it's a new day

February is almost over, and I'm glad. There's something about this month that I don't like. It kind of feels like the mud that remains after the snow of Christmas melts, and the flowers of Easter have yet to bloom. Plus, once it's March, spring break is just around the corner, and then it's Boston and Mark Twain for 10 days.

My parents are sending me a package in the mail, full of coffee supplies and holiday treats. ("The Valentine's stuff I got for half off, because I went in the day after Valentine's Day." My mom's such the little money-saver.) It'll be the first package they've ever sent me in my year and a half of college life. I'm so excited. ("There's a package in this box that wasn't supposed to be opened, but Dad didn't know that and helped himself. But I'm sending it anyway.") She's also sending me Toy Story, upon request, and finally my addiction-like desire to watch that movie can subside. No wonder so many alcoholics fall off the wagon.

I've been getting up early every other day to "run" on the elliptical machine at the Luce. I love the quiet mornings before the campus has awoken. The sky looks so pale and fresh, like a pastel fleece baby blanket before it's been soiled or worn. The whole day is like freshly fallen snow, with no footprints in it and endless possibilities of snow forts and snowmen. Wow, the similes are abounding this morning.

The best part of waking up, is similes in your cup.

the pro bowl

"You do not often see a Bengal and a Brown high-five each other in the endzone."

This is what I love about the pro bowl. The fact that Derek Anderson is calling in plays to Peyton Manning (my two favorite fellas!), and Peyton Manning is throwing touchdowns to Braylon Edwards, and Braylon Edwards is high-fiving TJ Houshmandzadeh. It's like heaven, when the lion will lay down with the lamb. This is my last time to see my boys play before the long, cold off-season. It may be summer, but Sunday afternoons blow with a bitter chill that I don't understand until I remember there's no football.

we need a good assassination

When my alarm went off at 7:00 yesterday morning I thought back to Christmas morning when, after going to bed at midnight, I woke up at 6:15 and eagerly bounced out of bed. Now I was struggling to get out of bed after 8 hours of sleep, and I delayed until my roommate's alarm went off at 7:30 before finally venturing out of my 100% Egyptian cotton sheets. There's such a difference between getting up to eat Stollen and sit by a fire while my cat toys with the ribbons on our presents and sitting for an hour and a half in my economics class while it's raining outside.

It's also interesting how much I didn't want to get up at 1:30 in the morning to sit in the basement during a tornado, as opposed to how excited I'd be to get up at 1:30 in the morning to, say, rise with all the saints at Jesus' second coming. I can just imagine Sam coming into my room and saying calmly, "Heather, Emily, you need to wake up. Jesus is coming back." I'm sure silver trumpets would be a much better awakening than tornado sirens. Though I think there's a special bonding that occurs between girls who are scrunched in the hall of a basement, wearing pajamas and sharing blankets, girls without makeup or contacts, wearing glasses and retainers. It's funny to see what people thought to bring when in a hurry to flee from a tornado. I thought about what I would miss if our dorm was destroyed and all of the contents of my room strewn across campus. And the one thing I thought about wasn't the 60 DVDs or my pristine complete history of WWII book or even my guitar. I began wishing I had brought down my teddy bear. I'd be sorry to ever be without Gilbert.

Mom and Dad are getting 12 inches of snow today in Wisconsin, and Dad woke Mom up this morning to make him pancakes. I sat in semi-darkness this morning at 7:15 eating cereal I stole from the cafeteria, and though I enjoy raisins and granola and bran, I wish I could have traded in my groggy munching for Mom's homemade buttermilk pancakes and Perkins' apricot syrup. I'm not quite ready to forgo my sweaters and argyle socks, but if it's going to be 65 degrees and thunderstorm anyway, I'd rather it be summer so I could go home and eat pancakes. Weather, get your act together.

I miss doing this....