Friday vibe

This week seems to have gone by in a rush, but today went quietly. Today is Ganesha Chaturthi, but everyone had work/school so we'll celebrate properly on Sunday.

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.

Thursday things

It has been an absolutely brutal day in the news. Between the French spousal rape case, the French soft right-wing appointment/coup, the latest hindu-fundamentalist accidental same-side lynching, the Ugandan Olympian dying after being set on fire by her boyfriend, the Internet Archive losing its case and the constant drip, drip, drip, of the rising Palestinian death toll... Knowing as we rightly denounce the latest U.S. school shooting that U.S. weapons have destroyed every school in Gaza.

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.

the things they gave me

As we walk, Big A says he would give anything to be wrong... unlearn everything... wishes he could promise me that there was heaven and I would of course be with Scout again someday. Then we got home after grabbing my Boss Day to-go order from the sushi place and then I had all my babies--Max and Huck and Nu and At around me. It wasn't quite heaven, but contentment enough. 

Later in the evening, as I gathered the mint growing in wild abandon, I remembered Medo Halimy telling the world that he plants as a form of resistance. "They take away life... I bring life to earth," he said as he planted around his tent in Gaza and celebrated each sprig and sprout. This beautiful, lovable person dead at just 19, is yet another young person who has taught me so much. Whether or not I dedicate anything to him formally, his spirit and optimism will echo in my head whenever I tend to my plants. 

Pic: Late evening light at the garden gate. 

C.U.N.T.s

One of my (many) family names is the Telugu title "Dorakanti," and when Big A and I got married, we took the "Dora" part and linked it to part of his Lithuanian Jewish name to make our hyphenated family name. 

Flashforward to a few years later when after years of audience participation in The Vagina Monologues and joyfully yelling "Cunt! Cunt! Cunt!" in reclamation, I wished we'd taken the second half of my family's name. It would have been so cool to have been Prof. Kanti (pronounced "Cunty")--I would have borne that name with extra pride. (Not sure about the rest of the fam though--they're prone to bristle if someone so much as calls them "Dora the Explorer.")

But I got my chance while hanging out with the girlfriends after work this evening. We were making plans to hang out again next Tuesday, and I suggested that if we were going to keep doing this on Tuesdays, perhaps we should just make it official and call ourselves the C.U.N.T.s. (You know--as in the euphemistic acronym for cunt--C U Next Tuesday?) I think our group chat just got renamed "CUNTs." Baby steps.

Pic: On my way to work this morning, a sliver of sunrise over the Maple River. (A bit splotchy through the car window and a bit oblong  from cropping the car out of the frame.)

picking myself up

This morning, I was supposed to go across the street to L's to participate in a local TV interview about the Peace Pole quest she puts on every September. But I woke up feeling poorly, feeling sad Big A wasn't around to care for me.

In the hour before I snapped this picture, I was crying into my bathwater because I felt so feeble. My throat had started to feel tight and painful last night. I'd thought it was just me getting used to using my "lecture voice" again. But Big A had wondered while we were saying goodnight on the phone if I "had the back-to-school 'rona." 

I tested negative for Covid, but I felt awful anyway. But after a good cry, I felt okay enough to get dressed and show up for L. The rest of the day was blankets and books and bed. And buttered toast and scalding hot lemon water. I will survive.

Pic: The reporter setting up cameras. It was a crew of... one

birthdays, bookstores...

I got to bed before midnight most days this week--progress! 

I did stay up well past midnight by accident last night, but it was just as well because I got to wish my dad in India a Happy Birthday bright and early. (It's also Chairman Fred Hampton's birthday and Mary Shelley's birthday, so he's in a very special club.) He didn't put his hearing aids in, so we didn't talk for very long though.

At the end of the first week of classes, things are going well (I think). I already know everyone's names--that's kinda my superpower so far. And the older I get, the more adorable I find my students... it was so cute when one of them made up a song to remember how to spell my name. 

It's also EM's birthday and the birthday of the independent bookstore in town so I stopped to pick up some book gifts and was gifted in turn with a lovely heart-to-heart with D.D. who still ministers to my soul although she no longer works as a pastor. 

Pic: My sister (with whom my parents live) sent me this pic of dad at breakfast and it made me miss my dad extra: our old hours-long conversations, his smiley face the way it was.

yeses and umms

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. 

celebrations (and an observance)

National and international doggie day today!! Every day is a day to celebrate our doggie family and friends. But here's extra love for Max, Huckie, Scoutie, Izzy, Chester, Popo, Henry, Zoe, JoJo and also to the doggies we know in Internet land--Rex, Hannah, Zydrunas, Mochi, and Mr. Darcy--today.

