cyclics

Last day of class, tomorrow.  And my reward? A shitload of papers, followed by a shitload of finals, on Tuesday.  If I handle it right (i.e. punish/reward myself sufficiently), I should have it all cleared off my desk by this time next week, so I can abandon the paper I was working on today (*waves cheerily*) and turn to the one I haven't written (*waves warily*) before then turning back to the one I was working on, etc.  The turn around is brutal - a single week of spring break, and then the new quarter, and in that week the two talks and two classes to prepare.  Yes, of course it could be much much worse, and to the one of you who I know reads this with her 4-4 teaching load, yeah, poor little rich kid, etc., but hell, it's my blog and I'll whinge if I want to.  Last year I taught Fall and Winter, and had spring off - I went to England last April, to look at the books (and drink of the pints, if my increasingly saturated memory serves aright).  An email exchange with the friend who probably will never receive the letter, and a friendly reminder that her shit doesn't stink.  And a thought, unexpected, that if I stay here until they've decided they won't make me leave, I'm playing it safe.  Never been my strong suit, safe, even if it's been my weak point (if that makes any sense, and I think it does, if you know what I mean and I think you do).  Why not shove my head in the jaws of a hostile institution halfway through?  Although I should probably finish this book of mine, in that case, and get it out the door and perhaps a polite review or two.  Or, fuck it, burn the shit.  Admit that I have less control over my life as "successful" than I ever did whilst betwixt and between and in the cracks.  And reassert that control by redefining successful.  Or just admit that I'm annoyed I finished the Scotch.  "I'm out of Chivas," he said to a room full of construction workers, staggeringly slightly.  Not me, fools.  Him. To quote M., as N calls him, "Only to read childrens' books / only to love childish things, / throwing away adult things, / rising from saddest looks."

simmer

A low boil, even, on the back burner.  The realization, after some basic maths, that come late August (which, admittedly, is a full 5 months away) it will be 15 years since I met a friend. An ex-friend? A friend past? South African lawyer friend.  Tuesday passed (or Thursday. Is it bad that I've forgotten even the specifics of the "day" that indicated things had gone too far without resolution? Is it indicative of some friendship carelessness, or worse, some fundamentally self-involved issue?)  To be honest, I don't really care. I suspect there's a gesture to make.  Not that anyone in New York seems to be talking to me at the moment, although I'm unclear on what I've done (other than being a self-involved drama queen, but, surely, that's not new.....) or how I've offended, or even if....Maybe things just fade, and then faded, fade again, and my own tendency to reminiscence is a liability rather than an asset, a ball and chain rather than a claim to a more thorough understanding.  Anyway, a gesture. A letter, a mix CD, a Stoppard play.  Handwritten, perhaps, rather than typed or emailed.  Packaged and sent rather than Amazoned.  Not because it even matters, to some extent, what her reaction is (although, of course, that's not quite trivial).  Mostly because I'm feeling my bright and shiny future seems to have lost just a bit too much of my past, and that there's value, there, beyond the dark and dismal, and to the happy bits that happened, too.  So many people have loved me over the years, and I them, and it feels that I'm in touch, I'm connected, with so few of them.  That pains me.  I never meant, never expected, things to end up that way.  South African Lawyer friend, I know you don't read this, which makes it easier to let you know that there is, someday sometime soonish (post April 18, most likely) a letter coming your way. Although if you forget my birthday, there may be a brief delay while I forgive you, yet again.