squirming with a hand flat under one thigh. slanted person about to topple; it's the angle we get. discomfort and wriggling.

so should i join the honors college foucault reading group? should i do this? it's times such as these i wish i could turn invisible at will; i'd love to simply be a mouse under the table listening, ready to catch some insightful crumbs.

hmmmm.

i wonder if the fact i already have read most of his major texts, and have an opinion regarding his work (not a set in stone one, mind you, or even fully developed perhaps) will interfere. this concern stems from all of those extra tagalong english lit courses i took over the years where my previous dork-reading-at-13-and-14-before-she-should-try-probably, alone-in-her-room-with-only-her-reaction-in-summer choices "interfered" with trying to accept a professor's class aims with open eyes and arms. i still remember the letter i felt driven to write early one fall semester to professor murray, and all the good that at least came out of that...a valve released. sitting in a circle with people who've just become acquainted with something that makes your heart pound, that is a passion for others, has been so for years and years and notebooks and notebooks clutched to hide how much is at stake in you to you...it seems always the rocky road*. so many rough starts i remember. it's funny though, today in the shower i was just reflecting on professor murray and how even if things had become ugly over some misunderstanding, she'd be the one who exposed us to benjamin no less and for that i'd be indebted NoMatterWhat. sure i would have stumbled on him eventually--for a while there it seemed no one could keep a mouth shut about him--but it wouldn't have been the same. i romanticize, yeah. s'what i do.

*peter carey! when lucinda...oh, i wish i had the book here with me. the line or two about how she opted not to tell oscar of her one dream, because she was afraid that he, unaware of the weight of what she said, what this meant to her, would break it in carelessness. he wouldn't mean to but he would crush it nonetheless. with unassuming flippancy, if that makes any sense...(he says it so much better)...it's that mini slight, the hurt, even tragedy if you'll let me be precious here but it's true. because, because. well. it happens all the time every day in seminar classrooms everywhere. i remember all those aps, yeah i do. and ouch.