I go to change the batteries in my wireless mouse. I already have the new ones laying out on the table, and as I try to get the second old one out, it pops out of my hand and lands on the table, knocking into the others and mixing them all up. Now I don't know which are my old batteries and which are the new ones. This is the kind of day I'm having.

I think I am a bad maid of honor. Today I was doing bridal things all day with my mom, and it left me terribly grumpy. We were shopping for shower favors for half an hour before we decided we're not really make-it-yourself people and we could order something much cooler online. We also picked out thrifty invitations for the shower and I got my dress. None of these on their own are stressful things - buying dresses and cute paper products are actually two of my favorite things to do - but somehow the blizzard that we had to keep walking and driving through managed to dampen my spirits, along with the recurring realization that Lindsey and I have vastly different tastes, and I needed to pick things with her aesthetic in mind instead of my own. I was actually finishing a card with registry info to go into the shower invites when my mouse stopped working and the battery thing (I almost wrote 'fiasco,' but I don't want to be accused of speaking in hyperbole) happened. So. I'm choosing to take that as an omen and retire to Danny's for an evening of wii. Because I do that now?

some things i've been meaning to write about and a surprise visitor

There is a lady bug in my house. It just flew onto my computer screen. It is December. And I know I shouldn't harbor bugs indoors in the winter, but I don't want to kill it; I'm glad that it's here.

I seriously thought about picking up a chap-stick I saw laying on the sidewalk yesterday, cutting off the used part that had been on someone else's lips, and keeping it. How gross is that? (For the record, I left it on the ground. No promises about next time though.)

Last week Meijer started playing Christmas music, and while I was walking down the dairy aisle, a song from the Hanson Christmas album starting playing, and I knew all the words. I didn't sing along, but I must have looked a little weird as I couldn't stop grinning, and if I were a stranger looking at me, I would wonder what this girl found so funny about cottage cheese.

Now the lady bug is crawling through Daisy's fur. Daisy wants it to get off. It's by the base of her tail, so she can't reach it but keeps turning in circles trying to see what's tickling her anyway. The ladybug only has two spots on its back; I think it's one of those faux lady bugs like the kind that were swarming all over Markley in the fall of 2001. This makes me a little friendlier toward the thought of killing it eventually. It just crawled under the printer. Perhaps it heard that (because don't we all talk along to ourselves as we type, like Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan do during every IM conversation of You've Got Mail?).

And speaking of Meijer, while I was checking out in the express lane (that same day, after the Hanson song was over) I couldn't help looking at the items of the man in front of me. I was in an express lane, but not the U-Scan; I don't use that one when I buy produce. Anyway, the man in front of me was buying these things: one XL frozen 'supreme toppings' pizza, a gallon of Gilby's vodka (I thought they only made gin...huh), a gallon of OceanSpray pink grapefruit juice, a pack of cigarettes. I imaged the night he was about to have, and felt a little sad about it. My basket, by the way, was probably just as depressing as his but in an antithetical kind of way; I was getting apples, peanut butter, and milk. While he was going home to eat like a hard-worn construction worker - as his attire suggested - I was going to eat like a 5-year-old. Fantastic.

I'm only here writing this because I don't want to study for my final.

Maybe the lady bug will drive to Allendale and take it for me next Tuesday...if Daisy hasn't eaten it before then (the lady bug, that is, not my final).

W.F.o.t.D.

Warm Fuzzy of the Day:

Hey Miss Taber!

I wanted to let you know that I've spent the last 55 minutes trying to memorize "The Snow Man" by Wallace Stevens, a poem that I picked to perform tomorrow in my interpretive reading class because I remembered it from your whiteboard last year! I hope all is well, and I hope to see you soon!

All The Best,
Student X

(A note I found in my facebook mailbox this evening)

Since I'm sick of looking at those spinning wheels, it's time to put something else here. Actually, I've recently experienced a break-up of sorts, and I probably should talk about it in a balm-of-hurt-minds, cathartic kind of way.

It happened over Thanksgiving; my relationship with my cell phone ended, and I'm taking it pretty hard. I mean, we met in college, which everybody knows is a pretty intense situation as far as social networking and relationship building goes. We were together all the time - during class and going out on the weekends. It was there through that killer student teaching semester and then after graduation when I wasn't quite sure where I was going or what I was doing. But lately, things between us had been a little strained. The connection was getting weaker, the energy was low almost all the time, and the whole thing just felt kind of old and tired, like there was no mystery left. I mean, I knew those buttons and menus so well that I could dial in the dark, or one-handed, or even with mittens on if it came to that. That's how close we were. But it wasn't enough. I knew that fateful morning, when I woke up and found a blank screen staring at me, that the spark was finally gone for good. That was the end of it. And even though I had seen it coming for a long time, that instant it sort of felt like I'd been punched in the stomach.

I've got a new phone now, but things are still awkward between us; sure it's thinner than my old phone, but that just means it's harder to find in my purse. And it feels different when I hold it in my hand and press it up against my ear. It's going to take a while to get used to each other, that's all. You don't just walk away from a four-year relationship, even if moving on means internet access and a built-in touch-screen mp3 player, whole and unscathed. Soon enough I'll be able to look back and remember the good times. For now, I'm just taking things one voice mail at a time, and that will have to be enough.

Can someone put this picture on a tshirt for me, or would that just be asking for unwanted leering? I suppose it would look nice as a nifty throw pillow or tote bag too. (Don't look too long or it will make you a little nauseated)

And while we're speaking of optical illusions, I almost think I'd prefer this one on a tshirt. Much more hip and edgy (if optical illusions can every be described as such...)

A Kind of Mediocre Thanksgiving Break Debriefing

These long breaks always make me feel obliged to retell as many Stories of What Happened as I can, but those things are (almost) never as funny to read about as they are to actually be in, plus there are plenty of pictures on facebook to allow the reader to recreate most of the weekend in his imagination. In this recreation, the following images-slash-story lines must be included: pirates, cougars, bulls' testicles, scrabble, long johns, whiskey, not going to breakfast after all - sorry scott!, mark wahlberg's penis, a fifteen-foot sushi roll, spooning, and Bop-It (If others who were there feel this list is incomplete, they should add on via tha comment box). The previous sentence notwithstanding, instead of particulars, I am simply going to report that though my sleep patterns over the holiday were practically inverted as well as severely truncated, I feel remarkably refreshed as I sit here at the end looking back. For five whole days, I had my life back to I spend time how I wanted instead of how some daily schedule dictated by The Man. I was also surprisingly productive as far as grading and grad-schooling goes. Who would have thought? In conclusion, I still love stuffing.

What I Did At School Today

Today and tomorrow are professional development days at school. This year we're focusing on technology, and somewhere along the way, between two key-note speakers and four break-out sessions, I learned about this crazy, new-fangled notion of 'embedding' things into blog entries. (I also started a wiki. If you know any word puzzles that would be fun for high schoolers, please share them with me.) But I digress; here is my first attempt at embedding on my own.

