2 whole days without blogging--ACK

Last night I slept for approximately eleven hours. Yesterday I was awake for approximately eleven hours. But I'm happy to report that, though I had what seemed like a million things on my list of stuff to do over Thanksgiving break, I did not do it all. I have not yet drafted my own class narrative for the collection my grad students and I are putting together. I haven't yet finished grading my 101 papers. I haven't yet finished reading my grad students' class narrative drafts. All of this is to say that I'm finally--sloooooowly--learning to let myself relax a little bit. Don't get me wrong--there's still a whole lot of free-floating anxiety when, at 8:00 on a Friday night I'm reading Joan Didion and I have to stop and stare off into space for a minute while I identify where that free-floating anxiety is coming from. It happens. A LOT. I have to constantly remind myself that next semester I'm only teaching two courses and will have more time to write. Plus I have an ambitious book-writing schedule--a gift from Becky that will do wonders for me because it's not MY schedule that I can just ignore. It comes from above.

Please note the amount of rationalization going on in this post. Will it ever be the case that I just say I'm learning to relax and have fun. Period. Check back in a year.

In other news, Thanksgiving dinner was a success. The bird was dee-licious, the stuffing and mashed tatoes and asparagus and cranberry sauce (with lines) and the sweet potato casserole that Julia brought over--it was all superb. On Wednesday night, after drinking at the dog park and then over at Nan's house for the after-party (ha!), I outdid myself with the world's most beautiful apple pie EVER. Perhaps it's a good idea to be a little tipsy when baking because, goddamn, it was gorgeous. I took pictures, and I'll post them on Monday when I get back to school. Ron brought over a pumpkin pie from Schnuck's (a local grocery store--gotta love that name) and I swear they baked it with crack. It was SO GOOD. After dinner we three played Scrabble and then watched a stupid movie (Hitch), but what mattered was that we enjoyed each other's company so much. And here's where I say how much I've never really liked the holidays, mainly because I was always stuck with my family and, well, my family's a bit, shall we say, dysfunctional and depressing. But now, dare I say, as I grow up, I'm realizing how much fun holidays can be when you spend them with people you want to be with. People who enjoy playing Scrabble and snuggling on the couch watching a very bad movie and snorting pumpkin pie. And laughing at the three crazy dogs and their strategies for getting just one more bite of turkey.

Life, my friends, it is good.