Q2 Quality and Quantity, that's what I expect. Some of you may have finished your Prufrock assignment because you're bored like me and the satellite is out and Netflix didn't come and you finished Tomb Raider Legend. But what will give your work the Q2 is going back to it the next day or the next week and refining what you've done, changing your mind, adding a little something.

For me, I'm not sure that I ever understood what Eliot was talking about in Prufrock, but the one line that stuck with me was, "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons."

It's a universal truth, the way, every day, we get up and go through our routines. I read that line and knew exactly what he was talking about. Every day I pour myself a cup of coffee and use a spoon to stir in the milk which lays on the counter dribbling. And so our lives go by, one little detail at a time. 525,600 minutes. How do you measure, measure a year (That's from Rent).

And now that I take medications every morning since I am officially middle-aged, with high blood pressure and cholesterol, I paraphrase in my mind, "My life is measured out in hydrochlorothiazide."

What I've just written, is an allusion. Seniors already know that allusion is the single most effective tool for effective writing. I proved to you that I was associating Prufrock with my own life, even though I'm not sure I understand the poem. It's okay, I'm still learning. Although I'm old(er) now.

Here's another allusion:

"'I grow old … I grow old … I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.' What does that mean, Mr. Marlowe?"

"Not a bloody thing. It just sounds good."

He smiled. "That is from the ‘Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.’ Here’s another one. 'In the room the women come and go/Talking of Michael Angelo.' Does that suggest anything to you, sir?"

"Yeah- it suggests to me that the guy didn’t know very much about women."

That's from Raymond Chandler's novel The Long Goodbye. Raymond Chandler was one of the great detective writers of the 1930s, back when men were men. So here's this tough-guy novel that includes an allusion to Prufrock.

“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is a dramatic poem by genre, because obviously Eliot himself was neither growing bald nor old when he began writing the poem at the age of twenty-one. The Prufrock character is perhaps a middle-aged man, going through his mid-life crisis and examining the choices he's made in his life. Most of all, he takes a look at his regrets, and his failure with women. Prufrock makes innumerable references to his growing bald, one of the more clever is the image of the grim reaper snickering at his bald spot. Finally, Prufrock attempts to make himself feel young again by rolling his trousers (the style of the day) and parting his hair in a style that young people wear, but he knows that it is no use; he is growing old.

Here's the point. I don't understand the poem as a whole but in snippets. I can feel the growing older part, I measure my days with coffee spoons. And the Raymond Chandler part is just cool. When you begin to attack what we read with this kind of insight or enthusiasm, you'll be ready for the AP test.

PS: Extra Credit: Why is the orange crying?