Windchimes

lost glasses and tablecloths & recommended reading

Just glanced at the header for this. "Started in summer 2005." It's almost summer 2006, so the few entries I have in here represent a year's worth of this kind of journal writing. Sad.

Not writing is not what I came here to write about.

Yesterday afternoon, mostly English students, along with some Foreign Language majors, some Art majors and not a bad showing of English professors gathered to fete the coming release of our university's annual anthology. Some contributors read their poems, their fiction, displayed artwork done in various mediums. Prizes were announced and most of us went to a local Mexican restaurant afterwards to continue the celebration. The afternoon's event came on the heels of last night's faculty reading, put together by the English honors Sigma Tau Delta (they're not real quick to use the abbreviation for that) to benefit the county soup kitchen. Some of our professors are prize winning and published poets, some write fiction...there's a lot of talent humming around the department. I like to sit just outside the main hall, in the lobby, and hope some of those creative vibes feed into what I write there. I suppose it doesn't hurt that if I sit there in the lobby, some of my professors are likely to see me working.

But writing is not what I came here to write about either.

A month or so ago, I attended a poetry reading in Atlanta with a couple of English department friends. We went to an Indian restaurant afterwards, the first time I'd ever tried Indian food. Won't be the last. Matter of fact, I took my daughter to the same restaurant the very next week. It's right above a theatre in Atlanta that features mostly independent films you can't see anywhere else, and we were supposed to see a German film there, but arrived too late. (I got good and lost, driving around God only knows where in Atlanta before I got there,) But I digress.

I wanted to finish a cigarette before going into the restaurant, so my daughter went in to get our table while I stood outside, smoking and trying to reach my husband on the cell phone. As I stood there, the wind kicked up and the vinyl tablecloths on the outdoor tables began to dance. I was mesmerized. While I watched, a tablecloth less than five feet away from me lifted from its appointed table, hovering above it for a few seconds, then rode the wind somewhere down from the balcony, somewhere into the parking lot or the greens that surround the parking lot, or the highway below. I could have stopped it, had I been thinking. I'm sure the proprietors would have liked to keep that tablecloth, and I just watched the wind snatch it away. Later, I felt like an accomplice to theft. Later, I hoped it hadn't landed on the highway somewhere, or worse, on some poor driver's windshield. At the time, I just wished I had a video camera. Balancing out my guilty conscience, I try to remember the group of German students and teachers I'd told about the restaurant, who'd gone there for dinner after they arrived on time to see the German film in the theatre below. Something tells me the restaurant profited enough from that party to cover the cost of a fly-away tablecloth. Or I hope.

Salving my conscience over yesterday's event won't be so easy, although a couple of people, including the victim, sweetly offered some justifications. This year's faculty sponsor of our uni's lit and art anthology (award-winning anthology, I should add) read a bit of one of her short stories at the reading Thursday night. Thursday night was stormy, and my car had broken down, but didn't want to miss the reading, so I called one of my friends/classmates to ask for a ride. On the way back to the car afterwards, she said, "oh my, looks like someone lost some glasses." I didn't see them. I am too aware of how much glasses cost, but as we ran to the car through the rain, I obviously forgot all about it.

As a small crowd slowly gathered in the atrium of the building that houses the English (and history and philosophy and chemistry) department, Dr. U asked if anyone had seen a pair of glasses last night. She'd lost hers somewhere. I was sick. We'd left someone's glasses lying on the ground in the rain the night before. She went to look for them, but they were gone by then. Maybe someone with more sense than me picked them up and turned them into an office in the Humanities building, but it's more likely they're history. I don't know, though. The custodians around campus are usually pretty considerate about things like that. I did get my purse back, after all. Here's hoping.

I recently read (just for enjoyment, have to do that sometimes or go crazy analyzing everything) the novel co-written by the professor of the lost glasses and a friend she met at grad school. It's called Flyover States (published by Red-Dress Ink) and follows the summer adventures and misadventures of two single female grad students. One comes to this small university in a small midwestern town from the west coast, one comes from the east coast. Both are more accustomed to coastal urban (LA & NYC) chic than heartland cornfields, factories and county fairs. It's a great read, purely pleasant, the best kind of novel to relax with, yet still feel like the mind's getting a little exercise instead of chewing mental bubble gum while running through the usual plot of a dime-store romance (which this, let me be clear, is not). The situations faced by the two narrators are realistic in such an environment, and the humor they face those situations with during their hotwings and catching-up sessions make the novel a worthwhile diversion. They've written a sequel. Here's hoping it finds a publisher. I want to read it.


J.H. Larrew
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