Chimera Song Mosaic
Sunday, November 28, 2004
But now, seriously, I have no time to post anything. I am losing my mind from all this grading of research papers, literary and otherwise, that I have to get graded in the next week and a half (I actually have two weeks until grades are due, but I'm in something of a competition with some other English teachers to get grades turned in early. It's silly, yes, but it's such a powerful motivation. Perhaps we should put some money on it this time). Boring/
Mostly I have been reading. That's what keeps me from blogging this semester, and I must say, it's a favorable trade off in many respects. I should probably just update the blog with what I'm reading right now since it is substituting for blogging. So right now, I'm reading Lady Chatterley's Lover. Not just skimming for the sex scenes, actually underlining stuff. That's how I read. Nice and slow like. Also whizzing through The Catcher in the Rye yet again for my composition class. We have one week left of shcool to discuss it, then I get to sit back while they write their final essay exams, comparing and contrasting aspects of TCitR with The Bell Jar. Boring/
What was fun this thanksgiving: Lance's mom and dad and brother and his wife and their 3 little girls came to visit for a couple of nights. His mom made the best cornbread dressing, which I have been slowly weaning myself from every since. Lance was on the couch, so I went over and sprawled on him, which prompted the two seven year old twins to sprawl on me; lots of butterfly kisses and Eskimo kisses and deer kisses (we made that one up) ensued; then I sang out a line from one of Dave Chappell's skits: "I'm gone pee on you . . ." which caused both twins to look up sharply and say, "No! Gross!"
Also one night I woke to a real little girl's cries: "Mama!" I had been dreaming, something elaborate and vivid about an inner-city shake down in a flop house, or something, and some bad guy was trying to lure us out of a bedroom (my old bedroom at my mom's house) with a little girl crying. That's where my actual niece came in, but it took me a while to realize this. In the dream, I was puzzled because the little girl's cries did not stop, even though she was being tended to. I don't want to get too far into it because dreams don't translate; they just sound boring/
But when I went to the front room where the girls were bedded down together on a pallet, I was so sad to see the little one, five year old Hannah, awake and uncomfortable. She said, "Can you go get my mom?" I felt her chest, and she was wet. I said okay and left to knock on the door where her mom was. But you never know how hard to knock. So then I went back to her and offered to take her to her mom. I tried to pick her up , but she said, "No, I don't want your dress to get wet." My dress! I was just wearing a silly nightshirt. I was so touched, and little girl pee does not offend me, so I picked her up, I told her that I was planning to change nightgowns anyway (which was true; it had just turned cold enough for pajamas), and I dropped her off at the door. The last thing I heard was her pushing open the unfamiliar door into the darkness and asking, "Mom?"
The next afternoon, the nieces and I made homemade hot chocolate with lots of whipped cream from a can and decorated them with tons of colorful sprinkles.
