Size Swap

Fun clothes swap yesterday: dedicated clotheslines, lots of noshing, unedited critique, even a curtained off dressing area--although everyone was stripping in the middle of the room by the end of the evening.

And I gave away my most "hoochie" shifts to someone all of a foot shorter and way more slender than I've ever been. And shazzam--the clothes looked adorable and right on their new owner! (Apparently, it's only questionably "skanky" when you're showing both leg and cleavage at the same time.)

V and H sized me up with exaggeratedly narrowed eyes and asked if I take a size ___ or ___. And I had to say I've no idea: it's been a while since I've shopped at places that sell stuff by numbered sizes, I'm not modeling anymore, and bonus plus--I have absolutely no idea what I weigh either.

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The Youngest of Us

There was something off about yesterday--and for most of the day I just couldn't put my finger on it.

The grandparents were home instead of on one of their long walks (interminable rain); Big A was off work and in bed (and spent the rest of the day running a half marathon); it wasn't a teaching day for me (so although I was making phone calls and running errands, it was with a glorious lack of deadline); Li'l A was home too (teacher enrichment day).

Baby A--the littlest, most pampered of us--was the only one "at work" making her own playdough, eating it, and "puddling" to her heart's content hard.

Our extra sweetness to her yesterday was faintly tinged with guilt.

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Sneaking into Greek Life

So I've been showing Jean Kilbourne's latest installment of Killing Us Softly to undergraduate writers and being touched about it when yet another student wants to talk about "how I never thought of it that way before."

I've suggested that they bring it up at their next sorority/frat meeting.

Jean Kilbourne is genius. I bring the evil.

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Somebody

hide behind a plate of food
Athena, Medea, Cambodia
and spiteful

walk crippled and curved
rainbows, Bowflex, Botox
and spatial

big pans of market moons
orbit unobstructed, doubled
in riddle

About Things

I waited and waited for a CSB caseworker to show up with my CASA child and his mother newly released from prison and currently in a halfway house and working at a Subway franchise and unable to complete court-ordered drug testing or to find a stable house. She plans to fight for custody. Depressing. From any angle. And also, since they never showed (or called): irritating.

I edited the photos on my phone while I waited (no book) and found that apart from pictures of my kids or weird vanity plates (so that's a surprise theme too), there were so many pictures of things that--at some point in time--I had wanted to buy. Apparently, I take pictures of things I want to buy, but never get around to actually going back and buying anything. Win win?

Speaking of things, we had lots on hand to make Baby A's "Red Display" for nursery school. A Sith light saber (from her older sibling), a copy of Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, a little Red Riding Hood puppet, her hand weights (2 lbs) that she uses in our basement gym when we're down there, a spirit level, a newly bloomed Hibiscus...

In the Second Week of Late Summer

A wonderful evening, a small potluck to welcome new Antioch College faculty, and the zen presence of Bill Felker--whom I've raved about previously--but had never actually met.

I thought I knew all the feministy English profs in this town, but it turns out there are more than I dreamed of. What if we're the single most popular profession in this town of 3500? Awesome.

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The Little College that Could

Meanwhile--two hundred yards down the street from us--great events are afoot.

Reading about the resurrection of Antioch College in The New York Times, makes me realize all over again how much there is to love about this little village, how large and generous its soul is. (Looks like the reporter from The Times liked all my favorite village haunts too.)

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