...to end 2021. I read some of The Heiress by Molly Greeley, worked on Heron Tree volume 8, and did a virtual bhangra dance New Year's Eve group session with Gurdeep Pandher. The Heiress was recommended by a mail-friend; it was great to revisit the Heron Tree poems from the past year; and after watching Gurdeep Pandher's daily dancing videos throughout the pandemic, I was glad to give bhangra a go myself. He was a really good teacher, and there were at least 250 other people in the Zoom meeting, which makes it the largest New Year's Eve gathering I've ever attended.
12/30: waking up
...pain-free. I am glad to have gotten the booster, but--wow--the muscle pain was hard to take, and I'm glad I didn't have to take it much longer.
12/29: dinner already made
...because I made it yesterday, knowing that there would be leftovers! This was an especially happy thing because the side-effects of the booster rendered me not-so-functional today.
12/28: getting
...my COVID-19 booster this morning. I was waiting until my paper was done so that I wouldn't become worried if it made me feel out of it. I am feeling out of it, but now that my paper's done, it's a kind of luxury rather than source of anxiety.
12/26: getting nice feedback
...from Chris about my paper. It felt good to have the words read by someone other than me, and his encouragement gave me a boost as I got panicky about making the PowerPoint to accompany the talk. I finished the PowerPoint this evening, and I should be set to record the presentation tomorrow! (The conference isn't until January, but the talks are pre-recorded and due this week.)
12/25: picking up
...trash along the ridge. It seemed like a good thing to do this morning, and in an hour I filled a bag.
12/23: early grocering etc.
...because I woke up at 3:30 a.m. and couldn't fall back to sleep. So I went to the store soon after it opened, and I was grateful to beat the rush that no doubt developed later in the day.
My early start also meant that I took my walk on the ridge at a slightly different time, and I got to see one of my neighbors, who showed me the little waterfall he's constructed on his property.
I cut my morning walk a little short, since I planned to go to the dock later for sunset. I did, and even though the sun wasn't able to push through the cloud cover much, I'm glad I went. Neighbors' holiday lights cheered me as I walked back up the hill in the growing dark.
12/22: remembering
...to take a little detour off the road during my walk in order to smell the winter honeysuckle.
12/21: a handful
...of good things:
Walking in the morning light.
Talking with my neighbor, who praised the photograph on my holiday card.
Beginning to write my conference paper.
Making street tacos with vegan "beef."
Stopping at the lake for some photos after running an errand in town.
Stepping outside during sunset to enjoy the pink clouds.
Hearing the birds peeping as darkness came on.
Calling a friend.
12/20: visiting
...the labyrinth on campus. I haven't walked it in quite awhile! Chris needed to run into his office today while we were in town this afternoon, and that provided the perfect amount of time to do a full circuit in and out along the labyrinth's path.
12/19: realizing
...that I needed to go for a walk today, and enjoying the cold air and warm sun this morning. An hour outside went by very quickly.
12/18: turning in earnest
...to a paper I need to write. I'm nervous that I've waited this long to "dig in," but the semester was busier than I had anticipated. I'm glad I'm working on it now!
12/16: some nice outcomes
...for some students who worked hard this semester. As I was finalizing grades for my courses today, there were times when I burst into smiles or cheers upon seeing the spreadsheet's results.
12/15: reading
...the students' reflections on some word activities we did this semester--noun catalogs, collage remixes, erasures, centos--and feeling glad I gave those exercises a try.
12/14: trying out
...different kinds of questions on the final test for the Myth course. Today I read the students' answers, and the results made me glad that I experimented with some new prompts.
12/13: seeing
...a smile from under a student's face mask when I told them I appreciated their careful work on one of the final assignments for the course. It's been hard all semester to gauge student reactions, but this student seemed to light up, and that was a nice last exchange.
12/11: repair averted
It looked like our dishwasher would need a visit from a repair person, but Chris fixed it!
12/10: grading
...more than I expected today. This is a very welcome thing at this time of year! I still have some full days of grading ahead next week, but they will feel less harried now.
12/9: really liking
...some erasures and noun inventories which my students did. It was a wonderful pleasure to read them this morning.
12/8: taking some notes
...for a paper I need to write soon. I have a lot more to take, but it's good to have gotten a real start.
12/7: at home
...grading exams today for a change. I was far enough along that I was able to take a late afternoon walking break, which was a welcome thing.
12/6: quick
My work laptop needed some attention from IT today, and I was worried that I'd have to relinquish it for longer than would be comfortable. The laptop is so integrated into how I function at school that the prospect of being without it for a day or more made me nervous. But the IT person fixed it in less than an hour--hurray!
12/5: more active
...today than during my doldrums of yesterday. In the morning I worked a little on a pamphlet and went grocering. In the afternoon I made chili and hemmed pants with Chris. In the evening I hemmed some more, baked flaxseed muffins for breakfast this week, and did some work for school and Heron Tree.
12/4: comfort
...from Phineas the Cat. I was in low spirits for much of the day, and Phineas did a lot of cuddling with me, for which I was grateful.
12/2: considering
...the use of the myth of Niobe in a sonnet by Henrietta Cordelia Ray, a narrative poem by William Logan, and a painting by Johnny Floyd.
11/30: getting out of my head
...for a bit, while working through some ancient riddles for a reading/discussion tomorrow. It was nice to be me, to be thinking, and yet not to be worrying. To use my head to look at the world rather than be so caught up inside myself that I can't see out.
11/29: changing the format
...for a test in the Mythology course so that the students have more choice in how they prepare and answer. I decided to make the change a few weeks ago (and I told the students about it then), but one of the benefits was visited on me today. Making the actual test was so easy and unfretful!
11/28: explaining
...to a friend some of what I've done in one of my classes this semester, and being really grateful for her enthusiastic reaction.
11/27: deciding
...to take it easy after a morning of errands made it clear that I was not feeling well. By evening I felt like I was getting better and had maybe succeeded at nipping a cold in the bud.
11/26: cranberry cake
We usually make a fruit cobbler for Thanksgiving, but this year I didn't have time to go grocery shopping until right before the holiday--and then I didn't want to deal with crowds at the store to get fresh berries, so we decided to make something with what we had on hand: cranberries. I tinkered with an online recipe (this one) by adding orange extract, cinnamon, and cardamom, and though it's not cobbler, it tastes cobbler-like. We enjoyed having it yesterday and again today (and, no doubt, again tomorrow).
11/24: a quiet day
Sleeping in, reading the NYTBR, taking a walk, working on photos, and generally hanging out with Chris and the cats.
11/23: caught up
...on grading. In past years I've used the Thanksgiving holiday to catch up, so it feels like a victory this year to be caught up before the holiday begins. (Technically the holiday began at 5 p.m. today and I only just finished grading now, at 8 p.m., but I think it's close enough!)
11/22: working late
...at school. It's something I've tried not to do this semester, but tonight it helped to have the quiet and focus of an empty building and to leaving knowing that I was mostly prepared for tomorrow morning.
11/21: finding a little time
...to do printing for pamphlet-making. It's a pamphlet I designed months ago, and I look forward to putting it together over the next few days. I also had an idea for a new pamphlet, and it was fun to mull over words for it as I took a morning walk.
