Today was my second class, which makes it the first real class, because the first one doesn't really count. We started out with the professor dictating a poem to us, and it was all lovely and perfect and by the end of it I was melty with the gorgeousness of it, and then she went directly into explaining why that Romantic style of poetry was soon understood to be trite and snobby and entirely too removed from the experiences of real people in the real, stinky world. As I frowned at my paper, trying to see properly through the artifice of it all, she followed that up with an airy, "OH, but I still LOVE Romantic poetry - I DO!"
I have missed that teetering unsettledness. English professors are CRAZY, and I love them.
But what annoys me is English STUDENTS. Particularly ones with better answers than mine. There were only five students there today, and one young woman who looked about twelve, kept leaping in with observations like, "Now, this stanza really contrasts with the previous one, because here we've got an entire pantheon of gods and goddesses, rather than the monotheistic blah da de blah blah."
Not a direct quote.
It was annoying because it was SUCH a cliche - the earnest, eloquent young English major, prattling on about the finer points of the whatever that everyone else forgot to care about. And mostly it was annoying because I used to be that person, and I have TOTALLY lost my kiss up literature-phile chops. Dang it. *I* want to be the suck-up head of the class. Does she have to be QUITE so dewy cheeked and wordy?
And speaking of dewy cheeked, do you know what college campuses are simply RIFE with? Dewy cheeked college kids. And these people, these lithe little near-adults are simply OBSESSED with the opposite sex. You can hardly blame them, because they are at that age when various hormonal cocktails in their bloodstream are ruling the day. I have decided that the reason so many college students smoke is to simply get a little relief from the clouds of pheromones that surround them perpetually.
I, being old and married, am impervious to all non-Clay pheromones. All other pheromone receptors are long since atrophied and dessicated. I am like a Jedi master among so many frantic puppies. I wave my hand and intone, "This is not the vagina you are looking for," and they are gone.
No, actually, the truth is much sadder. People on campus make RILLY INTENSE eye contact, I've noticed. Everyone is scanning everyone else, to see if their One is among all the Others. And so I've seen these young men walking toward me, watching me, and I guess I should be flattered, but they get fairly close (okay, it's also dark outside by the time I'm on campus) before they realize that I am OLD. All of a sudden their face goes from open and interested to ALERT ALERT ALERT! MOM ON CAMPUS! ALERT! AVERT EYES!!!! AAAAHHHHGH!
It's not like I want them to think I'm hot or anything, but would it hurt them to not look quite so STARTLED?
Well, whatever. I drove home, and when I got there I walked in from the cold dark front porch to my home, packed full with light and noise and clutter and kids. Tre waved at me from the computer and Sophia marched over to me and ordered, "HOLD that baby!" and Max had made spaghetti sauce from scratch and he waved an empty can of tomatoes at me from the kitchen to let me know we were out. Soon Clay and Raphael were home from wrestling practice, and Clay kissed me hello, both of us relieved to finally be back together. Raphael's cheeks were pink from the cold and the work of practice, and he looked like an angel, but he was a bit too hungry, and he was acting like a little monster.
And I stood in the middle of all the chaos of voices and plates being set on the table and the smell of supper and the steam on the windows, and I was, for the moment, perfectly happy in my imperfect world.
I don't have to be the head of anything. I am in the middle of everything.