Life with a Toddler, Vol. 27

Sometimes, the ol' double-door maneuver is called for.

Fool, said my muse to me

Many thanks to my insightful spouse, who took a look at me on Thursday night and said, "you need to take a break."

She's correct, and I'm taking her advice.

Biting my trewand pen, beating myself for spite

Piers has decided, after banging his head against this project for the last week and apparently getting nowhere, that he has somehow become a knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing, nose-picking, back-hair-growing, subliterate troglodyte.

Frater, ave atque vale

"She ordered us first to avoid the voice of the marvelous
Sirens, and also their meadow full of flowers.
Me alone she ordered to hear their voice; but bind me
In hard bonds so that I may stay firm in my place
Erect at the mast. And let the rope-ends be fastened from it.
And if I implore you and call you to untie me
Then constrain me yourselves in further fastenings."
Odyssey XII, 158-164

Several weeks ago, while at a conference in Miami, a friend of mine from UNC asked how things were here in West Tennessee. I said, truthfully, that we are very happy here. He then asked a question that pierced like cold iron: "do you have any friends, folks you hang out with?"

err. . . .

I'll admit that the answer is 'no.' W, being the way she is, has made friends left and right, and while deep trust takes a long time to fully develop, she's well on her way with several women. I have friendly relations with my co-workers, and with some of the folks at church, particularly my fellow sunday school teacher, and the retired history professor I sit beside during choir rehearsal every Wednesday night.

It is true that being alone doesn't really bother me from a circumstantial point of view--I like the quiet, the space for my mind to turn ideas under the light. But then something funny happens, some new movie comes out, I find a cool website, the Tar Heels win or lose a game, and aside from W (whose infinite capacity for empathy and humor continues to amaze), I have nowhere to take the conversation.

But this isn't about complaint, but about sirens.

How so? Well, that emotional feeding is necessary, regardless of my resistance to its demands--and here's the thing, I find myself in the unenviable position of looking for friendship in the place where I spend most of my time--at work. With a group of people I shouldn't look to--the students. Though I'm glad to be a popular professor here (there's evidently a Facebook group for 'Hill Groupies'--no, I've not looked), and though I'm glad to be student-friendly and accessible and even at times personally supportive of my students, I have found a disconcerting tendency in myself to look for more affirmation in those relationships. It's there, but it's not and can't be true friendship.

Of course, I'd never let a personal concern like that put me in an ethically challenged position. Sure, I wouldn't. But if I fall into the trap of believing my own guarantee, I'm already tainted. People are always doing things that "they'd never do."

I see these students in the intense relationships that come along with college experience, and I'll admit that I'm envious. I'd like to sit down and smoke a bowl, have a drink, ruminate and laugh. Hopefully one day--and until then, I'll remember the blessings of Chapel Hill.

Bah! enough navel gazing! Nashe and Martin and Herbert are all waiting for your attention. You should have gotten a degree in English Reformation church history along with all those philosophy and latin courses you should have taken back in college.

So what's Piers been up to?

Graduation.

Grading.

Replacing the Kitchen Faucet.

Yardwork.

and this.

From The Country Parson

Do well, and right, and let the world sinke.

--Geo. Herbert

Upon grading 70 british literature survey papers . . .

. . . I wonder, am I just being a stuffy Luddite when I enjoin my students to not use Wikipedia as a paper resource? Am I going to have to hold the line, even though they hear me and then turn around and act as if I haven't said anything?

Heck, I use the dang thing too . . . though in my Herbert article (hopefully soon to be published) I'll be darned if I'll use it as a reference. I guess making the distinction between casual and serious research is still lost on them. It doesn't answer my question, though.

I've got scores of papers to grade . . .

so naturally, it's time to post pictures. Follow the link below:


http://homepage.mac.com/onkachinka/HawksRoad/PhotoAlbum40.html

Rasselas

Those conditions, which flatter hope and attract desire, are so constituted that, as we approach one, we recede from another. There are goods so opposed that we cannot seize both, but, by too much prudence, may pass between them at too great a distance to reach either. This is often the fate of long consideration; he does nothing who endeavors to do more than is allowed to humanity. Flatter not yourself with contrarieties of pleasure. Of the blessings set before you make your choice, and be content. No man can taste the fruits of autumn, while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of the spring: no man can, at the same time, fill his cup from the source and from the mouth of the Nile.

