Otro viernes

You know that lame expression, "what a difference a day makes"? I don't need a whole day, I just need a good nap.

Yesterday afternoon I skipped my Colonial Lit seminar (I'm only auditing, this is not a reflection of academic irresponsibility) and came home to take a nap. Two hours later, I was a new woman. No more bitching and bitterness. No more seething hatred of phonetics (I'm still not fond of the stuff, but I'm able to keep a lid on it when I'm well-rested). Sleep, precious sleep. I have fantasies about life after the MA, and most of them revolve around days on end where I get more than the minimum four hours I need to function like a bare-minimum automaton. I think about all the things I do in a day on those four or five hours, and then I wonder wistfully if I'll be phenomenally more productive when I can count on a good six. Of course, there's always the possibility that flow of creativity is cruelly and inextricably linked to mild REM-deprivation. Let's hope not.

Incidentally, Reva, "gruñon" means grumpy, gripey, put-out and vocal about it. So, yeah, you kind of nailed it.

Autumn is lasting longer than usual this year. I've been trying in my mind to describe this day in a way that doesn't sound trite, and it's not happening. I would take a photo but I know it would only capture the color, and that feebly, that a mere 2-D image doesn't transcribe the sharp edge of the air that is colder than it looks in the long, almost horizontal rays of sun. At this angle some of the UV harshness we usually get at this altitude is tempered and it doesn't sting the eyes so much, and I find myself walking on the sunny side of the street rather than seeking refuge in the shade. It's downright cold in the shade, but the sunny spots take the edge off. It has been just the right amount of chilly for just the right number of days so that the leaves that are still on the trees have had a chance to ferment into deep oranges and reds and golds and not just sickly yellow-green hat suddenly goes decayed brown and grey in the snow. I know there are some serious downsides to climate change and they frighten me when I think about them, but if I can find a sliver of silver lining it is this: For a few years, perhaps, before we all get wiped out by raging storms and rising coastlines, Colorado will have longer and indescribably beautiful autumn.