en attendant

Hi Friends.

I feel like I've been in a limbo-like period since my last post. Waiting. Thinking. Not really doing much.

Technically speaking, that's a total lie. I got a job on December 30th, and while I thought it might last only a few weeks, I've been working full time for about two and a half months now. It's gotten better (and sometimes worse,) but it's not enough to keep me here. Not by a long shot.

Some things I've been waiting for:
-Oxford
-a trip to Mast Brothers Chocolate
-Oxford.

I submitted my Oxford application on the chilly evening of January 14th. I spellchecked, reread, double spellchecked, and then sat in front of my computer screen for a good twenty minutes too nervous and anxious and scared and excited to press "submit." Mom and Vodka had long since gone to bed. There was no one to reassure me, no one to pat me on the back, no one to pour me a fortifying glass of wine or drool on my socks. It was, needless to say, a moment. And I'm getting nervous just thinking about it! Ha. But I always knew it would be, and had to be. I did the only thing that felt right, and I grabbed one of my original copies of "The Golden Compass." (I say original because I have - no joke - four copies of just that volume.) It might sound childish or hokey, or desperate. It's probably all of those things. But Lyra started it all, and the hours I've spent gazing at the cover, bundled up girl on the back of a polar bear, defy count. This book and that image have been sources of comfort and strength for me for fourteen years, and while they might not get me into Oxford, they reminded me why I needed and wanted to apply. To make myself better. In every way.

I was shaking when I finally pressed "submit." It felt like a life-defining instant, and it brought to mind the last time I'd felt so jittery. Except that time I wasn't alone - my roommates Robin and Georgia were standing next to me in a post office in Portland watching me mail my application to the French embassy in Washington DC. And that time I was pretty sure of the outcome. I knew in my bones I was going to France. Of my future at Oxford, I am much less sure.

But before you conceive/ask the logical next question, let me cut you off.
I haven't heard any news whatsoever from Oxford. And I won't for a few more weeks now. The university has to make its decision by March 18th, so I will receive written word after that time. And because it will be in the form of a letter, I am at the mercy of both the Royal Air Mail and our slightly more pedestrian postal service.

I would say that the wait is killing me, but it isn't. Most days I find it easy to forget, and when I don't, I try to imagine Plans B and C in sharper detail. And then I go back to pondering my "meeting-Philip-Pullman-for-tea" outfit, and spending Saturday nights trolling for manuscripts in the Bodleian Library. And, you know, being spontaneously hired as an editor at Oxford University Press, Badass Division. (There would be lots of tweed, tattoos, and scones.)

Fortunately, and weirdly, the wait for Mast Brothers Chocolate is a bit shorter. I bought a ticket to New York City a few weeks ago and will be hopping on that plane on Thursday. If it didn't seem too good to be true, I'd be extremely excited. The planning of this trip has been so bizarre, so tenuous, and so fraught with minor + major snafus that I'm just waiting for another volcano to erupt and render my excursion invalid. (I just knocked on my desk. Fuck you, Icelandic volcano. I NEVER FORGET.) Or perhaps a Swedish prime minister will fall ill and very indirectly make it even more awesome? I have no idea.

But here are my plans / goals:

1. visit friends. Lots of them. Friends from home, friends from Bennington, friends from Reed, friends from France. YAY!

2. Wear a coat. It's been too long.

3. Visit Mast Brothers Chocolate. My friend David brilliantly pointed out to me that a) they give TOURS, and b) said tours sell out very quickly. So I got me two tickets. Those beardy fellows cannot hide for long.

4. Eat a bagel, black and white cookie, and for old time's sake, stop by Stumptown for a sip of my former youth.

5. Go to Craft Night at Etsy Headquarters. Yes. This is a real thing. And next week is "open craft night," which promises to be strange and random. I may or may not slip something into their drinks and make them sign a document promising me a job at their SF office. Or at least ask very very politely.

6. Visit "The Thornwillow" at the St. Regis Hotel. Sounds posh and random, but someone who works there (it's a stationary store so private and upscale it's designed to look like a library...) bought some cards from me in January and I'm dying to know what happened to them. Added to a personal collection? Resold? Copied? Trashed?

7. Meet Jonathan Safran Foer and equally talented wife, Nicole Krauss. I realize this is a long shot, but a girl's gotta have goals.

8. Totally corny, but my friend Amy suggested I take the ferry to Ellis Island and look up my grandma's immigration records. She changed her name at some point from Sarah to Sally, and we have no idea what year she came over (time was fluid in her world), so it might not be a successful hunt, but it could turn into a fun story. Or a cold, pointless day.

9. Laugh. It's been too long.

10. See some great architecture.

Everything else is just details. I have so many people I really want to see and hang out with, which to be frank, is rare for me. Constant interaction with people at work has forced me further into my antisocial shell. Having talked for eight hours of the day, I tend to come home and clam up. But walking around a completely new city and catching up with folks I haven't seen for months or YEARS? Yes please! No matter what happens, I'm just happy to have a break.

What would you do if you were visiting New York for the first semi-real time? Suggestions? Concerns? Helpful hints? Things I absolutely *must* get for you? Addresses for postcards?

I'll be home on the 17th. Til then, I leave you with my now not so super secret projects of this winter:


a linocut of a square in St. Émilion, France:



a linocut of Église St. Pierre in Bordeaux:



most recent, the winged lion of Venice. His sign usually says "PAX TIBI MARCE, EVANGELISTA MEUS." Which is Latin for "Peace to you Mark, my evangelist." This guy is all over Venice and I can't picture the city without him:



I turned all of these into cards for Etsy. Maybe Thornwillow lady will accept free samples and I'll become the Obscure Stationary Tycoon of the St. Regis? Ha. Right.