i had a better idea but it ran away... somewhere. friday night isn't always the best time to write. after dinner - just me, dom, and some fine tuna casserole... moaning a bit about school, students, paper processing - i passed an hour back at school catching up on a few things. then back over here to find the last hour or so of Remember the Titans... another real-life football movie where they win the big game after staring down almost insurmountable obstacles - you know how much i live for them, right? that hope splashed all over the screen. real life fairy tales. everybody gets to cheer at the end. david and goliath. rocky. cinderella. the little engine that could. we love these movies.

so now the movie is done and i'm back up here typing these very words... trying not to think about food... i'm not hungry anyway... no way...

it's just that i'm not supposed to eat anything for the next twelve hours. they're sucking some blood in the morning... so i'm not supposed to eat anything... for the next twelve hours... easy enough... no problem... a late breakfast... nothing to it... but...

what if i accidentally eat some of that apple pie left over from dinner... what if i accidentally rip into some of those low fat ice cream sandwiches that dom should never buy... what if i accidentally find a great gooey peanut butter and jelly sandwich dribbling down my face... and i accidentally wash it down with a big glass of milk....

i'm only wondering this because i'm not supposed to... sort of like... what if i find myself standing at the edge of the grand canyon and accidentally find myself flying off the edge... this is a minor case of what poe called "the imp of the perverse"... a tendency to do the thing we are not supposed to do just because we know we are not supposed to do it. yah...

i found myself playing devil's advocate in one of the ap classes today... and ended up reminding myself of how dense and silly i can be. which one of these is not a poem? i asked. anything can be a poem. they said. a futile discussion. but there are some significant diferences between this poem by goethe and this one by anne sexton, no? yes. sure. is a teacher supposed to be silly and dense sometimes? what's yr point, brtom?

i dunno. it's friday. do i have to have a point? do you?

Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing.

Robert Benchley

 

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