Three in September

30 September 2023: Set a pretty ambitious goal of completing three entries for my book per month this semester. And early this afternoon, I finished #3, the entry on Lydia Sigourney. (The other two: The Lamplighter and National Expansion.) 

Looking ahead to October, I am feeling less confident. Midterms are upon us this coming week, as is the last big push for the Year's Work essay, so I need to keep my goals for the next entry (Mary Austin) pretty modest. 

But I'll do my best. 

Friday volleyball game...

29 September 2023: The end of the month/end of the week approaches with some tasks getting really close to being checked off of all kinds of lists. So it felt good to take in the volleyball game on campus this evening, the second one we've attended this season. They won tonight--a really nice victory. 

Tired, tired, tired, but motivated to keep moving along as best I can. 

Distraction Machine

28 September 2023: Spent most of today working from home, mostly toiling away on my Lydia Sigourney entry. I made a lot of progress (though not as much as I wanted to). 

Jo, thrilled to have me here, still doesn't quite get that stealing pens, pencils, and paperclips, chomping on papers, splaying out over books and papers, and trying to knock over beverage glasses doesn't actually help me get work done. 

I gathered up a bunch of toys (including her favorite, crumpled up balls of paper) and kept them next to me, throwing one after the other to distract her into the kitchen. It didn't work that well. Before I went out at 11:00 or so to mow the lawn, I snapped this picture of the debris field.

Here she is when I got back to work after the lawn and a shower. Still her usual, cute, distacting self. She wants to knock that glass over so bad. 

BabyCat lives here, too, of course, and has always been an ideal work-from-home pet. Calming and pleasing to look at, never too far away, and never intrusive. 

(Also spent the last two evenings on campus for events connected to Ann Pancake's Writer-in-Residence week. She is quite simply a treasure of a person.)

"Just because" flowers...

27 September 2023: Moved practically to tears this morning when two students brought by these flowers and this card--just because. Can't say how much it means to me and how much I needed it (more than I realized). 

The Lord provides...

"...throw crude matter at the head of the public"

26 September 2023: Long, busy day and I am feeling a bit overwhelmed by everything on my lists these next few weeks (months, year). But I did chuckle a bit when I came across this bit from Lydia Sigourney's memoir, where she makes clear the value--the courtesy--of revision and editing: "Still, I always corrected, and rewrote more than once, these extemporaneous effusions, not considering it decorous to throw crude matter at the head of the public" (300). I am always delighted when these nineteenth-century folks share enduring truths about writing. 

Work Cited

Sigourney, Lydia. Lydia Sigourney: Selected Poetry and Prose, edited by Gary Kelly, Broadview Editions, 2008.

"Happy"

25 September 2023:

"Where have you been all these years?

And how could you just disappear?

And when did you stop missing me?"

Compromising with myself...

24 September 2023: Finished my weekly "Book Work/"Year's Work" Work" to-do list this morning. Most of my other chores, too. In a burst of optimism, I added a few more items to my daily list--things I really don't want to do, but will feel once they're done. Then went and had lunch and saw A Haunting in Venice with Amy (it was pretty good!). Came home and took a long walk. Did some evening chores. Made myself do just one of the three extra items. Feels pretty good. Probably won't get to all three--and that feels okay, too. A little compromise with myself, I guess. 

(Boring post, but it's what I've got...)

Literally a "weird flex," as the kids say...

23 September 2023:

He is a lot...

22 September 2023: "I know you really like this guy and I like a lot of it, too, but I also had to walk away for a minute once or twice." --a student in ENGL 204 with a kind of perfectly hilarious take on Whitman. 

Best part of the job, every single day. 

Jo Traps Herself

21 September 2023: Somehow, Jo flipped her big box on herself. So...we made a movie.

Double shot...

20 September 2023: Got both the COVID and flu shots today, ducking out of work for a bit to head to the pharmacy and then heading back to campus. It was a packed day and maybe not the best one for inserting a interruption into, but I am glad to have that item off my list. Plus, tomorrow should be a relatively quiet day--only one "public" part (a Foundation meeting). Otherwise, I can more or less lay low at home if I don't feel well. 

