"Every day is a faded sign/I get a little bit closer/to feeling fine" Sheryl Crow "Everyday Is a Winding Road"
Wednesday, January 15, 2025
I tug on my seatbelt, I tap on this thing
Tuesday, January 14, 2025
Pongal Sonnet
Monday, January 13, 2025
Bhogi today; Pongal tomorrow
Tomorrow is Pongal, the start of the auspicious Tamil month Thuy, and I always think of it as a handy reset for any lagging New Year resolutions. There's also actual Tamil New Year in April; lucky us.
I'll have a long teaching day tomorrow, so I prepped some of the festival food today. This way I'll just have to make the sweet pongal for the pooja and the dosas for the celebration dinner. Today is Bhogi--traditionally, we're supposed to have a big bonfire to burn all the stuff we're discarding. As usual, I did the easier, sustainable thing and donated all the stuff we'd culled.
Pic: I really love my photo of cranes on the frozen Portage River about to take flight (from yesterday's hike).(Also, I'm so chuffed that I seem to be made of some seriously tough stuff--while even Big A is sore and blistered after our longest hike to date, I'm business as usual. I did sleep so soundly yesterday though. If only I could numb my weltschmerz with five hours of physical exertion every day...)
Sunday, January 12, 2025
another day of distractification
Big A and I spent over five hours on the Pinckney trails hiking and trudging though the snow trying to finish our 16-mile loop before sunset/the end of daylight. Also, I thought it was the full moon tonight and had just seen a trailer for a werewolf movie, so trust me when I say there was speed in my step. (The internet tells me that the full moon is actually tomorrow and it's called the wolf moon!)
It was an exciting, exhausting day. I tired myself out. I laid some fears and sorrows and anxieties to rest (for now). Tomorrow I plan to show up for the people who are counting on me.
Pic: In the Pinckney Woods. "The woods are lovely, dark, and deep."
Friday, January 10, 2025
renewal and respair
your kind, capable hands
Thursday, January 09, 2025
not normal
The images of devastation coming from the California fires (in Winter!) have been so hard to process. Homes, memories, histories... wiped out... just like that. I can't imagine. And yet, of course I've imagined it happening to me, to us, over here. It's not difficult. We're all just one disaster away. I'm holding space and grief for all the people, land, animals, plants, water, air, and atoms affected by what was preventable.
Today has been hard. I turned in final grades for the online Gaza course. Of the eleven students who had registered for "Literature Survey 2," just two graduated. I lost touch with the remaining nine, and hadn't been able to get a response from them in months. I will never know what happened to them. I imagine the best. I imagine the worst.
Of the two who graduated, D, promised to stay in touch "God willing, as long as we are alive, to learn from you." The conditionality was chilling. F, turned in work late once and apologized explaining that there had been internet outages and that their tent had been bulldozed. It made me embarrassed to receive that email.
None of this needs to be anyone's normal.
#RestInPowerAaronBushnell
Wednesday, January 08, 2025
scribbling women, dogs walking, dog-writing, and bitches
When I first watched Bridgerton, I was struck by this remarkable line:
LADY WHISTLEDOWN: "According to the much heralded poet Lord Byron: Of all bitches, dead or alive, a scribbling woman is the most canine."
And I meant to use it when I taught Women's Writing again (which is now). It is such a mash-up of Byron's famous misogyny, Hawthorne's hatred of "scribbling women" and Samuel Johnson's screed about women's composition--that it's like a "dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.”
Also, while I was looking for the precise quote, I went down some interesting theory rabbit holes. While I was aware of Animal Studies, I wasn't aware that there was a specialized field of "dog-writing" that studies the intense relationships of women writers with their dogs (Elizabeth Barrett-Browning, Virginia Woolf, and so on). (While I'm no Woolf or Barrett-Browning--in our family, Scout is known as my dissertation wolf and Max is my book puppy. I don't think I could have gone on without their steadfast attention, affection, and presence.) The word "bitch" crops up with increasing frequency in the titles of these works about dog-writing: "Bitch, Bitch, Bitch: Personal Criticism, Feminist Theory, and Dog-writing" or Writing with the Bitches, etc.
It feels like I've come full circle with the Bridgerton quote.
Pic: Snow falling in the "portal," which what L and I call this corridor of trees from her house to the street.
Monday, January 06, 2025
ready, steady, go...
I finally got the tree back to the basement yesterday--I coordinate 90%...maybe even 95% of the Christmas around here (almost everything except my own presents) so I was increasingly agitated I had to wait on this--but it is a two-person job.
