Morning Passages: "They didn't know where Stephan was and it could have been a bad situation."
Across Walnut Street is Algeria, where the waiters are doubly surly, because they are kin to the French gastronomic tradition, and because they despise the French, le garçon brought out six sauces in a round, vertical-sided dish to provoke my appetite. "Il faut d'abord deviner l'identité de ces six sauces avant de commander votre plat." And so I spent the greater part of the night rebuffed, "Non, ce n'est pas une sauce à la citrouille." Watermelon, no. Tomato, watercress, no. By the end, I ventured to guess one of the harsher flavors, "C'est au tamarin et au gingembre?" But I looked at my watch, 5:30, and decided to try my luck looking for breakfast somewhere else.
I lost my way in a rambling house, where the basement had been converted to a foreign language library, and everyone whispered, "The mayor's corrupt - dark bargains - black mail." Music came over the speaker system, "Morning Passages" by Philip Glass, which brought Virginia Woolf, Laura Brown, and Clarissa Vaughan, shape-shipting, trading places on beat with the piano, all staring intently at books into the landing by the computers.
I woke up and found that I had hit the remote, and "Morning Passages" was playing.
I drove halfway to town, and symbolic of my struggle to overcome my nature, I turned back at the gas station to retrieve my peanut butter-peach bagel still on the counter at home, without regard for quick recall practice.
****
"Hmmm, my mom's here," Char' said.
Jean came to school this morning to settle a score, since Char' accidentally passed on the details of the "A" tournament. I discussed Char's conditions, her projections, middle-child singularity, and dependence on parents in every class of the day. Ideas ranged from "It's all a plot to expel you so that she can give a speech at graduation..." to "You don't understand how hard it is to be her...". In a troubling echo of themes and devices, Ralph and Kelsey popped out of Mo's room onto the Northern hall (while I carried paper to Roots and Shoots to make recycled journals): "Stephan, wouldn't it be funny if you dropped out of school - tomorrow, just stop coming?"
"Why? Who - or what gave you that idea?"
"Well, just because of your grades and Princeton and..."
I raised my defenses against subtle mental manipulations again this afternoon; the written record should jolt me back into the truth if I am led astray.
I lost my way in a rambling house, where the basement had been converted to a foreign language library, and everyone whispered, "The mayor's corrupt - dark bargains - black mail." Music came over the speaker system, "Morning Passages" by Philip Glass, which brought Virginia Woolf, Laura Brown, and Clarissa Vaughan, shape-shipting, trading places on beat with the piano, all staring intently at books into the landing by the computers.
I woke up and found that I had hit the remote, and "Morning Passages" was playing.
I drove halfway to town, and symbolic of my struggle to overcome my nature, I turned back at the gas station to retrieve my peanut butter-peach bagel still on the counter at home, without regard for quick recall practice.
****
"Hmmm, my mom's here," Char' said.
Jean came to school this morning to settle a score, since Char' accidentally passed on the details of the "A" tournament. I discussed Char's conditions, her projections, middle-child singularity, and dependence on parents in every class of the day. Ideas ranged from "It's all a plot to expel you so that she can give a speech at graduation..." to "You don't understand how hard it is to be her...". In a troubling echo of themes and devices, Ralph and Kelsey popped out of Mo's room onto the Northern hall (while I carried paper to Roots and Shoots to make recycled journals): "Stephan, wouldn't it be funny if you dropped out of school - tomorrow, just stop coming?"
"Why? Who - or what gave you that idea?"
"Well, just because of your grades and Princeton and..."
I raised my defenses against subtle mental manipulations again this afternoon; the written record should jolt me back into the truth if I am led astray.