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First published March 5, 2013
for the past two years, i’ve set december’s project aside to do my own version of a short story advent calendar. it’s not a true advent calendar since i choose all the stories myself, but what it lacks in the ‘element of surprise’ department it more than makes up for in hassle, as i try to cram even MORE reading into a life already overcrammed with impossible personal goals (live up to your potential! find meaningful work! learn to knit!) merry merry wheee!
since i am already well behind in my *regular* reviewing, when it comes to these stories, whatever i poop out as far as reflections or impressions are going to be superficial and perfunctory at best. please do not weep for the great big hole my absented, much-vaunted critical insights are gonna leave in these daily review-spaces (and your hearts); i’ll try to drop shiny insights elsewhere in other reviews, and here, i will at least drop links to where you can read the stories yourselves for free, which - let’s be honest - is gonna serve you better anyway.
HAPPY READING, BOOKNERDS!
I almost never saw Jay outside our room because it was impossible to lock down her routine. She would find an abandoned desk in the library’s basement stairwell and cut up old medical journals to make a collage for our wall, reasoning that no one was going to read them anyways. Or she would take a catnap in the engineering school only to decide she liked the lounge’s couch more than her bed and stay the night. She drove out to concerts in towns six hours away. On a Wednesday, she would wake up and decide to go to Six Flags and ride all the roller coasters, twice. Then there would be days where she wouldn’t leave the bed, sleeping until her eyes were swollen. She would ask me to bring her apples from the dining hall and eat everything, the waxy core, the brittle seeds, everything. I would hand her her ukulele and she would strum and hum while I tapped a beat on the post of our bunk bed. I thought, in these moments, that she was magnificent. That I lived to serve her.