I'm really not dead ...

Just not writing about being alive, yeah?

I am nearly a member of the Champaign-Urbana Potters' Club, on the Glaze Committee, and nearly able to wander in to the Springer Center and touch clay.

I am excited, I am afraid, I think a void is being filled slowly, did I mention I'm afraid of other potters who have actually touched clay in the last three years, unlike me, who can list all the skills I can contribute to a ceramics lab but has not used those skills in a very long time? In as long an interval of time as I was an undergrad? In as long a time as I was a grad student? In nearly as long as I've been married? A long time. Or long enough time.

Not to mention the last ceramics professor I had told me things like "I don't know if you have any skills" and "I can't tell if you're really smart or really stupid" as I made little pots, just little pinch pots mostly.

Well, in a week and a half I have a meeting with them and get to work with clay until the end of September, at least. Their 'no selling pieces for personal gain' policy might be a problem, especially if I start making a lot of stuff. It's hard to store everything you make when you make pots of any kind. Think dozens of bowls. It's probably easy enough to find recipients of free pots, though.

I've been thinking of posting a Robert Hass poem from FIELD GUIDE here, "Politics of the Pornographer," because I really love the end, but to get to the end, you have to get through this section about what the pornographer dreams of, and it's a bit too graphic for me to write out publicly. So look for the poem yourself. Or just imagine a mention of Oedipus, some other stuff, then: "There is no walled city come to. / There is no plague."

Noah's in Chicago getting ready for his first day with Crowe Chizek, doing an internship this summer with them in technology consulting, where his dress code is BIZ CAS. The dreaded biz cas, easier for men than women, but I am sad I won't see him in his biz cas dress, since we'll be visiting weekends when he isn't working and will be liberated into shorts and t-shirts from woot.com and threadless.com. He looks good in a suit. He does, he does. (Hi Noah! Hello!)

Well, to bed, to bed. To bed for all of you.