Friday Friday

I think we are going to see "Munich" this weekend, if our babysitter is available.

The first week of classes are over. Next week the term starts in earnest, as four other classes begin with me as the teacher lady.

I am still reading the Lowell letters. I don't know a lot of the small details of his life, and it's kind of fun, not knowing the "back story" as it were. He's at Yaddo, he's not at Yaddo, he's married, he's not married. T.S. Eliot this, Elizabeth Bishop that. And I know he was manic depressive, but you don't really see that - so far - in the letters. However, in college I read a story in the Village Voice about Elizabeth Hardwick and Robert Lowell, and I know a bit about that marriage. So when he mentions "this girl Elizabeth Hardwick I met", I know what he's in for.

He also mentions Randell Jarrell a lot, and I was thinking, no one really reads Randall Jarrell anymore. Or John Crowe Ransom. At least no one I talk to. You never really see their names mentioned.

I ordered something from the Betty Crocker catalog today. The Betty Crocker catalog is like porn for people with domestic tendencies. I ordered cheery red kitchen towels with the days of the week stiched on them, and fiestaware bowls. I was disappointed to see instructions on the order form to "please write carefully in black ink. Your order form is machine scanned." I guess I had this idea in my head that Betty Crocker herself opened each order, read it carefully, and then had the Keebler elves pull stock from the shelves to fill the order (I know Keebler elves are Nabisco and Betty Crocker is General Mills, but still). Another myth shattered.

I like to bake more than I like to cook. I am trying to fight the urge tonight to make chocolate pudding. It's Friday, right?

My father and stepmother are on their way to Egypt.

Two things I wanted to do today were finish a poem and run three miles, and I did both. I ran three miles in the pouring rain. Don't tell my mother. There is this hill between mile two and mile three that is my nemesis these days. Some days it surrenders easily, other times it's a bitter fight all the way. At least I have an Ipod. Today's tune that got me up the hill: "Jet", by Paul McCartney and Wings.

The poem is called "Down at the Heels in the Ditch". I just like the way it sounded ...