just when you are completely low and think that dreariness stretches ahead endlessly the loveliest things can come out of the blue to give you that one happy thought to hold on to - like that pinocchio song: like a bolt out of the blue/fate steps in and sees you through - a small kindness from a stranger or discovering a particularly delicious etymology or an unexpected letter from an old friend. and then you can think, sure, i've got a broken leg and the roof is leaking and someone's nicked my wallet and i'm probably going to be knocked down by a car tomorrow, BUT, there's still this one thing to be cheerful about. it's like happiness taking a long vacation somewhere unspecified and you having no hope of its returning and then getting a postcard. it's still not back but at least you know it hasn't forgotten you. professor nohrnberg came back from new york where over the weekend he had been attending a wedding and when i went along to see him in the lowest of moods he handed me a book of essays - homer to brecht: the european epic and dramatic traditions, a book i really like and have made much use of. i bought my own copy last semester after sitting on the one from alderman library for so long so i was just beginning to refuse it when he says, this is different, it's signed, and i wondered, signed by whom? and it turns out he'd brought this book to the wedding and got all his old colleagues to put their names by their essays - paul fry and michael seidel and maria dibattista and edward mendelson - and he signed his own iliad essay too - i just can't believe how he's so incredibly nice what have i ever done to deserve him!! okay so they didn't know me from eve and were just obliging prof nohrnberg. so i'm a professor-worshipping autograph-hunting nerd! so what! it's still the coolest thing i have ever owned!!!!