"Snow: Upholder of Patriarchy"

It's Women's March day today and students were supposed to head here for "linner" afterwards, but we had over seven inches of snow overnight and we canceled the linner event in a flurry of early morning texts. At, who was going to offer a ride to other students, was the one who quipped that snow was the biggest upholder of the patriarchy." That kid is golden.

Then suddenly the day was wide open, and I got a few procrastinated tasks off my list, and then T and T showed up for tea and a chat and EBS showed up with a a whole bunch of movie theater snacks for the next "Friday Film Fest" and a whole set of Tupperware because I'm "always sending people home with boxes of food." She had a present for Nu too, and that's the fourth of my friends this year who's given Nu a present alongside me. Love it!!

Big A works tonight, so Huck, Scout, Nu, and I are hunkered down in the rumpus room and plan to watch shows till we we're sleepy. It's not how I expected today to work but it was nice nevertheless.

"I like all cake, silly!"

It's been a tough week (we have no word on our Title IX thing and teaching every weekday is oddly draining although I'm still teaching just three classes). I'd been craving cake (openly--like over dinner and on family chat) and Big A, our resident baker, asked what kind I wanted--to which I responded "I like all cake, silly!"

Today I came home to this beauty--simultaneously hearty and delicate and filled with pistachios and raspberries.

There's an Outside

As reports of our weekend ice storm were greatly exaggerated, I ventured outside and took a long walk (in our backyard). And lo, it was lovely.

If L were here, she'd be making me trudge miles, but I spent at least some time outside despite her absence. (I cannot wait for L to return next week, fingers crossed.)

Anyway, I class prepped, made dinner, cleaned, started and finished Ann Patchett's The Dutch House (which reminded me so much of Jane Eyre--which I'm teaching this week!), drove five mins to get an hour-long massage, and now am fin.

The week that was

That was a L O N G week.

I can barely remember the beginning, which was a rush of syllabus-prep and back to work meetings and planning meetings. I took on some independent studies for WGS students and will be working with two T.A.s this term so lots of new scheduled student meetings too...

I haven't read anything except for work this week, made just two dinners, went on zero hikes, didn't take any pictures at home...

We'll have to stay indoors all weekend because of our "ice storm" advisory, for which Big A prepped by ordering multiple Blaze pizzas and Subway sandwiches--haha. And I'm mourning the canceled girlfriends' party, and the closure of the library, the community center, and possibly UU on Sunday. Yikes. 

'Tis the season to be

Our local celebrity now has a name! 

The other story that brought me a smile-tear was this Storycorps episode of a meeting between an elementary school music teacher and a cabaret performer fifty years later.

Generous Thinking

Dinner with the author at the President's house this evening, and KB and I kept falling into these patterns where we were flanking--first the fireplace, then the speaker at the dinner table. 

Anyway, it gave me time to quietly thank Fitzpatrick for her solidarity with minorities, and her point that civility does not mean having to argue with people for your humanity.

Intergenerational witchery

Nu is wicked in L's wig, my dress, their own hat and cloak. All witches need a coven.

My own coven supported me through the day surgery today--the kindness of everyone from students to colleagues to friends carried me through. The texts timed just as I entered the hospital, EM's refusal to let me cancel, and the offers to drive me home were all I needed for now.

And I actually drove myself home before the lidocaine wore off.








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Peak Color

L said she was taking her Californian houseguest on a color tour of Fenton, because we're at peak color right now.

Everywhere is so beautiful, that I was almost late to class this afternoon because I had to keep stopping to take pictures on the way.

I can barely see trees or sky. If I keep looking, I won't think of anything else. We're that golden.


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A day

 A strange day... I got touched all day long. I was remembering Nu's amazement when they discovered me wearing tights when they were a baby and how they kept running their hands down my shin bone--"so silky, mama, so silky." So Nu enacted the strange thing for old times sake. I also got a a very tender kiss and good wishes when I dropped them off at school.

