Jumping the Shark

Gina's Friday poll today was about whether or not blogging has jumped the shark.

Though my presence in the blogosphere right now is spotty at best, I still love my blog and intend to return to it soon. But I must say that everyone's pretty quiet right now.

I think I just have too many hobbies. Yesterday morning, before I went to work, I was looking at the eyesore that is currently my lawn, and I was thinking that I really must get around to cleaning things up in time for spring. And then I thought, when? Between school, walking and writing, my life is eaten up entirely. Lately I've been having to go to bed at 9:30 or 10, just to secure myself 7.5 hours of sleep and I feel as if I just run from one place to another without ceasing.

I have no idea how writers are supposed to balance their creative drives against a full time job. I seem to be in this sort of all or nothing head space, where I write frantically or not at all. Which is all to say that I'm sorry I haven't been blogging. When I do have time to sqeeze it in, there's nothing to say. I went to work today. I came home and checked the internet to make sure it hadn't exploded while I was away and then I walked 4 miles. I came home and wrote until dinner time, graded papers and then wrote until bed. That is all. I am profoundly boring.

I sometimes think of simply announcing that I'm going on hiatus, but then I'd just break my word, suddenly appearing to announce that my nose has been whistling a lot lately, or some other humiliating tidbit.

Cause that's how I roll.

Holiday! Celebrate!

Actually, very little celebration has been going on.

I was so bone tired on Friday that I was coming down with a cold, so I got in bed at 4:30 and failed to get out again until 6 the next morning. It was much needed rest, the kind that your body just sort of seizes from you when you are too idiotic to take care of it yourself.

Writing is chugging along. I am amazed at how much difference practice makes in how quickly I can compose, though the editing process remains long. Thomas has been letting me read aloud to him, which is a tremendous help, as suddenly I can hear that adverbs have totally run away with me once again, and that I have used the word wound eight times in two paragraphs.

I loaded Thomas's iPod yesterday, so that is good. And I have managed to create two separate libraries in iTunes, so that my precious iPod will not be sullied with prewar Jazz, nor will Thomas have to put up with my love of Morrissey.

Otherwise, life is quiet. I had my hair cut today and it is way, way too short, but time will fix that, I suppose. As it does all things.

Forgive My Silence

I'm writing again.

Which is good. Very good.

So, naturally I'm overtired and prone to fits of crying. (Not so good, but an acceptable trade off).

I hope everyone is well.

Thankful, but I Still Wish I Could Gleek

So, I've spent this fine Thanksgiving morning looking up the word "gleek" online. I just woke up today thinking about gleeking, and wondering if that was a universal term, or if I could find any diagrams explaining exactly how to do it because I've always wanted to.

And now, for our scheduled Thanksgiving post. I am thankful for:

1. My husband, who puts up with my insanity, laughs when I make hideously inappropriate statements, does the dishes every day, remembers to vacuum, doesn't beat me about the head with the vacuum when I forget to vacuum, takes care of me, loves the dogs, shows up whenever I need him, is always supportive, lets me retain enough of my private self to keep me from going insane, orders 3 pizzas so I won't be without, gets my sense of humor, keeps me laughing, watches Regis and Kelly and doesn't mind when I tease him about it, and provides me with the best life I could have possibly hoped for.

2. My family. Here is my favorite quote about family: "What I am, I suppose, I am either because of or in spite of them, which amounts to the same thing. [...] And in this world, you can't ask for more." William Goldman. I have a wonderful family and they support me in whatever crazy idea I'm bent on pursuing at any given moment. And they seem to actually like me, which is awesome, given that I actually like them, too.

3. My friends. I've been blessed over and over again with the kinds of friendships that keep you afloat, no matter the circumstances. I sometimes wish I could freeze time, and preserve my roster of friendships, as it is always changing and I have trouble accepting that as the way of the world. But I have my one constant truth (Kasey, I'm thankful for you) and the rest can swell and recede and I will just enjoy bobbing in the waves. Friendship is the thing I value beyond everything else in the entire world. I hope that I'm growing into being a good friend. I have excellent role models.

4. My dogs. Thank god for both of them. I've never loved any two beings so selflessly and completely. And at 8 years together, it's my longest running relationship. And also you should see the adorable way that Gertie's nose is twitching in her sleep right now.

5. Fiction. Both writing and reading. I don't think about that enough, how much my life is enriched and made valuable by reading and writing. Without books, I would starve.

