Her little face...

6 November 2024: I am not sure I actually slept last night. Just achingly sad--emotionally, intellectually, and even physically painful. When I finally sat up and turned on the lights at just after 5:00, there was Veronica sitting the hallway, looking in at me. I don't always find here there; most mornings, she either moves before I get up and see her or I just find her downstairs waiting.

"Good morning, BabyCat!" I said--and instantly welled up. 

This weird little cat and her weird little sister are just two sources of love and joy and hope that will keep me going. And I am so glad whatever goes on in her head had her planted right there to remind me that I will keep going. 

I could write so much more, but am telling myself that this is enough: her little face and what it meant and will mean in the days and years ahead. 

We've just go to...

5 November 2024: 

"Do you think we'll be okay?" a player at trivia asked me tonight as we headed home.

"What choice do we have?" I answered her. 

That's the hope I am holding onto, no matter what. We got through four years of him before and if we have to, well, we'll have to do it again. 

"To Ed"

4 November 2024: I realized on tonight's rewatch of "To Ed," the finale of Season 2 of Somebody, Somewhere, that the show encapsulates so much of what makes me love America. 

It gives us a world of flawed, beautiful, ordinary, extraordinary people, making mistakes but doing their best. It's about the families we are born into and the families we make--and how they sustain us and strain us and make us better. It's about what it means to have and live a good life. It's about how to be alone and how to be with others. It's about how to go on after unimaginable loss. It's about how values aren't "small town" or "city," but ways of living and relating to and caring for each other. 

After a long day at work, I hit "play" with so much weighing on my mind. And as I watched, I laughed out loud, teared up, cheered to myself, and just felt warm and full of love. 

Perfect Election Day Eve programming. 

(The completion of my rewatch also means I can now start the third and final season of this perfect miracle of a show.) 

Valentine

3 November 2024: Finally listened to "Valentine," the 100th episode of This is Love, an episode I knew was about the death of Phoebe's mother (whose first name gives the episode its title). Knowing and loving This is Love and Criminal the way I do, I knew it was going to be powerful episode so I wanted to honor it with my undivided attention and be in the right mindset when I listened. 

I am so glad I did. It's riveting and funny and sad and beautiful from start to finish. 

Also saw the Theater program's production of Our Town today and made a ton of progres on The Bog Wife, this month's book club selection. So, even more than usual, lots of Big Thoughts about life, death, and what it all means on this autumn Sunday.

High-tech and so absurd...

2 November 2024: Cat ownership in 2024, I guess: watching this (cute) dumb-dumb, sitting on the stove, waiting for her dumb toy to charge. (The charger is plugged in behind the toy.) 

And yes: I had to purchase a rechargeable battery and charger set for this toy, a Christmas gift "for me" from Amy last year.

Just wrapped around their furry little paws...

30 years ago...

1 November 2024: Social media tells me that this album--Nirvana's MTV Unplugged in New York--was released thirty years ago today. (The show was recorded the previous November.) Thirty years...my goodness. 

Until next year...

31 October 2024: “[Baseball] breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall all alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.”― A. Bartlett Giamatti, Take Time for Paradise: Americans and Their Games

"I'm late to the doom conversation..."

30 October 2024: I've got a really great group of ENGL 301 students this semester. They are smart, hard-working, and just really engaged. Every class is lively and fun. Highlights from today's class (discussing "Desiree's Baby" through the lens of deconstruction) went really well. This post's title comes from a student talking about how a sense of doom hangs over the piece, but I laughed out loud when she said it, adding, "I've been here for weeks!" (Seriously--the "doom conversation" in my head is overwhelming at times--mitigated by the magic respite that a classroom brings.)

One week to go...

29 October 2024: Woke up with such anxiety this morning and it's been weighing me down all day. Grateful for the moments of light and distraction, but my goodness...it's all so much.

As usual, Chen Chen says it so well.

trying to have hope but not false hope is such work

— 兔兒神 (@chenchenwrites) October 29, 2024

Little fella...

28 October 2024: Just got to see video clips from a dear friend's sonogram (shared via text). What a miraculous wonder to behold! This little guy is already bringing so much joy to the world.  Holding onto that hope and wonder and joy and love in the midst of all this angst and uncertainty. What a gift!

"The Third and Final Continent" (Once more...)

27 October 2024: Today as I mowed the lawn, perhaps for the last time until the spring, I listened to a The New Yorker Fiction Podcast episode where the guest (Rebecca Makkai) read "The Third and Final Continent," a story I've known and loved for years. (The post-reading discussion between Makkai and Deborah Treisman is really good, by the way.) 

I've blogged about this story in particular and Jhumpa Lahiri a lot--with good reason, of course. There's just no one who writes like she does and I am always so moved and floored by her work.

Anyway, as I pushed that mower in the waning afternoon light, thinking a movie I'd seen earlier (We Live in Time--great performances, not-so-great film), a kind of warm melancholy settled in--somehow perfect for listening to this beautiful story. 

Another Jane Day...

26 October 2024: Woke up feeling down and anxious, but then felt immediately grateful that Jane and I had--during our last hang-out--already scheduled our next hang-out for today. I drove her way this time. Wandered around The Painted Tree (first time I have been to one), had lunch, then went over to Target for Halloween candy. A bit more visiting and then I headed home. A lovely day that left me feeling better. 

Fall Break Vibes...

25 October 2024: I've been grading, writing, and working, but I'm still digging the vibes from my walk and from my glances across the living room. 

Quiz-n-Dish

24 October 2024: A couple of weeks ago, Amy asked if I would write a trivia game for a potluck she was hosting in her office for the folks on campus who don't get "off" for Fall Break. I was happy to do it, but a bit nervous about my game-writing skills. Anyway, today was the day and I think it went well. Of course, it was a friendly crowd. Shepherd has the best staff in so many ways. 

Anyway, after that, it was back to grading and a bunch of other work for me, but that's okay. Even a mostly work-filled day has a different vibe over Fall Break. 

Deconstruction again...

23 October 2024: Kind of weird that today, teaching the same material exactly seven years later (!), a student came up with another very funny response to deconstruction (again, about people being fields of competing identies and ideologies): 

Student: Like how my cat wants a pet but also bites me?

Me: Yes, although you are ascribing human concepts to your cat...

Student: Oh, believe me: it works.