No, seriously, may Goose preserve us

Just realized that I didn't use any detergent when I did my laundry last night. Hm.

Goose preserve us

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Sleep would be nice, but I've really too much energy. I'm not sure I can convey just how hyper I am, but I mean, I couldn't fall asleep until after three and I woke up of my own accord at eight o'clock and was instantly wide awake. That is really, really unusual.

Seeing as I'm leaving in about twenty-four hours, I thought I'd start packing.

This is how I pack:

I look at each of my shelves, hangers, coat hooks, and drawers. Take off/out whatever I think I might want to pack. Throw it on the floor. Think about it. Put some of it back. Go to sleep. Wake up. Put some more stuff back.

Look up all the books on the Wheaton Public Library and Wheaton College Library websites to make sure I'm not bringing any books that I could get over there. Agonize over random useless-but-essential things like the French translation of Franny and Zooey and a vintage semi-formal dress (one of those items of clothing I am positive I'll need if I don't bring it).

Get out suitcases. Start reluctantly putting stuff in them and wonder why the zippered pockets are already full of random crap. Put more stuff back on shelves/in drawers. Suddenly remember San Francisco almanac. Estimate how many journals I will go through between now and Christmas break. Wonder if I left any pens at school.

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Today I need to pack for the next four months of my life, bake a carrot cake (cupcakes?), make potatoes O'Brian for the breakfast-for-dinner dinner my sister wants for her birthday, return some books to the library (*tear*), get my hair trimmed, head over to Odessa's neighborhood for a superspeedy thrift store run and to get the book that I'm planning on giving away here sometime semi-soon, out to the hippie co-op by the beach to pick up some vegetarian fare before my exile to the Midwestern suburbs, get my sister's birthday present, do one last load of laundry, go to an ATM, finish Magic's Child, wrap my sister's and mother's presents, return some borrowed books to a friend, and exercise.

Probably forgotten something, but there's most of it.

Sorry if I sound a bit crazed, haha.

If "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" comes up on shuffle today, I might burst into tears.

Peppermint cupcakes

Every New Year's that my family is home, we smash up all our leftover candy canes and whip up a batch of homemade peppermint ice cream with them. It's a delicious treat, and I wanted to give the idea a whirl in cupcake form. The result? Super easy and quite tasty.

I just made vanilla cupcakes according to the joyofbaking.com recipe [edit: I now prefer the Amy Sedaris vanilla cupcake recipe], plus food coloring, 1/2 cup smashed peppermint candies (put 'em inside two plastic bags and take up your pounding instrument of choice), and 1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract. You could do the same with that amount of any other kind of flavoring - lemon extract, almond extract, etc.

I wasn't feeling the frosting thing that day, so I just sprinkled powdered sugar over the tops through a sieve. The peppermint pieces throughout the cupcake made for the occasional nice gooey, melted candy patch when I ate one fresh out of the oven. Yum.

You know what? I am leaving on THURSDAY and won't be back again until December! Eek.

Holey, holey, holey

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I have decided there must be a clause somewhere in Murphy's Law that goes like this:

When you visit a house where you are supposed to take your shoes off when you get inside, you WILL be wearing the pair of socks with a hole in them. Probably right over your big toe, and regardless of whether you could have sworn a day ago that you owned no holey socks.

You may squirm and try to stretch the sock so the hole is on the sole of your foot or under your toes, but it will refuse to be suppressed. It will remain in plain sight, proclaiming cruelly the sheer awkwardness of toes that poke through torn knit cotton.

Bonus certainty if you're at the house of someone you want to impress or don't know well.

And no, this has never happened to me. What a silly question!

P.S. New header — made it last night in a fit of hyper. Like?

A poem about rich people

The Woods Hole ferry is the one going between mainland Massachusetts and Martha's Vineyard, a very wealthy island summer colony.

I'm visiting a friend in the area very soon, and if we visit Martha's Vineyard I fully intend to recite this poem on the ferry.

Woods Hole Ferry
Crossing briefly this mirrory still Galilean blue water to the heaven
of the affluent, the users-up, unconsciously remote
from knowing themselves
our owners and starvers, occupying
as they always have, to no purpose,
the mansions and the beauty of the earth
for this short while
before
we all meet and enter at the same door.

- Franz Wright

Becky of Becky's Book Reviews is hosting this week's roundup here.

I posted two more poems by Franz Wright for the last two Poetry Fridays - here and here.