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Monday, Feb. 28, 2005 - 10:39 p.m.

I haven't been up on my reading, so I missed the fact that Eclectica Review Editor, Kevin McGowin, tragically passed away. Visit his lastNote from the Review Editor. I hope that I too will be able to write so hopefully and beautifully during the most random lives we all lead and share.

Without a doubt, even in death, Kevin McGowin shines on.

Sunday, Feb. 27, 2005 - 10:57 p.m.

Scary:

1)My friend, whom I shall dub Kermit, informed me that our former place of learning's, that dingy place called a high school, students have such poor reading skills that the librarian is seeking to stock the shelves with more Nancy Drew mysteries.

2)SuperGeniusKid's mother tolded me that now students need only earn a D average in order to play sports. The school is also issuing the letter grade E, for students whose work is not up to par but who a teacher feels is working hard nonetheless.

Thank the goddess I am out of that hell.

Sunday, Feb. 27, 2005 - 10:55 p.m.

These are my kind of people.

Thursday, Feb. 24, 2005 - 12:31 p.m.

Yesterday I met a woman who collects swizzle sticks (more than 600), matchbooks (more than 800, conveniently stored in notebooks), logo-adorned pens and pencils (over 1,000), souvenir plates (over 500), and her husband collects beer cans (over 2,000). This, I believe, has to be a sign of deeper psychological issues or vocational calling that have not been addressed. A best friend of mine comes from a family of avid collectors. My friend has over 100 Cabbage Patch dolls, and her mother has an army of Precious Moments figurines. What is it that compels people to mark these objects as such treasures that they store them en mass? My family has a tendency to collect books, but even we of the numerous bookshelves reach the point of hauling old books down to the library as donations. Plus, books hold all kinds of world in between two covers. What do swizzle sticks have, besides swizzle?

Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2005 - 4:17 p.m.

Yesterday I recieved a rejection letter from the University of Iowa Nonfiction Writing MFA program. I am disappointed and nervous and stressed. This is all a reflection of my previous graduate school attempt (for religious studies) last year. The waiting seems torturous, until that first rejection letter. Then the waiting seems like blissful purgatory.

Iowa was a long shot anyway, but I did have my hopes up. I cried a little, then smiled because I knew my friends would convince me everything would be okay. I am realizing that those times of disappointment are when the constancy of friends shines through. I forget that too often. Here's to keeping the faith...

Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2005 - 1:16 p.m.

My new knitting obsession is my grandmother's dream. When my mother visited her mother for her mother's 90th b-day (!), my mother sent me five boxes of yarn, wool yarn nonetheless, that my grandmother has collected for years. Some of the skeins of yarn have price tags of $1.29! This yarn would cost more than four times that now. There are still three or four boxes left at my grandmother's house.

Example 1:

So now I have begun a kinda super-secret surprise present for a good friend. It might not be so super-secret now, but it is just too pretty not to post here:

Now I need to find a pattern to knit for myself. Then, of course, the liddle bruder requested, of all things, a knitted pair of pants. He took back the request, but I think he did so out of embarrasment. So, I am disregarding his hesitancy and am in fact going to knit him a pair of pants. This should be, um, interesting.

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