11/20: another selection
...of several good things.
I worked on finding a photo for this year's holiday card. Stressful, but it's now done and ordered.
I had to do schoolwork this morning, which is something I try to avoid on Saturdays. It got me in a bit of a funk that I had a little trouble pulling myself out of this afternoon. I finally managed to right myself and went walking.
For dinner we had vegetarian ruebens, and I made the Russian dressing spicy.
For our Saturday cleaning we decided to each work in our home offices. I sorted through some boxes of things that had piled up since the start of the pandemic.
Among the accumulated things I found a postcard with a bluebird front and center, facing outward. I pinned it up on my bulletin board.
11/19: several good things
...on my birthday.
We got up early to watch some of the lunar eclipse.
I did a little stage experimenting with a friend-and-colleague so we could present an example of the day's planned activity to our students before they tried it themselves. The activity involved interpreting collages made earlier by the students into stage action, and it was fun to choose one and figure out how we wanted to make it work.
Chris and I went to Collins Creek in the later afternoon, and no one else was on the trail.
We watched a pink and purple sunset as we drove west toward home afterwards.
I made banana cookies with two bananas that needed to be used before they went off. We have lots of treats right now, so we put them in the freezer for later--but only after we each had one and a half.
11/18: finding
...some quizzes I had misplaced. For an hour or two I really thought I had lost them permanently.
11/17: before and after dinner
Before dinner: a piece of rosemary shortbread sent by a friend.
After dinner: some pieces of Pennsylvania nut roll which I mail-ordered as my birthday gift-to-self. (It's not my birthday yet, but I couldn't resist starting to celebrate early.)
11/15: being glad
...that I made tomato cobbler yesterday, enough for Sunday's dinner as well as tonight's. All we had to do was reheat, and that was a welcome relief after a harrying, not-so-good day at work.
11/14: a few inchies
I miss the days of having an inchie collage station next to my work area at home; I cleared it away in the course of my sabbatical as my various projects needed more space. Today, though, I took some supplies off the shelf and made a handful.
11/12: staying late
...at school to watch the fall pay (Sarah Ruhl's adaptation of Orlando). I used the extra time in my office to do some grading and to send students information about where they currently stand in two of the courses I'm teaching. It felt good to get this done, a weight gone before the weekend.
11/11: beautiful
...autumn colors, making my drive to and from school lovely. It had seemed like fall wouldn't be very colorful this year, but today proved otherwise.
11/10: hearing
...students' thoughts about Victoria Turnbull's Pandora. It's a busy time of year, and I didn't really have time to squeeze in a co-curricular gathering, but I did it anyway because I love this book. I wanted to share it with people and see what they thought. It was a good 50 minutes in a difficult day.
And there was a good 10 minutes in one of my classes as the students energetically discussed the interpretive implications of dividing Antigone's roles among 3 actors. I had a migraine during class, but I forgot about it as this conversation was going on.
11/8: a few sweet moments
...in a hectic day. An advisee who was grateful for a meeting. A student who was delighted when I told her Chris and I just have fruit cobbler for our Thanksgiving meal. A few minutes at the pier in the morning and at the dock in the afternoon.
11/7: using my left leg
...to balance on while longboarding. Yesterday I tried to balance on my left leg rather than my right, but was too shaky so spent most of my time with my right leg firmly planted on the board. Since I was a little more sure of myself today, I spent some time getting used to balancing on my left leg as well. I can really feel a difference between the legs: I'm right-legged as well as right-handed. But I could also feel a difference between yesterday and today: hurray for learning.
11/6: longboards
Over the years I've entertained the idea of getting a longboard, but the desire was never strong enough for me to actually purchase one. Recently Chris had a dream that we were both longboarding, and that prompted us to order boards for ourselves as birthday presents (a late present for him, a slightly early one for me). This morning we tried them out on the city's biking/walking trail.
11/5: every night this week
...we've had rice balls for dinner and Earl Grey lavender cookies for dessert. I made batches of both of these things on Sunday. It's been a busy week, so it was great to come home after work and only have to prepare salad.
11/4: spending time
...with Rita Dove's poem "The Bistro Styx." It's been years since I'd last read it, but I decided to give it to my Myth students as an extra credit option so I wanted to revisit it myself. I'm glad I did, and I hope some students choose to do the extra credit and spend time with the poem. I'll be interested in their thoughts about it.
11/3: a good last day
...of the ancient drama unit with my second set of first-year students. They said some nice things about the unit, and we talked about some post-antique paintings related to the plays we had read.
11/2: two nice notes
...one an email from a current student, and the other a card in the mail from a friend.
11/1: an activity
...in my first-year course seemed to go well today: comparing different translations of a passage from Euripides' Iphigeneia at Aulis. I had them work in groups first, and I think the changes of pace and format were welcome.
10/31: deciding
...not to start schoolwork until the evening in an effort to honor and observe the weekend as a needed break from work. So in the morning I shopped for longboards online with Chris then went for a walk, and in the afternoon I baked cookies (Earl Grey with lavender) and then made arancini for dinner. Luckily, the grading I had set myself went more smoothly than I had anticipated, so I won't be "paying" for my decision tomorrow.
10/30: cleaning
...one of our screened-in porches with Chris as part of our Saturday cleaning plan. The floor really needed to be not only swept but also washed. It looks so much better now that the built-up gunk is gone. And Tilde the Cat had very much taken over the chair where I usually sit when I'm only the porch--which meant that its cushion was covered with cat hair. That's gone now, too, and I'll cover the cushion with a towel for her in the future. Now I'm ready to spend some time out on the porch, enjoying the autumn air.
10/29: felt-tip markers
At the start of the semester my co-teacher and I did an activity with our first-year students that involved giving each of them 4 felt-tip markers of different colors. When the activity was over, we told them they could keep the markers if they wanted. Most of them did. Today in the same class I noticed that one student had all 4 of his markers out on his desk and used them to mark up a hand-out we were talking about. It made me so happy to see.
10/26: some student-related things
One of my students in Myth last week queried the description of Persephone as "slender-ankled." It got me thinking about feet and movement in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter over the past few days, and today I followed up and shared my thoughts with the class. It ended up being kind of relevant to an image we discussed at the start of class, a 2017 etching by Marian Maguire of Demeter and Persephone (visible here). The students seemed to dig into this image, and that felt good. I only recently came across it, and I was excited to show it to them. We then discussed the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite and the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, and that went well: I think the poems have been a good change of pace.
Last Tuesday I visited a colleague's class to do an upcycled notebook activity with her first-year students. Today one of them came by to follow up with me about it and tell me how much she enjoyed it. Another one told my colleague that she was also grateful for it, though she realized that she might not have registered the gratitude fully in the moment. That seemed like a very thoughtful, self-aware thing for someone to say, and I was grateful to my colleague for passing it along to me.
10/25: a nice man
...who owns a pizza place in Delaware. He talked with me on the phone this evening when it became clear that someone used my name to order a pizza for delivery there. That whole situation isn't a good thing, obviously, but it was nice to talk to someone who was trying to be helpful. He even called the Delaware police to ask them what to do, and he was very concerned that I look at my credit report this evening and start the reports for identity theft.
