At least being stuck indoors meant I got things off the to-do list like a monster since I had all that new week energy anyway.
Excited for student projects to take off this week.
Not excited about meeting HR to troubleshoot health insurance for Nu.
At least being stuck indoors meant I got things off the to-do list like a monster since I had all that new week energy anyway.
Excited for student projects to take off this week.
Not excited about meeting HR to troubleshoot health insurance for Nu.
Still busy celebrating Big A's birthday weekend here. Also: UU, OWL, gardening, A hang with JL to celebrate her new place. But also a weekend where I seem to have blown off three parties (a secular muddle of early halloween and karva chauth) due to a combination of work/malaise.
When I complained about the foggy day to EM as I was trying to beg off going on a walk with her, she said we should pretend we were "visiting Scotland or some other place where the dreary weather has been romanticized." My friends are loving, forgiving and so, so smart.
But there was barely time to sit down between committee and student meetings all day. So at 4:30 when the last meeting was finally done, and I'd even managed to reach two dear students who've been down and out of touch this term, and I had just two more emails to send off, I cleaned my office thoroughly. (Because I was wearing--what my science colleagues called--my 1970's-style ENG. prof. dress with the tie collar? Who knows!)
I watered all the plants, trimmed, weeded, took tons of papers to the shred-it box, dusted, swept, and looked longingly at the armchair I'd installed in my office when I moved in... back when I thought the life of an academic involved hours of reading and looking out of the window. Ha. Some day it will come.
Baker Woods with L this morning--we'd hoped for fall color and we got this bright green vista. It's the middle of October. Last year looked like this.
I sent it to family chat with the caption "fall colors" and they hearted it without appreciating my snark.
That's when I realized my people don't leave the house very often...
The day started well enough--an early morning hike with L along the river and I felt well rested and well prepped for the new class starting tomorrow...
Then the campus alert system went off as there was a gunman close to campus and streams of police cars seemingly everywhere. Although quickly managed with no loss of life, the tumult of that kept reverberating right through every meeting afterward--even the 7 pm one.
Huckie got quite a workout moving things around in the rumpus room today.
I too got months of errands done. They've been literal weeks of being too tired to cart things over to the P.O. with all sorts of procrastinating rationalizations--it'll be crowded because it's Monday/Friday/lunch hour etc. I ended up there on a Friday at lunch hour and there was one person ahead of me--the person being served.
Also me: freaking out because there was a poster advertising Ursula K. Le Guin stamps. They didn't have any, but I can get them online. And I will, watch me.
Sad because I finished Cloud Cuckoo Land (at 2 am last night) and I was disappointed about Anna's life post-Constantinople. Blamed it on men writing women, TBH. Clearly, my own Women's Writing class is having an effect on me. Ha.
Also: finally admitted to myself that I'm not going to be able to finish that online course in digital and data interpretation I signed up for... Not this semester, anyway. Just like in my undergraduate days, which is when I should have figured this out, I spend too much free time reading fiction and poetry, apparently.
The "sternly-worded" resolution--about the culling of books and carrels in the library--I was signatory to, passed with a resounding majority at the faculty meeting. Brief moment of vindication, but not sure if there will be any change to what feels like a predetermined outcome.
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.)
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.
So I'm experiencing stress... and rightly so.
And I got a submission declined rejected today too.
But Scout and Huck are always adorable.
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.)
It has been a year. Some days it feels like yesterday, some days it feels like a distant dream of love. There have been tears every day...