The Week in Review

I've been wanting to write a blog about so many things that happened over the last week, but just havne't gotten around to it yet.

On Monday, I had a reunion dinner of sorts with Jeff Friedman and some of the girls from our poetry class that we had my last year of undergrad. It's interesting, all of us pretty much met in that class, but have, to a degree kept in touch. So, it was me, Leni, Laura and Sara. Laura was sort of a surprise addition to the party. None of us had heard from her in a while. Then, out of the blue, she ran into Leni somewhere around town and it was discovered that the two of them lived on the same street. Go figure. That street, by the way, is about two blocks away from where I live. It certainly is a small world living in New Hampshire. So, the only non-townie these days is Sara. She's the one who just recently was accepted into our MFA program. She knows Laura pretty well, I guess, so when I told her that she was going to be there, she was very eager to go. Well, the dinner was pretty fun. We sat around and gossiped mostly. It was good to have us all in one place together at one time. The only person who was missing, really, from our little group that we had in that poetry class was Claire. So, we talked about Claire a bit. I'm beginning to understand that Claire is not very well-liked by a lot of the girls that I know. I wonder what it is about that??? Even Jeff sort of hinted at the idea that she was not the kind of girl that I ought to be associating with, although his idea was a much more benevolent one--like, well, you're just two different kinds of people. Whereas Leni just flat out said, I don't think Claire is a person who I would get along with. That's not the first time I've heard that one. But, I have to admit...I think that Claire is one of those "femme fatale" girls. I think every guy has one. The girl that you should not associate with. The "wrong one". But, you cannot resist. I think Claire is that one for me. I know that she is not the kind of girl I should be putting energy into. But, you know, I'd be right there at the drop of a hat if the opportunity presented itself.

Anyway, so it was a good dinner...good to see all those people again. But, it kind of got in the way of another important piece of my life that was going on...I had to mail off my MFA packet the next day and hadn't done any work on it. So, I had a drink at dinner, which didn't really put me in a mood to do the work when I got home at 9:00 o'clock that night. So, I went to bed instead. I set my clock for 3am so that I could do some of it before I went to work. Then, I finished up the packet after work. Actually, I'm lucky. I work with such understanding people. They let me switch out with another girl and have her go to science with my student so that I could have fourth block to work on my poetry stuff. So, I worked feverishly on it from 12:30 in the afternoon until 5:00 o'clock and was able to get it all together and get it to UPS to send it next day air to Pittsburgh where my professor lives. She just called me this afternoon to tell me that she thinks my masters thesis on James Wright is coming along very well and that she's really proud of the work that I'm doing with that. Which makes me feel good. Still, I'll be so happy when this semester is over. James Wright is such a huge influence on my poetry. But, I feel like I've gone to the depths of hell with him and I'm looking forward to not having to go so deeply into that work. I think it's keeping me from really finding my own groove.

Another thing that happened on Monday night, and which made me not want to do my schoolwork is that Jillian called me to tell me that her grandfather had died. The funeral for him was on Thursday in Montpelier. So, I went up for that on Thursday morning. It's a two hour drive from Keene to Montpelier. And I've never been there before. When I got there, I basically got lost. I called Jacob to try and figure out what I was doing...because I got to downtown Montpelier, but couldn't find the road I needed to be on. And there were churches everywhere! But, Jacob was no help. He didn't really have any idea where I was or where to go. So, I just ended up saying, screw it, I'll just drive around and hope I find it. I had a hunch which way to go. I don't know where the hunch came from. It just did. So, I went that way. I found the place within about two minutes. Right where my hunch led me. I had a much larger problem finding a place to park. Jacob's grandfather knew a lot of people!!! So, all of the relatives from all over the country were there. People I hadn't seen for years. It was good seeing all of these people, but, you know, those kinds of crowds really overwhelm me. So, at the reception, which was at the Knights of Columbus......bunker?......compound?.....on some back road in the middle of nowhere, I just settled into a table with Margaret, Jill, Jill's boyfriend Chris, Aileen, Raymond, Janine and Tim. The only thing I got up for was food. Afterwards, I caught a ride with Jacob's mother back to my car, which I had left parked somewhere in the vacinity of the church. On the way, we stopped by the place where Jacob's mother had grown up. It was a little apartment in a house. It was so interesting. The apartment was so small, with three tiny bedrooms. This little space housed eight people--Deb and her five siblings, plus two parents. It was pretty amazing to see.

So, since that, I have done nothing but rest. I stayed at my mother's house this weekend, and I think I only left to go to breakfast on Saturday morning. Other than that, I've just been lazing around. Which is ok. I think I've earned that for a change...