Writing About Me

My brother and his girlfriend are moving into my father's garage. My mother is moving next door to my father--with her boyfriend. My grandfather has lost control of his bowels and mows through adult diapers like there's no tomorrow. My best friend's boyfriend of five years left her suddenly. My boyfriend's birthday is tomorrow. The semester is officially done. A student recently told me I need to stop assigning readings about "cancer and dead babies and stuff."

These are some things that have been going on lately.

I know I haven't been here to tell you about them. I've been wondering why I stopped writing. I've been wondering that for a long time, actually. My reluctance to blog started shortly after I started up with The Lady-Killer. Why? Because The Lady-Killer and I spent most of the summer and fall of 2010 in bed, but we did not--contrary to Christine's opinion--develop bedsores. Also, living with someone takes up a lot of time. Seriously. There are days when I get in bed at night and think, "I wanted to do, like, eighty things all day, and yet I spent a good chunk of time lying on the couch reading a magazine and watching TLK play video games." The glorious thing about these thoughts though--and this is showing some real growth here, people--is that they generally do not bother me. The fact that I got almost no shit done would have driven me crazy, pre-TLK. But my world since TLK is like a whole new world, one where a psychiatrist prescribed me a whole mess of anti-anxiety meds. That's right. TLK is like a walking, talking anti-anxiety pill. Plus, he has a lip piercing that feels really good when you kiss him.

And here's another thing. I don't want to tell you some of these things. I mean, I do. I really do. I want to tell you about a million beautiful things about TLK--how he's so funny and charming, how he sometimes makes me giggle until I think I'm going to wet my pants, how he makes really good scrambled eggs because he puts cream cheese in them, how we sleep on the same pillow at night (a fact that, when I told my friends Emily and Christine, almost made them barf)--but I also don't want to tell you those things. I feel more private now. I want to hold some things close to the vest. (I mean, see that list of cute things about TLK up there? THAT IS NOTHING. TRUST ME.) But there's just something in me now that is saying Shhh.

I think it has something to do with me protecting TLK's privacy, and mine. I also think it has something to do with growing up. I mean, back in grad school, you could not shut me the fuck up. I wanted to talk about myself all day and night. And then after grad school, I wah-wah-wahed for months about how sad I was, about how rotten and dumb my life had become now that I had graduated and been forced out of the loving cocoon of the MFA program, where everyone is batshit crazy in really lovable (okay, mostly lovable) ways. I wah-wah-wahed over the Wily Republican, who I now, for days at a time, sometimes forget even exists (oh glorious, happy day that I never thought would come!). Then I wah-wah-wahed over having to take up waitressing when my adjunct gig was over for the summer. Oh my God, how did anyone stand me?

But now, I sort of don't want to talk about myself. And that's really startling to me, because I really love to talk, and I really love to talk about myself. (This, I think, has something to do with my family. Generally, during every phone call my mother and I have, we will spend 15 minutes detailing how stupid our relatives, our neighbors, our coworkers, or other people out in the world are. Then one of us will pause and say, "Well, you know, because we're obviously perfect." Sitting in judgment of others and thus illuminating our own awesomeness is one of our favorite pastimes, right up there with badminton and pierogi-eating.)

Anyway, sometimes I miss writing about myself, and sometimes I don't. Sometimes I think, holy crap! That thing TLK is doing right now is so funny (or weird! or crazy! or ill-advised!) I really should write about it! (I've said it before, but I'll say it again: TLK is a lot like my brother. He's lovable in the same way and for similar reasons that have made a lot of complete strangers who read this blog fall in love with my brother. Therefore, I think he makes a beautiful muse.)

Still, I have struggled to get it right when writing about TLK. It's easier to write about my brother than it is to write about TLK. A lot of what's funny between me and TLK has to do with the origin of our relationship, and that's one of those private things I'm not willing to share right now. I don't really care about exposing my brother's weird foibles. The kid is related to me, but it's like he's actually not. It's actually like he's some glorious, horrible space alien that took over the room in our house that had been previously reserved for my mother's typewriter. That kid--the one who took over the typewriter room, which I used to think was its own kind of heaven? That kid I'll expose all day long. TLK though? I'd rather not. That one's all mine.

