Friday 9/15

Ah, more fun with flapping words!

The Colonel entertained us this afternoon with a class discussion of Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, both Massachusetts boys from some olden time when, apparently, middle names were always included when talking about people. They were also both into a non-religious religion called Transcendentalism, which had a lot to do with nature, which the Transcendentalists defined as “anything that is not me.” I imagine a Transcendentalist dictionary had to have been very amusing.

“Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson both went to Harvard and could be considered the American founding fathers of modern poetry,” the Colonel said to us.

“And just like the founding fathers of our country,” Shakita whispered to me when he said that, “they were white and male.”

(Zhe’s been a bit hostile with the Colonel ever since the shushing incident the other day. Obviously, zhe is not a person to be shushed with.)

Zhe raised her hand then and said to the Colonel, “I hope this doesn’t seem too rude, but are we going to be studying any poets that aren’t irrelevant to our current lives?”

(Shakita: 1 point.)

Judging by the gasps and then the total silence, the class obviously thought the Colonel would get mad at Shakita over her little remark. But he just smiled widely and said, “That’s exactly the kind of question Mr. Thoreau would have appreciated. He encouraged people to assert individuality. His written works bluntly attacked the government of the nineteenth century and later became teachings for Gandhi, King, and other proponents of passive resistance.”

(The Colonel: 1 point.)

“Then,” Shakita went on, “Mr. Thoreau wouldn’t mind me asking if there are any women in this poetry unit we’re doing?”

(Shakita moves ahead by one.)

“We’ve got Emily Dickinson and Maya Angelou coming up,” the Colonel said. “As stated in the syllabus.’”

(And that ties things up again, folks.)

Guess what?! I have good news! I am now the manager of the varsity football team. And let me tell you, the enormous, smelly guys on the team are very enthusiastic about this. As it turns out, several of them are in this class, and they are sitting in a clump in the back right corner of the room. They wave at me whenever I look in that direction.

The bad news: Giulio is NOT on the team. But I didn’t realize this until I’d sat through a whole (very LOUD) rant by the coach about how the job takes COMMITMENT, COMMITMENT, COMMITMENT, COMMITMENT (I actually counted 14 times that he said that word during the interview) and how a manager is just as important as the players and needs to have—take note of this— physical strength, good organizational skills, and a proficiency at math. To which I nodded enthusiastically, since I had not yet figured out that Giulio (who would, of course, help me overcome these minor problems) wasn’t even there.

Hm. Is a nod an actual agreement? (Mental note: Ask a smart, legal-minded person about this.)

The reason Giulio wasn’t there? Well, it is very widely known (or so Brady says, but I didn’t know, so how widely could it REALLY be known?) that the way we play football in the U.S. is “uniquely American,” and that in Europe, soccer is actually football. Or football is actually soccer. Whichever way you look at it, though, it means that Giulio plays SOCCER.

“Well,” I said, when Brady and Giulio finished explaining this confusing little fact to me, “when I’m at practice, at least I’ll see you running, Brady, since the track goes around the ball fields. And soccer must practice around there, too, so I’ll see you, Giulio, right?”

“Actually, cross country doesn’t use the track much, Deel,” Brady said. “We run across fields and through woods, mainly. Kind of where the name comes from. But you’re right about soccer. They do practice out there—ON the football field, in fact.”

“On the football field! Great!” I commented. “But doesn’t that get kind of crowded? I think there are, like, fifty football players, at least. And they’re MASSIVE. In normal-people-numbers, it’s easily 120 people.”

“It doesn’t get crowded,” Brady informed me. “Because soccer is a spring sport.”

This threw me , but I quickly recovered and said, quite enthusiastically, “Well, then, Giulio, since you’re sportless, would you like to try this ‘uniquely American’ football experience?”

“Sorry, Delia,” he said (very Italianly), “but since I am going to be an artist, I have to be careful not to get injuries that will harm my hands. This football I have seen, and it is too violent for my taste. And I am morally opposed to sports that are so aggressive.”

Now he tells me this. NOW, when I have committed, committed, committed to spending the next however-many weeks of my life with this team.

“So you, uh, won’t even be coming to games then?” I asked.

“Sorry,” he said, “I am a pacifist.”

Not sure what a pacifist is—and fearing it might somehow involve pacifiers—I changed the subject immediately.

I just realized there are MORE football players looking at me from the OTHER back corner of the room. How did I not notice these guys before? They’re like a small mountain range along the back wall of the room. Except Richard, that is, who I just caught looking at me, too.

I really don’t get how Richard ended up on the football team. Not only is he sort of scrawny, but he also has a history of being fairly uncoordinated. I remember when we were in elementary school he used to trip over everything. Desk legs, book bags, his own feet, dust balls. Once, at my house, he got a black eye from running into the bathroom door. I remember there was this jag when he used to come over. We were in, like, second grade, and his mother would just randomly call my mother and say that Richard really wanted to “have a play date.” I would be standing there making horrible faces next to my mom and shaking my head furiously, but she would ignore me and say, “Oh, sure! Delia would LOVE to have Richard over!” And then, when he got there, he would never say a word to me. He’d just start playing computer games. Thing was, he had a way better computer at his house. I did ask him once why he came over, and he didn’t seem to understand the question. Perhaps my voice doesn’t penetrate his nerd shield.

Wait a minute! I think I overheard him telling someone that he’s planning to be a lawyer. I’ll look for an opportunity to consult with him about this issue of the football coach and the nodding.

After I finished football practice yesterday (did I really just write that?), two of those guys—I think they’re linebackers, but I don’t know for sure, and I don’t know what a linebacker does anyway (which means I’m in deep trouble when I have to actually keep track of the game in the score book, which is one of my “commitments” apparently)—were hanging around me, getting all noisy and stuff, and one of them pounded the other one HARD on the arm, while yelling “YO, BABY!” at him.

“Whoa!” I said to the punchor. “Do you realize you just left a bruise the size of an avocado on his shoulder?”

“Really?” (It was actually the punchee who said that. Sad.)

In a past life, I think I would have overlooked that overly macho, overly physicological sort of behavior, since they are, uh, BOYS, which used to be enough of a reason to be entertained by them. But now that my future is to be spent with a pacifist artist, I can’t deal with any of this. And I’m stuck with these guys every day after school.

So, then, I guess I need to try a different approach to my, uh, LIFE, and the achievement of my important goals (translation: Giulio). There are other ways I can make myself more like Brady, right? For instance, maybe I could become smart.

Okay, I could PRETEND to become smart. I could carry books around or something. Yes, that’s it! I’ll carry books around. And then Giulio will see me for who I really am!

I guess that doesn’t make sense, since I’ll actually be acting like someone else. But I don’t see a need to hyper-analyze the situation.

I wonder where the library is . . .

I just held up a sheet of paper for Shakita to see with this scrawled on it: WHERE IS THE LIBRARY?

Zhe started to draw a little map for me, but then I saw out of the corner of my eye that a certain Italian was now holding up a piece of paper in my direction. It said: LIBRARY IS DOWNSTAIRS BY GYM.

Punching someone in the shoulder doesn’t seem so ridiculous suddenly, since I am having a strong desire to do that to myself.

Yo, baby.