6. My students. Without my kids, life would be boring, and who needs a boring life? But really, I think I would be deeply afraid to have children if I hadn't spent the last 5 years with some of the most fun and genuine, loving and smart kids on the planet (or in the city of Wilmington, at the very least).

7. The internet. Which doesn't fit the theme, but let's just go with it, shall we? Seriously, I do not know how anyone wrote anything before the internet. How many times did I pause what I was doing to type: "define: saturnine", "latin root for hair", "medical term for freckle"? And then just the things from my personal life: "Why isn't my turtle eating?", "Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Symptom", "How to Gleek." And of course, the internet gives me LOL cats, Harry Potter fansites, and you, my lovely internet friends. And I am always thankful for you.

Poem Sunday, for Michelle

It is always hard to declare what you love most, because there will always be people who do not love it, or worse, hate it, and look at you with eyes that say, Really? But I thought I knew you. I thought we were the same.

Recently, I coerced my friend Michelle into reading The Time Traveler's Wife, which, I have come to know now, is my very favorite book. From the time it first passed into my hands (loaned to me by my sister), I have owned 5 copies, as I cannot stop pressing it on other people. Read this, I want to say. Inside you will find the contents of my heart.

After Michelle told me that she had begun it, I picked up my copy, half-knowing what I was about to do to myself, but unable to deny myself the pleasure of reading it along with her.

The other night we walked, slicing through the cold air along the river, feet clomping on the boardwalk, all the lights dancing on the water. Once we saw a rat, a river rat, I guess, and we clutched each other and danced away, screeching and laughing. And while we walked, we talked about this book.

Finally, we came to talking about the epigraph, a poem by Derek Walcott, and Michelle told me about reading it, and what it made her feel. "It's funny," I said, "I have a story about that poem, too." And I told her that when I first started at UNCW, and I was meeting with my new advisor, I blurted out what I had not yet managed to tell anyone, that I was divorcing, that I found myself in Wilmington without friends or acquaintances, that I couldn't drive a car, that I was living in a hotel, holding on to the writing program like the victim of a sinking ship, clinging to a piece of sodden driftwood.

A week later, this poem was in my mailbox. I took it home and thumbtacked it to the wall in my first apartment, right above the computer. The place where I finally typed enough words to make myself a boat.

This is not my favorite poem, but it reminds me of so many things, not the least of which, now, is reading my favorite book with my dear friend.

Love After Love by Derek Walcott


The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Odds and Ends

I've been more thrown off by the time-change than usual. This morning at 4:30, Thomas woke up and started prowling the house, convinced that he had heard someone screaming. Later he conceded that this may have been a dream. However, because 4:30 is my body's 5:30, and 5:30 is the hideous time at which I'd been forcing myself awake for the last two months, I was up and totally unable to go back to sleep. Now I am tired, but it's Heroes night, so I must stay awake.

I walked with my sister tonight and she was telling me about this soup she ate. It was carrot, cashew and ginger soup, which to me sounds dreadful, but that's not the point. The point is that until 4 years ago, my sister did not eat vegetables. Like, at all. In fact, she ate great quantities of ground beef and pasta. I told her tonight that I wished I had a time machine, so I could go back and tell her younger self that one day she would eat carrot/cashew/ginger soup. There's no way she would believe me.

If I had a time machine, I don't think that there's anything about my life that I would go back to change, but I do wish I could tell myself things that would be useful later. For instance, living off credit cards for a year? Probably not a very good idea. And I wish I could have given myself the heads up about the diabetes thing a lot earlier. Mostly, though, I think I would just want to reassure myself. It will be ok. You will survive. Things will get better.

After a huge round of celebratory drinking on Saturday night, I was feeling quite at odds with myself. As I have previously documented, I don't seem to get hung over anymore (perhaps a good thing about getting older) I just get bone-tired and out of sorts. I always feel a kind of deep and horrible despair. I'm always convinced that I'm just the worst person and everyone hates me. I wandered the house all day not knowing quite what to do with myself. So finally, I just started writing. And damn, if I didn't feel better right away.

Novel 2, here I come.

I Finished the Novel

August 30th to November 3rd. About a month and a week too long for NaNoWriMo, but still pretty impressive, I think. The final count was 477 pages. 30 chapters and an epilogue.

There'll still be editing to do, of course, but I'm satisfied that the plot is complete. It's called If Memory Serves and it's a magical love story. That's pretty much still all I'm going to say about it.

Yesterday, I had only 2 pages left to write and I knew it, which left me time to do certain things that I haven't done in the last two months. Like a load of dishes.