So that's part of it. The other parts I'm really still trying to understand. But right now I have the inclination to be quiet, but who knows how that's going to go and how long that's going to stick around? After all, when I go home this summer, my mother will be convincing my grandfather that he can never again leave the nursing home and return to his house and that she, in fact, will be renovating the house and moving in. (Wait. Did I say "will be renovating?" I actually mean "totally already did it and has already had new furniture delivered. Surprise, Grandpa!)

In addition, my brother and his girlfriend are consolidating all the things they went to the trouble to dig up for their new apartment, which they've only been in for one year, and they will be moving those things into a small room off to the side of my father's garage. They'll be living there for God knows who long, which means they'll be there when I arrive at my father's house for my usual summer R&R. I think this year my stay at Dad's house will be less like a quiet spa vacation and more like a sitcom staring a boy who once frittered away his life savings at a Hooters.

So maybe I'll be back, but maybe I won't. Either way, I wanted you to know that everything is good--more than good--and that I'm just wrapped up in it, loving it, and being quiet about it for right now.

If You're Keeping Track, This Is Near Death Experience #2

Yesterday I got up and checked the weather. I'd been craving beach--ocean beach--since I got back to Maine, and I was bound and determined to go. The weather report for Phippsburg, Maine--home to Popham Beach, one of my favorite places in the world--was simple. It said the highs would be in the 80s and there might be some fog. The tide was high at 1:00, and the tide would be at its lowest around dinner time.

Perfect.

We got to the beach at 3:00, when the tide was still receding. It had shrank back enough to unearth the craggy island that it swallows at high tide, and lots of people were out exploring the tide pools that had been left behind. So we set up our blanket, stripped down, and headed off.

The water was freezing. The water is always freezing. But it didn't matter because the weather was warm, and I was happy to be at the ocean, and The Lady-Killer was happy to be exploring the caves and fissures between the rocks.

"I'm Maine's answer to Steve Irwin!" he said after he had words with a seagull, chased a crab, and dug through the tide pools to snatch up a translucent (and tiny) crab skeleton that had been molted away.

When we'd walked out to the island, when we'd started our exploring, the weather had been clear enough. There'd been fog and mist, sure, but it hadn't been anything alarming. But over that hour and a half we were on the island, the fog really rolled in. Before I knew it, I was turning to look back at the beach and it wasn't there. I couldn't see a quarter mile into the distance.

This was no big deal. I knew the situation with the tides. It wasn't like we needed to worry about getting off the island and back to shore before high tide washed in; it had just been high tide. There were plenty of people around--tourists with cameras, fishermen casting off the rocks, children splashing through the coves--and everything was normal.

But eventually I got hungry, I got thinking about the peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches I had in my backpack, I got to thinking about that bag of Doritos I had, and TLK had explored himself right out, so we climbed down off the island and started back.

We were leisurely about it. TLK did a few brave dives into the waves as they peeled off the sandbars, and he came out shivering every time. But it was getting hard to see him each time he went running out into the water. It was getting hard to see anything.

I've been to Popham Beach about a bajillion times in my life, and I'm familiar with its layout. It's an interesting beach because it's cut in two by run-off from a river that gives the water, when it comes in, some interesting tug and tow, which makes it good for surfers. This pattern makes it a little more tricky than a standard straight-shot coastal beach. It also makes for some interesting mini sand spits--tiny little islands, really--when the water is coming and going. On a sunny day, all of that is as plain as day, and you can make your way to and from the island without so much as getting wet.

But when TLK and I were heading back, I started to get nervous. I was sure we were on the stretch of sand that led back to the beach, but as we walked through the thick fog--and by this point we couldn't see ten feet in front of us--I could see the land shrinking, narrowing.

"I don't get it," I said. "The tide's not supposed to be coming in. It's supposed to be going out. This doesn't make any sense."

And then suddenly there was no more beach, and we were standing ankle-deep in the freezing water.

"Baby," I said. "Baby, seriously. What's going on?"

"I don't know," he said. "It's okay. It probably comes back up there. Let's just keep walking a little bit."

I nodded and took his hand, but already there were bad things kicking around my head. I had a really awful feeling in the pit of my stomach. Something was not right.

Soon, we were up to our knees. I could feel the hungry lick of the current under the water, and I began to panic.

"I'm scared," I said. It was the first time I'd said it aloud, but I'd been feeling that for minutes now. "I'm really, really scared."

"No," TLK said. "No, it's okay. Don't be scared. It'll be fine. I mean, there are a ton of people back behind us. We can just walk back that way."

