Wherein the world turns upside down, and rather likes it.

If you'd asked me on New Year's Eve 1999 (a day that I'm not sure I remember, for some reason) what things I would most definitely not be doing on New Year's Eve 2009, I am sure that the following would be among them:

1. Going to see a Disney movie in the theater.

2. Drinking a tumbler full of gasoline, mixed with broken glass and scorpions.

3. Getting a tattoo of Venezuela on my eyelid.

4. Making mashed potatoes.

5. Eating an Ohio State cake from the grocery store.

However, I will be doing most, if not all, of the above today. Okay, three out of the five. What other way to ring in a new decade (yeah, yeah) and flush the old one down the toilet for good? Of course there will also be all the other components of a good New Year's Eve, but I'm a little tickled at what I would never have done in the past.

I started the day by being the first on the block to have a fully cleared and awesomely shoveled driveway (and sidewalk! I may be among the dog walkers again some time in the not so distant future). In a few minutes we're going out to play in the snow. It's one of those winter days where you could really go out there with just a heavy sweater and mittens (and pants, of course).

I know I should be posting something weighty about my resolutions, but honestly, I've already checked the important items off my list. I have a few things to get better at, but I have climbed my mountain and staked my flag at the peak, and now I'm just sitting here looking at the sky.

Oh, and the Ohio State cake is thanks to Gabi, who is a rabid fan for some reason. I'm not renouncing my U of Michigan diploma any time soon. After all, it helped get me here.

Where were we?

Yes, this about sums it up. Tea consumption at casa MB is up! Email volume is down! Sleep is 7-8 hours per night. 3 year old sleeps for 12 hours and then takes a two hour afternoon nap. Snowblowing is so much fun that I have to force myself to stop. Certain parts of the driveway I shovel and snowblow. Then I come inside and eat breakfast and marvel at my biceps. Ha ha. No, really. They are quite impressive.

All of this will be changing on Monday, when I head back to the office and the kids head back to school. I have some syllabi to write and a whole lot of reading to do. I've been (gasp!) reading for fun over break. I am reading Lit by Mary Karr. Suddenly I feel like my life has been really, really mild in comparison, but I guess that's the point.

For those who aren't on facebook, here's a picture of my kids on Christmas Eve. Our holiday ended up being just fine, despite the arrangements. I didn't buy a ton of toys this year, and absolutely no Playmobil. I think Playmobil stuff is cool, but I am really tired of getting microscopic weapons stuck to the bottom of my socks.

It's seriously paining me that I may have to break down and buy Gabi an Ohio State shirt. She is somehow a big fan of OSU, for no reason, and it would be cruel not to let her cheer in proper fashion on Rose Bowl day. But still. I have a "root for the Big Ten team" policy that I suppose I will be enforcing, to the chagrin of some of my colleagues.

No new poems (but I did get four before 2010) and no manuscript sequence progress (where did Sunday go?), but I think this is going to be a really fortifying hiatus. I am rather excited for the new year, but that's another post altogether.

Two for [Wednesday]

My girl sure knows how to address an envelope. This is her first foray into fan mail. She is very concerned about Brady Quinn's injured foot.

Campus was totally empty today. Look how some trickster drew spirals on this tornado shelter sign. Look at the tornado clipart. What on earth is that?

Done with all shopping and wrapping, but not packing of the kids' things for their visit with their father. We will be having Christmas tomorrow. At least with the kids.

Two for [Tuesday, but not taken on Tuesday]

See, this is what I get for relying too heavily on my BlackBerry camera. Technical difficulties, and on the verge of ripping my contacts out, so here's what I have for today, taken with the real deal.

Outside there was a sliver of moon up in the tree. It wasn't stuck there, though. It was just resting.

Whether or not you have had a Wonderfull Yeare of your own, you should check out the latest by Nate Pritts, with Cooper Dillon Books.

Today I cleaned. I mean, really cleaned. Purged like there was no tomorrow. It felt amazing. Or, rather, wonderfull.

Then there was the mother of all cakes.

Two for [Monday]

I am officially on winter break (read: without childcare) until January. I am going to try to enjoy it. Today we went sledding and made homemade pizzas. With pizza, the messier it looks, the better. With sledding, the messier it gets, the more whining. But after a while, with both activities, there was less mess and more glee, which, I guess, is the point.

Work goes on, to some extent, and this made me really sad/annoyed/crestfallen today.

