in line: my best bud Jason M., Heather and her husband David, and Deanna. I hung out with them most of the night, though I did mingle a little and get to talk to some people I hadn't seen in a long time. There were heavy hors d'oeuvres which were decent, but a cash bar, which sucked. There was a DJ, but all he played were songs from 1993, stuff like Metallica and Guns 'N Roses which you couldn't dance to, though a few drunk girls tried. And it was a lot like high school, in that the people who were popular back then all clustered together near the bar, and wouldn't really let others into their crowd, though I got to say hi to a few people when they strayed from the herd. It was an okay night, though definitely not worth the $70 door charge. I did sell one chapbook, so there's that. At 10:30, the party (such as it was) started to die, so I went home and stayed up to watch Conan.

Saturday morning, I went with the fam to New Hill for a ride on the open-air Christmas Train, which was pretty fun, although it was only in the 40s and windy and I was without scarf and hat. Afterwards, we got some lunch and shopped a bit (I sat in the car and read, since I didn't need anything at the Dollar Tree), then Kristin and I went to my place to scan in her headshot and touch it up a bit before printing out on fancy photo paper. That night, we met up with a few of her college friends at Denny's, and continued the evening all over north Raleigh (almost to Wake Forest). I drove her back to my parents' house around midnight, then went home and crashed.

Yesterday, I called Janet in the morning and we had a really nice and leisurely talk, and I missed her even more after hanging up the phone. Drove over around noon and had a delicious pancake brunch (my dad makes the best pancakes). We dropped Kristin off at the airport around 2:00, came home, then found out her flight got cancelled. This being the busiest travel weekend of the year, they weren't able to get her on another flight last night, so she'll be leaving tonight instead. As my parents and grandmother left at 6:00 to go get her from the airport and bring her back for one more night, I left, so that I could get as much reading done as I could and work on the Poe paper a little. I went to bed at midnight.

At 2 a.m., I awoke to a completely dark apartment; this was troubling as I keep a lamp on in the living room at night. I got up and looked out the blinds to see other apartment buildings without power. It came back briefly, enough for me to grab a flashlight, before going out again, this time for over two hours. I was awake, so I attached the battery-powered booklight to Walden and read for a half-hour. Went to sleep after that, then woke up again at 4:30 when the power came on and I had to reset my alarm clock. Tossed and turned for another twenty minutes, then back to sleep. I think I got maybe four hours of sleep last night, and I was so tired when I woke up to get ready for class that I almost stayed in bed. But I didn't.

So that was my Thanksgiving weekend. A few other things:

• I made plane reservations to go visit Kristin in the Sitty for New Year's. We're not going to Times Square, but we should have a fun time. She's going to take me to The Strand (where the second chapter of my novel takes place) and we'll go see the ginormous Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center. I can't wait.
• The new KoRn album is not that good. They're definitely going for a more "Back 2 Basics" sound, which I guess will please the hardcore fans, but will alienate the people who have gotten to like the direction their music was going with the last two albums (like me). They produced the album themselves, and it sounds like it; Take a Look in the Mirror feels more like a sequel to their first album more than anything, which is a shame. They were showing some real growth, and it just seems as if they've taken five steps back with this new album.
• Zoe Trope has written several pieces of what you might call flash fiction recently on her journal, or maybe just bits of scenes or character description, and it displays her writing style nicely. I'm putting her book on my Christmas list. It's amazing that she's only just graduated high school.
• To my amazement, discussion is still going on here, and it's up to 91 comments. Everyone go say something pithy and get it up to 100.
• PublishAmerica needs to be firebombed into the ground. Or whatever the digital equivalent of this would be.

Hope you all had a nice turkey day.

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Now Reading:
Walden by Henry David Thoreau

Stories Out to Publishers:
4

Books Read This Year:
55

Zines/Fiction Mags Read This Year:
35