Fridays, despite the presence of only one class (and that a 50 minute lecture), continue to be my busiest day. After said class I ate lunch and chipped away at the hulking Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates (excellent but long and due to be read by Monday) before going to a meeting for GetSET, the organization for which we volunteered during CA. During the school year a group goes and works at the church after school on Fridays, so a handful of my CA group and others plan to go starting next week (or the week after, depending on the excitement Parent's Weekend will bring).
From there I hightailed over to the Mothership of the Arts to hear readings by Colm Toibin and Anne Enright. Paul Muldoon introduced them and gave a general picture of the Fund for Irish Studies Lecture Series, of which this was the second. He lingered over the tantalizing title of the December 7th lecture, "Irish Decadence."
"Oxymoron," offered Colm Toibin.
And we were off, on a rollicking afternoon of two excellent readings (Colm Toibin's featured Ennis and the County Clare. Yay!) and many excellent answers to so-so audience questions. When asked how the Celtic Tiger was changing Irish writing, both of the authors agreed that it wasn't so much encouraging more joyful topics in writing, but giving Irish writers the funding to write even more about misery. "There's a whole swath across the northern hemisphere that's deeply troubled and writes great stuff," said Colm Toibin. "You can draw a line."
I've been saying that for years. :)
Anne Enright talked about how the arts in Ireland are facing a low point since no artists can afford to live in Dublin anymore. Instead they live, "in the middle of nowhere." Tell that to the folks in Walden, Co.
Dinner came next (where I ate a salad and slipped two slices of pizza into a bag for later) and after dinner Roommate J and I returned to badminton to discover we were expected to pay ten dollar dues. We batted a birdie around for a while and then sneaked out, never to return, commiserating that our parents genes manifest in us in alternating periods of joyous spending on excellent products and a cheapskatedness that steals plastic cutlery from dining halls and doesn't buy water when in need of it because there's probably a water fountain somewhere. This was a cheapskate day for both of us, so we probably won't be headed back to badminton.
Being Friday, I purchased a root beer from the basement vending machine, unwrapped my purloined pizza slices, and settled down to watch a movie before heading out again with Roommate J to knit hats (or in the case of many, scarves) for the homeless. This was conducted in the rockin' underground cafe on campus that has great ambiance and is often 20 degrees warmer than the outside temperature. The time sailed by and we walked home at midnight with yarn-blisters and a sense of artsy contentment.
This morning.
Oh, this morning.
Following a recommendation from the parents, I took a bike ride to Kingston to a bakery that was "like the HometownBakery" where we ordinarily have breakfast on Saturday mornings. The distance was "bikeable," and Dad even sent be a helpful map with a route mapped out. I set out full of hope and an hour later arrived in Kingston, having walked my bike for the last 1/8 of a mile up a steep sidewalk-less US highway, calf muscles sore and badly in need of a pain au chocolat.
"What can I get for you?" asked the nice man behind the counter.
I couldn't see around the large woman in front of me to peruse the offerings, but I knew what I wanted and there was no bakery on earth that didn't sell them, so I said confidently, "I'll have a chocolate croissant, please."
"I'm sorry," the man said. "We don't sell them. Never have."
Make that no bakery on earth minus ONE.
"Oh," I said. "That's unfortunate."
He must have seen a look of desperation or downright maniacal calculation in my face, for he amended hurriedly, "But you know what we can do? I can slice a plain one in half and put chocolate sauce in the middle. Our chocolate sauce is to die for."
I thought of my mom, whose chocolate sauce is indisputably the best and who can't stand the phrase, "to die for." "That would be great," I said, almost bursting into miles-of-beautiful-towpath-induced tears.
Soon he procured it for me and I bought an apple juice and went out to sit with my bike and eat. He was right. It tasted delicious, and much like a normal chocolate croissant (except for the fact that he must have put half a cup of chocolate inside, but I'm not one to complain about that).
I finished up and as I was unlocking my bike, two older women walked by me, discussing one of the books we're about to read in English.
"It's the book Stephen Crane would have written..."
"If he didn't write Maggie?"
"Yes, exactly."
"Hotel de Dream by Edmund White!" I felt like yelling, knowledgeably.
But instead I turned my bike around and rode back, leisurely and with a stomach full of chocolate.
Good chocolate.
Still, I have a feeling I'll stick with the Princeton stuff next week.