Last Thanksgiving, I was thankful for my yellow latex dishwashing gloves. I was thankful for other things too — being unemployed, my awesome family — and while some things have changed (yay for paychecks), others haven’t (hey mom). The biggest thing that hasn’t changed, will never change, is the importance of stopping to take a moment and feel gratitude — especially for the things that seem like challenges.

This year I’m thankful for:

Being so stressed out about grad school apps that I feel like I’m going to vomit blood. This is what it feels like to really want something. Hey, self, remember this feeling. Hold onto it even when the stress passes.

Neglecting the blog that I love. Sorry to wantonly abandon you guys — I adore you, I truly do — but every day that I beat myself up for not writing here is another day that I’ve spent writing fiction instead. The original idea behind keeping this blog was to help me find my voice, figure out from muscle memory how to make words do stuff even when I have nothing left to say. And now, miracle!, I’m actually doing it when it counts.

Being single and having no plans to change that. Every once in a while I think about how nice it was to wake up to someone, how I’ll eventually want that again. But waking up is such a small portion of the day. I think of the way I go to bed now, late, after a long night of writing, crashing into the mattress like I’m falling out of an airplane. On my best nights of writing, my skin visibly burns after a few hours — red flush that starts  on my stomach that creeps over my body and gives off heat like an engine. I would burn a hole through someone else. I cannot make room to hold someone else inside of me, not if I want to keep working this way, maybe not ever.

Sometimes the best part of my day is eating fat-free yogurt. I like to stare contemplatively at the spoon and pretend I’m in one of those vapid yogurt commercials. I am thankful, sometimes, to be a woman.

Loathing my job most days. It’s going to be so easy to leave in August.

Being an unforgivable, unconscionable oaf. I come from the “not wisely but too well” school of love.  Unlike Othello, I’ve never straight-up smothered a dude with a pillow; but I do have a rare gift for saying the bad thing at the worse time, making the unthinkable blunder. Yet somehow I’ve managed to surround myself with family and friends who love me anyway. If I were less of a lowly wretch, I probably wouldn’t need such amazing friends, but I am, and I have them, and I am deeply blessed.

Happy Thanksgiving, kittens. Enjoy the family and friend time, and definitely enjoy the pie. And, dudes, when you do the dishes, seriously, yellow latex dish gloves. Your hands will thank you.

You guys, I’m having a really shitty week. I don’t want to talk about it. I made you a comic instead. It’s about middle-school crushes. Tell me all about your middle-school crush! I want some vicarious giggling, please!

[Also, over on Secret Society of List Addicts, conversational missteps that make me want to hang up on you in real life. I wrote this when I was in a bad mood a few months ago, then coincidentally scheduled it for another day I'm in a bad mood. Zany!]

It’s not only Friday, but an amazing Friday, getting ready to kick off an enchanting weekend. So put your stupid modesty aside for a moment and tell me — what’s your superpower? (Mine is, among others, an astounding ability to ignore my lack of talent in the visual arts…)

While searching my gmail for my favorite cornbread recipe, came across the following email I wrote to The Ex shortly before midnight one night in April of this year. Earlier that evening, I’d taken a nap, then woken with my throat completely sealed. Months later, I learned that the cause was sinusitis. Side-effect? A serious case of The Morbids. So I did what any normal 20something with no health insurance would do. Emailed my ex my living will, then completely forgot about it.

However, finding this email was completely delightful, and — just to make things official, in the event of my untimely demise — passing my MORTALLY BINDING list of death preparation requests on to all of you. This is — this is kind of me in a nutshell.

1) Totally want a wedding cake at the wake. I know, I know, it’s inappropriate, but in life I just really super wanted a wedding cake. I feel strongly about it. Buttercream frosting, not fondant; any reasonable flavor but chocolate. Get it from Freed’s Bakery, assuming the funeral’s in Vegas. (Although I’d rather be buried in Northern California.)

2) At the service, definitely want something read from Gatsby. (The clock falling off the mantle scene? Time motif = super poignant at mortality times!). Some PG Wodehouse? (There are no appropriate passages that I can think of, so just choose a good, funny bit from one of the Jeeves stories. I want people laugh/crying so hard the church charges us extra for snot removal from the pew upholstery.) A good, relevant passage from Catch-22. (I trust you to pick one). A non-cheesy, non-obvious poem of some sort. (Kiss-Ducker should pick it out, but tell her not to make me sound too gay for poetry.)

