4.14.2025

I'm watching a guy arrange everything in front of him like if he doesn't get it right the universe will stop, careful and focused like the dad portioning out ketchup to his kids in that Saunders story I tried to teach once: that's enough that's enough that's enough and I wonder if Saunders ever just lets the images and free association flow so the structure comes as an afterthought, like that friend you forgot you invited to your birthday but here she is with a present so hey you might have something in common with these jerks, have a seat here and we'll hope it figures itself out cuz I gotta talk to this idiot over there.

So I tried to teach that story to an ESL advanced reading class and it's only a few hundred words but he describes all these holidays in a sentence or a phrase or less. So when we got to Groundhog's Day I had to explain that to a classroom full of Saudi and Korean and European kids and I tried to draw it on the whiteboard with the sun overhead and the shadow and the little rodent and it all melted down into abject laughter, even the women in the back row whose faces I never saw were shaking with giggles, even the one who complained whenever I tried to play music in class.

*the story is "Sticks" by George Saunders