10/24: gathering
...seeds for Chris on my morning walk. It turns out that they might not have been the right ones. I also used the old Tupperware container I was carrying the seeds in to collect colorful fallen leaves as well, and that made me feel like a kid in a Pennsylvania autumn again. Except now I don't worry about whether a particular leaf is "perfect" or not. They all are.
10/23: still enjoying
...the banana cookies (recipe here) I made recently to use up some about-to-go-off bananas. I added cinnamon, walnuts, and mini chocolate chips. The cookies have all the goodness of banana bread but without the baking worries that usually come with banana bread (will it bake through? will the center sink? will the sides be too well done but the middle not done enough?). I don't think I'll make banana bread again when this recipe side-steps all those potential pitfalls, doesn't need as much baking time, and tastes great.
10/22: receiving
...an asemic text from my mother, in the style of the asemic letter I mailed to her earlier in the week.
10/21: finding
...Thomas Wilmer Dewing's painting entitled Pandora today (visible here) and discussing it with my students in class today.
10/20: getting more
...grading done this morning than I had thought I would. Thank goodness. I'm still in a grading hole, but one that's less deep.
10/19: finding
...a little piece of candy waiting for me in my car when I got into it to drive home from work. Chris had left it for me.
10/18: typing
...an asemic pen-pal letter for a lark of a postal swap. The page's overall format is what we'd expect for a letter, but it has no words or even letters of the alphabet.
10/16: a trio
...of good things:
- A morning walk, during which I photographed autumn leaves that had fallen.
- An afternoon trip to a liquor store just across the county line with Chris, where we bought some beer (Oktoberfest time!) and Arkansas gin.
- A Saturday cleaning project that stretched into the evening (partly because of the aforementioned afternoon jaunt): organizing and winnowing the arts and crafts cabinet.
10/15: designing
...two new "deformance" activities in which students will remix words from Sophocles' Antigone. And I did an example of one using the opening passage of Sophocles' Philoctetes and an example of the other using words from Euripides' Iphigeneia at Aulis. The students won't do them until November, but it feels good to have settled on a plan and, by making the examples, to have tested whether the activities will work.
10/14: making
...a square notebook using upcycled materials and a new-to-me 6-hole Japanese binding.
10/12: closer to doing justice
...to Hesiod in Myth class today. I felt like last week I wasn't able to give him his due. Today, though, I think the students began to see how his view on the world is interesting and complicated.
10/11: being rewarded
...for going for a walk after dinner (even though I had plenty of evening work on my plate): I saw a groundhog and a tarantula.
10/9: continuing
...the trend of Saturday cleaning projects with Chris. Today we finished work on the laundry room.
10/8: ending the week
...with a good class discussion about Iphigeneia at Aulis. It was especially welcome after some rough classroom moments this week.
10/7: being grateful
...for computer files and past work that I've done for courses. I'm so glad that I was able to find enclitic accent materials that I've developed over the years; it made evening preparation for tomorrow's Greek class smoother than I had expected.
10/6: carrying a zebra
...figurine in my pocket today. A few years ago I'd often carry one of my Schleich animals in my pocket at school for comfort. Today I needed one again. And I even took the zebra out and set it on my teaching table for one of my classes. (The students couldn't really see it since it was behind a computer screen, but it made me happy to see it there.)
10/5: realizing
...how I could articulate a feeling I've been having about how some students are engaging (or not) in classes these days: it's like they tune out as if they're still on Zoom or Teams and can just turn their cameras and microphones off. Although this phenomenon isn't a good thing, being able to put it in words like that was helpful. And it makes sense, given that interacting online via Zoom and Teams had become a new habit over the past year and a half. Now that we're back in in-person classrooms, it's time to change habits, and that can be hard.
10/4: reading
...students' descriptions of hypothetical paintings based on Homer's Odyssey that they'd commission someone else to paint if they had a chance.
10/3: appreciating
...the colors on the fallen leaves, noticed during my morning walk. And we're in the "second spring" part of the season, which means that there's a mix of smells in the air: fresh blooms and autumn leaves.
10/2: continuing
...our Saturday cleaning trend. This afternoon we worked on the laundry room and its chaos of cleaning supplies. I also dusted the shelf of animal figurines that we installed in that room a few years ago. Taking the figurines off, tidying, and rearranging them made me grateful afresh that we decided to put them and the shelf in there: it makes that aspect of the laundry room a bit of lark, and every morning we get to see the animals looking out at us when we iron our clothes.
10/1: a little of both
Recently I've switched my Friday afternoon activity from writing to grading. Today I graded for an hour then wrote for an hour and was glad to do both. Putting sentences together (as well as realizing that I had thoughts to put into sentences) felt good.
9/30: beginning
...to read some students' work that has been revised in light of my comments. I really appreciated what one student did to address some things I flagged. It made me feel like the revision process can be what I hope it will be.
9/29: the sight
...of my first-year students drinking fizzy fruit juice with silly straws slipped under their masks. That was the "prize" they suggested for everyone's learning everyone's names. (Well, they suggested drinks and silly straws; I chose the fizzy fruit juice.)
9/28: at the start
It was not a great day at work. But this morning I saw a beautiful sunrise and took a few minutes to go outside and enjoy it before it slipped away.
9/27: resuming
...walks on the ridge (rather than at the indoor track), now that it's not so hot outside. This evening I enjoyed watching the clouds in the sky, looking at (as well as smelling) the fall-blooming flowers, and passing a few words with a neighbor who stopped his car to say hello as he drove by. And I was glad to be listening to Kingsley's Water Babies. In so many ways Kingsley and I aren't in the same philosophical camp, but he certainly can write good sentences, and it's high time that I made my way through this classic of children's literature.
9/26: sitting
...on our new screened-in porch for awhile after dinner. Now we have two different screened-in areas for ourselves and the cats. I'll look forward to getting a table for the new space so that we can eat meals and do writing/typing out there.
9/25: working
...with Chris to clean the wooden floors of the main room and get it truly back to rights. The room has been in a not-great state since early/mid June, when the various contractors began their work. It will feel so good to have it back again.
9/24: class conversation
...filling the board with similarities and differences between Aeschylus' Persians and Aristophanes' Lysistrata. The students did a good job of bringing two unlikely plays into conversation with one another. A good last class before the weekend.
9/23: asking
...some of the questions I wanted to at an interview today. I was one of the interviewers, so I shouldn't have been nervous to ask questions, but I was. I spent some of the morning thinking carefully about how to phrase them, and the time doing that paid off.
9/22: going
...into a restaurant. I think I haven't been in one since March 2020. I didn't stay inside: a former student and I got drinks at the bar and then sat outside to sip them. I enjoyed chatting with her while enjoying the kind sun and some slightly cooler weather.
9/21: chatting
...with some students after each of my classes today. I like the chance to interact with them one-on-one and see more of their personalities.
And it's my blogiversary. Here's to 13 years of good things and taking the time to record at least one of them most days!
9/20: personal mail
...is something that I'm getting less of these days--partly because the wonderful sendsomething.net has gone down, and partly because I've been sending out less mail myself. But today I received a note from an occasional pen friend, and his familiar handwriting made me happy.
9/19: and another one!
