One Semester of blogging silence + One semester of writing thesis - still recovering from the summer of undiagnosed mono, multiplied by my contract at work not being renewed and no raise for me completing my master's degree =

A useless M.A. in English, an unwillingness to work at unrewarding job, and an overall feeling of desperation which is not being cured by my glass of white zin, the friends in the other room, or my work-eat-sleep life.

But I've got my education you say? Show me where that matters in the real world of petty, piddly-paying Christian colleges and low-income Arkansas chicken communities.

Sigh. Just bumming on a Friday night when I'm supposed to be out in the living room celebrating my "new degree."

Well, in case you were wondering (and even if you didn't give a hoot) why I haven't posted for a while, I am going to give my heath as an excuse: I have mono. The kissing disease. Which doesn't make any sense because the only person I've been kissing on for years is Scott, and he doesn't seem to have it (he hasn't had his bloodwork done yet thought). Right now the joke with my friends here is that I got it from Tigger, our dog, because I kiss him so much!

With having to sleep a lot, I haven't gotten much accomplished in the last three weeks. I haven't been able to work more than a few hours at a time, and up until this week, even getting dressed wore me out. But it is getting better now, and thanks to a catnap, I'm even up at 11pm to tell y'all that.

But the entire reason I sat down at the computer before ccollapsing into bed is to tell the world: SCOTT MADE THE FINALS TONIGHT for the ARKANSAS vs. the WORLD POETRY SLAM - to be held this Saturday at the Walton Arts Center as part of the Fayetteville Arts Festival. He competed against 12 other people tonight and took second place, securing himself a spot in Saturday's competition. I am soooo proud of him! He has worked very hard on memorizing and tightening up his poems, and his performance tonight was one of hte best I've seen. For those of you who don't know what slam is, go here: http://www.poetryslam.com/ For those of you who don't know where Fayetteville, AR is, find it yourself at http://www.mapquest.com/ . :P

G'night.

I just read an awesome children's book while I was at work in the library: "Sylvester and the Magic Pebble," by William Steig.

First of all, "Sylvester and the Magic Pebble" is a story about a donkey family and their little son donkey Sylvester. How cool is that? Not the normal choice for a main character. Anywho, Sylvester finds a magic pebble that makes his wishes come true, but then he makes a foolish wish - I'm not telling you anymore about what happens! It's a book written at the reading level of a first-grader -- it's too short to tell you anymore, other than the story made me want to cry but ended happily.

Seriously, I want to buy this story for all the little children I know who are getting to the age (3 - ??) where they wish for stupid things to happen like "I wish you would go away," I wish you/I would die," "I wish you were not my mommy/daddy," etc. I want let them know that things could be so much worse, that they are really, REALLY lucky to not get what they wish for sometimes, and that they are more comfortable and better off than they realize.

Go find this book. It's short. It'll take you five minutes to read. Then think about it yourself.

I'm gonna go home and hug my lovie now.