merry christmas!

Merry Christmas from Haylie, Ross, and Creature! We just got back last night from a trip to New York, which I kept forgetting to mention we were planning... surprise! We had a fabulous time, and I'll post pictures soon. In the meantime, have a very merry Christmas/holiday. We love you and are so grateful for your friendship and general awesomeness (slash awesomeocity/awesometude). You are very, very missed. Love.

the eye of the tiger

Nobody likes to oversell their home movies. So I'll only say that this took several days of dashing for the camera before we finally got the following footage, and that I haven't laughed this hard in a really long time. But that could also be the post-finals hysteria... whatever. I love it. Enjoy.

i get to go to bed...

Zoo friends will recognize that this mandrill is not actually yawning, but displaying aggressively.

I feel that either interpretation is appropriate to my current state of mind.

When I get five pages written for my last unwritten paper. Or at 2 am. Whichever comes first. I'll let ya know how it goes.

woman on wire

This guy is this guy

I just have to keep it together for two more days. Just two days more, man.

indeed

Dory

Hey Mr. Grumpy Gills... When life gets you down, you know what you gotta do?

Marlin

I don't wann know what you gotta do.

Dory

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming,

Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming.

What do we do? We swim, swim,

HO OH OH OH HO HO

I love to swiiiiiiim

8am contradictions

Photo from here, a new, curiously addicting blog discovery

On the one hand: I still have about 26 pages to write before I'm done with the term. For the next three days I'll be stuck here, in front of this desk, hour after hour, typing my sweet silly brains out. I'm still waking up every morning before my alarm with feelings of panic, and I'm not sure how my grades are going to turn out.

On the other hand: There's a beautiful (but mercifully thin) blanket of snow covering the parking lot outside. The sky is the palest of blues, the trees are bare and lovely, and I can actually see through them to the river. Creature is sleeping on her bed right next to my on my desk, we already have a festive pile of Christmas presents, and I'm nursing a hot cup of tea. I just enjoyed my breakfast ritual, and yesterday, I wrote every single page that I was supposed to. I've never felt so disciplined or in control of my work habits.

Someone tell me how I'm supposed to feel about this day.

speaking of animals...

Today Ross reminded me that it's been a while since I've featured Creature on the blog. That's a shame. Unfortunately, though, there is a zero-tolerance policy for paparazzo in our house.

Seems like her diva phase is just about coming to a middle.

Happy Friday night from Creature!

the shark and the sea lion: a parable

Some days you're the shark.

Flying high, eating well, exercise, fresh air, a sense of accomplishment, cool adaptations like cartilage. The Discovery Channel wants to profile you for an entire week and Planet Earth turns you into veritable nature porn*. Somewhere in Oregon a bunch of zoo nerds dress up like you and throw a (really great) party.

Some days you're the sea lion.**

It sucks to be the sea lion.

Which are you today?***

*I talk about porn kind of a lot on this blog. What's that about?

**These are sea lions, right? I can't see the flippers well enough and I can't remember... forgive me if I get it wrong.

***I think today I'm the ocean... I was ebbing and flowing until all of a sudden everything exploded. Soon I'll ebb and flow again.

the weather outside is frightful... the end

Photo from Cerloz via Cup of Jo

So... it's cold here. Really, really cold. Everyone said that it was colder in DC than Portland, but apparently I don't listen very well. I was utterly unprepared for how truly, face-numbingly, bone-chillingly cold it really is. It happened unexpectedly. We went from weeks of relatively balmy, sunny, fifty-degree weather to high-of-forty, forty MPH winds virtually overnight. And it's been that way for days!

I realize I've already covered this, but it really is cold. That is all.

Somewhere, far, far away, a Kathayoon is laughing.

like the lotus

Thanks so much for all the advice, everyone. I'm doing much better. Your suggestions (as well as some grudging but extremely helpful time at the gym) have made a huge difference. Not that the above picture should be taken as representing how I actually feel, of course: it's more like how I'd like to feel. You know, some day. But I'm closer than I was a few days ago, so thanks ever so much for that. Aaaaand back to work.

the nuclear option

Dear friends,

For the last week or so, I've felt like I have an iv in my arm feeding me essential oil of adrenaline. This is not a good feeling.

I haven't been this stressed out for years, and maybe not ever: I'm tired but can't sleep, or else I have moments of crashing where all I can do is sleep. When that happens, I have uncomfortably vivid dreams so when I wake up it's like I haven't slept at all. I'm sitting perfectly still, have been for hours, and my heart is pounding. I feel vaguely sick pretty much all the time. Not sick like having a cold sick, but that horrible pit-of-the-stomach sick feeling you get when you know something really bad is going to happen soon. This is a brand new kind of stress, and friends? I don't like it one bit.

I realized last night, tossing and turning in bed, that this is not sustainable, so I'm going to try to deal with it. I'm hoping to actually drag my sorry butt to the gym today, for one thing, and I'm trying to manage my time more efficiently, since the slow accumulation of things checked off the list is one of the better stress relievers I know of. But I'm not sure it'll be enough... what do you do when you're so stressed out it's making you sick? Put another way, what is your stress-relieving nuclear option?

Seriously. I really want to know.