Easter 2024

31 March 2024: Marshmallow Peeps are not my fav, but they helped my carrot cake look good enough to impress some of my *actual* favorite peeps. 

So very blessed to get to spend every Easter with Erin, Eric, and the girls. 

"Why don't you think more of Mary Wilkins?"

30 March 2024: Just obsessed with this passage from Sylvia Townsend Warner: "If I had the courage of my convictions downstairs, when everyone was talking about Joyce and Pound and melting pots, I would have said, 'Why don't you think more of Mary Wilkins?'" 

I think I saved the entry on Freeman until this point because everything about it feels big to me: the things I want to say, the idea of limiting those remarks, my feelings for her work. So consider me a strong co-sign for Warner's question: why don't you think more of Mary Wilkins? 

Work Cited

Warner, Sylvia Townsend. "Item, One Empty House." Critical Essays on Mary Wilkins Freeman, edited by Shirley Marchalonis, G.K. Hall, 1991, pp. 118-31. 

Dinner and a show...

29 March 2024: Thanks to my rapidly-improving health, I was able to end this long, difficult week on a high note: dinner with Tim, Kevin, Cory, and Hannah followed by the Rude Mechanicals' opening night performance of Lysistrata. Just a perfect evening. 

Opening Day! / Three to go!

28 March 2024: Celebrating two victories this evening: 

1) The Yankees won on Opening Day in a pretty thrilling game that I got to watch online. I've said it before and I'll say it again: the return of baseball puts a little pep in my step (even when I am still a bit down with this cold).

2) I just finished my entry on Religion and Spirituality. That makes three completed in April (and twenty-one this academic year). And...just three more to go! Now April is the cruelest month, grading-wise, but I am hopeful, hopeful, hopeful...

Things that helped...

27 March 2024: Some things that have made a hard day (still feeling kind of rough and very busy) a bit better:

• The latest episode of Listen to Sassy on my morning walk. 
• Three great classes.
• Four excellent advising appointments.
• Two good student conferences.
• So. Many. Cough drops.
• A Diet Dr. Pepper at 4:30.
• Coming home to BabyCat and Jo. 

Trivia=medicine?

26 March 2024: Felt kind of lousy and definitely slow all day long as this cold persists. Yet for the three hours I was at Rumsey Tavern, I felt pretty darn normal. I joked with the crowd that they were medicine. And the crowd was really big--sixty-five people and twelve teams. 

By the time I got home, the adrenaline wore off. Feeling stuffy and a bit clogged in one ear. Oh well. Still think the worst of this is on its way out. 

Monday struggling...

25 March 2024: Whew--waking up and getting ready this morning was rough. I was more or less able to get through my classes well enough, but I was counting the hours until I could head home. I have stacks of just-in assignments that I really need to grade by Wednesday, along with some writing I want to get done, so tomorrow will be a busy one. But I only need to be on campus for one meeting, so that will help. Here's hoping I'll feel better tomorrow, too. 

Giving in a bit...

24 March 2024: Nursing this little cold all day, balancing rest with getting my lists more or less done. The "more or less" indicates me giving in a bit. Things will get done, but I know I need to not push too hard.

I had planned to go to a movie with Amy and I am bummed that I couldn't do that, but grateful for the book club meeting tonight via Zoom.  

Drag show!

23 March 2024: 

[Catch-up post...]

For the first time since COVID, the drag show returned to Shepherd. To support the cause, I bought a VIP table for myself and some colleagues. It was a great time, of course. 

[By the time I got home, though, I was really beginning to feel the effects of a lovely spring cold. Hit the sack soon after and figured I'd just do a catch-up post today.]

Early dinner break

22 March 2024: After a busy (and mostly good) day, it was wonderful to hit "stop" on the metaphorical work clock just a bit after 5:00 and meet my friends Steve and Kit for dinner. Time just flies by talking with them, two deeply interesting and curious people with decades of great stories. Before I knew it, it was 7:00, but we could have talked for hours more. 

