PJ's pic was both a reality check and a metaphor for today--I just had to disengage from some tasks to focus on other more pressing ones. This has been a week of missed appointments and misunderstandings but luckily the work week is at an end and I get to rest, reset, and restore my settings.
I worked with my serious independent studies students and took meetings and sat on committee meetings... and yet somehow managed to miss the English department meeting (new time)! It was embarrassing, but my colleagues were very kind about it.
At the end of the day, I printed out the flyer for the book from the publisher's website and plugged my forthcoming publication to the marketing team. My voice has been hoarse for a week, and a former student at the event thought it was hilarious and kept pretending it was because I'd been partying too hard. If only.
Back home, Nu was partying hard--they were out to the football game, senior paint party, and dinner with friends, so Big A and I fed Max and Huckie and made ourselves dinner. I made a very pretty matchstick salad of peppers, carrots, cucumbers, basil, and mint as a bed for the dumplings Big A was frying up. We missed Nu, but I guess this is us on the reg from next year.
One of the girlfriends sent me a picture of the game, and Nu was in it! I shared it on family chat and claimed I had spies everywhere, but Nu was unfazed and rolled their eyes. When Nu got home at midnight, they shared a compliment they'd been hugging to themselves all day. Their English teacher had told them that they saved Nu's work to read last because it always gave them something to think about. Aw!
Pic: I took some new colleagues an "office-warming" gift. The "ribbons" are in our college's signature plaid and are actually shoelaces.
The small habits that save my Thursdays are an early morning walk with KPB around campus before classes start, a chat with my mom on my way home from work, and Subway for dinner that Big A picks up after his shift at the clinic. Also, my last class of the week is surprisingly high-energy and just so joyfully silly and good-natured. They're prone to doing things like bringing up Eminem's "The Real Slim Shady" to argue "logos" or spontaneously quizzing each other on where I went to school. I truly feel like I lucked out with this class and hope we keep this energy all semester long.
Pic: When I was 15 I started a poem with, "Every day for breakfast, I had a spoonful of sky..." It remains one of my favorite lines although it was secretly coded to refer to my E.D. This is that sky. Taken on my walk with KPB this morning.
Yes!: The huge thunderstorm that arrived in the morning on my way to work even as the people on the radio called a heat advisory to warn that the day would feel like 105 degrees. My outside plants and new trees needed the rain so badly and it saved me having to do one more thing on an already busy day. Umm: Nu got thoroughly soaked on the way to the school bus and had to go home to change and then be dropped off at school. (By Big A after he got home from his overnight shift)
Yes!: Hearing At on NPR's Morning Edition! The NLRB has determined that Chipotle's decision to withhold raises to its unionized workers is illegal. As one of the labor organizers, At got to say a few words on how despite everything, the workers remain very pro-union. Umm: Not sure if the decision has any bearing on contract negotiations (ongoing for two years now) and if there will be backpay (which would be awesome!).
Yes! A colleague encouraged me to go home early after looking at the weather forecast, and I made it home ok in the huge thunderstorm that accompanied me on my way home despite downed trees everywhere and 60-mile gusts of wind. Umm: A second thunderstorm on the same day? There were massive traffic backups due to flooding and traffic lights being out so my plans with the girlfriends got canceled and I had to eat leftovers with Big A and Nu like a pleb.
Pic: A mullein thicket out front earlier this week. An umm but also a yes? They came up as weeds, but I hear they have health benefits.
TW, CW: Child Sexual abuse, Disordered eating.
Phil Donahue died yesterday. I'm glad he lived. I watched reruns of his show when it aired in India and I think it was my first experience of watching people very different from me tell their stories and noting how it shifted my mindset. I learned only *today* while listening to his obituary on NPR that his spouse was Marlo Thomas! My mom played us Free to be You and Me (that's all I know her from), which we loved back in the day, and I'm glad he had such a worthy companion.
