Who Loves This Time of Year? Other People Do.

As I look around my room tonight, I realize that maybe things in my life have gotten a little out of hand. There are roughly ten different piles of books in various locations scattered about the floor of my bedroom. They each belong to either: 1) A paper of some sort. 2) A section of said paper. 3) Mistaken books received from the library—due to requests being processed online only (no browsing for this graduate student). Or option number 4) Rejected crappy books that do not meet the online descriptions. This is all a bit unsettling, as my Milton books keep mingling with the Eliot books, which hide the Sherwood Anderson books, which keep mingling with the crappy books. There are various packs of neon-colored note cards that spew from each book, marking page numbers, full of useless quotes I will never remember. There are two identical copies of Critical Essay books concerning two different authors. Which, needless to say, I can’t keep separated for the life of me. Moreover, my bookshelf is overflowing with shitty rough drafts, unkempt books (not from the library), MLA reference guides, printer paper, and a few duck decoys thrown in for good measure. Three pairs of shoes are shoved under the edges of my bed. One boot is MIA. The one chair in my room is overflowing with clean clothes I washed last week. On top of this I have piled jackets and an orange scarf. On the small table to my right, is a coffee cup sitting on a pile of New Yorkers. Beside it is a camera and a lamp. Risqué. And then there’s me, squeezed on the edge of the bed, the other half filled with more books about Winesburg, Ohio. And a blanket to get tangled up in. My room has become an obstacle course. I wake up each day, hurt and afraid to get out of bed—for fear I step on a book. Or a paper. Or a computer cord. Or a dead animal that might have wandered in at night. Need I stress, I’ve been keeping my door closed the past few days, preventing the prying eyes of roommates.

It is December again, though I’m in a new place this year. It feels different somehow, like it isn’t December at all, but more like perpetually October. For the weather here will never turn cold, other than occasional chilliness, but it does turn quite grey here. Lots of fog, lots of short grey days.Tonight I had all the good intentions of working on more papers, to get ahead, if only for a day or two. A few hours less of work. And yet, I find myself unable to continue working on papers tonight. I have not paused to collect my thoughts this semester, and it has left me feeling like I have nothing to say. I know that I do, there are just too many other things to say first. Or they are prioritized to come first.

Yesterday I spent close to two hours wandering around Green Apple Books. I had so much fun, and even then I didn’t want to leave. With grad school, I’ve only had a small amount of time to explore the city, to have fun, to be free. When I get those chances, I really love San Francisco. I love just walking around and taking it all in. And graduate school is equally fun, some of the time. Every year in school it’s the same: there are always these deadlines, always these papers to finish, always the same scramble to finish our thoughts, finish our semesters up better than we started. I don’t know if I like the routine I’ve gotten myself into. It’s entirely too busy. I hope that I have the energy to make it through the next year and a half.

I don’t understand how there can be so many good moments that can be canceled out with just a few bad ones. It doesn’t make sense anymore. This year things are coming together for me, while so many others are falling apart. I keep wondering what’s going to happen, and waiting for something to strike me as the right thing to do, which way to go next. I’m tired of thinking about it all the time. Ugh.


On that note, I am kaput.