rarlington

Effie has decorated her house (our family homestead) for Easter, which means bringing out “the bunnies.” Usually she’ll start talking about getting down her bunnies [that is, get them down from the attic; although now I want the phrase get down yer bunnies to mean something more] as soon as the last piece of holly has been boxed up in early January.

This year, she wishes to be quite clear: she was very selective in which bunnies she put out. She didn’t put them all out, mind you; only the chosen few. Some didn’t make the cut and will be forced to languish in the dark attic another year, cavorting with dusty ghosts, having been deprived their chance to briefly see the sun. The season for bunnies lasts only a month, and they have missed their moment. Well, there’s always next year, black-sheep bunnies.

But until then…

(This one is so creepy. Like from Donnie Darko.)

Plus one sheep. With me & my sister in the background, keeping watch.

(There are more, but I thought these were the real “jewels.”)

When I was going to meet my sister this morning at 6:30 A.M. for a quick run on the boardwalk, a real-life bunny hopped across my path on Atlantic Avenue. It’s always such a novelty –– a bunny in Ocean City! Is this a good omen? Perhaps it was one of Effie’s forgotten decorations come to life; sprung from the attic; free.

[Sometime later…] I have a quick drink at my apartment with Emily, where there are books leftover on the table from the first half of the semester (see below).

See?

As we quickly catch up, I tell her a story from the last two weeks of my life, saying, “Except that this would end up like the ending of The Graduate, I know. Except with Lana Del Rey playing in the background.” She laughs. I am a good host.

[That very same evening…] Our nuclear family gathers for cake; for Papa’s birthday. The cake is sugar free, as we have all given up sugar for the Lenten season. Mom always says how much she prefers the Lenten season to advent: she enjoys the suffering and self-sacrifice of Lent. She has never been one for extended baby showers.

The Lenten carrot cake

We’re not even Catholic.

[The next day, maybe.] It’s daylight savings. Miss Williams texts, “Happy Ben Franklin’s brilliant idear,” and “The turkey believed in DST. The eagle thought it silly.”

Me: “I’m out enjoying all this daylight saved, daylight earned.”

[Four minutes before that text was sent…]

[Five hours before that tweet was twittered…]

Varsity Inn. My sister is sitting beside me; father across. I look over the empty tables and outside at the daylight.

[The present.]

"The forecast didn't call for all this filtering."

[Friday.] The etymology of the day was panic.

Viz.

I think of the Fisher King outside on my back deck. Fisher King, frightening the pots of dead herbs & twigs.

"Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight."

Think of it: it is almost time for planting. For new things to take root; to grow.

**

Last night, Miss Williams & I bundled ourselves into my little inferno-orange car to head into the city for The Magnetic Fields show at Union Transfer. Always a lovely time it is with the Miss Williams.

We were early, so went across the street to Llama Tooth. Upon entering, we were told that the patio was full & it would be a 45-minute wait for any food. Non-plussed, we decided to take a table & look over the menu & to have a drink…

Miss Williams: "Is 'llama tooth' supposed to be a euphemism for something?"

and to admire the pastiche llama paintings hung all around…

Me: "So many llamas, Miss Williams!"

(We both agreed that the llama in the bathroom was going just a bit too far somehow. I didn’t take a picture of that one. Wish that I had.)

We dashed back across the street for the show. Les Champs Magnétiques were wonderful. It took me back to my Postmodernism class at The New School, when Josh Gaylord first introduced me to them. I responded in-kind by introducing him to Buffy the Vampire Slayer; I even recall giving a presentation to our class on Buffy contre les vampires.

Union Transfer

We need to have some sort of Nerd Nite-style salon here in South Jersey where eclectic types can gather to swap interests/nerdery. (Or is there already one & I am just left out of the loop?) I have more than enough nerdabilia & it does tend to clutter the old cache some.

This picture did not turn out.

Stockton tomorrow; then: spring break breaks!

I am going to list some of the good things that have happened to me over the last few days.

1.Mignon Fogarty (a.k.a. Grammar Girl) recorded the story I wrote last year for National Grammar Day! (National Grammar Day is celebrated annually on March 4th/March Forth!) My nerdy heart almost burst when Mignon contacted me last week; I told her I was chuffed; she said chuffed is actually on her list for future topics. (Stay tuned!)

