Windchimes

gnocchi gone gone

The gnocchi was delicious, too delicious.

I've developed a weekly pattern over this semester. I suppose everyone does, as every semester is different depending on what days and times you go to classes. This one's been a little different for me, as twice a week I have classes from 5:30-8:00. German Film on Mondays, Poetry Writing on Wednesdays. Sandwiched between on Tuesday and Thursday mornings: Contemporary Lit and Yoga. So here's how it usually goes. Completely flattened by Friday, fret all day Saturday about what I should be doing, find ways to procrastinate. Try to make a dent in laundry folding and putting away, think about vacuuming. Do the week's dishes. Oh, now the kitchen's clean, let's cook. Something nice, something special. Usually involves a trip to the grocery store. Sit down and eat, watch a movie. Still have plenty of school assignments weighing silently on the brain. Too late to try to work when the movie's over, go to bed. Have every intention of getting an early start with school assignments in the morning.

Sunday morning. Ah, wouldn't it be nice to have a big, slow, lazy breakfast. Scrambled eggs, biscuits and bacaon. Or waffles, or pancakes. Or anything but the instant oatmeal or toasted bagel I can quickly prepare and eat on weekdays. Only takes about an hour, if that long, to fix. Sitting around with everyone and eating it takes another 30 minutes. Go out to front porch for post-meal smoke, a cigarette while my husband puffs a cigar. Discuss what we'd like to do for dinner. What will the weather be like? Should we barbecue? Now the kitchen's a mess again, let's not leave this like this. Tidy kitchen. Cliff asks me what I'm going to do now. I start listing my assignments as I walk to the computer. If one of my daughters is here (and one usually is) it's a good time to finish reading half a novel. If one of my daughters isn't here yet, I check my various email accounts and get-to-know-you websites. Depressed over finding little but spam, my mouse pointer invariably finds the Yahoo games link. Zuma, Diamond Mine and Chuzzle. Funny, I used to like the word games. Upshot, usually don't get started on assignments till after dinner on Sunday.

Tell myself it's ok, I can sleep a little late on Monday, don't have a class until 5:30. The house and entire neighborhood is completely quiet after midnight, and the hours between 11:00 and 2:00 are usually very productive. Sleep till 8:30 Monday morning. Not so late if Faith can't take the bus for one reason or another. Work on German assignments all day long, hope to finish by 4:00, when Faith gets home from school. On a really good Monday, finish by 3:00, take a restorative shower, get ready for class. Interruption possible if Faith stays after school, missing the bus and needing to be picked up. Arrive on campus at 5:00, spend 30 minutes on deck behind Cobb Hall smoking and chatting with German classmates. 5:30, fast nur Deutsch sprechen und hören. Some of the movies have bits of French or Turkish conversations, for which our professor usually profoundly apologizes, especially if it's French. She's a hoot. Two of us are French majors and she speaks pretty darn good French herself. On the way to class last night, I kept thinking "...parce que je maintenant allemand parler dois." I should leave that out because I no wish to it explain have. As much as I'm usually craving a cigarette by the end of class, I generally hate leaving, take my time.

Home, eat, watch a DVD. Completely exhausted before 11:00, go to bed, wake up at 3:00, smoke, go back to sleep, wake up again at 6:30. Might as well stay up.

You know, writing all this has worked better than coffee waking me up this morning, but I bet it makes for some boring-ass reading. I better go get ready for that 9:30 class. Things to look forward to this week: Wednesday Poetry class Post class get-together. Thursday on-campus poetry reading. Robert Phillips and Megan Sexton. Friday English Dept. end-of-spring semester pot-luck dinner. Saturday, Cliff gets back home. I'll probably be happily accustomed to having the bed to myself by then, just in time to...oh skip it.

J.H. Larrew
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