10 April 2003 - 8:05 p.m.

I'm sorry that I write cryptic entries on Wednesday nights. It's partly because Wednesday is the night I drink. It's also partly because people say the damnedest things on Wednesdays, and I sort of need to see them in print, or some version thereof, to make sense of Hump Day.

For example, you've all been called on cold in class. Has the question ever been, "Do you like baby animals?" With a follow-up of, "Do you know what I like? Groundhogs."

Do you see what I'm up against? Granted, what I'm up against is utter awesomeness, but still. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Hollins is a place on earth.

But I had a bit of a shitty mid-week given that, while the cordial chatter of bunnies and chipmunks and Frank Sinatra and Greek dancing was going down, a slightly causic letter was waiting in the fifteen departmental mailboxes of the assholes regarding before-class drinking.

Ouch.

Now, we have always had the same stance on the pre-critique spree: if anyone told us to stop, we would stop. So, you know, fair is fair.

However, as the reigning lush of the program, I was always determined not to let the ship go down with me. That is, in spite of the fact that I am sort of an approval whore, if I ever got anyone else in trouble, I was prepared to take as much of the heat as I could.

So you can imagine my horror when this happened on the heels of me turning in 11 recognizably ripped-from-real-life pages of "fiction" about "Jill's" inebriated academic adventures. And even though I had made sure it was okay ahead of time, it was especially cruel irony that the professor in said "fiction" was also the writer of the aforementioned memo.

Yeah, I've been repsonsible since the time I locked myself in 109, so it didn't occur to me that it might be a tad disrespectful to ressurect my day of debauchery via workshop assignment until last night, a.k.a. when it was too late. I headed to Don-Ho's last night with the fear that I was taking-the-languauge-exam-without-a-dictionary FUCKED.

During what little sleep I got afterward, I dreamed that I finally met the VA poet laureate, and Are kept lauding the other assholes, minus myself, for their immense talent. "And Jennifer... well, she's very feminine, at least," he finally said, rather scornfully. It's funny how often the words "worst" and "nightmare" get thrown around, because I'm pretty sure that was mine. Maybe if there were bats circling my head and slugs crawling through my toes, it would have been worse. But don't worry, I have a whole lifetime of REM sleep in front of me.

I figured the only thing I could do was ask for my story to be withdrawn from the lengthening workshop queue, and while I waited all day to snag a minute with Are, my stomach churned something terrible.

I remember from my own teaching experience that sometimes the only way to end a fit of hysterics is to tell a student 947982794 times she is not in trouble. Thankfully, Are has a great deal of that kind of experience, and was a good sport about providing me with the needed reassurance. He even said, "It was so ironic typing that memo and thinking about how funny your story was! But really, they had nothing to do with one another. Some professors complained about their students, but I could care less what you do as long as you keep on writing like this."

And after twenty more apologies and a good laugh, everything was back to normal, and we talked about clowns and fonts and duct tape, and how to pronounce duct tape, and what were the best things to make with duct tape, and what were not worth our time. Then we debated whether a person whose clothes keep faling off is as funny as a midget with a fake axe lodged in his head.

It just occurred to me that I've just used a very odd definition of normal. Maybe the fact that, in most parts of the world, guilt, self-doubt, and rigorous temperance are not only not discouraged/forbidden, but considered to be good or valid traits.

To that I must blow a raspberry of Fellinieschi proportions, and declare myself off to write another chapter. Of what, i don't know, but you read what the man said.

What I'm wearing: Violet v-neck sweater, blue slacks, brown loafers

What I'm reading: Cole Porter, "Let's Misbehave"

What I'm doing after this: Popping in the Berlitz tapes and getting down to bidness.