9:59 PM:

Sigh.

I was catching up on Flutterby when I found out that Douglas Adams, author of the world's only five-book trilogy, died of a heart attack yesterday. He was 49.

From the first and last books of that trilogy, respectively:

There was a terrible ghastly silence.
There was a terrible ghastly noise.
There was a terrible ghastly silence.
The Vogon Constructor Fleet coasted away into the inky starry void.

In spite of having taken what he regarded as an extremely positive piece of action, the Grebulon leader ended up having a very bad month after all. It was pretty much the same as all the previous months except that there was now nothing on the television anymore. He put on a little light music instead.

2:41 AM:

It's been a good birthday.

The third item on last night's agenda ended up being the operative one, as I went to sleep without continuing work on my column or cleaning my room. I got about six hours of actual sleep, after which I spent several more hours groggily getting up, staggering around, dozing off, and getting up again. So, in that respect, I got off to a rocky start, and by early afternoon I was admittedly wondering how -- or if -- I was going to make it through the day.

On the other hand, I was still off to a good start, for when I opened my e-mailbox in the morning, there were three birthday greetings awaiting me, which put a smile on my face immediately. And more continued to come in throughout the day, from readers of this journal, members of the CopyEditing-L list (a very civilized list, one of its members announces everybody's birthdays at the appropriate times), and others.

(Those who wrote: Thanks! Replies will be forthcoming.)

Somewhere along the line I got my butt out of bed, and concurrently worked on my very last column at the college paper and on cleaning my room. I was partway through both by the point when I absolutely, positively had to leave. Which I did, arriving very, very late for my final speech therapy session; pretty much just enough time to get my birthday present, spend a few minutes wrapping things up, give them my URL, and scurry off.

Yes, you read all of the above correctly. They gave me a birthday present -- a Far Side book and a bottle of Dr Pepper -- which amazed and touched me; I'd expected them to wish me a happy birthday, but hadn't even remotely expected anything else. And I gave them this URL, making them the first of a number of Queens College people likely to get it shortly. Now that I'm getting out of Dodge entirely, my interest in maintaining ties with those here once I'm in Michigan is outweighing my desire to keep the site private. At least for some people.

From there, I went to a meeting with my Provocative Language professor, who returned my essay with a couple of comments, after which we agreed that I wasn't done writing stuff for her yet, and talked for a bit before I left for my nutrition class.

Given everything else that needed to get done, I'd decided a bit earlier that I wasn't going to be in the nutrition class for long. I was there for the first ten to fifteen minutes, after which I proceeded to the computer lab, leaving my knapsack and stuff behind in the faint hope of making it seem as if I'd just stepped out for a few minutes. (At least half the class leaves early most weeks, but not quite that early.)

At the computer lab, I continued working on my final column, getting further along in the thing in the following hour, after which I returned to the nutrition class, which was just starting its break at that point. I picked up my knapsack and stuff and went home, where I again alternated between clearing away the clutter and working on the column.

After having gotten as far as I was going to get in the former pursuit, but still finishing the latter, Jen and Rod showed up, bearing... well, you know, I've long said that I wanted a cat with an "off" switch. So that's what Jen got me. A robotic cat. According to the box, it can wiggle its ears, and react to light, sound, and touch, and dance, and sing songs, and get moody! It's a cheerful yellow with black stripes, and it comes with a mouse to play with! I can't wait to get some AAA batteries so I can try it out.

(It seems mercenary to refer to my presents, incidentally, but I got a bunch, starting about a week ago. Books, CDs, the robot cat... I've never gotten this much stuff for a birthday before, and I'm told that there are still a couple more on the way. Wow.)

At any rate, Jen and Rod got to watch me be a Very Bad Host as I tried to finish my column before its imminent deadline. Very shortly thereafter, I sent them off to get me a birthday cake. Umm, not that I directly asked them to do so; that would be against the rules. You can't buy your own birthday cake. I just gave them a twenty, told them where the closest places that sold Entenmann's cakes were, told them what I liked in cakes (chocolately goodness, and no fruit), suggested that they do whatever they were in the mood to do, and bring back the change. Being quick on the uptake, they got the hint.

While they were out, Elaine arrived. I ordered the pizza, and went back to finishing up my column. By the time Jen and Rod came back, it was pretty much finished, but almost 100 words over its target length. I set about trying to shorten it, with their help, stopping every few moments as something else that needed to get done occurred to me. You can call it "short attention span"; I prefer "multitasking."

