in the war for trans existence

Big A's claim to show-biz fame is that he was in a play with Dave Chappelle. A middle school play. That he got kicked off--Big A not DC--for being mouthy. 

I liked the Chappelle Show, I loved Block Party. When we moved back to Big A's old hometown in 2008, I remember being faintly star struck about seeing DC everywhere. His older kids were in At's range, his youngest is a year behind Nu. Then he became just one more familiar face; it helped that he and his wife E were unfailingly kind to everyone. E "loves" when I post FB pics of the kids; I swoon when she shares pics of award shows. 

But I haven't watched any of his Netflix specials after the first one--it just didn't even seem him--not the funny Neal Brennan Chappelle, not the kind Yellow Springs Chappelle. I vaguely remember a joke he told on the the first one about two gender studies profs he has coffee with regularly and how all he's thinking about when they're talking is that he'd like to fuck them and I kind of checked out after that. 

And now the constant TERF war. RainOfTerra's tweet thread broke me and then I messaged LA (possibly one of the afore-mentioned gender studies profs in YS) around 5:15 am with a link and asked if she or anyone else could reach out to Dave. Her reply started with "Ugh, Dave." and ended with "So I will share this and see if any of Dave’s friends can speak to him in any way he can hear, but I don’t hold out a lot of hope."

And I wish I could do more.

"a fair day's work"

 

I stole this pic off of At's Twitter this morning...

and find myself looking at it all the time...

Not sure why (I mean he looks so good and so grown up but still)...

Even Ammama, his #1 fan, doesn't get it. 

But At used to love Capt. America, and I think my brain is seeing his circular UAW placard as a mashup of Capt. America's shield.

"Capt. America but make it union"  

404

 

Full day: 10+ hours of teaching and grading and meetings and approx. 2 hours of commuting...

And it's now 3:18 am and I can't stop reading Anthony Doerr's Cloud Cuckoo Land.

Help.

(I liked his All the Light We Cannot See too although its very eurocentric depiction of WWII irked me. This one, OMG, is incredibly lush and includes wide swathes of humanity and historical times.)

"children are the future"

A pre-sunrise grocery run for the biriyani At requested; a gray and misty sunrise hike with L; and then I went to UU this morning after 18 months away. Nu is in OWL this year and there's in-person service again. Sadly, reduced services: no singing, no physical greetings, no collection baskets.  I had about 45 mins between the end of services and OWL pick-up, and I found these <<< urban woods behind the church buildings to tramp around in. 

If you'd told me six months ago that I'd be happy on the day At moved out into his own apartment, I'd have questioned if you knew me at all. But I've increasingly been looking forward to this actually, as it's the best thing for him to start adulting on this impromptu gap year of his. Except... here we are on moving-out day, and it's close to midnight, and there's a growing pile of stuff by the door... and the child is still here.

disappearance

you know something/ I don't
the turn into spring, into fall 
a new war... an old messiah 
the budding preceding it all

I try to remind you of love 
in the face of opening loss
we know life keeps taking 

uprooting even... thoughts

Parkinsonian expansion

I guess Parkinson and his insight about work expansion remains valid. 

But in a more neutral way, now that I'm on campus so much, a lot of work gets done at work instead of after dinner. Time feels a bit less scramble-y because home/work demarcations feel more natural. Plus I get to see and be around more people, which is me at my happiest.

I still do work things after dinner, on the weekend, in the middle of the night, etc., but it's freeing to know that I spent 8/10 hours working already, so if it doesn't get done, it ought to be perfectly acceptable.

Being at work lets me get at all the stuff that gets shoved aside--like the graduation gift I'd gotten for a colleague in financial services and was finally able to hand deliver yesterday (months late...).

Pic: I thought I was taking a picture of flying geese as I walked across campus... but look, guys: No geese! Lovely blue sky, anyway. 

too chicken

 

I'm too chicken to actually go into L and Nu's chicken coop (or you could say it's too chicken-y out there for me). 

