Winter

The semester's over, and here I am back in Windsor until the 29th of January. While it was an utter relief to leave that pigsty that Carla and I were forced to call home, it was still bittersweet to be leaving Fairfield and Sean behind. Alas. I'm back at Stubhub, and I'll be working 40 hour weeks again until I leave at the end of January. I was gratified to see how excited everyone one was to have me back, surprised at how easily I slipped into the old routine, and dismayed by how incredibly stressful the last two days have been. It's the week before Christmas and it seemed that every caller had made it his or her personal mission to be as rude as possible to me. It's not my fault that you didn't realize that tickets you just bought for a game in May won't arrive in time for Christmas, nor is it my fault that Fedex lost the gift for your husband/daughter/mother. The real kicker was the possibly retarded man with a severe speech impediment who was yelling at me for "not treating him like a human being" and, later, "not treating him like a VIP" because I informed him that he could not post tickets for a game that happens in two days. Peace on Earth, goodwill toward men...right.

The good thing about so much work is that it will keep me occupied after the 10th, by which time Rae will have gone back to school and Sara and Heather will have already left to go abroad. After the 16th, the Fairfield kids go back to school. It's a depressing thought that I'll be alone with no one to hang out with after work, but then I suppose it's lucky that work leaves me so exhausted that I barely feel like hanging out. Tonight Sara and I were supposed to kibbutz over our Italy plans, make lists and our maps, but I was just too wiped to drive anywhere. My plans for the evening include taking apart my mom's latest crazy purchase, the Wovel---a gigantic shovel mounted on a wheel, which I was bribed into assembling last night--so she can take it back to the store, and watching SVU. Fascinating, I know.

I realized in moving out just how much CRAP I have. Where did I get all this stuff? Why do I keep it? I have no idea. I looked around my room last night and saw cat ears, a sword, not one but two crowns, a wand, a cone, a starfish, more stuffed animals than I know what to do with...and yet I can barely bring myself to part with any of it. Well, the stuffed animals will shortly be pared down. People need to stop giving me stuffed animals, I need to stop winning stuffed animals, because they serve no purpose, barely even a decorative function. Some, of course, are special--Racoony, Mr T the Tiger, Mr Bojangles, etc. But the raccoon I won myself at the Shad Derby? Nah. He may have sat on my desk all summer at Stubhub, but I think his time for donation has come.