3) Man, I’m really feeling Indian food. If that’s too controversial for my parents, then barbecue would be fine. Plenty of cornbread.

4) Would you mind going through my computer and printing out all the stories and decent prose for my parents? I think they’d like that. And have someone arrange to get my blog proofread, then printed and vanity-bound.

5) Forgive me for anything you find on my computer that you find distressing. I can’t think of anything off the top of my head, but, y’know, just in case there is.

6) Anything valuable I have goes to Sister. Everything else, you and Justice have equal first dibs, then my sister, Kiss-Ducker, Physicist and Muscles can go through, then anyone else. [Months-later edit: Co-Worker can definitely take a crack too. I know she'd be interested in a few of my books, at least.]

7) I’d like to be buried in a dress. I think one of the cocktail dresses I have should be fine — the one I wore to Murder Mystery Party? And wearing my “how else to feel other than i am?” necklace and the wire ring with black wax beads.

8) You can use the “Bath Singalong” playlist on my iTunes as the basis for funeral/wake music.

9) Obviously everyone needs to have a great time at my funeral and get so drunk that they get trapped in elevators without noticing. Also, when everyone’s drunk, make sure to play a drinking game that involves people admitting if they are or ever were secretly in love with me. If anyone was, tell Justice and Kiss-Ducker to let me know from the beyond through any means at their disposal.

10) You are Nichka’s executor. I’m not sure whether she’ll die when I die; if she does, I want her buried with me. So. Make the decision you think is best.

11) Oh, let my blog know that I died. LiLu has all the passwords; you can email her. But don’t reveal my true identity if I haven’t come out of anonymity by then. (See, even in death I love you guys!)

12) I’m kind of kidding with this list — I don’t really think I’ll die tonight — but you never know what the near future holds, and since my flash drive with all my funeral plans broke, might as well have it written down somewhere.

And now I do! They always say you’re supposed to die as you lived, and when I lived, I threw some pretty awesome parties. One last one for the road, eh? How would you most like to be remembered?

Check out Secret Society of List Addicts for the top five movies that never fail to make me weep my friggin’ face off.

NTKOG Year 2, #9: The kind of analytical, contemplative life-organizer who — instead of tripping all over herself to agree to the latest scheme — puts you on the back burner ’til she’s made her decision.

I am: apparently a people-pleaser. Or at least such has been suggested to me, though I’m rather skeptical, as…

I am not: an especially pleasing person. Just ask, um, anyone who’s ever met me.

The Scene: Uh, the MFA-related nervous breakdown I can’t seem to shake? And if you want, we could take a Magic Voyage through all of the symptoms — my stomach pumping bile directly in my blood stream, the unexpected three-hour sprints of 120+ bpm heart rate, the dust bunnies clamoring all over my pregnant-with-anxiety brain and causing me to do stuff like accidentally prepare and actually eat a raw-egg quesadilla without noticing last night — but let’s assume we’ve all been here, right?

The one side effect my perma-freak-out hasn’t caused, though, is the only one I wanted: forcing me to clamp down on my ridiculous tendency to try to make plans with the entire universe.

Yeah, I’m definitely one of those people. I like to shimmy through life like the caricature of a smarmy ad exec, clicking finger-guns at people and assuring them that “we should definitely get drinks!”. I swear, if I talk too long with the restroom attendant in a Moroccan airport, I’m constitutionally incapable of leaving without suggesting, “Hey, if you’re ever in Boston, you should look me up!”

And in my defense, it’s with good intentions. I genuinely like people, and in the ideal universe (in which I’m also the mistress of Alec Baldwin’s island estate, obviously), this is a pretty good impulse: what better way is there to enjoy the universe than mingling with its inhabitants?

The problem isn’t so much with the plans, as when people set a direct time and date and in one horror-movie montage, I’ll imagine double-booked plans or my messy apartment or three nights of insomnia and all the application stuff I need to do — and instead, my accidental “Yes!” comes rocketing out like a superball out of the barrel of a shotgun.

I really need to work on my impulse control. Even when yielding to those impulses does lead to gin-soaked nights and charming conversation.

So, for the past week, I’ve made a simple rule for myself: take twenty-four hours before getting back to anyone. About anything. No cocktail dates, no brunch plans, no immediate yeses to friends looking for a Boston apartment to crash in. I may be a “yes” person, but I’m trying on some “no” clothes.