The other thing bringing me down is that I have a bunch of cuts on my hands again, so no orange peeling without assistance.

I seem to have permanently misplaced the version of my manuscript that I sequenced a while back, with photo evidence on facebook. Of course I kept no records of the order. So back to square one. I will be dedicating Sunday, December 27th to this task, including actually making it an electronic file. And sending it out, shortly thereafter. Enough excuses.

My kids are having a moment of peace right now. Those moments are rare.

I am going to aspire to post two pictures a day. Probably not so many words.

My mom is giving me a lot of clippings about simplifying and deep breathing. Little does she know that I'm already there.

Hold the bacon, please.

I hope everyone has survived the Great BlackBerry Outage of 2009 yesterday. I thought it was just me. I blamed myself for going to Wadsworth. I couldn't get a signal there for a second, and I thought that made all of the email stop. I really believe, however, that it was just a funny bit of Saturnalia tomfoolery.

It wouldn't have been so funny if I had been actually working, of course.

My winter break is on the cusp of officially starting! I am making Mexican food for dinner tonight, to celebrate.

Maybe some time next week I can sneak over here to clean up this office. It's starting to look like a shithole again, and that's no way to begin the New Year.

Are you thinking about the New Year?

I AM!

(Now that's emphatic.)

I almost finished my Christmas shopping yesterday. For some bizarre reason, shopping was really fun, for the first time ever.

I was doing well writing a poem a day, but now things are getting busy, and I'll have the kids home from this weekend forward. At least I hit the goal, though. I am happy about that.

And sleep! No more 5:30 wake-ups for a while. Glorious.

Contortionists on parade.

Just look at the ridiculous Bacchanal that I witnessed this morning upon entering Olin Hall. I don't think any of these positions are in the कामसूत्र. Well, maybe a few. But: oh desks! Do you have to execute these deeds en masse, and in the hall?

At least I don't have to clean the floors afterwards.

I just officially finished my last rec letters of the decade (I am still pretending that the decade is over, even if it really isn't...I'm not numbers smart enough to understand why). Celebration involved eating a pile of cherry Hershey kisses that Jana brought to work because she is awesome.

I have all of my out of town Christmas shopping done. It's a lot easier to do when you're broke and downsizing! Now I have the really fun shopping left to do.

Right about now I would typically begin having a nervous breakdown, knowing that I will be home with the kids for several weeks, but I'm not. I am already planning a full course of activities, both indoor and outdoor, to keep us amused indefinitely. None of these activities involve me locking myself in a closet and screaming, but there will be some messy art.

It just dawned on me how to put up mini-clotheslines in our new basement art space so that we can display a bunch of creations without having to tape them to the ugly paneling. And our art table seats TEN. So all the cats can participate as well.

I've had this intense nesting urge lately, which results in some positive behaviors such as wanting to clean, putting laundry on hangers immediately after removing from dryer, and scoping things out for future projects. If we get bored over break, we are planning to remove half of the roof and add two new rooms to the upstairs. I already have the blueprints--they're hanging in the basement!

In non-fluff news, I have now written four poems before 2010. I am writing a poem a day this week. One of the poems I really liked. I also need to find where I put my sequenced ms, and after that, to format it into a pdf and send it to one of the two places I am sending it this year.

Yesterday we had micro-snow, like the frozen version of drizzle. It was teensy. I couldn't photograph it, but believe me, it was there.

Closing time.

I'm not sure why I love this time of the semester so much, but I always seem to blog about it. It's always nicest when the grades are turned in, and the classrooms are vacant, and the parking is plentiful. But not because of those factors. I think that the end of the semester makes me even more excited for the next one. (Students taking my spring poetry workshop can attest to this, based on the 1,266 word email I just sent them).

On Saturday I represented my department at Fall Commencement. I love the ritual of it. The moment I got out of my car (dragging my regalia along the ground if I wasn't extra vigilant) and saw all of the students and their families, I began a three hour fight against bursting into tears. I never went to any of my graduations beyond high school, so maybe that's why it's always so moving. If there was ever a moment when I doubted my career choice, commencement would always serve as a reminder of why I love this job. I made it through without losing it, but next time will make absolutely sure to take a decongestant beforehand. UA is not stingy in the floral department.

Here's a picture of me looking like a dork, posing in the "Ladies Chorus" in the bowels of EJ Thomas Hall.

