13 years old!

13 September 2016: My niece Olivia turned 13 today. How can that not be today's good thing? She's an awesome kid: full of life and energy and love. What a blessing she is to our family!

"Black Like Me? Or, How I Learned to Embrace My Inner Emma"

12 September 2016: Today's good thing is this piece, one of the options for my ENGL 101 students' homework as they work on their literacy narrative. It's such an interesting and smart piece. Well worth a read (or a re-read).

15 years...

11 September 2016: Words fail on days like today, but groups like StoryCorps do so much to help us remember the people who died and survived that day. Those stories are, indeed, good things that come out of darkness and evil. Even just scrolling down the list brings tears to my eyes. It's too much. And not enough. Father Michael Duffy's remembrance of Father Mychal Judge always stands out to me, as does Bill Cosgrove's story.

"How Hillary Clinton can get that ‘presidential look’"

10 September 2016: Today's good thing is this hilarious piece from the Washington Post. Amazing. Give it a read.

Early release...

9 September 2016: About that seminar I mentioned yesterday? Today's good thing comes from its ending, specifically the news that we were going to be allowed to finish early and hit the road to get back home at 2:15 instead of 3:00. Music to my ears!

Night swimming...

8 September 2016: After spending all day driving to and then attending this seminar on curriculum in Roanoke, WV (about four hours away), nothing could have been nicer than taking a dip in the practically empty pool at the resort. Amazing.

"It's 3:00 already?"

7 September 2016: The post's title comes from my thought today as I looked at the clock and saw that my ENGL 312 class had reached its end for the day and we hadn't gotten to half of what I wanted to talk about. That last part--not covering everything--happens a lot in classes and it's not necessarily a bad thing. What is more unusual is losing track of the time and that (to me) shows just how strong this group of students is--smart, motivated, prepared. They are such a delight to teach and the time flies by. Today was a crazy-busy day and some of it wasn't so great. But that 50 minutes and that realization? That's today's good thing.

Which is the well-behaved one?

6 September 2016: Honestly, for weeks now, I have not been looking forward to one appointment on my calendar...an appointment scheduled for 9:30 a.m. today: Veronica's yearly vet visit. I mean, she's coming along here slowly but surely (emphasis on "slowly"), but she is never easy to catch and I was anticipating possible-Wesley-levels of misbehavior at the vet. But everything went so smoothly today, well, that's got to be today's good thing.

First, pretty soon after I started trying to catch Veronica, she just sort of gave up. Jumped up in the window and just howled in anxiety and sadness. But she didn't fight me. So that's good, right? And while she had some Cujo moments when I first put her in the carrier, she settled into just howling a lot pretty quickly. Once they called us into the room, I took a deep breath. The big moment of truth. Would I be able to get her out of the carrier easily? And yeah, I was. And then she just sort of got through it. Didn't even hiss at the vet tech or the vet. The doctor had only sweet talk for her. Go figure. And we were home by 10:00 a.m. (They took us in a bit early.) Hallelujah.

Here's the "before" picture, snapped while we were in the waiting room to share with my siblings who were sharing "first day of school" pics of their kids. Even here, you can see that while she's not happy, she's also not a total mess. 

Never Been Kissed

5 September 2016: You know what rocks? When you have some work to do but it's the kind of work that you can do while you have something fun and mindless on the TV in the background. And at first you are frustrated because, it being a holiday and all, there isn't a ton on TV that fits your very picky tastes. And just as you are paging through the channel guide, you get a text from your friend telling you that Never Been Kissed, a movie you are crazy fond of and had just the previously day argued is under-appreciated, is about to start on Starz Comedy. And you text your friend back and marvel at her exceptionally good timing. And then you get back to work, looking up pretty often to remember how charming this movie is (especially if you don't think too deeply about the icky student-teacher thing).

"Harlem Heroes," Part II

4 September 2016: Sunday was just a perfect day. Tim and I, along with his nephew and our good friends Hannah and Cory, headed into DC. We saw the exhibition I first posted about here. It was amazing and I found myself more moved than I had anticipated. Such powerful picture of such determined, beautiful people. We also saw Hiram Power's The Greek Slave, which I remembered reading about when I was studying The Marble Faun, so that rocked. And an unexpected pleasure? The Romaine Brooks exhibition. I didn't know anything about her before yesterday (Tim did, so he was really excited to see it), but now I am thoroughly intrigued by her.

After the museum, we headed back to Tim's for croquet and lobster (seriously--how posh are we?). What a fun day.

Ram Tracks and Battering Ram...

3 September 2016: This post's title comes from the two flavors of Shepherd-centric ice-cream my friend Amy and I were scooping up as we helped sell concessions at Saturday's opening football game. Sigma Tau Delta stood to earn some money from helping sell concessions, but we needed eight volunteers--with almost no notice. And right now, we barely have eight student members. So I volunteered to help and, because she is just plain awesome, Amy joined me. She's also a Sigma Tau Delta alum, though she's now a professor of Sociology. Anyway, we had fun and did some good work for the organization.

Taco trucks on every corner...

2 September 2016: I was watching MSNBC live when the now infamous "taco trucks on every corner" comment happened. Right after I picked my jaw up off the group, I thought to myself, "Here come the memes!" Internet: you did not let me down. Here is today's good thing.

Produce fairy...

1 September 2016: Someone in my department has been sharing the abundance of their garden, leaving a basket of veggies and herbs out twice already this semester. Last week I snagged an eggplant, which I used for a really great stir-fry. Tonight, I used a bag of basil to make some delicious pesto. I *think* I know who the produce fairy is, but one of the things I love about the whole thing is that he/she doesn't sign the "help yourself" notes that he/she leaves. It's just such a lovely gesture and I am quite grateful.

"As a Boy, I Was Obsessed With the Baby-Sitters Club Books. I Have No Regrets."

31 August 2016: Today was an epically busy day. I got a ton done (though not everything on my list), which feels pretty good. But only now, at about 10:30, am I catching my breath and winding down. One of the first things I did today when I got to school, though, was open this link in a tab on my browser. I only had time to read a few lines before I dashed off to class. But even those few lines made me pretty confident that I had found today's good thing. A few minutes ago, when I opened up the tab on my home computer and finally read the piece from start to finish, my hunch was confirmed.

Y'all, I LOVED the Babysitter's Club books when I was a kid. I read and re-read them so many times. I learned so much from them. I still think of them fondly. So I was delighted by this essay, about how a young boy was equally intrigued and delighted by them, gender conformity be damned. If you loved those books, too, give it a read. I think you'll find it charming.

"Poem for My Love"

30 August 2016: I taught a (different) June Jordan poem today in my Women's Studies class, but that poem lead me to this one: "Poem for My Love." I hadn't read this poem before--just read it for the first time tonight while doing some additional reading about Jordan. But it's quite lovely and today's good thing.

"Poem for My Love" 
June Jordan

How do we come to be here next to each other   

in the night 

Where are the stars that show us to our love   

inevitable 

Outside the leaves flame usual in darkness   

and the rain 

falls cool and blessed on the holy flesh   

the black men waiting on the corner for   

a womanly mirage 

I am amazed by peace 

It is this possibility of you 

asleep 

and breathing in the quiet air