I remembered another good thing about the day. I recreated a lunch I used to treat myself to at a café (now closed) near campus: a croissant / fried egg sandwich with a sliced banana on the side. I also made myself a Greek frappé so I'd feel like I was at a bistro.
9/19: doing some more
...notebook-making with students. This afternoon 10 came to learn. I had wondered if it was good to schedule a weekend workshop (given how many other things I have on my plate), but I'm glad I did it.
9/18: slowly
...putting our house back to right after months of repair and construction work. Today we finished returning books to the bookshelves in our main room--no small task.
9/17: changes in routine
I didn't do Friday quiet writing this Friday either. I miss it, but--like last week--I needed to get some grading done, and I didn't think I'd do a good job of writing while worried and thinking about what I wasn't doing. It felt good to read some students' assignments in the calm of my work office instead.
And then I continued to do a little work at home this evening. I might "normally" have gone kayaking on an evening like this, but I'm still worried about stressing my right wrist. And I could've gone to the walking track, but I thought working (and then baking cookies) was probably more in line with what I need to do. I did happen to walk by the windows, however, as the sun was setting, and the view prompted me to go outside and enjoy the burst of color.
9/16: being prompted
...by a student's question in class to think about Theoclymenus' backstory in the Odyssey and how it's important as a precedent for the reparation of social transgression.
9/15: meeting up
...with three students to do some notebook-making using upcycled materials. Two of them I know, and it was nice to see them again; one of them was new to me, and it was great to meet her.
9/14: having leftovers
...in the refrigerator so that I didn't have to cook dinner, just reheat what we already had on hand.
9/12: taking time
...to make nice food. Full-time teaching means that I won't have the same freedom to experiment in the kitchen that I had over the summer or during sabbatical, but I don't want to let cooking and baking go entirely by the wayside since I enjoy them. So for dinner tonight I made savory tomato cobbler and, for dessert, brownie pie plus lemon and chartreuse flavored syllabub to go alongside it.
9/11: three things
In the morning: working on a pamphlet.
In the afternoon: sorting through books with Chris, deciding what to keep and what to give away.
In the evening: seeing a red slice of moon.
9/10: forgoing
...both Friday afternoon writing and Friday evening walking. I love those activities, so it might not seem like a good thing not to do them. But I needed to get a jump on grading before the weekend (hence no writing), and I was too tired to feel comfortable driving to the indoor track (hence no walking). Getting some grading done has made me feel a bit better about the weekend's work. This evening I substituted pamphlet-designing for walking, and I made a breakthrough on a pamphlet I'd been tinkering with since the summer.
9/9: taking a quick break
...while reading this morning to do some leg stretches. It felt good (as well as necessary). I hope I can remember to do that more often!
9/8: office hours
...held virtually. Not ideal, but for me it feels more free than being in the same room yet having to wear masks. And it gives me a chance to see students' faces and expressions.
9/7: adding
...to a page of randomly stamped words and letters sent to me by a mail-art friend. I "rubricated" with a red marker, and I like the way it turned out. Usually I get stymied at the prospect of adding my two cents to a collaborative piece, but I found a way to make this work (I think/hope) and feel okay about it.
9/4: a sudden memory
While cutting up vegetables for gazpacho this afternoon, I all at once had a flash of memory, back to the first time Chris and I made it. We were in our Los Angeles apartment and we alternated: as one of us chopped, the other read aloud from William Morris' Wood Beyond the World.
9/3: two things
One from work: In one of my classes today three students set a really nice precedent for presentations.
One from not-work: I found myself unexpectedly transported to Shropshire while listening to M. John Harrison's Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again. It called up memories of a weekend Chris and I spent there years ago.
9/2: recording Greek
...passages for my students to listen to, and realizing that I could make it an assignment for them to record themselves reading aloud in Greek. I remember when a tape recorder was a quasi-magical device, so hurray for recording apps!
9/1: seeing
...a little rock painted with a flower, left in a raised flowerbed outside my office building. It made me smile when I went into work and when I left.
8/31: being reminded
...by financial talk on the radio that I needed to pay my credit card bills online tonight! Just in time to meet tomorrow's due-date.
8/29: using
...a box of white cake mix that's been in our pantry for quite some time. It became the base for lemon teaberry cookies this afternoon. I haven't been able to visit Pennsylvania for the past two summers, so I've missed getting teaberry custard at The Meadows. I'm cheered by the little reminder of the taste through the cookies, and I'm glad to have finally used the cake mix.
8/28: leaving the powercord
...for my work laptop at school. An accident, but maybe a happy accident. I was able to do a little work this morning before the battery gave out, but then I was forced to take a break from it for the rest of the day, and that was good. It reminded me of the importance of trying to keep Saturdays as school-work free as possible.
8/27: receiving
...a copy of Remy Charlip's Arm in Arm from a friend who was clearing out her bookshelves and thought I might like it. I love it!
8/25: using
...a connect-the-dots activity as an analogy for literary interpretation and dramatic presentation. The dots are the text or script; the straight lines connecting some of them are the literary interpretation; embellishments of those lines are the layers that are added through staging and performance. My co-teacher and I may have liked the exercise more than the students did, but they had some fun adding to one another's pieces, and it was a good way to spend part of our first full class together.
8/24: a student mentioning
...that she read The Goldfinch this summer, a book I had mentioned to her two years ago. It was nice that she remembered our conversation.
8/23: forgetting
...to do one part of an in-class activity at the time I had planned it, so moving it to the end of the whole process. And that turned out to be better than if I had done it according to my original plan.
8/22: cooking
...Ethiopian food: mesir wat, collard greens, and injera. Plus a little fresh salad and peanut tea.
8/20: learning to play
...scopa, an Italian card game. Chris had an old family photo of some men on Ustica playing it, so we decided we had to order a deck and give it a try.
8/19: remembering
...how much I love "The Seven Ravens." I have to hold the girl-hero close to my heart.
8/18: working
...with a first-year student to get a modern dance class added to her schedule. It was so nice to see her get excited about it as I described the professor's approach to her.
8/17: today's gathering
...of good things includes:
- Adding lavender to my coffee. In the past, I've bought coffee with lavender already added, but the company I bought it from stopped making it. So I ordered some dried lavender, ground it myself, and added a bit to the ground coffee before brewing.
- Writing to a friend.
- Figuring out a scheduling conundrum for one of my upcoming courses.
- Sorting through a pile of T-shirts and deciding which ones to keep.
8/15: three things
With dinner: strawberry lemonade.
For dessert: orange flavored meringue with strawberry purée and whipped cream.
After dinner: time on the lake, with the water, wind, and sky.
8/14: open again
The public walking track closed for two weeks for annual cleaning, and today it re-opened. Hurray! I was the only person on the track for the 50 minutes I was there, and only 3 people were on the basketball courts below. It was a nice--and reassuringly safe--way to go back.
8/13: thinking about
...Marsyas and the body, in response to an email from a former professor of mine.
8/12: getting through
...a challenging day of online advising appointments. I was grateful that I had two computers going: one to talk with an advisee via Teams and the other to use the registration sites and software to record their scheduling choices as we talked.
