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My brother, a self-avowed geek, has posted the next wave of merit badges on his blog.  LINK 

I determined that I qualify for at least two of the new merit badges (see my comment on Dan’s blog).  And, after the creation of a new badge, I’ll get a third.

And which of these merit badges do you qualify for?

Portrait of a rather bad day, details including, but not limited — yet – to:

• receiving two rejections, one by mail and one by phone
• going to a long staff meeting where you learned a lot of depressing information that you can do absolutely nothing about
• missing lunch because the free lunch was gone by the time you got to it and the lunch counter was closed all day because there was a free lunch
• jonesing a little because you have quit smoking and now you wish you had timed the start of the quitting for tomorrow after the bad day (which you couldn’t have fully predicted) was history, not part of the very present present
• watching a student fall fully asleep in your class this afternoon, so asleep s/he was twitching in REM sleep and would have started drooling and perhaps fallen out of his/her chair if class had not ended when it did
• realizing that your gas tank is nearly on empty and now it is raining
• then realizing your umbrella is at home and you are at work, still

Antidotes to a crappy day:

• Eat a lot of the caramel cubes you gave the secretary to put on her desk to share with everyone else. 
• Buy a pair of green rhinestone sandals on 75% clearance and have them gift wrapped and sent to yourself with a note that says:
  Cheer up, it’ll get better.
  Love, Me.
• Take your husband out to dinner because he has been supportive and kind.
• Maybe smoke one cigarette, but don’t really start again.
• Go to bed on time and get up on time tomorrow and realize that it’s not as bad as it could be, on balance, yet, you think…

It’s three a.m.  Outside, the wind is curling around the house.  It is no longer snowing, or sleeting, but neither have the streets been plowed since last it stopped.  One lone set of tire tracks interrupts the sheet of white.  A weather website tells me the temperature is something like 7 degrees farenheit.  Negative 2 or 3 with the windchill.  Cold outside, and cold here, inside, where I sit at this computer, huddled under a blanket, typing this entry because I cannot sleep.  Lately, fits of insomnia hit at two or three in the morning, leaving me stark wide awake, staring at the ceiling, thinking of everything. 

Usually I lie there, willing myself to return to sleep, a technique I don’t recommend because it lends itself not to sleep, but instead to a wild, half-waking tossing and turning, thinking of everything: writing that essay I drafted yesterday, teaching, two days lost to snow days already and how will we make those up effectively, the dream that lingers in the brain just before waking, whether it is important to incorporate theoretical approaches to literature in one’s own writing (that brew of Marxist thought, ecocritical sympathies, postmodernist inclinations), or whether it is simply enough to recognize from whence (whence?) one comes when writing anything. 

And then, the trivia starts raining on my consciousness: why didn’t I get Owen the dog a dog coat this winter, he’s freezing, skinny little dog. I need to lose five pounds.  The freezer is getting disorganized. Where did all those weird vegetables come from? If I painted the hallway white, and moved the mirror, that would look not so bad.  I wonder what’s under the rug in the living room.  I miss having fish.  I could get a fish. 

And now it’s 3:30. And the bad logic of insomnia is settling in: If I stay up a little longer it will not be too early to get up.  But then I’ll already be up and maybe be too tired to stay up so then I’ll go back to bed and get up later and then be annoyed with myself that I slept late, even though I was up early first.

I’ll let you know how this turns out…

In the last few weeks, the time to write has been in fragments, and because of this I have produced

nothing.

Well, not nothing…
…to be truthful?

I have written, words on the page, but very little
of the creative sort of writing. 
A lot of administrative gobbledygook. 
Memos. 
Proposals. 
Emails. 
Replies to emails. 

But beyond that?

Not much.

But tomorrow.  Tomorrow may be a snow day, here in Indiana.  A real whopper of a snow day.  Twelve inches of everything — snow, ice, rain, more snow — is predicted to fall from the sky.  Winds up to 30 mph.  More snow.  Then the misery of deep cold to follow.  Yes.  Yes, yes, yes.  May we have TWO snow days.  Ha! And for all of it, I am staying indoors.  With a pen, some paper, and hot coffee.  Can’t wait.

Because it is February, random thoughts, those ideas that spark up in your head (think: heat) seem okay this time of year.  “Okay” being, as we know, a slant representation of “all correct”  (oll korrect?).  Randomness is okay.  And it is somehow appropriate in the deep chill of the year.  And that, my friends, would be now.

Here then, random, but somewhat associated thoughts on a cold, cold February night:

• Doritos make you fat. Corollary: Fat keeps you warm.  February maxim: Eat more Doritos.
• What does “Dorito” mean anyway?  Little Dora?  Who is Dora? 
• Cotton socks do not even approach the thermal profundity of wool socks. Even wool socks with holes.  Which I am now wearing.  Invest in wool.  Adopt a lamb.
• Jack London wrote about a character who eviscerated his own dog in order to keep his hands warm.  Save a dog.  Adopt a big lamb.
• Dorita.  Plural of Dorito. 
• When reading a story, a poem, or an essay, close the door to your study/office/tiny bathroom.  There is nothing more jarring than to come to the moment in the story/poem/essay when All Will Be Revealed (perhaps) and in that moment be intruded upon by a human voice.  “Hey, whatcha doin’?” 
• The appropriate response is not, i repeat not: “I am reading, you vacuous cretin. Get lost already, dammit.” No.  You are not allowed to say that.
• Instead, eat large quantities of Dorita. 
• When the Dorita/os run out, turn to Potato Chips, or those little faux zwieback cookies for adults. You know: Triscuits? Or, yes, and highly recommended for the cold winter months: Movie Butter Theatre (MBT) Popcorn. In a microwave bag. 
• When did microwaving popcorn become so ubiquitous? Am I the only one who remembers, oh my, the cast iron popcorn popper (two convex screens) that we would fill with kernels and then shake over the open flame in the fire place? 
• Well, yes, indeed, we did have a stove, and we had pots and pans and other twentieth century cookware.  I am not *sniff* that old.  But, the fireplace popcorn: I remember that.
• Whatever you do:  Add more butter. 

Enjoy these cold days while they last.  In six months, the temperature will be 90 something.  I look forward to it now, because now it is only a thought, a memory of the past, an imaginary temperature in the future.  But when they arrive, those ninety degree days, and while they linger, as they lay their weight upon us, I will think of February and remember the kindness of being able to hunker down indoors, of eating for the pure pleasure and need of fueling the body’s furnace. It’s all fuel.  Heat.  Pass the butter.

HERE 
Indianapolis, Indiana
Currently: -3°F Partly Cloudy
Wind: West at 10 MPH
Wind Chill: -20°F

THERE
Ixtapa, Mexico
Currently: 86° F. Sunny
Wind: NNE 11 mph
Windchill:  …um, what windchill…?

******

Or: 106° of separation