September 4: Gene Wilder, Willy Wonka, Classic Saint Marty

I'm sitting in my living room, watching Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory with my wife and daughter.  As my two Constant Readers are probably aware, Gene Wilder died this past week, so I've been feeling a little nostalgic.  I used to watch Willy Wonka on TV with my whole family when I was a kid.  My mother would cook up a big pot of popcorn, and we would all gather in the living room.  It's one of my fondest memories as a child. 

I used to wish two things when watching the movie:  I wanted to be Willy Wonka, or I wanted to be Gene Wilder.  Either way, I would have a purple velvet jacket, top hat, and cane.  Even sitting here tonight, I sort of feel some kind of yearning.  Perhaps for a simpler time, when I believed I could have an edible chocolate room.

Planning on sleeping in tomorrow morning.  Not setting an alarm.  I can't remember the last time that I've gone to bed and not set an alarm.  It will be absolutely heavenly.

Tonight's episode of Classic Saint Marty first aired two years ago, when I was pretty sick.  An early autumn case of tuberculosis.

September 4, 2014:  Hard to Sleep, Coughing, Book Bag

The night seemed long.  Wilbur's stomach was empty and his mind was full.  And when your stomach is empty and your mind is full, it's always hard to sleep.

Wilbur is excited.  A voice has promised to be his friend, and the voice said she would introduce herself in the morning.  Therefore, Wilbur is unable to sleep.  He waits and waits for the first rays of sun in the sky.  For his new friend.

I use this paragraph as an introduction because I have been having great difficulty sleeping this past week.  Not because of some disembodied voice.  Not because I'm hungry.  And not because my mind is full.  It's because I spend most of the night coughing up a lung.

I caved this afternoon and made an appointment with a doctor.  The doctor told me I have acute bronchitis, exacerbated by possible asthma.  Basically, the cold I had last week has settled in my lungs and is now turning my nights into tuberculosis time.

I have not had the energy to read a whole lot this past week.  I recently started the book Struck by Genius by Jason Padgett.  It's about Padgett's traumatic brain injury and onset of acquired savant syndrome.  Basically, Padgett went from being a shiftless, partying 30-year-old boy to a mathematical genius.  So far, the book is brilliant.  More to come on that.

That's my book bag at the moment.  My thoughts are clouded, and my lungs hurt.

That's all Saint Marty's got.

A portrait of last night

April 29: Lots to Do, Sisyphean Task, "Rye" Dip Monday

Where's the chocolate room?

 I feel like Gene Wilder at the end of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.  I find myself walking around this morning, muttering, "So much time, and so little to do!  Strike that, reverse it."

I have to finish the final edits on my chapbook and get that in the mail.  I know I don't stand a chance, but it's nice to have the hope of publication for a little while.  I have two poems that need a little more tweaking.  Aside from that, I just need to format it, slip it in an envelope, and send it on its way.  I've been living with some of the poems in this little collection for over ten years.  It's time to let them go.

Then I have final exams to grade.  Lots of them.  That is the Sisyphean task preoccupying me today.  That and how sore I am from yesterday afternoon's run.  It's a good sore, though.  It's my body saying, "Oh, yeah, that's what that muscle does!"

Then there's my normal, daily work.  Phones.  Charts. Surgical schedules.  More phones.  Yes, I will be busy today.  Busier than I really want to be.  However, it's on days like this that I'm able to accomplish the most.  To paraphrase from another famous movie character (Dory from Finding Nemo), I "just keep working, just keep working, just keep working."

Today is a Rye dip day.  I haven't really given much thought to any question plaguing my mind at the moment.  I mean, there's the standard questions that are always present:

• Will I win the chapbook contest I'm entering?
• Will I get a full-time job at the university?
• Will we have enough money to make it through the summer?
• Will Hannah end up with Adam on Girls?

Maybe I'll just go totally off-the-wall this morning and ask a new question that has nothing to do with publishing or money or teaching or any of my normal obsessions.  Here goes:

Will I win the chapbook contest I'm entering?

OK, I have a one-track mind.  I admit it.  Let's see if Holden is going to actually answer me today.  Flipping through pages.  Flipping.  Flipping.  And the answer is:

Anyway, we danced about four numbers, and then I turned off the radio.  Old Phoebe jumped back in bed and got under the covers.  "I'm improving, aren't I?" she asked me.

So there you have it.  I'm improving.  That means I've improved enough as a poet to win this contest.  (If it seems like I'm pulling that answer out of my ass, I am.  I was determined to get a positive response this morning.)  That contest is in the bank.  Every other entrant might as well send me congratulatory wishes right now.

Saint Marty would like to thank the members of the Academy...