It’s much easier to be prolific in blog postings when you actually have time to be prolific.

Amanda and me left Olympia on the 18th after having breakfast at the historic Spar Café on 4th Avenue downtown. Sitting on Olympia’s heritage register, the Spar has a very eclectic old-town feel. The service was abysmally slow, but the food was good and the environment cozy. It’s an odd combination of a building, housing both an eatery and a tobacco merchant within the same space. We also stopped by Orca Books before getting on I-5 and coming home to Snohomish. I had a few packages waiting for me, most of them my class books. The only book I’m missing for next quarters class is one that my faculty hasn’t even decided on yet: I’m still waiting on the edition we’re using for James Joyce’s Ulysses.

Since we got back, I haven’t done much. Amanda went back up to Bellingham on Sunday, so I’ve mostly been relaxing with my cats and trying to get some stuff done. Not much progress in that arena, but it is a break, after all. I have been looking into graduate programs for an MFA in Creative Writing, and have requested some information from, of all places, the University of Iowa. We’ll see what they send. I had that information mailed to my apartment, so I won’t see it until we go back on January 2nd. Hopefully, my former roommate will be moved out by the time we get back. The University of Arizona has a very honest assessment of what people looking for an MFA in Creative Writing will go through in today’s job market.