Eventually, I finished stumbling around comically putting the finishing touches on the room's appearance, finished the column, titled the thing (after rejecting the overly boring "My Final Column," the mildly depressing "Goodbye," the tempting but impractical "Shit In, Shit Out" [you'd need to be familiar with my college's recent history to get that], and many others besides, I went with one of Jen's suggestions, "Goodnight, Moon"), and shipped it off. After leaving a couple of genially threatening messages on Professor J's answering machine, the pizza arrived, followed by Phebe, rounding out the party.

So we ate, and talked, and eventually broke out the birthday cake. Jen almost immolated herself lighting the candles, but eventually she got them aflame properly. I can't remember ever having had a birthday cake with candles before. It was nice.

And then Jen and Rod left (much later than they'd originally planned), and those of us remaining played Scrabble, and the other two graciously let the birthday boy win, albeit by a very slim margin. And I discovered that "dinge" is indeed a word, dating all the way back to 1846. Who knew? (Well, aside from Phebe, that is.) And that was about it.

It was a good birthday. Quite possibly my best ever.

10:11 PM:

Much to report on, no time to do so. Tonight's agenda is to write my very last column for the school paper, perhaps try to clean the half of my room that the stuff from the other half has been shoved into, and catch up on my sleep. The first of those items is likely to conflict with the third, and the second may go by the wayside. We'll see, I suppose.

The English Department awards ceremony was today, and it was nice. My younger-sister-the-writer was there, as was Elaine, as was my advisor in my Provocative Language project, who'd agreed to come on the condition that I hand in an essay yesterday. Which I did, and which is why I didn't get much sleep over the past two days.

But the ceremony was today, and it was nice, as I've said. I got the usual couple of envelopes with notes to the effect that the checks will be in the mail once the awards committee gets around to it. There was no soda at the post-ceremony reception, alas, but now I'm looking a gift horse in the mouth. I still can't get over having had a conversation involving people from three entirely different areas of my life, all in one place. I especially can't get over the fact that all of them came in the first place. Cool.

Anyway, I have a column to write, so I'd best be off... just one final reminder: my birthday begins in less than two hours. You know what to do.

1:22 AM:

I went looking around in the settings, and it turns out that my old dot-matrix printer was capable of printing the tax forms after all. It took more than five minutes per page, at that level of quality (360x360 dpi), but that was okay. So they've been printed and signed and folded and shoved into an envelope, and I'll have the whole thing in the mail tomorrow. Whoo-hoo!

I'd forgotten the extent to which the Epson LQ-510 is a kickass printer.

When I can get it to work, anyway.

4:40 AM:

From a conversation with a younger sister, while looking through next semester's course descriptions:

Maybe you had to be there.

Anyway, I went back to the family home for Shabbos, and all is more or less well. My parents are suggesting that I move back there for the summer, given that I no longer need to be near the college, and that I'll be working in the area. This would make sense, if not for the simple fact that the real primary reason why I have this apartment is that the occasional three-day holiday back at home represents the maximum length of time I can stay there without losing my mind entirely. Generally, I keep it to one night, tops, and there are good reasons for that.

Goodness knows what I'm going to do when I'm visiting from Michigan, but I figure I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

The other reason advanced for my moving back in is to save on my rent, which may indeed be a problem shortly... but which won't be a problem by the time July rolls around, which is the earliest I could possibly move out anyway. Once my summer job kicks in, I'm home free. The challenge is June. May's okay, July and August are okay, June is looking like trouble. (For those wondering: I wasn't able to get nearly as large a student loan this year as last year, which has pretty much been the largest factor in this year's series of financial crises.)

Perhaps paying off the library wasn't such a bright idea after all. Not to mention the phone company, but I didn't have any choice on that one. I was too far past due to push 'em off any further.

I'm hoping the only trouble I have in June is in scraping up that month's rent. I have one or two people I may be able to turn to for a short-term loan. I'm hoping the landlord of the apartment I'm trying to get in Ann Arbor bides his time until, say, late July. 'Cause if he gets back to me in June -- or, worse, May -- and wants a month-and-a-half deposit then and there, I don't know what I'm gonna do.

(Ooh, wait. I wonder how long it'll take my tax refund to be issued? Once I send the khesting form out, that is. I've downloaded the software and generated my returns, but I'm not eligible to e-file, 'cause I have a 1099-MISC [I don't know why I have that, but let that pass], and my printer isn't fancy-shmancy enough to print the forms. I tried to use my father's printer on Friday, but I must have saved the file in the wrong format or something, 'cause Adobe wouldn't recognize them, so I'll have to try again next time. Yeesh. But if I can get that done, like, now, and if they process it immediately, that might at least solve the problem of next month's rent?)

But, again, one crisis at a time. First I've gotta make it through this month, in which the challenges are in coursework, not cashflow.