Yesterday was a rough day

1. The day-care experiment with The Little Boy isn't working. For the last three weeks, he has gone in on Thursday morning and cried . . . until lunchtime. He does this nowhere else. Not when he's visiting other church nurseries, not when he's dropped off for his Tuesday afternoon school, not when he's left with a babysitter. And then there was last night: while in the bathtub, he begins to point at the wall and say things like:

Stop it now!
Do you want a time out?
OK, you there--do you understand me?
No pushing! No crying!
Go away!
I don't want to look at you!

He won't be there another Thursday if we can help it.


2. W's OB/GYN committed suicide on Wednesday. We know no details (nor do we want to), but that strikes pretty close.

Blakbuzzrd, this is for you.

Enjoy. And check out the fast food reviews.

it's sooo true.

Cool

picture. Take a look.

Lord Have Mercy

VT shooting.

Psalm 10
Why do You stand afar off, O Lord?
Why do You hide in times of trouble?

Brother B and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

On Friday, we went to see B's second production at Bethel--Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. He has been really smart in choosing productions that are fun to watch, that make people laugh, that can work in the small venue they have. I think I'm most impressed by the production design and the creative staging.

It's good for B and R to have some successes . . . their time in West Tennessee has been, well, rocky. Some well-deserved kudos for this production will, I hope, help them persevere.

The yard was looking great

. . . and then the past two weeks, sub-freezing temperatures . . . it's all been nipped (in the case of our rose bushes, literally in the bud). A few hostas, our lilac, our burning bush escaped the carnage, but everything else, including the oaks and poplars, looks brown and blighted. Naturally, the dandelions recovered just fine. It's painful to look out front or back, though with the warmer weather this week, it looks like we'll be able to start repairing some of the damage.

What's worse is the situation with the farmers who put in the winter wheat back in November. . . I hear that all the wheat crops are total losses. There's acres of it across the road, and though it doesn't look brown or dead or anything, supposedly it'll never seed out, which means it's just long grass now.

The Definition of Love

Unless the giddy heaven fall,
And earth some new convulsion tear;
And, us to join, the world should all
Be cramped into a planisphere.

As lines (so loves) oblique may well
Themselves in every angle greet:
But ours so truly parallel,
Though infinite, can never meet.

--Andrew Marvell
(stanzas 6 and 7)

Adventures With Students, Vol. 4

Part One--The Forest
IX. Song, To Celia
Drink to me, only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine ;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I'll not look for wine.
The thirst, that from the soul doth rise,
Doth ask a drink divine :
But might I of Jove's nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.

I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
Not so much honoring thee,
As giving it a hope, that there
It could not wither'd be.
But thou thereon didst only breathe,
And sent'st it back to me :
Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,
Not of itself, but thee.

Part Two--Student Analysis:

In the beginning of the poem, when he talks about her kiss and eyes, and how they are like wine in a cup. He could be referring to a bar, maybe where he sees her for the first time. Maybe she is the bar maiden. When he talks about a kiss on the cup, and I'll not look for wine, maybe Johnson is trying to let us know that he has or had a drinking problem, and now he quite his habit.

Part Three--oh dear.

You Leave for Two Years, and they start Moving Things Around . . .

Pepper's Pizza is moving down Franklin Street to the old Miami Subs location. Quote from the Carolina Alumni Review: "Management would provide no details about decor for the new location."

Slaughterhouse Five and Luau--hard to beat.

I have a feeling only Chapel Hillians will understand the significance of this post.

Lost

We missed the one about Locke last week, but caught the surpassingly strange one this week. What was that all about?? It seemed like a Twilight Zone episode!

When Piers has no car

he takes his bike. Well, there are two bikes in the garage, but since it's a commute, Piers decides this morning that he'll take the Wal-Mart beater bike. Fine, but the front wheel needs more air. Okay. push the plastic thingy onto the valve. Won't engage. Try again. Still no luck. Better pull it off and try again. Pull. Won't come off. Pull harder. Still won't come off. Wiggle, pull, wiggle pull. Oh, for heaven's sake. Pull really hard. Pop! Whooosh! Out comes the whole valve from the tube, and I've now got a completely flat front tire.

I took the fancy bike today.

W will class this with the shirt & washing machine episode, and others that I can't remember right now.