last night we sat in the Glam Opium Den that our living room is fast becoming, with all the candles lit, & practiced high-school level math for the GRE, which bean is taking this week.
here is what i really like: prime factorization. probably just because it is orderly.
here is what i dislike: in the back of the kaplan book that bean is studying out of, there is a section marked in heavy type: APPENDIXES. we disapprove.
:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:lately my english has been wavering. i've been saying things like "she thinks i doesn't know anything"; i've been transposing words in my sentences; i mangle idioms all over (me to r______: "when you gave labor you didn't like much of anything"). i blame this on the demands i put on my own brain, halting spanish at work & greek at home. studying math again with bean feels like re-learning grammatical structures, feels like the night i stayed up until dawn learning two years of german grammar.
at work there is this mad rush into the clinic of immigrant women, mostly from mexico. i say "mad rush" when i mean "one each week," which still feels like a rush. i imagine an underground communication in which it is steadily spread that hey you can go to this clinic & they have someone who will speak spanish to you even if she mangles all her imperative endings & even if she refuses to blink when you are talking so that she can maintain perfect eye contact & swallow up every word you say.
i come home &, oh really, i'm not doing as much greek as i should.
:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:usually at broad & high in the morning there are high school kids waiting for the bus at the same time i am waiting. they are divided into two groups: the posh, usually slouchy kids who go to private schools (st charles, columbus school for girls), & the brash kids who go to the public high school a couple blocks from the clinic. the other day i noticed that one of the brashest girls, with the tightest jeans, was carrying a first-year latin book (ecce romani) & i don't care how old she is or how brash, i let my heart spin around in my chest, around & around.