Favorite tree...

21 March 2024: My favorite tree on campus is magical again this year. 

Forsythia

20 March 2024: I knew today would be a long day, so I made myself stop for a minute on my morning walk and appreciate the huge patch of forsythia by Rumsey Park. Just a pause to take them in. One of my favorite signs of spring every year. 

Second week back...

19 March 2024: Started the day off with an 8:00 a.m. meeting on campus. After that, I took a walk and then came home. From then, I worked more or less straight through until 6:00 and got a lot done, which feels good. Even better, though, was having a set-in-stone reason to stop and something fun to do: host trivia for the second week back. Another great crowd and just a fun time.

Two...

18 March 2024: After a very up and down day emotionally--and a 13-hour-on-campus-day--I am very glad about two things: my students and that I have two Senate meetings left.  

Spring Break Recap

17 March 2024: So that's (just about) a wrap on Spring Break 2024. All in all, not bad! I got a lot done, did a couple of fun social things (the Oscars party, lunch with Carrie and Eva, a Friday movie), did a couple of small projects at home, and caught up on sleep and relaxation a bit. Oh, and trivia started up again, too. 

I wish I didn't feel anxious and a bit melancholy about going back to normal tomorrow. But this rough year has just made things really hard. Heading back into it all just as the semester really picks up with advising, paper conferences, and everything else feels extra weighty this year. 

As I type this, I am thinking of ways to push back against the melancholy and anxiety. Spring weather will help, as it always does. So will blocking off days to work from home when I can. And writing progress is great for my morale. So...balance and boundaries, I suppose? 

Two over break...

16 March 2024: Finished my Ida B. Wells-Barnett entry today around 4:30. My goodness--it feels great. Two entries done during this break, with a bit of time to spare. The last part of the semester will be a bear, I know, but getting this much done will make that a bit easier. 

Love Lies Bleeding

15 March 2024: What a fun time at the movies! Love Lies Bleeding is compelling, propulsive, strange, hot, bloody, gross, and just a terrific ride. Two killer performances from Kristen Stewart and Katy O'Brian, too. 

Amazing Ida B...

14 March 2024: Spent the past few days reading and thinking about Ida B. Wells-Barnett, the subject of my next book entry. Obviously, she's amazing--tenacious, brave, and unwavering in her activism. It's been a kind of privilege to read about her. It's hard to pick just one bit of text to highlight, but this little excerpt from her memoir is pretty amazing, an indication of how she continued her public activism even after marriage and motherhood: “I honestly believe that I am the only woman in the United States who ever traveled throughout the country with a nursing baby to make political speeches” (244).

Work Cited

Wells-Barnett, Ida B. Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells. Edited by Alfreda Duster, U of Chicago P, 1970.

Lunch with Carrie and Eva

13 March 2024: In a Spring Break filled with (mostly) work (and I am not complaining about that), I am grateful to be racking up some first-class "fun" stuff: the Oscars party with H&C, being back at trivia, and then (today) having lunch with Carrie and Eva (who was in town for the day). So lovely to catch up with her, enjoy an amazing lunch outside at Bistro 112, and remember another way I am very lucky.

Hosting again!

12 March 2022: Tonight was the first night of my new, regular trivia hosting gig at the newly reopened Rumsey Tavern. It felt great to be back at it. Even saw a bunch of new faces. The place was packed. I am just excited to have something new and social (and non-work-related) on my weekly calendar. 

