My baby does not like me to be on the computer

Maybe this belongs on my other blog, but anyway: this post will be short because the second my baby saw me turn on my computer, she crawled over and began hitting the keys. I tried to bribe her with cheese but she spat it out. Oh, wait... she is distracted by something. I'd better make this quick.

Today I accidentally parked in street cleaning, and when I got back to my car there was NO TICKET. Either the gods are making it up to me for some other time I had bad luck, or I am ABOUT to have some streak of bad stuff happen to me. This latter thought is what's been on my mind today. See how I ruin good news?

Yesterday when I came in to class, my students were full of questions about Mark, whom they'd met the other day when he subbed for me. They wanted to know ALL ABOUT our marriage and our life together. I was so amused. Now, I was not born yesterday and I realized that part of what they were doing was trying to take up class time so they wouldn't have to spend it learning. But I think at least partly they were interested in hearing about our relationship. This cracks me up because the only reason someone like me would be of any interest to them is that three times a week I happen to be stationed in front of them for an hour and five minutes. Ordinarily, a person like me would be of less than no interest to them. But by virtue of the fact that I am deposited in front of them in a position of assumed authority, they start getting interested in the minutiae of my life and questioning me about it as though I were a deeply fascinating object of interest. Of course, I also enjoyed hearing little salacious details about my professors when I was a student... but now, I am not quite sure why.

I amused myself by describing our marriage thusly: "It's kind of like when Hollywood celebrities marry each other. Only one Rhetoric and Composition teacher can truly understand what another Rhetoric and Composition teacher is going through."

I also enjoyed this: they told me we had very different teaching styles. When I asked them to be more specific, the answer was, "He used an overhead projector and you always use the chalkboard."

I also note that today's students are a whole lot more... savvy and grown-up, somehow, than I remember being at 18. For example, this part of the conversation: after letting the questioning go on a bit, I teasingly asked them why they were so interested in personal revelations from their teacher. One student said she really liked knowing her teachers and even getting to be friends with them.

Me: That may be, but what happens when your friend the teacher has to give you a grade?
My student: Well, of course, there's a fine line that teachers have to figure out. They definitely need to maintain their boundaries with their students.

That just makes me smile.

Trying to enjoy life

One of the problems with blogs is that every post you create seems to stand for some big, dramatic statement about your life, possibly The Truth about you, instead of just being whatever mood you were in that day. So I feel like I should first say, "Don't worry about me, these are just some thoughts that floated through my brain, not an irrevocable and unchanging comment about my state of mind."

Anyway, though, I have been thinking today about the fact that I often tell myself (frequently while sitting on the bus, giving myself a little pep talk on the way to work), "Just relax about that! Stop stressing yourself out so much. Just try to enjoy your life." But, if you are trying to enjoy life, how much can you possibly be enjoying it? Then you just start worrying about whether your trying is effective, if you are trying hard enough, should you be trying harder or in some different, more effective way.... It's like lying in bed telling yourself, "Fall asleep! You need rest! You're running out of time! The baby will be awake in four hours, and then you'll be sorry!" Which I also do. Of course.

Sadly, I really do want to enjoy my life. Unlike when I was in my teens and twenties, I now feel fairly sure that I am not immortal and that one day I'll regret not having enjoyed it more, when it's close to being over.

I was thinking today how totally revealing of me and my neuroses the title of the blog is. I couldn't think of a title, so I slapped this one on it, and then started to worry that it sounded show-offy, because obviously it calls to mind "A Star is Born." I didn't want to imply that this blog was a star, so I shoved the word "humble" in to rectify any possible misunderstanding.

I am probably the sort of person who should learn to meditate, since one of the problems with me is that I over-think everything. That was another thing I HATED in my teens and twenties: people who told me I was over-thinking things. I just knew they were soulless, conscience-less twits living an epicurean, grossly physical life, putting their heads down on their pillows every night blissfully free of any awareness of the suffering of others in the world.

Now do think that maybe I think too much-- as Becky Peacock once told me, senior year of college, in her comments on a chapter of my senior thesis. She wrote in her neat, feminine, Becky Peacock-like handwriting: "Sarah has too many ideas. She needs to pick one and go with it." At the time, I was full of contempt for Becky Peacock--perky Becky and her best friend, Lolly, who were among the many reasons why I didn't enjoy going to Scripps very much. I probably thought, deep down, that I was better than they were because I was suffering more (though I have to say that Lolly suffered very greatly one day in our senior seminar when the professor went through her chapter and proved that she had misread and hence misused every single quotation in the whole chapter--every single one. I am not exaggerating. Lolly was quite hurt, and I felt bad for her). But back to Becky: now I'm not so sure that she might not have been on to something.

A first post is born

It's so strange, the titles that kept going through my mind for this blog. I just couldn't think of anything good. I kept thinking, "This blog is your blog, this blog is my blog," and "Blog, Blog, Bloggity Blog" (as in "Spam, spam, spammity spam"), and "Bloggin' in the USA," and "To Blog or not to Blog? That is the question." I am just not meant to put titles on things. It is not my calling. At least I didn't call it "This little blog of mine, I'm gonna let it shine" or "Inna Gadda Da Blogga, Baby." I'm telling you, my brain could come up with nothing, just nothing.

So, I have created another blog. The reason is mostly mundane. When I started teaching again this semester, I realized that my students were going to google me. I don't say that in order to be insanely self-important: I am sure they have many more important and fascinating things to do. It's just, well, it's only natural to google your professors these days. But picturing my students reading my blog put me in a state of complete, paralyzed silence. So I've done everything I can, in my technologically unsavvy way, to have nothing on this blog that will lead to me if someone googles me. I hope I succeeded. I would like to feel somewhat less inhibited about things. I couldn't think of a very good username so I called myself "Lola" after a song my friend Jenny and I wrote when we were girls together... a very, very amazing song, if I do say so myself. I don't know if our musical virtuosity ever reached a greater height, so I settled on that name as the pinnacle of our artistic achievement.

So what can I say for myself today? Well, today I was so tired that I repeatedly said the seventh coordinating conjunction was "since," and my students repeatedly corrected me, howling, "So! So! Not since!" I guess I should be proud of them. Also, a gas station attendant hit on me. I could hardly believe it. It was an unreal situation. I was feeling completely exhausted and unattractive and just wanting to get home. He leaned in my window and told me I had a beautiful complexion, which is certainly not true, especially since the pregnancy. Then he said if I wore more makeup (as it is, I don't wear ANY), he thought I could get close to the point of looking like a model. It went on and on, far too long. I had to ask him several times to run my card through the machine so I could proceed with my business. I thought he was never going to let me get away. I can't believe this sort of thing would happen to me at this point in my life. It was honestly unflattering and just tiresome and dumb, and almost made me want to cry because I was so eager to get home and he was getting in my way and bugging me and bugging me.

Well, I must go for now.