I’m actually reconsidering my stance on “never” teaching again.

I liked (usually loved) teaching. Sure, there was room for improvement. I wasn’t the quickest grader and I was a frequent last-minute lesson planner, which is to say I tended to reconsider how to approach the subject just before students came in. Usually it turned out better than first plans.

I’m certain my skills/habits would be vastly improved, if I were willing to try again. I am bolder than I used to be, more confident. Now, I think I would stand up for myself if presented with the same Trunchbull situation.

In the last picture she sent him, she was wearing her cheerleader uniform, modest but sexy, and she was with several of her friends. He only recognized one of them.

He’d tried to talk her into going to the women’s college just a few miles away from where he was attending medical school, but she had this idea that she could be an architect and she wouldn’t hear sense about becoming a nurse or teacher. She was cheerleading for fun, but he thought it might be an excuse to keep him away on weekends. He sensed the end was near.

“Isn’t that number something to do about the weight?” the girl asked as she and her lab partner concentrated on the periodic table.

The lab partner (a guy, it should be noted) corrected her: the number was the atomic mass.

She giggled, grimaced, and said, “Oh, just kidding.”

I don’t know where that comes from, the “Oh, just kidding!” after being corrected, but I hear it everywhere now. What kind of buffer is that? If you make someone think you don’t care about getting it right, how does that reflect on you? Don’t you want people to take you seriously?

Books that have impacted my life:

Deerskin by Robin McKinley—a fairy tale, often called my favorite book (I reread it once a year)

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson—a teen book which I’ve reread time and again, mostly because Melinda’s voice is so amazing, heartbreaking and funny all at once.

Where Is the Mango Princess? by Cathy Crimmins—this book makes me want to wear a helmet everywhere. How fragile the human head…

Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes—by the end, I felt cowardly for being unwilling to do even the tiniest renovative task around the house.

By this time of year, we’re usually enjoying both hot and cold cider (non-alcoholic), hot beverages in the morning or at night (green tea or chai is my preference) and soups. After the first frost, a big bowl of chili or Mexican corn chowder starts to sounds wonderful.

Of course, we don’t usually crave these things when it’s warm outside, so we haven’t had any soups yet, and not much tea/chai/hot cider. How can it still be in the upper 70’s and 80’s? It’s October! (Last year wasn’t I refusing to turn on the heat because it wasn’t October yet?)

I think someone should consider remaking The Chorus Line. The movie, which came out in the early 80s, seems no longer a classic, just outdated. And the way the characters talk half their songs is a little irritating when you’ve gotten used to hearing the Broadway cast (CD) singing them all the way through.

I imagine new costumes, new scenery, better editing… I don’t think it would be all that hard, really, to create a new (and improved) movie version of this musical. And isn’t half the choreography written into the script already? (“Touch, step, pivot, step, walk, walk, walk.”)

I didn’t sleep well last night. I kept waking up every half hour or so. I admit I woke up once because I was drooling and my cheek was damp and cold and sticky. The rest of the night it was mostly dreams, though I only remember bits and pieces. Mostly they involved characters from other people’s fiction, and most of the dreams were less than pleasant.. At five I woke up because a neighbor was going to work and I heard him close his front door and drive away. (I did not hear the car door open or close.)

You told me you love me today. Though I repeated the sentiment, I didn’t believe me. I don’t think you did, either, but you kissed me anyway, and we spent the evening naked at your place until one of us suggested (me?) that we should order out for food.

You said you would make us something; you had plenty of food in the fridge and fancied yourself a decent cook. I didn’t know you were Greek until you brought out a salad and a plate of something I didn’t recognize except that it had lots of olives.

I hate olives.

The little girls sat in their green dresses—they were supposed to be junior bridesmaids—combing their dolls’ hair and talking quietly. All in all, they were far more patient than the mother of the groom, who would stomp her foot every five minutes or so and then pretend her foot itched if someone looked at her. Any pictures that did not involve her son were very clearly a waste of time in her mind, so while the other bridesmaids—close friends of the bride—and the bride were having their pictures taken, the groom’s mother glared at the clock.

In this moment I can remember the exact temperature of your body next to mine… the texture of your chest hair against my skin—how it feels so rough to my lips—and how soft your earlobes are… the way the calluses on your hands scratched against my skin. Your hair in my fingers, smooth and soft (especially if you’ve remembered to use conditioner, which I think I nagged you about; the way you combed your wet hair pained me)… Tonight, right now, I think I remember the texture of your tongue and lips. But already, the memory recedes again.

“Look at the ring,” Bree said smugly. Her nine-year-old hand tugged at her mother’s, prompting display. Naomi told Bree sharply to stop trying to show it off, then flushed and tried to hide her hand in her skirt.

