Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Miss Bluestocking

So I'm spending a lot of time on a university campus lately -- the one where I'm working for a month until my fate is decided -- and it's like returning to the womb. I can absolutely see now why some people keep educating themselves for decades beyond the point when any reasonable person would have decided to just get a damn job already, whatever it is.
It's nice on campus. The food is cheap. No-one's in a hurry. There's lots of time for sitting around in the sunshine while your books lie abandoned in the grass. There is always something diverting to notice as you walk around. (The homeless guy who wears an Indian blanket and drinks beer in the quad, swearing at the sky; the fat red squirrels that leap across the paths at unexpected moments; protesters milling around with signs; geek types happily fulfilling their societal function by wearing high-tide pants and thick-rimmed eyeglasses.) And simply by being on campus you appear to be accomplishing something.
Every morning, after I get off the train, I stop for a takeout coffee to sip as I walk through a grove of trees, crossing a creek and passing a giant expanse of lawn before reaching the office. It's just lovely. And when I get to the office, there is time to check news sites and emails, to catch up with the world and myself before diving into the day. There is time to think, which I am cherishing.
It may sound lame, but I really do believe that this is an "improving" time for me, in the way an Agatha Christie-style bluestocking would "improve" herself. I am reading better books (Plath and Alistair Cooke) and magazines (New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly) and paying more attention. To everything.
To borrow a phrase from dear old Martha Stewart, it's a good thing.