It's Janmashtami!! The birthday of Krishna, the little blue boy, as my kids like to call him. Nu has always been a fan just because he's so pretty and always getting into trouble, and I think he's recently been reclaimed by second-gen Hindu kids as an LGBTQ icon. We had a small Indian feast and pooja to celebrate this evening. Back home, my favorite tradition was how people would borrow toddlers and dip their feet in wet rice flour so when they ran around your house, the floors would be decorated with "Baby Krishna's footprints." For a country with the highest growing population, Indians really delight in kids.

It's here! The first week of classes! And I'm so ready... I'll be in three classrooms tomorrow, and... my Canvas sites are live, my syllabi are uploaded, classes have been welcomed via email, diagnostics are loaded, and class plans are posted. I'm excited and keyed up! I hope I get to sleep early...

And finally, it is the six-month anniversary of Aaron Bushnell's brave, brave sacrifice. There's not a day I don't think of that young man and the sweetness of his dear face in the photos. I've never watched the video, but I probably know every word of his note by heart. Despite the horrific manner of his death, I always think of what he did as something intrinsically life-affirming. 

Pic: Max and Huck say hello to my mom on the phone!

American Empire

[If you're riding a high from the DNC, please skip this post. 

I'm a bit demoralized from the bread-and-circuses model. I want to hear more about childcare, labor, healthcare, paid family leave, housing, etc. and less about "lethal fighting forces." I can't stop thinking how according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, it would cost $20 billion to end homelessness in the United States and we sent that much just this week to an ally who will use it to bomb civilians in Gaza.]

Morning   I thought UAW (United Auto Workers) leadership stated it succinctly, "If we want peace, if we want real democracy, and if we want to win this election, the Democratic Party must allow a Palestinian American speaker to be heard from the DNC stage tonight."

I spent hours calling representatives and helping friends call their representatives to get at least two minutes for Rep. Ruwa Romman of Georgia to speak from the main stage on behalf of Palestinian Americans. In her vetted speech, she would have endorsed Harris-Walz and encouraged uncommitted voters to unite behind them. But none of that happened. This was an immense opportunity for goodwill squandered by the Harris-Walz camp.

Afternoon A colleague I hadn't seen all summer asked me if I was excited Kamala Harris is a presidential nominee. I must have looked blank because he clarified, "She's an Indian woman!" This no doubt comes from a well-meaning place, but I probably have more in common with her Marxist professor father than with someone who was a D.A. 

And also, I wondered if it would be rude if I in turn asked him if he was excited because Trump is a presidential nominee as they're both white men.

Evening   Snippets from the Democratic National Convention.

"I will ensure America always has the most lethal fighting force..." (Kamala Harris) 

"U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!" (crowd)

"So they put a rifle in my hand/sent me off to a foreign land/to go and kill the yellow man" (Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A." plays overhead) [Why do people think this is a patriotic song to play at conventions?!]

(Last) First day!

And Nu is off to school as a senior. 

I was permitted maybe 20 seconds to take a picture this morning--but only because I begged (please Nu, it's the last first day of school!)! So I don't have any pics in which Max and Huck aren't blurry. But look at our Nu! All tall and shiny and ready!

After I posted on FB, I watched the memories roll in: the friend who threw my bridal shower and was Nu's first visitor, Nu's daycare provider, my aunts, grade school friends, old neighbors... the sweet, earnest suggestions from the young friends who used to be my students...

People are such a blessing in my life. 

Nu had a good first day: they attended the half-day of school, went out to lunch with friends, came home to veggie upma, and opened their back-to-school presents. (At and I found some tees we thought they'd like when we went thrifting last week, so with some new notebooks, a calendar, a copy of Ross Gay's Book of Delights, a handful of study snacks, and their six-month supply of contacts that just came in, there was plenty for them to unbox.)

Pic: Screengrab from my FB post about Nu's first day as an H.S. senior. That's a lot of "likes" and comments, but please note at least four of those comments are just from my mom! lol

Phil Donahue dies and two Js break my heart

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.

watermelon and chocolate chip

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!

six on Sunday

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.

"cruel optimism"

My problem with the meds reminded me of Lauren Berlant's cruel optimism--in that, the thing that I was doing to make myself feel better was actually making me feel worse.

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...)

Ah, freak out!*

You know how I began to panic when August came around? I was on to something. It hasn't been the best. And friends have been having bad luck too. J's puppy needed a leg amputated and it got really expensive; I finally convinced her to start a GoFundMe. L told me she got laid off unexpectedly; I don't even think we've processed it yet. 

