* 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!!
My poor baby Scoutie.
(And poor At too--the DSA candidate he'd campaigned for lost by just 190 votes.)
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.)
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.
B. Looking over minutes from last month's faculty meeting (which I had joined online) it turns out that my only contribution had been re. the library deaccession: "Maya—This is a blow. Used to be in acquisitions for post colonialism. Loves teaching in the library stacks. Students are missing opportunity physical catalogues. Going to sell books for peanuts—not placing them in another library. Very upset."
Those last two words made me chuckle extra hard. Not sure if I claimed to be very upset or if the empathetic poet-novelist-playwright colleague who took minutes that day summarized my rant.
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.
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.
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.
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!
But there was barely time to sit down between committee and student meetings all day. So at 4:30 when the last meeting was finally done, and I'd even managed to reach two dear students who've been down and out of touch this term, and I had just two more emails to send off, I cleaned my office thoroughly. (Because I was wearing--what my science colleagues called--my 1970's-style ENG. prof. dress with the tie collar? Who knows!)
I watered all the plants, trimmed, weeded, took tons of papers to the shred-it box, dusted, swept, and looked longingly at the armchair I'd installed in my office when I moved in... back when I thought the life of an academic involved hours of reading and looking out of the window. Ha. Some day it will come.
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...
Baker Woods with L this morning--we'd hoped for fall color and we got this bright green vista. It's the middle of October. Last year looked like this.
I sent it to family chat with the caption "fall colors" and they hearted it without appreciating my snark.
That's when I realized my people don't leave the house very often...
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.
The day started well enough--an early morning hike with L along the river and I felt well rested and well prepped for the new class starting tomorrow...
Then the campus alert system went off as there was a gunman close to campus and streams of police cars seemingly everywhere. Although quickly managed with no loss of life, the tumult of that kept reverberating right through every meeting afterward--even the 7 pm one.
Dropped Nu off at OWL, <<< checked out the tidied up community garden, and headed inside with my covenanted name badge and all. Still no singing, but we were asked to hum along today and that was nice. Even nicer was the surprise tai-chi as embodied worship mid-service.
I filled out my pledge card for the year and started a new notebook for jottings--for notes on hymns and ideas and such... but today also for a nascent grocery list so I'd stop obsessing about food supplies and pay better attention to the sermon.
I really did need to pay attention: the guest minister asked us to turn to a pew neighbor and say "welcome to the love train" (pretty cheesy, I agree); but I thought he'd said to say "welcome to the love triangle" and was too confused + embarrassed to say that enthusiastically.
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.
I did have periods of intense industry--checking midterm submissions, prepping and arranging next week's new course, letters of rec., emails, etc. Nevertheless, today felt like the midterm break I'd been looking forward to... It's the ninth day of Navaratri, so it's Ayudha Puja and traditionally a day of contemplation rather than action, anyway.
Long-anticipated trip to IKEA with Big A for some shelving in the basement. Everything gave me intense nostalgia for when the kids were younger and used those plastic dishes and had those stuffies and cuddled in those bed linens. Then we transported everything back and discussed immaterial stuff like how I have a summer and winter wardrobe but nothing that delineates spring or fall... while we took a decadently long soak together.
Nu had D&D club so we got to pick them up late and then some more soft family time. Tons of to-dos and errands tomorrow.
And I've been trying to write a poem on Babur, but it just isn't coming together...
I'd re-shared the menstrual products drive my CASA director shared with me, and they decided to amplify it by putting it on the front page of the college newspaper.
😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍
Birthday weekend trip to Hot Topic (a.k.a. acc. to Nu as "my natural habitat") and the Halloween store.
Sad because I finished Cloud Cuckoo Land (at 2 am last night) and I was disappointed about Anna's life post-Constantinople. Blamed it on men writing women, TBH. Clearly, my own Women's Writing class is having an effect on me. Ha.
Also: finally admitted to myself that I'm not going to be able to finish that online course in digital and data interpretation I signed up for... Not this semester, anyway. Just like in my undergraduate days, which is when I should have figured this out, I spend too much free time reading fiction and poetry, apparently.
The "sternly-worded" resolution--about the culling of books and carrels in the library--I was signatory to, passed with a resounding majority at the faculty meeting. Brief moment of vindication, but not sure if there will be any change to what feels like a predetermined outcome.
I liked the Chappelle Show, and 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 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.
and find myself looking at it all the time...
Not sure why (I mean he looks so good and so grown up but still)...
Even Ammama, his #1 fan, doesn't get it.
But At used to love Capt. America, and I think my brain is seeing his circular UAW placard as a mashup of Capt. America's shield.
"Capt. America but make it union"
Help.
(I liked his All the Light We Cannot See too although its very eurocentric depiction of WWII irked me. This one, OMG, is incredibly lush and includes wide swathes of humanity and historical times.)
But in a more neutral way, now that I'm on campus so much, a lot of work gets done at work instead of after dinner. Time feels a bit less scramble-y because home/work demarcations feel more natural. Plus I get to see and be around more people, which is me at my happiest.
I still do work things after dinner, on the weekend, in the middle of the night, etc., but it's freeing to know that I spent 8/10 hours working already, so if it doesn't get done, it ought to be perfectly acceptable.
Being at work lets me get at all the stuff that gets shoved aside--like the graduation gift I'd gotten for a colleague in financial services and was finally able to hand deliver yesterday (months late...).
