A while back, a student wrote to ask why he didn't get a better grade. As far as I was concerned, he'd done well in earning a grade of "B" (and I always give them the routine about how I don't give grades, they earn grades, etc.), but he thought that if he completed all the work on time, he would naturally get an "A." I decided to answer him immediately, which is not what I usually do, but I've always wondered whether what I wrote was appropriate. 

Most people I know simply don't answer these letters and discover that the students get tired of asking after the new semester begins; others invite the students in to discuss the course and sometimes find themselves in uncomfortable -- not to mention lengthy -- defenses of their grading policies.

I've always told the students they could discuss their grades with me once we are three weeks into the new semester, which is basically my version...

Nice start, Senator Brown: You say that if anybody's out there watching, your daughters are both available -- ha ha! what a laugh riot and how unusual for a father to say such a thing, you wag -- and then you apologize, not because you've given the distinct impression that you are eagerly auctioning off your female offspring, but because one of your daughters is actually "taken," as you so subtly proved by holding up her hand and showing that she has a ring on her finger.

It was like the blonde with the rock on her left hand had just been named middleweight champ.

It was shudderingly weird, Senator.

You'll have guessed by now that I wasn't thrilled by what I saw as I watched Scotty B. take hold of the Senate seat. This man seemed happier to be on a stage with an ex-football player who now has a rock band than he did to win the election, and this makes me sad; it makes me sad that he...

Around a long table we sat

Nine eighteen-year-olds

And learned the names we can still recite today:

Shylock, Hal, Antonio, Kate, Emilia,

Shallow, Polonius, Edmund, Ariel,

Romeo and Eros.

His class was a séance

But we didn't join hands

And there was no need for candles

Or blessings or bells;

There were books, true,

And between their pages,

Our minds were read.

A good teacher doesn't spell it out; the Ouija moves

With unseen energy and pulls you along

Until  

From fingertips to blood to bone

The message comes through.

I wrote it in my margins, that list,

But I don't need it

To remember. I call it up from the past,

A ghost of an idea, when I face a new class,

Every time.

The only episode of Dancing With the Stars I've ever watched is when the nasty ex-wife of cute Beatle Paul McCartney was a contestant and, to be honest, the only reason I watched was to see her fall down.

You wouldn't know it from what I just wrote, but I'm actually a very nice woman.

Yet when I saw that Sarah Palin will now be commenting for Fox News, presumably in her own words or at least words she will need to read very fast off a teleprompter, I hugged myself and practically danced around the room in glee. (I almost fell down, but didn't.)

This will be fun, but for all the wrong reasons.

Apparently one of the first things Palin wants to do is interview Couric to see if Couric has learned anything about Alaska.

This is precious. This is a gorgeous thing. This will be like watching Larry The Cable Guy interview Charlie Rose.

The only difference is that Larry the Cable Guy is...

I loving knowing who is reading what. The most widely read piece, according the home page of The Chron, is this article "Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don't" written under the pen name "Thomas H. Benton" by William Pannapacker, who seems happy enough that we know his actual real-life name, affiliation (Hope College -- I thought maybe he was making it up, playing on the very idea of hopeless in the profession, but he isn't), title (associate professor of English), and what he looks like (nice, friendly photograph next to his blog -- hiya Professor Pannapacker! Do you go by William, Bill, Will, or Mr. Benton?)

Anyway, I've been reading this gentleman's work (I'll skip the whole name thing) for many years because I know he's ruthless in terms of presenting his perspective, smart without being sanctimonious, and because while I can see that he relies on his instincts, I've come to...

Here am I, smarty pants that I am, all stupidly nervous and calling attention to myself in the same neurotic way, resorting somehow to these old feminine tricks when I don't need to, when I can do better than this. The gravitational pull of fear is strong, and that pull, coupled with the magnetic center of habit, is pretty heady stuff to shove off. I've got these lead boots on, tied them to my own feet, and I don't know how I can get the hell out of here.

This has been going on since I was what, 6 years old? I used to remain with my face pressed the to window when mom would go out to do food shopping or, if I remember right, even sometimes when she would go off for a walk and leave me alone in the house. I knew she needed to get out, and I knew she didn't want me with her, but how I knew this is what I still don't know. I couldn't have been more than six, but I remember that she used to...

When I turn over the pages of a calendar for the new year, I  feel as if I'm reading a book no one else has ever read.

Who knows where we will be next January 2nd? How many of us can remember what we did last year on this date?

Do you remember what you hoped for and feared back then?  
 
Many of the big troubles are the same: We are still sending troops overseas, parts of the world are recovering from catastrophes initiated by nature and made worse by greed, those in pain from their bodies and their minds are kept from finding the help that could free them because they can't do the paperwork, raise the money, or bring themselves to admit the need. Parents lie awake wondering whether their children will be  all right; children put pillows over their ears to stop the noise of  arguments. Fearful and alone, some want only to know that they will not be abandoned; frantic and overwhelmed,...

I suggested to a friend that these four quotations, pulled from what might be called "varying" sources, all had a substantial connection -- subtle, perhaps, but substantial. He couldn't see it; he said no one else would either. I think he's nuts. Don't you, dear reader, see the pattern?

Please say that you can pull one thread through all of them, or maybe even two. There might have been a few dollars (and/or pounds) wagered on your response, not that there's any pressure. Go on; give it a whirl.

A baby strives to tune in to his parents, but he cannot judge their goodness. He attaches to whoever is there, with the unconditional fixity we profess to require of later attachments: for better or worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health.  Attachment is not a critic: a child adores his mother's face, and he runs to her whether she is pretty or plain.  And he prefers the...

Sad stories concerning books as gifts:

1. L.L.K. told me about getting The Belly Book: A Nine Month Journal for You and Your Growing Belly from a "Secret Santa" coworker who assumed LLK was pregnant. LLK wasn't pregnant; she had simply stopped exercising. She quit going to the gym because she was too busy (in part because her coworker was a lousy colleague). This was the worst of all the stories I heard in response to the previous column. LLK said she "lacked the wit to respond appropriately" when receiving the present and "returned it ASAP to a local bookstore who offered credit for it even though I didn't have a receipt. That was the only part of the incident that had a good ending." She asked me what I would have said and done. I told her the truth: I would have burst into tears, hid in the basement for two weeks, and then socked my coworker right in the nose as soon as I saw her. "You...

Usually I’m pretty popular with those friends of mine who own or work in bookstores.

But right now they hate me.

You see, my two previous posts have suggested that neither the giving of one’s own academic volume nor the presentation of an edition of Fowler’s English Usage to a loved one count as joyful offerings during the holiday season.

Please allow me to explain that my remarks were in no way meant to imply that books aren’t the ideal gifts for all occasions. Hahaha! Did I ever not mean to imply that! Not me! I mentioned I still have the Fowler's, didn’t I?

(Forget my bookstore friends: My editor at St. Martin’s would have me schedule a lovely auto de fé for early January if I don’t make this point very clear immediately, or at least before the paperback of It’s Not That I’m Bitter comes out).

Yet, for once, I also happen to be serious, because I know that books can be great gifts --...