I love when people don’t blog for a long time, and then say, “Oh sorry, it was a busy time!” (I mean, people like me do this.) (I mean, I do this.) See, what really happens with ME and the blogging is, if I’m NOT busy, I don’t blog, because there’s just no reason to, and I’m watching a TiVo full of crime shows, anyway. It’s times like now, when I have a long Whitman paper due tomorrow that yet requires hours and hours of work before I lay me down to sleep, when I feel I must—yes, it’s urgent I do it—blog.

Stevel says my Whitman paper should say, “Whitman is a pompous blowhard. The end.” But I don’t think Whitman is a blowhard, and the paper has to be seven pages long. So instead it’s about tension between celebration of the individual and of the whole in Whitman’s Song of Myself.

Speaking of tension, Mia’s new diet of canned food makes our entire house so stinky I am ashamed to have friends over. It’s a very distinct stink. Like mushy worm-brains baking in the sun. We know when the stealth Mia is coming up the stairs, too, because if she has just eaten, she carries the stink with her.

And speaking of arthritis, ever since Stevel gave me that Nintendo DS, I’ve been experiencing aches and pains in my fingers. Sometimes my right middle finger goes to sleep for a couple of days. But the newest is this biting pain in my left pinky when I type anything. (Like. NOW.) Dude, it’s so painful.

But I deserve this pain. Yesterday I laundered Stevel’s Razr phone. Washer. And. Dryer. It is dead, of course. Why didn’t I check the pockets?! WHY!!!! Was it because you need pinkies to do that? Or was I woozy from the cat-food stink?

I gave my students their next essay assignment. It’s the most complicated assignment I’ve ever SEEN. I’m not trying to be cruel, just challenging. They’re such wonderful good sports this semester, they were right there with me as we went over it. I hope they have FUN working on it, because I really want it to be fun. Have I mentioned how terrific my class is this semester? Smarties, all.