2. The director of the writing program at Stockton told me that she thinks I look like Benedict Cumberbatch (pictured below), which I will gladly take.

(I know –– I honestly don’t really see it either, but thank you, Pam –– you are so lovely to think so.)

3. One of my Stockton students had her ethnography on the “bug-eating club” that she wrote for my class published in the student newspaper. We were both a little too excited about this. I need to pick up lots more copies tomorrow to give out to you & everyone else I know.

4. I got to have my weekly, Monday morning pre-class convo with Trevor outside of D-Building. We chat/complain about life. It is not a bad way to steady oneself for the week, really.

5. (Actually, maybe I do look a little like B. Cumberbatch. Maybe if I got my eyebrows shaped up I would even more. Which reminds me…) Officially, #5 is that I had lunch with Effie at the mall yesterday. Why does eyebrow shaping remind me of my lunch with Effie? (See Fig. 1.)

Figure 1. Yesterday afternoon status update.

Quote Effie: “It’s weird, isn’t it? I mean, I get my eyebrows shaped, but not in the middle of the mall!”

6. I ran into an old friend from preschool –– so randomly –– at a class I was observing in Mays Landing last night. The first thing I thought of was how his dog had eaten the head off one of my He-man action figures when we were both 4 or 5; luckily, it didn’t ruin our friendship. I feel a bit old knowing that I’ve known someone for such a long time; that I’ve been around long enough to have first met someone almost thirty years ago now.

7. Kathy Graber’s class was lovely as always. I sat next to Aubri, who suggested that my “old ladyish file folder” and her “old ladyish purse” should go on a trip together, which was a delightful sentiment indeed. (To be fair to me, I inherited the folder from a friend who passed along some dossiers in it last spring. But who doesn’t want to go to old ladyish-folder-Paris in the almost-springtime?)

8. Today I remembered to wear my gray wool blazer that I have forgotten to wear all winter, and it was actually cold-ish enough to justify g.w.b. (Gray wool –– with whisps of cashmere for comfort.)

9. I see progress being made on the literary magazine at school. The editors seem to be getting somewhere (even this guy). I love working with the layout team; I just wish we could have more “sitting around kibbitzing,” less fussing with fonts & text placement. (It is a lot of tedious copying & pasting of accepted work into InDesign at this point.)

10. The layout team (under my direction, of course) left a thank you and some shortbread cookies for the editors of the college newspaper, whose office we have rather taken over this week. The Editor-in-Chief just sent me the nicest e-mail:

11. I finally made a haircut appointment for over spring break –– which is next week!

My dad and I go to breakfast every Sunday at 7:30 A.M., regardless of how much or how little sleep either of us has had the night before. Last night, I had not much, I must confess. (I did get a chance to revise that dead whale poem yesterday, in between school work and tending to the quotidian.)

This morning it was cloudy and swollen, so we went to Smitty’s/The Breakfast Shop in Somers Point.

While trying to rouse myself awake, I just stared down at the table for awhile…

And out the jalousie windows…

By the time our omelettes were eaten, I was more awake.

To think, it only took four cups of coffee!!!!

This afternoon I went for a quick walk on the boardwalk. The world felt a bit tense, or maybe that was just me, the weight of so many ungraded papers waiting like a stern partner at home.

The papers will still be there later on. Look at all of this world there is out here ––

I eventually took the alley back to my flat to brew-up some P.G. Tips.

Only five more papers to grade now from this one class. Then I might grant myself a reprieve the rest of the night.

Until tomorrow, least.

My mom (Effie) has been hankering to try this fish fry at the VFW on First Street in Somers Point for years now. Every Lenten season she says, “I’d like to try that fish fry.” Well, tonight was your lucky night, Effie!

The three of us entered the mead hall not knowing quite what to expect.

We took a seat at one of the unoccupied tables and an overzealous young pip eventually zipped out from the back to take our orders: three fish & chips with accompanying cole slaw.

Bar with Effie in sideview

It may be in rather questionable taste to mention this in the same post, but the fish dinner has newly restored me to revise my poem about the dead whale that I composed for Kathy Graber’s class during the first week of this semester. I hope to get to that at some point this weekend.