I spent most of today making sure everything would be ready for classes tomorrow. And now my classes have been published, syllabi have been uploaded to the Canvas sites, activities and diagnostics for tomorrow are ready to go, and I've just emailed everyone to welcome them to class. I've never been on a rollercoaster (too much of a scaredy-cat), but I imagine it feels like the mix of excitement, anticipation, and anxiety I'm feeling right now. I kind of love it.
Pic: Max and Huck were bored we stayed indoors most of the day. But also, I've always said Huck is half-puppy, half-kitty, and the way she drapes herself across the back of the sofa in the rumpus room proves my point.
Sunday, January 05, 2025
Bending Meaning: Haiku, P.F.Chang, and "Peelings"
*
Last year, Big A had a recurrent dream where Scout was accompanying him to a bunch of classes at Kalamazoo, his old undergraduate campus. In one dream, it was a poetry class where the instructor had displayed some of their published works on the desk at the front of the class. A can't remember the titles, but the poet's name was P.F. Chang--like the Asian restaurant chain. I wonder if Big A was thinking of Victoria Chang but was also a bit hungry?
*
I've been hearing this catchy Telugu film song on a number of reels and wanted to download it for my playlist. The song is about how the heroine is plagued by carnal feelings for the hero--"vochundai feelings-su" (I get these feelings). So I searched "Feelings" on I-Tunes, and nope, nothing. Turns out it's spelled "Peelings"--all the better to express the way it might be pronounced with emphasis in Telugu, I guess? Not really a word with a sultry vibe for me, however--it makes me think of dinner prep... or a skin condition.
Pic: The Red Cedar right behind L's house. From another walk this week.
Saturday, January 04, 2025
in a time before this one
Pic: I thought it was cool how the Red Cedar river had flooded and frozen into a pane over autumn leaves here. (Seen on a walk with L through the woods yesterday.)
Friday, January 03, 2025
bookends
I woke up to see that a writer friend had tagged me in her exhortation to read more books in 2025 because she'd used a picture of our Little Free Library. And of course the week has been full of various enjoyable year-end roundups of reading lists. Then Lisa wondered about my top books of 2024... The thing is, I don't have a digital record of my reading. Reading is what I've always loved doing but also kind of my work work. So it never made sense (for me) to quantify my reading by hours/pages/titles. When I read for pleasure, like other things I do for pleasure, I tend to do it rather whimsically and for as long--or as little--as I want to. It's not very efficient. But that feels perfect to me.
Lisa's question made me curious, though. So I went to check on my scribbly physical planner, where I usually note what I'm reading "for fun" to compile this top-12. (I think these titles are a mix of 2023 and 2024 and are in no particular order.)
Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Message; Catherine Newman, Sandwich; Paul Murray, The Bee Sting; Percival Everett, James; Kaveh Akbar, Martyr!; Sally Rooney, Intermezzo; Fady Joudah, […]; Tony Tulathimutte, Rejection; Emma Cline, The Guest; Yiyun Li, Wednesday’s Child: Stories; Tania James, Loot; Elliot Page, Pageboy: A Memoir; Teju Cole, Tremor. (Fun fact: Teju Cole used to comment on this blog a very long time ago.)
Pic: OM's Facebook Reel of our Little Free Library. I did a quick search, and this is the first picture of it in the snow, I think. I love that our neighborhood keeps it so well stocked. It used to be all my responsibility in the other place where we had it from 2012-2016.Thursday, January 02, 2025
fitness all the goodness
Wednesday, January 01, 2025
Day 1, 2025
Tuesday, December 31, 2024
new year thoughts
Pic: Nu was hosting some friends for NYE, so Big A and I took a walk to the rooftop bar downtown. This party was loud, but the music and drinks were strong. I thought I was getting a photo of the fireworks on the skyline, but I think I got one of the the first emergency vehicle of 2025 instead. It reminded me a bit of NYEs past in NYC and Chennai as we walked past choruses of people wishing us a happy new year on our way home.
Monday, December 30, 2024
here we are now...
Sunday, December 29, 2024
"Bitch, don't kill my vibe"
but...
Gaza was never far from my thoughts. This is the second winter many families are spending in emergency tents that are falling apart. Many GoFundMes started for escape have now been reduced to appeals for tent repair or food. Israel bombed Kamal Adwan, the last functioning hospital, and arrested its medical director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, when he wouldn't desert his critically ill patients. More World Central Kitchen workers have died, and more U.N. workers have died. Amnesty International, the U.N., the International Criminal Court (ICC), and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) have all concluded that this is against international law, but people continue to be killed every day, and infants are freezing or starving to death. It all feels too much. They say Reagan was able to end the bombing in Beirut with a single phone call, where is the political will to end the bombing in Gaza? Incidentally, President Carter, who died today, was a real one for correctly calling the situation in Palestine apartheid. (I am grateful for all his anti-racist work, especially post-presidency, and at dinner today, we were saying how he embodied the best aspects of Christianity--service and love.)