8/10: successfully dealing
...with Microsoft Teams. It's the online platform that my school's been using during COVID, but since I was on sabbatical last academic year, my experience with it was limited. Today I had to run the information session for my first-year advisees via Teams, and it went just fine. Mostly it was pretty intuitive and not that different from poking one's way around other online delivery systems, but Chris helped me do a trial run yesterday, and that made me feel extra secure.
8/9: social distancing
...at a meeting today meant that I had a little space-pod or margin around me without seeming like I was being unsociable. I liked that.
8/8: hemming
...pants for back-to-school. Chris did a pair of his, and I did a pair of mine. We have more to go, but it was nice to get started.
8/6: writing
...a letter vouching for a former student who is really wonderful. And then receiving a note from her thanking me for seeing her.
8/3: pane e panelle
...kind of. When Chris visited Sicily a few years ago, he came back with a fondness for chickpea fritters in a sandwich, something that's sold on the streets in Palermo. We've tried making panelle in earnest, but didn't have great luck with it, and we're wary of doing that much deep-frying in any case. But I made a bunch of chickpea pancakes that we stacked between slices of LaBrea Bakery bread, and that's a satisfying (and healthier) substitute. I just have to remember to squeeze lemon juice on the chickpea pancakes next time.
8/2: comforts
Donuts at 5 am. A hotel room when the plumbing at home goes awry. A phone call with a friend two days in a row.
7/31: finding
...this sentence in the August 1, 1804 entry of Clark's expedition journal: "What a field for a Botents and a natirless."
7/30: clearing
...sink clogs without Drano. I used vinegar, baking soda, hot water, and then--for a tough clog--a plunger. Satisfying.
7/29: reading
...Christian Bök's Kazimir Effect. White on white, paint chips and paint names, found poetry. What's not to like?
7/27: orange & chocolate
...cookies. And while I was making them, Chris found the Chocolate Orange Chicks on YouTube and we watched one of their videos.
7/26: negative
I took a drive-thru COVID test today, and it came back negative. I'm vaccinated and have continued to be careful even as restrictions have relaxed, but since I came down with a cold at the same time that the delta variant is sweeping through Arkansas, I thought I should have a test to rule out the possibility that I got a breakthrough case. I'm glad it's just a regular cold!
7/23: kayaking
...with the moon. And when I paddled back to the dock, Chris was waiting to help me back up the hill with the boat.
7/22: mixing
...a non-alcoholic drink for myself at dinner time: herbed simple syrup, pureed strawberries, lemon juice, and fizzy water. It tasted like a juice I used to buy at Erewhon, as a treat to myself, when we lived in Los Angeles.
7/20: getting reacquainted
...with Rainbow Rowell's Baz and Simon. I loved Carry On, but somehow Wayward Son didn't click with me. Still, I was glad to see that a final book in the series--Any Way the Wind Blows--came out this month, and I enjoyed hearing Baz and Simon's voices in my head as I read today.
7/19: being charmed
...by The Squirrel's Birthday and Other Parties, written by Toon Tellegen, translated by Martin Cleaver, and illustrated by Jessica Ahlberg.
7/18: waking up
...to this (link) write-up of one of my pamphlets at De Villo Sloan's Asemic Front 2. I've been feeling iffy about my work recently, so it was especially welcome.
7/17: the sound
...of rain on a metal roof. We're getting part of our back deck screened in so that we have another screened-in porch where we can read and the cats can enjoy the outdoors. The whole process has been one of fits and starts, due to weather and shortages of construction workers, but it's nearly done now. This afternoon Chris went out into the new space while it was raining, and I (and Emma and Tilde) joined him. I think Chris and I enjoyed the amplified beat of the rain more than the cats did.
7/16: finally watching
...the Olive Kitteridge miniseries, something that had been on my list since it first aired in 2014.
7/15: finishing
...three books within 24 hours: Anna Karenina (35 hours of audiobook time!), Legendborn (I'll be interested to see where the series goes with the next installment), and Never Look Back (a re-read in preparation for an online book discussion of it this evening).
7/13: coming across
...this sentence in John Bradley's Illuminated Manuscripts (published in 1905): "Illuminists were not illuminators."
7/12: nearly alone
...on the public walking track this evening. As COVID cases rise in Arkansas I'm grateful when I can be out in the world but relatively distant from others.
7/11: thinking about
... Legendborn by Tracy Deonn and how it uses fantasy and magic to meditate on the legacies of colonization and slavery.
7/10: recent kitchen time
...spent making scallion pancakes, lemon shortbread with candied fennel seeds, and orange flavored meringues.
7/9: the opening sentence
...of Emerson's essay on circles: "The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; and throughout nature this primary picture is repeated without end."
7/8: accepted
I got news today that my abstract on the uses of Classics in historical romance novels was accepted for the annual Classics conference in January. An earlier version of the abstract had been accepted for a conference that got cancelled due to COVID, but I've kept reading and thinking about the topic, and I'm excited to pull all my gathered bits and pieces together into a paper at last.
7/7: not getting too flummoxed
...by some delays in construction work (and the chaos in which it's left our house) nor by some cookies which I over-baked. I'm not always good at taking things in stride, so I'm counting today's relative equanimity as progress.
7/6: reaching
...a part of Anna Karenina in which Tolstoy spends more time with Dolly's thoughts than he had up to that point. I was glad for that, and glad that he held off until now so that I really wanted to "be inside Dolly's head" for a bit.
7/5: wrapping my wrist
...so I could enjoy an evening on the lake, hopefully without too much wrist trouble. I've been worrying recently that my kayaking days might be nearly over, given my ongoing wrist trouble. But this evening I realized that, if wrapping doesn't help enough and my wrist doesn't heal in the long run, I could buy a kayak with pedals, and knowing that made me happy.
7/2: feeling better
...today after some troubles with arthritis earlier this week. I worked on a pamphlet in the morning, finished revising an essay in the afternoon, and went to the walking track in the evening.
6/30: the continued tradition
...of the Moon & June cake (see here). This year we waited until the last day of the month. In a break with tradition I made the icing instead of using a store-bought tub, and it was really good. It was a cream cheese frosting, and I flavored half of it with crushed freeze-dried strawberries in honor of the Strawberry Moon.
6/29: paddling over
...to talk with my neighbors who were on a pontoon boat on the lake while I was kayaking near sunset. If I hadn't extended my time on the water in order to chat with them for a bit I wouldn't have seen this quick burst of pink.
6/28: being in a little touch
...with two friends from my high-school days and remembering (and appreciating!) how kind they both are.
6/27: being out
...on the lake this evening. Last summer I didn't kayak much because my wrist hurt, and this summer the same thing is happening. But I'm grateful that I made it out today.
6/26: completing
...the 2021 Poetry Half-Marathon: 12 poems in 12 hours. I did 12 erasures from Lang's Grey Fairy Book, all starting with the word she.
6/24: mopping
...some of our hardwood floors with an almond-smelling cleaner.
And remembering in the evening that I had heard a whippoorwill early in the morning.
6/23: coinciding
...with Chris in our separate listenings to Anna Karenina. Today we were both in the same place in our audiobooks, and it was fun to talk about the novel so far (we're just over halfway).
6/21: trio
In the morning: white herons flying past our house.
In the afternoon: erasing/remixing a passage from Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy.
