going on goings on

don't separate me from what I remember

for I sin against completion 

I say I want want so much from this life 

and yet I keep giving it away  

my mom said she found a college friend 

from forty years ago on Facebook

she's a bit proud and shy telling me how

because it's detective shit/stalking

my sister gamely practices a funny line 

from a cartoon only I have seen

we bounce it between us: "back to you"

laughter shimmers in our mouths 

in the richness of boredom I'm dissolving

into blessings, learning lessons

of normalcy, finding myself in some stories 

I've braided out of ordinariness

"here for you"

Parenting was on my mind today. 

* When my students don't have parents/good relationships with parents/are going through a particularly hard time, it takes everything not to jump in and be their parent. Big A mentioned that I have gotten so much better at maintaining a professional boundary. Yes... and I know how much of an effort I have to put into it. 

* Celebrated SH's impending parenthood and I'm so excited to hold her newborn and generally be a new mom helper soon.

* I accepted a new CASA case--a child who has been subjected to parental incest-abuse for years. They are surrounded with support and services right now, and I hope I can be another useful tool in their journey.  

*My time with the one human kid and two puppy kids living at home is the highlight of every day. But I don't get very much time with them on weekdays (especially on teaching days) and need to find ways to make them meaningful. Usually it's: a cuddle and then breakfast--we start at 5:45 am! At the end of the day it's: dinner together > a show/game > me conking out with the puppies. It's pleasant and cozy but fairly humdrum.

Pic: My NuNu sneaking a treat from the tray I made for SH's visit. 

change of plan?

Haven't vetted the veracity of this, but apparently there's a dog school "in Canada" so dogs don't have to stay home alone, and this appears to be their school bus.

BRB. Going to check if Scoutie and Huckie feel like running away with me.

And... Diwali!

With my beautiful, brilliant babies. (Huck is in that first picture too... somewhere!)

We had dinner after pooja, lingering at the table forever, and then we took a starlight walk to help Nu put the chickies to bed. 

I made a payasam (with oats, raisins, coconut, and almonds) that was delicious... but also the laziest sweet one can make (it took ten minutes from start to finish). It has, after all, been a long week. 😇

(Did Diwali go mainstream this year somehow? We received a record number of Diwali greetings from non-Indian friends this year...)

Diwali*

* I said a couple of hurried slokas, but we're celebrating on Friday 

as today we have parent-teacher conferences for Nu all evening...

and tomorrow I'll be home late as honorary inductions will run late into the evening...  

but At will stop by on Friday and we'll celebrate together then!!

poor babies

My poor baby Scoutie.

(And poor At too--the DSA candidate he'd campaigned for lost by just 190 votes.)

in unknowing

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

some beginnings rush to broadcast

they rise up

in the way fear always sees love

and uses it up

although none of us is too empty for life

I hear

this tree saying: I'm only just a seed 

 hold me

a breath sighing: I want to be born 

end me

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

Pic: Nu as we set off down the driveway. All my outside time with Nu these days is in the dark--whether they are walks to the school bus or (here) getting ready to put the chickens to bed.

underneath it all

I know the gossip well enough

so as I fall asleep 

I know

every body could be these bodies

so... easy and insignificant

in their yearning

always welcome under blankets 

with whatever remains 

of love 

their kindness like the glance of 

streetlights in my childhood 

bedroom

where some other child might lie awake

amazed at how they cannot 

fall asleep

rally

I started the day feeling less than 100%, but by the time I got to put on this electric blue wig in the evening, I was amped. 

Here I am waiting for Big A to give me a ride to the g/f's halloween party tonight. 

(I'm supposed to be a butterfly... a social butterfly. Ha.)

patch of happy

This patch of brilliant blue sky made me so happy. I was walking out of my building after four classes (five if you count the colleague's class I observed for their tenure letter).  

I had thrown my head back feeling the lift of a good work day (that was thankfully done) and had to marvel at how much the sky matched Bluey who was waiting to take me home where I knew Big A was making pizza and At was coming over for a family dinner.

As it turns out it was even better because L came over bearing a pie she'd baked for Nu who has been a very, very good "chicken daddy" indeed.

what we got

Big A went to Boston to accept an award and all I got was this cute and fuzzy picture!

It was a sudden trip so there was some scrounging around for childcare coverage, but things worked out fine. I found myself getting a bit antsy as one meeting after my fourth class of the day ran past 5:00 pm, but... I got home by dinner time, got everyone their dinner, and got all the kid and puppy cuddles I could handle. 

contrast

This is MD's collage of different seasons built around the same treescape at Fenner from last year. This year has been all rain. It rained all day today, for instance. I wonder what this year's collage will look like. 

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.

a variety of strikes

<<<When At was over for birthday celebrations on Friday, he left me a little present on the altar. He's been helping with the Kellogg workers' strike and he and his green jacket made it to the Midwestern Modern Twitter account. Fame!

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.

Happy Birthday, Big A!

 

My Big A's birthday... It's not like I believe in astrology, but he's all the Scorpio my Pisces soul yearns for. 

He elected to have dinner out at Mitchell's. So here we all are eating out in our own city for the first time since...

(I thought it was the first time we ate out, but the kids reminded me that we'd eaten out a couple of times on our summer trips. Not sure how or why I forgot that!)

We started the day with donuts and ended it with brownies--sweet!

happy animals

A long-awaited consult with the kind and compassionate people at the Gender Clinic at the U of M's children's hospital. (It's officially Mott Children's Hospital, but dude was pretty racist even for his time.) 

Nu's happy with the plan of action and we're happy Nu's happy.

<<<<Nu and I loved our Covid-Screening stickers too...

a-maze

I'm sorry I couldn't take any pictures of the amazing sunrise over the Maple River as I drove to work. I couldn't get a picture of the amazing combination of sunset-moonrise-full-moon as I made my way back home either, and for the same reason--I was going at 80 mph... I have to make do with a lingering look and what the kids and I used to call "a deep breath of beauty."

The picture I do have is this post-four-classes, end-of-the-day domestic-violence-awareness <<< labyrinth, which became a meaningful moment to pause and reconnect with some wonderful people (KC, SG) who do the hard work in our community. 

Oh, and I got to ask Loretta Ross about Dave Chappelle later. I know her as a reproductive justice activist, so her work on calling-in culture is new-ish to me.

Tuesdays have become Subway days at home, so I ate my sub while watching a show with Big A and the puppies and then took a snooze with them before Nu's bedtime too. Off to "proper" bed now.

pillow fort

 

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.

14!

Pumpkin cake: recipe by Nu, baking by Big A.

A pre-birthday celebration as tomorrow is a Monday.

 

adventures in bringing up a teen

 

I got permission to use this picture. But... I mean, it's pretty anonymous anyway, no?

Birthday weekend trip to Hot Topic (a.k.a. acc. to Nu as "my natural habitat") and the Halloween store.

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.