"jollitude"

11 March 2024:I think I could sit and think about this letter from Harriet Beecher Stowe to George Eliot for the rest of spring break. Stowe is teasing Eliot abotu Middlemarch's seriousness: "My love, what I miss in this story is just what we would have if youcwould come to our tumble-down, jolly, improper, but joyous country,--namely, 'jollitude.' You write and live on so high a plane! It is all self-abnegation. We want to get you over here, and into this house, where, with closed doors, we sometimes make the rafters ring with fun, and say anything and everything, no matter what, and won't be any properer than we's a mind to be" (qtd. in Silvey 61). Silvey adds that the "house" that Stowe want Eliot to visit is Annie Fields' home in Boston. Just an amazing quotation that makes clear how small the writing world was in the nineteenth century. Moreover, Stowe pretty accurately describes what Eliot does in Middlemarch and it is just very funny to think that she believes some good old American "jollitude" can help a bit. 

Work Cited

Silvey, Jane. “It All Began with Jane Eyre: The Complex Transatlantic Web of Women Writers.” Gaskell Journal, vol. 19, 2005, pp. 52–68.

Oscar Party!

10 March 2024: Cory and Hannah came over to watch the Oscars and it was such a blast. Just so lucky to have them as friends. 

"It's in the Bag"

9 March 2024: Had a great time hanging out with Carrie, Rachael, John, and their kids at Rachael and John's this evening. We played "It's in the Bag," which is sort of like Taboo meets Celebrity. A couple weeks ago, Rachael and I talked about how we needed more hang-out sessions in our lives. This was a wonderful first step. 

Made it!

8 March 2024: Got home this evening and greeted the girls with an enthusiastic, "We made it!" Can't remember ever being this ready for spring break. 

Ice cream friend date...

7 March 2024: Yesterday's "AI blues" continued well into today. The less said about that, the better. And, unforunately, a whole blues album threatened to overshadow the day. (This is a tortured metaphor.) 

Then Hannah and I met up when she got off work, got some ice cream at Rock Hill Creamery, and talked for well over an hour. Just what I needed! 

AI Blues...

6 March 2024: Just emailed two students who used AI to write portions of their essays and told them they are getting zeroes. I am so freaking bummed about it. Almost every time I "catch" students doing this (or regular old plagiarism) it just makes me feel so bad. I hate it, hate it, hate it. 

Not how I wanted to this evening to go. This whole week has just been so very hard and exhausting. 

Upstairs on a Tuesday

5 March 2024: Except for a walk to the library to pick up some ILL books, I spent most of today upstairs working in my home office. I mean, I would come downstairs to stretch my legs and get my hourly steps or do a few chores, but more or less, I was up there working from 9-12, then walked to campus, and then back up there from 1-9 (!). 

It continues to be a place where I can get a lot done with fewer distractions. Genuinely baffled that I fell out of using it for such a long stretch.

Three...

4 March 2024: My goodness! Another long and exhausting day, but! but! but! Only three more Senate meetings left. 

I did spend too much mental/emotional energy today feeling bad about yesterday and not getting more done, which is awfully interesting and (I hope) silly. 

Spring preview...

3 March 2024: If today is a taste of what spring will feel like (and what my post-Senate, post-book) days will be like, I am beyond ready for it. I pushed myself to finish everything on my work lists yesterday, so today, I just let myself have a work-free day. (A new weekly book "to do list" starts tomorrow, and two sections of ENGL 102 hand in big papers, so this bit of freedom will be short-lived.)

Still...slept in a bit. Ambled through the grocery store. Read the paper. Started my new book club book. Watched the softball team's home opener (they won). Took a long walk. Opened the windows for a few hours. Took some time to cook a new recipe for dinner. I could get very used to this.

Someone else enjoyed this taste of spring, too.

So long, #23!

2 March 22024: It was bittersweet watching my student/advisee, Cara, play her last game as a Shepherd Ram today. It was quite a privilege to see her grow and endure in her time here. And it makes me smile to think of her out there, teaching English. 

Friday check-in...

1 March 2024: Another long but good day. Got to campus at around 7:30. Left a bit over twelve hours later. But I got a lot done and am feeling kind of good about a relatively easier weekend than the past few have been. 

And one week until Spring Break!