Something Else to Think About

Health & Fitness Tip #23

Lay off the B6.

[I've been battling this cold for a week so every chance I get I'm pumping myself with Vitamin C. The thing is I've been using the fizzily little packets that also contain just under 8o000% of your daily vitamin B6 needs, and as you may or may not know, Vitamin B6 helps you to remember your dreams which sounds really grand and might be if, say, I was trying to de-code DNA and that was the sort of thing I dream about, but my dreams tend to run a bit on the ordinary side. Take for example this riveting dream I had last night: I sat in a vinyl booth in Joplin with Erryn (Hi Erryn!) and Marsha drinking a Diet Coke through a straw. (I rarely use straws.)

Things seemed to be taking a deeper turn after I was magically transported back to Brooklyn where while rummaging through my cupboard looking for a cheese grater I found the rare acai berry! Finally, one of my students was telling me about a dryer full of pencils. He was sitting across from me talking but I could only hear his words if I read them. But what does it mean? I wrote in the margins. It's so the lead stays soft, he said. Easier to write. I nodded thoughtfully, put a little check-plus at the top of his dream-essay and capped my pen.

So I guess I'm wondering why people want to remember their dreams.

To make matters even more complicated, I've also been finding it harder to differentiate between my dreamworld and reality, i.e., my spin teacher profusely bleeding from her calf this morning while yelling, Don't worry about me! Just two more hills! But that's, perhaps, another story entirely...]

Heaven (with sprinkles on top)

Things to Save

My student, Tyquan, wrote this poem yesterday:

Things to Save

I don't want to save nothing,
nothing in the world,
but if I did, I guess I'd save money.
Gold. Silver.
I'd buy some diamonds
and give them to my mom.
If I had a whole lot of money
I'd buy my mom a house
covered with flowers.
It'd smell like springtime.

When Walls are Hands

Even though my mother liked to yell and scream
and threaten to beat me when I did it,
sometimes I miss writing on my hands.

Words, she said, are not candy

Last night I dreamed that I brought in an essay composed entirely of candy to my students. The words were written directly on the m&m's: storm, feast, strange.

But in my haste to hand out this delectable essay to the class (I was an hour late; I had been dancing in the snow; George Clooney was in the first row), the candy got jumbled. Words were strewn everywhere.

I woke up with a little song in my head: words are not candy, oh no, words are not candy. It reminded me of a short story I wrote in college where, in the final scene, the main character, Stella (what else were we to name our college heroines?), sits on top of the kitchen counter, takes a deep drag off of her cigarette and proclaims, Men are not just words. (I remember this being a revelation.)

And now I am thinking of other things that are not words: blue jays, torn slips, pulled muscles. A stack of essays sits on my desk waiting to be graded. I am hoping they are not just words either.

Things to Do Outside the City

Try new foods:

Receive friendly tax reminders:
Listen to your daddy practice his Bum Ditty: