Monday, September 29, 2008
Yesterday, avoiding any real work, I prepared wraps and salads to bring campusward for lunch this week. Unless something is fixed beforehand, I spend money on over-priced campus food. No bueno.
This morning I weighed in at 144, drained overnight by all the caffeinated diuretics imbibed this weekend to keep me awake as I read the first of a most boring commentary for the manuscripts class. The online reading failed to impress also.
Sleeptime.
Labels: campus food, diuretics, lunch, manuscripts, money, salad, school
[Lauree Frances Keith concluded this diatribe at 3:12 AM]
To Watch The Stork Squirm
Friday, September 26, 2008
In elementary school music classes, the material taught her students by Mrs. Marsha Usher fell broadly into two categories: the art of reading, listening to, interpreting, and performing music; and the art of listening to and interpreting stories and anecdotes Mrs. Usher related when stimulated by something or other, or when she felt she needed to fill twenty minutes with something other than a twenty-seven-person chorus making twenty-seven distinctly off-key renditions of "Let It Snow".
Specifically called to mind this evening, as I sat at home reading excerpts written by a play critic: Mrs. Usher once related the tale of her hamburger traumatization. She grew up on a farm, or at least in a house with some extended property, and could on that account raise a calf. 'Twould seem she went away one summer for a week or two- or perhaps a month or two- and returned home to be told her pet calf had run away. The evening of her return, Mrs. Usher's father (who presumably at that time never addressed his daughter as "Mrs. Usher") barbecued burgers, an event in itself not likely considered extraordinary to little Marsha not-yet-Usher. But this evening dinner held a curiosity: her brother, perhaps called "Bobby" or "Greg", kept giggling at her as he scarfed down his meal. When realization dawned on the victim of this cruel prank, she burst into tears, and has not eaten a burger since.
I love cheeseburgers.
Labels: anecdote, brother, burgers, calf, elementary school, farm, father, hamburger, Let It Snow, music, pet, prank, teacher, trauma
[Lauree Frances Keith concluded this diatribe at 3:50 PM]
Nimm Mich Mit
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
In an early episode of "The Twilight Zone", Mr. Death pretends to be a wounded police officer, forcing an old woman living secluded in a condemned house to take pity and let him in her door, thereby sealing her doom. Mr. Death, a handsome young man, applies a technique of speaking softly and smiling reassuringly to convince the old woman "death is only the beginning".
Without hesitation, I would have accepted such an offer. However, Robert Redford played a mid-twenties Mr. Death. As he appears currently, I would immediately recognize Mr. Redford as Mr. Death in not-so-subtle disguise. Accordingly, I would punch him in his teeth and flee (his lawyers).
Labels: disguise, Mr. Death, old woman, police officer, punch, Robert Redford, The Twilight Zone
[Lauree Frances Keith concluded this diatribe at 9:21 PM]
Deflowerment
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
I went to the main campus library last night after having spent appoximately eleven minutes on an elliptical machine at the student recreation center, which took an enormous amount of time to find, situated as it is amid numerous other buildings. I left shortly before nine in the evening, still struck aghast by the result of my inquiry into renting a locker: "There's a waiting-list at least a year long." The blue-eyed pale-face (I have yet to grow accustomed to living in an area where I am darker than most of the other inhabitants) at the towel desk registered the expression of incredulity on my face with due professional sympathy, but I perceived my reaction startled him a little nevertheless. I proceeded downstairs to inspect the locker room, which is indeed smaller than the one adjoining my junior high gym. This scratches plans for daily showers there before school.
One must check out some book to complete the activation process for one's library card; I chose three books by Alexander Woolcott, a figure about whom I have known but never read in detail. This morning I read his words about A. E. Housman, describing the time when Housman was a marginal professor taking a set of his poetry to a publisher. Housman declined the offer by the publisher to accept royalties:
Professor Housman had written some poems because he could not help himself, and an extremely painful experience he had found it. He would no more think of selling these things which had been wrung from his troubled heart than he would have cut off his hand and sent it to market.The thought immediately sprung to my head, illustrative of Housman's nobility and my lack thereof: I would with little forethought cut off my hand and sell it, if I thought it would fetch anything. Nevermind writing anything worthy of publication.
Yesterday I began a sympathy diet with a high school friend, who currently resides in New York. I am not fat, to be sure, but I am just as certainly not slender, either; if only to find clothes that fit, among other reasons, I need to drop weight. Weigh-in: 145.
