Condee backs out

Got a campus-wide e-mail this morning: she's canceled her campus visit. I'm lowering the Hair Alert to Level Yellow: pit crew, go home, but keep those brushes and styling products handy. . .

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I just uncapped a bottle of water (that's been on my desk for about a week) and glugged down half of it before getting the distinct sensation that I was swallowing a teensy piece of plastic. A fleck of something that just did not feel right. So I washed it down with the rest of the bottle.

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It's midterm week. I'm not as fried as I expected to be.

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The incomparable Cornelius Eady comes to campus tomorrow: he's reading at Bucknell Hall tomorrow night at seven, and givinga Q-&-A at noon Wednesday in the Smith Library (English building). Can't wait. Here's a fun poem from The Gathering of My Name (Carnegie Mellon, 1991):

Living with Genius

It’s sundown, and we
Find Gertrude Stein sitting
In her parlor at the
Piano. She’s about
To give Alice B. Toklas
The night off. Gertrude
Wants to see if
A piano
Can imitate a violet. Gertrude
Wants to be alone
When she does this, suspecting
That what she wants to do

Is insane. The sun
Sets and Alice
Starts to worry
About her boss; what is
This shit about violets,
Violets, violets,
Anyway? Gertrude
Demands a glass of whiskey,
The shade drawn and all
The lights turned off. With
Pleasure, you old
Coot, Alice thinks
To herself. She does
As she’s told and
Goes to bed.

Gertrude
Sits in the dark
All night.

In the morning
She starts thinking
About roses.