In the evening: seeing the coreopsis tinctoria along the roadside as I walked. I've been walking at the indoor track recently because of the heat, but tonight it was cool enough to walk my usual outside route--and it was a surprise to see this new wave of blossoms that had emerged during my absence.
6/20: ravel
The word unravel is in pretty regular use. Today I looked up ravel and found that while it can mean the opposite of unravel, it can also mean the same thing as unravel. I have to think more about tangling and and untangling being kind of the same thing.
6/18: doing
...an erasure and remix of a passage from the Odyssey. It had been awhile, and it felt good.
Also doing a bunch of the NYT "mini" crosswords from the archive. These are new to me, and they made me smile.
6/17: making myself talk
...during a Zoom discussion. I tend to be more of a listener than talker during virtual conversations (I get super nervous), but the group today was smaller than expected, and I felt like I wanted to do my part to put thoughts in the air.
6/16: separately / together
Soon after I started listening to the audiobook of Anna Karenina, Chris decides to start listening to it himself. We're not quite synched up--we chose recordings by different readers and each listen according to our own schedules--but it's nice to be able to touch base about some things as we go.
6/15: reading about
...Sappho, Penelope, Atalanta, and time, and having my own thoughts about Sappho, Penelope, Atalanta, and time.
6/13: a friend
...who passed away this week. His passing away was not at all a good thing, but I today I've been especially thinking about how wonderful he was, so I'd like to try to celebrate his wonderfulness instead. He was so supportive of everyone he seemed to come across and made me feel like I was splendid just the way I am--and I know he made lots of other people feel the same way too. He is a glittering spirit, and I'm very grateful for him and all he brought to this world.
6/11: returning
...to the city's indoor walking track. It had been 15 months since I'd been there! I'm glad that infection rates are low enough that I'm able to go into public spaces like this again; it's starting to get too hot for it to be pleasant to walk outside.
6/10: getting a call
...from Chris this evening. He was sitting on the porch with the cats and wanted to let me know that I should come out to look at the sky. So I did.
6/9: eggless hollandaise sauce
We're vegetarian rather than vegan, but I'm trying to use eggs less. For dinner I made a hollandaise sauce with no eggs (recipe here), and it worked so well!
6/7: finding
...a format for a pamphlet that I've been experimenting with for years. It uses words from Elizabeth Barrett Browning's sonnet "The Soul's Expression," which I love, and each arrangement I tried seemed not to honor the EBB's words enough. Finally I think I've devised something that does.
6/6: playing a new game
...with Chris: Qwixx. I bought it last week when I saw it on sale at the grocery store, and Chris suggested we try it out this evening because I was in a bit of a funk. It was a good distraction and fun in its own right too.
6/5: the annual washing
...of the kayaks with the power-hose. It's not a tool I use often, but it is so helpful for this--and since my wrist is tender these days, I especially appreciate the minimal impact with maximal effect.
6/3: reading
...Gracefully Grayson by Ami Polonsky. I wasn't feeling well today (soreness and grogginess from a not-good night's sleep), so I decided to shift my plan for the day to novel-reading. Gracefully Grayson uses the myth of Persephone in an interesting way, so reading it counts as "work," but there was also a pleasure in slipping into its world and spending much of the day in it.
6/2: sipping
...some "barreled Manhattan"--the vermouth reminded me of Los Angeles afternoons decades ago.
6/1: many
...good things!
I walked this morning and listened to Maggie Gyllenhaal's reading of Anna Karenina.
I posted my essay about My Name is Mina.
I wrote review/recommendation paragraphs for three children's books that use Classical myth.
I made a curry corn salad.
I talked with a friend on the phone.
5/31: finishing
...writing a little essay about My Name is Mina that I thought I wouldn't complete until tomorrow.
5/29: walking
...at Cove Creek with Chris. We saw no one else on the trail, the weather was wonderful, and a new round of flowers was blooming. A wonderful way to celebrate Chris' birthday.
5/28: switching gears
I got rattled yesterday and the feeling continued into today, so I didn't think I'd be a very productive writer this afternoon. Instead, I wrote commentary and put together supporting materials for an ancient Latin inscription that's an epitaph for a dog, Margarita (or "Pearl")--and it's even in elegiac couplets. I liked spending time with the words, and I hope my future Latin students will too.
5/27: the whole-heartedness
...of the romance novels I've been reading and researching over the past two years. Their generosity and kindness toward their readers feels like relief.
5/26: a few things
Taking a walk before it got hot.
Watching a little insect flying around and alighting on a day lily.
Photographing clouds on the lake.
Getting quick help with my school computers.
Coming across the phrase "sought poem" as a variation of "found poem."
Talking with the post-office person about the Ruth Asawa stamps.
5/25: being grateful
...that The Horn Book has made its online reviews searchable for free during COVID. I used it a little a few months ago and kept meaning to go back to finish collecting possible titles to read. When I finished my commentary-writing work earlier than expected today, I decided to use the rest of my work time to explore more of the reviews. It felt really good to get that off my to-do list.
5/24: receiving
...an amazingly generous and affirming note from a friend to whom I had sent my most recent pamphlet. And in recent days I've received two wonderful and kind emails from former students.
I'm grateful for the unexpected validation from three different sources, and I'm grateful that I know these three people.
5/23: driving out
...to Woolly Hollow this morning and spending some time walking in the creek and clambering around the cascade.
5/22: choosing
...to do "work" today--even though it's Saturday (which I usually try to take "off")--because I really wanted to.
5/20: listening
...to some spoken Latin as part of the Satura Lanx free course on Seneca's first letter to Lucilius.
5/19: long overdue
I went to my campus office today to get my office computer readied for back-up and replacement. I had been putting this off for too long! I didn't get as much file-tidying done as I might have hoped, but what I did do was good (and a lot).
5/18: talking
...with a colleague and friend about a course we'll be teaching in the fall. It felt good to share thoughts, to realize that we agree on things we need to do, and then to think more on my own about those things throughout the day.
5/17: two things
I had a 7-hour online workshop today, and I was a little nervous about getting back in the mode of interfacing with folks from work again. For some small groupwork I got matched with two professors who were so good to talk shop with; it made all the difference!
When I walked down the hill to get the mail after the workshop was over, I noticed a bug I had never seen before. Once back inside, I Googled "Arkansas insect black with yellow shoulder piece and black dot" and the internet immediately came back with the identification: the American carrion beetle.
5/16: not measuring
...the ingredients for a Russian dressing. I just winged it, and the result was really good, contributing to the best vegetarian Reuben sandwiches we've had yet and making me feel a bit like a pro.
5/15: re-seeing
...a turtle that we saw in our yard a week or so ago. I spotted it the first time, and Chris did this time. (We know it's the same one because of some damage to its shell.) Its neck and face are so colorful with bright orange spots.
5/14: trying out
...a sheet I bought to photograph tree shadows. I had been noticing the shadows' wonderful combinations of light and dark, but when I take pictures of the shadows on the asphalt of the road, the texture of the road, cracks in it, and any stuff that's fallen on it are distracting. Now I have a white sheet that I can spread out to catch the shadows on a smooth surface.
5/12: re-reading
...My Name is Mina by David Almond. I think I like it even more this time around than the first time I read it (7 years ago). I just did a word-search of this blog to see if I wrote about it then--I didn't. So I'm especially glad to give it a shout-out as a good thing now!
