Letter to my feet.

Dear feet,

As you know, there is a long week ahead of us, with many nights out and very little respite from our work. So I promise you: I will take you, my feet, neither hither nor yon, neither here nor there, neither to infinity nor to beyond, in uncomfortable shoes.

That offer is, it probably goes without saying, good only for this week. But I will not renege, not this week. My feet: you can count on me.

You have my word,

htms.


{couplet}--note: link updated to one that (I hope) works.

Long day in high heels.

. . . but a good day. We celebrated the new issue of Folio, our student literary and arts publication. I am on a predictable high after a predictable era of mounting anxiety. We had tons and tons of students submit, published more work than we've been able to before (at least since I've been the faculty advisor), and have a new website with web-exclusive stuff. Overwhelming, the good stuff. This is why being a teacher is a great job--because you get to see these students make something amazing happen.

oh gush gush gush gush gush GOSH. But I dressed up for the event, including wearing high heeled boots, which were just fine till around 4 p.m. when I realized that, predictably, my feet were tired of being high heeled. Anyway, the event, which started at 6 but really started at 6:20, ended at about 8, with us getting home around 8:45. Whoa. That is a lot of high heeling.

Why high heels, you ask? Because, I answer. Because: Folio. Folio is worth dressing up for. And having hurty feet for.

In other news: I have now tried to order Watermark, a book of prose poems about Venice by Joseph Brodsky, for the third time. The first two times I ordered a used but in good condition copy from two different Amazon Marketplace booksellers. Each time, I got an e-mail a day later saying, Whoops, so sorry, we're out of that book. And I was all, well why'd you say you had one, then? Just because the New York Times travel section mentioned it on Sunday in an article about going to Venice in the wintertime which I totally want to do and so, apparently, does everyone else in the bookbuying universe. Anyway, it's a dirty plot to make me buy a new copy from Amazon. Which I did. Today. Hopefully this order will stick.

In other other news: For those of you watching the mole poblano situation closely, there is a mole update, if not much of one. This morning before work, I went to the Mexican grocery store. They had ancho, pasilla, and mulato chiles. So I bought them. Also, regarding the family dinner that the mole poblano is a part of: I lied to myself today, saying, "When I get home I will make the tres leches cake and also the pumpkin flan! It won't matter that it will be after the Folio reading and I will have hurty feet and also won't feel like making two desserts anyway, not to mention tearing up chiles, frying them, and soaking them. No! I will be making cake and flan!" So now I'm telling myself another lie about how I will get up early early to make a tres leches cake and pumpkin flan and fry the chiles etc., even though probably I will get up at 8, as usual. And yawn around for a minute or an hour. Why? Because: Folio. Folio is worth sleeping in and yawning around for.

Infinity

is how long it will apparently take me to finish my grading, but that's because there were rubrics to construct, and electronic files to organize, and the state of the universe to consider. Also, keeping track of the playoffs and going to a concert and a movie. And a little shopping. There has been some reading to do, as I am midway through one book and midway through another book. Also, the concert was very, very good, but it made me a little bit tired to stand for as long as we stood at The Depot waiting between the opening act and the Swell Season,

even though the concert got more and more sublime as it went along. By they time they played a cover of "Into the Mystic," it was okay that we had been standing for several hours, but when it was all over and we walked back to our car and sat gladly down, and then got home and realized that our whole bodies were exhausted, it was still okay that we'd stood through a several hour concert plus in-between-the-acts time, but that didn't mean our hips didn't hurt, not to mention our feet. Did I mention the fender bender that happened when a young woman who didn't look pulled right into our car? It happened before the concert when we were trying to find a parking place, and it is just one more reason why I will be grading until doomsday, or Sunday, whichever comes first.