I’ve been feeling so crappy lately that, at this very moment, I’m missing my department’s Big Event of the season. Wouldn’t want to sneeze on the dignitaries’ cheese cubes and chardonnay, which are nothing to sneeze at in this economy. As much as part of me must acknowledge how being magnificently sick has been a [...]
Archive for the ‘la vida loca nueva ciudad’ Category
31 Oct
Frightening plans
Tonight, the longest Saturday night of the year (don’t forget to “fall back,” y’all), I shall arise from my nest of printouts from JSTOR and manuscript scraps. On my patio table I’ll place a glass containing Halloween-themed pencils and a big bowl containing granola bars I got for free with coupons last week. At some [...]
3 Mar
Kris Kristofferson smiles serenely from my recycling bin
How did he get there? Well, Gentle Reader, I’ll tell you, as you knew I would.
Around 5 PM, as I was slipping and sliding home after having been at the office since before 7 AM, a pair of well-scrubbed young men in black approached me on bicycles. On ice. They would have been an amusing [...]
2 Mar
Giddy
Just looked outside: a thick, fluffy blanket of snow covers everything in sight, while a brisk wind sends the snowflakes swirling. The school closings being announced on the radio make my heart glad. In thirty hours, when I actually have to be somewhere, all of it will be gone. Such is giddiness.
18 Jul
The takft that keeps on taking
I’ve done no research on the subject, but my impression is that many a pedant has weighed in on the abominable use of “gift” as a verb. Reader, I too dislike it.
But what really grinds my gears today is that there isn’t an equivalent for the opposite action: taking. Sure (and I’m not going to [...]
14 Jul
Bloodsuckers!
Home again, home again, with, oh, thirty souvenirs from Interesting City: thirty mosquito bites, more or less evenly distributed, on my legs. But one standout stands out from the rest, ruining my uniformly poxy pattern of calamine patches. Yeah, calamine. I’m old school. On my right calf, one welt is so engorged that my leg [...]
16 May
Lucky Jane Talks with the Postal Carrier
I met the Postal Carrier on the road, and much said she and I.
She has been delivering my mail since my arrival in Funky City, where mail must be delivered on foot, because curbside mailboxes are not Funky. I adore her. We chat whenever we meet, though not so much of late because of my [...]
12 Apr
Nessun dorma
Svmer is icumen in, and I have gone cuccu. Again.
It is almost 70°F in Funky City this fine night, a perfect night for spotting my first economy-sized cockroach of the season. About an hour ago, after reading a bunch of the “dessert” stuff I like to assign during the last weeks of class (the better [...]
23 Mar
Spring breakage
Chthunk!
That was me, landing in Funky City after twenty-one hours of planes, trains, and automobiles. And waiting.
Most of those hours were spent in a middle seat, next to a long-legged young man who, despite my passive-aggressive attempts to push him within the borders of his allotted space in coach, seemed continually poised for a pelvic [...]
9 Feb
Don’t you wish your girlfriend was hot like. . .
. . . whoever had my new cell phone number before I did?
For all my hatred of cell phones, I caved and got one. I’ve been traveling a lot in the past six months, and the experience seems to have convinced me that the convenience of a cell phone has become a necessity—either that or [...]