Pic: I thought I was taking a picture of flying geese as I walked across campus... but look, guys: No geese! Lovely blue sky, anyway.
But I just had to say hello to Ms. Margaret Hatcher (extreme left, looking directly into my camera).
So apparently it's National Daughters' Day, and my FB feed is full of lovely people posting about their lovely daughters and I'm loving it esp. as I no longer have daughters this year. (The kids have made Huckleberry an "honorary bro" so I now have four boy-kids.)
Nu has had a cold for a couple of days and spiked a fever last night, so we headed for the drive-through Covid-test this morning. They couldn't find Nu's health records and I was quietly panicking because I thought it was because I'd decided to leave the sex column blank, but it turned out that my tired brain had given them the wrong year of birth (I gave them At's!!). I can't wait to see the AMA's recommendation that sex be removed from birth certificates universally accepted.
Note 1: I like that his new roommate is a librarian; the roommate likes that I'm a gender studies prof.
Note 2: It seems like At still loves using Mark Fisher as an intellectual tagline.
So I'm experiencing stress... and rightly so.
And I got a submission declined rejected today too.
But Scout and Huck are always adorable.
I guess he heard Big A and me have a furious, whispered conversation about Scout and/or heard me sobbing in the stairwell.
Anyway, I spent hours at the veterinary E.R. with Scout today. Tons of tests later, we still have no clear answers. But they gave us a bunch of meds; I hope they help.
Pic: Sculpture outside the E.R. (I forgot to take a pic of Scoutie.)
First I had a general epiphany about how nostalgia-fueled decisions to go back to the way things were rarely go well. "Going back" to places, people, whatever... never goes as planned. Perhaps that's the true moral of Pet Sematary. It came up in some conversation with Big A. And then suddenly because we'd talked about Scout's health, he was trying to get me to promise that I would never clone Scout. An option I'd never considered before but seemed tempting. But Big A rightly made the point that Scout is his own person and cloning disrespects that etc. OK? OK.
I was telling the kids this over breakfast some day this week, and I don't know if they appreciated their parents' deep thoughts. But they immediately started a tally of who in the family would put people in the pet sematary. Apparently neither human kid would. According to them, I totally would. And their dad--well... apparently he has a strong sense of medical ethics and wouldn't. But... he'd still probably put me in the pet sematary because he's so attached. And then, they riffed, when pet-semataried mom starts stabbing people and stuff, he'd be all patient explaining things like "Puppy, remember we talked about not stabbing people?"
For a conversation that included so many deaths, including my own, that last line in its authenticity still makes me chuckle out loud.
A long walk-talk with KB yesterday; I begin to feel I can handle the world again.
Early morning chat with my sister; figuring out all the things on our list for this year--many of them impossible without a passport (which I don't yet have as everything's so backed up). But she makes plans seem possible anyway.
Midday yoga in the forest with Nu and L on either side of me; a sort of peace washes over me.
Garden party at our place this evening; the comfort of sharing food with CF, SB, SD, and AH and others.
Talking to strangers on an FB Golden Doodle page about Scout's difficulty walking; lots of new things to obsess over and bring up with doc/E.R. visit in 48 hours.
Baby cousin K and her partner J arrive tomorrow; I get to spoil them.
My teaching day started with standing in line at Groovy Donuts at 7 am and went well as days with donuts tend to.
But after dinner I found out that DP, a student dear to me--someone I had known in class and on several committees as a joyful, thoughtful, and compassionate citizen--had been hurt badly.
I am hopeful they and their family will heal, but the description on their GoFundMe site is truly horrific and I keep thinking about all the unnecessary pain and fear they've experienced.
Flashes of their smile on the Zoom of this year's Kente stole ceremony and images of them waving to me as they stood in line for their diploma keep coming back--will keep coming back--to me. 💗
And I love that this picture was taken by my baby sis who dutifully took tons of pics because I couldn't be there.
I was going to post pictures of our party for JG's and MB's retirement, but I didn't ask everyone's permission. So instead, here's a screen grab of me gazing up adoringly at KB that I found hilarious. I've always said my decision to come here was in part because of KB--she wasn't on my search committee, but she had been tasked to have lunch with the candidate (me). I feel like I'm in an old timey teen movie when I'm with KB--like an extra in a John Hughes film on the verge of a manageable adventure.
Anyway the party went great! I got all the things done thanks to Nu who was an amazing sous chef and decorator and Big A who DJ-ed and moved furniture and took photos and At who helped with the fancy candle and got singed but still went on to do bug control.
JG and MB loved everything and I'm so glad I got to do this for them. And thanks to them, I kind of feel ready to have more intimate gatherings again.
I hope.
I walked with L; went to the farmers' market with BS; worked in the garden; did some menu planning; hung out with the Big, Li'l, and Baby As; took a nap with Scout and Huck; chatted/talked/texted/group-texted to family and friends; and did not get a single work email.
On an early morning walk with L, we found these lotuses blooming out of the sludge and rain water. No one seemed to have refilled the lotus pond at the horticultural gardens, but here they were anyway.
At the end of the day, I found myself in the unprecedented and awkward position of having been suggested/nominated for three different service positions.
I've tried not to dwell on the news (abortion bans, voting suppressions, Afghanistan, rising rates of Covid) this week in favor of focussing on being the best teacher and parent I can be.
No updates on how that's going yet.
Almost all caught up on admin and to-dos for a bunch of side gigs (CASA, Jaggery, NWSA, and SAWNET) and feeling some relief from that.
Onward.
