Dear Denizens of the Blogosphere, I’m going to be honest: this week has been the most intense week of my life and like EVER.

Okay, that might be a little bit of an exaggeration.  I mean, it wasn’t as intense as that time I slipped on ice and woke up who knows how many minutes and/or hours and/or days later in a pool of melted ice or blood.  It wasn’t as intense as the day I listened to Born to Die three times in a row, or, really, any day I’ve listened to Boys for Pele more than three times in a row.  And it definitely wasn’t as intense as the week I discovered how many varieties of trail mix there were at the Bi Lo down the street.

Nonetheless, it was pretty intense.  I looked inside a bee hive.  I ate a red velvet funnel cake.  I graded infinity papers and discovered I still had infinity papers to grade.  I wrote a poem about shoes on my iPhone.  I fulfilled the dreams of four-year-old Emily Bolden by teaching My Little Pony.  I gave one of the theory-heavy lectures I’ve ever given, and I gave that lecture about My Little Pony.  I drew confusing and illegible things on the dry erase board.  I made photocopies of a poster featuring a swamp monster for The Burning Swamp Reading Series, which kicks off with our first-ever reading tomorrow night.  I got a fish and let it live in my house and I’m still alive and so is it.  I won a giant unicorn at a bowling game.  I got matching airbrushed t-shirts with my BFF, which has been my goal since I knew what airbrushing and t-shirts were.  I remembered how much I love Laura Jensen’s Bad Boats.  And, perhaps most importantly, I actually remembered to put my recycling out so it can get picked up tomorrow morning.

See? INTENSE.

Here’s the photographic proof.

Day 292: PEOPLE, IT’S MALLOWCREME PUMPKIN SEASON. I need say no more.

Day 293: Deciding whether to purchase or run from this was one of my most major existential crises to date.

Day 294: Alice, examining my haul from the Kiwanis Ogeechee Fair. Please note that while she showed great interest in this unicorn and its magic, she didn’t notice that there is now a fish living in her house. As you might have already guessed, Gertrude Stein did notice, and she has registered many complaints.

Day 295: That’s right, people. That’s a fish. A real fish. As in a fish that’s alive and stuff. And that fish is living in my house. As in the house where I also live. Her name is Esther Williams and she hates the hiding house I bought her, even though it compliments her fins so nicely. Hmph.

Day 296: This is a picture of Alice continuing to not realize there’s a fish in her house and instead metaphorically showing how she is lost in the world by clutching to the rug for dear life.

Day 297: Sometimes we need reminders of what’s most important to us, and sometimes said reminders need to come in the form of two-finger rings, with which we’ve been obsessed since we first saw Lana Del Rey sporting one.

Day 298: When in the course of writerly events it becomes necessary to co-found a reading series, it sometimes also becomes necessary to purchase tiny stuffed swamp monsters for the kick-off reading in said co-founded reading series.