Becket, her neighbor, smiled with equal embarrassment. “I suppose it’s probably something that’s meant to be shown off,” he said. “Bree must like Daniel very much.”

“Bree likes that Daniel buys her affection. He can’t keep doing that forever—I think it won’t be long before she hates him too.”

“Paul doesn’t like him?”

“Paul is still hopeful.”

“For what?”

“Someone else.”

She’d had this pen, a dark red Marvy GT-700, since college. One of the first gel pens she’d bought—a pack of four, she remembered—and the only one she’d liked was this dark red one. The others were skippy writers; she’d almost been happy to get rid of them. But this one, still with ¾” of ink in the tube, hadn’t been too troublesome. For a time it had been a finicky writer, so she’d started preferring other pens. When she re-found it in the bottom of her bag weeks later, it had written smoothly and has ever since.

You remember fondly how I greeted you at the airport three years ago—in a skirt and light blue, short sleeved sweater. You tell me I looked—well, ‘hot’ is the word you use, but I’ve never felt like ‘hot’ would be an adequate descriptor for me. ‘Sexy’ is what I always substitute in my head when you describe that moment; that’s a word I believe. Sexy, with my soft skin and curvy figure and full lips, all waiting for you.

Still, I can’t help but realize you’d think I looked great if I greeted you in a burlap sack.

Joan eyed the empty, dim corner wistfully as she accepted another glass of champagne from her husband’s business partner Stan. That corner looked so inviting. Not cringing every time Stan laughed—a toneless guffaw that reminded her of unidentified animal noises on a documentary about African wildlife—was taking quite an effort, and the champagne was making her more (instead of less, the desired effect) inclined to push him over. Already she felt her left eyeball could very well explode. The corner beckoned peripherally.

She could crouch in that corner unnoticed all night, if only she could just get there…

There was a whole table of them—discount books. Just sitting out here on the sidewalk, unattended, unwanted. Most of them were $5 hardbacks, though there were some scholarly monographs and thick biographies of people he’d never heard of. He browsed with a couple of other patrons—tourists walking through Greenwich Village, he was sure, based on the way they wore their purses over their shoulders and tee shirts with small town names screen-printed across their chests. He slipped a book into his jacket—it just barely fit the inner pocket.

Why was the tourist looking at him like that?

She wanted him. Not because she was in love with him—she wasn’t and she never would be—and she didn’t want him in any real physical way. But she didn’t really want anyone else to be able to have him.

She’d never read or seen Kiss of the Spider Woman, but she imagined it was about a woman who felt like this about everyone with whom she had a relationship. She wanted to devour them all, to make them a part of herself, as though she wasn’t capable of being anyone unless she was a little bit of everyone.

Fall is finally here. The apples are out at the farmers market and bees are hovering around samples of cider. The early cider (not hard cider) isn’t what it will be later (I hope), when a larger variety of apples have been harvested. And lately, nothing has tasted quite so refreshing as a yellow delicious apple. I know honeycrisps are finding increasing popularity around here, but I find them too sweet, too simple. Give me a more complex apple—sweet and a little bit tart and packed with flavor. None of those sissy, paletteless apples for me, no thank you.

They showered together more out of practicality these days than for the extra naked time it allowed them to share. Their water heater was tiny—hot showers could last maybe twenty minutes. They’d never timed how long it took the water heater to reheat enough water for a second shower, so they did a lot of dancing around each other. There had been a number of close calls, when one of them nearly landed on his or her backside outside the tub (and would have taken the curtain along).

They missed the days, though, when it was about naked togetherness.

Leaves and corn husks scuttled across the road, and every time she thought they were living creatures. She triple checked each one to make sure she wasn’t about to run over some poor rodent ventured up from the river on this surprisingly autumnal day. It had been warmer before the sun came up, and it was the wind that was making the air so chilly now. Had it not been for the sun, she felt the weather would actually have been on the verge of blustery, and she didn’t think anyone was quite ready for fall yet. (Were they ever?)

Matilda was the sort of person who made little kids (and a few adults) nervous. She would holler out her window at kids riding skateboards (and sometimes bikes) down the sidewalk (her sidewalk). Her hair, thick and silver, was always coiffed neatly on top of her head, her blouses were always trimmed with lace. She took offense at women in jeans, whom she considered a disgrace to femininity. And men who never thought to take off their hats indoors? Absolutely uncivilized. She spent evenings listening to the radio—classical music, but never NPR with its overly opinionated left wing commentation.

Already his hair was thinning, my poor eighteen-year-old nephew Nathan. My husband had warned him when he was little—the men in Nathan’s mother’s family bald young. He himself had lost almost all of his hair by the time he was twenty-five.

