(no subject)

At work again. Still dead here. Except that for some reason I've got a fairly substantial amount of free-floating anxiety churning around in my head.

It's not really due to the whole Orange Alert deal (though I'm checking news updates rather more frequently than usual). Or spongiform cow brain, or any other Crisis of the Week.

Probably a lot of it is my usual holiday meltdown, in which I abruptly freak out about not having done enough, cooked enough, bought enough--I will be found wanting, everyone's Christmas will be ruined, and it will be All My Fault.

Partly, too, I'm nervous about how my dad's visit home for the Christmas Eve celebrations will go; it'll be his first time back in his own home since July, and even if nothing goes wrong with the evening itself, I fear we're in for a bad Cinderella-at-midnight interlude when the clock ticks down and he has to go back to the much-loathed nursing home.

Partly it's because I discovered yesterday that one of my favorite students, a woman who's struggled mightily against the weight of some hideous personal history to succeed in college, is again right on the brink of flunking out, and might tip over this time. I feel like it's partly my fault--I should, perhaps, have been more vehement in advising her against taking some of the more challenging classes she was determined to plunge into. (But then they're ones she would have had to take eventually, and I can't shelter her forever against the difficulties of academic life ... I dunno, I dunno ...)

And partly it's just that the campus is so unnaturally deserted and quiet. There's a weird post-apocalyptic feel to it; the hallways are empty and echoey, and the few people wandering around have an unhappy I-wish-I-were-elsewhere look in their eyes. While walking to my office from the bus, I saw a lovely colorful Christmassy-looking small finch lying dead in the middle of the sidewalk, and that was unsettling too.

(And dammit, the frickin' database is still not working, and Mr. Database Wizard is gone to South Dakota. Monday is going to be hell on wheels, I fear...)

In which Kat becomes all Christmassy and sentimental

Whew. Made it through the giganto-noisy-crowded step-family celebration in good form, managed to duck out relatively early and sober, and am now home, gathering LJ to my bosom in a tender embrace, reconnecting with all of you out there who are (oh, I'm so soppy) my *real* family.

Years ago, when I was living with S., we used to drive every Christmas Eve to his parents' house. They lived about 50 miles south of town, and as we drove, the city lights would slowly thin out and fall away behind us, but even when we were out in the country, driving past the empty snowy fields, there were still farmhouses visible here and there, each of them festooned with colored lights, aglow in the huge darkness. Every time, I would think of a carol which I've now mostly forgotten, except for the last line--"Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas tonight!"

Which is patently silly, of course, it's not Christmas everywhere, in fact in most of the world it's just another night in December. But what that line somehow signified to me was that each of these houses we drove past were full of people gathering together, lighting candles, eating and drinking; that there was a specialness about the night that reverberated even for people like S. and me, who were not in any sense Christians. That however far we drove those celebrations would be going on, that the night was full of some subliminal melody, some invisible hum that struck a resonance in all of us, strangers though we all were to each other.

Blessings to all of you out there, believers and non- alike, those for whom it's about Christ and those for whom it's about the swag and good food and those for whom it's about the sun's rebirth and those for whom it's just another night except that everything is closed. Blessings to all of you suffering through strained family gatherings or revelling with people you love or sitting quietly at home by yourselves watching Firefly DVDs or devouring Yuletide stories. It makes me very happy to read down the names on my friends list and think about how each of you is a glimmering light out there in the big darkness, and to put my hands on the keyboard and feel the hum of connection running between us all.

(And dear god, my upstairs neighbors are playing an old Doors album, very loud, and singing along, sort of. Or shouting along. Despite which, I shall go crawl into bed and sleep deeply.)