Spenser has inoperable cancer. I have an appt to have him euthanized later this week (not put to sleep, for he will not wake; not put down because a sweet spirit like his can do nothing but rise). I have a short time left with him, and he is partially paralyzed so I take his frail body and warm him next to me. He still purrs. That’s the thing — he still purrs.

Tonight, I think Longfellow said it best:

THE day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains,and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
  And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains,and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
  And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart, and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
  Some days must be dark and dreary.

~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The last one was too hard to read — the font size for the entries was too small. Plus, I love fall and I really like the photo across the top of this one. Tell me what you think?

Have been on new meds for a week, while slowly coming off others. Any kind of medication that directly impacts your brain chemistry (which would be most of them, and particularly those prescribed for migraine prevention), is physically addictive, in that you have to come off them slowly and deal with a host of strange side effects. For me, I have had no appetite but an insatiable need for caffeine in order to keep from being a zombie. I can’t think of the right word at times, and stand in front of the class visibly frustrated as I rack my brain for the word I know is there.

But here’s the weirdest part. I can only concentrate well in short bursts — which means sustained reading and writing are out right now. And for me, that’s as serious as a heart attack. It’s not that I’m hyper or, really, that I am sedated — just that it is difficult to see and follow language. I know I am about at the end of my timespan for this post because I am struggling to think of the words to finish it. I haven’t really gotten lost in a book since my birthday, weeks ago. So weird, the things we can now do to ourselves with medication…

Answer: Much much much too long. Always in a small vicinity, and yet it can so easily become lost. What is the larger meaning of this? Why is it so hard to keep track of one long piece of plastic with buttons?

Willa is laying behind me, in a pool of sunshine working on a bone, as I type this. All through this long, tough past week, she has been here and let me give her hugs upon hugs (Labs are great that way ’cause they’re more than big enough to wrap your arms around — at least she is. I think she’s probably about 90lbs at this point). She has made me laugh with her ongoing war with the squirrel outside the window — affectionately named the F’er. She has played her heart out at the dog park and dragged me all around our neighborhood, barking at Halloween decorations that move or flap or just plain she doesn’t like.

She doesn’t care what mood I am in.

She only eats my books when she wants me to give her a little sugar and then we curl up together on the couch.

She licks my face when I am sad and sometimes even whimpers a little.

She loves me more than anything in the world.

I think a dog is life itself. Or what life should be — putting yourself out there, again and again, ’cause there are people who need you and your kisses and your ability to drink water from the tub faucet.

So we are finishing with The Hot Zone in my 053 class today, and finishing the book makes me think and wonder what it is that I have learned from reading and teaching it? (for those of you unfamiliar with the book, it is about ebola and a small outbreak in the U.S. more than 10 years ago — but it is written as a wake up call concerning “hot” or very lethal viruses, especially in a world that is so globally interconnected.)

One of the things I think I take for granted today is the sheer number of  vaccines available that lessen the chances I have of contracting a serious, infectious disease. I don’t worry about polio or smallpox, although I came of age in an era that was becoming aware of AIDS, I felt fairly safe. According to student health when I was a master’s student, I had a mild case of meningitis (still not sure I totally buy that diagnosis, I mean I was sick but not that sick) — now my students are vaccinated against it. Modern medicine has given us false hope that we can beat any germ, any virus, any anything.

I say false hope because I learned from reading Hot Zone that Nature is ingenious. She can create a new virus that can kick the hell out of anything we come up with, and then some. There is a strange, antibiotic-resistant staph outbreak at schools across the US currently.  Anthrax, just a small envelope’s worth, shut down the federal government in 2001. And, most worrying of all, is the potential (and reality) of biowarfare — using viruses instead of more “traditional” bombs. Think smallpox and its decimating impact on the American Indian population in the early days of White Western expansion.

Overall, I think the thing I learned best and most deeply by reading the book is that there are forces, minute and enormous, that are still beyond our control and may always be. While that sounds terribly pessimistic, I don’t mean it to be. I think we can do much that we haven’t — to help stop the spread of AIDS through organizations like ONE — but there will always be the things we don’t understand. We need that mystery, I think, just to know that the web in which we live is bigger than we are. There’s nothing wrong with having a healthy respect for the Earth, its creatures, and its dangers — this being a theme we will carry on to the next book, Into the Wild.

I have been out for a week — working via a computer while I rebound and react from a mix of medications that proved not to be beneficial. I have bounced from doctor to doctor, and potential hospital visit to house-bound, vomiting, zombie stages as med levels come up and go down again and again. I have read, when I could focus, like every word would be tattooed on my body somewhere.

