So, let's talk TV for a second. Did you see Lucy on Angel? I was surprised; they showed her for a relatively long time. She looked so funny. To me, it was obvious that she was trying not to laugh. If you saw her, let me know. (She was one of the "missionaries" holding the baby-- the one in the middle.)

My overactive sex hormones were most assuredly not helped by tonight's episode of Buffy. Good sweet god. Spike in his punk rock outfit. Spike patting Buffy on the back, with that look of tenderness in his eyes. Spike as a tortured poet, for god's sake. That man is so. Sexy. Sexier than Luka, sexier than Robert Downey Jr., and sexier than my new boyfriend, Dr. Romano. There's only one person that he's not sexier than. Mickey.

Okay, okay. I know I sound like a thirteen year old girl who dots her i's (is that right? I know it's not supposed to be possessive, but otherwise I'm writing "is" and that can't be right) with hearts when I talk about Mickey. I realize this. But if you only saw him today... oh, you'd understand. Today, Mickey was giving a presentation in class. I was sitting at the front of the room, with full permission to stare at him for twenty minutes.

I memorized his clear green eyes, his aquiline nose, his jawline, his cute little goatee, and his perfect, perfect lips. But after a few minutes, I could barely stand to look at him. I kept having to look away, just to keep a firm grip on reality. I was literally-- literally-- afraid that if he asked, "Are there any questions?" I was going to respond, "Yes. Can I just kiss you right now?"

Sigh.

After class was over, I was standing outside with my girlfriends who were, of course, teasing me about my adolescent crush. I started going on about how dreamy he is, and as I was talking, Mickey came into view behind me, walking down the street toward us. Joey finally had to kick me in the shin to get me to shut up.

If Mickey had overheard me talking about him as if he was Justin from N*Sync.... well, that would have been mighty embarrassing.

I also had to give a presentation in class today; Deb and I did a close reading of a sonnet by e.e. cummings. (What? Monique doing a report on a cummings poem? What a shocker!)

It's a wonderful and erotic poem, my second favorite poem by him, the one that goes, "i like my body when it is with your / body. It is so quite new a thing / Muscles better and nerves more..." I could go on. I adore this poem. (While preparing the presentation, I tried not to think about the time Matt memorized it and recited it to me at an, um, appropriate romantic moment.) I never realized it was a sonnet. In fact, it's the final poem in a 24-sonnet sequence.

I started off with an introduction to the poem, and in the middle of it, a fuse blew and the lights went out. The room was plunged into darkness. There was silence for a moment and then I said, "Hey, this just got a lot easier!" Everyone laughed. But public speaking really is a lot easier when you don't have to look at all those pairs of eyes staring at you.

I think that, once the lights were back on, our presentation went well: it was well researched, informative, and I think did a good job with my public speaking portion of it. I tried to remember what I learned from Speech (which I took in my final semester as an undergraduate) and remembered to "claim my space" and refrain from using "um" "like" and "you know". I always got in trouble for saying "you know" too much.

That triumphant poetry reading last week made a huge difference, too. I keep getting more confident in all kinds of public speaking. I'm really coming into my own in that sense. At the break, the professor complimented my voice. I've always hated my voice, which I think is true of almost everyone. But she said that, particularly when I'm speaking in a more formal sense, I have "perfect pitch" and a "clear strong voice" that doesn't lose words or mumble "the way the rest of us do." She concluded by saying she thought I should be doing voiceovers or radio broadcasting.

(!)

I'm going to try to keep this from going to my head, but it certainly does help my confidence. I always tend to think of my voice as abrasive and overloud. It's nice to think of it instead as overloud and perfectly pitched.

Even if I never find glory as a voiceover artist (or 976 actress) it's nice to know that when I finally teach my own classes, I will have a good lecturing voice. An attribute I didn't even know I possessed. What a great feeling.

So apparently I'm a respected editor, a good speaker, and a great poet. Cool. So far, this grad school thing is great for my ego.

Tuesdays are my favorite days of all the days ever. That's because they start with my poetry workshop and end with Buffy. The school poetry readings are on Tuesdays, too. Plus, I have a class where I get to see Mickey and, more often than not, exchange poetry with my classmates. I love having a stack of people's poetry in front of me. I love reading my poem out loud, especially if it doesn't suck.

Oh perfect, perfect Tuesdays!

I haven't talked about my poetry workshop much. Laurie, Deb, Joey and I began meeting at a coffee shop down the street at noon on Tuesdays (in the bar that faces the giant car wash... sorry. I was momentarily possessed by Sheryl Crow).

So, we usually order coffee and pass out our poems. We silently read the stack of poems before us, then take turns reading our poems aloud and getting critiques. At some point, we order lunch. (Today I had a slice of carrot cake for lunch instead of my usual salad. Not exactly healthy but, yum.)

Two weeks ago, Laurie mentioned the workshop in front of O.M. and ended up having to invite him. He's started showing up, effectively replacing Deb, who hasn't been able to make it for the past few weeks.

O.M. is a great guy and he's a lot of fun, but there are a couple of problems. First, his poetry is not quite as good as everyone else's. He includes lots of abstractions and cheeseball love stuff. And secondly, having a "boy" in the group does change the dynamic a little. In fact, Laurie has a crush on O.M. It's pretty hard to gossip about our crushes when O.M. is sitting right there! Still, the workshop is fun with him in it.

One of our poems is usually from a "poetry assignment" that we've given each other the week before. This little tradition began on our first day of meeting. The tables at the coffee shop are decorated with old newspaper articles. (They're printed on the table.) So we pull headlines from the newspapers and assign them to each other as poem topics.

For instance, last week, my topic was "Stories Told By Clever Men." I have no idea what the newspaper article was about, but I wrote a poem/play that stars Moses, Socrates, Bill Clinton, David E. Kelly and Charles Bukowski. We actually started off today's reading by enacting the play (I was Socrates). Now, everyone wants to perform it at the next open mike.

After reading the play (which is goofy and silly, as you can imagine) we were in a bizarre and playful mood for the rest of the afternoon. We played Frank Sinatra on the jukebox, made fun of our classmates, bitched about our teachers, danced around the restaurant, and did interpretive dramatic recitations of each other's poetry. It was so great.

My only regret about this Tuesday is that we didn't get around to passing out our poems in class. That means I didn't get to read the poem "Wedding Cake," which is about Mickey. I wonder if he'll suspect it's about him. In order to make my muse feel better about this, I wrote the following short love poem. (Don't judge my poetry based on this one, "Wedding Cake" is much better.) Three guesses who this is about, and the first two don't count.

A Short Love Poem

I will hold a lighter up to your eyes
melt every drop of green off the cornea
allow it to drip into my spoon
and force you into my veins

then you will love me
baby

then you will have no choice

"I may be love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it."