J #1 is in Big A's hometown of Yellow Springs, Ohio. In fact, J babysat Big A when he was a kid! Our kids were in nursery school together, and Nu loved her son E. In fact, that's what Nu announces on camera in the 2012 annual Antioch School video: "I love him!". J is sweet and serene and generous. So when she shared on FB yesterday that it was a Phil Donahue episode on incest that helped her understand the abuse she had experienced since the age of 6 (she was around 12 when the show aired), I really wanted to find and hurt her abuser. Instead, I posted a supportive message, and she said, "Knowing people like you helps healing." That also broke my heart.
J #2 is local, fun, and feminist. And... it makes me really sad that she obsesses over her weight. I think she is beautiful, but she won't believe me. So one minute we're talking politics, and the next she'll bemoan not being thin. Literally. No warning or segue. Yesterday, she was talking about Hillary Clinton at the DNC and the next thing she texted was: "She looks thin and beautiful. My Dr won't give me ozempic. Two neighbors are on it and in two months they lost 30 lbs!" And then she listed what she ate and her weight. She barely eats, and I feel sad about her poor body doing its best and J punishing it by withholding food. Not to mention how all the frequent diet, exercise, and weightloss talk makes me think about body issues more than I ever want to. I want to be a good friend, but this is breaking my heart (and also my spirit).
Pic: What pic? I realized I've been so busy with the back-to-campus Fall Conference that I haven't taken any pics at all. Yikes.
Story 1: I'm embarrassed to admit this, but when the term "watermelon people" was used online last week, I bristled because I thought it was an anti-black slur. Apparently, it's anti-Palestinian. I'm bristling.
Story 2: Today I saw our new theater director standing by themselves in the cafeteria and as I started to introduce myself, she told me she remembered being introduced to me in the parking lot when she had her campus visit. We ended up having lunch together and while we were saying goodbye I marveled that she remembered me from that one interaction all those months ago (March? April?). And she laughingly said, "Oh, I remember you, Chocolate chip!" LOL. She's a person of color too, and we are a PWI.
Pic: The beautiful watermelon earrings Rev. KPB gave me this morning!
1. The girlfriends and I were supposed to see It Ends With Us this weekend. I'd even persevered through the book with its weird use of language. (Although I've since learned that the author didn't get to go to college and has written several novels anyway--so you go, Colleen Hoover!) But all the mean girl drama around the movie's release soured it for me. So I bailed and then everyone else bailed as well. NGL, I really wasn't looking forward to seeing DV enacted on the big screen.
2. Wouldn't you know it, as women began to call for justice, instead of demanding justice alongside them, Indian men got all defensive and started to protest that it was "not all men." The awesome comeback has been "perhaps not all men, but it is ALWAYS men." Word.
3. We got a new mattress and when we were cutting it out of its plastic packaging this morning, I accidentally nicked it with the box cutter. I apologized so much... and Big A was so... magnanimous telling me not to worry about it. Later as we set it up, I realized his side had three or four nicks. Dude!? Why didn't you say something?
4. There was a Not Another Bomb gathering this afternoon downtown calling for an arms embargo. I think there would have been more people there if not for the rain. There is an online petition circulating as well.
5. I thought I'd use the summer to fix my broken sleep habits, but I've been going to bed later and later and usually at 4 am. It'll be a relief to revert to going to bed at 2 am now that I'm back to work tomorrow. And as LV just texted to say, "Nerdy admission of the day: I’m kinda excited to see everyone tomorrow." Same!!
6. Pic: LB wanted to try my Evening in India menu, so I scooped a couple of tablespoons of each dish into the tiny jars I bought long ago for food prep but never got around to using. And then all 12 jars nestled perfectly in the crate my tomatoes came home in. I just feel so happy about how this turned out.
I gave myself the day off from editing to hang out with At. We're down to one car (because of our fender bender a couple of weeks ago) and Big A needed it to go give a talk in Ann Arbor, so I took a Lyft to At's place, and then At and I rode the bus everywhere.
