Rocket Ship Mazes and Sunburned Scalps

Add this to the Perils of Premature Baldness list: Yesterday I volunteered to wrangle children through an inflatable rocket ship maze at the Children's Festival of Reading sponsored by the Knox County Public Libraries. My dear friend Matt told me about the festival at Happy Hour with the Boys (Monda, I've assumed your capitalization habits) on Thursday night at the sushi bar. He got roped into volunteering because his mom is the children's librarian at the downtown branch. I volunteered because I heard the words "play," "children," and "moon bounce." Honestly, in my past life I was a kindergarten teacher. It was great fun, but very sunny. By the end of the day, I was red faced with a sunburned scalp. Anyone got any aloe vera?

The sunburn was worth it though, if only for two reasons, listed in order of coolness. 1. Matt's Mom and Dad (nicest people you ever want to meet) took us for beer and pizza afterwards. 2. A little boy no more than six came through the inflatable rocket ship maze's rear exit, looked up at Matt and me wide-eyed, and exclaimed, "There's a dead astronaut in there!"

Kids DO say the darndest things.

Why Timothy is a Bookspaz

I hit the mother load, y'all. Well, that might be an overstatement. But, I did get a few good books for really cheap yesterday on my used bookstore adventure with friend Becca. Here's the goods:

1. Edna St. Vincent Millay's Collected Sonnets (for .25!)
2. Peter Shaffer's Equus (horse porn! $1.50!)
3. Lee Smith's Cakewalk (great Southern short stories! $1.75)
4. Henry James's The Turn of the Screw and Daisy Miller (a 1960s double edition! .95)
5. Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence (Mary Ruth told me to read that so long ago, and now I will since it was only .95!)
6. Plato's The Symposium (for the 102 class I'm working up--"Inquiry into Friendship"--I need a theoretical base. .75!)
7. Joel Spring's The American School, 1642-1990 (a history text, but interesting and FREE from the discard bin)
8. The Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson (a 1950 edition, paperback. FREE!)

So what's that, folks? 8 books for around $6? All I did yesterday afternoon was read bits from all of them. I now can tell you that the first high school in the country was the Boston English Classical School established in 1821, and that Lee Smith's Joline from the short story "Between the Lines" sounds an awful lot like Eudora Welty's narrator in "Why I Live At the P.O." (which you should read immediately). I can tell you that Millay deviates from the English sonnet form from time to time while still restricting her sonnets to fourteen lines and that you, Abigail, need to read her. You will LOVE her, I swear.

I'm just so giddy I can hardly stop grinning. And I need to get back to my books. Let me know any of your recent or most memorable bargain shopping and/or reading adventures.

The Start of Summer

Well, I did it, y'all. I made it through my first year of graduate school with dazzling success (as if anyone ever assumed I'd do anything but). In this, the semester from hell, wherein I took 15 hours, worked in the Writing Center, TAed 102, and still made time for bluegrass and cheap beer Thursdays, I feel like I did some really good work, achieved a lot of goals I'd set for myself, and had a great time along the way.

But, I ain't gonna lie to you, I'm thankful for summer, because I really need a break. I've already begun my first "for fun" book of the summer, Kevin Brockmeier's The Truth About Celia, and it's shaping up to be a really interesting read. He creates a fictional author who writes the novel in a series of inter-related short stories, which I love, because as of late I've become really fond of the short story genre. Heck, this summer, I might even try to write one or two.

I've also used the free time I've had the past week to work on some new poems, and I'm excited about a sexier one with a particularly striking image of an avocado. It's going on a really good direction, I think, and I'm hoping I can play around with form and try to figure out my own style. I think I've got my subject matter, at least my early twentysomething subject matter: I can write a hell of a witty and poignant white trash poem and sometimes, if I'm lucky, a queer love poem that doesn't get too sappy. I'm sending my first batch of stuff out on Monday, so I'll let you know in a few months if any journals decide to take a chance on a kid like me. Oh, I'm so excited about having more time to write.

Tonight I'm making cupcakes for an end of the year cookout one of my MA friends is throwing at his house. Lemon-cream cheese cupcakes that are going to be the best damned confections all the guests have ever eaten. That is, if they don't deflate when I pull them out of the oven.

To all of you still embroiled with finals-taking and paper-grading, godspeed. It'll be over soon, and then you'll have the summer to relax, and, here's a thought: come visit me! (winking at you, Abby).

To the start of summer!