Finally, over the weekend I realized it's been a while since I posted a random picture taken out a car window, so here's a little industrial Cleveland sunset. I had an exciting weekend filled with electrical problems, random strangeness, and a visit from a mouse (which was thankfully liberated without serious bodily injury from our resident mouser, Henri). We also celebrated Hanukkah with some dear friends, and Gabi had her first experience lighting candles. Now it's just me and the to-do list, and some very empty halls.

National Holiday.

In honor of this, I am hereby taking the rest of the day off. Sorry, work pile. See you on Monday.

A wrap.

Moments ago I just finished entering my Fall 09 grades. Of course I still have rec letters to write, and almost all of my Christmas shopping left to do, and many other miscellaneous things, but I am very happy to be done with grading. Even with a mandate to make attendance policies more flexible this semester (due to swine flu) my students still came to class and participated like crazy and wrote riveting papers, and aced the final on top of it. I only taught one class this semester, and I am so happy it was a good one.

Here are some pictures of what's going on in Akron today. It's ultra cold. Good weather for hibernating. I just might try that.

I wrote a poem last night. Perhaps I'll try to exceed the "three before 2010" goal.

On goals.

I am minutes away from beginning the third stretch of my Fall 09 Grading Challenge Extravaganza, wherein I behave like a logical person and divide my grading up and eschew past practices involving grading marathons (two papers, an exam, and a final grade all in one sitting? Bring it on!) and mass consumption of gummi worms to accomplish the latter. In a way, I'd rather do the marathon, both for the pain of charging through and the glory of reaching the finish line. However, this new way is probably best for all parties involved.

I am looking forward to a lighter work load next week, and some writing, at long last. I've been pretty much sequestered this week due to grading.

I've noticed that I haven't been setting too many goals for myself, aside from the 3 poems before 2010 and the Grading Challenge Extravaganza. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I wish I set some arbitrary (read: easy) goals once in a while. Maybe I will get to that when the grading is done.

Anyone out there particularly pro (or anti) goal-setting? I need to post this in order to meet my goal of beginning grading at 9 am. Thirty seconds left...

The abyss.

What could be better than waiting for the exterminator, doing laundry, and grading final essays? Doing all of the above in a very cozy house, with snowflakes outside, and stuffed peppers for lunch. After a very fun but exhausting weekend with my kids, including cutting down our first live Christmas tree, sitting at home commenting on papers seems like a treat.

Or so I am telling myself. We'll see how I feel at 4 pm.

A lot of people are signing on for the 3 poems before 2010 challenge. Hooray! Maybe we can come up with some non-public way of sharing them.

I really want an English muffin, but I'm afraid that they are the official food of procrastination, so I may wait a little while.

A couple of new poems here.

This has not been a good semester for writing. I hope that all changes with 2010.

That's easy to type: 2010.

Perhaps it's an omen. A good one.

Get out of here.

I'm almost ashamed to say this, but I didn't realize until reading some Time magazine teaser online that a decade is coming to an end in a few weeks. I used to spend a lot of time analyzing the relative "goodness" and "shitty-ness" of certain years. I believe at one point in my life I spent much of New Year's Eve cataloging the highlights of the prior year.

Obviously I had way too much time on my hands. I don't have way too much time on my hands now. But I am very excited about starting a new decade. Or, maybe I'm very excited about flushing the last decade down the crapper. Not really. That's too harsh. Some good things happened (some of them really good things) but I am ready.

I am currently consuming a mint that is so minty that I can feel it in my ears. Is that a good thing? I'm not sure.

Despite an annoying issue with small ants, I have been learning to really love my house all over again. Aside from going to work, I spend (almost) all of my time there. I am really into holiday decorating now, starting to enjoy that again. I have a profound desire to go sledding. This is a good thing, I am quite sure.

This semester has not been very fruitful in the writing department. I think I'll end up with about ten pages of new poetry. There have been multiple days in a row where I haven't done anything creative, aside from maybe making a stupid joke, or cutting up some celery on an angle, and neither of those things count. I hope that next semester, since I won't have any massive life changes, I will be able to start being prolific again, or at least prolificish. It's hard having just finished a manuscript and scrutinizing every incoming idea. Will it fit? Old book? New book? New book? Oh dear.

Maybe it's time to set a goal. Mine is going to be three new poems before the end of this decade. Who's in? Anybody?