Some things I learned about or while writing a novel, in no particular order:

1. My husband is a saint. Never once did he complain as our house drifted into general disarray. He did tons of errands that I normally would have done, but refused to, as I had to get home to write. He allowed me to half-listen through tons of conversations when I was obviously thinking about the book. He listened to my vague but enthusiastic ramblings daily, though I never did tell him anything about what I was writing at all. He still refers to it as my 'sci fi porn.' Thank you, Thomas.

2. Copious and careful notes are absolutely necessary. I had a huge running summary of every chapter that had been completed and all my thoughts for future and in progress chapters. This was immensely helpful if I was going to organize a major plot twist and/or change, as I had quick reference for all the places certain ideas had appeared. Also, there were many things that didn't get used where I thought they would, but because they were still in my notes, I remembered them to use later.

3. You have to just let it go. I tried never to know what was going to happen more than two chapters ahead. Until I was actually in the last few chapters, I had no idea how it was going to end. I think this kept me true to the story--I wasn't overly committed to plans I'd had from the beginning--but also kept me interested. I think often I stop writing because I just get bored. I know the story inside out and backward and everyone else should too, I seem to feel.

4. I suck at writing settings. Changing locations was the hardest part of writing this, for me. I much prefer dialogue. Though my characters are always---
--interrupting one another.

5. Also, I need to enter an Adverbs Anonymous program. I know that I use way too many adverbs, and I've spent countless hours weeding them out. They're just so...descriptive.

6. Under no circumstances should anyone try to write a novel that moves along a day-to-day chronology. I wrote the first 20 chapters as 7 consecutive days and then realized that the date I'd set up for my big final scene was two weeks in the future according to the timeline of the story. This made for big problems.

7. I still don't know where story ideas come from. I was absolutely possessed by this story--obviously, since I wrote every single day for two months, sometimes for 7 hours at a stretch. And though I'm taking notes for my next project, it's not the same. I don't expect to charge along at such a furious pace.

8. I can do this. I did it once, and I'll do it again.

NaBloPoMo, Here I Come

So tomorrow begins the blogging extravaganza that is NaBloPoMo. I'm actually pretty excited.

I'll give you a rundown of how things stand for tonight, on the eve of the insanity:

Novel: page 459, about half a chapter left to go. End deliciously in sight. Today was the projected end date, but I'm guessing Saturday is more reasonable. I know I keep pushing it back. What if it never ends and I just write this forever?

Reading: Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (Hooray! Reading again!)

Flip flops: Covered in cat shit

Trick-or-Treaters: None

Tires deflated by highschool students: 2

Money: None

Saved up posts for NaBloPoMo: 2

Novel 2: In the note-taking stage

Planned writing project with best friend Kasey: still projected for November. Feeling hopeful.

May God give me strength. And wine.

Obligatory Page Count

430.

Two chapters to go.

I'm almost there.

A Pocket Full of Posies

It's been an eventful week.

My friend Michelle has been housesitting an amazing mansion style house with a big pool. On Thursday (the day the weather finally turned cold, naturally) I went over there and swam. My first and probably only swimming of the year. It was fun, but freezing. There was a West Highland Terrier there who rode around the pool on a surfboard. If only I'd taken pictures.

On Wednesday, I contracted the Black Death (tm) from one of my six-year-olds. Swimming in the subzero temperatures did nothing to cure me. (I'd had high hopes for the sterilization effects of chlorine).

By Friday, I was in bad, bad shape.

Saturday, I was contemplating euthenasia.

But then I went to see a production of Lost Highway: The Hank Williams Story, which was beautifully sung and acted, and though I cried when we got there because I realized I had to pee after we'd been seated in a packed house and would not be able to pee for 2 and a half hours, I enjoyed it immensely. I then tried the sterilization effects of two glasses of wine and a fine conversation with my friend Steve at the bar. Perhaps as ill advised as swimming, but it worked.

I awoke today feeling weak but on the mend. Go wine! The wine in question, should it work for others, was a Pinot Gris called The Four Graces. It is made in a steel drum rather than an oak cask, giving it no wood flavor at all and a stronger taste of flowers than fruit. Very, very good. And medicinal to boot!

Page count: 336

Read: Marley and Me by John Grogan
Reading: Circles on the Water by Marge Piercy

Love Letters to Myself

Yeah, I know. When I'm not writing, I'm blogging about writing. I can't help it. I'm in love with writing. I want to marry writing and have its novel babies.

