"punched a shark"

When a student asked me what had happened to my finger (Big A splinted it) and I started my boring story about the vacuuming, they suggested I just tell people that I "punched a shark." It's all well for them, they're from California, and where am I gonna find a shark in Michigan, but it's a cute idea :). 

My Spring term travel course to England is slightly over-enrolled, but I'm going to roll with that. I'm excited to start making arrangements... but my first task will be to update the Spotify playlist for the course. 

Also, what's happening in the world?! I took the weekend off for a sanity pause and we're basically on the brink of WWIII and my feed is full of apocalyptic images of flooding in Appalachia. I can't swim, so my empathy and horror are practically visceral. This world-life balance is an abyss, really.

Pic: I'm still in my work clothes, Max is curled into my side, Huck really thinks I'm going to play with their drooly toy, I set my passport down for a sec to take this pic... I was about to take a picture of my passport to send to my sis who is planning a trip for us in December. Everything will be better by December, right?

the making of things

"What is it like to eat an idea or its suggestion?"

It is the end of September     I feel the emptiness of the memories I forgot    but it's hardly a war     the heat is merely that of a kitchen    and I am fifteen and waiting   to transform ingredients into happiness     to make meaning with sweet triumph    I imagine my throne made with spoonsful of sugar   mean to spin jalebis airy as as asemic wishes     instead what I've made   clings to me like tears    my dad tells me    it's wonderful, it's wonderful     it really is wonderful, he says     but jalebis are proud as royal signatures      and what I have in the pan are droppings of batter     dad's hand lifts my chin   his other hand sketches in the air   name your dish after you make it, he tells me    he peers at the pan again    don't you see?    what you've made are the best "jalebi balls" I've ever seen    this is truly the best cooking advice        I will ever be given    to say what a thing is after it is done   the best writing advice        the best advice really

_________

Note: The quote is from RPT MC-60 00.27 8 by Tan Lin a poem about Wiley Dufresne's restaurant WD-50. We ate there once maybe 20 years ago? It seemed like a very New York thing to do at the time. (We used to go to fancy restaurants for lunch because the menu tends to be less expensive at lunch than at dinner.)

Pic: Across the fence, our neighbor's woods. 

painfully random

Yesterday at the baby shower (which I keep thinking of as the "party" for some reason and which it kind of turned into, I guess) a Cage The Elephant song started playing on the speakers and it really took me back to their high-energy concert... wait... was that just earlier THIS MONTH?! 

Quick check--and yes, it was on the 10th. Anyway, I didn't do much today except water all my plants, clean, and make dinner. But by the end of lugging the vacuum around two floors, I noticed my ring finger seemed a bit stiff. It was still hurting at dinner, so Big A took a look.

He thought I should take my wedding ring off before it swelled up anymore. So I did. And it feels odd to be without it. I don't wear an engagement ring, and I don't take my wedding band off at work, at night, etc. (Neither does Big A, actually.) Or it would feel odd if my finger didn't hurt so much. I have no idea what might be going on. Am I allergic to vacuuming, maybe? Too old to vacuum?

Pic: Big A and me at the Cage the Elephant concert, glassily waiting for the auditorium to fill. We got there way too early and were stuck watching a country opening act whose name I've since forgotten. Except Big A called them "Winona Sugarbush" and that I do remember.

Welcoming a little bean!

The baby shower today was woodland-themed, so it was supposed to be outside in our unkempt backyard, but despite my most frantic monitoring of the weather app, the forecast continued to call for rain, so I had to move the party indoors. 

Ah well. At least I didn't have to clean (our indoors tends to be fairly tidy), or set up outdoor tables, and could possibly get away with fewer decorations since the space was smaller (I guess I am a bit Pollyanna-ish sometimes). 

It went well. I'm so honored that I get to be part of the Ls's chosen family and do this for them and I just can't wait to meet their little bean!

While we were playing "Mommy or Daddy?" (the game where you guess which parent would change more diapers, take more photos etc. ) Big A and I did a quick retrospective check on our own days as young parents. We agreed on everything. (We're so weird.) We saved a few of the game forms for the next family dinner night to see if the kids can guess right.

Pic: Huck explores under the table as guests arrive. The fruit salad nestled in the watermelon pram with the pineapple wheels (made by the dad-to-be) was my favorite thing!

