In other news; observed an undergraduate fiction class this morning; interesting and illuminating. I'm thinking that class observation should be more a part of teacher training here. I'm going shopping with Thida and David, to buy Thida an interview suit and let David and I do our various wholesale dry goods shopping at Costco. I'm practicing today, dammit, and having a guitar lesson (David is progressing quite rapidly in his piano :-) Happy teacher). I'm calling Lisette tonight. I'm wishing I had less work piled up. I'm a little tired. I'm very hungry (I get to go home and eat in half an hour).
I had a really pleasant morning, drinking tea and talking to Roshani in between getting up, grocery store trip, and walking to campus. It was raining, which somehow makes me more visual; the colors are so much more intense. A man jogged by the front of my house, a man with a beautiful back. I'm not generally one for heavy muscles, but imagine this man, short blond hair, slightly wavy, sweatshirt pulled off and tied around his waist, rain falling on his naked, muscled back. The muscles moving and shifting underneath a sheen of water as he runs past; so beautiful. Mmm.... I just caught a glimpse, but it brightened my day; aesthetic appreciation of a beautiful human form. Well, mostly aesthetic.
I was just seeing things this morning, in a way I don't normally notice. Roshani was telling me about how when she lived with her friend Gabrielle, a photographer, Gabrielle would stop as they were walking, stop to take a photo of some strange image, some moment. Normally, the world kind of washes over us, in waves of images and scents and sounds.
That's one reason I love rain. It focuses things. The blather of sound is muffled, so you can concentrate. Light is richer, softer. Even the scent of wet grass and leaves; scents are stronger in the rain. After the rain stopped, I was staring out my window, staring at the black sheet of road. All around were green trees; evergreens and some deciduous plants that were hanging on determinedly to their green. Against the black glistening road was a single crimson maple leaf, sharp-pointed, perfect. I don't know how it got there -- there aren't any maple trees nearby. There was no other red in the view; just greens and browns and black and light, and this simple splotch of autumn red.