Yes, I am still working on High School Hookers and I do hope to post another chapter soon. Meantime, I've been reading the Canterbury Tales for the first time ever, and I think there may be something wrong with my edition, which begins like this:
WHAN that Aprille with his shoures soote
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,
And smale fowles maken melodye,
That slepen al the night with open ye,
Than longeth every ladde and mayed
To goon out and gette layed.
Writing the bedroom rhymes has sent me back to the Annotated Mother Goose, which contains not only the original rhymes and notes on their origin, but also alternative versions and parodies. On page 112 I found this:
Old Mother Hubbard
Went to the cupboard
To fetch her poor daughter a dress,
But when she got there
The cupboard was bare,
And so was her daughter, I guess.
Wish I'd thought of that.
I have posed one, last, final, I-promise-this-is-the-end bedroom rhyme, titled Anna Crusis.
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms - my Bible in these matters - defines "anacrusis" as the "appearance of an additional unstressed syllable or syllables at the beginning of a verse line, before the regular metrical pattern begins." I wrote the verse just so I'd remember that. The rhymes and meter are based on "Jack and Jill."
Hope all that nonsense doesn't spoil the fun for you.
I know i said yesterday the rhymes were complete, but I decided I needed one last one on subject dear to my heart.
It occurs to me that I've been very thoughtless. It seems obvious now that I should have dedicated my collection of Madame Jillinghoff's Bedroom Rhymes to the memory of my friend Linda, and yet I didn't think of it until this morning. Linda died of an aggressive form of cancer in 2007, and hardly a day goes by that I don't think of her. I had known her since college. She was sexually liberated in a way that sometimes made me feel stunted. She had tremendous insight into people and a frank, uninhibited way with language, and she loved to laugh. I like to think my little attempts at cleverness would have appealed to her.
So, Linda, these are for you.
Oh, and thanks to one of my readers for the verses sent in my honor. You know who you are.