All the Leaves Are Brown . . .

Okay, no, they aren’t all brown yet. But the sky is gray. The clouds are layered in an odd, thick way that—at least from my office window—makes it appear that if you could reach up above the clouds, you could peel back their solid mass, like a lid. I wish I could do that, because the clouds seem to be filtering out the bits of the light spectrum that allow the trees’ colored leaves to look at all vibrant. I know, for example, that the trees I’m looking at are orange, but I only know it intellectually—there’s nothing visceral in my observation of the colors. There’s no flaming, golden, honeyed beauty, and that makes me feel ripped off.

I’m reading Claire Messud’s The Emperor’s Children, which is popping up all over the place lately. I’m about a third of the way into it, and I think I like it, but I don’t love it. Messud writes beautiful, descriptive, true prose. Her characters are well drawn and I can see lots of potential for change and growth. I know, though, that there is something (or some things) terrible waiting for one or more of these people, and the sense of impending doom is really getting me down. I want to keep reading because I want to see who gets to end up relatively happy, and what that happiness will look like. On the other hand, though, I’d like to chuck it and read something funny. Reader’s Angst. Is there a treatment for that, like for housewife’s knee?

Speaking of housewife’s knee, I’ve been listening to the David Sedaris box set, which is something like fourteen CDs filled with Sedaris reading each of his books through Me Talk Pretty One Day. Sedaris is great to read, but I think he’s even better to listen to. I heart him.

Little else is going on around with me. I’ve had it up to HERE with school, and can’t believe I’m forced to endure class each week. Thank God I’m only taking one, because I’m having a terrible time making myself go each week. The teacher is a nice enough woman, but she seems to have missed her calling as a kindergarten teacher, and it drives me CRAZY (because, you seem I’ve already BEEN to kindergarten). The week we read westerns, for instance, (it’s a class on resources in genre fiction), she brought her guitar and played and sang a few western ditties for our . . . enjoyment. I have no patience for shenanigans like this—especially at around $3K per class.

Also, I am convinced that this woman—however good a library director (for that’s what her day job is) she might be—isn’t terribly smart, and that’s hard for me. Two classes ago, we were both running and participating in a sort of mock book group, discussing The Kite Runner. She asked someone to ask a question they would present if running a group, and the called upon woman asked what readers made of the symbolism of the kites. No one raised a hand (no one ever does), so I did, and offered that I thought the kites had something to do with the author’s ideas of freedom and Afghanistan, because a soaring kite is nearly free, and then when a string is cut and a kits gets free, it’s chased down by the masses who have to capture it . . . blah, blah , blah. It was a totally tossed off answer that I just spouted to have something to say so we could stop sitting in silence. You’d have thought the teacher woman was having an orgasm—I swear! She sort of oohhh-ed and gasped and made funny noises, and then PUT HER HEAD DOWN ON HER DESK and then looked around at everyone, and said, “Oh! I’m going to have to think about that one!”

Um, shut up, lady. Everyone looked at me like I’m some kind of teacher’s pet; I couldn’t look up from my desk from that point on, and indeed spent the rest of the class furtively sending text messages to my friend S, who wishes she could hang out and watch this crazy lady’s antics.

So that’s about it for me: even further disenchanted with school, longing for it to be Friday because I have the day off AND our Trader Joe’s is opening. S is coming in from Cleveland on Saturday, to watch the boy’s final soccer game of the season (they’re playing for last place--woo!) and then hang out with me and maybe see a movie or shop for girly things or something. I’ll spend the whole day Sunday snoozing and maybe watching movies. Hooray!

For now, though, it’s only Wednesday. I still have another work day to soldier through. Sigh.