The trouble with eating in class

26 March 2008

Billy Collins is a lean and tender
T-bone steak, best served rare
with a side salad and something light;
perhaps a sweet Cabernet Franc.

It should not be served with inordinate
amounts of BestWest Steak Sauce,
as if a bottle of that
could sharpen the wit of him.

Principles of Biology has left
a dry aftertaste, and I sit down
salivating for a succulent cut
of the real meat.

Unfortunately, my teacher cooks
experimentally,
and with Sunflower hot-mitts she serves
to us Lecture 29:

Poetry Meatloaf. Which is not
fresh or moist or seasoned right.
But I am hungry. And she doesn’t seem
to have anything else on hand.

Shakespeare in bite-size bits and
Collins ground in with Nash
and something green that doesn’t
seem to belong to anyone

all garnished with slivered Poe
and a slimy ketchup marinara.
It slices neatly and leaves no crumbs
and everyone tucks in quietly.

Except my vegan study partner
who sips her Algebra noisily.
I choke a bit and try
To swallow gallantly.

Meatloaf is barbaric.

A nod to A. Maslow

20 March 2008

A good friend once asked what of the things I feared did I most want to do? I answered rather patronizingly, that I didn’t want to do anything I feared because I don’t like the things I am afraid of because I am afraid of them.

Since then I have realized how many fears I confront each day and strangely enough I have found a masochistic pleasure of sorts in digging from the depths of my soul the things I fear the most.

Then I take a deep breath and jump.

My greatest fears are, ostensibly, the dark and boys. The first seems too cliché to be true, the second too ridiculous, but there is nothing that frightens me quite so much as walking home in the dark, and there is nothing that makes my quite so uneasy as looking a boy in the eyes. I am sure, dear reader, you can only imagine my utter dread at the prospect of a safe walk! But I digress; it is enough to say that these have become rather commonplace fears and facing them a rather mundane exercise in self-actualization.

So I dig.

On my birthday my Dad set the beautiful dark chocolate raspberry torte in front of me and handed me the knife, at which point I panicked. I am 20 years old, and I am afraid of cutting my own birthday cake. I looked at it sitting there innocently on the plate:



I’m pretty sure that's undefined. Which might explain why it scares me. It's the same thing with pie:

yep. Irrational and imaginary.

Dig.

The Darfur Action Committee was the most unorganized band of six people I had every seen crammed in a HBLL study room. To my query regarding authority one quiet girl answered, “I think there was a president. Maybe named Ben? He’s been MIA for about a year.”

I don’t mind sitting in on meetings, I sign petitions, and I donated my $10 to Ralph Nader’s Alternative Commencement, but I am terrified of responsibility, of standing in front of a crowed, exposed for their criticism. What if I have to answer questions? What if they want information I don’t know?

I raised my hand and said I could organize a petition. Nikki asked me to be co-president. Sure. And I volunteered to speak on China’s Policy on Darfur.

Dig.

I made dinner for my roommates last week.

I called a friend for no reason yesterday.

I walked in the dark.

I blogged.

Exercise in simplicity

03 March 2008

I like to write.
I like big words.
I like little-known grammar rules.
When I write down my thoughts, I like to use a thesaurus to help me learn new big words.
I do this because I think simple writing is dumb.
Maybe my writing is confusing, but it is better to confuse some readers than to write boring things.

But forgive, dear reader, my verbosity; I have simply imbibed too much Charles Dickens.