That will do...

31 October 2018: I can't share it here, but my brother-in-law just sent pictures and videos of the girls on Halloween, ending with a little video of Isla eating gummi bears. It's been a long and sometimes frustrating day, but seeing that...well, it made me happy.

"The Balcony"

30 October 2018: "Each story is different, or appears so to her; each has some unique and peculiar pathos in it. And so she dramatizes and inflects it, trying to make the point visible to her apparent also to her hearers. Sometimes the pathos and interest to the hearers lie only in this - that the relater has observed it, and gathered it, and finds it worth telling." --Grace King, "The Balcony"

Taught this little sketch this afternoon in the Gender and Women's Studies class. It's always such a satisfying piece to teach, especially to open up discussions about women and storytelling. I am especially fond of the sentiment above, in which the narrator explains why the women on the balcony value the stories others share: they matter because the storytellers think they do. That's enough.

Dress those babies up!

29 October 2018: "It has come to my attention that not all baby owners dress up their babies for Halloween. This is wrong…Have you been on social media and/or in the real world lately? Things are very bad there. We need this. Do your part and create some content."

This article speaks the truth! I needed it today.

Little Shop of Horrors

28 October 2018: Had a blast seeing this show at the Kennedy Center today.

Beetlejuice

27 October 2018: Today in Pittsburgh, we saw again how much the world can suck sometimes. Words fail. In fact, all of the news this week (month? year?) has raised the levels of despair even more.

So I was grateful to spend the day with someone who always makes things better, even if we are just talking about how much things suck. Jane and I saw the new Beetlejuice musical at the National Theater today. It was silly and funny and bawdy and looked amazing. A bit of light in the midst of the sadness...

The Bride of Frankenstein

26 October 2018: "An audience needs something stronger than a pretty little love story. So, why shouldn't I write of monsters?" --"Mary Shelley" (the fictional version of her) in the prologue to The Bride of Frankenstein.

Our department co-sponsored a screening of this film tonight as part of our "200 Years of Frankenstein" celebration. I hadn't seen it before. It's a lot of fun. Not a bad way to wrap up the work week and start what will be a busy weekend.

"Taking Out the Trash"

25 October 2018: Love, love, love this poem, which reminds me of thoughts I have every week when I drag the trash can down to the curb on Wednesday evenings and pull it back up the driveway on Thursday mornings.

Rose, Where Did You Get That Red?

24 October 2018: Big thoughts swirling around my head these days, tinging a bit darker thanks to our Gender and Women's Studies class's visit to the women's prison in Maryland. It's the fourth time I've gone and it only gets harder each visit.

Back on campus, I found myself trying to get ahead on plans for my Young Adult Literature class, where we start YA poetry next week. What a treat to go back to Kenneth Koch's Rose, Where Did You Get That Red? and be reminded of what kids can do with great poetry. (Koch's book is about younger children than we address in my class, but his basic ideas transfer.)

Here's just one that stood out to me today, by Andrew Vecchione, who was in 5th grade, I think, when he wrote this (probably 50 years ago). It's inspired by Donne's "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning."

"Love is a Scissor"
Love is a like a scissor
When it's together it's happy
When it's apart it's sad
When it's rusty it has a sore throat.

Andrew gets it.

Even more from Aristotle and Dante...

23 October 2018: "They were all over me, hugging me and saying nice things, and I wanted to cry. Because their affection was so real and somehow, I felt I didn't deserve it or felt maybe that they were hugging the guy who had saved their son's life. I wanted them to hug me just because I was Ari and I would never be just Ari to them. But I had learned how to hide what I felt. No, that's not true. There was no learning involved. I had been born knowing how to hide how I felt."

This darn book. Had me tearing up in Panera this morning. Amazing how much of yourself you can see in a character that is so very different from you.

More from Aristotle and Dante

22 October 2018: "Another secret of the universe. Sometimes pain was like a storm that came out of nowhere. The clearest summer morning could end in a downpour. Could end in lightning and thunder." --Benjamin Alire Saenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

Ah, this book. It's almost too much. And today has been a day...so this really spoke to me.