That didn't make me feel any better. I imagined the other people back on the island still exploring, still taking their pictures as the water rolled over the sand between us. We would be stuck. We would be trapped. And there was no way anyone could see that we were trapped.

Or, if not that, then this: We would walk back to the island, yes, and we would find everyone gone--or suddenly surprised at the turn of events, at the water that was filling in and cutting us off from the mainland, which we couldn't see, couldn't even begin to imagine anymore--and we would all climb to the very top, the very tip, which was the only part of the island that didn't get swallowed by the ocean during high tide.

Or if not that, then this: We would walk back to the island and it would be just me and TLK, and we would sit there, waiting to be rescued, waiting for the Coast Guard's chopper when the lifeguards were closing up shop and found an unclaimed beach setup. There we would be--clutching each other in the dark, in the cold, in the mist from the waves that slapped around us--and our teeth would be chattering, and we would be freezing, we would be dying, and they wouldn't get to us in time, and then for years we would become the cautionary tale every Maine mother told her children when she sent them off to the beach with friends.

Or if not that, then this: We would decide that we couldn't be too far off coast and that we could swim it. I'm not a very strong swimmer--Amy once had to save me when I choked on a wave and then, predictably, started drowning on a choppy day at Long Point, and I haven't been confident in my abilities since--and so I could see TLK having to calm me down, drag me along, pull me like a lifeguard pulling a child from the deep end. I would be too scared to help, and I would panic, and I would make us drown.

I was certain of one of those outcomes. It was going to happen. We were done for. We were toast.

So we turned around, and I held the TLK's hand tighter than I've ever held it, and I thought about his mother and how much she was going to hate me for killing her son.

TLK was very quiet. I was very quiet. We walked back to where the sand started and widened, where he'd been diving into the waves. We walked and walked and walked. We couldn't see anything. We couldn't hear anything.

But then, coming through the curtain of fog, was a woman and her son.

I was near tears, and I leaned into TLK. I wondered if she and her son were doomed, just like us. "Do you think I should ask her?" I said. "Maybe there's another way back to the beach."

And then I was turning to her, excusing myself, asking her if she knew how to get back to the beach. Then, delicately--because I didn't want to alarm her, her son--I said, "We thought we were headed back there, but when we got up ahead everything's flooded in."

She smiled. Oh, that smile! It was heaven! It was salvation! She wasn't going to smile at me if she was suddenly realizing that she and her son--and the two people standing in front of her, hands linked so tight their fingers were turning white--were minutes from certain death.

"Oh yes," she said. She turned and pointed into the fog behind her. "Keep going back this way," she said. "Eventually, you'll see a ribbon of sand to your right. That'll take you back to the beach. Right now you're on a little peninsula that extends out from it."

And she was right. Maybe twenty feet away from us, there was a meandering sand path back to the beach, which we had missed when TLK was going in-out-in-out of the water and I was laughing at the way he ran into it--wide-armed, spastically. When we cleared the thick hang of fog and could finally see our stuff, we walked to it quickly, collapsed on it. I had never been happier to see my beach bag.

We stayed that way--face down, shivering--on the blanket for a long time. We didn't even move to eat our sandwiches; we simply raised our heads enough to get them into our mouths. It's just that we were so happy to feel dry earth, to know we weren't about to be swallowed up by the sea, swallowed up by the call of the lighthouse fog horn, the last lonely sound we'd hear before we let the undertow take us.

My Own Little Boom Boom Pow

Last night I almost died.

At 10:05 PM I was sitting on the shore of one of Maine's many charming ponds--The Lady-Killer and I were spending time with his cousins at his family's camp--and the boys (TLK, two cousins, and his younger brother, who, for the majority of the day, spoke in the Old Gregg voice) were setting up fireworks the cousins had smuggled in from Massachusetts.

It had been a long day. I'd ridden on top of TLK's lap in a kayak made for one. I'd been chucked off a water trampoline with such vigor that my bathing suit readjusted itself inappropriately. I'd spent the rest of the time watching the water trampoline action from the safety of two noodles I propped under my head and feet so I could float in the 80 degree water without fear of exposing myself to wholesome New England boys. I'd played a rousing game of Uno that went on for over an hour, in which the boys shouted, "I fucking hate you, you motherfucker!" whenever someone used a draw four card or skip card on them. I'd been serenaded by these same boys as they, during quiet Uno moments, rapped, in unison and a capella, songs that talked about living large, spending money, loving pretty but sexually promiscuous women, and driving fast cars. I'd giggled and giggled and giggled when the four of them chanted, "I like it when you call me Big Poppa! Throw your hands in the air if you's a true player!"

