Friday, February 26, 2021
luminate
Thursday, February 25, 2021
Robins in the hood
Wednesday, February 24, 2021
hard scrabble
I see the river has flatlined
I did not intend, I did not
think to do it on my own
to on my own
run: around, out, away
As if the sun floats belly up
and if I can do it, my darlings
if I can do it, why can't I?
Why can't I
check: list, mate, out
(Red Cedar, MSU Riverwalk)
Thaw
Reading students encountering Laura Mulvey, Hanif Kureishi, and Shauna Singh Baldwin, introducing a new class to invitational rhetoric, referencing an old student's lesson plan involving the 'Red Rover' game... everything felt like a fresh spring--at least in my soul.
By the time I got home to little Nu, the 'sad' part persisted, but the 'mad' part had melted away.
Monday, February 22, 2021
Regression redux
I've managed to limp through my to-do lists: grades, student updates, and class prep are done. I even got outside, and it was chilly and windy enough that it numbed my pain about Nu for a bit.
Sunday, February 21, 2021
Weekend Magic
Finished Oona Out of Order--which was meh at best, and frequently irritating--but I grew to care about the characters after all although I didn't care for their idea of gentrification as a beneficial development. Started Marlon James' A Brief History of Seven Killings. Again. I couldn't get into it when it first came out and I remember being roundly castigated for it by world lit friends. I've been humming and channeling a lot of Bob Marley (because I MISS my mom so much) recently, so I'm giving Seven Killings another go. It's intense.
Also intense, Judas and the Black Messiah, which I watched with Big A. Fred Hampton--especially how much he did at so young an age and how much he could have gone on to do had he not been assassinated has been a trigger for me--but the film was oddly heartening. Especially as Akua Njeri and Fred Hampton Jr. seem to have been such a central part of the film's making.
I disengaged from most work all weekend. And something that helped was that I didn't get a single work email! Is this everyone deciding to institute strong boundaries since we work from home so much these days? On Friday, which was a "Reading Day," I sent out an inquiry on behalf of an advisee and my senior colleague reminded me to "take the day off." Knowing everyone is doing it, and that it would be rude and interruptive not to, makes it so much easier for me. I still have some grading to catch up on, but hope to get it done by Tuesday when I will have to face people in real time again. That's not magical thinking, although I did wish on the beautiful and magical wishing tree BS gave me this weekend.
Saturday, February 20, 2021
Wrecking Crew
1
you talk like therapy I aim like an arrow
slipping sleeping pills then crash like a bomb
in between sentences like a stupid mecha god
2
buried in the fizz we're hard to imagine
in far-off messages but echoes keep finding us--
from baby monitors like they're rescue dogs
3
I still don't know if I should forgive you
I still don't know if I need to be forgiven
Friday, February 19, 2021
Alright
Thursday, February 18, 2021
The main message of my chart?
Pandemic lockdown is such a trip that when JL shared this horoscope, I was happy to acquiesce with whatever it said about me. I mean it's not like I have much insight about how I'm doing or feeling from day to day, so why not let someone else summarize it for me?
It's a good thing, I suppose, that JL is Pisces like me and I couldn't read the other horoscopes too... agreeing with every horoscopic thumbnail might be too absurd.
Wednesday, February 17, 2021
"Bloom! Bloom! Bloom where you're planted"
Lots of support from Nu and Big A who told me they were proud of me. That was unexpected and felt SO NICE! Also, when I was being hugged by those two, I was surprised anew by how much taller than me Nu is now--their face is still such a Baby Nu face!
We liked the vegan dinner I made today (a nicely-sauced stir-fry of Impossible meat and rice noodles topped with mint, julienned peppers, and shredded cucumber) a new-ish, Vietnamese-ish palate with our usual ingredients. We watched a bit more of Korra, (which is sad, neoliberal apologia compared to ATLA) and will probably finish the series this weekend. What's next for us? Perhaps Schitt's Creek, which we've tried twice but can't seem to get beyond episode 4 or 5. A colleague-friend said maybe we should just start from season two, and perhaps that's just what we'll do.
I don't remember going outside today; it's still freezing with snow up to my knees. I did spend some time in the tea garden where we have everything from floppy paperwhites and ratty poinsettias from Christmas to the cyclamen showing up to say, Spring, suckas. The cyclamen gave me such a pang of nostalgic yearning for Greece where it would grow even in the rockiest niches. And apropos of that tiny synaptic nudge, that super-insistent song the sisters taught us in school, "Bloom! Bloom! Bloom where you're planted" started playing in my head. I think I'm trying.
Tuesday, February 16, 2021
thoughts/prayers
to the louder comfort
of that old loneliness
the bright, uneven burn
of acceptable syllables,
premonitions of escape
a feast
There is a strange loneliness that descends at the end of a semester. There are all the goodbyes of the last day of class, commencement, put...
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Friends and old neighbors shutting it down in honor of John Crawford. _
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I have the feeling that I’m going to succumb to the season and put out a list of resolutions soon. Just wanted to establish this heads up th...
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At had us pose for this pic up at Aunt R's place on Lake Huron so he could put it up in his dorm. "Don't tur...