And so far, the results have been tentatively encouraging. The first test was when my friend Anglophile emailed to ask about spending several nights in my apartment on a trip up from New Jersey. Although a few months ago I’d happily offered to let her crash whenever, and if my life were slightly different, I’d be more than happy to stick with said offer, I bit the bullet, drafted list fifteen potential emails, and ended up telling her: “Hey, I can offer lodging if you need it, but I really only have one day this weekend to hang out. But let’s definitely hang out that one day and make it count?”

The result? We’re still going to see each other on the visit, but she’s staying with another friend, and I’ve stopped convulsing with guilt every time she signs on gchat.

There have been a few other tests: a high school friend looking to catch drinks on a busy night, various hang-out offers threatening to crowd my scheduled writing days, fifteen thousand emails that don’t really demand an immediate response (but I promise I’ll get back to you this weekend)!, bars I don’t want to go to with people I just don’t have time to see.

I think it’s funny, that doing the adult thing (waiting for a while and contemplating my decision) is making me channel my inner two-year-old, but what can I say? My answer lately seems to be: No. No! NO!

And I’m kind of psyched about it.

The Verdict: I was surprised at how easy it is to say no to people, once I get past the initial shock of the unfamiliar. It’s easy to get so wrapped up in your own stress that you forget that everyone else has been here before too. But of course they have. So while people’s responses to a “no” might involve slight disappointment, truly, they’re not going to ruin everything forever.

Plus, I forget sometimes that my overactive social life is literally the reason I had to leave California. Like, I triple-booked so many brunch plans that I had to physically move three thousand miles away. So, if that isn’t a warning sign, I don’t know what is.

If the stress-acne flaring up on my forehead is an accurate dermatological barometer, I’m, uh, under some serious pressure right now. And it’s not just the normal things (the job I loathe, my stupidly jam-packed social calendar, the fact that my apartment looks like a Hoarders marathon). You guys, it’s the big one. The big friggin’ F. My horrifying future.

I’m entering the first serious phase of applying to graduate school for an MFA in Creative Writing; last night, I finished my sprawling, super-anal-retentive applications checklist and finalized the list of 15 schools I’ll be applying to next year. And I’m not saying I’m nervous — not at all — but I am saying that every keystroke feels like an anthrax-tipped jackhammer plugging away at my stupid heart.

The list is a diverse one, spanning virtually every geographic region of the United States; most of the schools offer three-year programs, and nearly all of them are generously funded. Whether I’ll actually get into one is a bit of a gamble, seeing as how over half of the programs I’m applying to only accept six or so fiction writers a year, but I think with a little luck and a lot of work, I might just get into one. I just have no idea which one.

It feels funny even saying this, but not knowing … scares me. Me! After seeing Boston only once, I got out of a four-year relationship and hopped on a plane here with no job, no friends, no money. Back when I was eighteen, I dropped a decade of Ivy League dreams and followed a boy — not even a boy I was dating! — to California and never looked back. I’m a compulsive toucher of wet paint and getter-in of strange limos and, oh verily my brothers, not once have I ever leaped without securing my blindfold.

It’s my only great gift. Making the right decisions for the wrong reasons.

But whether it’s some newfound ability to take my life seriously, or the heart-tightening odds of even getting into more than one program, I find myself lying awake at night, obsessing over what the next three years are going to bring.

And that’s not right. I’m applying to fifteen schools in the next four months and I have no power over who accepts me, so every moment I spend worrying is another moment I’m not spending making my dreams come true. So this is me officially declaring a moratorium on stressing over the future, even if some days it feels like that’s the only thing I’m good for.

Besides, whether I end up in Baton Rouge or Syracuse, Austin or Oxford (Mississippi, that is), or even if I strike out completely and have to spend another year in my cancer-of-the-soul job here in Boston, like every other stupid decision I’ve ever made, it’ll turn out to be amazing.

Especially if this stress acne ever clears up. Honestly, dude, you’re killin’ me here.

Give me a little confidence here, loves. What’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever done that turned out to be pretty fantastic? And any tips to clear up my friggin’ forehead?

Senior year of college, I thought I was dying. Not just in general — between my honors thesis and keeping up my killer GPA and not applying for jobs and single-handedly running a huge section of the school paper and beginning my writing career and reminding myself to breathe — but one morning in particular.

