3:35 p.m. - June 27, 2003
It's thunnering and litenin
I've watched the thunderclouds roll in across the quad and finally the break has come and with it a warm gust that I cannot feel through this glass, rolling thunder this is, warm and comforting, I say whip the trees roil the grasses send the birds fleeing for cover, and I'll pick up my feet to follow.
I've completed Week One and I'm exhausted in a mild-stimulant way. Do not desire taking the Metro home though I don't ask for rides. It isn't that I dislike the Metro - I love its aesthetics, it's harmonizing of form and purpose - simply that I wish it were a chariot speeding me on instead of a cattle car packed with human detritus and sludge, the catfish of the lower orders, and that deoderant sticks were dispensed at the turnstile.
In truth, I do not want to go home. Tonight I crave company and laughter, hustle and vif, talk and discourse. How is it that I can be one person as a teacher, confident and secure, making others laugh and want to be near me (I cannot shake them at lunch or at the breaks) and invite me to go to a bar tonight though when removed from the physical classroom that same confidence and surety, that gravitas of purpose and being, is also stripped? It must be a control thing, as the good Dr. Phil says, because I establish the parameters by which everybody operates. Remove that parameter-authority, and I flounder.
I'm floundering now.
Ray's emails have decreased in volume and now match my one-a-day to him. I do not feel comfortable with what I can only say is his pursuit and aren't people supposed to enjoy the chase? It is a responsibility and a burden I do not want particularly since I know I'm going to end up hurting him when I cannot return his interest. I struggle to accept his compliments, see them as maneuvers and strategy, I am skeptical.
