27 June 07

Time:

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Money:

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More interesting things:

Ran into Professor Number Five a second time, just outside the building when she was on her way to lunch. The meeting consisted first of me expressing my mild jealousy that she was off to her regular Tuesday lunch with Professor A.5 and then of Number Five giving me a big hug and telling me outright that she loved me. Hee!

Escorted Professor Alpha from his last class at this university. It's a good thing I had other plans for dinner yesterday, actually, because if I hadn't - if I had gone with Alpha last night - I probably wouldn't have gotten the invitation I did today. But I'm getting ahead of myself. The first thing to note here is that Alpha gave out a really terrific poem to play with - Adrienne Rich, "In a Classroom," which provided all of us with lots of little facets to examine and follow and posit and enjoy; I particularly like that my final interpretation involves the poet as just the kind of book-title teacher Alpha most appreciates. After we got through all that, class was pretty much over, and I performed all my packing-up rituals as slowly as was necessary to stay in step with Alpha. As we left I asked where he was headed - if the answer was "back to my office," I was going with him; for better or for worse I now know very well that you don't leave a deposed professor alone immediately following the conclusion of his or her reign - and got, in answer, my raincheck: of course I'll grab a bite with you... I'd even grab several. So off we went, free this time of conversational falters, all the way to Acme, where Alpha and the waitress deliberated extensively over the darkness of the Restoration Ale and then concluded their discussion with the order of a Hurricane. I got the ale, however, which looked far less interesting than his enormous red beverage but which still invited the kind of curious Alpha-style eyeballing I knew meant he wanted to try it - a conclusion that was good to draw and think favorably about, since right about the time I went to hand him the bottle, he yoinked it from me, aiming it in the direction of his face and announcing that I could try his, if "you're a rum drinker." (Ha.) The executive decision was that the ale was in fact sufficiently dark for him to have chosen it, but it didn't matter; either the rum or the day contained enough intoxicants that the conversation never stopped.