But by 10:05 PM, I was ready to go home. I was feeling a little punchy, and--I won't lie--fireworks make me nervous. Once, when I was young, my father and uncle set off fireworks behind my uncle's house on the Fourth of July, and one of the fireworks had gone off wonky, had shot off into the woods, and my father and uncle took off sprinting and the women and children stood on the porch wondering if this was it, if the boys were going to burn the whole woods down with this stunt. And if there's anything I'm a pro at, it's worrying--and I had that skill down even as a child. I went to bed that night thinking there was a possibility that the firework was still sizzling underneath a pile of dry leaves, sparking and spitting and waiting to take the woods out with one hot breath.

This old fear was not helped last night by the fact that the boys handling the fireworks are not old enough to rent a car. It was not helped by the fact that boys took any chance they could find to toss firecrackers or spinning sunflowers at each other so that they exploded at their feet--or, in one case, on someone's back. It was not helped by the fact that when this happened, the boys would scream, "OUCH, YOU FUCKING MOTHERFUCKER!" and then they would laugh and say, "THAT WAS EPIC! THAT WAS AWESOME!"

From 9:00 to 10:30, I was ten seconds away from standing up, putting on Teacher Voice, and telling those boys to PUT THOSE FIREWORKS AWAY AND SIT DOWN AND BE STILL BEFORE SOMEONE LOSES A FINGER, FOR GOD'S SWEET SAKE.

I relaxed a little bit after the first few rounds of bigger fireworks, because those couldn't be thrown at people and because the boys had towed in a small barge that floated just off shore, and that's where they shot the impressive fireworks off from. After a few fountains, I realized the boys at least knew which way the fireworks needed to be pointed and that no one had burned an appendage off yet, so I took a few pictures. I ooohed and ahhhed.

But then one of TLK's cousins picked up a spent firework and placed it in the bonfire that was built mere feet from the bench where I was sitting. My whole body froze. I looked at the boy, looked at the other boys. I waited for someone to shout at the cousin, to tell him to stop being a fucking motherfucker, that you shouldn't put fireworks--spent or not--in a fire.

In that moment, I felt a transcendentally-projected version of my father sitting next to me on the bench. He put his arm around me, sighed, shook his head. "That," he said, "is not a smart idea."

"Oh Jesus," I murmured.

"That might not be a good idea," one of the boys finally said.

"Oh, it's FINE," another said.

And then I watched the fire get loaded with the carcasses of Roman candles and cherry bombs and cakes. At first the boys were careful about at least settling the fireworks face-down in the fire, but after a while they got a little caught up in their excitement about the next one about to go off, and they'd just toss the cases and let them fall whatever way they pleased.

Which means, of course, that it was inevitable. Of course it was.

And at 10:05 PM, just as TLK's thirteen year-old cousin settled next to me on the bench, one of the bigger fireworks erupted, and a lick of fire exploded out from the middle, headed right for the bench. All I saw was green flame, and I took off. I don't think I've ever moved so fast in my life. I had no control over my body; it simply went. I could hear the explosions crackling behind me, and then, after I turned when I thought I was a safe distance away, more came belching out from the fire, so I launched behind a beached kayak.

When TLK found me, after he and his cousins put out the towel and chair that had caught fire--"DUDE!" the thirteen year-old yelled. "THAT WAS MY FUCKING TOWEL, ASSHOLES!"--I was quivering and sitting on top of the kayak. I was holding everything I'd come with.

"You okay?" TLK asked. He petted the top of my head.

I was in the throes of a nervous breakdown because those boys were laughing and starting to set up the next round of fireworks.

"No," I said.

"Are you having an anxiety attack?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"I almost threw myself on you to save you," he said.

"ALMOST?"

"Well, you were out of there so fast I wouldn't have caught you," he said. He poked the bag I was cradling in my arms, the towel I had wrapped around my shoulders. "And look," he said. "You grabbed all your stuff when you ran."

I frowned.

"Want to go home?" he asked.

I didn't say anything. I just stared at him.

And that's when his cousin threw a firecracker at his feet, and it exploded inches from me.

