St. Valentine died in a snowdrift.

The College is closed. Well, so they say, but I'm pretty sure I still have class.

Last night I went on WebMD dot com. Why does that site exist? It has nothing to offer but fear and distress. It actually made me cry. Then, when I couldn't seem to stop crying, I gave up on the day and went to bed at 10:50pm. This was a good idea, because when I woke up at quarter to six this morning I actually did feel better, and I swear I'll never "check my symptoms" again. (That's a lie.) But, honestly, what would you do if the little WebMD checklist indicated that you either had 'chronic depression' or 'cancer'? Cry? Yeah me too.

The snow is romantic, isn't it? It kind of makes me want to visit Emily Dickinson's grave or bake cookies or write a letter to a soldier. Perhaps now would be an appropriate time for a meditation on Valentine's Day. But I, unfortunately, have nothing to say--no strong feelings one way or another, except that maybe it would be nice to wear red today. There was a big construction paper heart under my door this morning, which I think must have been created in a certain Big Brother Big Sister session yesterday afternoon, and I certainly appreciated that. And I sent Rachel a virtual cup of coffee. My mother had asked for the name of my dorm and then immediately confessed to trying to send me something, but I suspect that even the intrepid delivery men and women of this town may balk at the weather, reasonably so. Beyond, then, Abby, Rachel, and my mother, I must admit I do not have a Valentine. That phrase has a lot less weight than anticipated; perhaps it's because I'm too worried about my impending death-by-WebMD.

hey, this time it was for real.

friday night, the snow fell slow and loose, in darkness. i walked up the heavily padded steps of the library, and it was like the snowflakes were immobile in the air, still points like so many feathery stars, turning the otherwise-scraggly trees silver. early saturday morning there were children (from where? College children? neighbors?) sledding on every slope the campus has. except that even by 11am you could already see wide streaks of dirt on Memorial Hill. it's white on the ground now, and clumpy--but the sidewalks are just slushy streams of molasses and bad patches of ice. we got the snowfall we've been asking for, on the second night of february, but, still, not enough. but maybe i shouldn't challenge the weather gods; today is apparently "Feels Like" -7.

i'm at that precarious point where i know what the next few weeks have in store--i've marked up my calendar and planner, and there's no denying it---and now i just have to keep the anxiety at bay. but clearly, any moment now, i'll crack. what with bosman already kicking my ass in terms of workload, having to write fiction again after almost two years of not, interviewing and applying for jobs i don't want, performing in a show i forgot i was in, and attending conferences i won't understand...well, February should be a little tense, is all.
somehow i had taken the 4-months-till graduation remark as applicable to my thesis as well, but turns out it's not. thesis is due april 13, and if i want a serious draft done a month in advance (which i do, even if my advisor won't force it on me), that's march 13, which, it turns out, is little over a month away. very interesting.

all of this is harder to deal with after those couple weeks of Interterm when i started to believe it was really okay to watch a movie every night. and what a time for it! this is a great movie season, you guys, and i'll never pay so little at the theater again. Pan's Labyrinth, Dreamgirls, Children of Men, Little Children, Volver; clearly i'll be seeing Diane Keaton's lamentable new movie Because I Said So, and, hopefully, having a little Oscar shindig.
i really want to believe that this semester can be both, or all, or whatever. and by all i mean maybe i'll make it to another Senior Bar Night, since the last one did prove me wrong by actually being fun. and maybe it won't be such a bad idea that i agreed to edit Circus again...scratch that; it clearly is a bad idea, but i guess i'm still doing it. and maybe i can still make those trips to New York and to Bowdoin, Yale, and Wellesley. and, you know, be a person, prepare for being a person, because, fingers crossed, isn't that what next year is all about?