I kept muttering Kendrick's song title to myself so I wouldn't say anything inadvertently because I knew people were just trying to get through a difficult year for themselves. For many of my friends, the US elections have left a pall, my MIL broke her foot on Christmas day, and Big A's cousin's wife died on Christmas Day after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer just three months ago. Big A hasn't seen his cousin in decades, but they used to spend summers together. Reading the eulogies about MS, I wish I had known her--she seems to have been a wonderful person who was a master gardener and friend to the unhoused.
Anyway, I'll save my disquiet so I can fight another day.
Pic: Today's rainy weather didn't help my mood or anything; but here's a memory of yesterday's blue sky.
Saturday, December 28, 2024
life is for everyone
I so regret all the things
how sentimental these stories
Friday, December 27, 2024
in the end if there is no end
Thursday, December 26, 2024
What it is/What is it
* At stopped by this morning and helped me address and stamp the remaining holiday cards and I got to hear more about their time in Seattle a couple of weeks back as we worked. I loved the story of how they were going to do a last-minute visit to the Kurt Cobain memorial bench before their 12 am flight back when they met someone interesting... it was such a meet-cute--Cinderella-esque midnight deadline and all!
* Nu, At, and I took our Flu and Covid shots! (Big A got his at work ages ago.) We got the Novavax, and so far, so good. I've not fallen apart or taken to my bed like a Victorian lady... yet.
* Hanukkah started last night! This is yet another year I'm using birthday candles for our menorah. I'm good at making them stick with a bit of melty wax, but it's not ideal. Big A's the one with Jewish heritage, so I'm going to put him in charge of getting the Nerot next year.
*I've jumped back into work via email, phone calls, and light editing again. Is it too early? It feels too early.
*Pic: The whatsit I got at the thrift store when I took Nu to shop on Monday... I love birds and found this lidded container irresistible especially because it cost all of 6.06 and was also "on sale" so I paid less than 4.00 $. It says "Made in Italy" on the bottom and is so intricate... and impractical. Like what would one put in it?! (Nu's tongue-in-cheek suggestion was soup.) A reverse Google image search suggests it's a "trinket dish." I might use the bottom as a cache pot for a plant and the top as a frame for mint, moss, or a succulent that could grow out of the openings? Ideas?
from the other side of Christmas
But the rest of Christmas was more traditional (for us, anyway). Big A was off Thanksgiving this year, so he's working over Christmas--this is the standard E.R. scheduling tradeoff. But the kids have learned to accommodate celebrations around his schedule over the years. I started to wake the kids up when A was on his way home from work after his night shift so when he got home and decompressed for a bit, we could go to cider, stockings, presents, and then Christmas pudding brunch, lazing around, snuggles, napping, movies, biriyani, and so on.
It kind of felt like the nicest Christmas in a few years. The kids have had a couple of rocky years recently, but we're on the other side of that now one way or the other. It's also our second year of Christmas without Scout--no one approaches his level of enthusiasm for Christmas, which will always be bittersweet.
I put LifeStraws in everyone's stockings including my own (during an anxiety-prone week is my guess). I'd wrapped everyone's presents long before I left for Greece. That was a while ago and I lowkey forgot some of the details, so I was nicely surprised as people opened their presents too. Ha. As for myself, my massage budget has been replenished, and I've been promised a trip to the Grand Canyon in October! I'd mentioned to Big A that I had poetry accepted to three anthologies this year and that I'd like to maybe get a book of poetry out into the world in the coming year--and I got a stack of autographed books of poetry including Mosab Abu Toha's for inspiration. That was the sweetest present.
Pic: Nu being a silly Christmas elf, and all of their siblings--Max, Huck, At--looking at them adoringly. There's a sliver of Big A still in scrubs in the corner and the clutter of opened and unopened presents all around them.
P.S. In the comments to yesterday's post, Nance used the term "sanitation worker." I'm not sure if it was intended as a gentle correction, but it worked as one. It immediately sounded like a more courteous term, and when I looked up how the relevant union refered to themselves, it seemed the term of choice. So it will be what I will use going forward. As the better Maya said, "Now that I know better, I [can] do better."
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