5/11: quick in, quick out
I had to get bloodwork done today, and the lab staff was so fast at getting me taken care of. Very little waiting! Very little poking around under my skin to find a "good" vein!
5/10: lots of reading
...of different kinds. A novel. A middle-grade book. A picturebook. Literary theory. Essays on the use of art-historical images in children's literature.
5/9: a weekend
I finished a writing project on Friday and have one lined up to start tomorrow. That gave me a free-and-clear weekend. Today I enjoyed reading on the porch, doing some work on pamphlets, making tofu palak paneer, and generally hanging out with Chris.
5/8: visiting
...two cemeteries with Chris as we tried to find some gravestones for which people on findagrave.com requested photographs.
5/7: an invitation
...to photograph the irises in my neighbor's yard. She's given me a standing invitation to wander in her yard and look at her flowers, but today she stopped her car as I was walking to encourage me to take some pictures of the irises before they're gone.
5/6: smoother sailing
...than I anticipated with writing today. And in the evening I worked out a possible format for a pamphlet with some un-anxious tinkering.
5/5: pulling together some thoughts
...about retellings of the Tereus, Procne, and Philomela myth. After taking notes, I did some informal writing to get my mind into sentence-forming, complete-thought mode, and--a bonus--I was able to be on the porch with the cats while I did so.
5/3: quick help
...from a colleague at work as I tried to tie up some loose ends of the academic year.
5/2: Eton mess
After making honey gingerbread cookies this past week, I had an egg white left over, so I decided to search the internet to see if there was a recipe for meringue using a single egg white. There was! I ended up with 9 meringue cookies. We used 4 of them to make modified Eton messes: 2 meringues each, plus puréed strawberries and whipped cream. (I say "modified" because we didn't crunch up the meringues or construct parfait-like layers.) I had used lemon extract rather than vanilla in the meringues, and that gave a nice extra tang to the treat. And we have enough for another round tomorrow.
5/1: a cranberry drink
When I finished the cranberry sauce I made a few weeks ago, there was a little syrupy liquid left, and I decided to keep it. Today I added it to a lime and gin drink, and it was great.
4/30: ending the month on a good note
...with a good day.
I finished some Latin commentaries that were my work-goal for the week.
I made a cup of lemon-lime black tea for my afternoon cup. I had run out of it, but got a new shipment in the mail today and quickly made use of it.
I heard from a former student who had been on my mind.
Chris and I played pétanque in the park.
I took my kayak out for a little bit at sunset. The air was wonderful, and I enjoyed watching the sky and water turn from blue to pink.
I saw some fireflies.
4/29: surprised
...by the Italian arum blooms on my walk this evening: over 20 of them scattered on the west end of the ridge. I see the leaves all the time, but this is the first time I can remember seeing blooms, and what a windfall of them!
4/28: the smell of flowers
...in the humid air as I walked in the morning. And this afternoon I leaned in to sniff a rose.
4/27: a change of pace
Instead of reading and writing for my day's work, I focused on creating a commentary and supporting materials for the passage in Perpetua's diary where she recounts her first dream in prison. My goal is to use it with students at the end of their first year of Latin. I enjoyed the mechanical and technical nature of the task.
4/26: the metal balls
...of a pétanque set. I've wanted to toss them ever since I saw the 1982 film version of Evil Under the Sun, in which one of the characters throws pétanque balls while being interviewed by Poirot. Chris ordered us a set last week; I probably would have hemmed and hawed and kept dreaming about it in an unfulfilled way. Today it arrived, and after dinner we did a little tossing. It was satisfying.
4/24: an assortment
I saw (online) an interesting painting of Circe by Charles Hermans, who placed her in a then-contemporary (1881) setting.
I dropped off old prescription medications at the police department for drug take-back day.
I received a postcard from a friend who wrote about a bird coming down her chimney and into her house.
We made rice pancakes for dinner. I really like them, and we hadn't had them for a long time.
I caught some sunset color while standing on the deck.
And Chris heard a whippoorwill. He tried to get me so I could hear it too, but I missed it. I hope to hear it soon! In the meanwhile, I'm glad he heard it--neither of us heard one last year at all.
4/23: smiling at
...this sentence from Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell: "There is no word in the English language for a magician's garden two hundred years after the magician is dead."
4/22: finishing & filing
...my abstract. I asked Chris if I could have the house to myself while I worked, so he generously went to his campus office for the morning and afternoon. The solitude really helped.
4/21: getting some clarity
...in my thinking about an abstract for a possible conference paper. The abstract is due on Friday, so the clarity is welcome, and I'm hoping that I've laid some mental groundwork for good writing tomorrow.
4/18: a month later
It had been just over a month since Chris and I walked at Cove Creek, and when we went today there was a new array of blooming things.
4/17: cranberry sauce
...in April! I'm not sure I'd ever eaten it outside the November/December holiday frame before. I cooked some up today, and it was lovely.
4/15: playing croquet
...in the park with a friend. (We're both vaccinated and we socially distanced; croquet is good for that!)
4/14: an assortment
An uncrowded grocery store.
A recipe for orange cookies that I tinkered with by adding cinnamon, cardamom, and mini chocolate chips.
A Zoom lecture about Afrofutures in children's literature.
A Zoom dance concert with a piece choreographed by brother-in-law and costumed by my sister.
4/13: the next step for Marcus
Today we dropped Marcus the Dog off for fostering in Little Rock. It seems like a really great home with other dogs for company and people who love (and are set up for keeping) dogs. He couldn't stay with us long term, so this is a really good next step. Still, it was a little sad to let him go. I'm glad I got to sit with him for the drive to Little Rock.
4/12: on my walk
...one of our neighbors called me into her yard so she could show me all sorts of flowering things.
4/10: repaired
Someone backed into the side of my (parked) car a few weeks ago. Today I got it back from the repair shop, and I'm so grateful to have it.
4/9: company
...outside this evening: bats overhead, fireflies twinkling at the edge of the woods, Marcus the dog on our deck, and my friend talking with me on the phone.
4/8: thinking about writing
I read a chunk of Several Short Sentences About Writing by Verlyn Klinkenborg today. I don't see eye-to-eye with him on a number of topics, but he made some suggestions for writing and revising that I'll look forward to trying in my classes next year.
4/7: the dog Marcus
A Dutch shepherd dog whom Chris has named Marcus followed me home from my walk one day last week. He was obviously hungry and tired and scared. Maybe he got lost; maybe his humans abandoned him and he found his way to our neighborhood. We've been feeding him, and Chris has been contacting places that can help in getting him a new home. We're not equipped to take him in long-term, but he's a sweet dog and eager to make a connection. It's been nice to see him become less desperate during his time with us. Tomorrow he goes to the vet for a check-up!
4/6: typing a list
It was a bit of a destabilizing day with a doctor's appointment and some work-related email. But my other task today was typing up a big list of Latin vocabulary, and the rote nature of the exercise was welcome.
4/5: the last bit
...of Irish soda bread which my mother sent us. I thought we had finished it, but we didn't, so I enjoyed having it as part of my lunch.
3/31: finally starting
...to write my essay on Wonder Woman. I've been reading and taking notes, but for some reason(s?) I've had a hard time getting started on the essay itself. Today I got the first third done, and I'll count that as a good thing.
