Snow day!!!!!

No school. It is snowy. Very snowy. Here's some of the kinds of snow we've had in the past 36 hours or so, in chronological order from memory:

threats of snow
hope of snow
small snow in the wind that disappears but you are sure you saw it
huge snow that falls fast and straight down but melts immediately
major slush on the streets that was snow
big big snow that is sticking
hope of enough snow to have a snow day
SNOW DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
no snow falling
more big snow falling
snow all over the road

It is already 2 pm and I would be out of school in an hour anyway, but still. I am glad I got to sleep in and not work.

Hello, February.

I am back on the blog. It is February. This month is a little rough. For as long as I can remember I have associated February with my Dad. His birthday was in February--on the 8th--and so growing up, and even after I had grown up February was just special because of my Dad. But now February is extra raw, and not just because of the cold. Probably anyone reading this blog knows why, but it feels good to type it out anyway. The text is pretty definitive, and I guess in some ways I still can not believe it is true.

Wow. I am actually surprised to have just written that. I thought I had accepted it. I know I have been moving on, but I also know that I'm not "supposed" to be anywhere near done going through "grief stages," or whatever.

Yeah, the fact is: last year my Dad died in February. On the 12th. Blech. I think about him all the time. But today I was really thinking of him an extra lot.

I am not sure, but maybe the thinking went like this: It's February 2. 2 is an even number, like 8 and 12. We are getting close to those days. I honestly am a little bit scared of how I will feel on those days.

One thing that made me think of my Dad an extra lot today was feeling very good at my job. He was so happy for me to be settling into a career. He told me after I applied for the fellowship which allows me to teach in my current position that teaching was the job that had seemed to bring me the most happiness. He said after I returned from Taiwan he just assumed I would become a teacher.

There are about a million things about my Dad I miss. Here are some:
He had a mustache. He drank very cold Pear Nectar and Peach Nectar from a can. He told me that K-Mart and Circle K were named after me. He was spectacularly, sometimes devastatingly long-winded. He drove with the windows down. He had lots of nicknames for me. He was very proud of me. His hair was crazy like mine. He had discriminating taste in Mexican food. He was a humble and respectful man. He liked museums and books and bookstores.

That is all I want to tell the Internet for now.