Somehow I've managed to land myself in a deluge of Shakespeare this month. This week and weekend in particular I will be reading four(!) plays for various grad-and-high-school-related undertakings. Othello and Macbeth will be (or have recently been) taught to the kiddles, and The Merchant of Venice and A Midsummer Night's Dream have some strikingly tenable threads binding them to James Fenimore Cooper's Last of the Mohicans, which I will attempt to unpack and elucidate in a competent (or at least coherent) fashion by the beginning of December (sidebar: if anyone out there is a scholar of the Venetian Jew and has insights on the character of Shylock demanding to be shot in my general direction, they should not feel compelled to quell said impulses...). You'd think that the upcoming break from school would be a perfect time to immerse myself in this project, but the same days I should spend in academic seclusion happen to be the ones on which everyone will be home and ready to play. I think there used to be a version of me who was a pretty deft time-budgeter. We shall see if she's still in there somewhere.

might and yes

I want to go to Ann Arbor to see Julie, and Scott, and The Darjeeling Limited. And I want to visit Emily and Aaron in the Cracker Barrel, and I want to do lots of other things. I like my job and my grad class, but when I have to grade a mountain of papers and read a pile of novel and write some things, and it's conferences week so between that and class there was (almost) literally no free time this week, I start feeling a little suffocated and consequently whiny. School all day and grading and planning all night and weekend aren't a good way to spend the next twenty-five years. I will (brace yourself for a trite cliche) wake up one day and be old and tired and empty. Then again, this is only one week. Maybe I should just get over it already. Anyway, if I grade papers and read my novel alternating every hour until 11 tonight, then get up in the morning and wash, rinse, repeat, I might be done by tomorrow evening (might). And then the 'weekend' can begin and things will be okay. Yes.

I just woke up from a terrible dream where I was trying to play Scrabble but I couldn't. I kept forgetting how to spell words, and taking too many tiles, and soon there were six J's in play, and I had 45 letters piled up on my tray (all of which were metallic and black, so apparently my subconscious is harboring some kind of anxiety toward industrialism?). I think my dream (I just deleted 'nightmare' because I didn't want to sound so dramatic) was born out of the empanadas, sangria, and chocolate truffle cake we had a San Chez last night, so maybe it was worth it. Also, I'll bet this is my brain telling me it's been too long since I've played Scarbble, and now it's reverting to the only me-time it has to revisit fond memories. Because other than when I'm sleeping, my brain has pretty much been occupied with school and grad class - but mostly school - for the past two months.

Except, of course, for Chicago last weekend which had many highlights, one of which involves my nose ring falling out without my noticing, forcing me to scour (metaphorically) the floor of our hotel bathroom at five in the morning, retrieve it, and jam it back into my face. I've never taken it out before, so, had I been less sleepy (and maybe a little less inebriated), it probably would have been a bigger, scarier deal than it was. Besides for things like that though, Grand Rapids is pretty quiet until one of your comes to visit.

I do have one important and good piece of news: you can stop signing in before coming to see me. I think I'm safe again.

This week in class the kids podcast and really liked it. I almost had a heart attack dealing with all of the technical troubleshooting that I'm pretty ill-equipped to cope with, but next time I'll be much more on top of things. I finally met success on my quest to find bronze (colored, not made of) shoes for Emily's wedding, and my grad class is reading Last of the Mohicans which I'm preparing to force myself to finish this afternoon (as the real function of the blog as a procrastinatory tool finally emerges). This is why I don't update as much, I suppose; everything feels mundane yet urgent and hectic, which are perfect conditions to convince a blogger that she has nothing to write about. Anyway, if my nose ring falls out again, I'll be sure to check in with an update.

Lastly, is anyone else counting down to the end of Daylight Savings Time? I'm totally jonesing for a fall-back. In fact, I might just add two hours back in to my life instead of one. For some reason, this fall I'm feeling particularly entitled to gratis free time.

Go get a grapefruit.
Peel it.
Section it.
Freeze it.
Eat it.

Thank me later.

checking in

wow, where did that month go? that's ok, i never really liked september anyway. october is where it's at. i'm just popping in for a minute to report that i finally figured out who my english professor reminds me of. every tuesday night, i sit in class for three hours learning from the doppelganger of sue johanson of the canadian phone-in smash hit 'talk sex with sue johanson.' and it's awesome.


(miscellanea: meredith is coming home this weekend for the heritage hill tour, rockford boutiques, indian food, and general jolliness; we are podcasting next week in english 11 - the web may or may not be ready for this jelly; next weekEND is emily's chicago bachelorette weekend extravaganza; ormond is kind of awful)

and this...

It is with strange malice
That I distort the world.

Ah! that ill humors
Should mask as white girls.
And ah! that Scaramouche
Should have a black barouche.

The sorry verities!
Yet in excess, continual,
There is cure of sorrow.

Permit that if as ghost I come
Among the people burning in me still,
I come as belle design
Of foppish line.

And I, then, toutured for old speech,
A white of wildly woven rings;
I, weeping in a calined heart,
My hands such sharp, imagined things.

-The Weeping Burgher,
WS

I just got back from my first night of grad class, and I kind of need to talk about it. Not the actual content stuff. That was nice, once I got over being terrified for the first half hour while we did introductions and I thought maybe I'd forgotten how to think like a smart person. It's fine though. By the time the three hours ended, my anxieties were assuaged.

So, back to my trauma. First of all, I was late. Not for lack of planning, but kind of for lack of planning. I wanted to get there early to find the room and get a good seat and do other silly, former-over-achiever kinds of things, so I left my house forty minutes before class started. The drive to Allendale is about twenty miles, so I was sure I would get there in plenty of time. Except that my class started at 6, which means I left home at 5:20, and it kind of slipped my mind that this would put me smack dab in the middle of rush hour traffic, trying to traverse the mighty beast that is Downtown Grand Rapids (AND Walker AND Standale, which were actually worse that GR). So I didn't make it there in twenty minutes; it took about fifty. I walked in to class ten minutes late and sweaty and puffing from power walking from the parking lot (commuting is lame, btw), all the way to the classroom. But. But but but. This is where the story actually starts to get so bad that it's funny.

The thing is, this is a seminar class - very small, you know? Caps at 15, but there are apparently only 13 of us actually taking it this semester. And guess who the shit ass damn hell is sitting right up there in the front row of the class? (this is only going to be interesting to the U of M people, and maybe even not all of them...). It's Lauren Hoffman. In my class. My tiny tiny class of people who are going to get really close and friendly and discussiony for the next sixteen weeks or so. I don't think I need to (or want to, at least) say any more. In different circumstances I would punch her out pretty quick, but we're going to be keeping it business while we're in class. And today she seemed nice enough. Besides, that's all ancient history anyway. Like, we're talking Mesozoic. It's just like fate needed a good laugh or something. Glad I could help out with that one. Guh.

Couple things. First of all, the serial blinker has struck again. I just got back from GVSU orientation where, after suppressing countless yawns while they talked about libraries and buses and tech support, I waited in line to have my picture taken for my student ID card. After the presentations, half the crowd stampeded over to building C and got in line. I was something like thirty-second out of about one hundred. Or something. The specifics aren't important, what matters is that there were a whole lot of people behind me, bored and tired and growing more impatient all the time, and I couldn't take a decent picture. The flash seemed to be perfectly in sync with my blink reflex, which, sadly, I can only consistently suppress by holding my eyes WIDE open like I'm really surprised. I was almost doing that by attempt number five, and the girl was telling me about how flexible their hours were, suggesting that I come back later when someone has adequate time to devote to capturing my open-eyed self. Thankfully, attempt five worked, and I was out of there.

While I stood in line, I had time to admire my surroundings. Maybe U of M has spoiled me. A few people have said things to me asserting that this is decidedly so (something about class called Arrogance 101 required freshmen year...absolute tosh, if you ask me). Anyway, I was always under the impressions that universities were supposed to be places of proud, solemn tradition, places of gravitas, not places with striped awnings, fake palm trees, and indoor faux cabanas. Perhaps I just need to diversify my definitions and expectations a bit. We shall see.

