Sean, let us know about you.

Hil, I hope we hear from you soon that it was nothing...

Glad I went to work, helping others helped.

I'm glad beth. I'm so sorry for you and Matt today. And poor sweet Percy.

Oh, Hil. I hope everthing will turn out to be OK. It's nothing~ma to you.

I think I made an ass of myself in class. the (mostly white) class has been pretty cautious in our discussion and I kinda busted out a little bit.

You should have seen me in my Ancient Greece class yesterday. When one of my classmates asked if there are examples to monarchy that's bound to rules, I automatically answered "England!".

My only defense is that he did use the present form of the verb "bind", but I'm afraid that's not why I answered "England", silly associative brain of mine. Then again, that very brain makes life so much more amusing. I find myself many, many times backing down to the explanation of "you don't know how much fun it is, living inside my brain" while not being able to stop laughing at something.

Hil, I hope it is enough of a something that the ER visit is covered by your insurance, yet the least serious possible something.

I'm glad work helped, beth.

Hil, all good thoughts, for coverage of course, but mainly for *you*.

Hil, thinking of you and vibing hard that it's nothing (but covered).

Sean, you know we love you. Always.

And on a lighter note, I just got an email from one of my students that made me snorfle and had to share. Some context: we've been studying various mythological texts, and the concept of "axis mundi" and phallic symbols came up (no pun intended). This is the email I just got from one of my (14 year old female) students:

i was reading some poems the other day, which i found slightly amusing,however one of them i would not have been able to understand a month ago.

Now I am able to appruciate this poem.

ONCE I LIVED IN CAPITALS

MY LIFE INTENSELY PHALLIC

but now I’m sadly lowercase

with the occasional italic

-Roger McGough

I hope this makes you feel its all been worthwhile.

Phallic symbols, I teach well. Proofreading, nsm. I'm torn between horror, headdesk, and hysterical laughter.

Don't feel bad about it.

I found it amazing how much my understanding of poetry sometimes differs from the world's/classmates interpretation.

Then again, I come back to my "associative mind" argument. You're my only friend on the earth, brainsy!

Oh, I don't feel badly. This is one of my cleverest students (proofreading errors notwithstanding), and she means the email with all good humor. It's just so funny, is all. Makes me giggle.

P.S. I am in love with "brainsy" and plan to create a cartoon character named "Brainsy" immediately.

I thing that the thing about poetry is that one can never be sure of the interpretation. Which is, lets face it, kindda scary. I mean, I can go on forever about my favorite poems, only to find the "correct", "acceptable" interpretation is about the poet's erection.

Look, I suck at subtext. Never understood why the privileged people of these days and age insisting on keeping using it (in poetry, not in other forms of art). Dudes, you can say what you want on the text level! Yes, please, use imagery, metaphors, metonomy (sp?) but don't tell me after loving to death a certain piece of art that I read it wrong!

The day porn will include subtext, I'll know the world really went mental.

Shir, I'm sorry if I upset you; I didn't mean to. That particular poem is based on a silly sexual innuendo, not intended to be studied seriously. I was mostly just amused that one of my students sent it to me and understood what it meant. I wasn't trying to make any grander statement than that.