I had a moment yesterday sitting in the Stockton campus center when everything seemed ok, and I was happy with myself & fine.

It seems rather crass to say (I was happy & fine), but I can be a bit hard on myself most of the time, so it’s good when my mind settles down enough to sip some coffee and remind me of myself. I expect a lot from myself and others –– maybe too much; maybe, at times, an impossible sum. I feel that I am not being unreasonable. I admit that I am stubborn.

Fridge Photo 1

When I first started teaching, high school, up in North Jersey, I took over –– about this time of year, in fact –– for a woman going out on maternity leave. The students described her as having been “a demanding task-master;” I laughed; I let the children have too much fun in her absence, sort of like an overindulgent aunt/uncle. I learned.

Now sometimes I worry: if I had to go out on some equivalent maternity leave halfway through the semester, if someone had to take over my classes, would my undergraduates say, “He was a demanding task-master. He expected too much of us.” No, no; I can’t think so. Besides, I know my students are the best: all of them, la crème de la crème. I only want what is best for them. I only want us all to do good, honest work.

But there are some of them who feel that South Jersey is a bit of a cultural wasteland, though I disagree. Or, at least, I feel it exists in a state of almost negative capability, which is what Kathy Graber mentioned this week in class; one can slip in and inhabit it, shape it into whatever one wants, like a piece of soft clay. But one must do the work, and it is sometimes dirty and labor-intensive stuff. One must organize; execute plans; in short, create something from scratch, which I find exciting. We exist and swim around in this potential energy just waiting to be cracked. So why all this sitting around for?

Fridge Photo 2

My mom said something to this effect recently, when her own students were complaining that there was nothing to do around here. “Nothing?” she winced. “Nothing? What do you mean? When you want to have fun, you have fun. You go make your own fun. DIY fun.” I think that’s true. But I shouldn’t want to be an importunate host. I have fun, and if others have fun, so much the better. But if not, well –– your loss, lovey.

Fridge Photo 3

One day over winter break, while shopping at the Superfresh in town, I came upon an electric kettle on sale. “I’d like to start having tea at the lit-mag meetings,” I decided. How civilized that would be. How like a bit of civilization. It is like drawing a circle around a certain space at a certain time and saying, “Here and now, with this electric kettle, we are going to have ourselves a time.” Maybe eventually the tea will become routine. The weather will warm –– what then?

Last spring, when stopping at my parents’ house one day, I took down some old quilts from an upstairs closet, packed them up in my car. A few of my creative writing classes met outside then.

The wind mussed our hair and the sun was warm.

And I had fun, anyway.

And maybe you did, too.

I’ve had a bout of “the mean reds” off and on this past week; I chalk it up to February. Even though we haven’t had much of a winter here in South Jersey, I am really looking forward to the spring; to things sprouting from the earth; to sitting outside with the warm sun on my face; to that general sense of possibility again.

But first we have to get through the rest of February, and this year, as if to chafe my already sensitive mood, we get an extra day of this beast; sort of like an unwanted houseguest that just announces, last minute, “I’m gonna stay on an extra night; that cool with you, bro?” No, February. No, it is most certainly not cool with me.

Before/after class today, I made a quick self-esteem chart for the last week. At first I thought to use Excel, but then I remembered that I don’t really know how to use spreadsheets. I also remembered how much I love rulers and the tactile frisson of connecting dots on graph paper.

Self-esteem chart (2/20/12–2/29/12)

Making this chart made me feel immeasurably better. I don’t think I’ve done this sort of antique x/y-plotting since high school math.

I also realize that part of this current weight of insecurity might be lightened if I get a haircut; I really need a haircut. I haven’t gotten my hair cut since –– oh, ’round Christmas, I guess. Last year, I just got lazy/restless and let it grow out (see Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. "The British are coming!"

Not this year –– even if I do have to wait until spring break at this point; hairs will be cut.

Coda:

On Saturday, whilst entertaining a wuthering snap of these seasonal doldrums, I texted my sister for a quick pep-talk.

(I love these exchanges with my sister. We would have made such fine existentialists.)

In closing: February, I will not miss you.

Good day to you.

I haven’t used WordPress in awhile, apparently. When I went to publish this first post for rarlington, a Tennessee Williams quote popped up.

This seems to bode well –– somehow and for something.