Wake up on a Saturday night

It's late in the afternoon on Saturday, and I have not slept yet this weekend, and work has piled up higher than the two feet of snow we have on the ground today, and I'm falling behind in spite of having worked all night yesterday.  Life is like an empty box of chocolates right now (in several other ways as well)  :(

Oh well.  Let me at least get the reading (along with its log) done:
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5:44 p.m.  "Paramour", by Jennifer Haigh, 10 pp.

5:45 p.m.  Probably because I'm tired, the first sentence, "The tribute was held downtown, far away from the theater district," reminded me of Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery," so I looked it up, but it doesn't start "The lottery was held in the village square."

5:50 p.m.  Okay, so Ivan the Terrible?

5:51 p.m.  From Christine crossing the street "gingerly" to the skin of Beth's cleavage having "spent forty or fifty summers in the sun," the first page has an irritating faux-poetic diction.

5:55 p.m.  Pages two through two-and-a-half of this story are, in modern parlance, TMI ...

5:58 p.m.  Martin's South African?  Ivan's from the Ukraine, and the story's taking place in New York (so far) ...  Could it be possible that this short story was the author's homework paper when the assignment was "Write a short story involving every continent on the planet"---?

5:59 p.m.  Okay, so samba music's playing in the restaurant "Paramour."  South America is in the house  :)  How much longer now before a penguin, a kangaroo, and a panda bear, all three wearing tuxes, walk into a bar?

Taking a break to watch Tony Holiday's "Tanze Samba mit mir" on YouTube and smoke a cigarette.

6:23 p.m.  Back.  Must read fast.

6:26 p.m.  "Waiters circulated, precariously wielding trays of appetizers."  The unappetizing diction's not gonna let up anytime soon.

6:28 p.m.  Going the extra mile beyond a cliche and a mixed metaphor:  the mixed cliche of strangers standing "back to back, elbow to elbow"  :(

6:30 p.m.  A master class in the art of overusing adjectives and misusing otherwise powerful verbs  :(

6:31 p.m.  What's an Equity card?  On another day, in the middle of another story, I would've looked it up.

6:36 p.m.  At last a light moment:  His eyes had "seemed to be all pupil."  Pupil?  Pupil  :)

6:43 p.m.  Done.  Now to drive back---through the two feet of snow---to the apartment, where I can simultaneously do laundry and the Grammar homework.