Five Things I Heard

1) We've been asked not to discuss the prison education program on social media, so going forward, I'll have to stay mum. I'll just leave this quote from a student in the program, "This is the free-est I have felt in 24 years." I haven't stopped thinking about this.

2) Drove past Nu at the school bus stop and was gobsmacked to hear them yell out: "Bye, Mama! Love you!" even though other kids were around. I mean... At never grew out of saying stuff like that out loud in public, but I thought Nu had! I'm so, so glad they've boomeranged on this!

3) At the Refugee Development Center Fundraiser this morning, I heard the Southside Community Kitchen Pastor say, "We have to help people. And we have to help even the people we don't like." I should always remember this.

4) I heard back on my manuscript submission from the editor (lots of good feedback). And then the publisher wrote back supportively, "This is a very, very important book!" I hope it all works out? Fingers crossed.

5) Listening to friends bickering over undecided voters: "Voting third party is a sign of privilege." "Actually, motherfucker, voting for genocide because it doesn't directly affect you is a sign of privilege." I don't know where to start with this.

Pic: Another beautiful sky on the way to work. The trees on the side look like hills... it reminded me of the psalm that goes, "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help." I could use help.

what I should have said

I wrote to you a few years later
with congratulations on your 
powerful wounds

for your fate dressed as normalcy

for your pomp shrill and shiny

as new change 

you thank me for my ceremony
my choreography of care
in these small wars

that can bring only small victories

no, not even that--they bring 

only small feelings--

where lightness and excess play

with echoes from excuses

and fill with waiting 

_______________________________

Pic: I've consistently been late (only by a couple of minutes, but still!) to my Thursday-before-class-walk-meetings with KPB this semester, so my sole goal this morning was to be at our meeting point before she arrived. And I did it! It was such a gorgeous day... I will miss these bright blue skies when it's winter in Michigan. We're getting geared up for homecoming this weekend on campus.

And on we go...

As Alice Walker says: "The way forward is with a broken heart..."

I woke up early to spend some quality time walking with Max and Huckie and being silly with Big A, and went in to work a little later (it's not a teaching day). I also prepped dinner as I'd be home at 6 and that's too late to start prepping. That extra time I took for myself in the morning was so good for me. I saw a little red Corvette on the way to work and got there on a song. 

(Not to jinx it, but) My class prep is always meticulous, so yesterday's teaching went fine, but there were other things I had been too distracted to do in the last couple of days (make arrangements to observe a colleague's class for their portfolio, finalize calendar invites for a couple of work meetings, materials for the prison class, materials for the Gaza University folks, progress surveys for all my classes, etc.). I did all of that today. And I wrote the Dems about the death penalty.

And I focused on some life-affirming stuff: Wished my cousin T for their birthday, designed the invite for our Diwali gathering (Nov 2), and ordered the cupcakes for the baby shower (this Saturday!). 

Pic: While at the bakery for the baby shower cupcakes, I picked up these adorable cutout cookies for Nu. I could hear my mom's voice in my head--"First take care of the ones at home."

"A Man Was Lynched Today"

Another tough day today. I'm in tears and so tired as I write this. 

This morning on my way to work, I heard on "Michigan Minute" that today marked Michigan's last death penalty in 1830. Stephen Simmons was guilty, but his final address was so moving that it led "Michigan to become the first English-speaking government to abolish capital punishment." It made me proud to hear that, and it felt like a good sign. 

I didn't sleep at all last night. (Max and Huckie were delighted I spent all night with them, Big A was mad, and if the timestamp on some of my internet comments seems weird, this is why.) 

My mother would say I was importing other people's troubles into my life. And I guess that's true in a way, but also isn't that the point of being human? I'd never heard of Marcellus Khalifah Williams until about ten days ago when the Innocence Project and the NAACP began bruiting the news that this innocent person was about to be executed by the state of Missouri despite evidence of innocence, lack of DNA proof, prosecutor's admission of racial bias, and dissent from the victim's family. The death penalty is always a human rights violation, but unspeakably evil when it executes innocent people.  Even the prosecuting attorney filed a motion to vacate Mr. Williams's conviction. But the M.O. Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court both failed to stay his execution. M.O. Governor Parsons (who previously pardoned the racist couple who brandished guns at BLM protestors) received over 1.5 million petitions to pardon Mr. Williams in addition to calls, emails, and faxes, (including some of mine over the past week). But he merely disconnected his office phones and allowed Marcellus Williams to be executed at 6 pm central time today. 

