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.