Miscellany

So much for my relaxing Fridays off. Every week I think I'll spend at least part of the day catching up on email and writing fabulous things on this blog. And every week I end up doing errands. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing--it's nice to be able to get that stuff out of the way before the weekend starts. But of course, that means the Internet is missing out on all of the fascinating things I could have been writing about. Such as:

• The other day M. Defarge was on Facebook, communing with all four dozen of his high school classmates, when he saw something that stunned even him. One of the girls in his class posted an excited status update: she's going to be a grandma! [Insert Good Country People joke here.] Apparently the girl in question got pregnant freshman year, and her daughter, in turn, made it to the ripe old age of 20 before getting knocked up herself. I can't decide if this makes me feel old or young by comparison...

• When I was leaving work recently and attempting to navigate the pedestrian traffic on Michigan, I came upon a woman with a white cane and a cell phone. I was a bit flummoxed. Not that blind people don't have every right to walk around in public on their phones just like the rest of us, but wouldn't they need to pay attention to the other sounds around them?

• Huck Finn went over really well with my student/faculty book club. Reading it was a weird experience for me, though. I know that I read it in junior English, and certain scenes transported me back to my seat behind Mike Hallman, who was so tall I always felt well camouflaged. But the majority of the book was a total surprise to me. I was not a fan of much about junior English, but complete amnesia related to a book was a new one for me. We're reading Toni Morrison's Jazz next, which will probably bring back nostalgic memories of my glory days as an English major, but I guess we'll see.