Needless to say, we were hiking our way back to my car real quick after that. And later, while we were standing in the middle of a gas station mini-mart and trying to decide what to get to eat and drink, I felt very lucky, very grateful for the Mountain Dew, the Mike and Ikes, the Junior Mints we would buy and eat, and how much better they tasted than whatever they would've served up in the hospital, had I been transported there to recover from third degree burns. Right then and there, the melty taste of mint on my tongue was heaven.

Let Me Catch You Up

(1.)

I'm back in Maine.

(2.)

I just realized--just this second, this very instant!--that I have two long black hairs growing out of a mole on the side of my face.

(3.)

Josh has a new website. He's going to write funny things. He's going to make important observations. He's going to grossly misunderstand the plot of The Notebook and make all womankind roll their eyes at him.

(4.)

I have recently come into the knowledge that my boyfriend--AKA: The Lady-Killer, or, if you are Diana Joseph, Mr. Deeds--loves olive loaf as much as I do. There was a long line at the deli when we were out shopping last week, and I scuffled over to get some prepackaged lunch meat so we could avoid loafing in front of the deli case for fifteen minutes.

"What do you like for sandwiches?" I asked TLK. "Bologna? Roast beef? Turkey?"

TLK's face turned dreamy, and he stared off into the distance. "You know what I love?" he asked.

"What?"

"That lunchmeat... the one that's stuffed with..."

"OLIVES?" I said.

His attention focused back on me. "YES!" he said.

And then we jogged back to the deli for our olive loaf.

Clearly, it was fated that we get together.

(5.)

Because I am dating a boy who is younger than I am and not from my discipline--a discipline where boys wander around muttering words like pedagogy, discourse, and chapbook--certain words have begun creeping their way into my vocabulary. Words like DUDE! and EPIC! and SICK!

I've also begun to yell "Ling-Ling!" at things because we've been watching an awful lot of Drawn Together.

(6.)

Lately, I don't even know who I am. Well, that's not true. I know who I am, but I wonder what person snuck into my room late at night and gave me a quickie lobotomy so that I no longer worry about having the dishes or vacuuming or dusting done every few days.

If given the choice between getting up and cleaning the living room or, say, lounging in bed until 2:00 PM ("I'm surprised you haven't developed bed sores," Christine told me this week), I choose the latter.

It's liberating. It's heaven.

This is a good summer.

That Seagull Owes Me $3.50

This afternoon I headed off to the beach, but not before I popped into one of my favorite bakery/cafes--the one that's very likely run by pretty dark-haired lesbians. They make killer desserts. Lemon bars. Whoopie pies. Mocha fudge brownies. And I wanted to make a little picnic lunch, something I could sink my teeth into after several hours of tanning, reading, walking, wading, and seashell-gathering.

So I picked up a panini, chips, and a pecan bar that was so big it might as well have been a mini-pie. I couldn't wait to eat it.

And the pecan bar sat perfectly hidden in one of my beach bags the whole time I beached. It sat under a giant panini. No one bothered it when it was sitting in my beach chair as I lazed on the ground, and no one bothered it when I was off on my first long walk of the day--the one that took me to the west beach, the one with the wildest waves.

At dinner time, I broke into the panini. I was busy enjoying the grilled chicken, the sauteed peppers, the sassy pesto dressing while nearby a seagull was busying eyeing me up like nobody's business. Earlier, I'd witnessed this same seagull--the one with a red stripe that looked like a ketchup stain on his beak--saunter up to a large group close to me and snatch a chip from an open bag that was leaning up against a lady's leg. She screamed. Her whole group screamed. She got up and galloped after that seagull, who loped away, taunting her by not even having the decency to fly away. The lady chased him so with such vigor that the whole top of her bathing suit almost came off. Her straps slid down her arms and she finally had to give up. She stopped and tugged those straps back up. "STAY! AWAY! FROM! ME!" she yelled to the seagull. The seagull just dropped the chip on the sand and started nibbling it into bite-sized pieces.

That same seagull was now looking at my panini like it would be a great next course to his meal. I ate most of it, though. There was only a little sliver of bread left, and I rolled that up tightly into a piece of paper before sticking it back in its original bag, back on top of the pecan bar. I tucked it away in one of my beach bags. I hid it under two books, a notebook, and a couple of bottles of sunscreen. I set that bag on the chair and put a blanket on top of it. I thought, Just you try, seagull.

