In the surfeit of reality, this Techoxiety, the exponential force with which machines are merging with humans, and even thinking about what books I love and how to study them... I have to take note of things that are real, unavoidably and wonderfully real, things that make me forget about all that's happening and changing and making my heart beat faster:

When I take my dog to the dog park, she jumps in the mud puddles and play bows in front of other dogs so her entire underside gets muddy from the Mississippi water. When playtime's over, I let her jump in my backseat with no rinse nor any towel on the upholstery. She sticks her muddy and slobbering mouth out the window. No one is allowed to sit in my backseat -- caked with mud and dog hair -- but her.

Tonight I'm going to get margaritas and queso with a friend. I do this a lot. Half-price happy hour is pretty real.

The feeling I get when my boyfriend comes home and it's like the day starts all over again. I've done the work day now it's the day when we wonder what to have for dinner, should we go to the movies?, and Dixie, stop licking my mouth!

It's the way the titles sound. They always sound so austere and erudite and beautiful -- the titles always have that academic-sounding rhythm. It makes me want to read things that are far from my little specialized corner of literature.

Elyot, Castiglione, and the problem of style / by Teresa Kennedy.

The elegiac mode in Milton and Rilke : reflections on death / by Dan Latimer.

The nation as invisible protagonist in Dickens and Dostoevsky : uncovering hidden social forces within the text / by Olga A. Stuchebrukhov.

I wanted to learn Italian because I read some crappy translation of The Inferno and saw the Italian printed beside it. And because I'd just returned from a vacation in Tuscany.

Then I read Madame Bovary and wanted to learn French so that I could read that (and Georges Bernanos) in the original language and watch my Rohmer movies.

But I'm an American Lit. scholar. I should stick with my Spanish.

I love Milton. I could do Milton and Melville together.

Working in the library gives me what I'm calling the Anxiety of Desire to Learn. Right now I'm having to change every single subject heading "Literature, Comparative" to "Comparative literature." Oh, yes. That's my job. Database management we call it. So as I'm clicking through thousands of records and pasting over the old heading (we don't yet have a program that replaces the headings that are subdivided), I am drooling over titles and growing anxious because there's so much I want to read and can't.

Like: Romantic moods : paranoia, trauma, and melancholy, 1790-1840 / by Thomas Pfau.

Or: The reception of English literature in Germany / by Lawrence Marsden Price

Fairly broad topics, but as I'm beginning to learn what being a scholar is about, I don't think I'll have the reason or the chance to know what the reception of English literature in Germany was in the late 1800's!

I mean, how cool is this?: The influence of Old Norse literature upon English literature, / by Conrad Hjalmar Nordby.

This isn't even considering my new fascination with reading Science magazines online and listening to Radio Lab's science podcasts. There's simply too much to know and I'm too aware of it.

Nothing is actually that much harder because he's gone -- not that I can consciously ascertain -- but everything is just a little less sunny. I do the same things. My life continues as it probably would have had he been here these past two years, but maybe I do everything with just a little less alacrity because I don't have his warmth.

http://www.cbs.com/classics/the_twilight_zone/video/?pid=00Z8PCQ1pUR7YaOGokJTblQn3_ZsEUq1&vs=Default&play=true

Watch this episode of the Twilight Zone. The speech he gives about his role as an educator is sad and startling even more relevant today.

Sometimes in the morning I am petrified and can't move
Awake but cannot open my eyes
And the weight is crushing down on my lungs
I know I can't breathe
And hope someone will save me this time
And your mother's still callin you insane and high
Swearin it's different this time
And you tell her to give in to the demons that possess her
That god never blessed her insides
Then you hang up the phone and feel badly for upsetting things
Crawl back into bed to dream of a time
When your heart was open wide and you love things just because
Like the sick and dying

And sometimes when you're on
You're really fuckin on
And your friends they sing along
And they love you
But the lows are so extreme
That the good seems fuckin cheap
And it teases you for weeks in its absence
But you'll fight and you'll make it through
You'll fake it if you have to
And you'll show up for work with a smile
You'll be better
And You'll be smarter
And More grown up and a better daughter or son
And a real good friend
And you'll be awake
You'll be alert
You'll be positive though it hurts
And you'll laugh and embrace all your friends
And you'll be a real good listener
You'll be honest
You'll be brave
You'll be handsome and you'll be beautiful
You'll be happy

Your ship may be comin in
You're weak but not givin in
To the cries and the wails of the valley below
And your ship may be comin in
You're weak but not givin in
And you'll fight it you'll go out fightin all of em