Snowed in, pt. 4

No church yesterday: we were snowed in.

This morning Mary & Martin are at home, and so are many in the city — but not the affiliates of IUSB. My shift at the office is scheduled for this afternoon. Right now I’m on my couch, all cozy, watching the StormTracker.

“You could get frostbitten in only two minutes,” warns the weatherman.

Then, muzak.

Update, 9:00am: IUSB is closing at ten o’clock “due to deteriorating weather conditions.” Deterioration which was foreseen by … everyone.

(During those early, frigid hours, how many souls bothered to go to campus?)

My next residence will be in a warmer city (I resolve). Meantime, I content myself with Wikipedia. New Mexico seems very nice.

Snowed in, pt. 3 — “Effingham”

Three days of tutoring; so far, no tutees. :) And today, no work for me …

… or for Stephen (unemployed) …

… or for Mary & Martin (last night, Martin came downstairs and announced that because of the weather, school was canceled for him. Then he laughed maniacally and removed his trousers. … Mary anxiously peered at the TV until, several hours later, her school was canceled).

I finished reading Iris Murdoch’s book, The Unicorn. All along, I wondered: How should it have been typeset?

One major character has this sequence in his name: f-f-i. This, in itself, is unremarkable; but the resulting ligature leaps out. In Times Roman — what I was reading — the name looks like this:

Which, reiterated, is distracting.

Earlier this week, at IU, I found an edition set in Fairfield:

Would Palatino have improved the name? (I wondered, walking home through snow). The fs and is are discrete:

At body-text size, they pose no obstacle to readability:

And then I considered that the person, Effingham, is pompous and self-important, and no doubt deserves to carry such an ostentatious marker in his name.

The lamb-cat

Mary, to Bianca:

Little Lamb, who made thee?

Dost thou know who made thee?

Bianca, the lamb-cat, looks up and blinks.

My W130 section was canceled because its enrollment was too small. So the English Department assigned me to a different section — which also was canceled, for the same reason.

Thus I’m enjoying an extra week of winter break. On Tuesday I’ll begin to tutor.

Snowed in, pt. 2

A cat and four people, confined by the weather to a smallish house. Martin occasionally goes outside to shovel snow or to turn on the cars. (It keeps him sane.) Mary and I plant ourselves in front of the TV. Stephen pines for his gf.

I swallow pills of expectorant; for a spittoon, I use an old sour cream container. I sit on the couch, coughing and spitting, reading Zlatan’s autobiography. (The writing is incredible.)

Every day, M&M watch for school closings.

Monday night, we phone restaurants. Steak ’n Shake is open! We slowly drive up Grape Road … our spirits are refreshed.

Tuesday night, we watch Always Sunny (“The Gang Wrestles for the Troops”). Stephen traces Edoarda’s plane across his laptop screen. Georgia … Tennessee … Kentucky. When the plane approaches Indiana, M&M and I reach for our coats.

“Hey, what is this!” protests Stephen. “You’re not all taking me to the airport!”

Um, yeah, Stephen: The Gang Goes to the Airport.

“No! Not that! Not ‘The Gang’!”

Yes, The Gang.

Poor Stephen: how will he and his gf attain privacy?

At the airport, M&M and I allow Stephen to go in by himself. The young lovers are reunited. M&M and I sit in the car, listening to ’80s funk. The minutes tick away. It turns out, Edoarda’s luggage has gone missing; she and Stephen are taking this opportunity to get reacquainted near the conveyer belt. … Mary becomes tired of the ’80s funk and goes inside the airport. Martin and I remain in the car, grooving; we’ve (sort of) forgotten about Stephen and Edoarda.

By the time we all get home, we’ve spent two and a half hours in the car.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

This morning (Thursday), after three “snow” days, M&M resume their teaching. Tomorrow I’ll also return to work.

I’m coughing less and less …

ah, this is the life.

Snowed in

Still coughing …

and last night we had a blizzard; and at this moment, outside, it’s supposed to feel like −26°F.

Currently reading:

• Eleanor Catton, The Luminaries

• Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber

• Frank & Marie Drown, Mission to the Headhunters

• Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies (while I was getting sick, I was finishing bird by bird; due to AL’s grudges and death scenes and neuroses, the book was actually making me feel worse)

• I Am Zlatan Ibrahimović (this is fantastic)

• … and articles for W130

Currently viewing:

• Misery

• The Shining

• WSBT StormTracker

• Downton Abbey

• The Pink Panther Strikes Again

Sicko

Day Four of holiday illness. I’ve mostly stopped being feverish; now I’m working on coughing out the phlegm.