duck-shaped pain

Some questions rarely get asked these days. This was one of them.

Not like I should have been surprised, though. After all, I was surrounded by many worried studyers, all uncomfortably bent over, staring hard at their enormous books.

Because it's finals week at the local "hey idjit, wanna go to college?" college [1], Horrible Coffee is celebrating by being open 24 hours this entire week. How I can turn down such an opportunity? I mean, sure, the possibility of going out for coffee at 3 a.m. is always there � we have more than one 24-hour chain pancake house in town � but this is rare and special. No way can I pass it up.

I was going to go last night, but my headlight (still out at the time) prevented me from doing so. I went and bought a new bulb for the thing, but turned out not to need it � my headlight woes were cured by kicking the front of the car firmly with my boot. Now we all know who's in charge.

I wrote in the paper journal for awhile, and then decided to silently taunt the other patrons by openly reading for no other reason than sheer leisure. I was not highlighting anything (although I continue to surreptitiously underline in books to this day), nor was I taking notes. When I got bored with what I was reading, I could just put it down and look at something else.

When I left, it was snowing. It was supposed to snow a few days ago � I know that we're usually behind the curve a bit here, but it's a little depressing to realize that this applies to weather, as well. So I drove home through the snow at 1 a.m., listening to Flying Saucer Attack. The fuzz in the music and the fluff in the air seemed one and the same all of a sudden, and I walked in the door encased in a cocoon and flakes and static.

I'm staying home from work today. Barometer Leg has been giving me problems, partially because of the weather, partially because I slipped and fell on it the other day. Then I went shopping for presents for a few hours, which just exacerbated the situation. Since nothing is going on at work this week (see previous entry), I figured today would be a good day to stay home and rest a bit.

The good news is that I actually bought a present. This one was easy � my aunt told me exactly what she wanted and where to find it. The only problems were actually finding where "there" was and then dealing with the slow clerk who kept wandering off when I tried to buy the item. Holiday excitement is now only 1/12 of the way done.

I've been spending the last few hours making my cards. It's going pretty well, although there was a minute missing-glue-stick problem this morning. I think I have everything together, but this is the sort of thing you can't really relax about until they're all in the mail. [2]

My other big decision concerns lunch: tomato soup or macaroni and cheese? Part of me thinks that since I'm being fairly indulgent by staying home, I should just go all the way and have the mac 'n' cheese. The other part of me wants to be fairly healthy and not sit around stuffed to the gills for the rest of the afternoon. The first part counters by pointing out that I had tomato soup for both lunch and dinner yesterday and that I'm just being stodgy and imaginative. I could just settle this all by going out for vegetarian tamales, though. We'll see.

[1] Hey, I went there myself (albeit for only three years). I can say whatever I want about it.

[2] I thought all the card requests had been made, but I got a couple yesterday from people, who wondered if they were too late. They weren't. But -- since I'd like to get these all sent off by tomorrow afternoon, I have to draw the line somewhere. If you want one, you have to let me know by tomorrow morning, my time.

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