The title of today's post comes from the title of NAACP's statement after Mr. Williams's execution; it is in turn based on their iconic, anti-lynching "A Man Was Lynched Yesterday" flag.

Pic: This is the poem Marcellus Khalifah Williams wrote recently about the children of Palestine. How humane it is to be at death's door oneself and express solidarity and love for others... It reminds me of how in 2020, in the wake of the George Floyd protests, the Palestinian people would tweet all the way from across the world, sending BLM protestors tips on how to avoid/recover from tear gas based on their own experiences. I love when we support each other... Some day I hope we will all be free. In the meantime, we must hold our democracy accountable. I noticed today that the Democratic Party, which previously opposed the death penalty, seems to have quietly removed that part from their 2024 platform. That's where I'm going to start. Tomorrow. 

affective vs. relational

When I was sitting with JG at her synagogue yesterday catching up on weeks of news and gossip, we--naturally--started chatting about the election. She's an expert in communication, so she was telling me that while phone banks, yard signs, and postcard campaigns have "affective" worth in that they make the people who participate in them feel good, they don't really convince other people. The only thing that convinces other people and might change votes is reaching out to people in our networks--using our "relational" connection is the only way to persuade people to vote for good. 

Now that we're here. The thought of a Trump presidency terrifies me for all the obvious reasons. And I'm now worried about the possibility of large-scale electoral college swindles. And also, the daily psychic exhaustion of the ongoing genocide in Gaza is immense. At this point, in less than a year, over 350,000 people have died in horrifying and preventable circumstances. The excuse people make for other genocides--"but I didn't know"--doesn't work here. We can look away, but we cannot dare say we didn't know. 350,000 people. This is not normal. This is not a natural disaster we couldn't prevent; on the contrary, we have participated in and precipitated this by sending the bombs that killed these people. Most of us don't want to and yet, despite being a democracy, our government continues to defy us. Which is connected to why I'm not thrilled that that Fucking Dick--Cheney is ostensibly on the same side as me. How is his endorsement a good thing? Who's next? Pol Pot?

Anyway... Deep breath.

Pic: This blurry pic from, as FB reminds me, 16 years ago gets me every time. Big A is home after a 24-hour residency shift at Bellevue and is still in his hospital scrubs so he's not touching the baby--but Nu's delight in their dada is clearly reflected in their shiny eyes, toothless smile, and squishy dancing arms. 

at five in the evening

and under a dulled sky 

grows a grave privilege

I'm  sorry for my grief--

it is a wound I worry 

but also such a wonder

a life made from memory

here's the real, and there

the merely remembered

you  tell  me which

it  is...  I'll  confess 

I  mix  and  mistake

them all the time--even

 dream that some evening 

soon  it  will be spring 

and I will be kneeling

down singing and you 

will be close to me (even 

if you don't like my song)

__________

Pic: A bluejay in the front yard. 

Also: And this is freaky--at the end of that week where I had that dream which I worried meant something about my father's time on earth, I got word that my father's older brother passed away. My sister is attending his funeral tomorrow as our family's representative. My sis really does more than her fair share of family stuff because she's awesome. (Plus she's right there.) I have to say though that I felt a pang when I saw the cute invitations that had been sent out for the pooja my mom and sis just hosted--the shortened versions of their names even rhyme ("Manu and Anu")!

home stuff and homecoming

There's still a bit of summer lingering in the possibility of peaches for a snack, in the lure of the hammock in the afternoons, and yet the mornings are delicious in their cool and misty promise of fall. 

I will have a ton of essays turned in this weekend and need to turn to grading mode soon, so I did all the household stuff today-- watering my zillion plants and cleaning all three floors. I also did the laundry that had accumulated for over 6-8 weeks. I have decades of clothes in my closet but I know my clothes will continue to last me longer if they get cleaned and put away. (I'm trying to talk myself into doing it. I don't like doing laundry although I try to entice myself by scenting everything with lavender essential oil and watching old shows as I fold and put everything away.) Also, and this is new for me, I hand-sawed a pile of kindling to use in the firepit come fall. 

Pic: Nu headed out to homecoming--they spent a lot of time putting their outfit together and I love the detail down to the socks. I have to say, Nu is the cheapest thriftiest teen I know. I remember having to rush to department stores every time At went to an HS social. Nu did not want to shop for the event and sourced everything from their closet and At's old closet. At was homecoming royalty, so Nu had some good material to swipe.