08 March 2009

Do you want to put the book in the freezer?

I just got off a plane, and I am a ball of stress and nerves. This week is being planned day by day by day, and I have two classes at night this week and zero time for myself. I am just in a bit of a rut right now, where I am sick and tired of being last on my priority list and tired of giving everything of myself to a bunch of kids who refuse to help themselves. Anyway, me in Burnt-Out Teacher mode is not the purpose of this post. Rather, I would like to discuss the whimsical, distracting, lovely thing that happened to me on the plane today.
I was sitting next to a guy in a gloriously distressed tee shirt in a soft pool blue. As I listened to A Fine Frenzy and read Belong to Me (the sequel to Love Walked In, which is not nearly as much of a warm salt water wave as the original) to distract myself from the turbulence on our descent, I glanced over to find my seatmate reading The Glass Book of the Dream Eaters. The name itself cools my face and alleviates the nerves, even though I know nothing about it. It is like psychedelically swirled marbles. Then the next thing I know, he takes out a lunchbox-style cooler, unzips it, and puts the book inside. It was so quirky that I could not help but laugh out loud. It turns out that his sister left the cooler at his mother's house and he decided to carry his book in the cooler because it was most efficient. A book in a cooler! Who would have thought? For me it is endlessly amusing. It reminded me of the episode of Friends where Joey reads Little Women. "Beth's getting real sick..."
Speaking of Little Women, what does it say about me that lately my favorite March sister is Amy? Louisa May Alcott did not want us to identify with Beth, which is often ignored-- rather, she wanted to get rid of the self-abnegating female, the Angel in the House, and that is why poor Beth had to die. And Jo puts me off for some reason, even though she had the most in common with Louisa herself. We never really get to know Meg, but Amy is such fun and mischief, with her made-up words and her limes! And at least she had the sense to marry luscious Laurie, unlike another sister we all know.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Even though I am pretty fond of them all, I always wanted to be Amy x