I got my pre-semester haircut, and then we went thrifting and hung out drinking tea and talking about what we'd read. I've put Andrea Long Chu's Females on my to-read list. I think it's a book meant to be disagreed with (meant to be disagreeable?) but it's very short. I had to chuckle at At's current playlist, which had the theme from The Battle of Algiers in honor of Imane Kheleif's Olympic victory and lawsuit. As Imani Gandy said, I hope she gets that "wizard money."
Big A picked me up from At's and we got home just as Nu got home from "kickstart" where they'd gotten their picture ID and senior year schedule. Max and Huckie were relieved to see everyone again and it reminded me that those poor babies have NO IDEA that school starts up next week...
Pic: At and me at the bus stop! We got there way too early for the bus because I was anxious we'd miss it. (Can I say... I'm glad At is so skilled at navigating Lansing's public transit system and that Lansing has such good public transit for such a small city, but also that it makes me sad to think of At waiting for the bus especially when the weather is bad. We've offered to buy another car after they totaled the car we gave them (as has my mom), but At's refused, and it's probably safer all around. But still...)
We've been holding off as Nu is headed for their last year of high school, and it would be too disruptive to move to a different school district at this point.
It's worth noting that when we moved to this house, there were six humans (both kids were home and my parents lived with us for six months of the year). This house would be way too big for just A and me. On the other hand, we love this house and its happy memories so much and would be happy to stay here until the kids move us to a retirement home. We'll have to see how things shake out.
Speaking of retirement homes, Nu told us with a straight face at dinner that when the time came, they'd be putting us in different homes because "you two together are too much." Both Big A and I pleaded and offered all kinds of silly bribes, but no--it will have to be different homes. I mean... I know it was meant to be funny, but it made me really sad to imagine living out my final days without A. And I was already in a bad place because of a sad book (Catherine Newman's We All Want Impossible Things).
Pic: Our walk through South Campus was disrupted due to construction. The construction crew has kindly put down a reddish tarp to indicate the detour, and it looks for all the world like an unexpected red-carpet experience.
I think we've finally finished edging the pond... but there have been some work-related woes, so we may be putting the house up for sale if things don't turn around. I'm determined to enjoy it while we're here!
I loved Sandwich so much, that I downloaded We All Want Impossible Things right away... and it's just so sad, I don't know that I can go on.
A long walk with Big A with the weather app predicting no rain as we set off... and then after we got to the halfway point, it began to rain. Oh, well, I'm not actually made of sugar.
Pic: A family of geese out on an outing.
Somehow, it has been 18 years since we were married! Our marriage is officially an adult now. On some days it feels like it has been 40 years and perhaps just 5-6 years at other times?
IDK. Math is tough for me.
(I usually don't specify how long we've been married because we have a 25-year-old, and I don't want to get into the inevitable mathy-judgy questions about that. But essentially, IDC.)
The morning was deadline-fueled editing, the afternoon was interviews with candidates for a faculty position. But I took a couple of hours off for a drive and dinner with Big A, reminiscing about our top favorite things about the last 18 years.
Pic: Wedding afternoon. My tiara is off, A's coat buttons are undone. We're in my MIL's house in Ohio. I have a photo like this on the nightstand, and it always makes me laugh because the kids once said it looks like I went and married a teenager.
The girlfriends and I took off to Saugatuck for the day. I was so excited about this trip to the beach that I didn't get a wink of sleep last night!
I guess I hadn't been to the beach "by myself" since grade school--it has always been with family and kids. And I'll do that again this summer, because I love that... But there was something very freeing about heading out by myself. I didn't have to check on anyone or their water bottles, sunscreen, Epi-Pens, or pack extras of anything, prep meals and allergen-free snacks. I had my sunglasses and hat... and I was gone.
It was lovely. We talked all the way to the beach, had brunch, did a couple of garden tours, blissed out in the sand for hours, wandered the little boutiques for hours (we picked up a little present for BOL who couldn't go at the last moment), and had dinner before we headed home.
This next week is the one with deadlines and work meetings, and today was the perfect way to prepare for it.
Pic: Lake Michigan is beautiful and fierce.
