Great post. And now I see Toni Morrison lurking in your sagacity unfurled section, which confuses me…the breaks and all. But I like it. I do. I am all about her these days. I thank god for her these days. I shiver.

I’ll be there for the tea and chocolate. I am already there.

*but now I’m should-ing all over myself, Stuart Smalley!

Sister you said a mouthful!

So um, is this mentor a member of the graduate faculty, and if so… JEALOUS!

This will probably sound silly but I love the way that bits of your life are revealed through your entries little by little (at least for those of us who are still trying to break the code). When I have time I like to go back and read the archives, trying to piece things together like a Barbara Hodgson novel. But then of course there are those times when I completely put my foot in my mouth, and then I really wish that I could be at the backyard party, giggling and eating chocolate and asking you a zillion questions. For instance, is the cat really Pyewacket?

I’m so glad you got the boost (and the shower!) you most definitely deserved.

I think. Yet.

My code is only supposed to be impenetrable to G••gl•, which, in fact, I think (touch wood) it is. Unless the alcoholic poetics professor has taken to g••gling those exact search terms late into the night. Which, also in fact, is not impossible.

Since you are the only State School victim who reads or anyway comments on this ridiculous excuse for a blog-shaped object, I think you should get some kind of serious commendation and/or baked goods for your unfailing in-class diplomacy (and failure to rat me out as a screaming lunatic)—a diplomacy which, by the way, frequently rivals that of James Earl Carter; and for your general affable demeanor, which is invariably genial and humane and, goddammit, what I’m TRYING to say here that it just does me plain good to see you in class, week after week, sharp-witted and decent and non-brainwashed as you are.

Okay enough with all THAT nonsense. Here, here’s your dang head back.

I’m starting to wonder if getting master’s degrees isn’t kind of like having kids—you should really do it when you’re younger, before you realize what you’re getting into. The Cambridge one was pretty painless (well, there were occasional essay crises, and a good quantity of seasonal affectivity, but overall I was in bliss, because it was so completely self-directed, and everyone was so bright); while the BU one, only two years later, was already much less pleasant; and now, a decade later, I feel a full decade crankier and much less impressed with everyone, including myself.