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It’s been a long day in some ways, in many ways, and I must awake again in five hours. But I don’t want to sleep. The valuable time and space that is occupying now is quiet, solemn, candle-lit, and slow.

It is when the thoughts of most flow freely, and it is when I think without boundaries. Whether this thought, my thought, finds its way in writing or words is not this story. I woke up at 6:45 yesterday morning after having gotten only four and a half hours of sleep. I went to work and processed transcript requests. I entertained the silly, yet incessant, mutterings of a co-worker who felt that her new eyeglasses were more interesting to talk about than her “crazy” mother whose cancer-ravaged body is under the psychological stress of medical prodding.

“Your glasses look fine,” I would tell her, hoping that maybe she would just continue IMing her Russian compatriot rather than bend my ear. I enjoyed occasional spells of silence but they were short-lived. That she sat less than two feet to my right didn’t help much. And I’m just now recovering from the invasion of my olfactory senses by the half-bottle of perfume she applied before leaving her house.

I was also clowned for having had blond hair in a way I’ve never been clowned before. Alma fell out, unable to contain her shock at what she least expected to see on my school ID. All she could say in defense of her outburst was, “It wasn’t me. It was my inner Alma.” She’s awesome, though. And I told her to leave her inner self at home tomorrow. I’ll never be blond again. I swear.

I came home. And I left again. Erin came over as planned and we went to see Jill. Geno even braved the chill and a trek from Newark to meet us. I’m persuasive. I’m glad he and Erin got to see each other again. It had been more than two years.

I’ve heard from two schools within the last two weeks. The first was in the form of an e-mail from the Rutgers English admissions. Cheryl wanted GRE scores, both subject and general. I faxed what I had, which were my dismal general results from two years ago. Accompanying the fax was a message saying I would send the subject scores when I received them. But she sent a reminder anyway over the weekend. So I responded and told her that I expected them any day and would send them over immediately. She thanked me. I got my scores the next day. How’d I do?

The answer to this question is not as important as the bottom line, which is that you can’t put me in a desk for almost three hours with a fucking number 2 pencil and ask me random questions about Beowulf, Milton, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Donne, Poe, the Brontes, Wordsworth, Byron, Tennyson, Fitzgerald……..Whitman, Thackeray, Dickens, Woolf, Cather, Ellison, DuBois……Arnold, Derrida, Austen, Pope, Dryden, Hardy, Wilde, Wilson.....AND EXPECT ME TO DO WELL! For fuck’s sake.

I write papers. Essays. I read. I don’t take tests. Especially standardized tests. Of course this wasn’t your standard standardized test. But nevertheless, there were bubbles that I had to fill in. I would rather discuss things, reveal an argument, and address the argument’s components in a carefully executed 15 to 25-page paper. Multiple choice goes against everything I believe in.

So how’d I do?  I choked. Hard. But suffice it to say, I don’t care. If the schools don’t want me based on the score, then that’s fine. It's their prerogative.

The second correspondence I received came in the form of a letter. I got home and Eve and Cornelia were preparing to order pasta from Bene (speed-dial #1). I sat on the couch to welcome Eve back from her month-long excursion to Bali when Cornelia hands me a thin envelope.

“This came for you,” she said in a cautionary tone.  As she handed me the envelope, I first thought it was a freelance check that should have been here two weeks ago. Although I did receive it tonight, this isn’t what she was handing me. “They sent out rejection letters already,” I wondered aloud, certain it was, indeed, my first doctoral rejection. It wasn’t. They just wanted to be sure that I did in fact apply to their English PhD program and that they had all my information correct. The letter went on to say that they will be sending out notices beginning March 15.

That’s less than two months away. Why in the hell did I set myself up for this? I can remember when I left Chico thinking that I would never again step foot on another campus. And here I am trying to continue. What’s done is done. I must have wanted it badly enough to go through the hell of actually applying. And it was hell. People should get 20 percent of a foot in the door for successfully completing an application. I have little to worry about. I did my best. I got recommendations from academically famous people. And I was actually happy with my statement of purpose, although that will never see the light of day. What I'm experiencing is a different kind of vulnerability than what I spoke of the other day. As I jump off the cliff of my thesis, I'm overcome by insecurity about my ideas and doubt in their fruition. So why would I choose to put myself at the mercy of another program. But there, of course, is doubt there, too. Will I even be accepted? Talk about putting yourself out there. I did. And we'll see. Although it’s not that late by any means, I need to get up soon. The sleep procrastination is over. The stream is over. Here is to my dreams being without fright.