The ultrasound was, of course, a lot of awkward and uncomfortable contact. Although less awkward and uncomfortable and painful than a mammo. But goopier and with more prodding. I can't win this. I was asked to make a biopsy appointment, so I did, but now I don't want to go to it. It's the week before NWSA, I have an important meeting at school the day after, it will be At's Boss Day that weekend,... etc.

I ended the day with the international potluck that CP was organizing in town, and I had my hair touched a bunch of times all day by the nurse and late dinner guests? I don't know, I give up. As I was walking in to the ultrasound building, I got all these texts--from LB, MZ, and others, and that gave me a little boost. I'm going to think about that now.

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At the end of the day:

Black Violin

with these guys--

The music was invigorating

(also the walk to the Wharton as it's 40 and super windy!) 

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New order

I've been taking the long way home after the Poco class stopping at places (so far this week--Pitaya, Target, Urban Outfitters, the Visitors' Bureau, Insomnia Cookies, and the Vinyl store), loading up my backpack when I get something, and counting it as weight training and aerobic exercise.

And just a day after telling the person who called from the doctors' office that I don't want to go to a followup, I found something... and Big A is adamant I need to see the doctor right away.

It's must be the middle of term, because I caught myself thinking it would be a nice break from grading. So there's that.

#RedCedarRiver #MSU
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Brighter

It's been a super rainy week... so last week's picture of my ecocriticism students in the sunshine, ID-ing trees blindfolded is a needed reminder of brighter, happier, more productive times.











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Accidental Portrait

And apparently, I spend my life being terrified.

Perhaps I had just spent time reading the news?


#MSU







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Call this nosey

When mama's cooking and the smells are driving us wild:



But that's all I have.

I wish I had a picture of the Indian feast I made for KB and her students who were on their way to the temple for navaratri and garba.

But to see the two students from India enjoying my version of Indian food was particularly special! And KB sweetly took back a box of biryani for At--the half-Indian kid who couldn't come.
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Candid Lecture

The president (of the college) posted this to social media this morning.

I'm supposedly giving a community talk on "invitational rhetoric," although it looks like I'm demonstrating how to go into "bear mode" 😂 







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A New Way

I usually snake through buildings and alleyways in the general direction of Grand River Road to get to class, and today I came upon this loveliness when I turned some random corner from Farm Lane.

Maps (and recipes) are more notional than instructive for me, so I just hope I can find this park again when I head back in that general direction.




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All because of a gown

I was thoroughly charmed to receive an email from our young alumni awardee, an Oxbridge D.Phil who currently works in Oxford, saying they'd seen my D.Phil robes at convocation and asking if we could meet for a chat to talk about our Oxford connections. They showed up at my office with a packet of McVitie's HobNobs and we had the nicest, longest conversation I've had with stranger ever.

Current state:



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A Place Called Home

What you can do when your classroom is in the building right next to the art museum... 

Katrín Sigurðardóttir's "Unbuilt Residences" fit perfectly with the Robert Young passage that begins "You find yourself a refugee..." and so we did a little tour in the last twenty minutes of class yesterday.

#MSUBroad
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International

I'm loving how many new international students we have now!

#OnceAn InternationalStudent #AlwaysAnInternationalStudent









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The Only Plane in the Sky

 

I'm usually wary of 9/11 and the way it can be weaponized against people of color, but today I was listening to Garrett M. Graff talk about his oral history. He rightly made the point about how it was the second plane that destroyed American innocence since apparently, everyone including Robert Mueller assumed the first one was an accident.

It was the sheer randomness of death, however, that was crisis-level terrifying. He tells a story of someone who went back to his hotel room at the Marriott to change his shirt so he could wear the tie a colleague had just given him... and he survives, while the colleague who went on to the meeting  he was expected at, in the second tower, does not.

A dear student's sibling passed away (after we had just talked *about* them just a few days prior) so this thing has been on mind a little extra these weeks...
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