Seven hours to Clinton NY on Thursday ... seven hours back to DC today. But certainly worth the exhaustion. I don't think I've ever enjoyed an audience so much: the room was packed with interested undergraduates. Actually, a similar thing happened when I gave a version of the Green Children project at American University in the fall. There's something about those verdant tykes that just sells the whole thing with no effort on my part. Check out the poster: coolest I've ever had (click on the graphic for more detail). Thanks, Katherine Terrell!
The drive was made better by a few things, besides its pleasant destinations at either end:
(1) I have very little solitude in my life, and there is a part of me that yearns to be solitary. The drive granted me that in spades. No more hermit longings left in this scholar for a while.
(2) A yellowish moon rising over flooded farms in the earliest morning. Bare trees stranded like islands in the sudden ponds of snowmelt.
(3) A CD with twenty seven songs by the Mountain Goats. It opened with "Grendel's Mother" -- what's not to love about that? Thank you, Geoffrey Chaucer, for that gift that kept on giving. My favorite song involved Romulus and Remus getting set to party when mommy wolf returns. But they are all smart, fun compositions.
(4) Being home in time for the Princess Buppy extravaganza as Kide #2 turns three years old. Happy birthday, sweetheart.
You're very welcome--thank you, for both the lovely visit, and the music tip! A student just stopped by to enthuse about your talk, and was highly amused to find me watching Mountain Goats videos on YouTube.
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Happy Birthday princess from faraway Dublin!
ReplyDeleteInterestingly enough, The Mountain Goats also have a song titled "Pale Green Things" (on The Sunset Tree, 2005).
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