TGIF

Seriously, thank the goddess it's Friday. Yesterday's drive was even more heavily trafficked than usual, with road construction, pockets of dense fog (don't I sound like the Weather Channel?), and of course, the road idiots. My students sometimes don't like for me to ask about their pet peeves (they think it's a trite topic), but I think a person's pet peeve says a lot about who that person is. So what does it say about me that my pet peeve while driving is the driver who rushes up behind me and stays on my back bumper until getting a tiny opening in which to pass me. Then he (almost always a "he") rushes around me, pulls in quickly in front of me, and then drives about one mile an hour slower than I was driving. These drivers should be named the "shepherds" because they drive rather like a sheep-herding dog corrals sheep to keep them from going in an undesirable direction. Come to think of it, when the shepherd drivers get on my back bumper, they remind me of one dog sniffing another dog's back end. I guess just calling them "dogs" will suffice to describe them. (Sorry to all the dog lovers out there. But face it--dogs chase cars, dogs sniff butts, and dogs herd sheep. And if you've ever taken your dog for a walk and tripped over him/her/it when it stopped in front of you suddenly--well, you get the point.)

Usually, though, the drive isn't as bad as I'd feared it would be when I took this job. I listen to the radio--mostly the sixties and seventies stations on my satellite radio--and I look at the leaves changing. The experts in leaf color are predicting a less-than-spectacular year because of the odd weather we've been having, but I'm seeing some nice colors. One that was particularly beautiful--the tree was a deep, deep green, except for the edge that probably gets the most sun. (I'm an English teacher. I don't know how or why leaves change color.) That edge was a brilliant red wine color. Jewel tones, the decorators would say. Indeed, the tree could have been stained glass.

I'll sound a different tune when all the leaves are gone and the scenery becomes monochromatic mud. (Once again, apologies to scientists who would probably tell me that mud is exciting, colorful, and fascinating. Whatever it is, to the average person, it's not pretty.) The gray season will last such a long time that I'll be nearly insane before it ends. Of course, it's not as if my cubicle at work is colorful and exciting. It's monochromatic gray-blue. But it's not as ugly as it could have been. That closet that the community college stuffs its adjuncts into--now that's ugly. When you stuff forty people who are underpaid, unappreciated, and overworked into a windowless room large enough maybe for two people--I'm surprised there hasn't been something akin to a riot. The word "disgruntled" hints at the mood.

I guess I need to grade papers, work on my short story, and grade some more papers. Ain't life grand? Dr. S.