The Chair

Yesterday there are no tearful students or professors in my office, just a tearful me after am yelled at by Dave sympathetic--he makes us shrimp and salad and we watch the thunder storm, which is dramatic and slightly scary. Jenny very disturbed and refuses to emerge from crook behind my behind my back, providing both lumbar support as well the calming effect that dogs bring. There are no classes today and office is delightfully quiet. Take walk out into the muggy day wanting to eat something, but not sure what. Happen onto cart selling shish kebabs--get one on pita bread with grilled onions, lettuce, tomato (dressed with parsley) and hot sauce. Eat it walking down street thinking it is the best lunch I've had for years. Perhaps decades. (From experience, though, know not to go back to cart immediately (Monday at 11 a.m.) because am sure to be disappointed.) Get to bottom of pita which is just as enjoyable as the first bite. Lick finger. Happen to look down at pants, which are in very sorry state. Walk back to office with head held high so that perhaps anybody who sees me will think that the stains on my pants are paint and that I am a painter (Unfruitful train of thought about being a painter--canvases, not apartments--and where a painter might live. Am walking past mews on little street between 8th st. and Washington Square Park. Pick out smallest ramshackle row house, renovate it, and built a studio on top.) When get back to school, go to bathroom to try to repair damage. Can only hope that nobody thinks that I wet myself. When get back to the office, see that the Chair himself is in. Libby's mouth a sharp line as she tells me. Go into the Chair's office to talk to him. He says, Shut the door. Ask if he wants Libby to come in too. He shudders and recoils, whispering, I can't stand that woman, she has no sense of humor. This sets us off on a long conversation--he once made a joke about forgetting a decade, Libby took it literally, etc. The Chair--very sensibly--says that he now prefers to work at home but that he had to come in for a meeting. Says firmly, Anybody who makes anybody stay at a meeting for longer than fifteen minutes out to be taken out and shot.