and we're sending november off to sleep with the other kids already upstairs dreaming. and george harrison died today - like untold numbers of less famous souls in afghanistan. but george died of a cancer. unlike john. unlike those afghan crowds blown away to bits by bullets and bombs. we always liked george. it's true, we shouldn't have, but we took some large or small spiritual hint from him as he headed east. we felt his influence back in the seventies in our twenties. we should have been reading theology philosophy or at least henry james but found ourselves plugged into raga rocking sitar trances. pop culture had its way with us. godspeed, george. godspeed, desperate afghanis. you deserved better - or we deserved worse - or there is no deserving down here. i'm not sure which.

i woke up five minutes before seven. this was scarey, not good.

this week we were reading whitman. song of myself (1855). i finally managed to synchronize the regular and honors sophomores for these final weeks of the semester. after walt, we'll entertain emily (dickinson). her birthday will occur right in the midst of our studies. how will we celebrate? with some of her famous black cake? the classes have had some strong things going on at the message board. i'm proud of my students. if i were a better teacher i'd be even prouder. they have been engaged and provocative and full of wonder. if only they could spell, and puntuate.

why is this chopin sounding so fine tonight? a single piano almost always gets me, but tonight this quick silent slow wit opens an encyclopedia of famous walks, sly glances. silver screen romance. the perky ingénue will run out the backdoor while her beau's at the front. then troops are marching. an old woman looks out the window towards an old ford leaving down the dusty main street. water. and fish in the water. all the men wear hats. kissin. evgeny kissin. russian piano man.

i'm not smart. not even smart enough. i've been faking it all these years. i know nothing. nothing. you who know me can barely imagine how little i know. it's amazing i can even feed myself (which, of course, i can't. not really.)

where will a letter go if the numbers are wrong? oh where will it go?

the apes like alexander pope. and this surprised me. they even laughed in the right places. but i noticed this: when i read him alone in my room, muttering under my breath to the cat - frightening her with a sudden chortle, he made much more sense than when i stood before the class and tried to field their thoughts and understand their passages. why would pope make more sense at a quarter to midnight in solitude than at ten in the morning assembled? time for the ginko bilboa. time for the shuffleboard.

will my homeroom remember will they remember to shop for our family's christmas? i'm hoping they will i'm hoping. it's better to give than to... not give. but only one group asked for my money... so what could that mean? what could it mean? and who else will go without because the economy (irresponsible as ever) and life itself seem so bent towards catastrophe. life is hard. but you know that.

i hurt someone's feelings today just because i wasn't thinking. i never think. about the important things. until it's too late. you don't either. but you know that. i apologized... but that's just a band-aid, doesn't make anything hurt less. i guess.

my 51st christmas is coming. my mom's got 81. my grand-nephew's got 3. how many for you? what will this christmas be for you? memorable or forgetable? does it matter that we make so much of this? shouldn't we say it's just another day? nah.

Sir, I admit your general rule,
That every poet is a fool,
But you yourself may serve to show it,
That every fool is not a poet.

Alexander Pope