A Kind Of Update

      Oh, it has been a manic little bit, so much upturned and recomposed like dust in a hurricane. Frankly, I'm tadding toward exhaustion, so much so that I defy any of you to correct me for inventing the word "tad" as a verb. (Bah, shrumbug.) That I'm for the moment exhausted shouldn't indicate anything more than pure physical fatigue. I've gone from -- as they say in automotive clich´ -- zero to sixty in the past few weeks, though perhaps a sprinting metaphor would be more appropriate. Argh, I'm not as young as I used to be. ("Mistah Shawp, he dead. / Penny for the old guy.")

      So, yes: I'm exhausted, this poor blog has been left to sit like Miss Haversham's wedding cake, and I'm feeling in certain ways like I've gained two years in three weeks.   This is (surprisingly) not entirely a bad thing. I've had in recent weeks the delightful opportunities to teach-- among others-- Tom Eliot, Wally Stevens, Marko Strand, Shameless Heaney, and Bobby Browning.   I've been reminded, in a situation that perhaps might have been more consternation than anything, of how positive and receptive some students can be, to say nothing of gracious; such ones, mercifully, mitigate what might otherwise seem Quixotic gestures and impulses, and so one holds Rocinante's reins tightly and charges on. My naturally-pessimistic side wonders if I might be serving to free the galley slaves only to have them stone me, but, in the end, it matters little. Sticks and stones, sticks and stones. (Everybody must get.... --- oh, never mind.)

      A few brief notes on recent Stuff:

• In following the blogs of some of my recent charges, in one form or another, and in dealing with them one-on-one, I'm delighted by how many call me, with some comfort, "Doctor J." It makes me chuckle. Sue me.  
  
• RK, to no great surprise on my part, has helped make what could well have been a hoary experience more than tolerable.   That it's a pleasure to be working with him again probably goes without saying to any of you that have followed this blog for more than a few seconds.
  
• Much to my own shock, I ran into a still-stunning young lass from my semi-recent past on Tuesday. Much to the surely-greater shock of certain unwitting witnesses, the Not-So-Good Doctor may have (a) accidentally demonstrated another reason why there is the "Not-So-Good" inserted in that moniker; and (b) utterly embarrassed, or simply scarred with disturbing imagery, those unfortunate witnesses with a display probably not to be expected of the Doc. (D'Oh!) Call it a case of anadiplosis.   (To the witnesses: Be glad you didn't see us several years ago.   I have it on good authority we were positively Revolting.)
  
• Wednesday seemed to prove yet again that Winter isn't going to go gently into that good fucking night, which, more than anything, is reason for despair. This Winter seems like it just will not end, and it keeps announcing itself what such subtle climatological statements that are equivalent to "Who's your daddy, who's your muthasumthin' daddy?" Grrrr.
  
• Blogging? Blogging? Well, sorry, this one, at least, is going to have to be left in languor a little longer. See, if anyone had volunteered to be my Guest Blogger....
  
• Bear with me, still. Please. We're nearer Normal than you probably think. Nearer, but not there yet.

Uggidy ugh ugh ugh. I remember when I used to have energy. It was 1973 and the sky was blue....