At my work, things are definitely in a state of agitation--perhaps more than in previous years? Some of it is the weird FAFSA rollout this year which has enrollments down at the college, which has everyone and everything down. As a result, my email is a deluge, which is good since there are all sorts of fires to put out every day.

Also, I have a new medication that makes me sad and leaves me nauseated as an extra perk. 

In the meantime, Nu's senior year "kickstart" is tomorrow (they plan to attend with friends). I guess we're really doing this! Senior Year. 

_________

Pic: I don't know what the purple flowers by the water are (weeds, probably?) but they're spunky and pretty. From my walk yesterday. 

*Song: This one, obviously.

you probably shouldn't read this

you probably shouldn't read this     I've said it all before        I get through another day          it piles up and becomes a life         what can be said       you've seen it all yourself       another school was bombed today in Gaza         Al Tabin School        I watched it in words         but there are pictures if you want it          can you bear to see another photo of dead siblings huddled together under the rubble       who picks up the bodies and the pieces of bodies      the guts       the hearts     the ashes    white phosphorus buries itself into the body and burns all the way down to the bone like a firework        it is sick         I am sick          there's a great sickness in this            there's a sickness in doing this       and a sickness in a world that allows this to happen         we know this is happening       how have we not shut this shit down          I fall on the same rock         I beat against the same rock             massacre       genocide       holocaust        the words are not enough          and also the words are so old and immense             they sound a bit like I might be misusing them                    like I might be exaggerating a bit               I'm not                     I feel self-conscious for saying the same thing over and over           186,000 dead after living through this over and over and over     I feel I might go mad       I go mad      I feel myself going mad      I keep saying words that have no power           they have no power   they move no one             they have no power   nothing happens after I say them           they have no power   they cannot answer the blinded child asking "why do they do this to us"        I am an adult in this world this child lives in        I bear responsibility      I am American and my taxes pay for those bombs       I bear responsibility         they will never forgive us for reminding them they are human

___________________________

The wonderful June Jordan said all of this and so this beautifully back in 1982 in an unpublished letter: "I claim responsibility for the Israeli crimes against humanity because I am an American and American monies made these atrocities possible. I claim responsibility for Sabra and Shatilah [sic] because, clearly, I have not done enough to halt heinous episodes of holocaust and genocide around the globe. I accept this responsibility and I work for the day when I may help to save any one other life, in fact." The whole article in the LA Review of Books about Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, June Jordan, and Palestine is awesome.  

up and down and all around

The writing group didn't meet today... but good news about two conference acceptances. I'll chair the panel on narrative medicine; and I'm really excited about the panel I organized, titled, "If You Build It, They Will Come: Critical Feminist Practices for Campuses, Communities, and Campus-Community Partnerships."

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.

summer slide

I guess I have my own version of summer learning loss a.k.a. summer slide. I'm not losing knowledge over summer, I keep forgetting things that worked for me last summer. I'm having to relearn. I have to remember that I have a folder of no-cook dinner ideas. I have to remember that turning the shower to "cool" for a few beats at the end will keep me from sweating when I get out. I was doing these things by rote by the end of summer last year, but haven't yet fallen back into those habits this year.

Yesterday, when I was horrified by a movie plot twist At and Nu shared with me, I was informed that I had reacted the same way when they'd told me before. "Sorry to retraumatize you, I thought you already knew" At said. Every time I remembered that bit of the conversation today, it made me laugh.

Also: I was so relieved to get back into reading today. I was stalled on a book for over a week in a terrible self-perpetuating cycle--I wasn't enjoying it, so I wasn't making time to finish it, and I couldn't start another book while that one was unfinished (plus I had that deadline, so I didn't have much free time). I finally finished it yesterday and got to read a whole book today. (Rachel Hawkins's The Villa. I particularly enjoyed the allusion/shoutout to Mary Godwin Shelley writing Frankenstein at the Villa Diodati.) It was a relief to know it wasn't me or the genre--that other book was just bad.

Pic: Big A, Huck, and Max. They're all leaping in the air because of their proximity to the treat jar :).

just press send already

I should just press send, but I'm finding so many excuses to hang on to my manuscript. 

One main reason being I can still find things to tweak and improve and cite and... and... and... every time I  open up a random page. How do professional writers do it?! (StephLove?)

It's 3:30 am, one more run-through, and then I really will send it. I swear. I didn't even go to the Juneteenth thing I was supposed to go to...

The series editor to whom this will go is in New Zealand, so I'll still technically be compliant with the deadline.

Pic: Max and I found scads of tadpoles in the pond this morning. I'm excited for our future frog chorus.

an adult marriage

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.