What I heard: the paranoia and plaudits edition

Paranoia: 
I wasn't at my best. It was the end of a long day and I was huffing and puffing my way to the student union to drop a box of clothes off for a clothing swap when a kind colleague stopped me on the sidewalk: "How are you doing?" As a third of our faculty are supposed to be fired by December 15th, this made me feel some sort of way. I burst out: "Omigosh, what did you hear?" He was taken aback, and I was so effing embarrassed.

Plaudits:
I took some consolation from this text exchange from a colleague in the art department later in the day:

"You were a brief conversation topic in my class today!
Seems that the consensus is that you’re awesome!" 

(I think it had something to do with me showing my "Bad Babes and Mad Men" class the difference between the timid Judith painted by Caravaggio versus the powerful and determined Judith painted by Artemisia Gentileschi, who had been a survivor of sexual assault herself.) 

Pic: Red Ivy by Brody Hall on the MSU campus. 

Happy Hallowali!

Happy Diwali-ween!

I'm taking the beginning of Diwali celebrations today as an assurance that love endures, and that light perseveres... all Hallow's Eve is actually the same thing, right? 

Nu dressed as Rainbow Dash today and is out with friends. Diwali is a multi-day affair and they have the day off tomorrow to celebrate Diwali anyway. Yay! 

I gather from friends in New Jersey that school districts there have the day off too. When I was at the fireworks store yesterday to buy sparklers for the party, the guys there wished me "Happy Diwali!" All this feels surprisingly mainstream!

I'm excited (and a teensy bit anxious--so many moving parts) about our Diwali party on Saturday--my baby cousin and her friends, a former student and their partner, and my in-laws are coming for the weekend... and to help me prep! 

Pic: Max and Huck with JL and Henry, who has recovered from his amputation like the champion he is!

try me twice

Not Trying: 

The 15-year-old radio/CD/I-Pod (I know!) dock that lived in the kitchen and provided the soundtrack to our lives, especially to the puppy kids while we were at school/work.

The online work-related interface, which kept locking me out claiming the confirmation email I provided did not match although I was copy-pasting!

Trying Hard: 

My 17-year-old who has finally decided to take driver education classes and finds themselves in a class full of freshmen and sophomores.

The three green tomatoes I found in the veggie plot who seem to have decided, despite the lateness of the year, that they'd give it a shot.

To Try: 

Plant lasagna. or how to layer bulbs in planters for year-round blooms. I mean, I already do something like this when I press hyacinth bulbs into planters and forget until they begin to bloom and scent the whole room (and then it's such a delightful surprise) but this is for the outside.

Honey-Harissa Chickpeas and then if it didn't already sound awesome, the rec is that you top it with Greek yogurt and mint.

Pic: Three green tomatoes at the end of October.

translated 5 am prayer

for mine is the kingdom 

mine the braids of music  

mine the mimesis of 

"This is Morning Edition"

heard in the next room

*

soon I will love what

my mother cannot love 

soon enough, recover 

myself, the messy stems

of stirrings since flooded

*

keep me from stony

accounting, teach me 

to be trying for peace

gather me with those

who tend to the night 

*

to pass over the heads,

the beds of my children

Pic: Fall along the Red Cedar. View from the walking bridge yesterday.

snap

I'm talking to myself...

Telling myself I had a very good weekend with JG sleeping over Friday, a Halloween party with Big A Saturday, and brunch with EM Sunday. 

Telling myself that I'm working hard at grading, prepping my regular classes + independent studies + the prison class + the Gaza class + editing the book. 

Telling myself that it's okay to feel anxious because there are plenty of reasons for anxiety...  I can even count off the reasons in every realm from the international, national, extended family, friends, family, physical... but I really am doing the best I can.

And also... doing that awful calculus of figuring out how many hours of sleep I can get if I fall asleep like right now... while the clock acts like an assshole countdown ticker... 

Pic: I spy a Great Blue Heron on the rapids of the Red Cedar.  From a long walk to clear my head early this morning.

evening report

you know this is Sunday anxiety

the lurch of the coming week 

sitting unsafe as dust before 

a wind

by the nail the night hangs on 

by the new day at the door 

I am trying to tell myself 

to remember

about how even stones support

each  other  like friends do 

in every wandering corner 

of the universe

_________________

Pic: Old neighbor BL's ethereal picture of Ellis Pond in Yellow Springs, OH. 

busy and strange

I threw on a mask for the second day in a row... I guess it's the season? Yesterday the queer students' alliance organized Masqueerade and I went to celebrate them. The older I get, the more delighted I am about every little sweet thing young people do. I'm so here for it. 

Today was our friends' Halloween party. Big A worked hard on his costume ordering things online weeks in advance. He is Adam Yauch (R.I.P.) a.k.a. MCA as Nathan Wind as Cochese in the Beastie Boys music video for Sabotage (1994). I kinda forgot all about today's party because I had a late work night, we had a house guest with whom I was up late, and then I had to prep and teach my Gaza class early this morning, attend a two-hour meeting where I was elected Secretary to The Michigan Academy of Science, Arts, and Letters etc. But I found the feathered mask that has been hanging on my mirror forever and a peacock-patterned wrap and went as a "strange bird." 

Pic: There's too much going on in this picture--it's so busy and strange and we're an odd pair, for sure.