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

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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.