Monday Notes

:(1.) Josh is gone.

This morning Josh left for Canada. This means I will no longer have a straight man at my immediate disposal, unless you count Hot Rob, and Hot Rob, what with being Amy's boyfriend and all, is banned from amusing me in ways that Josh could. I could swoon when Josh played soccer. I could slow dance with Josh in the middle of The Hearth. I could drink watermelon Smirnoffs and stand next to the cut-out of Dough Flutie in his apartment. Those were Josh things. Now there are no more Josh things to be had until Christmas.

This is what Josh looked the year after I met him:



In that picture, the boy is 17 years old. He is making a collage for his then-girlfriend. The picture was taken in one of the wings of our restaurant that wasn't used unless it was really busy. This particular day was a slow Sunday, and I was just about to get off of work. Josh said he wanted to do something nice for his girlfriend for their anniversary, but he had limited funds and limited knowledge of what his girlfriend would want. So I said, "Do something crafty. Make her a collage. Put the words to your song in it. Does she have a favorite poem?"

That last part was a test. If he was dating a girl who didn't have a favorite poem I was going to tell him he wanted no part of her and that he should get rid of her in favor of, say, me. This was the summer I would follow Josh around and say, "Josh? When are you going to dump your girlfriend and make out with me in the parking lot?" and he would say, "Why? Jess, I look like I'm twelve years old."

It was the hair. That summer I was such a sucker for his hair. And the fact that he would spend several hours cutting stuff out of old Bon Appetits we found in a closet downstairs, then gluing them to a cardboard circle we filched from a lettuce box. I was a sucker for all of that.

So, anyway, he's gone now. And the number of boys I have available to come over and suggest we play board games or take a midnight stroll back to the Cabin of Porn has dropped to zero. But now I have another reason to road-trip up into Canada, which means I can eat as many Coffee Crisp bars as I want, and I approve of that.

(2.) School Starts Tomorrow

And don't worry: I found my giant bag.

I've been searching for an appropriate bag in which to tote my teacher things back and forth between here at campus. I'm not a grad student anymore, so I shouldn't have a messenger bag or anything like that. I wanted something chic. Something sleek.

I searched for three days. I found a bag in green croc. It is a perfect, beautiful, sexy bag.

I have my outfit. I have my three syllabi. I have my first-day writing samples. I have my notecards. I have my shoes. I even have plans to meet with Jeff, one of my old-time friends from Fredonia, a boy I met in my very first creative writing class when he came up to me after workshop and said, "You know, I loved that story you just submitted. You remind me of Margaret Atwood." and I told him I loved him. He's TAing at the SUNY school where I'm teaching. I predict a fall full of trips to the campus Starbucks, the library, and the lake.

So here's to the start of the fall semester, to my new start at a new school and in a new department. It all starts tomorrow, and I couldn't be more excited.