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.