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AIRPORT. There's something comforting about waiting around in the airport, even though of course I'd rather not be waiting quite so long (my flight is delayed 89 minutes this morning). But still, the college students sleeping in their chairs, the businessmen with their expensive coffees, the parents trying to keep their kids under control, the people at the counter hectically trying to change their flights is just so familiar, so calming. I sit here and read, quietly ignored by the bustle around me, occasionally looking above the pages of my books to watch the lives whirl around me in the terminal. There's something delightful in the way the airport employees go about their daily tasks, the way my minor crisis of a canceled flight is not really that big a deal because it happens all the time and they know how to take care of it (and now I'm on a flight that is scheduled to arrive just 1 minute later than my previously-delayed-but-now-canceled flight was supposed to arrive). Whew, crisis averted! :) Gotta love that airport hustle and bustle.

WOAH. Yeah, my mind is sloooooow today. But that's okay. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and I am being lazy. Really, really lazy. I am happy to be lazy today. I really have nothing to say, but it's been a long time since I updated. Kind of. A couple of weeks, anyway. Well then, hooray for the weekend, and for good books and good company!

BOOKS. I love reading. There are too many reasons to go into right now, but here's the reason I'm talking about something so obvious. I'm reading this book called Riddley Walker right now for a workshop I'll be taking during the spring quarter. It's written in a really strange manner, in the ungrammatical colloquial voice of the narrator, Riddley Walker. I'm also in the middle of Sherman Alexie's novel Flight, narrated by a kid named Zits who's at a crossroads in his life; and I just finished Marjane Satrapi's graphic novel Embroideries. All of these have such strong narrative presence, and it makes me want to do more creative writing. First I have to finish these books, but then...then maybe I'll have the time to write some stories or start another novel (or rewrite the ending of my first / only novel). For now, it's time to peel back that plastic-wrapped library cover and get back into the story....

SPRING BREAK. I love this time of the year! And I'm so glad Ohio is letting me have a little fun. I have now officially gone jogging outside twice, gone for nice long walks in the sunshine twice, and have plans to do more jogging and walking and even some cycling in the near future. I just love being outside. And I'm really excited about next quarter, with the return of literature to my life, although there were some good classes this quarter as well but something about this winter quarter was rough. Perhaps it was the fact that everyone else was miserable, or that the weather was bitter and gray, or that it's hard to come back to Ohio after spending two weeks in California. But now I'm excited about the summer and am ready to start in on the spring. :) So the name of the game is "sushine and bliss" right now. Hooray for Spring Break!

SNOW DAY!! Yesterday, I experienced my first ever snow day. What a wonderful surprise to wake up to find a message in my inbox that told me OSU was closed due to snow and ice. Hooray! So Mike and I wandered around our area. We went across the street to a beautiful old Catholic seminary school and took photos, wandered around the grounds, and generally enjoyed the 12 inches of snow we got. It's beautiful. There's nothing quite like newly-fallen snow. I almost felt bad leaving footprints behind, but it was so much fun that it was worth it.

A DISTURBANCE. That's what they call the 3+ inches of snow we're supposed to get tonight. How funny! This place has the most curious things. A post office with a nuclear fallout shelter sign on it, indicating that in case of nuclear holocaust, 52 people from the good village of Worthington can hang out in its basement until the radiation clears. A shopping mall with tornado shelter signs in the restroom area, making one wonder about the possibility of post-tornado sales. A citywide weather warning system that gets tested every Wednesday at noon, which translates to a hell of a lot of sirens go off all at once all over the city at noon each Wednesday (very eerie sometimes, depending of where you are and what you're doing). It's interesting, getting to know a new city, a new place of residence. It's one thing to move around in California -- you definitely get some differences between the places, especially when you move from a generally urban area to a predominantly suburban area -- but moving three time zones away to the heart of the actual Midwest is crazy different. It's like dating a city: every day you spend together, you find out new and interesting things about it (some good, some not so good). Ahh, romance.