The Lamplighter

19 September 2023: A pretty productive work-at-home day, pushing through a draft and revision of my entry on The Lamplighter. This is a book I had heard a lot about but hadn't read before. It was fun to dive into and--once again--I find myself feeling very nineteenth-century when I reflect on what moves me, including this passage from late in the book: "Trust in goodness, wherever it can be found…But, O, trust all, rather than none" (305). Seems like a good way to live; if you are proven wrong, at least you would have been on the side of the light.

Work Cited

Cummins, Maria Susanna. The Lamplighter. 1854. Edited by Nina Baym, Rutgers UP, 1988.

"Basket Case"

18 September 2023: A discussion of Green Day on a podcast I was listening to this morning on my walk filled me with the sudden urge to listen to Dookie for the first time in years. 

The way I listened to this album in junior and seniors years! Shew! The way all of those memories and vibes came flooding back! "Do I still have that t-shirt somewhere?" I thought to myself. (A t-shirt Tara and Chris brought back for me from Lollapalooza!)

And twenty-nine years later, I was not expecting these lines to hit the way they did: "Grasping to control / So I better hold on..."

Certainly made my walk a bit more rhythmic (or my version of rhythmic) and 90s-inflected than it is most days.

"Done!" but not really...

17 September 2023: 

[Catch-up post]

I was so satisfied with myself when I crossed every single item off of my very ambitious daily to-do list and weekly "Book and Year's Work Essay" to-do list on Sunday evening. Done, done, done! 

But that crossing off was perhaps a bit too energetic since I didn't actually do my daily blog post. Weirdly, I realized that as I was waking up on Monday morning. (This is a weird reflection of the fact that I go to sleep and wake up thinking about my lists...)

September Saturday...

16 September 2023: A busy but not stressful day. Got a good amount of chores done at home. Went to a housewarming. Had dinner with a friend. Still have a few things left on my to-do list and fighting to urge to watch The Changeling instead. (Just found out it's on Peacock and have been itching to rewatch it for the first time in decades and decades...) We'll see if the good or bad devil wins out. Might try "20 minutes of movie/20 minutes of reading" and see how that goes. 

They're not done yet...

15 September 2023: There hasn't been a ton to celebrate for Yankee fans this season, but I just got a nice rush from listening to their ninth inning comeback against the Pirates. They are now one game above .500. Would be nice to add a few more wins in there, but I am just grateful for the great audio tonight. 

Aiming for three a month...

14 September 2023: Set a very ambitious goal to complete three book entries a month this academic year (starting on September 1). Today, I finished the first for September and since (maybe for the first time ever?) I've been working on two entries simultaneously, I should be able to finish the next one by September 20, keeping up with a pace of one every ten days. 

But to make even that first one happen this week? It was a battle. Rough week. But it's done. On we go. 

Just spent 30 minutes doing some research and ILL requests for what I think might be the first entry in October. On we go. 

Meeting Olivia...

13 September 2023: Today is my niece Olivia's birthday. Thinking tonight about the first time I met her--when the family went to the airport when she, her mom, and her dad got off the plane with her. Here they came, pushing her in a little carriage, her eyes wide with skeptical and tired wonder and something deeper and harder to decipher. We squealed in delight to meet her, flooding around her, so glad she was here, filled with such love for her. When I knelt down and sort of held out my arms to ask if I could hold her, she opened her arms back. Her Russian name means "Love." Certainly that day, that little one indicated she was looking for just that.  

"This day is quelling me..."

12 September 2023: I am so glad I attended the workshop on campus today about trauma-informed response. My post's title comes from something the leader said she and her colleagues say to each other on a day where crisis follows crisis, a witty reference to the end of the first Hunger Games book, when Katniss and Peeta think they've won, but immediately find out they are going back in. Not a bad phrase to have in my repetoire these days...

Long Monday...