But I just had to say hello to Ms. Margaret Hatcher (extreme left, looking directly into my camera).

the trip comes for us

(for L.B.)

by the time my thoughts arrive

helloes and hugs have played

our homophony

these trees nod their approval

and bird guardians sing 

of missing you, friend

Really, we could have climbed 

mountains today, survived 

whispered catastrophe

colonizing futures, monopolizing 

resolutions, our airy gestures 

perfect as finger-paintings

_______

Hike with L in Baker Woods after ages! I was catastrophizing, L was decoding and problem-solving. We mostly talked about changes to Big A's contract and how he may be working in Texas for a few months. I was actually so excited when he first told me because I have fond memories of visiting my Chelli in San Antonio, but soon realized he'd be going because it's a Covid hotspot right now... and...

the daily socialist

At news: He's not doing that MSW at MSU this year; he's working at Chipotle; he's moving in with a friend he made through DSA next week.

Note 1: I like that his new roommate is a librarian; the roommate likes that I'm a gender studies prof.

Note 2: It seems like At still loves using Mark Fisher as an intellectual tagline.

hold on

I have a ton of stuff beginning to pile up again. I got contracts done, but have final edits to make for the next issue of Jaggery; I got the sponsored panel done, but have mentor-mentee letters to send out for the ongoing NWSA; I got the updates done, but owe my CASA coordinator a log of my continuing education hours; and on and on. 

And this is not even at my day job where I have class prep due + I'm going to get a ton of papers submitted this weekend + I somehow seem to have agreed to give a campus wide introduction to embodied learning practices (not even my research specialty) + have to plan an orientation for the student house I advise + plan an induction for the honor society I co-advise + return to my long-term projects I haven't worked on in ages. 

And this doesn't even begin to start to describe all the work of family and home.

So I'm experiencing stress... and rightly so. 

And I got a submission declined rejected today too.

But Scout and Huck are always adorable.

worry

"I'm sorry," said the stove repairman who's been fixing our stove since June--"nothing's going right, is it? I hope your day gets better."

I guess he heard Big A and me have a furious, whispered conversation about Scout and/or heard me sobbing in the stairwell.

Anyway, I spent hours at the veterinary E.R. with Scout today. Tons of tests later, we still have no clear answers. But they gave us a bunch of meds; I hope they help.

Pic: Sculpture outside the E.R. (I forgot to take a pic of Scoutie.) 

"the next time you want me"

Phoebe Bridgers singing for me as I soak and relive some recent conversations about... of all things... Pet Sematary. (You know, the Stephen-King-novel/movie where beings buried in the "Pet Sematary" come back to life but are disappointing and different and zombiefied.)

First I had a general epiphany about how nostalgia-fueled decisions to go back to the way things were rarely go well. "Going back" to places, people, whatever... never goes as planned. Perhaps that's the true moral of Pet Sematary. It came up in some conversation with Big A. And then suddenly because we'd talked about Scout's health, he was trying to get me to promise that I would never clone Scout. An option I'd never considered before but seemed tempting. But Big A rightly made the point that Scout is his own person and cloning disrespects that etc. OK? OK.

I was telling the kids this over breakfast some day this week, and I don't know if they appreciated their parents' deep thoughts. But they immediately started a tally of who in the family would put people in the pet sematary. Apparently neither human kid would. According to them, I totally would. And their dad--well... apparently he has a strong sense of medical ethics and wouldn't. But... he'd still probably put me in the pet sematary because he's so attached. And then, they riffed, when pet-semataried mom starts stabbing people and stuff, he'd be all patient explaining things like "Puppy, remember we talked about not stabbing people?" 

For a conversation that included so many deaths, including my own, that last line in its authenticity still makes me chuckle out loud.

people-ing

A long walk-talk with KB yesterday; I begin to feel I can handle the world again.

Early morning chat with my sister; figuring out all the things on our list for this year--many of them impossible without a passport (which I don't yet have as everything's so backed up). But she makes plans seem possible anyway.

Midday yoga in the forest with Nu and L on either side of me; a sort of peace washes over me.

