Dispatches from Louisville

Just finished the third of seven days of reading AP exams in literature. I have learned many fascinating things about the minds of today's high school seniors and read some bad essays and some amusing essays, along with some very well written ones. My favorites are the ones in which the writer has given up. Not only are these very fast and easy to score, they often include funny drawings and notes and sometimes even song lyrics. Confidentiality prohibits me from sharing details but I'm sure you can use your imagination, especially if you've read AWPE exams.

I have begun directly addressing the students who write these essays in my head with comments generally along the lines of "Nice job, kiddo" or simply, and more frequently, "No."

The experience reminds me a lot of summer camp, right down to last night's dinner being recycled into today's lunch. Plus, I heard something about skits on the last night (?). ETS sponsored readings by Edwidge Danticat and Bobbi Ann Mason, and on dine-out night (a reprieve from cafeteria food) I had the most amazing smoked catfish and bourbon bread pudding at Hillbilly Tea, which approaches Southern food in a light, fresh way (menu includes vegetarian and vegan choices) and makes everything in house.

I have been waging war with the Kentucky International Convention Center, which has placed promotional flyers for state fair performers in every single bathroom stall. Sorry, I cannot hang with Lady Antebellum or Jason Aldean watching me pee. Def Leppard, Maroon 5, Train, and even a cartoon Katy Perry, fine. But not Lady Antebellum or Jason Aldean. The security guards are even worse. I know they are just doing their jobs, but it's getting ridiculous: I have been harassed about my ETS name badge on three separate occasions. Once I left it on the table during a 15-minute break but I was carrying a mug that said ETS and AP on it. An older male guard actually started chasing me, but I outran him up the escalator and yelled "Leave me alone!" Another time I took the name badge off as I was leaving the building at 5 pm. I was about three yards from the door -- walking towards it to LEAVE THE BUILDING -- and a female guard stopped me, made me display it, and told me I needed to wear it at all times. The third time the same female guard stopped me while I was wearing the badge. What is the friggin' deal with this? There are thousands of AP readers in the building. Why me? Other readers have been just as perplexed by the security guards haranguing me. I am certain this would not happen if I were a dude.

Despite the grueling 8-5, 7-day schedule, this might actually be fun if some of my friends were here. Next year in Louisville, anyone?

After Midnight

E and I watched Midnight Cowboy again this past weekend. What an amazing film. I was struck by how contemporary it continues to feel, in spite of the outdated clothing and hairstyles (and, I suppose, the grittiness of pre-Guiliani Times Square -- the porn theaters and shady characters selling fake Rolexes of my childhood have been sanitized and replaced with souvenir shops and the Disney Store). I've been reading a lot of Jennifer Egan's work, which often treats the impact of technology on human relationships, and Joe Buck carrying the transistor radio through the streets of Manhattan seemed incredibly prescient. In other news, I presented a talk/cooking class on spices at the public library in town. I really miss teaching cooking classes at the Davis Food Co-op. The cats are united in their love of the windowsill, and the new adaptation of Jane Eyre is fantastic. Here I am at the Circle Cinema in Tulsa wearing my "Reader, I married him" T-shirt. Some grad students asked why people like Jane Eyre so much, and I said that I really related to "poor, obscure, plain, and little" Jane. "Is that a joke?" someone asked. If only!

La durée de vie d'une danseuse

Next Friday and Saturday I guest perform with GoVertigo, the university's student dance ensemble. The process has been fun -- I especially enjoyed the weekly full-company rehearsals that operated like a dance workshop/class and included drills in turns and leaps -- but more grueling than I expected. Practices begin after 9 pm, for one, a time at which I prefer to be getting ready for bed. It's hard to come home and go right to sleep after jumping around and using the part of your brain responsible for remembering choreography. This part of my brain has atrophied. It was once robust: I was the girl that always got put in the front row because I remembered the moves. Now I'm in the back trying to follow the girls in the front, struggling to stay on beat and recall what exactly to do with my arms. I'm in a modern/lyrical number set to the Ron Pope song "Fireflies," and the full-company number, a hip-hop affair that incorporates cheerleading and ballet moves, to the tune of Taio Cruz's "Dynamite." These are both really stupid songs. I wanted to dance to Ready for the World's "Oh Sheila," but nobody asked for my input. As you can see, la durée de vie d'une danseuse has not been easy. My knees and ankles are bruised, I skinned my left big toe, and worst of all, I pulled a muscle in my butt. And I have to wear something called booty shorts in the recital. At least the cats provide a constant source of entertainment. Here they are, united in mutual adoration of newspaper and gazing out the window at birds.

Love letters

In the spirit of Valentine's Day, here is a belated love letter to some of the good things in my life:

• First and foremost, my wonderful spouse. As George Harrison said, "What is my life without your love?"
  