For the past two days we've had tech training workshops at school. This year, my students will create digital narratives and podcasts, among other things. To be able to teach a room full of sixteen-year-olds to do this, us teachers had to learn first, so yesterday I facilitated a discussion that became a podcast, and today I made this little gem (see if you can recognize the parts I lifted from a former blog entry). It's rough and simple, but it was my first try, so judge it gently if you feel the need to judge at all.

And there were even more stories to tell, but a certain Mr. Blair recently got to them first, thus draining all of my narrative momentum. They will wait for later.

Because What You Really Needed Was A Medical Update

Top 10 Things That Seem To Strain The Stitches In A Rather Alarming, Something-In-There-Is-Going-To-Burst Kind Of Way:

10. Chewing
9. Swallowing
8. Smiling
7. Laughing
6. Talking to others on the phone
5. Talking to others in person
4. Flipping my head over really fast to wrap my wet hair in a towel
3. Opening jars with sticky lids
2. Moving heavy furniture around my classroom
1. Sneezing

Clearly in the past three days I haven't had any fun at all.

But that's not really true. I mean, it's "fun" knowing that I'll never have to have my wisdom teeth out again; it was "fun" waking up in the middle of surgery to feel the doctor yanking away at that bottom left one (not that there was pain exactly, but the memory of that weird pressure is enough to start the chills a-rollin'); it's "fun" being able to feel again that rather large patch of skin up by my left temple that was mysteriously numb for the first 18 hours after I woke up; it's "fun" carrying around the aroma of frozen peas in my skin after holding the bag up to my face for hours and hours; and it will really be fun being able to brush my teeth like a normal person (all the way to the back and with vigor!).

The smiling is really the only bad part. I don't mind the ice cream and guilt-free hours on the couch catching up on my New Yorkers and Bravo programming. But the way I keep making myself bleed when I smile is pretty annoying. I guess didn't realize I did that so often and so unconsciously until my face forced me to stop entirely. I went out yesterday and tried going to the bank and the grocery store without smiling when I thanked the clerk, and then of course the thought of how silly I must look struck me as hilarious so I grinned all the way back to the car anyway. My gums must hate me.

There's a good chance I'll be getting scurvy any day now. When I travel, it's hard to work in those fruits and veggies as often as I should. If only hot dogs had vitamin C. And first thing tomorrow morning, while my legs are still throbbing from traipsing around Grant Park for the last three days at Lollapalooza where I scratched my glasses in that irreparable, you-need-new-lenses-because-of-course-you-have-time-for-this-right-now kind of way(and before that I was up north for the Great Family Reunion and at Portage Point with my good friends the Mossings, hence the updatelessness around here and previous hot dog reference), I'll be going under the knife to have all four of my impacted wisdom teeth cut out of my helpless, innocent gums. Awesome. After that I'll have to hurry up and get my grad school stuff all straightened out since I managed to sneak into fall classes at GVSU, and Emily's bridal shower is this weekend, which in itself is exciting, but is made even more fantastic by the prospect of seeing some of my favorite people and trying on bride's maids dresses with them. My life is pretty much a run-on sentence lately, so I'm not going to apologize for all of those guys up there. And know who else uses run-ons? My hero Dave Eggers. Not that that makes it okay. I'm just saying.

Oh, Honestly

So, there's this and this.

Now, I'm not necessarily proud that these things amuse me, I'm just putting them out there in the interest of creating an honest representation of my online persona. It's important to recognize our own weaknesses, and I apparently have a thing for puppet humor and children's books. So what? Anyway, I know I'm getting a little heavy into the Potter stuff with these last two postings. I'll be done after today, I promise. This was mostly just for Julie and Kat anyway, since I know they share my enthusiasm. If these movies and books were coming out during the school year, I certainly would have less time for finding and posting such silliness.

Also, I am most definitely (or at least seriously considering) having the students make and use puppets next year when we read Macbeth, and maybe Lord of the Flies too. So much potential for hands-on (or...hands-in?) learning.

They started jackhammering outside my window at 9:30 this morning. It could have been worse (and by worse I mean earlier) I know, but I was still displeased. This is the week I'm indulging my usually-latent Harry Potter appreciation (because obsession lumps me in with all those other people) and staying up late reading books five and six. I didn't exactly mean to dive back into the books again, but after seeing the fifth movie, I had to go back and see if it was really true that there was no quidditch at all that year. Of course there was. There were actually lots of things that happen in the book that the director chose to omit from the movie, so I'm pretty disappointed with it, and also glad to read the book again, in a sped-up, skimming, refresher sort of way. But anyway, my point is that I was up with Potter until wayyy late, and then the jackhammers wouldn't let me sleep as late as I'd planned. Boo!

In happier news, besides Harry Potter (which kind of counts as fake reading, I feel like) I'm replacing my J.D. Salinger crush with a Dave Eggers infatuation (how many degrees between a crush and an infatuation? "Some but not too many" is what I was going for) and now I'm reading How We Are Hungry, after finish AHWOSG and YSKOV. People have been recommending Eggers to me for ages, so I'm glad I'm finally listening and agreeing. Only, the thing is, I keep buying new books, even as the piles grow perilously around my feet, slowly engulfing inch after inch of precious floor-space in my living and bed rooms. Then again, there's still room in the kitchen. I feel like this might be my Thing in life - that demon I struggle with until it eventually overcomes me on my deathbed and my dying wish is that I'd ever actually been able to finish all the books in my pile, even Don Quixote. Then again, I kind of hope my To Be Read pile never does run out, because the day there are no more books I want to read is the day I'm cashing in my chips and checking out anyway. So Dave Eggers. Those of you who have read and loved Giraffes? Giraffes! should read him if you haven't already. After all, he is half of Dr. and Mr. Haggis-On-Whey, so how could you not expect great things?

Other news. Since summer, I've slowly been making my way toward a regular shower-every-other-day schedule, and it's pretty amazing. Do other people do this? I think they probably do, and no one ever told me how much more free time I'd have if I just started washing myself half as often. So far no one seems to have noticed, or at least I've gotten no complaint-type comments about my appearance/odor lately. And this weekend I met a scad of new people, so I hope I was presentable. Usually being introduced to groups of other peoples' friends kind of puts me off, since it creates that whole "you're an outsider because we all know each other and you don't" vibe, but this weekend the people were actually nice. We even had some jokes, which I always consider a good sigh. Jokes and cake.

And Julie came! Julie came to see me a couple of days ago, and we tried to barbecue on my George Foreman grill. It makes me kind of sad to type that, since the George is about as far away from authentic, outdoor grilling as a girl can get, but we had only certain resources at our disposal, and a real grill was not one of them. Electricity was also only one of them part of the time. (I swear to god, all of this construction is going to drive me insane this summer, with my power and water cutting out at will, the water pressure going all wonky, along with my road being blocked off half the time and loud equipment running most of the time. Also, Hi, I'm Kristin, and I'm a compulsive whiner). At least we didn't bake our chicken in the oven like wussies. We did other things too, mostly involving staying cool since Grand Rapids decided to become a sauna recently. At least my third-floor attic apartment did. Where the hell did my cross-breezes go!? Of course they skip out as soon as company comes.

The last two paragraphs could be extensively elaborated, but that delicious summer lethargy is calling me over to the reading chair, where I last left Harry Potter about to do something exciting that probably wasn't in the movie. So back I go. Let this count as my July update. I'll see you kids in August (or, as I like to call it, The Sunday Night of Months. I also usually make a gagging, "blech" kind of sound when I say it).