When Nathan’s senior prom rolled around, he confided to me over afternoon iced tea (he had just finished mowing our lawn) that he had been dating homecoming queen Courtney Patterson. Would I help him pick out a corsage? Her dress was light blue—should he get red or pink? Carnations? Those little roses? Should he shave his head?

When I was a high school senior and college freshman, I would often awaken, certain that it was past time to get up, the red numbers on my clock radio never registering. I would hasten to get through my morning routine, making a list in my head of what could be skipped: shower, make-up, jewelry, double-checking bookbag.

Usually, the still of the house would cause me to look at the living room clock, because my brain accepted the hand positions more easily than digital numbers. But sometimes I would pound on the other bedroom doors, calling that we’d all overslept.

The cashier tugged on her earrings while she waited for someone to realize she was at an open register. Pretty soon, they’d be cutting back on personnel because everyone went to the self-service scanners instead of the regular check-out lines. She wondered what they’d do with all the cashiers without registers then. Would they relocate them within the store’s departments? Would Mary finally get to work in the books area and Kylie in the personal care department? (She spent so much of her paycheck on hair goop, make-up and overpoweringly scented body lotions that she could hardly belong anywhere else.)

It wasn’t a loud belch; it was a rumbly, unsatisfying gurgle. But still, I could taste it, though I couldn’t identify right away what it was. Certainly not the sandwich I’d eaten for dinner, nor the Lean Cuisine lunch (lemongrass chicken). Chocolate, even when it’s partially digested, doesn’t taste like that when you burp it.

No, this was acidic. Ah, yes. I had a glass of orange juice before my spinach salad to help my body absorb the iron. That’s what that taste is: spinach, croutons, Caesar dressing, and Tuscan Chicken Pasta (an Olive Garden recipe)—putrefied by orange juice.

What’s strangest to me about this sundering is that I often feel as though I am still there with him in British Columbia. Roger was trying to tie a makeshift dog harness (he’d found a lost border collie) and talk to me on the phone at the same time. I was 75% asleep at my end (1 a.m.), and at one point he said, “Hold the phone, babe,” and I actually reached out my hand as though I could take the phone from him. I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry when I realized my arm was stretched out.

Kyle doubted Wendy’s motives. She was never nice.

Wendy thought Kyle a frequent fool, but as his big sister, she felt it was her obligation to at least tolerate him, though she seldom was able to bring herself to show any genuine affection, and she’d long since tired of pretending.

Tom usually bailed them both out—from Kyle’s financial fiascoes and Wendy’s callousness which frequently cost her jobs and friends, though Tom did have to admire, on some level, the young woman who called it as she saw it. She was often a fool herself, but she’d never see it.

The cause of human extinction will be disease—a disease that evolved from our insane need to sanitize every surface. Bottled cleansers and hand soaps boldly declare Kills 99.9% of germs! But what they don’t explain is a lot of those germs weren’t hurting you in the first place and that the .1% that doesn’t get killed is a stronger germ which will replicate and create more, stronger germs. Eventually even new formulas (developers won’t be able to keep up) will prove ineffective, and the whole of the human race will be struck down with whatever super-super-germy diseases win out.

You know, people just don’t stand around and cuddle in public. And when I say cuddle, what I really mean is grope, which is really not to be confused with cute, affectionate (sometimes irritating) displays of affection. Yet, I’ve noticed that at amusement parks this seems to be acceptable behavior. Couples walk around (or wait in line) clinging to each other, their hands in each other’s clothes or grasping at some part of the other’s anatomy.

I am all about romantic PDAs and participate when I can, but I do not pretend to believe that these groping people are romantic.

If you vote democrat, there are only two running for the seat, but republicans have to choose between five at the primary next week. One is a history teacher; personally, I’d like to see a real live Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. But the consensus seems to be that it’s going to be between two candidates. It’s been said: “I guess everyone has to decide who is the lesser of two evils.” But the problem is (as always) that we shouldn’t have to decide between two people we think are evil. Why does it always seem to be that way?

The swirled-up tip of the very narrow shoe pinched her toes a little, but since she had dexterous toes, she was able to squish them together so that the prince thought it an easy fit. She said she’d thought it pointless to keep just one shoe with the other hopelessly lost; she’d given it to some traveling people’s children to play with, telling them it was a magic shoe from her three faerie godmothers. This story seemed to delight the prince; he promptly kissed her foot and called for his advisor.

She distantly wondered who the shoe really belonged to.

Last year, we had no trick-or-treaters. I can’t say I was completely surprised, despite the number of jack o’ lanterns and light sources we had on; we live next door to a meth dealer (and who knows what else he is) and on the other side is a very cranky, paranoid old woman who yells at anyone who comes within twenty feet of her house. The guy who lives across the street is never home, and frankly, I don’t think I’d recognize anyone else on the block. So I understand why this isn’t a neighborhood saturated with trick-or-treaters on Halloween.