1 Part Ice Cream + 1 Part Janet Weis Fellow = Joyce Carol FLOATS

[tchou]

Today, I snuck into an English dept. meeting for English Majors to talk to Joyce Carol Oates. I had to lie about my major (the counter-friction ignores all aspects of the honor code in times of passion!) and when the professor started to introduce all the students (about 13 of them), when he got to me, he just stared and said "and I'm not sure who this is". But I found out that JOYCE CAROL OATES TAUGHT Jonathan Safran Foer while he was at Princeton (I think I was more excited about this than she was.) But I asked her if she thought Jonathan's new book was a little excessive on the imagination, and I got shot down when she said something about how he was her friend and in-no-way-criticizable-y amazing. And I got shot down again when I tried to say I liked Nicole Krauss's book because Ms. Oates does not prefer Nicole's writing. I printed out a copy of my second demo paper and after her lecture tonight, I asked her to sign my "Convergence of Birds" book and if she was interested to read my paper (which she may never do) and she seemed a bit nonplussed at the fact that she was not signing a book that she wrote and that I was not talking about her.

Also I am skipping class on Friday to go to a ROCKANDROLL concert. And I'm losing five pounds on my way to becoming the new Mary Kate Olsen.