Today I hit page 305. And I just wanted to blog that, so that if it all falls apart when I'm done with this project and I never write again, I can always look at my own archives and remember that one time? I wrote 300 consecutive pages. If I had a drink, I'd toast myself. Because I've never done this before and it feels like magic. I want to do this forever, and yet I can hardly imagine living at this sort of breakneck pace for life. Please God, let it never end. And yet, please God, let me finish this successfully. I just want to finish and prove to myself that I can do it. It seems like, if I can do that, I can write. It wasn't all for nothing.

I spent a huge part of this summer telling myself and others that when I went into the master's program, I really didn't ever believe that I'd be a writer. I just loved books and words so damned much, I thought that if I got the degree, maybe they'd tell me the secret password--the one that would let me go to the other side where the fiction is, where all my long-lost friends are. Ben Hanscomb and Bill Denbrough, Beverly Marsh and the Loser's Club. Harry and Hermione and Ron. Henry and Claire DeTamble. Bunny and Richard and Charles and Camilla. Euripides and Zock and Harriet. And when I told people this, I got a little teary thinking of all those people I've loved and believed in, sometimes more than the actual people around me. I wish I could find them.

I do think that's true, that that's what I thought. Not on a conscious, crazy-person level, but way deep down. But I also think I was fueled by a wild hope that maybe...maybe I could do something I didn't know that I could do. And this feels like the gift I was waiting for. I don't care if this particular thing I'm writing will never leave my hands--I feel like if I do it, I break through--and I become the writer my degree claims I am.

It's all navel-gazing, I suppose. But I'm going to indulge myself for now.

All the News That's Fit to Blog

This has been a lovely weekend, which Thomas and I totally deserved after a really crappy week that included the air being let out of my tires, a red-light ticket in the mail, and way too little sleep, among other things.

We stayed in all weekend and rested and I am feeling much better than usual on a Sunday night. Though that might be due to the fact that I tried the new "invigorating" diet pepsi today. Bring on the caffeine, indeed.

Today we celebrated my little sister-in-law, Jessica's 15th birthday. Happy Birthday, Jessica! We gave her a huge holographic Harry Potter standee from the 5th movie. I had to touch it a lot before we gave it to her, and I think a little bit of my heart is still in Boiling Spring Lakes with it.

Thomas's brother Chris brought the first oysters of the season and they were delish.

I'm relishing the new NaBloPoMo site and totally gearing up for some serious posting come November. One of my favorite parts of the new site is that we can add friends--and I'm loving getting to friend some of the bloggers I met last November.

Obligatory novel discussion that you are welcome to start ignoring: Finished chapter 20 and got a good start on 21 this weekend. I'm now on page 288. I can hardly believe it. Things have taken a really excellent turn, and some plot threads that I had been having trouble wrapping up have figured themselves out nicely.

Ooh! In further good news, I finally found a decent bra. Since Hanes discontinued my life-long favorite this year, I've been struggling to find a concoction of wire, spandex and cotton that could contain my rather monstrous rack. Hooray for Fruit of the Loom for bucking tradition and making bras with both underwires and diagonal seams and for making them in colors other than white and peach.

It's that time again...

The time when I rave maniacally about the LIBRARY BOOK SALE!

We just got home. I loved the new Friday preview night. I now have the Harry Potter books in hardcover now...as well as 10 more books I couldn't live without...and I am only $25 poorer.

Highlight:

FINALLY found The Time Traveler's Wife, as had sadly lent out my own copy, never to be seen again...

Lowlight:

Still no Geek Love to be found...just gave in and ordered it from Amazon.

Poetry section really sucked this time, but oh well. I'm ready for wine and dramatic readings from my finds.

Oh, and it's page 234, to you.

214

Is the lucky number of today. 214. More than twice the length of my master's thesis. Which took 3 years to write. This has taken 3 weeks. What is up with the universe?

This whole process is causing me to have to eat a lot of my words. I have always been seriously against the notion that stories come from some other universe that the writer somehow taps into and "channels" the characters onto the page. The whole, "Sorry Hannibal is so gross, but that's just what he did and I had to write it," school of thought. Are you a writer or are you some sort of clairvoyant?! I used to say.

Uh, some sort of clairvoyant it is.

This weekend, as I approached 200 pages, I got overexcited and forced a scene that wasn't totally together. I kind of knew it, and then I read a really interesting article about love stories, and how once the main characters are finally together, writers tend to lose their minds briefly, and everyone falls out of character and does insane stuff, or suddenly the writer forgets that sitting around thinking about feelings is not the same as having a plot.