Garden party at our place this evening; the comfort of sharing food with CF, SB, SD, and AH and others. 

Talking to strangers on an FB Golden Doodle page about Scout's difficulty walking; lots of new things to obsess over and bring up with doc/E.R. visit in 48 hours.

Baby cousin K and her partner J arrive tomorrow; I get to spoil them. 

"sometimes I feel like somebody's watching me"

It's just a tree by the cafeteria

playing tricks on me

chatter

the length of our conversation tells in years 
origins of jokes, quarrels, and empathy

reflecting back, blinking back

the image of us making our way into a future

it's a test--and if you ask me, of course 

I'll tell--I'll tell you everything

-------------------------------------------

A day remarkable for the amount of work and the number of things I got off the pending to-do lists. 

It was also the day of our Ganesha Search. I had to work on Ganesh Chaturthi, which was last week, so today the kids and I did the annual tour of all the Ganeshas in the house (several in each room) to clean and decorate with kumkum and kalanchoe. The kalanchoe isn't traditional, but fit some of the tiny Ganeshas perfectly. 

Also a day when we had some tough conversations with two different roofers--none of our work-arounds will actually... work and it's going to cost many times what we'd anticipated or saved for. UGH.  

And then a spectacular late-afternoon breakdown when Big A used the "D word" and the "C word" to describe and discuss Scout's sudden hobbling slowness and lethargy. The kids asked tentatively over dinner what it had been about and were naturally very dispirited... so Big A began clowning. 

Pic: Radiology Gardens from this weekend. I love their reflection pool.

classroom

amidst the dusty chalk of discussion

our figures gesture like talk 

ache with attachment

there is teaching in the (back)ground
find it in the sprawling grassroots 

reaching up from dispute

instant classic

I smile every time I look at this picture of mom and her siblings weak with laughter (I bet it was something my uncle said) at my aunt's 60th birthday weekend.

And I love that this picture was taken by my baby sis who dutifully took tons of pics because I couldn't be there.

blooper shot

I was going to post pictures of our party for JG's and MB's retirement, but I didn't ask everyone's permission. So instead, here's a screen grab of me gazing up adoringly at KB that I found hilarious. I've always said my decision to come here was in part because of KB--she wasn't on my search committee, but she had been tasked to have lunch with the candidate (me). I feel like I'm in an old timey teen movie when I'm with KB--like an extra in a John Hughes film on the verge of a manageable adventure. 

Anyway the party went great! I got all the things done thanks to Nu who was an amazing sous chef and decorator and Big A who DJ-ed and moved furniture and took photos and At who helped with the fancy candle and got singed but still went on to do bug control.  

JG and MB loved everything and I'm so glad I got to do this for them. And thanks to them, I kind of feel ready to have more intimate gatherings again. 

I hope.

the walking cure

(for K.B.)

We haven't seen each other in weeks

we're to go on a walk

I expected a ladylike turn on campus

but here you are 

in sneakers, leading an active puppy 

so we end up 

wending our way to Luce Road where

we remember

how our current high schoolers were tiny

preschoolers

whose peanut allergies then seemed 

to riddle absence--

are now surviving, becoming new people

with "hot dates"

imagining themselves un-endangered 

have new names 

in today's succulence, there is rain

but also umbrellas

there are mosquito bites that bead 

my arms like biceps 

words hang between us like roots

seeking new growth

you guide each signal that tumbles out 

kindly, grace-fully

we're filling out equations of sympathy 

on each side  

even in all that happens to interrupt us

because somehow

it seems, you believe in my goodness

as I trust in yours--

oh, how are we such miracles, friend--

finding us in this world

Pic: KB, W, and bike-path friends in Alma.

surprises

On an early morning walk with L, we found these lotuses blooming out of the sludge and rain water. No one seemed to have refilled the lotus pond at the horticultural gardens, but here they were anyway.

At the end of the day, I found myself in the unprecedented and awkward position of having been suggested/nominated for three different service positions.