• The American Studies faculty at OSU, who reminded me of what academia could and should be like and renewed my hope for Something Better. These people are the colleagues I dreamed of having as a grad student: interesting, engaged, open-minded, egalitarian, passionate.
• Old friends, especially J, K, T, and MD, who remind me of the importance of human connection and help provide it despite my isolation in a social wasteland in which I am growing strangely accustomed to having no one to talk to and no one who shares my interests.
  
• Regina and Orange Julius, a.k.a. Malka and Sasha, two furry bags of purr.
  
• Ice cream, and temperatures above freezing conducive to eating it.
• "Breaking Bad." This show is awesome.
• A summer vacation to anticipate. If I could afford it, I would travel constantly. Instead, self-denial will make our trip to the east coast all the more sweet.
• Excellent health and appreciation for the fact that my biggest complaints -- a hereditary bunion, inability to do chaine turns in dance class with a bunch of 20-year-olds, ganglion cysts, and low Vitamin D -- are nothing to complain about.
  

L.A. Woman

MLA was like fashion week: neurotic, image-obsessed people frantically trying to outdo and impress one another. But I loved Los Angeles. Jenni was the perfect roommate. Highlights included the Getty Center, Angel's Knoll (the park from 500 Days of Summer), and good food. Since Eric and I spent New Year's in San Antonio, it was my third state in about five days -- a feat rarely achieved since I left New England, land of the tiny states. Yesterday was our first big snow day of the year; photo at left. San Antonio was great too, aside from getting stung by a wasp and having a weird reaction to it. See photo at right. If you can believe it, this was taken three days AFTER I was stung, AFTER two shots in the butt at the walk-in clinic on New Year's Eve (one steriod, one antibiotic). Leg is all better now.

From the desk of Professor Chicken

Anyone curious about life in my neck of the woods should see the excellent film Winter's Bone, which is set in a rural Ozark community that has some things in common with the area in which I live. The things that resonated the most were the unspayed, unneutered animals chained up outside in the cold and how it was normal for people to have guns, ATVs, and a horse but no food.

Before moving here, neither Eric nor I had lived in a place with this kind of poverty. In fact, we'd only ever seen this kind of poverty in other countries. According to a woman we know from the UU church, our area is the thirteenth poorest district or county in the U.S. But this community differs from Winter's Bone in that there's a university here -- although, as the UU person put it, it's not a "real school" -- and there are plenty of people who have money and live comfortably. There's even a golf course and some McMansions. But down the street from where we live is a house with cinder blocks on the roof holding down shingles and tar paper. On the way to this house is a derelict trailer park next to a stream where a sign reads "Do not throw trash into the creek." Last winter when a friggin' arctic blast kept temperatures below 30, I saw native kids without coats in the grocery store.

Speaking of arctic blasts, it was 19 this morning. One week ago today it was 75. It was over 30 by the time I left the house, but I was cold in spite of the gloves, fleece hat, two pairs of pants (I kid you not), undershirt, long-sleeved shirt, fleece pullover, fleece vest, and down jacket. I am convinced, perhaps irrationally, that I would not feel the cold so much in a blue state. Or even a swing state.

In lighter news, Eric's birthday a week and a half ago was quite the fiesta. I baked a cake and joined him and his colleagues for lunch, but the real surprise was the entire front office decorated in a Star Wars theme. Here is a picture of my favorite storm trooper. The next day, Sasha/Snåsa was featured in the Tulsa World. Yesterday I was at the university's Broken Arrow campus, and the director of the writing center asked, "Was that your cat in the newspaper?"

Hooray for my mom

My mother, an occupational health specialist at Hartford Hospital, is part of a fall-prevention team that just won a major award.

Here is a photo of the fall-prevention team receiving medals and certificates yesterday. My mama is the tiny cute one to the left of the woman in the green dress. I am so proud!

My mother also let me drag her to Concord, MA when I visited Connecticut last week. We toured Orchard House, where Louisa May Alcott lived when she wrote Little Women, and Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, where the Alcotts are buried on Author's Ridge near Hawthorne and his wife Sophia, Emerson and his wife Lidian, and the Thoreau family. CT was chilly, especially given temps close to 80 when I left Oklahoma, but the fall foliage was especially beautiful this year. Flying into Bradley, I looked out the window and saw gorgeous autumn colors on the trees lining the Connecticut River and thought, I'm home.

Why, you might ask, is there a PENCIL on Henry David Thoreau's grave? As one of my American Literature to 1865 students could tell you, it is because his family owned a pencil factory. Henry's sister Sophia ultimately ran the production, since he was busy being transcendental. I also learned from a student -- I make them give presentations on authors from the syllabus -- that Lidian Emerson's real name was Lydia, but that Ralph decided he wanted to call her Lidian and that was that. I guess he also called her by the nickname Queenie, and insisted that they name their daughter after his tubercular first wife, Ellen, who left him her fortune.

In other, unrelated news, it looks like I may be able to tag along on a study abroad trip in May. It's an eleven-day tour of historic sites in England, France, Belgium, and Germany. I would be an assistant student wrangler, but all major expenses are paid.