...could not have come at a better time. I went down to the mail room to pick up delicious new books (including a copy of my own in hardcover) and came back to a "Dear Applicant" rejection e-mail from UNC Wilmington. 400 applicants for 20-25 spaces. Shall I assume that more than 25 people were writing polished, published, morally challenging work and they just didn't have space for all of us? Or is Wilmington afraid of teh buttsecks?

Whatever. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, since they didn't even get the worst of the gay shit, and I did send everyone the prologue from Maladaptation, so it wasn't all about gay dudes. Now, Chicago got my child-molester-comes-of-age story and I told them in my statement of purpose that I thought Leopold and Loeb were super cool, so if that goes sour it might be easier to blame on me being a weirdo. But then they're also an art school in a real city and they're probably desensitized to such antics. Wilmington got the clean stuff and they still didn't want any, and I know for a fact they like applicants who write about Jesus. Oh well.

I'm excited about the books I've got. My dad sent me the 6th Harry Potter DVD for my birthday, and it also arrived today, along with David Inside Out, The Screwed-Up Life of Charlie the Second, Best Gay Love Stories 2010, hardback copies of Cool Thing and Maladaptation just for funsies, and Lake Overturn which I will read first because how much do I love sad-sack small towns full of junkies and widows and misery? ONLY VERY MUCH. I'm so glad I fetched these from the mail room when I did. Fiction really take the edge off of life.

Also: last night I decided if I was worrying about everything in the whole world, it was because I wasn't busy enough. So I've pulled up my document for Loopholes and picked up the thread again like nothing happened. It helps to have something light and uncomplicated to work on, and I really think this story is going to be good for what it is. Coping mechanism activated!