"You know, making brownies for a bake sale..."

20 November 2024: The post's title comes from my sister's reply when I asked how her birthday was going. She added, "Does anything say 'Mom in her 40s more than that?'" We laughed about that and then reassured each other that "age is just a number" and then laughed at that.

She might be 44, but she's forever and always my baby sister. 

Conferences, Incidents, and grading...

19 November 2024: The post's title more or less sums up my day on campus. 

Conferences--and I've got 38 scheduled for this week--are going just fine. They are, as always, invigorating and exhausting. 

As for Incidents, we started a two-day discussion of it in Gender and Women's Studies and, as it always does, the conversation went so well.

Grading? Well, there's a lot of it and it keeps coming. But bit by bit, I'll get through it.  

Another win!

18 November 2024: After a long day of teaching and one-on-one conferences, I was so glad to have a basketball game to get to. Even better? They won big time. 

The Tempest

17 November 2024: I was not expecting to get emotional at the Rude Mechanicals' production of The Tempest, but once the show was over and the applause started to die down, the company of actors and crew honored Betty, who is retiring at the end of this academic year and had, thus, just completed her last run directing a Shakespeare play. The tears started flowing. 

Anora

16 November 2024: Finally got a chance to see Anora today and really loved it. Like every has been saying, Mikey Madison is transcendent--but there isn't a bad performance in the film. I laughed a lot more than I thought I would and will keep thinking about this one for a long time, I bet. 

"Cheek to Cheek"

15 November 2024: Needed some soothing, relaxing songs to get my mind right this morning. An old "Ella and Louis" playlist did the trick.

First home game...

14 November 2024: Boy, did I really need tonight's home opener for women's basketball. And boy, did their squeaker of a win make my day! 

Feeling a little spikey...

13 November 2024: Officially firing up my internal spikeyness meter after I found myself being a bit unfiltered and more direct than usual today.

 

Sometimes being spikey is good; I'm letting the filter slip a bit and advocating for myself or calling b.s.  Sometimes, though, I regret it. I think everything today was okay, but when I am tired and overwhelmed and stressed and sad about so much, it can really come out more than I want it to. 

So firing up the meter and making sure I am being smart and kind. What no one needs now, after all, is meanness and thoughtlessness. 

Working smarter, not harder...

12 November 2024: Took both girls to the vet today for their annual appointments. Jo was due at the beginning of October, Veronica in mid-November and I said, "This is foolishness" and booked them together. They did just fine and we were home from our 9:00 appointment by 9:30. 

Now onto the rest of this stressful, busy day in this stressful, busy week. A bit easier to face it all with this item checked off the list.

Light at the end of the day...

11 November 2024: Today was rough. Long and complicated and stressful. A lot of my students are in bad places. At one point, I kind of broke down, overwhelmed and feeling worried about them. 

Right as I was packing up to go home at about 6:30, a former student who I am so fond of appeared in my office door. He's been dealing with a very serious cancer diagnosis for years. He told me had just gotten some results: his first "cancer free" scan. As it all sunk in, I hugged him twice, overcome with the unexpected good news. My eyes filled with tears again. I thanked him again and again for giving me this lovely news.

Everything is still really hard and bad, but once again, the Lord sends some joy and light. Walking to my car, I looked up and said, "Thank you." 

Heretic

10 November 2024: Heretic isn't exactly an enjoyable movie, but it is satisfying and smart. Squint hard enough and you find some comfort after all that has happened this week. It's a kind of comfort that comes from realizing how exausting and damanging shitty dudes with overinflated egos who have ideas about faith or (or a lack of faith) are--and how much when love it when a woman calls them out on it. 

An empty seat on Tuesday...

9 November 2024: Learned today that one of my students was found dead last night. It's gutting news. It won't be the first time I've stepped into a classroom with a now-empty seat, but my goodness...where to begin? Maybe just the same way I did the last time: tell the class that I love them, that so many people love them, and that I am so glad they are here. 

So much pain in this last week...

Dorothy Allison

8 November 2024: When I read this morning of Dorothy Allison's death, my eyes filled with tears. This amazing woman made the world a better place and to lose her this week of all weeks seems particularly cruel. But we have her writing to help us know what we need to do in the days ahead. 

I've written about her a bunch, as you can see here. This post captures a moment I still think about with a kind of swoony awe.

Fourteen hours since this morning and I am tearing up again. Rest in peace, Dorothy, and thank you for everything. 

"Next, sleep..."

7 November 2024: "Next, sleep. Healing sleep, soothing sleep, sleep to make the world go away, sleep like death. Her mama had told her that sleep was the best medicine God ever made." --Randall Kenan, "The Foundations of the Earth"

Completely crashed by 9:30 last night. I think I had barely slept three hours the past two nights, so when I crashed, I crashed hard. Slept like a rock. Woke up feeling stronger and more determined, and as I got ready for the day, this passage from Kenan's story kept running through my mind. 

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.