You can guess where I'm going in a couple of hours. It's not the same as swimming in the sun, but something needs to be done about it. I've got water on the brain. I'm way past spring fever. I'm ready to put my cat in a bag and drive. Three days of road from here summer is about to begin, and I am missing it. --But the guy who does my hair, what was he thinking? He said, your hair is very porous. He said, wet it and run conditioner through it before getting in the pool. Okay, just did that and I don't know what I pictured, but not a whole 15 minutes of my dark early morning. Should've said: do you know what you're asking? Look at my hair, are you looking at my hair? I can't do this everytime I dunk my head in pool water. Almost as tedious as sunblock.
***
Architecture: the windows where they are make the rooms seem impossible.
***
Oh no. Just got a note from the Dean's Office. It's Flunk Day. Which means every kid I know is in the mud pit right now. I don't know what that means about pool hours--can't imagine who to ask--but I know what it means about tulips. Maybe. I had other plans today.
***
postcard: Knox College
from Dean Xavier Romano:
Good morning you happy campers and welcome to Flunk Day 2006! Attached is the schedule of events that I hope will either bring you to or keep you on campus this Tuesday, April 11, 2006. Please pay particular note to the schedule of activities this afternoon...some of the highlights for the entire Knox community:
* Softball game............................4.00 p.m.
* Kid's Carnival............................4.00 - 6.00 p.m.
* Dinner with the Band!..............4.00 - 7.00 p.m.
* Polynesian Fire Dancers...........7.00 p.m.
* Feature film on the lawn - 8 BELOW...........8.00 p.m.
* And of course, your Knox College students available all day long!
Welcome to Flunk Day 2006...have a fantastic day!
Yours,
Xavier
5.16 a.m. Tuesday...Flunk Day 2006
***
Nope. I arrived at the Fieldhouse with my goggles and a towel and tried every door. Locked tight. Nobody is going swimming. My mind is too dark for tulips.
***
So woman went to Lowe's to resolve the lamps with mysterious bulbs issue which has left her in the dark for weeks, and if you've ever tried to buy light at Lowe's you know what I'm talking about. She was there a long time. She carried her $5.99 blue halogen in one hand by the neck and put other lamps in the cart--outside lamps and floor lamps and hanging lamps--trying them on, until a Lowe's man stopped her, pointed to the lamp in her hand and offered her bulbs from a bin at $4.99 apiece. She took three and left the cart of light behind. She turned the corner toward the registers and Lo! before her the garden center waved with tulips.
***
Lowe's epiphany: the universe has laws. Gardens (like cemeteries) are one of them. You must plant tulips on Flunk Day.
***
But I didn't tell you. Locked out of the Fieldhouse in my flippies and swimsuit it dawned on me: it is damned cold out here. So I drove around with the heat on and looked at the houses and the buildings in the neighborhoods behind the college while my bare toes warmed and the sun rose higher and that's when I found it.
***
No see, I can't explain it. You'll have to see it for yourself.
***
Not just tulips--my mother and I planted tulips in my father's beds and there they grow--but geraniums. Because when I start putting things in pots I call my mother to tell her I am planting again. And I tell her I've bought geraniums and she tells me she's never been able to grow them--though my mother can put a stick in the ground and bring up buds--and I say they do okay here until I bring them inside and forget to water and she says that'll do it Gina Lynn, that'll do it. Then she tells me the story of her mother's geranium, a great blooming bush by the side of the house with green and white leaves and blood red flowers. When we didn't have enough money to buy food, she says, your grandmother would take clippings and sell them door to door for 50 cents and that's how we ate sometimes and though we did it often enough the geranium kept on growing.
***