So I thought about it, and I knew there was something not so excellent about this scene and I got up in the morning and rewrote it. And it still wasn't right. There were things I had liked about the original version and I was trying to preserve them which just wasn't going to happen. Kill your darlings, indeed. So on the third try it came out well, and took the story in a direction that I had hoped for but had not yet figure out how to do...so that was nice and put me back on track. I'm messing with some epistolary stuff now...

This is the most fun I've had in years.

In other news, I talked to my friend Jennifer this weekend and she reported that she is reading Wonderful Tonight, the Patty Boyd story. I asked her if I could borrow it when she was done, as I am a huge Beatles fan and very interested in some of her story and lots of her photography.

But the whole point of this story is that Jennifer always likes to tell me that she has read one book in her life and that it was Helter Skelter. Causing me to make lots of jokes about how once you've read Helter Skelter, you've read everything. Everything else is just a rehash. So it's kind of great that she's lending me a book. Even though I'm not reading right now, which is still really weird to me.

Furthermore, when I came home from walking tonight, stinky and dripping with sweat, I opened the door and smelled fire. I started to yell for Thomas, until I noticed that the fire in question was candles and that the dining room table was set with a tablecloth and flowers and wine and that Thomas had made me a lovely romantic dinner of lobster bisque, salad, steak, zucchini and shrimp. With strawberries for dessert. And everything matched and he used all our lovely dishes. And the flowers--they were bright red spider gerbers, and I couldn't have picked a better vase for them myself.

So all is well. And that is all until my next page update. :)

Hello

I'm on page 160. This thing is now almost twice as long as my thesis.

Because I'm off writing (wheee!) please accept this strange video of a dude eating salt, and also accept that I know this person and he works for Thomas. And also that that is really salt, not sugar in the salt container.

Glory

Still totally loving Heroes....what an awesome show. Really excellent storytelling and pace. It's everything I hoped Lost would be but isn't--actually answering a few of the questions that it raises.

In other news, for the first time in years, I'm not reading anything. There's a big stack of books beside my bed, but I haven't cracked a spine in two weeks. But this is the thing: I'm writing. You all!!! I'm writing!!! Which means I can fill my blog with exclamation points!!!

I'm almost 100% sure it's a novel, and those of you who know me know that I thought that was impossible for me. I'm blazing through 10 pages a day, on average, and I haven't taken a day off yet. Lately, I find it hard not to talk about it. In line at the grocery store, I want to tell the cashier lady, "No, I don't have an MVP card, but did you know I'm writing a novel?"

I was talking to Awesome Lauren (she's been promoted from Good Lauren) about this the other day, and she made me realize that this probably happened because I'm so damned sick of thinking and writing about myself. I bored myself into writing about other people. Perhaps I'll try to be more boring all the time.

The thing about all this is, what I'm doing is not particularly publishable, even though I think it's good. It's very derivative among other things. But I kind of just don't care. I feel like what I'm doing is teaching myself how to write a novel and loving the hell out of it. And let me tell you: there are days at school when I'm very happy to have my lower-brain busy composing, while my upper brain says, "Shhhhhhhh. Get back in your seat. Shhhhhhhhhh. Get back in your seat," like 300 times. Which is what happens when your class is predominantly made of 6 year olds.

Last week a 5 year old gave me the finger. I'm not kidding. Thomas asked me if I gave it back to him. It almost would have been worth it, just to see the look on the kid's face.

'Tis I

School has begun. My kids are maniacs and all is as it should be.

And I cannot blog to save my life.

Things happened at the beginning of this summer that were beyond my control, and it was outside my idea of fairness to blog about them. Usually I subscribe to the idea that if I'm a part of a story, it's half mine and therefore fair game. But there are exceptions to that rule and this was one. And somehow, because I could not write about what was going on in my life here, I could not write at all.

I bet that a good many bloggers would agree that blogging has something to do with habit, the constant willful turning of minor events into blogworthy events. When I stopped doing that, I found that it was harder and harder to get back. I think of things from time to time, like, "I should really blog about phrases that people always get wrong, like 'for all intents and purposes' or the confusion between the word 'travesty' and the word 'tragedy'" and then I don't. Or can't. Or whatever.

I'm not giving up; Really, I'm just apologizing for the lack of both quality and quantity around here of late. I've been very spun up, and I'm trying to sort myself back down to reality, which seems to require more off-line writing than on-line writing.

I'm trusting in NaBloPoMo 2008 to set me on my feet again. Until then, please bear with me. It won't be long now.

Do You Know What Axl Rose is an Anagram For?

