Those photos of your sister also represent justice.
Happy Valentine's day, I guess.
Here's the deal: Monday is President's Day, which means no class. That's fine, I don't have class Mondays anyway. But then they decided that Tuesday would use Monday's schedule, so that means I don't have class Tuesday. When you consider that I normally don't have class Friday through Monday, and they then cancelled my Tuesday classes, that means I got a full week off (I don't have class Wednesday, either). A full week off, when most people only get a three-day weekend. So, suck on that, I suppose.
I'm trying hard to be productive with my time off. I'm trying to get a lot of reading and writing done and, of course, continue my job search. Things have gotten a little easier since my parents gave me some money to let me, you know, not starve. Grocery shopping was a joy... real food! I've been eating real food for two whole days now!
Thursday I went to a reading that Tony Hoagland gave at the Paramount. It was related to a hoity-toity literary magazine called Plougshares, which is itself related to Emerson, so there were lots of Emerson people there. Now, I don't particularly care for Tony Hoagland. I read some of his essays on craft in a book called "Real Sofistikashun," and it was excellent. He writes about poetry very well, and I'd recommend him to all my friends that are interested in writing poetry (that is to say: none of you). So after I read and enjoyed that, I decided to try his actual poetry. I picked up "What Narcissism Means to Me," his newest book, shortly after Christmas.
And... man. I hated it. Couldn't even finish it. It's hard to explain why it rubs me so very hard the wrong way, but it really does. He's just too clever, I think. All his poems are about going to a wine-tasting party and making fun of how pathetic everyone at the wine-tasting party is. Or about going to a supermarket and making fun of everyone there. Or going to a funeral and lamenting how nobody misses the dead guy as much as he does. Or going to a tennis match and making fun of everyone there. You get the pattern? He also tends to make lots of very bizarre generalizations about race, coming to some very ham-fisted messages about equality that wouldn't have been challenging even twenty years ago. When you say, "Come sit with me, brother" to the black guy you just met at Burger King with a straight face (this actually happens in one of his poems), I just have to laugh at you.
Maybe that was all cleverly his intent... to create this very pretentious character and explore how he views the world. Maybe it's all a big joke I didn't get. I dunno.
But anyway, he's kind of a big deal, so I went to his reading, and I have to admit I found some things to like about him. His straight-up comic poems are actually real funny, and his few sincere ones are actually pretty good. There was one in particular I liked, about the speaker describing his friend, who has poor luck with women, preparing for a first date. There was a line about him "dancing in the little flames of possibility" or something like that, that I thought was just gorgeous. So, you know, he has his moments.
At the reading, I ended up sitting next to Jess. Jess is the girl I had two classes with last semester, and she's very cool and a talented poet and I have a pretty noticeable crush on her that I've more or less given up on. She's really got her shit together; she has an internship with Ploughshares that seems likely to turn into a permanent position, and she was recently chosen to read her work at some big intercollegiate thing of student poets. Point is, I'm no longer just sexually intimidated by her; now I'm professionally intimidated, too.
After the reading, she turned to me and said, "What did you think?" Jess loves Hoagland, and knows that I don't particularly care for him. I tried to be deferential, and said I really liked the one about his friend preparing for a date. "Remind you of yourself?" she asked me, with a smirk.
Ouch! There's some stuff you just don't say out loud, Jess. Why is it that, no matter how old or smart or clever I think I get, women can always see right the fuck through me?