sorry for the hiatus, imaginary interwebs folks, but i had some work to do...

i turned in my last application four days ago on a beautiful sunny afternoon in norfolk, va. i came home and checked my email, wondering if i'd gotten any good news yet. i looked like this:

except i'm a chick. and a little older (but not by much...yeah).

today i had a stressful experience which, to its credit, ended with a glimmer of optimism. a glimmer? maybe sliver of optimistic light. who knows. i won't go into the experience, but let's say my seemingly normal work day spiraled downward until i was crying in my car waiting outside my gynecologist's office for my upcoming yearly appointment (which i was so close to canceling, but decided to soldier on anyway). next thing i know i'm bawling and naked (draped only in that awful pastel XXL gown that opens only in the front) and they can't get a steady blood pressure reading and all i can do is blubber about how i'll never get into an mfa program. as if gynecologist appointments aren't embarrassing enough. so, that being said and out there in interwebs-land, i am faced with a conundrum i can't quite argue for or against. now i look like this:

only that doll is creepy and my teddy bear is a pug named reggie.

as some mfa applicants know, there's a blog for us. one of the options in the blog is to subscribe to this CW application responses database. once you subscribe, you are updated with all the responses other applicants have received from their respective programs. this also offers other applicants a peek into which schools have responded to whom and when, so that you might have an idea of what your own response might be, and when it might be coming. IOW, if a bunch of fiction applicants just got word of their acceptance to vanderbilt on february 11 and you haven't heard zilch come march, the chances of you getting an acceptance are slim to none.

now, knowing this resource is out there for me, i am wondering if i should subscribe. having subscribed to some posts on this blog, i realize that my gmail account will be exploding like an independence day bbq. but do i want these emails? do i really want to know who got in and when? do i really want to torture myself with daily--more accurately, on the minute--news on the acceptances from other applicants? won't i find out either way? yes, but somehow, i feel as if i know that one school is completely out of the picture for me, the blow will be less shocking. after all, seth abrams does argue this case in his introduction to the database, and it makes sense. but whether or not this will be of any help to me is a purely subjective thing. some people want to know as soon as humanly possible the grade on their term paper, or which person they will end up marrying, or, more sordidly, when they will die. others choose to live in intentional denial, and when such events happen, they happen. after all, those issues are out of one's hands once that letter is signed, sealed, and delivered.

you see, i'm now sitting in the waiting room. do i kick back with my ipod, leaf through a tattered in touch magazine, and find a comfortable spot? or should i pace a worn path around the room, jump every time the door opens, and keep bugging the receptionist about when i'll get to see the doctor?