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# of days until applications are due: 3 # of reference letters received for each school: 2

# of reference letters required for each school: 3

# of professors supposed to write reference letters mysteriously detained in the u.k. until this week: 1

good gawd. i have the transcripts, i have the money for the applications, i have the forms filled out, but of course there has to be SOMETHING for me to freak out about. i'm worried that this prof is going to come back and freak out about all the work she has to do. but c'mon. she's got to do my thing. i asked her a good month ago. she knows. she knows, dammit!

back to prof. h's letter, the one i spent many, many hours reading through the envelope, folded upon itself, etc...it was really the only thing bringing me happiness for a good few days there. whenever i felt a little twinge of anxiety, i would rush to the drawer, turn on the halogen desk lamp, and look at those illuminated words again. relief.

my dependence on the letter was made very evident when i learned that my "godsister" had died on christmas day, of some virus, in england. this was a huge shock and extremely upsetting. i wrote an email to her parents today and teared up, sniffling, in the internet cafe. they are all such amazingly good people; it brings into clearer focus my anxieties regarding sudden death. i am not so afraid of the eventuality of death, but unexpected death hovers...and i wonder if i might develop agoraphobia, though i think about toxic mold and spores inside buildings, too. nothing is really safe.

so instead of bugging out, i turn to things like my security blanket, pot, or The Letter. i knew that i would have to eventually give up the letter, so i wrote down everything i could read - most of it. there are some infuriatingly incomplete sentences, where the words are folded upon other words and are completely inpenetrable, like "this self-reflective attitude provides her with..." with what??? tell me!! but god, hearing praise from this man is soul-charging. it relaxes me and eases most anxieties - i often assume people act out of obligation, to "be nice," and let me down gently.

i'm headed into rambly pathetic territory so i think i'll end on this note.