But what about all those postcards…?

So I do have kind of a Chinatown Stuff fetish of late. I snagged most of these Shanghai Calendar Girls cards at a little store across from the Chinatown Fountain that, alas, has now closed. I also have a Deep and Passionate Love for free postcards… the kind that are displayed outside restaurant bathrooms or in skanky record stores with assorted ads and stuff on 'em…? Yeah. Well, when Goddess Caroline was in Paris this spring, she pilfered a few for me as a treat. I combined them with some of my art postcards that were just sitting around. When I like a painting, I usually grab a card of it in the gift store to remind me of it, even though they're impractical to frame or display or use or whatnot. Outside of kick-ass college girl dorm rooms, that is! Those there're mostly Renoir and Matisse from the Chicago Art Institute.

But, of course, I didn't spend most of my time in bed tucked underneath antique chenille gazing upon Very Important Postcards… I spent it working. Check out where I toiled....

Here's a really bad view of my Deskal Region, aka Mission Control Central, as well as the Visual Stimulation necessary for a study area. I hung a Good Luck Coin mobile I got in Chinatown (of course) above my desk (although you can't see it here), and my Pucca and MashiMaro toys as well. And some of my favorite cards/postcards are on the wall above the desk: a postcard of City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, and an Emily Dickinson paper doll (because she'd be mortified by the existence of such a thing), and touristy postcards from the Hemingway House and cards that just plain make me laugh.

There are some important things that CAN'T be seen in a mere photograph, though… for one, my glitter lamp. I got it on sale at Ahhhs for, like, $9.99, and believe me, nothing is quite so soothing as zoning on flecks of glitter swirling in water after one has been working for 6 straight hours on a critical paper. And a couple other atmospheric tidbits are missing from the photos, too: the senses of smell and sound. Before I left, I stocked up on candles from Illusions (they rule… they don't smell all chemically like most scented candles do) and Nag Champa incense (kinda college-trendy, yeah, but I've been burning it for, like, a ten years…); I work better in a pleasingly smelly environment. And then there's music. Thanks to Tragical Fiction, I've been hooked on Josie and the Pussycats' movie soundtrack and Letters to Cleo's Wholesale Meats and Fish, and both were in heavy rotation… along with lotsa The Donnas… all appropriately alta-girly. And thanks to Asterope the Slacker Hacker, my Synth Pop Soul has been groovin' to Miss Kittin and the Hacker and FischerSpooner… appropriately indie-anti-mainstream. And I put my computer's CD burner to good use, compiling enough Teen Poo and 80s mix CDs to last me for a two-week-straight nonstop study session.

(CLICK ON THE IMAGES ABOVE TO SEE FULL-SIZED SCANS OF SOME OF MY DESKAL POSTCARDS.)

Speaking of nonstop study sessions, where're the books?

They're right over here!

And that's just the beginning; within a week, every single shelf other than the top one was crammed with books, movie versions of books, folders with photocopies, journals, handouts and packets from class- Gah. But I love it, in a really sickly masochistic way.

Speaking of really sick, note (if you can!) some more of my special décor on the top shelf, like Squid and Taco (actually Pizza) Kitties holding court next to Aurora Mellificent [sic: it's a cross between maleficent, mellifluous and mischievous] on the end... a Dwanollah Doll that a friend made me about ten years ago who's decorated with all sorts of Myth and Goddess and Academia appurtenances, and accompanies me to Important Places like college. In a rather inappropriate juxtaposition, there's my collection of Sephora junk, too. Because I feel pretty and witty and wise.

Obviously, I settled in thoroughly and systematically to College Girl Life. It was a busy summer, an intense summer, even a kinda sad-and-lonely summer because THTM and I only got to see each other every few weeks, but I made sure it was a foofy summer as well. I'd like to think it was an inspirational setting such as this that brought about these results:

TO: Chix

"Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I'm sorry. This moment is so much bigger than me. This moment is for Francelia Butler, Elizabeth Keyser, Phyllis Bixler. It's for the women that stand beside me, Madeline Sterne, Elizabeth Epperly, Mary Rubio.... And it's for every nameless, faceless woman of Children's Lit that now has a chance because this door tonight has been opened. Thank you. I'm so honored. I'm so honored. And I thank the judges for choosing me to be the vessel for which His blessing might flow-"

:))))))

I WON THE BUTLER CONFERENCE!!! I FUCKING WON!!!!!!!

*screeching dementedly*

*NOTE: After the conference, I submitted my paper, "Under the Umbrella: The Author-Heroine's Love Triangle," to one of the leading Montgomery-related literary journals, and just found out that, holy crikey, they're gonna PUBLISH it! In the NEXT ISSUE!

I'M A PUBLISHED SCHOLARLY CRITIC! *screeching dementedly some more*

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