In 34 years, I have always worked as though each day was an essential step in the path to the temple gates — a temple of learning, of doing something for my fellow man but, more than anything — a temple of happiness. Now that I am forced, medically, to take a hiatus while doctors upon doctors figure out what new medications will work their wonders, I can come only to this:

“As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives. ”

-Henry David Thoreau

This time is not the last time, the only time, or lost time. It is one season, a short season of lying fallow to plant what I hope will grow ahead of me, a glade deep and green enough to shelter my dreams. So I close with this, also from Thoreau:

“Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.“

*warning: if you are one of my students, you may not want to read this post. remember, i use my blog for writing in a general sense, not just for class and other academic pursuits. no, i’m not going to get all graphic about my sex life — i like my job — but i am going to talk about sex here. and books. consider yourself warned*

Just in case you never thought about it before, books are sexy. Not only do some books contain a lot of sex (think Lady Chatterley’s Lover as much as the Girl’s Guide to Getting It On), but just reading is sexy. See, being bright and using your brain has a lot of sex appeal to many humans. When I worked at the Boulder Book Store, many people met and chatted among the shelves and more than one couple came back to tell us where it all began, in literature or science fiction or even the section on the paranormal. Actually, in some ways working there was like working in a club or a dating service. We were all just into our twenties, in excellent physical shape from running and hiking and excessive amounts of yoga, with the ability to drink like fish and survive on very little sleep. Most of the clerks on the floor were women — the owner had a preference for blondes, especially those with a bobbing ponytail and lean legs — and the guys worked in shipping and receiving in the back. Couples were created and destroyed almost daily, although I got a husband out of the deal (now my ex).

As a girl working the front counter, barely 21, I got lots more offers than I ever did when modeling (very small time newspaper ads in my hometown), selling clothes, or anything else. The only other place I got hit on as much was working at the University library. I have come to believe that men are drawn to women who have something to talk about besides themselves, and while pop culture is an important part of life, understanding some of the ideas behind it all is even more alluring. Years later, single and dating in New York City, I could easily eliminate half of the guys who responded to my match.com ad (a really bad idea and a story for another time), just based on the books they knew and the ones they didn’t. The ones who didn’t read were the same ones who freaked out to know that I had a doctorate. The ones I fell hard for? Readers, did graduate work in literature, didn’t act like pompous assholes but knew a thing or two.

You put together a man with a good vocabulary with one that can handle tools and you have my heart. Just true, is all. At some point, you have to have a conversation with that person you dragged home, or stalked online and if they don’t read? The conversation isn’t going to go too many places, in my experience. And it’s the conversations in those first heady days of falling in love that you remember, that sustain you through the tough times.

I am sitting outside the cafe at the library, working on prepping class (which is in just a couple of hours). The cafe is packed, on account of the warm weather, and almost all the seats around me are filled. Two tables down are three guys and a girl, who are talking loudly — I think they have probably no idea I am a faculty member. When I am not teaching or in my office (or wearing a suit), I often feel like I am going incognito. I’ve even had students talk about how they cheat on papers in front of me.

In this case, the guys are just being loud (the girl hardly says anything, just laughs every so often) and I can hear every word, although I kinda wish I couldn’t. One of the guys is wearing a t-shirt that says “I can be your private dancer,” which makes me laugh ’cause I’m pretty sure he wasn’t alive at the time the Tina Turner song was popular.

So far this group has critiqued the sexual attractiveness of every woman who has walked by (and I am sure as hell not walking past them if I can help it) and the outfits of all of the men. I have heard Adam Sandler quotes, a paen to the perfect apple (apparently t-shirt boy was really happy with his apple) and a rambling discussion of how all of their classes suck. The funny thing is that, 30 minuts ago, the same table was occupied with three staff members from some campus office and the conversation ran along similar lines. These three women, all in their 40s and 50s I would guess, talked about the clothes on the students, the shocking lack of self awareness on the part of female students dressed too sexually, apples (no idea why), and how much their jobs suck. They didn’t say suck, though. I wish I could put a tape recorder out here and play it back to people, just to hear themselves.

It also reminds me I need to cut down on my swearing. It really sounds stupid — and every student comment around me is punctuated by it. I guess my mother was right. : )

I can only say that I have been busier this semester than I ever have been before, and by like a factor of two for some reason. I am behind on emails and work, returning phone calls and bills. Every day is fighting a fire left from the day before — and sometimes I chuck it all to the side and just escape. Since my birthday was last week, I gave myself the freedom just to read — in this case, a series of vampire romances for teens called Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse.

I had just gotten the third in the series and told myself that would be my own gift, to put everything aside and read it. All 500 pgs and more. I have no idea how long exactly that took me — I think two days (yes, I was still teaching and going to meetings and reading student blogs, I just wasn’t doing my own writing and research and answering emails. This is triage, people. Some things have to get done). Then I had to go back and reread the first two books in the series. By the end of the weekend, I think I read somewhere like 2000 pages of fun romance and action with a little Gothic horror thrown in.

Yes, reading is my drug of choice (with a nice Scotch as a distant second). I lose all track of time when I am reading, and even forget where I am. Chris knows this, as he has stood and screamed at me to get my attention when I am deep in a book. When I read a whole series like that at once, I am truly living in the world the author created and when I am not reading, I am thinking about the characters, the back stories, the settings. A good movie can do that, too, but books can stretch over days. And, of course, books lead me from reading one thing to another and I can be completely submerged in a different world.

To me, reading for pleasure and to escape is the most natural thing in the world. Even when I have read a book before, if it has really transported me, I will happily read it again just to be lost once more. Yet, when I was talking about this to my freshmen the other day, I think the idea of reading the same book over and over surprised them. Several said they had never read a book twice, and a couple talked about the struggle they had to finish a single book. Some are even struggling to read Hot Zone, finding it boring when I thought a book filled with gore and disease and action would have them dying to read more. I’m really wondering how it’s going to go when we start Into the Wild soon — I am not sure how students from suburban and urban New Jersey are going to relate to a story about the wilderness, survival, simple living, and civil disobedience.