I saw this post over at Blogapotamus about anagrams.

Here are some anagrams for "Meaghan Gilbert" (all of which might serve as appropriate first book titles, names for this blog, or nicknames for me, depending on your mood)

Blathering Mega
Bagel Nightmare
Ambient Haggler
A Blathering Gem
Gambling Reheat
A Gleam Brighten
A Gingham Treble
A Garbling Theme
Blame Gathering
Garbage Lent Him
Garbage Men Hilt
Algebra Me Thing
Bargeman Leg Hit
Ragbag Theme Nil
Ragbag Then Lime

And these are just SOME of the hundreds it suggested.
Get your own!

Rocking Out

Many, many thanks to the awesome Velocibadgergirl for the Rocking Girl Blogger nomination. She is surely the rockingest girl blogger I know, with her perfect blend of smart/situational blogging, wonderful sidebar poem, hysterical links and general awesomeness. I swear, if we lived closer, she'd be my best friend in the world.



So, now it is my job to nominate 5 other rocking girl bloggers.

Andrea, for her introspection and hyperbolic hilarity

Gina, for her polls, pithiness, and incredible devotion to being an awesome blogger who always gives back

Kim, without whom the world would be decidedly less awesome and funny. Kim makes everything extraordinary. Try some today!

Ashley, because although you can't tell it lately because I am such a slack-ass, she always writes about things that interest me so much that I want to write.

Pen and M, for being so different, and yet gelling into one coherent, far-reaching blog.

Much love to all you ladies. I will try to get back in the swing of things now and earn my rocking girl blogger status.

Word to Your Mother

I've never been one of those people who equates song lyrics with poetry. I don't mean that as a value judgement; it's not as if I consider songs to be intrinsically less important than poems, it's just that I think their aims and concerns are different.

I think a song works alongside music and those mysterious notes that are proven to evoke certain emotions in the listener. A song is meant to be heard aloud (yes, I hear you poetry students: a poem is meant to be heard aloud as well. But how often does that really happen? There are no radio stations for poetry) whereas a poem is most often heard in the mind's ear. And because it is heard aloud, it can rely on the vocalist's tone and inflection in a different way than a poem can.

Though, still, I guess it's all a means of communication, the constant struggle to deliver meaning with imperfect words. And then, too, in poetry, one of the things I love best is to hear the language played with, manipulated: people taking pleasure in the sounds of words.

This is why I love rap. That always strikes me a slightly hilarious, that I find rap so much closer to poetry than anything else. But there is something about a really wonderfully crafted series of words (particularly when it's off color, but that may be just something about my taste) that can force a delighted giggle out of me.

I've been reading Billy Collins while I do my algebra. I often tell my students, as I bumble through my explanations of x and y, that specialization is fine and normal and that I specialized in words, but that they may specialize in math and that neither is more important than the other (although I secretly think that they are both pretty worthless as far as daily life is concerned for the majority of the population. It's not like anyone ever comes up to you on the street and demands to know the slope of the line or what the direct object is).

But I do vastly prefer my words. And Billy Collins is the God of Words, soothing my burning, math-laden brain.

Thesaurus by Billy Collins

It could be the name of a prehistoric beast
that roamed the Paleozoic earth, rising up
on its hind legs to show off its large vocabulary,
or some lover in a myth who is metamorphosed into a book.

It means treasury, but it is just a place
where words congregate with their relatives,
a big park where hundreds of family reunions
are always being held,
house, home, abode, dwelling, lodgings and digs
all sharing the same picnic basket and thermos;
hairy, hirisute, woolly, furry, fleecy and shaggy
all running a sack race or throwing horseshoes;
inert, static, motionless, fixed and immobile
standing and kneeling in rows for a group photograph.

Here father is next to sire and brother close
to sibling, separated only by fine shades of meaning.
And every group has its odd cousin, the one
who traveled the farthest to be here:
astereognosis, polydipsia, or some eleven
syllable, unpronouncable substitute for the word tool.
Even their own relatives have to squint at their nametags.

I can see my own copy up on a high shelf.
I rarely open it, because I know there is no
such thing as a synonym and because I get nervous
around people who always assemble with their own kind,
forming clubs and nailing signs to closed front doors
while others huddle alone in the dark streets.

I would rather see words out on their own, away
from their families and the warehouse of Roget,
wandering the world where they sometimes fall
in love with a completely different word.
Surely, you have seen pairs of them standing forever
next to each other on the same line inside a poem,
a small chapel where weddings like these,
between perfect strangers, can take place.