11 September 2023: Strange, long, and emotional day for a bunch of reasons. Classes were (of course) the best part. Everything else was hard and vexed. It's strange to be so tired when it's only Monday. But I am hoping for a good night's sleep tonight and a productive day tomorrow. Bit by bit...

"Just don’t die"

10 September 2023: This piece on Slate was one of the first things I read today--and it has stayed with me. "Just don't die." Such a simple idea--a simple switch to flip as we think about addiction. What a gift Jessica Blanchard is to the people on the other end of the line--and to everyone who loves those people. 

One More War to Fight

9 September 2023: Something very nice that came out of my brief assistant deanship was my friendship with Steve Goldman and his wife, Kit. Today, I heard Steve talk about his wonderful book at the National Museum of Civil War Medicine in Frederick. This cough made me duck out before heading to dinner with them after, but it was still a nice way to spend part of the day. 

Wiped out...

8 September 2023: 

[Catch-up post...]

Forced myself to stay on campus until I got all of the work on my list done, which is great. But I was so wiped out by the time I got home, I forgot to do a daily post and a few other non-work things on my list. Vegged out for a couple hours and then hit the sheets.

 

So I guess that is one big old sign that the week took its toll on me.

Tiny triumph on a strange day...

7 September 2023: Stange day! Some not-great meetings on either end of it. Some really sad news about a colleagues. In between the meetings, I came home to rest since coughing kept me up the night before. Before I knew it, nearly three hours had passed. Back to campus for that other meeting--and then home to get my neglected work done. Just finished that last part so that's a tiny triumph. 

Feeling almost normal except for the cough, which is very annoying. Could be worse, though. I'll take it. 

Genesis and Emerson...

6 September 2023: Still 100% true that the best one-hundred minutes of the day were the two fifity-minutes classes that I taught. We covered the closing chapters of Genesis in Bible as Literature and Emerson's "Self-Reliance" in ENGL 204. Though my coughing got in the way a bit too often, otherwise, both classes were a joy.

She'll get ya!

5 September 2023: Always an adventure getting ready in the morning with Jo around. Here she is, ready to obstruct my shoe-tying.

Hoping for just a cold...

4 September 2023: A bit under the weather today and really, really, really hoping it's just a cold. I've had three negative COVID tests in the last 36 hours: took one yesterday before heading to Tim and Kevin's just to be courteous, then another this morning when I woke up feeling gross, and another just a bit ago. Let everyone from yesterday's gathering know, just in case. Will test again tomorrow morning and then probably after that. I can't even say how bad I'd feel if I got them sick. 

Labor Day Weekend Hang...

3 September 2023: Very lucky to spend most of today at Tim and Kevin's, just hanging out with them and Cory and Hannah. We never need to "do" much: have a meal (Tim always kills at that part), sit and visit, tell stories, and just laugh and laugh. Excellent way to spend the dya. 

"no detail, no weed or stone or cat or old woman was unimportant to him"

2 September 2023: A random tidbit from one of my "Year's Work" articles--Elizabeth Bishop talking about John Dewey: "[H]e had almost the best manners I have ever encountered, always had time, took an interest in everything,—no detail, no weed or stone or cat or old woman was unimportant to him” (qtd. in Potts 808). Apparently they were neighbors when Dewey lived in Key West.

I have a soft spot in my heart for Dewey, connected in part to using his philosophy for part of my Masters Thesis. To think of him this way makes that spot even softer.

Pott's piece is pretty cool overall--a really neat reading of Bishop's poetry through the lens of her admiration for Buster Keaton.

Work Cited

Potts, George. “The Stoic Comedy of Elizabeth Bishop and Buster Keaton.” ELH vol. 89, no. 3, 2022, pp. 807–32.

Bottoms

1 September 2023: 

[Catch-up post]

It put me behind schedule for completing my weekly to-do list (so I've spent a lot of time today catching up!), but I am really glad Amy and I decided to leave campus by 4:30 to catch a showing of Bottoms. What a smart-stupid movie! So much fun.