I woke up next to The Ex at 6am on a normal, scheduled-to-the-last-millisecond Thursday with a vague pain in my chest. By the time I’d crawled to the bathroom to drink some water and make sure I wasn’t spitting blood, the pain had clarified: it felt like one of my ribs had broken off and was piercing my lung. Every time I took a breath, the more I inhaled, the sharper the stabbing sensation.

Huh. Turns out I wasn’t that good at reminding myself to breathe.

So I did what any normal girl would do: crawled back in bed and made piteous whimpering noises until The Ex woke up, banking on my suffering netting me at least two hours of hand-and-foot waiting, peanut butter toast in bed, maybe a doctor’s visit in a few weeks if the pain kept up. Instead, after The Ex woke up and asked me a few questions, my mild, cautious guy did the bold thing — the thing I never would have done: he all but threw me in his car and gunned it to the hospital.

The drive was a grim one. The mysterious pain was practically blistering my chest, and The Ex’s response forced me to admit that mystery chest pains probably weren’t something to regard as just a future cocktail party anecdote. Is this a heart attack? I wondered. Fuck, I guess I shouldn’t have eaten so many corned beef sandwiches. I vividly imagined dying in the passenger seat of The Ex’s car, him making that awkward call to my parents, then turning to the work of wrestling my unwieldy corpse through the car door.

Protip: if you ever want to get a doctor to valet park your car at a hospital, just scream into the lot at 80mph in your pajamas, clutching your heart and weeping.

Within five minutes of setting foot in the door, I’d been pulled back into the emergency room and was hooked up to an ECG machine — heart rate fastfastfast, but regular — then five minutes after that, x-rays, then dragged into a room filled with complicated electric armoires, all hooked into my skin, cheerfully beeping to each other in morse code the incomprehensible fact that I might be dying.

While I waited alone for the doctor to return with news, the pain was so bad it was melting my ribcage. And maybe it was nerves or the delirium of panic or a heightened flair for melodrama, but in those minutes, it happened — I experienced the cinematic “life flashing before my eyes” montage.

Even at the time, I was amazed by what didn’t flash. No movie-moment kisses, none of my academic triumphs, no sepia-toned shot of the family opening presents on Christmas Day. There were just three things: my mother, the last time I’d seen her, giving me a hug. My best friend, Justice, sitting next to me on a train, me looking at her and thinking how beautiful she is and how I’ll never stop feeling lucky that we found each other. Me and The Ex, lying in bed together one evening, not talking, not even touching, just happy.

My first non-panicked thought of the morning coursed through me so strong I can still feel the way it made my skin tingle: All those stupid fucking books you read to impress people, they didn’t matter. One minute in bed with the man you love is worth more than every single one of them. None of it mattered.

In twenty-one years, it was the first thing I knew for sure.

Spoiler alert, incidentally: I didn’t die. Chest x-rays revealed that one of the blisters on my left lung decided to spring a leak for no reason, and the microscopic hole left the lung crumpled up like a cellophane bag. The event’s called “spontaneous pneumothorax,” or, in layman’s terms, a collapsed lung — a phrase I’d thought was as antiquated and meaningless as tuberculosis or whooping cough.

Thirteen hours on oxygen reinflated the lung and — while it’s likely I’ll suffer another unexpected episode in the future and flying will definitely always make me nervous — afterwards I went back to my normal life. Including the parts where I get so busy sometimes that I forget to breathe.

But I figure if I’m thick enough that I only learn one lesson every few decades, I might as well hold onto it. And I try to remember to love people hard, and to tell them I love them every time I feel it, no matter how socially inconvenient it is or how uncomfortably vulnerable it makes me. Just so I can have a really great montage the next time I’m forcibly reminded that life might be too short.

What do you know for sure, guys? Hit me with some universal truths before we all go and have an amazing weekend.

I am: taking a few days off.

I am not: sure I’ll actually be able to stick with that, but we can dream, can’t we?

The Scene: The Boston Public Library after an intense day at work, swinging through my beloved Wodehouse shelf, then setting up shop at a well-lit table in the mezzanine to to do my first post-project fiction writing. After a madcap year, everything I’d been dreaming of: spare time! luxury! new projects! Closed down my email, opened a Word doc and — nothing.

Well, not nothing. Panic. And then nothing. And then more panic. And then a very long, boozy bubble bath. ’cause, hey, I’m nothing if not consistent.

