Musings on Vivid Leaves, Delicious Diddums, & Me

It's so autumn! I nearly crash Suzie Q. Subaru every time I drive down from our haven and into the Real World because the leaves! The LEAVES! They are calling me to stop the car, get out and be like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music when she goes to the top of that mountain, holds her arms out, and sings while spinning. I want to do that in some unwitting neighbor's yard. But there are too many construction workers around.

Do you see that Delicious Diddums in the picture at left? I could make it be at right, but I'm too lazy. I know how to though, just so you know. Anyway ... back to DD. Is he ever Delicious these days! OK, so he was Delicious today. He called me "Mama" all day today. And he giggled when I cracked jokes and blew bubbles in the tub (with my mouth, not my butt) and every time I ground coffee he pointed and said "AH!" I grind coffee several times a day. I love TOASTED ALMOND COFFEEMATE, and DD loves the coffee grinder but don't get him anywhere near the Cuisinart food chopper.

I have been doing well these days. That just means that I haven't been plucking my eyebrows obsessively, or counting the number of boards in our living room floor, or wondering whether the end of the world is coming if six socks, six hand towels, and six pairs of panties come out of the dryer all from one load. And Husband said yesterday that he was giving me a pedicure FOR NO REASON. Not him administering, actually. He's just paying for it (the last time he gave me a pedicure I was 8 months pregnant and we were living in a hotel owned (and lived in) by people who had 14 chickens and a goat and my right foot ended up purple and my left foot ended up orange). I had the choice between a pedicure or a massage and I am just vain enough to know that red toenails are SO much more important than any old relaxed back.

I don't have much to say, but I did want to write down a story about my term as a freshman composition instructor at Northern Arizona University. The program required that the students write five short papers and one long one, and the long one required some sort of visual prop as well as an oral presentation.

So I had this major crush on one of my students. Let's call him Michael just for funsies. He was just too cute and smart. And this was an 8:00 a.m. class and they were all pretty awesome and this was when I was biking to work everyday and living in the mountains and breathing that fresh, fresh air. And he was so cute. Did I mention that he was cute?

His argument paper was on the issue of binge drinking in American universities. Everyone else was writing on abortion or evolution vs. creationism or drilling for oil in the AWR or some shit and here he is with this really relevant paper which was worth every inch of the A that I gave him. And so everyone has been bringing in these posters with charts, graphs, photos downloaded from the Internet and they've been giving presentations all week and bullshitting right and left and acting like they know how to really avoid using logical fallacies and here he is just standing up in front of the class with no poster. And up to now he's been writing steal-your-heart papers about autumn leaves in New Hampshire and hikes with his family and I've had two dreams in which we've kissed. Two! Not just one, but two and I can hardly look at him anymore. And so he gets up in front of the class and gives his speech and then, for his visual prop, he passes around photos of him and his buddies binge drinking. And at first I'm like, "What? What are you passing around?" And then I'm like, "OMG. Those are real pictures of binge drinking. And that's you and some other girl who is not your sicko English teacher kissing and holding tequila bottles." I mean I didn't really say that, but can you believe that he actually passed around photos? This is brilliant. Brilliant! Because of course I had to KEEP a copy of the paper and the visual props. Brilliant.

And then came May and the end of the semester and he went back to New Hampshire and anyway I AM MARRIED. And then in the summer one day I get this email from him. He needs a recommendation form filled out so that he can study abroad in Costa Rica. And it's not like, "Hey can you fill out the form and maybe come with me?" It's more like, "Dear Ms. Becker, Would you consider recommending me for this study abroad program?" And I am devastated. Still.

But Husband is cute too. And anyway, he's the one. And he is paying for me to get my toenails painted soon. And plus, he vacuumed the upstairs on his lunch hour yesterday.

But I do still think of Michael every time I binge drink. Not that it's that much, I mean, really. It's not.

Gotta go.