Evil Plans...

So I'm teaching Creative Writing this fall. Although technically only a graduate student, I will have 18 young, malleable minds under my sole tutelage. And herein lies the problem.

Imagine you're trying to defuse a bomb with 18 other people, all working by committee, and (best case scenario) only you and maybe 2 others know what you're doing. You can see that by simply cutting the blue wire the problem will be fixed. But most everyone else is sure they're the ONLY ones who really understand the way the bomb works, and they're all shouting "RED! RED! RED!" The ones who haven't a clue feel like saying something is better than saying nothing, so some of them chant "RED!" and some of them chant "BLUE!" And you're beginning to feel like it'd be better if the bomb just went the fuck off. Worse case scenario: no one knows how to diffuse the bomb.

Have a headache yet? 18 is too many students for a writing workshop.

In the classes I've taught before, biology and philosophy, I could use grades as an intimidation tactic. I'd scare people off by telling them the average really is a C in my class, but Brown, Douch-bag University Numero Uno, has made the class pass/fail (at least they don't call it pass/no-pass like they do at Berkeley!). So I've just lost all my leverage, essentially. Which means it's going to have to come down to pure theatricality.

So I'm coming up with various and sundry ways to scare them off. I think I'll wear some pleather and introduce myself as Mistress Kathryn. A whip would probably be overkill, don't you think?

                                        Rrrrrow.


Then again, the wrong people will probably be the ones who stay.

Any ideas? The more outlandish the better. I'm desperate, people.

                                                                                 Bomb image by C. Julian 'jez' Klewes

On the Subject of Babies

The first argument Ilya and I ever had was about what our children's names were to be. He proclaimed (this is three weeks into our relationship, mind you) that his first son would be named Victor after his father, and his first daughter Natalia after his grandmother. It was as if he expected the hand of God to come down and pat him on the head, he was so proud of himself. I was taken aback, but chocked it up to some kind of Russian Jewish tradition I knew nothing of, that the father named his children before even going to the trouble of securing a handy fertile woman. So I told him he was a moron and we sort of forgot about it.

Which pretty much sums up my feeling about kids in general. Can we just forget about it? Lalalala I can't hear you. I'm 26 years old, Ilya and I have been together nearly 10 years, we own a home, he has a good job, and we're both all over this country like a pack of dogs on a three legged cat. We are writers. We are selfish. We need three hours a day holed up in our respective offices with no disturbances to mentally masturbate, producing maybe 10 words, maybe 1000. We go to bookstores for fun. I'm turning into the kind of woman who sneers at noisy kids in the restaurant.

But funny things sometimes happen. A 5-year-old with a mohawk made me giggle by standing on his head. A picture of a newborn made me feel a little empty in the womb region. I simply refuse to plant over our back lawn despite the drought because I see an undefined but rather tall toddler stumbling all over it laughing insanely as his father chases him. A little girl picks up a Queen Elizabeth doll in the bookstore and turns to her mother, saying "Look, mama. A queen." With a kind of reverence I have never, ever heard.

There isn't any time. Lately I've felt more desperate than ever before, watching it slip away. Where are my books? My degrees? Where's my career? Ilya continues to be successful, and I could not be more proud. I love my life, I'm proud of my accomplishments, but damn if I don't feel jealous sometimes. Just on the verge, on the cusp of finally succeeding, of beginning something wonderful with my life, how can I slow down for 18 years to bring a child into the world?

Even if I would be a MILF. Cause I totally would be, you know.

Mutiny in my nase

There is a very small mutiny or perhaps a pirate war going on in my nase. There are several ships mutinying at once, so it's not a small war in the sense of importance, only small in the sense of scale-- that is, those are teeny weeny ships. And they are exploding one after another, in the vicinity of that silly place between your eyes that people are always pinching. Now I know why people are always pinching that place: because they are trying to kill the tiny fucking pirates! Hey guys! Stop making my nasal passages burn! IT'S NEITHER HILARIOUS NOR PRODUCTIVE!!!



These pirates are way more cute and yet still way huger than the motherufckers in my nose. Just to give you a sense of scale.

My Feelings (Mostly Negative) About Ice.

What's that you say? It's the only known non-metallic substance that expands when it freezes? That it's an important part of global climate and the water cycle? That glaciers are pretty and stripey? 

I DON'T CARE! FUCK YOU, ICE!

Yesterday was the first time I've seen ice in probably years. It is ice, not snow, that drove me from New England. Think I'm exaggerating? I cried when I heard the words "wintry mix" uttered over the radio a couple of days ago. Cried! Like a baby! 

Ever since the day I slipped and fell on black ice outside the chapel of St. Catherine's School (since I'm already grumpy, I might as well mention: FUCK YOU SISTER SUSANNAH! I have had a happy and productive adulthood without learning how to write the letter "b" in cursive according to your arbitrary rules. Although I have lived in sin and no longer believe that Jesus is my Savior and for that matter, I assume the Pope is kind of a twat, so maybe you should have tried HARDER!), I have hated ice. 

I walk around like a little old lady which I always think is going to help but it DOESN'T, because if ice wants you, it will have you. And you can say hello to a bruised tailbone, is all I'm going to say. Nothing hurts more than a bruised tailbone, except maybe getting shot or having a baby or getting your toenails torn off or occasionally really bad indigestion which is NOT THE POINT, let us just say that it hurts. And that I really, really, have strong, distasteful feelings for that slippery stuff. Okay? Let us never speak of this again.

Except to say that here's a really suggestive image of a girl sucking on a icicle. Like, almost NAFW. This girl's going to be one hell of a troublemaker when she grows up.

On the Subject of the Fitness of One's Physique

Some sort of spring fever seems to have hit the world at large, and instead of cleaning, my nearest and dearest are flocking to gyms, yoga studios, and the great outdoors for the purpose of greasing their knee joints, increasing the relative strength of their heartbeats, and presumably, nurturing that more abstract but socially hygienic goal of "physical fitness." So I, like the lemur [LEMMING] I am, got in line to jump off the cliff. I joined the gym.

Not only "the" gym, or "a" gym, but the Campus Gym. The San Diego State University gym, or the "Aztec Recreational Center" as they euphemistically term it-- a friendlier term than "The Gym Where 30 Thousand Hardbodied Undergraduates go to Lift Hundred Pound Weights on their Buttocks while Engaging in the World's Most Perfect Downward Dog." It's enormous, it's open 24 hours, it's color scheme is primarily grey. It's serious bidness.

For those of you who haven't known me since high school when my "physical fitness" consisted of hoisting a bottle of 20/20 to my lips (followed, perhaps, by ab-strengthening Toilet Bowl Worship), I have engaged in some basic physical fitness in the last ten years. I have yoga'd, I ran for several months, I mastered the Lusty Leapfrog (remember: there is no such thing as an overshare). 

And now, after a year-long hiatus, I'm attempting to reengage in the world's most obnoxiously beautiful city. And I mean beautiful people-wise. I should qualify, as this is a particularly blonde, tan, toned sort of beauty, not one to which I necessarily prescribe, although I enjoy T&A as much as the next fellow. This is Intimidating. I have Fitness Shame.

I think this is partly because, other than my pastiness and Lack of Tone, I seem to be in reasonable shape, because I am thin. This is a lie. Although I can touch my toes to my nose (a strange sort of claim to fame), I no longer have any sort of cardiovascular stamina. Even at my running peak, after six months of going 4 days a week, I could only go a mile and a half. In half an hour. People walk faster than I run. And I am PROUD of that accomplishment, my friends. 

I expect to die, but I really hope it won't be because of a treadmill Incident. I'll keep you posted.