I'm in the midst of grading the course portfolios for my Introduction to Literature course. What I really focus on is the introductory essay they're supposed to compose to introduce it all. I ask them to consider three questions:  What is the purpose of literature (in their humble opinions)?  Who is literature for?  Which of the texts that we've read do they think best fulfills literature's purpose, and why?

My eyes are beginning to glaze over, and not just because I'm reading off the computer screen or because I'm getting older every minute and my corneas are turning to glue. Some of them are writing what they really think, and answering my questions, reinforcing my faith in them and my desire to just slap an A on their transcripts and send them on their merry way.  Some of them are throwing sentence after sentence at me in the hopes that somewhere along the way my sanity will unravel long enough for me to sense a point or points they're not making and to insert an answer to the questions they're not answering.

I'm trying not to despair. It's the end of the semester and what have I taught them, after all?  The ones who can write could always write. The ones who are in the process of plastering a bleeding hole in the moldy basement wall with Elmer's glue and spit have perhaps learned that there is a hole in the wall that needs to be filled but have yet to discover the means of doing so.

On the other hand, I'm also reading various entries from the creative writers and they're making me feel much better about myself. Frankly, they're a lot more suave with their compliments. Perhaps it's age, experience, but their first efforts ring a lot truer (and more fluent) than the embarrassing half-strokes the first years deliver.

I was thinking this morning about what I'd write for my own Modern Love entry.  I don't have much to say (anymore) about romantic or sexual love; sometimes it feels as if those days of my life are speeding like smoke from a race car into the past.  I could write about parental love, since that's at the forefront of my mind a lot of the time, but Lizzie's gotten to an age where it's more delicate. It's hard to write about a girl when she can read what you've written and deliver a scathing one-liner, or roll down her lower lip and narrow her eyelids.  Then it struck me, as I lathered my hair with Aussie's So Smooth, that I should write about teaching and about how I really do love it, and love the students, in a non-icky and vaguely parental fashion.

Then I put on a pair of ridiculous shoes, toddled into campus, and cracked down to the grading, and the euphoric buzz got lost.

*

This evening, we'll be celebrating the graduating seniors with champagne toasts. I'm filling up the next hour until that happens, listening to Death Cab for Cutie and wondering how to spend my 12.00 remaining on i-Tunes.  Lizzie has a girl scout meeting tonight, the last of the year, perhaps the last of her career, and Dave will have to handle it (yee haw!). It strikes me that I need to call him and let him know, as he bombs home from work, that he's supposed to pack her into khaki pants and a white shirt, as well as her vest, and get her to the meeting ten minutes early. That should be fun--usually, we have only 30 minutes, max, between arrival at home and launch for girl scouts.

Wait. Did I mention that I love my job?

*

I was standing in the kitchen this morning, thinking whatever I think while my toast browns, and I looked at the fridge. There's deep grained grime around the handle, down the door. I don't think we've removed all the crap from the fridge for the whole school year and done any cleaning. Inside, things fester and smell.

God, I thought, I hate this dump.  I made a mental note to spring clean.  And then I left my breakfast plate in the sink.

*

Since my computer is suddenly doing freaky tricks, freezing up and going silent for two, three, four seconds at a time, I better put the final period to this and hit post.