I should not be allowed to wear black. Or white. Or yellow. (Because, respectively, it shows lint, it gets stained, and it makes me look sallow). Hm. Presently my black stretchy pants and I are covered in lint balls from my just-stripped bed. It's laundry night. I decided this after a big, roach-looking bug appeared practically on my pillow yesterday evening. I'm sure he didn't come from the bed itself, but if my bedclothes are even remotely beginning to attract that kind of crowd, it is way past time for a little detergent. Plus, after a week at the cottage, I have a pile of things that smell like suntan lotion, burnt skin (despite the lotion!), fire, and must. So off I'll go.

I wanted to write because I never write anymore - emails or letters or blogs or IMs - I just seem to have no desire whatsoever to communicate with people recently, and I don't know why this sudden aversion cropped up. I'm not feeling especially misanthropic. Just the opposite, actually. I think it's just that typing reminds me of work, which I'm rejecting in any and all forms for at least the next month. That, and the impetus for writing most of my posts usually came from, aside from the desire to share things with you nice people, the perpetual urge to procrastinate. But who wants to put off reading and playing and going to the farmer's market? Anyway, rest assured that there are things going on in my life - like Toronto happened, and then the cottage, and weddings and concerts and weekends full of things from now until the middle of August are all happening, and maybe someday, if I can think of an interesting way of putting things, I'll write about them.

Today's most pertinent news: I just got a chia pet and named her Penelope. I wanted to call it Agamemnon, but, judging by the udders, it's clearly not a he. Also, thanks to a stick of Big Red I chewed yesterday, my taste buds are burnt beyond practical use. My nectarine tasted like fuzzy wood this morning, and the granola wasn't much better. What kind of chemicals are they suddenly using in gum that my mouth can't handle?! (Also, when my "news" consists of headlines like these, aren't you a little glad I'm keeping most of it to myself?)

Today I really did wish I could teleport. I was late and consequently irritated and impatient as I raced east down I-96 to meet Meredith for late birthday presents and coffee and sushi and things. I didn't get pulled over though, and there wasn't even any delay at the bridge construction where everyone has to get off the highway at exit 84 and then get right back on. No, I didn't get pulled over until after dinner, a few blocks from the restaurant, looking for the on-ramp to take us to Ann Arbor. But a lot of that sentence is superfluous. Apparently I was going 39 in a 25. But who ever actually goes 25 in a 25? Have you ever tried it? I did, today, after the ticket as the cop pulled right in close to follow me for five agonizing blocks after he was done citing me. But we're jumping ahead again. The thing that makes me a little mad is that I think I could have negotiated my way out of this ticket. I mean, I was in a strange town, just leaving the parking lot and still finding my bearings; plus I was driving into the sun so it was extremely hard to find and read the posted speed signs. All of this, coupled with the fact that I've got an impeccable driving record and haven't been pulled over since I was 16 (again for going 40 in a 25...that time it was on Greenbriar and I almost passed out, such was my mortification - even though I only got a warning) and never gotten a ticket before, makes me feel entitled to another warning and a polite send-off. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to articulate any of this information to the police officer, being that when people use stern voices with me, I tend to lose all my logical faculties and revert to submissive worm mode. So he wrote me up ("Only for five over instead of the 14 you were going" he says in the most patronzing voice I've ever heard) and followed me up the block. On the other hand, I'm not too upset about the whole thing since I know full well how often I do drive obscenely rapidly without getting caught, and just last week I rolled through a stop sign for certainly-not-the-first time, and just the other night I accidentally ran a red light (which was strange, because I'd come to a full stop, but then ended up gazing at the light on the next block, and when it turned green I accelerated, not noticing until I was right under it that my light was still blazing bright red...), so with all of these transgressions going unnoticed and unpunished, I guess I can take a hit this time and own up to my five-over speeding ticket. And, possibly the worst part, the whole drive to Ann Arbor (after dinner we were on our way to see Once, which is apparently only playing in one movie theater in the state - one more reason why AA is my second favorite place on earth and I miss it like whoa sometimes) I was afraid to go over 78, which was a D-R-A-G.

Grumpy Gus Part II: Wherein Gus Gets Off His Duff and Does Something About It

Also, very very soon I'm going up to the lake and possibly (probably) never coming back.

In the sea, Biscayne, there prinks
The young emerald, evening star,
Good light for drunkards, poets, widows,
And ladies soon to be married.

By this light the salty fishes
Arch in the sea like tree-branches,
Going in many directions
Up and down.

This light conducts
The thoughts of drunkards, the feelings
Of widows and trembling ladies,
The movements of fishes.

How pleasant an existence it is
That this emerald charms philosophers,
Until they become thoughtlessly willing
To bathe their hearts in later moonlight,

Knowing that they can bring back thought
In the night that is still to be silent,
Reflecting this thing and that,
Before they sleep!

It is better that, as scholars,
They should think hard in the dark cuffs
Of voluminous cloaks,
And shave their heads and bodies.

It might well be that their mistress
Is no gaunt fugitive phantom.
She might, after all, be a wanton,
Abundantly beautiful, eager,

Fecund,
From whose being by starlight, on sea-coast,
The innermost good of their seeking
Might come in the simplest of speech.

It is a good light, then, for those
That know the ultimate Plato,
Tranquillizing with this jewel
The torments of confusion.

-Wallace Stevens, Homunculus et la Belle Étoile

Grumpy Gus Part I: Wherein Gus Indulges in a Cathartic Whine

I am mad at tonight because it's Thursday. Everyone has to go to work tomorrow. All day I thought it was Friday, and only this evening when they Y didn't close at 9 like it was supposed to did I realize my mistake. I'd better marry a teacher when I grow up, or have lots of teacher friends, so I'm not lonely all summer long. Lonely is such a dramatic and depressing word, I almost just went back and deleted it. I don't mean that my situation is at all desperate or pitiful, just emptier of people to do things with at midnight on a weeknight than I'd like (in the best of all possible worlds...). And maybe the fact that it's the solstice tonight, and every night after this will be darker and shorter, is also contributing to this unshakable restlessness that seems to be gripping me lately.

Am I even allowed to bitch about having multiple weeks off in the middle of the summer? I think not. Somebody get this girl a hammock and some perspective (to chill out both my physical and mental faculties, you see).

And, because no one is grumpier than Gertrude Stein:

A charm a single charm is doubtful. If the red is rose and there is a gate surrounding it, if inside is let in and there places change then certainly something is upright. It is earnest.
- Nothing Elegant

Rhubarb is susan not susan not seat in bunch toys not wild and laughable not in little places not in neglect and vegetable not in fold coal age not please.
- Rhubarb

Alas a dirty word, alas a dirty third alas a dirty third, alas a dirty bird.
- Chicken

By June our brook's run out of song and speed

Judy is gone for the weekend, and the people on the first floor have moved out; I am home alone. Tonight I will dance around the kitchen as I make my yam fries, instead of tiptoe. She actually left me a fantastic voice mail this morning that I listened to on my way home from work. Apparently, Judy and I suffer from the same voice-mail-leaving malady. Her message was at least two minutes long, and, besides telling me she was going for the weekend and asking me to be sure to bring in the mail, she didn't say much of anything. But oh, did she ramble! What I'm trying to say is it kind of made my day. This is the first point Judy's earned herself in a looooong time.

Students keep asking me to sign their yearbooks, and I keep not knowing what to write. Has it really been that long that I can no longer muster a sufficient summary of the year slash how I feel about you paragraph when put on the spot? Most of the problem lies in the fact that I'm the teacher and not the friend, so there are no real inside jokes to revisit or personal moments to ruminate upon. Instead, I've been writing limericks and haiku, along with proffering lots of compliments about hard work and good attitudes. Every time I sign I'm tempted to end with a big fat H.A.G.S. or L.Y.L.A.S. (if you don't know what either of these stand for, you clearly never went to middle school), but usually settle on a smiley face.

