Little did I know

I went to a lecture about Joyce today. Little did I know that the lecturer had emailed us on Monday to say we should read a Joyce short story called Araby. And little did I know that in this lecture there would actually be a fair amount of discussion about the story. I must concede that this is my fault. I hadn't set up my email account, in fact I had no intention of doing so, blissfully unaware that emails have been piling up in my inbox for weeks. You might ask yourself what kind of fool would attend university, be given an email account and then not set it up? I'm afraid that fool is writing this post.

In my defence, a lot of last week and the weekend I was distracted by typing a 51 minute interview conducted at breakneck speed with the two people involved speaking over each other alot. Months ago I volunteered to help Elisa Medhus type her interviews with Erik, her deceased son and I'm glad to have made a contribution. See Channeling Erik. However, little did I imagine she would contact me at such a critical time and then ask for a 7 day turnaround. And in the rest of my downtime I was trying to find a girlfriend online. What time was there left to attend to needful things? None.

Then, later I went to Raisa's child lit class and discovered for some reason I'm doing the essay component and not the creative one, as I was with Laura last week. Now why in the world would I want to write essays about fairy tales? It requires wide reading and research, organising one's thoughts, doing some thinking. Writing, that's easy. I could write ten fairy tales before lunch time. The creative students have it much easier, if you ask me. So that means I have to ask Michelle once again if I can switch one of my classes. People are going to start to think I'm a pain in the neck, if they don't already.

In the evening I didn't want to spend my birthday alone, so I went to a salsa class. It was held in an off duty 'nightclub' and was a capacious black and purple basement room with seedy looking sofas. There were three couples and me, so I danced alone. I'm sure I imagined greater things for myself as a child. A house, a job, a wife, children, a publishing contract. I didn't think that on my 42nd birthday I'd be in a tatty and almost empty room dancing to a beat on my own. I don't know if you've ever danced salsa, but it's not really intended for one person. But in some ways this drab little mise-en-scene fired my imagination. I was enjoying the poetry of it, the sheer writing-on-the-wall of it.

And, at least ten men didn't turn up. There were actual women on the premises and I must confess that when we switched from salsa to merengue I did get to dance with one. She was tall and slim, about 25 and works as a researcher at the uni. She was lovely to dance with and very nice to talk to. Little did she know that  my dance and conversation with her was my birthday present.