Alice Munro died... last week. I only just found out. Although it seems like she hadn't written since the Nobel Prize, I liked knowing she was in this world. I will reread some stories in her honor tonight.
Bluey (my car) has been at the dealership since JANUARY. I'm so used to just plugging in to charge since 2019, and I am so over going to the gas station every few days now to pump gas in this loaner they gave me. Plus, I miss Bluey!
Our air conditioning isn't working. We were told it wouldn't last the season when we moved in eight years ago, so I should be thankful we got those extra years... and I am. (But still salty we probably have to spend $$$ now.)
U of M used chemical substances on their students and took down their encampment (Tahrir) after 30 days. It happened at 5:30 am and the organizers sent a text requesting people to show up... but I was asleep. Many of the Jewish Voices for Peace students are now in hospital with chemical burns. How can a university attack the students in their care!??
Pic: The solarium smells so good because one jasmine blossomed. Just one. I had to peer closely and follow my nose to find the one true bloom (bottom right). I can't imagine how heady it would be to have the whole bush in flower! (I mean I know how heady it would be from my India days, but I'd be delirious with happiness if I could replicate that here.)
Big A calls this a "fake vacation," but I'll take it!
Many people on our flight were also headed to the conference and Big A quipped that it would be a good flight to have a medical emergency on because of all the E.R. docs on it. I disagree: I think it would be good not to have any medical emergencies on a flight. Ha.
Pic: The "ussie" we sent from the plane to reassure the kids we really were getting out of their hair.
It's At's birthday and she turns 25! TWENTY FIVE! I can't believe my baby is that old (nearly 30, my mom said rounding up in her characteristically comic way last month, and we've all been quoting it to At all the time since). And what's more, I can't believe I've been a parent for that long. Goodness! Where does time go?
At is out with friends today (I had a brief and raucous phone call), so we'll celebrate at home on Saturday.
In the meantime, I celebrated JG's return from her 12-week trip to Costa Rica and Panama (she brought me gifts!), LB's birthday (I brought her gifts!), the Child Advocacy Art exhibition opening (where I met so many lovely people who care about advocating for children), and (after a quick dinner with Nu, Huck, Max, and Big A) ended the day at a wonderful guest performance by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra with EM at the Wharton. The Mozart was comfortingly sublime and the Piazolla version of Vivaldi--which I'd not heard before--was energetically otherworldly.
Walking home through dark and empty streets after the concert with the music still in my head and the smell of lilacs in the air, I felt quite drunk with contentment.
Pic: Child Advocacy Art Exhibition with JG, MZ, RM, TV, NP, and more.
Actually... nothing in the day itself topped that glimpse of sunbeams breaking through the clouds and glancing off the water. That moment of beauty (what the kids and I used to call taking a "deep breath of beauty" when we made that trip daily) was in itself what made the day special.
And in fact, there were two pieces of disturbing news today.
First: colleague Sami Schalk who describes themselves as "a Black, queer, disabled professor" was thrown to the ground, choked, and had their dress nearly ripped off by the police as they were supporting their students at U-W Madison. Horrifying but inspiring. I much prefer Sami's earlier moment of renown, also inspiring, which was twerking on stage with Lizzo! (Article about her pleasure and disability studies activism here.)
And then there was news that Paul Auster had died. I came close to meeting him a couple of times when we lived in NJ, but didn't. I did meet tons of English grad students in the early part of this century who wanted to live in Brooklyn because he did though. He was a veteran of the 1968 protests at Columbia University, so there is some resonance with the events of this week. I love when he said, "The novel is the only place where two strangers can meet on terms of absolute intimacy." That the two strangers he had in mind were the writer and the reader, is just so perfect.
Pic: Early morning skies over the Maple River. I'm not a fan of the term "crepuscular rays," but they are so beautiful! I'd find ways to stand in their beams when I was a kid and feel like I'd been touched by the sky's blessings.
The more things change... the more they are changed , I guess? Pictures of me passed ou t with puppies on top aren't new... but this...