Today was the last real day, but it didn't feel like it. I think my soul, or whatever part of me that senses when I'm tired, went numb around March. I am ready for a mojito. And more J.D. Salinger. I just finished Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, and I enormously prefer stories that revolve around the Glass family to that Holden Caulfield emo ranting (actually, I don't remember much of Catcher in the Rye, so maybe I'd better hold off on the name-calling). I know one is supposed to become emotionally involved with the characters of the book she is reading, but I'm afraid I'm developing an alarmingly large crush on Seymour Glass, which can't be healthy. And now, just as I'm about to make a terribly cliché observation about the differences between fiction and real life, I see that I'm late for ice cream time. Again.

Summer &c.

It has been hot in my room these past two nights. Hot to the point of unsleepable. And just today I realized this is because I had forgotten to switch the little knob on the side of the ceiling fan that controls the direction it rotates, so all this time it's been pushing warm air down on me instead of, well, drawing the cool air up? or doing whatever it does to generate cool breezes instead of warm ones, which is fine when my room is an ice box in the winter, but not as nice when it's ninety and humid. So I fixed it.

And because of one very clever mosquito hiding under my desk yesterday while I was working (or slacking) away, I'm now peppered with my first bug bites of summer. This initial round always seems to itch more than the rest, like my skin hasn't built up its immunity yet. Good to get it over with though, I suppose, just as long as this extreme fatigue I've been feeling lately is due to heat and lack of sleep, and not Malaria.

Also, I just googled images of "roman nose" because I've heard that phrase used often enough in my life, but never been quite sure what one actually looked like. One page that came up seemed to have nothing to do with facial features, but did yield this fantastic quote that I would rather share on facebook but don't quite think my students should be reading things like this coming from me. So here it shall go instead: Satan himself can't save a woman who wears thirty-shilling corsets under a thirty-guinea costume

PS - Apparently I lied about that Gulliver's Travels first edition that I thought I bought at the yard sale last weekend. It did only have one copyright date, which I thought meant it was the original printing, but, after checking my roman numerals, I learned that the copy I own is merely from the 1920s. Consider my boast retracted.

I'm just-- I'm just--

...terrible at this game. I sit and scroll through all of your blogs, hypocritical and disappointed when nobody has updated. Everything and nothing has been happening lately, thus the paucity of posting on my end (excuses, excuses, she sighs and shakes her head).

I suppose I could start with the garage sale. Danny and I went garage saleing last Saturday when Heritage Hill had a neighborhood-wide event, and I went bonkers at the special used book table. I got a hard cover copy of The Island of the Day Before, a first edition (seriously) Gulliver's Travels, and a collection of Fitzgerald for a dollar each, plus a BASS from 1997, Camus' The Stranger, and another Dave Eggers book. I'm reading You Shall Know Our Velocity right now, and loving it like I haven't loved a book in a very long time, perhaps since college. I always hesitate to spend time reading contemporary books, because there's so much crap out there mixed in with the good stuff, but this one is substantive and subtle and complicated. Glorious! There were more, too, whose titles escape me at the moment. So my summer reading pile is now burgeoning to the point that I've run out of book shelves and have started making piles on the floor. I didn't take any cash with me on purpose, planning on a look-but-don't-buy kind of a day. But I had some spare change in my wallet, and I kept running into these fabulous items on sale for a quarter, so I also acquired a t-shirt making kit, a silver ring (is it weird wearing used jewelery? earrings maybe, since they go through holes...), and some shish-kabob skewers. (Danny loaned me the money for the books, and I paid her back with a drink at the roller derby, which happened that night. I cannot go into detail about the roller derby here, but I just want to mention that our evening involved a flask full of peppermint schnapps, which I'm ashamed of for a few reasons...) In sum, it was a supreme day.

And then my seniors graduated last night. I went and sat in the same church where I graduated high school, only now I was on the other side of the aisle and wearing fancier robes. I couldn't not reflect as I was sitting there while the cascade of warm wishes and advice from speaker after speaker rolled over me. Six years, and look at me try my hardest not to sound trite and cliche, but I didn't realize until many hours later that the strange feeling I had at the ceremony was not nostalgia or regret; I was proud - and not for my students, like you might think. No, this was a much more selfish, egocentric kind of thing. I was proud that only six years out of high school and two years out of college, I have a decent job and a place to live and a tiny little savings. Now, I know the point of life is not to race past all of the risk-taking and mistake-making and get settled down right away, but I've always been a security-seeking kind of person, so this is okay for me. In fact, I've been trying to convince myself that this is okay for the past twelve months. This whole year, as I've been struggling and striving and falling short of my own and others' expectations of me on a pretty regular basis, I have wondered if I didn't make a huge mistake in taking the steady job and committing myself to one path for years and years and years. How many people and things and ideas am I missing out on by planting myself here in Grand Rapids, and how short am I selling myself? But sitting there among the other staff members, looking at all of these kids going off to start their wanderings about, I suppose I finally let some of that go and gave myself permission to acknowledged that I am beginning to be a real, professional, adult-type person and all of those things the speakers were talking about - the bright future and the opportunities and all that - came true in a way, and landed me there in that chair. Anyway, our principal didn't hug every student like Mrs. Graber did, that's one of the other things I remember thinking last night. Besides that it was sort of a haze of processing in (do you people who went to high school with me remember the tunnel the teachers make for the students to walk through before going into the hall? I got do that! If I were the type to cry about every little thing, I would have cried about it) and sitting and standing and clapping and hugging.

So now my schedule at school is essentially reduced to part time, since two of my five classes were all seniors. It's amazing how much one can get done in the middle of the day when one is not wrangling eighteen-year-olds. And there are seven more days of class left and then three days of exams, and lots of friends and bbqs and patios and pontoons to fill in the gaps between school and sleep. Then I will be free and perhaps begin blogging again with a more respectable frequency.

Some pretty words this time to balance out the ugly ones. I think the idea of this is just lovely.

I've got to tell you
how I love you always
I think of it on grey
mornings with death

in my mouth the tea
is never hot enough
then and the cigarette
dry the maroon robe

chills me I need you
and look out the window
at the noiseless snow

At night on the dock
the buses glow like
clouds and I am lonely
thinking of flutes

I miss you always
when I go to the beach
the sand is wet with
tears that seem mine

although I never weep
and hold you in my
heart with a very real
humor you'd be proud of

the parking lot is
crowded and I stand
rattling my keys the car
is empty as a bicycle

what are you doing now
where did you eat your
lunch and were there
lots of anchovies it

is difficult to think
of you without me in
the sentence you depress
me when you are alone

Last night the stars
were numerous and today
snow is their calling
card I'll not be cordial

there is nothing that
distracts me music is
only a crossword puzzle
do you know how it is

when you are the only
passenger if there is a
place further from me
I beg you do not go

Morning
-Frank O'Hara

Warning: Rated R for graphic imagery involving puss

Transcribed from my other journal and maybe headed back there soon because I'm still not sure if this is way more than you would ever want to know:

I'm afraid I must be terribly vain.

Recently I got (and am still getting over) my first cold sore. We're talking boils and ooze and scabs and puss and blood, all perched right upon the corner of my lip for all to see. Seven to ten fucking days is how long it takes to heal, according to WebMD. Seven. To. Ten. Unacceptable!