And I went off on another walk, this time to the other side of the beach, where cottages and mansions sit above sand glittering with tumbled rocks and shells. When I got back, the beach leading up to my setup was littered with crumpled paper. At first, it didn't occur to me that the paper looked an awful lot like the paper my panini had been wrapped in. I got back to my blanket and chair and saw that my entire bag had been moved from the chair. The seagull had nudged it onto the blanket and burrowed down through all the other things to find my food. He'd taken the scrap of bread, and he'd taken my pecan bar.

My pecan bar.

And he was sitting in the sand a ways off, just looking at me, all smug and satisfied. And you know what? I didn't even get mad. Not one bit. Because--let's face it--that was one ballsy, clever, and strong seagull. I was sad about not getting to eat my pecan bar--it looked really, really good--but I was almost pleased to give it up to an animal who had so much commitment to thievery. The stake out, the execution, the whole robbery was well played. The only thing that bothered me was having to scuff across the beach and pick up my missing things--including a few sheets of my novel-in-progress that had gotten between the seagull and his dessert. But I came home and soothed myself the only way I knew how: by baking up a pan of peanut butter brownies. I stuck a cup of chopped pecans in the mix just so I wouldn't miss out completely.

Excuse Me While I Turn up the Britney Spears so I Can Shake My Ass

On Friday night at 4:45 PM I zipped myself into a graduation gown. I tucked my hair under a mortar board and realized--for the first time--that there is an interesting advantage to having a horse face: I don't need bobby-pins to help secure my mortar board. Those things sit on my head like it's no big deal, no big shake. A few minutes later, after we arrived at the arena for graduation, I would watch dozens of female faculty members beg for bobby pins, but my horse head scoffed at the idea.



Anyway, once we arrived at graduation, we were ushered into a room to wait for the students to get organized into lines that would then be marched in front of us--all the faculty and staff--so we could appropriately rile them up. Some faculty members had pom-poms. Some had memorized chants. We were behaving badly. There was a loose excitement in the air. It was giddiness. It was electric. It was based on several things--first, we'd been promised cookies at the reception after the ceremony; second, we were going out for margaritas; third, we were free, free, free.

Faculty members were bouncing from foot to foot while the staff was trying over and over and over to get an accurate count of us, trying over and over and over to get us organized into our own neat, evenly-spaced lines. Many of us were famished and dreaming of cookie trays. I was looking longingly at the pictures of hot dogs and popcorn that dangled from the ceiling of our waiting room, which, during hockey games, serves as the snack bar. When one of my department-mates dug into his dangling gown sleeves to fish out a bag of trail mix, I was angry at myself for never thinking about hiding my own snack--Fritos, maybe?--in the long, boxy sleeves of my gown.

But then there was no time to covet the sleeve-snacks because suddenly everything was happening: we were actually in neat lines, and we were clapping. Two side-by-side lines of students were being led into the room. Everyone looked so cute. All the students were smiling and blushing and laughing. Pom-poms zipped into the air and teachers started calling out to their students as they passed.

I'd missed my own college graduation, so I had no idea of how a non-master's ceremony would go. In my wildest dreams, I would never have imagined something as sweet and festive as those first few moments when we all screamed and stomped and clapped until it felt like our hands were going to fall off. It was a graduation ceremony of the type I'd expect to see in an episode of Saved by the Bell--you know, with Mr. Belding high-fiving Zack and Slater, with Screech falling into the podium, with Jesse and Lisa and Kelly weeping into each others' gowns.

It felt pretty good. And this nice moment for the students was actually a nice moment for me, too. After all, it was the first time I stood as a full-time faculty member who was watching students she'd taught walk toward a stage to get their diplomas. There was a swell of happiness in my chest, and it stayed there until the last tassled head moved by.

Graduation--which, because it was masterfully planned, lasted only slightly over an hour, despite the fact that we had to walk 350 students--was the last real school obligation any of us had to deal with before we could walk away with brains that were already scheming things to do during our beautiful, lazy summer months.

And today I finished the very last of my grading. I snapped my gradebook shut, pleased with the rows and rows of numbers and letters and grades I had spent the better part of a week working up. And you can bet everything that the very next thing I did involved turning up my brand new Britney Spears CD and shaking my body all over this big, big room--a room that is filled with piles of clothes ready to be packed for Buffalo, for Mexico, for my first steps away from this semester and toward a summer filled with mojitos, blue skies, and weeks where I can write and slowly, slowly come back down to myself again.