June 16 came and went, and I spent most of the day at work. This year I made it through the Telemachus chapters of Ulysses and through the first Bloom chapter before Bloomsday was over. Bloomsday is never the raucous event that I always pretend it’s going to be. But I kept the day in my heart and made my students listen to the Dubliners while I lectured. There were a few complaints.
Meanwhile, my daughter poked me in the eye during finals week last semester and I had an eyepatch for a few days. It was acting up again, so I went to the eye doctor. She told me that they don’t use eyepatches anymore because they can cause infections. So much for my Joycean portrait.
I’m on to Hemingway, now, and have been for a little over a week. Papa makes me feel better about where I am in my struggles and inspires me to move forward despite adversity. A student came into the Writing Center looking for help with his research paper yesterday, which happened to be on Hemingway. I don’t believe in destiny or fate, but I do keep my eyes open for synchronicity. I don’t know how much I actually helped him, but I did open his eyes to Hemingway a little more. He left with the insight that there is more to Papa than drinking and fishing.
I’ll be teaching Women’s Lit next month, which will be an odd and welcome contrast to the Hemingway I’m reading now. My sister doubts my qualifications to teach it based on my dislike for Jane Austin, which is strange since I tend to be in the anti-Austin pro-Feminism camp in my analysis.
Here are a few of the women writers I do like: Mary Wolstonecraft, Mary Shelly, the Bronte sisters, George Elliot, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Willa Cather, Gwendolyn Brooks, Zora Neale Hurston, Louise Erdrich, Charlotte Smith, Gertrude Stein, Emily Dickinson sometimes, Maya Angelou occasionally, and Virginia Woolf always. That’s not a complete list. It’s going to be an interesting class.
The Mad Aardvark 