But what can I do? Even rolling around on the floor can't assuage this one. So I turn to the next best thing: talking it to death; talking it to abstraction; talking it to oblivion. I feel compelled to talk about it all the time, so whomever I am with knows that I know how ugly it is (I am) and that I am something like sorry about it. I constantly bring it up because I assume whomever I am with is probably thinking about it anyway. I mean, how could they not, as it sits there, oozing away, in the middle of my face. I want them to know that it's there because I have no choice, but they should rest assured that I am as disgusted by it as they are, if not more so, since, after all, it's all that blood and puss and scabs IN MY MOUTH!

And, when I can spare a moment away from my self-pitiful wallowing, I really start to feel bad for my students, who have to look at me all day. And I'm surprised that they still treat me exactly the same. No one stares or makes funny faces. And this gets back to why I think I'm vain - because I seem to assume that how other people treat me depends on how I look. Like my appearance is the primary factor warranting their respect, and I expect them to behave badly when I look weird.

But they were fine, still approaching me to ask questions and listening attentively to the answers. So, did I just assume they'd judge me based on looks because maybe subconsciously that's how I judge others? Did I expect them to stare and make faces because that's what I'd do, or what I'd want to do at least? And I really such a small, petty, and superficial person? I'm afraid so.

Then again, my manners or pity or something would probably kick in if I were faced with a situation where someone or something was funny looking. I wouldn't actually stare and make faces, even if I wanted to. So maybe all my students are just doing that. And does that make me feel better about myself or worse? Better that I'm not really so much meaner than they seem to be, or worse because behind their impassive faces they're really thinking all of those things I was imagining? Depends on whether I'm the object or the observer, I suppose - the human or the freak. But aren't we all really just freaks, in some way or another (cue emo music), masquerading as normal people and hoping no one will notice the flimsiness of our disguises? Or is that just what a freak would think, to try to make her oozy-lipped self feel normal?

Hard to Reach Places

The thing I hate about back rubs is how there's always this tacit sexual implication. I mean, guys just give better back rubs (minus a few exceptions); their hands are stronger so those knots and sore spots are more easily kneaded out, right? So lets say I want a back rub from you, and you're a boy. I don't have a crush on you, I don't want you to kiss me, I just want you use your man hands to get this kink out of my left shoulder blade. There is virtually no way I can ask you to rub my back without gears beginning to turn in your head, I'm pretty sure. If I want to get a completely sex-free back rub from a guy, I need to pay a professional masseuse to do it. It's like the inverse of prostitution. "Here, sir, allow me to pay you not to try to have sex with me. Thank you very much...


...and a little to the left."

Of course today would be the day that I forget my scarf, for the first time since probably October. I was so tired this morning that I walked out the door juggling keys and gloves and school bag and by the time I realized my neck was bare I was down three flights of stairs and out the door. So I went without it - the morning was mild anyway; I figured I'd be fine. Then around nine o'clock it started to snow and snow and snow until the blowing and squalling were so bad that school was dismissed early. And there I was, with snowflakes blowing down my collar getting snow in my shoes (the ballet flats of course...who needs boots on a lovely mid-April day?) scraping three inches of wet slush off my car at 4:30 this afternoon (school may have been let out early, but I'd stuck around, possibly subconsciously hoping that if I waited long enough it would all melt away. Plus some students stopped by to chat, an I really love it when they want to spend time in my room outside of when it's required...kind of my warm fuzzy on a cold, blustery day...and then the teacher with whom I'm teaching a really cool joint unit where my kids write scripts and her kids make them into movies came over to finish some planning, so if I were one to make a long story short, I'd say I was unavoidably detained, but we all know that's not how I do). Anyway, I'd better not get sick.

And spring break has happened, but after all the photo captions on facebook I don't really feel like writing any more about it. Most of the bases were covered anyway, but a few things escaped the camera, so I'm going to mention them, in list form, mostly just so I myself don't forget about them some day when I'm old and absent-minded. One: The used book store in Georgetown with creaky stairs and lots of old encyclopedias where I bought a collection of six Italian novellas (one is Calvino...score!) and a Best American Essays from 1997. Two (these are in random order, by the way): Kramerbooks, which seemed to stocked all the interesting and obscure books I've ever wanted to read (I bought a JD Salinger and added about eight others to my Amazon wish list). Two-and-a-Half: Gus our third-generation Swedish waiter at Kramerbooks (because it's also a fantastic restaurant) who was already mentioned in the photos but never actually captured on film. Gus didn't mind that we sat at his table forever chatting, but he did imply that we were big fat losers when he took away our plates and told us, "Quitters never win." He also brought us delicious mimosas, fine waffles and pancakes (though the waffles were comparable to something I could make any day of the week in the South Quad cafeteria) and kept our OJ glasses full. Three: Is there a three? Perhaps mixing amaretto sours with an ice cream scoop to measure out ounces instead of a shot class is noteworthy. And the diner we tried on our very first night in the city was definitely a highlight, though the waiter kind of pushed us out at the end - it was worth being rushed for a really great sandwich, I think. And something must be said about the way Kat sang, danced, and generally recreated many great scenes from Avenue Q on our way home from the Ethiopian food after the symphony.

I guess I'll add on to the list as other minutia resurface in the ol' memory. And I really ought to leave some stories for Julie to tell too, so we'll just stop here for now, as I am off to bed to sleep a solid eight hours in order to fend of any possible chance of catching the consumption after my cold-neck-wet-feet fiasco this afternoon. Achoo!

Like Water Through My Hands

Sometimes I worry that I spend too much money. But tonight I came home from East Lansing with three free bags of clothes (and one not-free bag of H&M spring dresses and their necessary accouterments) and dried eel sauce in my hair, so I figure I must be doing something right. And I can't feel bad about buying things for birthdays and bridal showers and such...or about flying to DC and classin' it up with Julie and Kat at the symphony and other, fun, first-and-only-real-vacation-of-the-year activities. I just need to remember to keep things in perspective, and also not to get in the habit of letting whole paychecks zoom from my bank account out into the abyss.

(This paragraph's content is entierely independent of the former, and subtitled "I Like Hyphens")
It never really feels like vacation until you wake up without an alarm on that third day - the decidedly non-weekend morning when you're still in bed nine hours after you fell asleep, and you're preparing to roll over into your perfectly-sculpted pillows and perfectly-warmed comforter for another hour of crazy morning-light dreams (what does putting dead birds in the garbage disposal mean?). Tomorrow morning will be my third-day wake up. I can't wait.

She's Such A Card

I got home today to find an envelop waiting for me on the landing up to my third floor. It was from Judy. She got me a gift certificate as a reward for always being so good about paying my rent on time. The gift certificate is for Martha's Vineyard, which sells, among other things, tons and tons of wine and other fine liquors. So, there are two things about this situation that I love (in the wry, ironic way of course). First of all, I love how she obviously recognizes that I'm a good and responsible tenant, yet she will not trust me to make a single temporary change to her house and insists on terrorizing every one of my decorating endeavours, a choice which will ultimately drive me and my timely-rent-paying habits to seek other living arrangements. Second, it's great how the thing that got us off on the wrong foot in the first place last summer was me and some friends coming home a little too noisily due to our alcohol consumption earlier in the evening (no one was drunk...we were just saying "shh!" too loudly as we tiptoed up the stairs as gracefully as we could in the dark), yet now she's giving me free money to spend at the liquor store. HA!

When faces called flowers float out of the ground

I might have seen a corpse today. Laying at the bus stop at the corner of Cherry and College there was a very pale and decidedly unconscious man completely prostrate and contorted in a not-just-sleeping sort of way. The body was gone when we drove by three hours later, so either someone called the police and they came and got the body or his bus came.

