Long past time I updated this...
Dr. J, in a class discussion of Uncle Tom's Cabin: I do want to spend a few minutes talking about George Harris and how awesome he is.
Dr. J: “It sinks into my heart”. Eva is like a sponge. A little sponge for misery.
Dr. J On reading theory: Everything I read was like, ‘what the f*ck.’
Billy: I am being successfully hazed by grad school.
Talitha: I once wrote a fan letter to Derrida, and he wrote back to me on Valentine's Day!
Billy: Was it on deconstruction paper?
[Someone said that the Quakers had invented Monopoly to teach children about the evils of greed]
Ashley: You wouldn’t think if they were trying to teach about the evils of something they’d make a fun game out of it.
Chris: They didn’t make a fun game. They made monopoly.
Student 1 to student 2: I don’t like the cut of your jib.
Student 2: Was that racist?
Chris: No, it was nautical.
Student 2: What?
Chris: BOATS.
Student 1: Oh.
Grad student, discussing how a job candidate for a medieval position had tried (and failed) to make her talk relevant to current events: If you’re a medievalist, you’re a nerd. Everybody knows it. Just embrace your nerdishness and ride boldly into the night!
[Credit union sends us a ballot for voting for officials.]
Priya: I should be president or something of the bank!
Me: And what do you know about banking, Priya?
Priya: Nothing. I will take all the money from the vault and buy a lot of clothes.
Me: [laughing] And THAT’S what you know about banking!
Priya: I will be banking in fashion.
Billy: I read this poem [here the frailest leaves of me by Walt Whitman] as an invitation to find n anagram. Like there’s some hidden message somewhere.
Ashley: Well, the acrostic is “HHA”, so apparently he pulled one over on you.
[Whitman claims he’s there when anybody’s reading his poetry. We make a statement about his poetry.]
Ash: Careful. HE’S HERE.
Dr J: we don’t know what seat he’s sitting in, but…
Carrie: He’s next to me. *pats chair back* Hey, Whit!. …Get your hand off my thigh. *whacks the chair*
Ash: He WOULD.
Billy: Or WOULD he…?
Dr J on another prof: I would never want to ask [her] opinion of something I loved.
Talita: I am not a mother, I will never be a mother, I have a cat, but I am still a woman.
Student debating whether freshman comp should be required: They said we need freshman comp to learn to synthesize. Mozart never took freshman comp, and he synthesized several symphonies by the time he was seven.
Student 2: And he didn’t even have a synthesizer!
Carrie-Ann: You can always use that great quote-“echoing… [forgets rest of line] flam flam flargen.”
[Introduced Sally to contra-dance, and partnered her during the lesson.]
Contra-dance teacher, talking about keeping yourself from getting dizzy when you spin: So you shouldn’t watch the walls, you should watch your partner. Because the walls will look like they’re spinning, but your partner should look pretty stable.
Sally: *looks skeptically at me*
Me: You’re right. I’m never stable.
Dr J, talking to the class: Remember that you don’t have to turn your paper in tomorrow. Unless you want to, Ashley.
Kid with knee problems jumps into cold pond.
Girlfriend: How’s the knee?
Boy: I don’t know; I can’t feel it.
Girlfriend: You mean you can’t feel it because of the cold or you can’t feel it because you were an idiot?
Boy: …Yes.
Priya: Today is cloudy with a chance of sleepy.
Priya: She smelled so strong, I couldn’t tell if she was wearing perfume or the perfume was wearing her.
Mom, discussing our spherical kitty: Gracie can’t walk past a food bowl.
Mom: I called a kid by his brother’s name today. …His brother’s black.
Ashley: Well, at least they can’t call you racist!
Laurel, on eating too much chocolate before she teaches ballet: Just ask the class before yours. I had them dancing with the rubber chicken.
[I was at a friend's house and they were having dinner. I explained to Mr S that I was meeting some friends somewhere to eat later, so I just sat and chatted with them while they ate. Then Mrs. S came in.]
Mrs S: Do you want some bread?
Mr S: She’s driving.
Verbally challenged cousin, impaling hot dog on toasting fork: DIE!
Later: IT’S A FINGER
Dr. Z, discussing "The Power and the Passion" as a film for class: This is great--the china! The conspicuous consumption! And that’s Rufus Sewell looking so nice, so luscious.
Mom: I thought you were trying to weasel out of doing the dishes.
Me: Hey, eagles may soar, but weasels never get sucked into jet engines.
Chris: They do if they have ladders.
