More endings

I like it better with light behind it. The studio is still outrageously cold and I tried to tape the floor vents, but the flow is SO strong that it blew everything away. I put pedestals on top of the paper on top of the cardboard on top of the vent but the air just comes out stronger through the cracks. I know that this is a terrible way of dealing with HVAC but I had to try. The staff will be in tomorrow to tell me that they can't do anything b/c they have no control over the temperature, which I've already heard. Whether that means I will have to get a space heater or down coat, I don't know.

I had to say goodbye this morning to Joe and Cheryl, which was horribly sad. My body felt ill as I drove away from them after taking them to meet their shuttle to the airport. Then I did a loop on campus with the bike before going to the studio to rearrange things, work on a bday card for Marci, and cry while listening to the latest This American Life broadcast about a massacre in Guatemala. It wasn't so much hearing the military atrocities and disregard for human life and dignity as the part where the man who survived but lost his entire family asks if he can name his nine children. I forget often that some fathers love their children and are invested in their families. The names, the act of naming the dead was very powerful.

It's eerie and lonely to be here with just a couple of other residents (and we are not friends, so that is no fun) BUT I managed to finally, finally, FINALLY finish my manuscript + everything else (captions, glossary, table of contents, photos, drawing scans, acknowledgments, decisions, decisions, decisions!) and am impatient for tomorrow to come. Because I get to send it all away in the mail, along with a bunch of apps, and re-enter the world! At least, start to pick up the pieces of my studio practice.