finishing time:

yeah, so, i didn't have parchment paper after all. and that's seven egg whites per batch. but, no biggie. acquired eggs, acquired parchment paper, made cookies. the first batch (no nuts) was a little liquidy, so the cookies are a little bigger and flatter. there are fewer of them. the second batch turned out better. i need to make a note on the recipe card that when it says 425 for 10-12 minutes, it means more like 375. eight minutes at 425 burns the bottoms before the tops are done, and that's on the top rack.

accomplished cookies and laundry, took out trash, cleaned bathroom (well -- made it less dirty), straightened up after self in kitchen (all non-disposable items are soaking in sink, since recipe for amaretti is essentially find the three stickiest substances in your kitchen. mix. add nuts (optional). bake. it is now eight thousand degrees in this apartment. this is partly because the oven was at around 400 degrees for like an hour and a half, but mostly because the building is one of those stupid buildings where the heat stays on until tax day. it's 55 degrees outside. i have the windows open and the fan on. it's a jillion degrees in the circulation-free kitchen; but out here in the living room, it's plenty warm as well.

yesterday at work, i put a post-it note on my own monitor. it's the brightest yellow note we have, and i wrote in big letters. what it says is: LUNCH. i get in a groove and forget that a mealtime has come and gone, and then i'm starving.

i apparently need one of these on my monitor here at home that says DINNER.

[thunk]

Dear Ms. Fox,

We regret to inform you that the Department of Linguistics at Georgetown
University has recommended to the Dean of the Graduate School that your
application for admission be denied. We had a very competitive applicant
pool and could offer admission to very few applicants. You will receive
an official letter about this decision from the Graduate School in the
near future, but we wanted to inform you as quickly as possible.

Thank you for your application to our program. Good luck in your future
endeavors.

Sincerely,

[head of the Theoretical concentration]

me, and them:

them: because i know it matters a great deal to all of you, i now report that my friend's mother informs us they were mistaken about the ages of the children in yesterday's messages. anastasia was born 1996; valentina, 1997; katerina, 1998; and sergei, 1999. (they've been at the orphanage apparently since 2001, poor lambs.) it's a good thing we got that all straightened out. :-)

me: thank you all for your sympathy in the wake of georgetown's decision. i'm actually far less upset about it than i would have predicted, which means one of two things: that i'm utterly exhausted, or that it was the right choice for them to make. i want the phd, but i don't feel like oh my god what will i do now if i don't get it, which is a decent place to be. so, it's a disappointment -- i'd have liked them to say we love you, baby. come home -- but not a disaster. plus, my three applications to the british universities are still out there. cambridge and edinburgh both required me to submit passport photos with the applications, so i suppose i should pin all my hopes on oxford, where they aren't equipped to reject me for being funny-looking.

leaving work in one hour to go curling! curling yay!