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Flubber-Lover

by Jane Goodwin | Oct 4, 2006 | General | 0 Comments

Today at the college, a man stopped me and said, “Excuse me, are you a professor?” He had the wrong person, but even so. Later this morning, a kid bumped into me and said “Pardon me, Professor.” After my last class, one of my students said, “Professor, would it be all right if I stayed late and used this computer?”

This title excites me. I am still not used to it. It’s on my business cards, and my boss addresses me as such, but when I look at it, printed there, or when I hear it, I still look around to see who A) dropped it, or B) is standing behind me.

I wondered what a professor is supposed to look like, if I am apparently one. Most of the professors in the college look pretty normal to me, but there are a few somewhat eccentric-looking people in the lounge most days. I wondered which kind I was. . . . .

Do professors forget to put on stockings in the morning, and go to school wearing loafers on their bare feet? Do professors notice that their pale lavender shirt has a mustard stain smeared over the left boob AFTER all their classes are finished for the morning? Do professors habitually run their fingers through their hair and therefore sport a hairstyle that can optimistically be called “Einsteinian?” Do professors feel the need to apologize for returning quizzes with diet Coke rings on them? Would a real professor be embarrassed if a large cricket leaped out of her briefcase the moment the lid was raised up? Do real professors get tickled during lectures and snort that same Diet coke out their noses? Would a real professor give ten bonus points to a student who knew that a ‘bunch of crows’ is called a “murder?” Would she drum on the lecturn and yell “ABSOLUTELY!” at this student and scare him to death? Would a real professor launder khaki pants with brand-new jeans and not notice the smears of dye until she got in the car to go home? Do real professors sit all alone in the kitchen, watching Harry Potter movies and MASH reruns until the cows come home?

I assure you that I never would, (ahem) but I bet the absent-minded ones do. Is there any other kind? I mean, any other interesting kind?

I applied for a new job today. It’s within the college, but it’s something new. It’s full-time, and I desperately need the money.

Desperately. DESPERATELY.

As in, “desperately.”

There’s not much money in flubber these days.

Addendum: A student just called me and apologized for missing class yesterday. She said, “Professor, I lost my house yesterday and my ten-year-old son and I are now homeless and living in the car. Could you give me the assignment that I missed?”

She’s living in a car with her child, and she still wants to do well in college.

Did I think I had problems? I feel like an ass.

Would a real professor cry like this? I’ve not been one long enough to know.

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The Kitchen of Super-Heroes

by Jane Goodwin | Oct 3, 2006 | General | 0 Comments

Do I seem like the kind of old lady who has African violets, fake ivy, and antique spatterware in her kitchen?

Well, do I?

Darn right I’m not.

A Monday's Random Playlist

by Jane Goodwin | Oct 2, 2006 | General | 0 Comments

Once again, I’ve set my player to ‘random,’ and I’m just sitting here reading blogs and tapping my feet.

It’s good to get home.

Here is this Monday’s random playlist:

1. Here, There, and Everywhere – Beatles
2. I Need You – Dan Bern
3. Fade Away – Gomez
4. Amazing Grace – Three Irish Tenors
5. Famous Blue Raincoat – Leonard Cohen
6. Pavane for a Dead Princess – Ravel
7. Lukey Lukaloney – Great Big Sea and The Chieftains
8. At Last – Tilly Cryar
9. Hansel and Gretel and Ted and Alice – PDQ Bach
10. Grape Jelly – Adam Sandler
11. Life on a Chain – Pete Yorn
12. Blame It On The Bossa Nova – Eydie Gorme
13. Crown of Scars – Manic Street Preachers
14. Musette (Bach) – Yo Yo Ma and Bobby McFerrin
15. Whole Lotta Love – Led Zeppelin
16. Miss Me Blind – Culture Club
17. Down the Old Plank Road – John Hiatt, The Chieftains, and Bela Fleck
18. World Inside the World – Rhett Miller
19. Maple Syrup Time – Moxy Fruvous
20. Blues in D – Kate and Anna McGarrigle

Playing as I type: Three Little Words – DaVinci’s Notebook

Even for me, that’s a mix.

It was later than usual when I got home tonight, because I had supper with Frau after my class and before hers. Then when I took her back to the regional campus, I saw my boss’s boss there, so of course I had to go ~~suck up~~ say ‘hi’ to her; she, like my boss, is a truly lovely person.

I’d planned to get out the weedeater but it’s already too dark. I might have had time if I hadn’t gone kitten-hunting in the shrubberies again.

Ah, Roger the Shrubber: your front-of-the-house outdoor feng shui is a promiscuous stray cat’s idea of delivery-ward paradise.

Here we go again.

Oh, what sad times are these when passing ruffians can say Ni at will to old ladies. There is a pestilence upon this land, nothing is sacred. Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress in this period in history.

I’m not sure we can afford to feed another cat.

After poking about in the shrubberies looking for the source of the newbornish ‘meows,’ though, I can tell you for sure and certain that somebody has to get in there with some clippers and get rid of all that wild raspberry and those little stray trees. My arms are ripped to shreds.

Ah, now playing: Every Grain of Sand – Moxy Fruvous.

I’m going to the kitchen for a sammich now. Want one? Come along then.

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