September 10: Hunger, Matt Gavin Frank, "Sprouts"

I just finished my dinner.  Cheese and crackers.  Some cough drops.  A bag of mixed berry fruit bites.  Not really exciting.  I do have a chocolate croissant, but I'm saving it for my wife as a surprise tonight.

I have a poem about food tonight.  Among other things, Matt Gavin Frank is a foodie.  He's worked in the food industry, written about food, and makes a mean pulled pork sandwich.

Saint Marty doesn't like Brussels sprouts that much, but he loves this poem.

Sprouts

by:  Matthew Gavin Frank

I like Brussells sprouts.  There is something 
even about them, as opposed to erratic, as opposed
to odd.  Even when alone, they are double.  Like
one eye.  We see what we're used to.

Architecturally-correct, each is a habitat
with staircases.  Typically, I add only gray
salt (from Brittany), and cut it down the middle
with a butter knife.  I always expect to find a fly
at its center, looking up at me with red eyes,
indignant that I've halved the work of its mother.

I eat their cores.  I think of the brain
and its leaves.  At rare times, like after
the Urbana chorus of cellos, or that time
when my brother, Ronald, went through
the windshield, I added the mustard.

With butter, salt, and bacon, they're not bad

April 7: Cheese and Crackers, Choosing to Be Happy, "Web" Dip

I'm sitting here in my office at the university, eating cheese and crackers for dinner.  Great Value Harvest Vegetable Baked Crisp Snacks and Colby-Jack Cubes.  It's a fairly healthy selection for a Monday night.  Usually, I'm feasting on a peanut butter sandwich and a Nutri Grain bar.  As the saying goes, variety is the spice of life.

I just finished teaching my film class. Brokeback Mountain this week.  One of my favorites.  However, it tends to drive me toward melancholy.  I can't think of a sadder movie.  Maybe Midnight Cowboy with Dustin Hoffman, but it's a close contest.  Anyway, during my Brokeback week, I have to do things to lighten my disposition.  Sometimes, I watch episodes of SpongeBob when I get home.  If I'm really down, I resort to It's A Wonderful Life.

I admire people who can consciously choose to be happy.  I don't understand them, but I admire them.  I had a coworker who always saw the silver lining in every cloud.  Very little could rattle her.  In the five-plus years I worked closely with her, I can only recall two occasions when I actually saw her upset.  (Both times, she was heavily pregnant.)  She simply refused to be sad, or she hid it really well.  She chose happiness.  Every day.

I wish I could cultivate that ability.  I think it would make my life so much easier.  For example, I have a crap load of grading to do this evening.  I am dreading it.  In fact, I'm contemplating typing a novella-length post to avoid it.  My coworker would have already attacked the stack of tests with a red pen, gusto, and a smile.

I thought my Lenten gratitude posts would help me in the happiness arena.  They haven't so far.  To be honest, I've struggled some days to come up with something for which to be grateful.  I find that fact really alarming.  I'd hate to think that I'm naturally pessimistic.  If I'm being honest, however, I have to admit that I just looked at a cup of water sitting on my desk and thought, "I've already drained half it."  Really.  I'm a half-empty kind of guy.

So, I here's my question for the Book of Charlotte today:

Am I a negative person?

And, flipping through the pages, my finger stops on:

...Wilbur stood still and closed his eyes.  He could feel the buttermilk trickling down his sides.  He opened his mouth and some buttermilk ran in.  It was delicious.  He felt radiant and happy...

Delicious.  Radiant.  Happy.


Maybe there is hope for Saint Marty after all.

It's all a matter of perspective...

March 26: Great Lunch Packed, Drumsticks, Crackers

I packed a great lunch for myself last night.  I had two chicken drumsticks that were leftovers from the Book Club gathering.  I also had a bag of goldfish crackers and some cheese ravioli.  My mouth was watering last night just thinking about eating it this afternoon.

I forgot to grab my lunch bag this morning when I left for work.  I ate cheese sticks and saltine crackers all day long.  I was thoroughly disappointed with myself when I realized what I'd done.  At the moment, just the thought of eating another cheese stick makes my stomach sour.

Run like hell!

Aside from that glitch, I had a good day.  I had a pretty difficult time getting my mythology students motivated this afternoon.  Of course, I returned their graded midterms at the beginning of the class.  A good portion of them still looked stricken at the end of the time we had together.  I really should have known better.  I've been teaching for over twenty years.  I learned a long time ago to wait until the end of the class to return graded papers and tests.  That way, I can run like hell if a student is really angry.  If I return graded material at the beginning of a class, the students simply sit there, glaring at me.  There were glares today.

Tonight, I have two things I'm planning to do.  I'm going to read some Grimm fairy tales, and I'm going to work on my memoir.  I'm hoping to have the next installment done tomorrow, but don't hold me to that.  It depends how tired I am.

Saint Marty's week is off to a fair to ordinary start.  He'll take that.