A Madhouse

It's insanely busy in Cook Library today. There are milling hordes of students asking for study rooms that we don't have; they're camping out on the floor in circles and looking at anatomy texts, or lists of formulas, or issues of Broadcasting and Cable (these students drool).

I finished much of my 'grading'; I didn't do any math to calculate grades, and often didn't even read the students' final work--I simply assigned scores based on my feelings for student performance. My last semester teaching for now and I've become Earthdragon.

Got in extremely late last night--we went to the Traveling Joneses' for some fine victuals and vino and chitchat. Their boys are something else: Sam, the introspective artiste with his elaborate mimetic farm landscapes and football drawings which are surprisingly anatomically correct for such a young guy. Drew the firebrand who flings himself off the couch and onto the floor, and who routinely manhandles his older brother. Kyle, who's not quite walking yet but whose already heavier than Drew, his senior, and looks like he's going to be a moose by age 13. We met some new folks and drank and ate the evening away. I kept playing with the new kitty because I never get to play with pets anymore; damn thing tore both my hands up, but I loved it.

After, we drove straight down Falls Road from northern Balto Co to Charles Village and Kwa'ali and Klezma's annual Chanamus shindig. Pierrot Lunaire asked why I didn't warn him about Sarah B. before she wrecked his life anew, then he stabbed Frosty the Snowman and frightened a child to death (actually Frosty was a cake and he asked why no one was eating it, someone said little Gabe didn't was us to cut up Frosty; Pierrot took a knife and cut it and Gabe saw this and burst out crying). By this point I'd had too much wine, but our team won The Game anyway.

I want to read the newspapers and I hate the very idea of reading them. The Senegalese Princess was just here--she works in AV and is "une des plus belles femmes qui j'ai jamais vue dans ma vie." Everytime she speaks to me my stomach does flips; half the time she speaks to me in French and I answer in English because I'm afraid I'll say something ridiculous to her, like "I'm sure when Herodotus mentioned that the southern peoples are the most sublime, your forebears he had in mind." She's about 6 foot tall, with well I won't go into details.

Only 4.5 hours until I can head home.