Home: wisdom from my father
"So is your roommate going home for Christmas? Where's she from?"
"Indiana."
"When is she going back to the farm?"
"Sunday.... She doesn't live on a farm, you know."
"I know, I say that to everybody. I say that to my students, 'When are you going back to the farm?' They look at me like, 'What? I'm from Chicago.' I treat everybody like they're hillbillies."
***
Chris (my stepmother): How long were you and Helen [my mother] married before Nora was born?
Dad: Oh, 3, 4 months.
Dead silence.
Dad: Ha ha! Ha ha! Just kidding.
Nora: (nervous, laughs hardest of all)
***
I came back from the movie last night to find a very large, very exotic-looking bug perched on the foot of my bed. I trapped him between a mug and a piece of cardboard and flushed him. I wonder where he came from, and if any of his friends will be by later to check up on him.
The day after, the whole $660 thing is considerably less funny, mainly because I'm out six-hundred and sixty bucks. But I'm home with my family now, very safe and warm and full of marzipan cookies. I think I'm going to try to see a movie every day of this vacation. Last night was Sweeney Todd. Two stars out of 5, mainly because I remember a time when the stuff Tim Burton did seemed new, and relevant.
OK, but, wait. How many books did I bring home for this trip? Five. Five books. For a five-day break.
Here they are:
Ferdydurke
Enormous Changes at the Last Minute
Arcanum 17
Cigarettes
A Void
Did I honestly think I was going to be so bored, with my many siblings and cable TV and everything, that I would read a book a day? Or was it that I was packing at 2 a.m. in a blind panic, throwing everything into my bag I possibly thought I would need or that would make me happy after a string of shitty weeks in NY, and that included copious amounts of reading material? I know how I justified it to myself, even though I am the one hauling this shit around. I was thinking, The Gombrowicz I am already halfway through, I will finish that on the train ride home and the Paley while I am home. The Breton is only 75 pages long, I will read that one in a day, and then when I'm finished I will want options, hence the other two. Then of course my first night in the house I scour my bookshelves and decide to re-read Pale Fire. An excellent decision it turns out, and one the Oulipins in my suitcase will just have to live with.
"Indiana."
"When is she going back to the farm?"
"Sunday.... She doesn't live on a farm, you know."
"I know, I say that to everybody. I say that to my students, 'When are you going back to the farm?' They look at me like, 'What? I'm from Chicago.' I treat everybody like they're hillbillies."
***
Chris (my stepmother): How long were you and Helen [my mother] married before Nora was born?
Dad: Oh, 3, 4 months.
Dead silence.
Dad: Ha ha! Ha ha! Just kidding.
Nora: (nervous, laughs hardest of all)
***
I came back from the movie last night to find a very large, very exotic-looking bug perched on the foot of my bed. I trapped him between a mug and a piece of cardboard and flushed him. I wonder where he came from, and if any of his friends will be by later to check up on him.
The day after, the whole $660 thing is considerably less funny, mainly because I'm out six-hundred and sixty bucks. But I'm home with my family now, very safe and warm and full of marzipan cookies. I think I'm going to try to see a movie every day of this vacation. Last night was Sweeney Todd. Two stars out of 5, mainly because I remember a time when the stuff Tim Burton did seemed new, and relevant.
OK, but, wait. How many books did I bring home for this trip? Five. Five books. For a five-day break.
Here they are:
Ferdydurke
Enormous Changes at the Last Minute
Arcanum 17
Cigarettes
A Void
Did I honestly think I was going to be so bored, with my many siblings and cable TV and everything, that I would read a book a day? Or was it that I was packing at 2 a.m. in a blind panic, throwing everything into my bag I possibly thought I would need or that would make me happy after a string of shitty weeks in NY, and that included copious amounts of reading material? I know how I justified it to myself, even though I am the one hauling this shit around. I was thinking, The Gombrowicz I am already halfway through, I will finish that on the train ride home and the Paley while I am home. The Breton is only 75 pages long, I will read that one in a day, and then when I'm finished I will want options, hence the other two. Then of course my first night in the house I scour my bookshelves and decide to re-read Pale Fire. An excellent decision it turns out, and one the Oulipins in my suitcase will just have to live with.