Good timing...

2 March 2022: Feeling a bit overwhelmed and down all of the sudden--and he shows up. What a gift.

"Dear March—Come in—"

1 March 2022: 

"Dear March—Come in—

How glad I am—

I hoped for you before—"

Anticipating/holding on for this spring with white knuckles. So Dickinson's poem feels right for today. 

Deep relief...

28 February 2022: Got some texts today from one of my favorite people on this planet. I've been so worried about her. Things are still bad, but just hearing from her made me want to dance for joy. The best part of the day--of several days, in fact.

Spring 2022 Midterm Grades: DONE!

27 February 2022: Always feels good to hit "submit" on that final set (admittedly much easier when you only have two classes). Cheated a bit this time, and switched to Pandora hoping for an appropriate chair-dancing sob to be playing as I hit that button. It worked...

"Go easy on 'em..."

26 February 2022: The post's title comes from my dad's advice as I work my way through this semester's ENGL 204 midterms. Interestingly, I've been thinking about a way to go a bit easier on them, giving an opportunity for them to earn back some points. It's rough out there and I think more than a few of them just panicked. So we'll see how this goes.

10%

25 February 2022: If my book is supposed to be around 150K words, as of today, I've written 10% of it. Not bad considering so little got done in the Fall semester, there's still over half of this semester left, and then the first full summer to work on it. 

Bit by bit...

Not writing as finishing...

24 February 2022: A bit of a strange day today. Slept in a couple of hours because I didn't have any appointments on campus (and felt guilty about that...you know, healthy stuff!) and felt so cozy laying there with Wes. It was cold and rainy all day, which didn't help much with my mood, when I finally did get out there. Somewhat predictably, getting a decent amount of work done did help.

Happy to have completed a draft of the Little Women entry. I had outlined an entire section that I ended up dropping. Tomorrow's task will be re-reading the entry to do more revising and see if I can work some pieces of that section in elsewhere. But once I started thinking about cutting it out, it actually felt right--like what I had was enough, considering the general scope of the book (mine, not Alcott's). It is pretty cool to think about how finishing can be about what you don't write as much as it's about what you do write. I love those moments, too, when you sense that you are coming around the bend in a writing project.  

Also started research on another entry, took a good walk (of course), and got some odds and ends taken care of. The day ended with a dinner with some work folks and the dean of a university in Scotland where we have a study aboard agreement. Speaking of what you don't write, I almost feel like this paragraph and the first don't belong in this post since I like for the blog to be less about a "here's a list of what happened today" and more about one specific idea or linked set of ideas/observations. But I am going to leave them both in because it's kind of meta. 

Vibes are still off, as the kids might say, but maybe everything will be a bit better tomorrow. 

Mid-day Loop Playlist

23 February 2022: Queued up four upbeat songs right before I headed out for my mid-day loop around the block. 

1) Walk the Moon, "Shut Up and Dance"

2) The Chicks, "Texas Man"

3) Brandi Carlile, "You and Me on the Rock"

4) Phil Collins, "Follow You, Follow Me" 

Starts out loud and makes you walk-dance, moves on to fun, sassy, and a bit sexy, settles in for some sunny joy, and then ends with swoony contentment. The final bars of #4 literally played as I reached out to open my office door and step back in.

580 words...

22 February 2022: In a day with a couple of meetings and lots of other "little" things, I have managed to fully outline the my entry on Little Women (not an easy process--outlines for me are pretty darn detailed) and write 580 words. I'll take it. 

Going to work on some non-book things for about 45 minutes, then meet Amy for dinner before the President's Lecture Series tonight. 

Bit by bit...

Mid-day loop...

21 February 2022: I was just texting Hannah about this, but it seems like a big enough deal (to me, duh) that it works as the idea for today's post...

Today was sure a Monday. Some good stuff (the classes, one good committee meeting), some really frustrating stuff, and so much little-but-it-takes-time-and-adds-up stuff. 

But it also got into the 60s today and was sunny and lovely. (When I took my morning walk, it was cold enough that I had gloves on!) So I took a mid-day walk around the block, something I am going to do as much as I can from now on. Just ten or fifteen minutes out of the building, away from my desk, listening to a podcast or a couple of songs makes a big old difference to my mood and my tense shoulders. (Too bad the rest of the day put a lot of that tension right back...)

Sunday on campus...

20 February 2022: Spent almost all day up on campus: grading, ILL-book-copying, note-taking, and annual-report-writing. Took a good walk mid-way through, and while it was cold, the sun felt nice. Not even close to a good Sunday for Project Balance except that it made me feel good to get that stuff done, which is probably the main goal of Project Balance: feeling good. 

Brave girl...

19 February 2022: This little one had me a bit nervous the past couple of days with all the typical manifestations of stomach problems. (Gross.) But fortunately, she seems just fine today, running around and chirping, making sure she is noticed by me, expecting me to share what I am eating, watching the birds outside, and being brave by staring down the strong winds rattling the house. 

Gentle advice...

18 February 2022: Just had to figure out how to gently tell a very-eager/confident student (in my written comments) that he got out ahead of his skis in a paper he wrote with disastrous results. He made a silly and inaccurate claim about the piece of criticism he was responding to, and therefore his attempted take-down of it was just a complete failure. How do you put that into writing in a way that isn't crushing but also doesn't soft-pedal the truth and scares him into being more careful next time? It's not easy!

So maybe I'll call it quits after 10.5 hours on campus today.  

Today's walk...

17 February 2022: 

• It's a warm day for mid-February, though cloudy and a bit dreary. Still, it feels good to only have to wear my blazer and even feel a bit heated towards the end. 
• Up the road ahead of me, I see a coworker's husband drop her off in front of her building. She heads up the sidewalk, opens the door, and turns back around to wave at him. Only then does he drive away. Such a tiny moment of intimacy and connection--this isn't about making sure she makes it in okay, like when you wait to see if someone has their key or when it's dark out. It's about their connection.  
• The town is putting in ADA-compliant curb cuts, a long-term project that started in the heart of town and has expanded outward. At the intersection by The Blue Moon, it's all over but the concrete-pouring and clean-up. As I walk by, the cement truck is coming up the road. One of the workers sees it coming, channels his inner child, and says, "Oh yeah, baby: let's do it." Charming as heck.
• My goodness: this episode of Song Exploder, on "You and Me on the Rock," is amazing. 

Facts...

16 February 2022: Told my seminar students this today when they made me burst out laughing (in a good way): "I'm in the middle of a very long day, but the three best parts are or will be: my 9:10 class where we talked about Dickinson, this class right now, and the women's basketball game tonight. And what do they all have in common? Shepherd students." 

Got some potentially not-great news this afternoon, but having it cushioned in among all the good student stuff makes it hit a lot better.