It being officially December I have finally given into holiday festivities, which today will include a little decorating (maybe the tree) hanging twinkle lights, watching really bad romcom christmas movies, baking cookies (if the choc chip dough makes it to the oven) as well as eating liberal amounts of pink peppermint ice cream. Christmas decorating day is one little ritual holiday I observe every year, even if I don't always put up the actual tree. (I don't mind putting it up, but I get annoyed around new years when I have to take it down.) Last weekend we did spend part of Sunday's snowyness with a 2nd Thanksgiving feast cooked by my sister and decorated the tree there. It's hard to know, out of the hundreds of ornaments obtained and then thrown out by my mother over the years if we actually had everything, but we decided to call it done. (At some point she dowsized the tree in recent years and tossed many out.) The actual holiday was spent with my cousins on my Dad's side and four adorable doggos.
While I was getting kind of cagey and cabin-fevery late on Sunday whe the power failed for a bit and the snow nearly trapped us in despite my dad's removal efforts, Monday, I made it safely back to the city and nearly threw myself down on the slushy sidewalks and kissed the ground outside Union Station. I love that sort of out-in-the-countryness in the summer, even this year when I've been cagey anyway, but I can't handle it when the outside elements are hostile and I feel trapped in the house. I also miss my apartment and my cats terribly. Even work and the studio and my little daily routines. I'll be going back for X-Mas briefly, but definitely want to get back here and take advantage of the work holiday for some extra studio and home time.
In the library, as I mentioned a couple posts back, we are nearing the end of the semester and have finished out the bulk of programming (there is still technically the last zine night Monday, but that's really easy to set up.) This week's snowglobe workshop and last night's murder mystery are the last of the events that are more involved and bring to end a pretty busy semester. I realized this week that the Monday after the holiday is my 18th anniversary at Columbia, and though my job now in some ways looks very different from the job I started, it's unreal that I have been in one place for so long. I started mostly working the desk, supervising some students, and doing some odd clerical tasks. I've cicled through being the ILL backup and back into it again for the interim. I've done billing and patron invoices & blockages for srudents from other insititutions. I took on coordinating Reserves in 2012 and in 2014 we started A of R exhibits and programming. I've seen multiple staffers (some, but not all) and nearly two decades of students come and go. I also realize that the students on campus now may very well be the children of the students I first encounterd, which seems crazy to me in my little time bubble where I am totally the same person in my early 40's as I was in my mid-20's.
Besides having a bit more lush a poetry and art life, the press itself & studio space, and maybe a few more cats, I'd be hard pressed to find many differences between circa 2000 Kristy and 2018 Kristy, except maybe that the horrible spectre of a Bush presidency on the horizon of that fall during the recount was nothing compared to the nonsense now. I dd have near empty apartment that fall with only a comfy chair, some bookshelves, a small table, and a christmas tree ( though I wouldn't be able to afford presents for under til I got that very first paycheck in a few weeks.)
We're open an hour or so later this coming week for finals--so that means a longer trek home, but I'm hopeful for that extra studio hour before I head to the library that it will allow since I am deep in on author copies from the last round of releases...
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