When I realized I've been staring at Anna B.'s paper for a good thirty minutes, I knew it was time to step out of the house.

I don't know if I want to curse myself for asking them to do this requirement for class. Instructions: of the ten 'interrupted' novels in Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler, select one and continue the story. I told them they could do two things - fix the unresolved twists in the first chapter and end the story altogether or leave more cliffhangers for a 'presumed' third chapter.

Result? For more than two weeks, I've been slugging it out with five sections' worth of stories. I've seen the best and worst of the English language. I've witnessed stories dying for a syntax make-over and stories oozing with words that I last encountered in an English spelling bee.

No haphazard checking for me, thank you. All of the stories deserve a good reading.

(Lordy, I'm rethinking, I'm rethinking.)

All I need to do now is find me a good spot to check other than the office, lest I want to subject myself to my neighbor's psychotic rantings.

(Lordy, I'm rethinking, I'm rethinking.)

Weather? Period? Coffee? Too much sleep? Annoying male student? Intriguing male student?

And yet my head and my heart are finding each other again. The heart did an uprising and set the head off to vacation. After more than three months, the head decided it has had enough of the heart's tyranny. It's good to have them both back. Now, to do some spring cleaning....