[Title inspiration thanks to Gwenda.]

Your semester is over, kicked the crap out of your last final exam. Suck it, Emerson. Melville, Whitman, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Poe: get back in your graves. Well, not Poe, he's still cool. And Hawthorne's not bad too. Your story "Don't Blink" was highly influenced by "Young Goodman Brown," and "The Artist of the Beautiful" reads like something Zoran would write. You briefly conceive of a high-concept short-story collection: retellings of Hawthorne's short fiction. After all, you already have one in the can. Needs more thought.

Now you can relax, switch the brain off for a while, do some last-minute Christmas shopping. You've got your lady taken care of, except for one last thing to get tonight. Then off the package goes half the circumference of the Earth. It was strange, you woke up this morning with deja vu, remembering the first day after getting back from Singapore, remembering waking up and thinking Janet was in the other room, like she had been the two weeks before, or maybe downstairs making strong Singaporean coffee or heating up some dumplings, remembering there is no downstairs, remembering you were now in your apartment, recognizing your bedroom for what it was, and realizing that the woman you love was all the way on the other side of the world, and that you wouldn't be seeing her again for months and months, and sobbing like when your childhood dog died, sobbing for the fact that you missed her so much it was like a sharpened icicle right to your heart. You remembered that this morning, but didn't sob this time, just sighed and got out of bed. Soon it'll be March, and you two will be married, and you won't have to wake up with that empty feeling in your gut anymore.

While studying yesterday, you took a break and heard the big news. Ding-dong, the dictator's dead...er, captured. You rejoice and are grateful that this one step has been completed, but you also heed Charlie's words, and don't become complacent. There's still a long row to hoe, yo.

You need to buy another bookshelf. Books of all kinds are stacked on tables and on the floor. Borges has begged you for months to pick Labyrinths up off the floor, and you remind him that he could always be sitting in his own Library of Babel. There, he would be one book among countless billions; here, he is special, cherished, loved. All right, you take out that Lovecraft book you haven't gotten to yet to make room. There, Borges looks nice in vertical.

Got a call from Jamie yesterday asking if you wanted to go see The Unkempt One become king on Thursday. Three and a half hours of filmic goodness, precious. You can'ts wait for it. Elijah Wood very funny on SNL this past Saturday.

Two new interviews: Ted Chiang and Jeff VanderMeer.

And from Ms. Trope: "Today was a tomorrow that didn't quite work out." You like that quote.

Now Reading:
The Art of the Novel by Milan Kundera

Stories Out to Publishers:
7

Books Read This Year:
58

Zines/Chapbooks/Fiction Mags Read This Year:
40