Turns out I … don’t really know what I’m doing with my life without the project? I remember vividly a little over a year ago, sitting on my Las Vegas veranda with my father at an ungodly hour, a secret cabal of insomniacs, dreaming about what to do with my newly reclaimed life.

“I think,” I ventured, “I think I have a project. Something I need to do. Maybe a few people will read it, maybe not, but it’s right for me.” Going to Boston, I may not have had friends or furniture or a job, but I had one little point of certainty, and that was enough.

I was thinking last night about the fantastic serenity of that moment. The 3am air still hot, velvety and perfectly still the way it can only be in the desert.

Maybe I’m foolishly sentimental, but I think there’s a sort of magic to the desert. All auxiliary life is fire-ravaged; the undeveloped land is austere, unadorned. I read somewhere that at any given time, the sun’s rays have a physical weight of five pounds, spread over the globe. On a desert day, you feel that weight — all of it — draped across your chest and thighs, pushing you down, keeping you still.

I don’t spend a lot of time keeping still. I’m also not very good at knowing what I want. It strikes me that these two problems might be related.

I mean, we are talking about the girl who spent years wanting to marry the guy she didn’t want to marry, who poured thousands of hours into writing apple pie recipes instead of novels, who ended up making such a mess of things that she had to ninja-kick herself cross-friggin’-country to start over. So. There’s that.

In the spirit of continual self-improvement, I think right now’s a good time to get a little still and audit my needs, make sure I’m being good to myself. To wit, the three things that, this time last year, I knew for sure that I wanted:

1. To get into a kickass MFA program in creative writing for Fall 2011. I’m almost entirely sure this is still on the docket. I can’t even imagine the luxury of spending 10-12 hours a day writing, without snatching my writing time in dissatisfying pinches on the bus, at my awful job, riding up elevators…
2. Not to make any friends in Boston. A year ago, this was incredibly important to me. I’m only going to be there for two years, I figured! Humans are distracting! Sometimes they try to hug you! But halfway through my time in Boston, this incredible city has become my home — and what’s the point of a home without some friggin’ faces around the hearth? Plus, I totally need someone to go to Sox games with.
3. To write a blog that someone, somewhere, would read. Sweet, year-ago self! Nailed it! And this blog is still very much alive and — this week’s post-project sigh of relief pending — ready to keep evolving and adding new features. That said, I guarantee you it will remain what it always was: a chronicle of my fledgling attempts at self-improvement and, more importantly, incurable talent for making an ass of myself in public all. the. friggin’. time.

Those are the few things I know for sure right now. But before I get ready to make next steps, I need to take a little time to figure out a few more things. I hate getting still, ’cause it lets me hear every thump of the friggin’ pterodactyls in my chest right now. But even if it’s scary to be quiet, I guess it’s the only way you can hear yourself.

Oh goodness. I’m going to take a hiatus ’til after Labor Day, then, uh, remember that time I used to write funny stories about flashing people on trains? We’ll get back to that.

Until then, though, what do you want out of life right now, dudes? Allow me to cheat off of your spiritual crib sheets!

So, as you might have gleaned from my body-positivity rant yesterday, I am: just barely on the right side of don’t-sit-next-to-me-on-a-plane level feminism. I am not: an internationally ranked style maven.

That said, a secret from TKOG’s vault? I used to be into fashion. Like, really, really into it. Through the last two years of high school, my only dream was to get a job on the editorial side of a national fashion magazine. I had Deep Thoughts about tweed. I owned thirty-seven pairs of pink high heels — one for every Shakespeare play (sorry, Titus, you don’t count), because y’all know I’m that kind of girl.

And while my personal attempts at style are abortive and embarrassing, I still feel a flutter when I see a woman in an exceptionally sharp suit or life-changing gown. Despite it all, I still like fashion. The good kind, that is. The art kind.

A phrase, coincidentally enough, that serves as the tagline for Laundry Magazine. The synopsis, loves: a digital and print fashion magazine based out of New York and Chicago, but with international coverage, featuring the work of established and up-and-coming designers, stylists and photographers.

