[lit-ideas] Re: PTPVS
- From: David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2004 18:42:52 -0700
On sabbatical leave I have no faculty meetings to attend, no papers to
grade, little to get in the way of research except, currently, PTPVS:
Pre-Traumatic Parental Visit Syndrome. Symptoms? Rushing about preparing
house and garden to standards laid down in childhood. Making and forgetting
several notes to self to cut grass. Taking car to wash for thorough
scrubbing inside and out. Putting golf picture on wall of guest bedroom.
Skipping lunch in favor of extra yoga--aim for calm and loose, calm and
loose. (Would that be a good name for something? Messrs Calm and Loose,
purveyors of fine papers and croissants.) Making reservations for trip to
beach, for golf, for father's eightieth birthday party, for research trip to
Mars. Revising all opinions in favor of temporary bays of blandness, with
as much of a conservative rip tide as can be quickly faked.
Not doing well with the last objective. While I was driving around today, I
heard John Ashcroft begin to testify before the 9/11 committee. "If I'd
know there was a threat, I would have alerted all our warriors and taken off
the restrictions..." is approximately what I recall he said. I had never
heard the man before. Has anyone checked to see whether he landed from an
alien planet, or odd island where tribal warfare is still endemic? Our
warriors? Perhaps he's really from Yap, or Yell? (Yell is an island off
the Scottish coast. Yap is a flat island in the Pacific that recently
suffered a super-typhoon). Neither has the kind of warrior culture that
Ashcroft seems to thinks he leads.
David Ritchie
Portland, Oregon
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
