"A long December and there's reason to believe maybe this year will be better than the last." - Counting Crows, "A Long December"

This time of year always gets to me. It's the end of the year and the end of the semester, not like in May when the prospect of a long, hot summer looms. The only thing looming over the end of fall semester is the impending second round of classes, professors, and exams.

While that's not necessarily a bad thing and while I'm never one to look a month-long break chock-full of moneymaking opportunities in the mouth, I feel suspended in midair. I have all these grand designs on next semester �- redecorating the living space, a new job, various and sundry romantic prospects -� all of which must be put on hold for the holidays so I can...what? Go back to my old 'good food reasonably quickly' job and spend what little time I'll be home watching People's Court and reading trashy novels? Don't get me wrong, that's a total fantasy for me, but why can't I giggle, titter, work, date, and read here in University Town?

Now that I've finally found my niche, it's being stripped away from me, albeit temporarily. It almost feels like regression, going back to the life I had last summer. I am a very different person now even from the person I was when I bright-eyed and bushy-tailed it onto campus last August. Can I go back in time like that? Do I even want to?

I did have to go back on Saturday to be retrained at the pizza place (like, I've been gone less than four months so I've forgotten that the woman in the sexual harassment video borrowed her eyebrows from Peter Gallagher). There were moments when I was excited to be going back to the job I loved in high school, but there were also moments when I wanted to get up and run out of the building.

And things are very different on the homefront now too. My sister knows I'm gay, but my parents and brothers are all existing on a separate plane of veritable cluelessness. I have been to church once since August (when I was home for Thanksgiving), and I'm really not excited about the return of early Sunday mornings. I like sleeping in and sleeping off the hangover! Plus, my brother has inhabited my former bedroom, so I'm still not sure where I'll be sleeping. So much is up in the air, and yet this is another situation where as soon as everything is figured out I will be uprooted again.

I know most of it will be waiting for me when I get back, but I feel a second wind coming on, and I think that energy might be better focused on my studies (because God knows it wasn't focused on them this semester) than on murder mysteries and the slow-as-molasses 'dramatic' 'developments' on Passions.

2004 is going to be great. I have a fantastic schedule next semester because I managed to arrange all my classes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. It's always great to have more days off than on in a week. Of course, I'll have a new job (let's hear it for the return of regular paychecks!), which should stave off some of the monotony and give me less time during which to make a mess of my life. I'm finding as I get older that the years are getting better. I'm sure someone has derived a mathematical equation to determine the age at which this stops being the case, but for now I'm just enjoying it.

One of my oldest friends from another life wrote a book. Actually, she wrote several, but the one I keep remembering is called Take Two Steps Back. The title came from a tale she often told. The story goes that she was taking the garbage out one night and as she returned to the house she thought she saw her late husband standing there. She took two steps back, which gave her the perspective to see that it was just shadows on a wall.

Maybe the point of this little breaks is to give us an opportunity to take two steps back and look at how our lives are going. I've made some mistakes, that's for damn sure, but I'm carving out an existence that works for me, which is all any of us can reasonably hope for, isn't it? So let spring semester loom, all full of wonder and possibility. I'm going to the back porch with a paperback and a Diet Coke. Wake me when it's 2004.

Someone got here by searching for: Megan Mullally +sisters and brothers And: like to be an english major And: Reading: Reviews of Angels in America, which was awesome. Listening to: Cher. Watching: Down With Love, which was better than I expected. It got a little long, but overall it was cute. Eating: A whole bucket of fucking spice drops, which made me sick, I think.