"No One Else Is Singing My Song"

21 October 2018: Catching up on the new episodes of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend today and this song arrived just when I needed it. So smart, so funny, and hits just the right amount of "too close to home."

Metal and poetry

20 October 2018: After returning from Cape May, there were still two excellent events on my schedule.

First, the Women for Shepherd University Metal Pour with four of my favorite people...

Then a poetry reading from another of my favorite people, a former student who wrote this book and who continues to amaze me with her talent.

What a life I get to live. Feeling very blessed.

Cape May, Day Two

19 October 2018:

[Catch-up post...]

Packed a ton of fun into Day Two of our trip, starting off with this perfect sunrise.

Cape May, Day One

18 October 2018:

[Catch-up post...]

Fall Break trip to Cape May. Kind of perfect.

Fall Break, here we come...

17 October 2018: A long day, but a good one. (I know I use that construction a lot, but it's often true, so...) Carrie helped me finish up (almost) a big project today and then to thank her, I bought her dinner at Bistro 112. We sat and talked for a good long time, which always makes me happy.

Tomorrow and Friday are Fall Break and I am so ready. And for the first time in forever, I am actually going somewhere. Add that to the positive side of the "balance" chart. (There is no chart.)

Back to Aristotle and Dante

16 October 2018: “When I looked through the telescope, Dante began explaining what I was looking at. I didn’t hear a word. Something happened inside me as I looked out into the vast universe. Through that telescope, the world was closer and larger than I’d ever imagined. And it was all so beautiful and overwhelming and—I don’t know—it made me aware that there was something inside of me that mattered.” --Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

Starting this beautiful book once again in my YA lit. class tomorrow. 

Finishing up Middlemarch

15 October 2018: "It had taken long for her to come to that question, and there was light piercing into the room. She opened her curtains, and looked out towards the bit of road that lay in view, with fields beyond outside the entrance-gates. On the road there was a man with a bundle on his back and a woman carrying her baby; in the field she could see figures moving—perhaps the shepherd with his dog. Far off in the bending sky was the pearly light; and she felt the largeness of the world and the manifold wakings of men to labor and endurance. She was a part of that involuntary, palpitating life, and could neither look out on it from her luxurious shelter as a mere spectator, nor hide her eyes in selfish complaining." --George Eliot, Middlemarch

Finding myself so moved (again) by this amazing book.

Cute little weirdo...

14 October 2018:

Helped this cute gap-toothed weirdo write a (kind of dark!) little song today. Watch your back, Lin-Manuel Miranda!

“Once there was a mayor.

He had really bad hair.

He was so very mean.

The meanest you have ever seen.

He stole from a girl her ice cream cone.

He stole from a dog his very last bone.”

Midterm grades: DONE!

13 October 2018: After spending the morning and early afternoon burning through take-home essay exams, I just hit "submit" on the last set of Fall 2018 midterm grades. Now heading home to get some chores done before taking the rest of the day off. But first, let's finish chair-dancing to this killer song that came on right as I entered the last grades...

Poetry Festival

12 October 2018: Sigma Tau Delta hosted our third annual Poetry Festival today. These kids always put on a good show and I am proud of them.

Thank you notes...

11 October 2018: Year after year, my niece’s thank-you notes delight me. And if you are taking notes as you plan your own parties, note her closing line and adjust your guest lists accordingly: If I had been there, her fiesta would have been a DANCE PARTY. That's what I offer, my friends.

"Throw It All Away"

10 October 2018:

"When you're near me I have no fear
When I'm untrue you see right through me
You know me as deep as the sea goes
Calm my head whenever the storm blows..." --Brandi Carlile, "Throw It All Away"

Thinking of the little moments today when, even in the midst of stress and rushing and a never-ending to-do list, I felt it would all be okay.

Slow Heat...

9 October 2018: So this book and accompanying note were in my department mailbox today. I have no idea who it is from, but I am perplexed and delighted.

It's also my brother's birthday today. He would have been 44. He also would have laughed a lot about this book. Always nicer to focus on the laughter on days like this than the sad stuff.

Midterm Week Monday!

8 October 2018: A long and busy day, but a good one. Taught my classes, had a bunch of meetings, and even got some midterm grading in. Then Amy and I covered a trivia hosting gig over at Captain Bender's since the regular hosts are out of town. It was a blast.

