Until next year...

31 October 2024: “[Baseball] breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall all alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.”― A. Bartlett Giamatti, Take Time for Paradise: Americans and Their Games

"I'm late to the doom conversation..."

30 October 2024: I've got a really great group of ENGL 301 students this semester. They are smart, hard-working, and just really engaged. Every class is lively and fun. Highlights from today's class (discussing "Desiree's Baby" through the lens of deconstruction) went really well. This post's title comes from a student talking about how a sense of doom hangs over the piece, but I laughed out loud when she said it, adding, "I've been here for weeks!" (Seriously--the "doom conversation" in my head is overwhelming at times--mitigated by the magic respite that a classroom brings.)

One week to go...

29 October 2024: Woke up with such anxiety this morning and it's been weighing me down all day. Grateful for the moments of light and distraction, but my goodness...it's all so much.

As usual, Chen Chen says it so well.

trying to have hope but not false hope is such work

— 兔兒神 (@chenchenwrites) October 29, 2024

Little fella...

28 October 2024: Just got to see video clips from a dear friend's sonogram (shared via text). What a miraculous wonder to behold! This little guy is already bringing so much joy to the world.  Holding onto that hope and wonder and joy and love in the midst of all this angst and uncertainty. What a gift!

"The Third and Final Continent" (Once more...)

27 October 2024: Today as I mowed the lawn, perhaps for the last time until the spring, I listened to a The New Yorker Fiction Podcast episode where the guest (Rebecca Makkai) read "The Third and Final Continent," a story I've known and loved for years. (The post-reading discussion between Makkai and Deborah Treisman is really good, by the way.) 

I've blogged about this story in particular and Jhumpa Lahiri a lot--with good reason, of course. There's just no one who writes like she does and I am always so moved and floored by her work.

Anyway, as I pushed that mower in the waning afternoon light, thinking a movie I'd seen earlier (We Live in Time--great performances, not-so-great film), a kind of warm melancholy settled in--somehow perfect for listening to this beautiful story. 

Another Jane Day...

26 October 2024: Woke up feeling down and anxious, but then felt immediately grateful that Jane and I had--during our last hang-out--already scheduled our next hang-out for today. I drove her way this time. Wandered around The Painted Tree (first time I have been to one), had lunch, then went over to Target for Halloween candy. A bit more visiting and then I headed home. A lovely day that left me feeling better. 

Fall Break Vibes...

25 October 2024: I've been grading, writing, and working, but I'm still digging the vibes from my walk and from my glances across the living room. 

Quiz-n-Dish

24 October 2024: A couple of weeks ago, Amy asked if I would write a trivia game for a potluck she was hosting in her office for the folks on campus who don't get "off" for Fall Break. I was happy to do it, but a bit nervous about my game-writing skills. Anyway, today was the day and I think it went well. Of course, it was a friendly crowd. Shepherd has the best staff in so many ways. 

Anyway, after that, it was back to grading and a bunch of other work for me, but that's okay. Even a mostly work-filled day has a different vibe over Fall Break. 

Deconstruction again...

23 October 2024: Kind of weird that today, teaching the same material exactly seven years later (!), a student came up with another very funny response to deconstruction (again, about people being fields of competing identies and ideologies): 

Student: Like how my cat wants a pet but also bites me?

Me: Yes, although you are ascribing human concepts to your cat...

Student: Oh, believe me: it works.

Busy Tuesday...

22 October 2024: Finding myself sitting here thinking about what has been a long day with lots of different stuff packed in it. On the list: an annual medical check-up, lunch with a former student, a couple of meetings (one of them really important), some grading, and trivia. 

Trying to decide what to post about tonight, I've been thinking, "what was the best part? the most interesting? the most unique?" 

But mostly I just feel glad to have a life with all these parts in it. I mean, to start the day with good health care (and gratitude for insurance) and end it with lovely people who come out week after week for trivia--and to have most of what was in between be interesting and stimulating? Not bad!

Topic sentences...

21 October 2024: "I realize I just threw a bunch of stuff together and called it a paragraph..." --terrific insight from one of my ENGL 101 students as she looked at her draft.

Can you tell we are working on topic sentences? Seriously, though, her realization is so important. And then we talked about why this makes sense when she's drafting--and it's why rewriting and revision is so important. 

"Whitman, Melville, and Baseball"

20 October 2024: 

“Did you see the baseball boys are home from their tour around the world? How I’d like to meet them — talk with them: maybe ask them some questions...That’s beautiful: the hurrah game! well — it’s our game: that’s the chief fact in connection with it: America’s game: has the snap, go, fling, of the American atmosphere — belongs as much to our institutions, fits into them as significantly, as our constitutions, laws: is just as important in the sum total of our historic life." --Whitman on baseball in 1889.

The Yankees won the ALCS yesterday and are off to their first World Series since 2009. I am, of course, delighted. But if they hadn't clinched it last night--if the series had gone on and maybe even if they lost it--I would still be delighted by the games. That's one way you know you love baseball, I think: even when your team loses, you can have a blast. Anyway, for a trivia game I am writing for some colleagues, I came across this piece about Whitman, Melville, and baseball. Well worth a read!

Just watchin'...

19 October 2024: Second post in just a few days that's basically, "Look at how cute Jo is when she's just watching me!" But I sure did get a kick out of turning around and seeing her looking at me like this from the bed while I was cleaning the bathroom. Sweet little girl.

Founders Day 2024

18 October 2024:

I am really fond of this photo from an improtu decision by some Sigma Tau Delta students to march in the Founders Day parade. 

Game 3...

17 October 2024: 

[Catch-up post...]

Got to work this morning (Friday) and realized that I hadn't posted on Thursday even though I crossed it off of my list. Oh well!

I think if I had posted, it might have been about Thursday's Yankees/Guardians game. The Yankees lost, but my goodness, it was a great game. You know you love a sport when a game doesn't end the way you want it it to, but you still had a blast watching it.