Thursday, June 29, 2006

get out your advent calendars

Guess what, everyone! We now have less than six months till Christmas! Let the countdown begin. Start stocking up on your candy canes, gift wrap, tinsel, and paper snowflake patterns. (We already have a wreath up. I’m not kidding.) I’m looking forward to spending this holiday season with my family, helping put up the tree and rolling out sugar cookies, whipping up gingerbread and curling ribbon. Hey, I even finished knitting that red scarf that I started, oh, last September.

No, I am not seriously getting ready for Christmas. But it was fun on Monday to realize that we had six months to go. It’s good and warm here in St. Louis, humid as always, which drives any sleigh-ride fantasies out of my mind. Temporarily. I love winter.

So, when not wishing for thick socks and peppermints, I’ve been eating Thai take-out, reading Treasure Island (which is too much fun), listening to Ella Fitzgerald, drinking cinnamon mochas and blackberry sage tea (not at the same time—wow), and shelving books at that bookstore. Accidentally killing the parsley I was trying to grow. Writing long letters to my pals back in Michigan, and yes, writing—trying to figure out how to start charging at a novel, especially one that has huge chasms in the plot. There’s so much I still don’t know about the flow of action, about character motivations and personalities… How do I keep working at it, other than staring at the wall above my computer screen, trying to find the answers in that thin air??

I’m also daydreaming about Europe, since Kim, my former roommate extraordinaire, is in London right at this minute, looking for a flat to rent. I am not. Jealous. At. All. Actually, I’m tossing my bookstore paychecks into my savings account, in hopes to go to Budapest in March. One of my best pals will be teaching English there for a school year, and she would love me to come stay for a month. She went on Calvin’s semester in Hungary program, and has been back once already since then. She’s super excited about this next year, and I’m trying to convince my parents that I absolutely have to join her.

Flash to the future, and a day of Jenn’s life in Budapest: Wake up in time to share a cheap pastry and strong coffee with my friend before she heads off to work. Spend the morning writing; break for tea. Knitting a little and collecting my thoughts again as the sun shifts across the floor. Back to writing, until a late lunch at a nearby cheap cafe. After the meal, I’ll people watch, pretending to understand their Hungarian, and feed the pigeons (who speak very little Hungarian). Walk back to the cottage and scribble away until she comes back from school. Make dinner while listening to her stories from the day. Reading companionably while she prepares her work for the next day…

Oh wow. Suddenly those long afternoons of alphabetizing authors and shelving new titles seem much more appetizing. Hungary, here I come!

Posted by Jenn Langefeld on 06/29 at 03:59 PM
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