So here I am: exhausted but contented. A good day.

More Middlemarch truth-bombs...

7 October 2018: "Instead of wondering at this result of misery in Mr. Casaubon, I think it quite ordinary. Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot out the glory of the world, and leave only a margin by which we see the blot? I know no speck so troublesome as self. And who, if Mr. Casaubon had chosen to expound his discontents--his suspicions that he was not any longer adored without criticism--could have denied that they were founded on good reasons? On the contrary, there was a strong reason to be added, which he had not himself taken explicitly into account--namely, that he was not unmixedly adorable. He suspected this, however, as he suspected other things, without confessing it, and like the rest of us, felt how soothing it would have been to have a companion who would never find it out." --George Eliot, Middlemarch

Not sure why 41-year-old, umarried, too-invested-in-work me is so drawn to Casaubon on this read-through of Middlemarch, but it's undeniable.

Moody Saturday evening...

6 October 2018:

"The storms are raging on a rolling sea
And down the highway of regret
The winds of change are blowing wild and free, yeah huh
But you ain't seen nothing like me yet..." --Bob Dylan, "Make You Feel My Love"

Feeling a bit restless, moody, and anxious this evening, so this song, particularly this version, is on rotation.

"...never stop doing right..."

5 October 2018: What a day. Spent part of it talking about Middlemarch and how one person's deciding vote (Lydgate voting on the hospital chaplaincy) can have ripple effects he couldn't anticipate right as Susan Collins was about to declare her Kavanaugh vote. Taught The Hate U Give on the very day a Chicago police officer was convicted of shooting a black man who was running away from him. Left campus a bit earlier than usual to make it to an early screening of A Star is Born, which was amazing, if not exactly uplifting.

So it's been a lot.

Here's what I want to post for today: just a little bit from The Hate U Give. Lisa, Starr's mother, is trying to tell Starr to let go of guilt over her friend's death. She tells her about the day Starr was born--how Starr wasn't breathing and her mother wondered what she had done wrong, how it might be her fault. She explains, "One of the nurses took my hand...looked me in the eye and said, 'Sometimes you can do everything right and things will still go wrong. The key is to never stop doing right.'"

"The Shannon Niehaus Lobe Fan Club"

4 October 2018: It's been just over a year since Shannon died. It is still hard to believe. But a final gift she gave my Roanoke friends and I was making us all closer, putting us back in daily conversation with each other. Back when she first got sick, the rest of us started this group text (actually on Messenger) and named it "The Shannon Niehaus Lobe Fan Club." That thread is still going strong and continues to be a place where we share updates and stories of our days, get support and advice from each other, and make each other laugh. Tonight is no exception. One of us texted that she needed some good vibes. The rest of us happily sent them her way. And now we are texting about silly stories from years past. The thing is, I didn't realize how much I needed this tonight until the messages started coming in.

What a blessing to have these women in my life 24 years (!) after we met.

Paper Walt...

3 October 2018: A gift from a student in my ENGL 204 class. Not even at midterm yet, but they get me. "I'll put it next to my Whitman finger puppet!" is a sentence I, a real adult human, said out loud.

Back to Middlemarch

2 October 2018: "Poor Mr. Casaubon had imagined that his long studious bachelorhood had stored up for him a compound interest of enjoyment, and that large drafts on his affections would not fail to be honored; for we all of us, grave or light, get our thoughts entangled in metaphors, and act fatally on the strength of them." --Eliot, Middlemarch

I first read Middlemarch in college in my junior year, I think. Now, 20 years later, I find myself seeing Casaubon in a different light, the compassionate light Eliot wants us to see him in, I think. Having gotten caught up in more than a few similar metaphors of my own, I feel a particular pang of recognition in the passage above.

(And "old Casuabon" is about 45. Yikes.)

The Girl with Seven Names

1 October 2018: Shepherd's Common Reading program was able to bring Hyeonseo Lee to campus this evening to talk about her book. Hearing her speak was quite powerful, especially as she admitted that her hopes for Korean unification in her life time have diminished in the past year.