My brother: I dreamed last night that you and I were playing a game, and our playing pieces were lawn gnomes, and they were supposed to be little wizards. And I knew that my piece was supposed to be more powerful than yours, but I couldn't figure out how. And then your piece said, "I summon a spell of--" and my piece yelled "LUNCHBOX!" and a lunchbox came out of nowhere and hit your piece in the face. I woke myself laughing.
[Adam falls playing basketball. We’re all concerned.]
Allie: You’re fine! Walk it off!
[Alexis gets a little over-enthusiastic cheering Becca on at a basketball game. She shouts out praises of everything Becca does.]
Ash: Calm down a little!
Alexis: Good blinking, Becca! Great pacing!
Dale, weaving through traffic, to the other drivers: You need to watch out. I have a trailer I don’t care much about!
Erica: I got a snapchat.
Meghan: Who from?
Erica: The boy.
Ashley: You say that as if he’s the only boy in the world.
Erica: He’s the only one I feel comfortable sending unattractive photos to.
Ashley: That’s a statement of love if I’ve ever heard one.
Juliana: I think that would be worth my first AND third child!
*Ashley looks at her questioningly*
Juliana: Nobody wants the middle child.
[At lunch, trying to determine if the milk’s turned]
Ashley: it tasted vaguely floral this morning
Chris: I have seen roses damasked, red, and white-
Ashley: ...but no such roses see I in this jug!
Chris: And in some perfumes is there more delight / than in the smell which from this jug reeks!
Both: *cackle*
Dad: We have such edifying mealtime conversations.
Mom: *drops her medicine*
Ashley: Do you need help picking up your anti-fumble medication?
Mom: *starts laughing*
Chris: It cures dropsy.
Andrea: They decided they wanted to do a walking tour of campus for the new grad students. So they were trying to find a returning grad student who actually knew where anything was besides our building…
Andrea, playing a word game: Man, there's no way to get 'naked'!
Julie: I tried to teach my cat to read. It didn't work very well. I mean, I was only eight; my pedagogy was terrible.
Ashley: I don't think you've ever seen me angry. You've seen me exasperated…
Andrea: yeah, I've seen you upset, but I don't know where on the spectrum from Ashley to angry.
Sally, after Andrea tells her the story of Shakespeare's Timon of Athens: I think I read a children's book of that once! Only they left out the whores.
Andrea: Yeah, at weddings the women are usually all fighting over the bouquet, but when it comes to the garter, usually one brave man will throw himself on it like it's a grenade to save the rest.
Dr. J: “It sinks into my heart”. Eva is like a sponge. A little sponge for misery.
Dr. J On reading theory: Everything I read was like, ‘what the f*ck.’
Billy: I am being successfully hazed by grad school.
Talitha: I once wrote a fan letter to Derrida, and he wrote back to me on Valentine's Day!
Billy: Was it on deconstruction paper?
[Someone said that the Quakers had invented Monopoly to teach children about the evils of greed]
Ashley: You wouldn’t think if they were trying to teach about the evils of something they’d make a fun game out of it.
Chris: They didn’t make a fun game. They made monopoly.
Student 1 to student 2: I don’t like the cut of your jib.
Student 2: Was that racist?
Chris: No, it was nautical.
Student 2: What?
Chris: BOATS.
Student 1: Oh.
Grad student, discussing how a job candidate for a medieval position had tried (and failed) to make her talk relevant to current events: If you’re a medievalist, you’re a nerd. Everybody knows it. Just embrace your nerdishness and ride boldly into the night!
[Credit union sends us a ballot for voting for officials.]
Priya: I should be president or something of the bank!
Me: And what do you know about banking, Priya?
Priya: Nothing. I will take all the money from the vault and buy a lot of clothes.
Me: [laughing] And THAT’S what you know about banking!
Priya: I will be banking in fashion.
Billy: I read this poem [here the frailest leaves of me by Walt Whitman] as an invitation to find n anagram. Like there’s some hidden message somewhere.
Ashley: Well, the acrostic is “HHA”, so apparently he pulled one over on you.
[Whitman claims he’s there when anybody’s reading his poetry. We make a statement about his poetry.]
Ash: Careful. HE’S HERE.
Dr J: we don’t know what seat he’s sitting in, but…
Carrie: He’s next to me. *pats chair back* Hey, Whit!. …Get your hand off my thigh. *whacks the chair*
Ash: He WOULD.
Billy: Or WOULD he…?
Dr J on another prof: I would never want to ask [her] opinion of something I loved.
Talita: I am not a mother, I will never be a mother, I have a cat, but I am still a woman.
Student debating whether freshman comp should be required: They said we need freshman comp to learn to synthesize. Mozart never took freshman comp, and he synthesized several symphonies by the time he was seven.