In other news, I wore flip-flops for the first time today, and as joyous as that made me, there are now three separate blisters on my poor, sensitive, winter-sock-softened feet, which are presently covered by two sesame street band-aids that Danny happened to have in her glove box.

And because we save the best and most important things for the grand finale: Happy Birthday to Zach, Viking Surfer King of California.

Things of Note:
1. The roller derby would have been more fun if we'd brought a flask
2. St. Patrick's Day probably couldn't have been more fun
3. I'm bad at remembering not to eat meat on Fridays (not that bad, but kind of bad)
4. The seasons changed and, like clockwork, I got a cold when my body freaked out about it
5. Planning for a substitute takes more work than just going into school and sneezing all over the children
6. I may or may not have inadvertently taught one of my students the joke about the cunning linguist
7. And still speaking of school, apparently I am the only staff member young enough (or hip enough to the youth scene? but when have I ever been hip to anything?) to know what "the shocker" is, and thus the only one to be duly appalled when the house band at the student variety show chose to call themselves The Shockers. Of course, when I asked them about it (half of the band is in one of my classes) they thought it was hilarious and told me I was the coolest.
8. I still want a roomba (Just to dispell that whole "cool" rumor, you know?)
9. Spring Break comes in four days
10. Apparently, Sunday mornings make me feel obliged to post, even when there's nothing of great significance or intrigue to report

The girl with dark hair was coming towards him across the field. With what seemed a single movement she tore off her clothes and flung them disdainfully aside. Her body was white and smooth, but it aroused no desire in him; indeed, he barely looked at it. What overwhelmed him in that instant was admiration for the gesture with which she had thrown her clothes aside. With its grace and carelessness it seemed to annihilate a whole culture, a whole system of thought, as though Big Brother and The Party and the Thought Police could all be swept into nothingness by a single splendid movement of the arm. That too was a gesture belonging to the ancient time. Winston woke up with the word "Shakespeare" on his lips.

It's only page 36 and I'm already ready to stab myself in the eye with my pen. Apparently George Orwell took a lesson on how to treat subtly from Ayn Rand. Only rarely do I sympathize with my students' lack of enthusiasm for the books we read in class, but for this one, I get it.

In other news, Happy Ides of March. Watch your back.

Question of the moment: Are these disturbing and creepy, or just curious and off-beat? In the past two months I've lost two of my favorite earrings, so I'm in the market for new jewelery, but I'm not sure this wouldn't terrify the children to the point of distraction.

And that would be counterproductive.

So, I think my guardian angel only intervenes in my life in matters concerning parking spaces, which is all right by me I guess. I mean, who likes pushing a cart to the far end of a snowy, icy parking lot in the sleet or hiking through the tundra in front of the Y in lightweight sport gear? NOT ME. But that doesn't happen very often thanks to Clarence or whoever he is. Also, that first line is ironic because I've been grading Creative Writing papers for the past few days, and crossing out the word "so" almost every time my students try to use it to start a sentence. The upside to teaching a senior writing course is when it's creative writing and the kids are pretty much all funny and/or smart, so reading 200 pages feels less like work and more like not-work (my favorite!).

Tonight was the last night of conferences at school. I was looking at the old site and I noticed that my penultimate post was about conferences in the fall, and it was only five months ago, but it feels like years. That was a pretty cliche observation. I would delete this paragraph except that I don't know the next time I'll get to use the word penultimate, so this instance must be preserved.

And speaking of words, while doing Frankenstein vocab the other day, the word 'perambulate' came up in one of our sample sentences, and I took an egregious tangent to tell my class about my special crush on that word, or, rather, on the word perambulator. I think they were almost entertained. It's so hard to tell sometimes.

Is this going to be good? (Jeezy Creezy, I think so.)

Because I Love Them

Tomorrow's To Do List:
Y for at least 600 calories (try the weird arm peddling machine?)
Lunch and Antique Fair with Danny (visit with smiley Cherry Deli boys)
Grade papers at that one book store/café (deliberately camp out at prime table during peak hours)
Find Emily's good sushi place (next to Dominos on the far end of 28th street)
Clean (dust bunnies are preparing to mount a hostile take-over)
More School Things (revise short story quiz, write Frankenstein quotes pretest, screen movies for Apply 11 and create study guides, &c)

Sunday's To Do List:
Waffles
Crossword puzzle
New Yorker

More Lists

Take On Me

I shouldn't be allowed to browse the itunes music store after midnight. Sleepiness dulls my bad-choice sensors, 80's Gold gets the better of me, and I end up buying songs by Rick Springfield, a-ha, and Belinda Carlisle. (Plus eating too many pickles. But that's a mistake that we only make once). I guess it's been too long since I last listened to Jesse's Girl, because I'd completely forgotten the line that goes "I should tell her that I love her but the point is probably moot." I mean, when was the last time the word MOOT was used appropriately and completely in earnest in a rock and roll song? Personally, I think it's lame and uncool NOT to listen to that song on a semi-regular basis (in the car, while you sing along badly and dance in your seat like we all do, right?).

In other news, tonight I made zucchini muffins, but then I couldn't eat any because by the time they were done it was after 8 and it's Lent (which means no snacks allowed during my previous prime-time snacking window of 8 o'clock until bedtime). So tomorrow for breakfast I'm going to have three.

There will be some more-exciting-less-food-related news to report soon, I hope. Saturday night Danny, Nate, and I are going to the roller derby, so, I might have some thoughts and opinions demanding to be shared after that.

With a Name Like Volcano Roll...

Uh-oh.

Something in the kitchen smells funny. The bad kind of funny.

Today was a productive day because I bought three-dollar pottery AND a ball of yarn bigger than my head. Plus a neat screen print that wasn't quite as outrageously priced, but it's cute, and we all know how much I'm willing to pay for things that are cute: almost full price. What I'm trying to say is that Danny and I drove down to Kalamazoo today for the Art Fair Garage Sale that I think should be put on much more often because I like it when I can buy things without feeling like I'm getting ripped off (speaking of which, I haven't been to J.Crew in too long...shopping trip to try on $500 jackets anyone?). Kalamazoo is the craziest city I've ever been to. Every time I go, and no matter who I'm with, we end up getting lost. It's like there's no grid-layout for any of the streets; all of them veer and bend and jog and do other things that sound like they belong in an intermediate step-aerobics class. During our exceptionally long drive, we had time to talk about important things like relationships, the existence of God, in vetro fertilization, and the pros and cons of gas station coffee (I, of course, was pro...for all). Plus we rummaged through her glove box and found a cassette tape of Bill Cosby doing stand-up from 1982.

We made it home safe, purchases and morals in tow (for the most part), and I had time to skip the gym, shower up, and sally forth to East Lansing so Meredith and I could finally have the date we'd scheduled weeks ago. Lots of time spent on our good ol' Michigan highway system today. Good thing that snow storm decided to hold off until tomorrow. The evening really was perfect, mostly because of the awesome sushi (I eat with chop sticks so infrequently that I have to re-teach myself to use them every time. Today it only took me seven minutes!), sake, green tea ice cream, and the waiter who I'm pretty sure thought we were on a real date (as in, he brought the ice cream in a big dish with two spoons...which doesn't really mean anything, I guess, except maybe they were running short on bowls tonight). And I wasn't even wearing my rainbow pin! Before awesomesushi we saw the Reno 911 movie. It was better than I expected it to be, which is always nice. And Meredith is just pretty great in general, so it's not like having a bad time was ever even a possibility. She gave me the new Shins cd just to prove how cool she is, and Aaron called from Bear City to remind me that St. Patrick's day is indeed coming, and there will once again be an epic gathering over in the East, which I may (just may) be attending.

