this is part of me writing a paper

The magical evening light. I'm at the synthesis phase, the trying to pull 500 years of history into a storyline phase, the working-on-order phase. I am eating astonishing quantities of popcorn. I am drinking Diet Coke with Lime. I am stacking and rearranging hundreds of pages of photocopies of out of print books and articles and uneasily eyeing a stack of several dozen books hiding behind the couch.

The world is alive. The sunlight, itself, is shy and alive. The tablecloth hangs just so in the other room, and the blinds sway almost imperceptibly on a tentative breeze.

I think Josh's questions about the stories we inhabit are very, very important. Please go comment on them.

Nice bits of yesterday and today

- When we got our oil changed yesterday, the guy hinted that if we bought anything at the Jewel across the street, we'd get a $7-off coupon for the oil change. So for 88 cents (plus tax) we got a two-liter of Diet Cherry Pepsi and $7 off the oil change.

- Then we drank from the two-liter in the Meijer parking lot--with a straw.

- The crossing guard called me "darlin'" this morning.

- I watched a pathetically shaved, trembling, and froofy poodle pee on a garbage can, but he was so little his marking had to be really brief.

- It's the first day of fall! I baked leaf-shaped cookies! They are hard and must be dipped in coffee!

pencils

This morning I bought a pencil sharpener for twenty cents and now I'm a pencil-sharpening fairy. I go through phases in my love affair with writing implements, and just now all the humble wooden pencils I can find are receiving loving care and pointy-tipped makeovers. I feel compelled, now, to use them.

I also just finished reading The God of Small Things, which is a breathlessly painful book. Last time it was for "fun," and this time it's for class -- I don't know if I could make it through a third. Have you read it? (I was in a coffee shop today, and I noticed how many people share my somewhat rude but very human and endearing [I think] habit of bending at funny angles to see the title of a stranger's book.)

Other bits of day:

a woman walking down a local street with grocery bags in both hands and a twelve-pack of Coca-Cola on her head;

the elderly man who hangs out in front of his building at all hours of the day and calls me "Sleepy" whenever I walk by because once I yawned when I passed him--today it was, "Awake today, Sleepy?" and big, big smile;

a workman (beautifying our building) who blocked the sidewalk when he saw Josh and me approaching, held out his arms, and in Balkan-tinged English demanded five dollars and laughed delightedly when I told him we didn't have five dollars (we've been friends this week, ever since I nodded approvingly at his work);

two pounds of strawberries for just a bit more than a dollar (shortcake this weekend? yes? who would like to come over for some?).

update from this morning

1) it was coffee, but the coffee was so incredibly awful that I poured it out. Then Josh made me tea. Then I drank water, then diet pepsi, then instant green iced tea, and I think I'll have some more tea in a minute. My feet are cold.

2) it's been touch and go for a while with the paper, but we're limping along. I always wax so melodramatic during this painful birthing stage.

3) i'm sitting on the floor because it's different from the other places I feel like I've been sitting endlessly for the past few days (or semester?).

4) i'm going to write a post about being a woman soon. It will have real content, and it will require responses.

morning snippets

1) I woke up a bit ago from dreams of Edith Wharton (which makes sense) and Nintendo--only I was a character wandering around a video game, complete with funky but friendly huge pink monsters and screens that told me how many of them I had to find.

2) The apartment smells like burnt barbeque sauce because I will never learn not to marinate things in highly sugared marinades when I'm going to pan-broil them. Dinner last night was good, but you had to eat around the black crust...

3) I have one page left in the notebook I've been using. That is such a satisfying feeling.

4) I have 25 pages to write today and tomorrow. Better get to it.

5) Can't decide this morning between coffee and tea. It's probably going to be cof--er--we'll see.

true confessions

In preparation for these weeks of finals--and because there was a sale at Target--I bought a family-sized bag of Cheetos last weekend. A family sized bag of those knobby little orange treats contains 22 servings (a serving size is 21 pieces, I'm assuming of varied size). It has been four days since we purchased this bag, and half the Cheetos are gone.

I really can't help it. I go into the kitchen to get a glass of water and remember the crinkly orange bag. So I fill a white bowl with a reasonable amount--I don't count them or anything (Josh makes fun of me for measuring out 3/4 cup of Trader Joe's granola, but granola is calorically dense, and this granola is so good, I really want to make it last)--and put away the bag. The problem is that they're so delicious (it's the flavor and the texture, you know?) that I end up craving another bowlful later in the day. Or later in the fifteen minutes.

Do you have any foods that hold such power over you?

sunshine on the way to an evening class!

This time change thing may not be so lovely in the morning, but it has its evening perks. I'm delighted to be heading out to my evening class with a blue sky and puffy clouds still visible. I'm even wearing a dress!

Yesterday I saw a girl on campus beating a fire out with a newspaper--someone had stuffed a Starbuck's cup full of cigarette butts, and it was burning. I wandered over and dumped my half-liter offering of Nalgene water on it, much to the girl's relief.

Today a complete stranger holding a steaming styrofoam cup of tea turned and told me that the birds were out again: a cardinal and a mourning dove on campus, and another cardinal in her backyard. I told her my mom had heard a robin in Michigan last week.

Josh's exam is done. And there was serious rejoicing in the land.

footnotes and beautiful human beings

First of all, my paper is printing, and it's delightfully punctuated by musing footnotes. At least that's how I feel about them right now, high on strong black tea and peanut butter. Essays at this umbilical cord-cutting stage always seem to glow with brilliance and wit, subtle argumentation, panache. It's not until later--usually halfway between turning it in and receiving comments--that phrases somehow clunk up and the footnotes shift to tedious interruptions. Dear me.

***

The class I teach is moving into a chapter on bodies, selfhood, and the limits of responsibility. Yesterday we discussed first perceptions of other people, how gender and age affect our judgments, and the students were divided. Most of them spoke of their own experiences of being judged (unfavorably) for their youth as camp counselors, sports coaches, and music teachers, or of receiving poor treatment at restaurants and stores. But they couldn't agree over whether public judgment improves throughout one's life or peaks in middle age. Some of them believed strongly that the older an individual, the more wisdom and thus the more respect from society. Others mentioned how we belittle the elderly, view them as less valuable or as entering a second childhood.

Much later (remember my Mondays?), on the bus home, we made a stop to let off a woman with a large stroller and to let on an elderly couple. Recognizing the mother's need for help, I watched the couple on the sidewalk meet each other's eyes, and then the woman bent to help move the baby safely from the bus to the sidewalk. Bundled in long quilted coats and fur hats, the man and woman had deeply creased faces and whispy grey hair. But once they were safely on the bus, I saw the woman turn to her companion and give him such a look of glee, such an eyebrow raised, shrug-shouldered, gorgeous smirk of delight, it took my breath away. The man returned her smile, and two blocks later I had to get off at my stop, reeling with the sharp loveliness of their companionship, their delight at interacting with other people. Oh, to be so blessed in fifty years.