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."