Marian McCargo

            On Thursday after midnight I did my usual search for bedbugs and was encouraged to have found none once again. It's been a week since I found the last one, which may have either been dead or sick and immobile.

            When I got up at 2:00 to pee I figured out a way to put a bucket under the drip by propping one side of it up with two of my fossil rocks on top of one another on the radiator casing, putting them on the same level as the window ledge. 

            When I got up my arm didn't hurt as much as on the previous morning. When I did my exercise of stretching a bicycle tube (looped at one end around my foot and the other around my hand) straight up I was able to fully extend my arm once. 

            I finished memorizing "U.S.S.R. / U.S.A." by Serge Gainsbourg and looked for the chords but no one had posted them. I worked out the first one. 

            I weighed 89.1 kilos before breakfast. Just before 10:00 I logged onto the Zoom meeting of my first US Literature tutorial and hopefully the last one online. 

            Our TA Sarah looks very young but she's a PHD student. Her dissertation is on US pastoral literature and how we mourn the loss of a stable environment through literature and art. This is her second year of doing tutorials and so because of covid all of her tutorials have been online. Next week will be her first time running a tutorial in person. She was proud to show us that she wears crocks. They've recently become cool again while they were uncool before. Outside of her PHD she is writing a book about the legacy of abandoned uranium mines. Because of this she will be going to the Czech Republic for two weeks during the semester and Daniel Bergman will be her substitute. 

            She had an attendance question asking each student to state their program and year of study and to show their mood by picking one of nine photographs of dogs. I picked the dog that looked bored, intelligent and skeptical. I was the second one called but everyone after me stated their pronouns. I wasn't specifically asked but I would have said "It." 

            Code of conduct: Respect, care for and dignify one another because there is so much negativity in the world. This is a safe space with zero tol for racism, sexism and homophobia. 

            Give her two biz days to respond to emails. No questions about an assignment a day before it's due. She has no specific office hour but will rather set them up around assignments. 

            Participation is 20% of our grade. Our marks for each tutorial are out of three. We get one mark for being there and one or two depending on degree of participation. If we don't come to tutorial we can submit a maximum 250 word response. We are not expected to read every word of the text. 

            I asked if we are only supposed to read Frederick Douglass's narrative or the whole book which also has the name of the narrative. She said just the narrative. 

            The key words around Douglass are authentication, kinship, the primal scene, witness and education. 

            I stated that I find the words "America" and "American" offensive, arrogant, inaccurate and lazy when used exclusively in reference to the United States of America and its products and citizens. I said calling the United States of America "America" is like calling the united links of a bicycle chain "a bicycle." The founders of that country knew it wasn't America and that can be seen in how their alternative names were "The United States of North America" and "The United Colonies." 

            There was a question for the group of thirteen of us to think about and answer. After witnessing brutal abuse Douglass notes an inability to commit it to paper. How does sound work? What passages cite ways in which words and language fail? 

            I said in the songs he wasn't sure he understood. Their meaning was indirect and coded like all art but perhaps moreso in this case. The songs needed to be repeated and digested. The sound of the whip. Sounds are misread and misinterpreted. 

            Who are grieveable subjects? Whose death counts? A book called Precarious Life by Judith Butler. We choose whom to mourn or what groups to mourn. The 3000 who died in 9-11 over hundreds of thousands that have died in other circumstances. 

            Our tutorial room will be B203 at University College. She said second floor but "B" sounds like the basement. 

            I weighed 89.1 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride and it was cool enough to wear an open long sleeved shirt over my tank top. I went to Yonge and Bloor and on the way back I stopped at Freshco. The green grapes were on sale and I got five bags. I also bought two half pints of raspberries, a pint of strawberries, a whole chicken, five year old cheddar, two cans of peaches, Greek yogourt, skyr, two bags of kettle chips and some baking soda toothpaste. I weighed 88.9 kilos when I got home. 

            I finished typing my tutorial notes at 19:00. 

            I read a little over half of Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Self Reliance." It says the individual should live in the moment and not conform even to one's own past self but to always listen to the most inner voice. He declares that those that follow the deep self of the individual find the most commonality with humanity. 

            I had a potato with gravy and my last steak while watching Gomer Pyle. 

            In this story a renowned artist is coming to Camp Henderson to pick one Marine as the subject for a Marine recruiting poster. Sergeants Carter and Hacker each think they should be the one to pose for the painting. When they learn the artist has arrived and is visiting with the colonel they are each trying outmanoeuvre the other to get the artist's attention. They are surprised to see that the painter is a woman named Leslie Forbes. Everyone is supposed to go about their daily lives while Leslie walks around and observes the activities on the base. Carter and Hacker begin to perform to get her attention and they both pick on Gomer when they want to demonstrate their authoritativeness. When Leslie starts sketching Carter's platoon Carter and Gomer are sure that she has chosen Carter. Carter becomes impatient and asks Gomer to go to Leslie's studio to look at the painting and report back to him. But when Gomer goes there he is disappointed to see that the portrait is of him. Leslie has chosen Gomer because she feels his ability to take criticism in stride embodies the spirit of the Marines. He tells Leslie that it should be Sergeant Carter because he more truly embodies the Marines than he does and has watched over him since boot camp. On the day of the unveiling everyone is surprised and Carter is disappointed that the picture is of Gomer but behind Gomer is a shadow with an eye. Leslie explains that it's the watchful eye of Sergeant Carter and now Carter is proud of his presence in the painting.

            Leslie Forbes was played by Marion McCargo, who went to the same finishing school as Jacqueline Bouvier, the future Jackie Kennedy. She started out as a tennis player before acting. Her first film was "Dead Heat On A Merry Go Round" and that was also Harrison Ford's first movie. She played Harriet Roberts on Falcon Crest and her son William Moses played Cole in the same series. In 1970 she married Congressman Alphonzo Bell and retired from acting to become a political wife. I finished reading "Self Reliance."