Exquisite clothes! Worn by beautiful people! Shot against breathtaking backdrops! Check out a sneak preview of an image from the September mag:

Are you — are you a little bit in love? My high school friend Kelsey is one of the awesome crew who’s spent months sweating fashionably iron-rich blood to get this project out, and she gave me the low-down on some cool stuff in the September issue:

• A photo shoot with Chicago artist (Via NYC) Timothy Bergstrom, who is also designing a limited edition tee-shirt for LaundryMagazine
• Collaboration with some of Chicago’s young designers from the Chicago Fashion Incubator
• Coverage of the London College of Fashion’s top graduates
• Interviews with FIT/Parsons graduates
• 8 editorial photoshoots, shot in Chicago and New York, with the Chicago team being composed of entirely under 25′s
• Clothing for a shoot at the Indiana Dunes, handmade and tailored by the LaundryMagazine team

I know I don’t usually do shout-outs like this, but take that as a sign of my faith in the project. When Kelsey emailed me these pictures, I got goosebumps.

Plus, can we stop for a moment to think about the sheer ballsiness of the undertaking? Being an artsy dude in your early twenties so often feels like a world of No. There are no jobs, there’s no money, there’s no time, no more than a microscopic chance of success — wouldn’t it be safer and easier to get good at your awful desk job and bide your time until the world feels a little more yes-ful?

Except that will never happen. Not only does fortune favor the brave, but it’s got a pretty terse two-word rebuttal to everyone else.

So a tip of the hat, Laundry Magazine, for giving me a much-needed shot of inspiration today. You’re doing something brave, and beautiful, and — oooh, look, more pretty dresses!

Over in Life As A Human I tackle, with my usual grace and aplomb, the burning questions: 1) how to tactfully segue from someone’s grandma’s death to where to eat for lunch; 2) what exactly is in a Miscarriage Omelette?

NTKOG #212: The kind of smug luddite who views the internet as a evil necessity of modern life, and not as a trusted friend, confidante, life advisor, and pretty decent writer of erotica.

I am: unhealthily reliant on the internet. Since the age of 12, I’ve spent at least four hours a day – every day – online and, in the last half-decade or so, seen that number skyrocket to something closer to 12-14.

I am not: sure what people did before the internet, honestly.

The Scene: THE REAL WORLD! Did you guys know it came in high-def? And 3D! You don’t even need to wear those dorky glasses!

My friends (yes, I have real-life ones) have always razzed me for my all-consuming internet addiction. To deflect from their concerns, The Ex (a computer programmer and fellow addict) came up with a neat little solution: we started calling the internet Melvin, and would casually drop his name into conversations.

“Oh, Melvin told me about the cutest little French bistro down the street!” “Melvin has this hilarious new rap about famous presidential nephews!” “Dude, why is Melvin so obsessed with bestiality lately?”

We were in an unhealthy relationship, Melvin and I. He was bad for me, of course, but I needed him. Nonetheless, last week Melvin and I agreed to see other people.

Starting last Monday night – just as an experiment – I unplugged my router and other wireless majigs from the surge protector in my apartment. I cut myself a little deal: “If you really, really want to get online, you can,” but hopefully the extra inconvenience would act as a buffer against my baser impulses.

All of a sudden, as they say in horror movies, weird things started happening.

I started going to sleep at 10pm and waking up at 6 in the morning. I mysteriously gained an hour or so of reading time every evening. My apartment got very, very clean. Jesus H, guys, I took up jogging.

The weirdest change, though, is that I feel less of a driving need to know things, stupid things, right friggin’ away. When I’m plugged into my computer for virtually all of my waking hours, I feel entitled to satisfying the tiniest pings of curiosity.

How does cornstarch work? What was Shakespeare’s most anti-semitic play? Who currently owns the Hope Diamond? Stupid questions would expand into endless Google Chrome tabs and fill hours of my day, with no demonstrable benefit.

I’d always thought of my endless questions as a good quality. TKOG: Leading Pioneer of Brain-Thirst, boldly taking full advantage of the digital age! But after being freed of the urge for a few days, I’m beginning to suspect that my brain was more like a petulant child, nagging me non-stop until I distracted it with enchanting but worthless baubles.

Baubles. I should look up the etymology of baubles. …tomorrow. At work. If I still care.

The Verdict: I thought for sure this exercise would be a frost, but am delighted at how well it’s going. In fact, on Saturday (when I only had two days left before I could plug in the router again full-time!), I fully unplugged every last cord, wrapped them up neatly, and stuck them in a box in my closet. Not to stave off temptation – just because I wanted to.

I’m even going so far as considering not renewing my contract with Comcast in September. I – I just don’t even know who I am anymore. Melvin, hold me.