Tomorrow is the last day of break, which is never a fun place to be. There will be some reading (three chapters of Marquez left to go), some dish washing (see earlier observation about funny-smelling kitchen) and lots of groaning and rolling around on the floor, which is how I like to cope with unpleasant things about which I can effectively do nothing. I find the change of perspective refreshing.

The merest mask of gloom

I was going to say something, but, being that I am in kind of a mood tonight, I think it's better that I go find some worn Robert Frost verses (Here are your waters and your watering place. Drink and be whole again beyond confusion.) and soak up some of his legitimate and authentic despondency rather than rant about my own trivial issues. I actually think it's the pie. I ate too much tonight and now my blood sugar is off and it's making me crazy. As soon as I post this, the remains of both pies are going in the trash. As guilty as that will make me feel, it will be better to get rid of them and have it over with, rather than give in to temptation over and over again for the next week as I pick away at them knowing that I shouldn't be. Stupid pastry-induced self-loathing.

And speaking of crazy, I considered buying a Roomba today, for two reasons: First of all, because I really do heart robots, and second but most importantly, I opposite-of-heart vacuuming, and Daisy is a mess making machine. Today I also discovered that they still make chunky applesauce. Who in their right mind would ever buy chunky applesauce, let alone want to eat it?

Teach us to care and not to care

Because I do not hope to turn again
Becase I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope...

I am making two paper chains. One is until Julie and I go visit Kat in Washington D.C., and the other is until Lent is over. Both will end right around the same time in the beginning of April. Does March always feel excessively long to anyone else?

I'm also considering decoupaging my new trash can, just to jazz up the kitchen.

It's Midwinter Break week and though it seems like I've been working steadily, I don't feel ahead or prepared to go back to school yet at all. Good thing it's only Wednesday, I guess (and then the other side of my mind says, "It's already Wednesday!? Damn!). I did grade an eighteen-inch-tall stack of papers yesterday, plus I made (and ate half of...but it was Fat Tuesday so no guilt allowed) pie with Nate. There were actually two pies, but who's interested in apple when there's peanut butter cream sitting there on the shelf calling your name and doing that little "you know you want to eat me" dance? Both somehow ended up residing at my house, and they certainly won't keep long enough for me to consume at a reasonable pace, so either I can freeze one, or you can come over for a visit and I'll feed you some pie.

I am mightily behind on phone calls, as in people have been calling me and I haven't been calling them back because I keep telling myself I need to concentrate on work. Yet here I sit, decidedly not working.

Today the goals are to finish grading, oversee the installation of carpet into the classroom, make copies, finish one of the two (actually three) novels we're reading after break so tomorrow I can start planning in earnest, go to mass, perhaps do some laundry, and go to the Y if there's time. Oh yeah, and make paper chains and decoupage and call everybody back. Eep!

Also, in honor of A) today and B) it being one of my favorite poems, go read this.

(Guess whose "add picture" button finally works again!)

They're Just Words Anyway

Do you ever get so tired sitting at your computer that you don't have enough energy to get up and get ready for bed, so instead you just sit there for half an hour, playing text twist and being tired to the point of immobility? Well, I'm there now, so I'm going to take the next half hour or so to write down a thought I've been having (the act of which will be delightfully ironic in a minute).

I was listening to Talk of the Nation or something on the radio on the way home from work earlier this week, and the show was about weblogs. The guest had just done a study on some aspect of blogging, and he was arguing that rather that being a fad, it was going to settle itself comfortably into the fabric of our culture. He said this was because it fit in with the human need to express ourselves - to externalize our thoughts. People have always kept journals and loved to tell stories and share experiences, and here blogging is another channel through which that need can be satisfied.

Okay, great. That concept intrigued me enough to occupy my mind for the rest of the ride home - the externalization of thought. I was thinking of how I needed to share this idea with my creative writing class, and how we could relate it to the poetry and stories we'd been studying, this idea that here were not just words on a page, but the manifestations of the contents of some one individual person's head, the result of that human urge to connect and communicate.

Maybe a day later, I read an article that complicated that whole idea, but complicated it in a way that infinitely pleased me because nothing really worth thinking about should be simple enough that it can be entirely digested in a twenty-minute car ride (unless it's a to-do list or a grocery list - any kind of list, really - which is perfect for those little slivers of mental down time). So anyway, this article. It was about two philosophers studying the relationship between the brain and the mind, that is, they are interested in how the functioning of the brain organ, the tissue and neurons and blood and guts, is involved in the thoughts that register in the consciousness, the images and sensations that define reality for each of us.

It was a great article that delved into the past, present, and future of this brain/mind puzzle, but one paragraph in particular struck a chord. In it, one of the philosophers (Paul, was his name - the other was Pat, they're married and Canadian and it's all quite idyllic and pretty to think so and all that) emphatically rejected the idea that language and thought are one - that the language we use reflects thought's innate structure. I think this idea jumped out at me because I remember over and over again sensing this same disconnect - between the structures of thought and language - but had never been able to articulate it so well.

Particularly, I remember sitting down to write papers in college, and having an entire concept plotted out in my head - whole webs of interconnected ideas ready to demonstrate my erudite grasp of the material, and always ending up quite disappointed with the way the language inadequately expressed what had been the contents of my head by clumsily forcing the delicate, living, malleable ideas into rigid sentences and paragraphs. It was difficult to prioritize what part of an idea should come first and which should follow, when in their though-form, the two were inextricably woven together, and articulating the dynamic nature of their relationship was the whole point. But to verbalize it, I had to freeze it, in a sense, which killed it, kind of the way they say you have to kill something to dissect it, which is why you shouldn't analyze the poems you really love. Anyway, the thing that frustrated me about writing these papers was that as vivid and precise as language can be, each word is still a discrete point, each sentence must by definition be finite and independent, and sometimes that's just not good enough. Where my thoughts (the worthwhile ones at least) tend to have breadth and depth and generally operate in three-dimensional space, language seems very flat and 2D - like you get forward and backward, but there's no room to expand around that space to fill out the gaps.

So, I wondered, where does Paul's insistence that language does an inadequate job of accurately reflecting our ideas as they exist, whole and perfect, in our consciousness fit in with the apparent necessary externalization of thought that the guy on NPR was promoting? Why are humans apparently addicted to the use of this fundamentally flawed and ultimately impotent machinery? I figure it's probably because this language is the best form of communication we've got at the moment, the best we've ever known. So we make do (due? why do I feel like I've never actually written out that phrase before? Oh yeah, it's late and I'm tired), and expect that other people will humor us, smile and nod even when they don't know what we're really getting at, and hope that at least the general drift will flounders its way across the vast expanse stretching between our consciousness and the next guy's.


Postscript: So, as I reread this before I post it (fishing for those egregious typos and spelling mistakes that only seem to show up in posts written after midnight) I've started thinking about what would happen to literature if language suddenly became obsolete? Without the need to do the whole externalization of thought thing - if we can just do a direct connect instead - would written language die out entirely? No more books or poems produced after, say, the year 2426 when we finally figured it out? How sad. I mean, where would all the English teachers go?)

Post Postscript: I don't usually write long, serious posts like this. And do you know why? It's because I'm usually not confident enough in my ability to articulate the Big Idea I'd want to write about in a way that was at all transparent and communicable to a reader; I recognize and yield to the very phenomenon I just spent this post trying to describe, because I'd rather appreciate the thought as it is - kept whole and perfect in my head - than see it mangled on the page. And maybe that's the way it should stay. Hm?