Labels: A. E. Housman, Alexander Woolcott, diet, elliptical, friends, losing weight, New York, poetry, professionalism, publication, school, student recreation, writing
[Lauree Frances Keith concluded this diatribe at 7:05 AM]
Look Into My Eyes
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
I dress well on the days (Mondays through Thursdays) when I teach. This afternoon I appeared, as usual, "casually sophisticated" in all but one detail- a button on the chest of my blouse came undone as I distributed a quiz, so that anyone who cared to could clearly observe meine großen Brüsten. Wunderbar. I turned around to face the blackboard while the chickadees were bent over their quizzes to pack my chest back in.
Yesterday, the students read and translated a story from the book. The passage ended with one main character, Horatia, calling to another, Quintus, to wait for her. The passage ends: "Horatia runs to him. They go forth to school together." I made some comment about crazy love in the ancient world, upon which a girl in the class said,
'But aren't Quintus and Horatia brother and sister?'
...whoops. Well, times and customs sure have changed, haven't they?
Other than minor, daily disasters, the teaching has been going well. As a group, the chickadees are a good little bunch. Since the book exercises and readings lack verve, I incorporate real Latin poetry every week for pronunciation practice and to introduce the students to the range of literature available. Thus far, if not enthusiastic, no one seems opposed to this.
Labels: blouse, breasts, button, chickadees, clothes, incest, Latin, literature, poetry, quiz, students, teaching, translating
[Lauree Frances Keith concluded this diatribe at 4:10 PM]
Hummus In My Tummus
Thursday, September 04, 2008
This morning I arose and walked to The Tower (the eighteen-story campus office building; the tenth floor houses the Classics Department) ashiver with indecision: to study the manuscript tradition of Das Nibelungenlied or Saturae Iuvenalis? The topic abstract being due at three, I conferred with a few people and settled with Saturae Iuvenalis, after its potential use as a subject for my exit examinations in two years was pointed out. Hundreds of copies exist, of which about seventy occur prior to the twelfth century. Over the next week I shall research more thoroughly where codexes exist and narrow down which would be best to examine.
My Greek professor schlepped everyone in the class into signing up for slots at an all-day campus marathon of reading The Iliad in English on the fifteenth of this month. I dibsed nine o'clock a.m., to begin the madness with what will likely be a terrible interpretation of the first part of Book I. I do not mind doing this so much as other people will mind hearing it.
Every morning the cell phone alarm rouses me from bed between five and six (depending on how long I lie there, waiting for Andreas to grind coffee). I find something or other to read and fix eggs or eat a bowl of cereal flakes as Andreas prepares himself for exit. I then shower, gather my books into a blue University of Kentucky Graduate School satchel and a recycled rice bag, and trot to The Tower through a neighborhood with houses dating from at least the twenties. It is splendid to have a routine again.
Labels: alarm, coffee, Homer, Juvenal, manuscripts, Nibelungenlied, office, optimism, professor, reading, research, routine, satire, The Iliad, The Tower, University of Kentucky
[Lauree Frances Keith concluded this diatribe at 3:58 PM]
Razorblade Rash
Monday, September 01, 2008
A
My older sister's kid finally hatched. The doctor(s) had to slice Ashlea open the evening of August 26th to haul out an eight-pound, eight-ounce baby boy, whom the delighted parents have named "Cohen Keith Mims". Aunt Lauree will be delighted to call him "Porky" for the rest of his life. If the bebe had to be cut out of the womb, imagine what it might take to persuade him to cut out of the house before he's thirty.
I rather wish now I had taken up a friend's offer to (re)learn me the art of crocheting before I left Lubbock a few weeks ago. Then I could send the little porker a pig-coloured, handmade onesie. Doubtless Babies 'R' Us does not carry booties resembling pig feet; but the wide world of worthless retail surely holds some other creative, pig-themed items with which Porky may be gifted. Little does he know now what a lifetime of embarassment and humiliation awaits.
I began reading this morning a short, recently-published sources text introducing German erotic tales of the medieval period (Mären) that I stole from the library at Texas Tech University (since I forgot I had it and forgot to return it). It includes information about manuscripts, where available, and since I must find something to study over the course of the semester for the manuscript cultures course I am taking, it seemed worth pulling off the shelf for perusal. Some sources have been lost to fire catastrophes, but a couple seem promising, provided I can access the documents. An extensive study of Middle High German would be fun.
My housemate, Andrew (oder "Andreas" auf Latein), recommended unto me the play The Invention of Love, based around A. E. Housman and Oscar Wilde. It contains hilarious passages concerning philology and textual criticism, to make for an entertaining and thought-provoking Labour Day Weekend read.
Labels: A. E. Housman, baby, birth, boy, crochet, eroticism, German, Labor Day, Oscar Wilde, Porky, sister, Tom Stoppard
[Lauree Frances Keith concluded this diatribe at 9:54 AM]