#Atlanta
Saturday, April 02, 2022
(I love big cities but) I'm glad I'm home
Thursday, March 24, 2022
puppy snuggles and cricket memories
It was national puppy day, I think? I'm late as usual. I love this one with Huck's arm draped around Scout's shoulder... they're both lying on my feet (of course!), which is why I couldn't get a fuller shot.
I've picked up the contradictory habit of watching movies in episode-length segments (it goes nicely with my other weird habit of watching multiple episodes of a show at one go).
Anyway, finished watching "83" (in about four segments) and enjoyed how much old cricket lore came back to me as I watched it. It's a typical underdog sports story, and bit overdone in some parts, but I enjoyed it and yelped in surprise and delight when the real Kapil Dev made a cameo appearance.
Some of the nicest days in my childhood were when "pavillion" tickets to a match (passed on by cricketeer uncles/dad's work/well-connected family) showed up and we'd be allowed to skip school to spend all day at the stadium. Being stuck at school when a big match was on was the worst: kids these days don't know the painful suspense of finding out the score from the tuck shop radio or having to depend on friendly teachers who could bring us the latest from the teachers' lounge TV.
Wednesday, March 23, 2022
the return
Sunday, March 20, 2022
mud and miracles
Wednesday, March 16, 2022
snapshot
I don't know why I love it so much--no one's even actually smiling... but Big A is holding the kids both so protectively and the kids are so tiny and portable and healthy and it just seems like a snapshot of a simpler time.
(In other news, my campus-wide presentation went ok, but didn't reach the numbers we'd projected; I do wonder if it was a good use of 15+ sabbatical work hours... but if I didn't do it, it wouldn't get done... and it deserved to get done.)
Tuesday, March 15, 2022
can't stand
To see war advance in such excruciating detail across Ukraine in real time has been many things including terrifying and has induced a lot of helplessness and hopelessness...
It's a wonder we are able to function.
Today I had crippling weltschmerzen.
I did not function.
Saturday, March 12, 2022
and another one
Friday, March 11, 2022
centering
I have another conference (SALA) coming up tomorrow where I will have to present a paper, and then poetry selections to finalize for Jaggery, tons of 22 advisee and committee meetings next week, and a campus-wide women's month presentation on the same day of Nu's first appointment with a new therapist. Add international and pandemic news, what I'm reading (Laurie Frankel's This is How it Always Is), surprise snow instead of spring today, and the knowledge that Big A will be home for just two days in the next eight and it has me feeling... panicky.
But one step at a time will get me there. First step: finishing up my slides for tomorrow's talk. Second step: preparing to let tomorrow be another dry shampoo kind of day.
Monday, March 07, 2022
this thing on my finger
Friday, March 04, 2022
March Forth Again!
I started the day hiking with L and then hung out with Big A and just talked and texted with family and friends all day long. There was an hour of massage therapy in there somewhere too. We ended up making 1100 dollars with the birthday fundraiser and at the end of the day there was a pistachio-raspberry cake with candles.
I learned about March Forth (March Fourth) just a couple of years ago, I think--but I love that I can claim this day for a birthday. In writing news today, I got a shoutout from Mel over at Stirrup Queens and a newer poem was published in Waxing and Waning.
So happy in my heart.
Monday, February 28, 2022
blast from the past
But I've been yearning for one of those all-out bashes that used to happen--usually planned and hosted by someone else. That hasn't happened in years. Some of is the pandemic, sure--but some of it is just that we're in a different stage of our lives.
Facebook kindly reminded me with this post from twelve years ago when my friends L and J postponed a vacation they were planning to take because it fell in my birthday week. The mayhem of comments that ensued with everyone jumping in with recommendations, some weird references to Tom Hanks's birthday, my London friends threatening to gatecrash, and Sunny Singh (the author Sunny Singh) giving me sage advice on partying all month long made me chuckle.
I've been talking to L more since this reminder popped up and reconnecting with others too. And much as I resent Facebook for its manipulative ways, I'd completely forgotten about this interlude until it reminded me. What a sweet memory from a more innocent past.
Thursday, February 24, 2022
it's the end of the day and I feel fine
Hung out with bestie KB, whom I just adore, today... We usually walk, but today we went to a museum and had lunch and went shopping and book browsed and caught a movie and... just hung out all day... like we were playing hooky from school.
And we were talking about how when we were young things just seemed to be getting better--you know? The Berlin Wall fell, Nelson Mandela was released from prison, hate was considered to be evil... and today there's war everywhere and bombs dropping on Ukraine.
But being around KB is a balm. And now I have this song stuck in my head.
Pic: Here I am at the Joseph Tisiga Scarecrow Exhibit.
Wednesday, February 23, 2022
map of crap
I'm sitting here with heartbreak and a bit of survivor guilt (we considered jobs in Texas earlier this winter), knowing I must do everything I can to fight this because as every study has repeatedly shown, compassion and gender-affirming care is suicide prevention for kids at a vulnerable time in their lives.
And I will fight this with every activist intersection I have as educator, child advocate, parent, and parent of a non-binary/trans teen.
It's unbelievable how hostile and inhospitable so much of the USA is to trans kids. You'd think that in the THIRD year of a global PANDEMIC, people would focus on medical initiatives that are life-affirming and life-saving instead of needless cruelty.
Monday, February 21, 2022
sleepover
And then we kept calling it our "own sleepover."
Although, you know, we're married and all. We took turns checking on the comfort and safety of the original sleepover kids, watched two whole movies, did some puzzles, and then finally went to sleep (in our regular bedroom) around 2 am. We really miss each other when he's off at work.
Monday, February 14, 2022
here and now
My neck hurts today--not sure if its because I lifted heavier weights than usual, slept wrong, or because I did something to it when I fell. Anyway, my personal physician will be home tomorrow and I can get checked out then.
In the meantime, I've been binge reading To Paradise, and getting intensely Edith Wharton vibes from the first part set in a sort of alternative Gilded Age. I also watched The Last Duel, with its immersive medieval ethos. Two historical periods in one weekend is a bit much even for me.
Saturday, February 12, 2022
where it hurts
I earned this afternoon+evening reading To Paradise, drinking cinnamon tea, eating chocolate, the puppies in my lap/on my legs. Big A is at work, I dropped Nu off to visit a friend, and I worked like a fiend yesterday.
I'm coming to the end of the day with deep satisfaction, apparently some days it takes very little to get there.
Friday, February 11, 2022
don't look now, I'm changing
Sunday, February 06, 2022
red boots
Thursday, February 03, 2022
warmer
Earlier this week, EM drove through the imminent snow storm to bring us a portable Lunar New Year celebration: a dumpling feast, cake, sweet treats, and the traditional red envelope with a money gift for Nu. It was only when I was putting away the bags yesterday, that I found the felt good luck decoration at the bottom... I hung it up with the other ones, and took this picture to send with a thank you message.
(It triggered the memory that the last time we'd eaten out with EM was the Lunar New Year dimsum we had together at the start of the pandemic in 2020. Someday, we'll do that again.)
I wanted something warm to note for today... red is warm; love is warm.
Tuesday, February 01, 2022
the body we lived in
Reentry
I think that was a solid vacation--it didn't feel "fake" to me at all. I had a lovely time, meeting people Big A works with wa...
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Friends and old neighbors shutting it down in honor of John Crawford. _
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I have the feeling that I’m going to succumb to the season and put out a list of resolutions soon. Just wanted to establish this heads up th...
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At had us pose for this pic up at Aunt R's place on Lake Huron so he could put it up in his dorm. "Don't tur...