Life on a Grid

It's not that I forget that there are many people who do not live their lives on a semester-based calendar. It's more like I just can't imagine being in that world anymore. I'm so used to my life being cyclical and measured out in 16 week chunks that I have adjusted my brain and heart to go with those pieces.

For example, this is the last week of regular classes at the University. Not even a full week; Wednesday is our last day. And next week is finals week. Since I teach writing classes and never have final exams, I instead come up with deadlines for the big thudding writing projects I've assigned. So, after Wednesday I'll have six days "off" until I get the pile of papers to grade. A few students do turn them in early, but not many.

There are mixed blessings here. I get six days to brace for the avalanche that is about to pound down on me, but I also get terribly, almost irreversibly out. of. the. notion. for grading. My brain takes off for Boca Raton to sit in the sun with old hoarse-laugh ladies with skin like brown-speckled eggs. I plant the legs of my Adirondack chair into the sand and don my Gucci knock-off sunglasses and jump into the my-vein-doctor-what-a-face-he-has conversations with little concern for the shovel-full of prose and poems on the way.

Then. SPROING! The delicious little beach scene flaps open like a Jack-in-the-box and out comes the big head of Academia to grind me in his jaws and jettison me back to the unfinished business I left behind.

What a mediocre escape fantasy that was anyway. The real daydream would include, yes, the beach, but substitute Scott for the Boca Ratonettes and add a hammock big enough for two. And no deadlines.

I'm not there yet, though. This is the almost-there part of the semester. I am a hyper little terrier, wagging at the door, anticipating the glorious moment when it opens and I can bound outside to blissfully roll in the dead bird that is my six days off. It is a smelly Nirvana.