Student 2: And he didn’t even have a synthesizer!
Carrie-Ann: You can always use that great quote-“echoing… [forgets rest of line] flam flam flargen.”
[Introduced Sally to contra-dance, and partnered her during the lesson.]
Contra-dance teacher, talking about keeping yourself from getting dizzy when you spin: So you shouldn’t watch the walls, you should watch your partner. Because the walls will look like they’re spinning, but your partner should look pretty stable.
Sally: *looks skeptically at me*
Me: You’re right. I’m never stable.
Dr J, talking to the class: Remember that you don’t have to turn your paper in tomorrow. Unless you want to, Ashley.
Kid with knee problems jumps into cold pond.
Girlfriend: How’s the knee?
Boy: I don’t know; I can’t feel it.
Girlfriend: You mean you can’t feel it because of the cold or you can’t feel it because you were an idiot?
Boy: …Yes.
Priya: Today is cloudy with a chance of sleepy.
Priya: She smelled so strong, I couldn’t tell if she was wearing perfume or the perfume was wearing her.
Mom, discussing our spherical kitty: Gracie can’t walk past a food bowl.
Mom: I called a kid by his brother’s name today. …His brother’s black.
Ashley: Well, at least they can’t call you racist!
Laurel, on eating too much chocolate before she teaches ballet: Just ask the class before yours. I had them dancing with the rubber chicken.
[I was at a friend's house and they were having dinner. I explained to Mr S that I was meeting some friends somewhere to eat later, so I just sat and chatted with them while they ate. Then Mrs. S came in.]
Mrs S: Do you want some bread?
Mr S: She’s driving.
Verbally challenged cousin, impaling hot dog on toasting fork: DIE!
Later: IT’S A FINGER
Dr. Z, discussing "The Power and the Passion" as a film for class: This is great--the china! The conspicuous consumption! And that’s Rufus Sewell looking so nice, so luscious.
Mom: I thought you were trying to weasel out of doing the dishes.
Me: Hey, eagles may soar, but weasels never get sucked into jet engines.
Chris: They do if they have ladders.
My brother: I dreamed last night that you and I were playing a game, and our playing pieces were lawn gnomes, and they were supposed to be little wizards. And I knew that my piece was supposed to be more powerful than yours, but I couldn't figure out how. And then your piece said, "I summon a spell of--" and my piece yelled "LUNCHBOX!" and a lunchbox came out of nowhere and hit your piece in the face. I woke myself laughing.
[Adam falls playing basketball. We’re all concerned.]
Allie: You’re fine! Walk it off!
[Alexis gets a little over-enthusiastic cheering Becca on at a basketball game. She shouts out praises of everything Becca does.]
Ash: Calm down a little!
Alexis: Good blinking, Becca! Great pacing!
Dale, weaving through traffic, to the other drivers: You need to watch out. I have a trailer I don’t care much about!
Erica: I got a snapchat.
Meghan: Who from?
Erica: The boy.
Ashley: You say that as if he’s the only boy in the world.
Erica: He’s the only one I feel comfortable sending unattractive photos to.
Ashley: That’s a statement of love if I’ve ever heard one.
Juliana: I think that would be worth my first AND third child!
*Ashley looks at her questioningly*
Juliana: Nobody wants the middle child.
[At lunch, trying to determine if the milk’s turned]
Ashley: it tasted vaguely floral this morning
Chris: I have seen roses damasked, red, and white-
Ashley: ...but no such roses see I in this jug!
Chris: And in some perfumes is there more delight / than in the smell which from this jug reeks!
Both: *cackle*
Dad: We have such edifying mealtime conversations.
Mom: *drops her medicine*
Ashley: Do you need help picking up your anti-fumble medication?
Mom: *starts laughing*
Chris: It cures dropsy.
Andrea: They decided they wanted to do a walking tour of campus for the new grad students. So they were trying to find a returning grad student who actually knew where anything was besides our building…
Andrea, playing a word game: Man, there's no way to get 'naked'!
Julie: I tried to teach my cat to read. It didn't work very well. I mean, I was only eight; my pedagogy was terrible.
Ashley: I don't think you've ever seen me angry. You've seen me exasperated…
Andrea: yeah, I've seen you upset, but I don't know where on the spectrum from Ashley to angry.
Sally, after Andrea tells her the story of Shakespeare's Timon of Athens: I think I read a children's book of that once! Only they left out the whores.
Andrea: Yeah, at weddings the women are usually all fighting over the bouquet, but when it comes to the garter, usually one brave man will throw himself on it like it's a grenade to save the rest.