3/30: morning, afternoon, evening
Smelling the lilac on my morning walk.
Finishing The Girl with All the Gifts.
Putting in my textbook orders for the fall.
3/29: paddling
...past a redbud tree on the lake this morning. It was my first time kayaking in quite awhile, and it felt good to be back on the water.
3/26: watching
...the moon's reflection on the lake to the east as the sun set in the west.
...bats flying over our yard in the twilight.
3/25: a clear hour
...in which to take a walk without being rained on. Every day there's more green, and today all the colors seemed more vibrant amid the grey.
3/24: after dinner
Doing some editor's work for a gorgeous poem that we'll be publishing at Heron Tree in a few weeks.
Helping Chris to bottle our apple wine, which turned out really well.
Going to the dock for just a little while at sunset.
3/22: writing
...emails that I've been putting off. They were hard or bad emails--I just sometimes get frozen when faced with emailing, and it was good to get unfrozen.
3/20: moving
I walked after dinner, in the hour before sunset, and the temperature, the light, and the smell of spring were wonderful. It all felt especially good after a somewhat sleepless night and a day spent in an online conference.
3/19: veggie reubens
...for dinner tonight. We used to get them at one of our favorite restaurants, which is now--sadly and permanently--closed. I'm really sorry we can't go there and order them anymore, but it's nice to know we can make them at home and honor the memory of the place in a little way.
3/18: silly, serious, and hopeful
A silly thing today: buying this Hot Wheels Spring 2021 car.
A serious thing today: reading All Kinds of Fur / Kins Fur by Margaret Yocom.
A hopeful thing today: scattering seeds with Chris.
3/17: walking in the woods
...around our house with Chris. We visited the wild plums and enjoyed other signs of spring.
3/16: a good day
The morning started off a little shaky. Someone from the energy company was walking around our house, looking in our windows, and walking on our deck. He didn't need to read our meter or do anything with our equipment, but (supposedly) he was hoping to get some directions--though he sure went about it in a creepy way. Then we planned to go flying, but the airplane ended up needing to be serviced. So we decided to head out to Cove Creek and try to leave the glitches behind--and we did! We saw lots of wildflowers, and I spotted a snake in a tree. In the afternoon I wrote a bit, finishing up an essay that I'm glad to be done with. After dinner we made banana no-dairy ice cream for dessert, and I went down to the lake for a bit. I also finished Piranesi and am really glad I read it.
3/14: a flock
...of blueberry-lemon bluebird cookies. I still get a bit nervous making cookies, but less so than I used to, and I'm glad my nervousness didn't keep me from dreaming these up and making the dream a reality.
3/11: a handful of things
Getting my audiobook glitch straightened out. It required a call to customer service, and the representative was very nice.
Walking on the ridge and noticing the thousands of trout lilies.
Talking with a friend and colleague on the phone about a number of things, including the dark side or edginess of A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Zooming into a short-story reading and listing words as the author spoke.
Reading Lynn Nottage's Intimate Apparel, which my friend had mentioned in our phone call.
3/10: switching
...to Brian Eno's Music for Airports when my audiobook hit a playback glitch during my walk. The music made me smile.
3/9: adding
...my latest bits to some collages which my sister and I are gradually putting together, taking turns through mail exchanges. I love how they are shaping up.
3/8: taking
...my walk after dinner instead of in the morning--something that's possible now that the sun is setting later. I enjoyed being out in the spring air, hearing birds chirping as twilight came on, seeing a bat, and catching some sunset color on the lake.
3/6: YouTubing in
...to some of the sessions of the Language Creation Society conference today. I got to see a former student present about cleft sentences, plus I heard talks about the PIEbot program and making a conlang for corvids. I'm excited for a few more presentations tomorrow.
3/3: Shakespeare, play & sonnet
I enjoyed reading some of Gregory Betts' The Others Raisd in Me today. It's a series of 150 different remixes of Shakespeare's Sonnet 150.
And I revisited Helena's Act 3 speech to Hermia in A Midsummer Night's Dream because Helena's image of the two of them embroidering together came into my mind and I wanted to track it down. It was more wonderful than I remembered; I had to read parts of it out loud to myself.
3/2: posting
...newly edited versions of all the Trollope commentaries. Hundreds of pages. Finally. Whew.
I've decided to stay away from alcohol for a little while since I'm having some general trouble with light-headedness these days, but I feel like the occasion calls for some champagne or a non-alcoholic equivalent!
3/1: watching
...a mail-art friend's blindfolded poetry performance online in real time. While blindfolded, he used rubber stamps of words and letters to create a visual poetry piece on a sheet of paper. His son filmed him. It was a sweet 20 minutes.
2/26: walking in the rain
It was drizzling this morning, but it had been too long since I'd walked, so I headed out with an umbrella. And I loved seeing the rain-drops on leaves.
2/24: resting
...because of some side-effects from my second dose of the COVID vaccine. The joint pain is no fun (it reminds me of a time I got seriously ill in Rome), but I'm grateful to know that it is just a side-effect and will wear off, to have been able to get the vaccine, and to have the flexibility in my work to take a sick day.
2/23: leaving children's books
...at a Little Free Library as part of a family's memorial project. I feel lucky that I got to play a little part in this--they got my name and address via a mutual friend and mailed me the books, and then I placed them at the LFL near the Tucker Creek trailhead in town.
2/22: many things
I thought it was going to be a rocky day because I got so little sleep last night (around 3.5 hours), but it contained some really good things! They included:
- writing about Ovid's Atalanta story
- then writing about Ferdinand Hodler's painting "The Dream"
- and talking with Chris about the painting over a mid-morning snack
- taking a walk
- listening to an interesting Zoom lecture about the changes in children's literature in Europe around 1968
- finishing Never Look Back by Lilliam Rivera
- making a new dressing for our salad at dinner time
- taking another walk
- hearing the birds chirp near sunset time
- seeing seven herons down at the lake
- having a long phone call with a friend
2/19: finishing
...a bureaucratic task that I've been putting off for a month. I've learned from the experience and won't be volunteering to do it again. It wasn't hard when I set myself to do it this afternoon; it's just not a good fit for me.
2/17: learning
...about how Marlo Thomas and others got Free to Be...You and Me off the ground in the 1970s.
2/15: more goodnesss
This morning I had a second cup of coffee while I wrote about the Judgment of Paris and discovered things about it!
Then I went for a walk in the nearly foot-deep snow. It made me feel like a kid at times.
For dinner I made a lentil and carrot salad and potato pancakes. Both used onion, and I paused in my cooking to photograph this onion slice:
2/14: an abundance!
I woke up well before dawn and read for a couple of hours before falling back to sleep. The reading was fun, but I was worried that the disrupted sleep would throw me off. It didn't seem to--hurray!--and the day was filled with good things:
- reading the NYT Book Review
- sitting with Tilde in my lap
- participating in a Zoom workshop about ekphrasis and fanfiction
- continuing to think and write about ekphrasis and fanfiction after the workshop
- taking a long walk in the falling snow
- drawing curves in the snow with my feet as I walked
- watching the ridge's puppies run around in their first experience of snow
- hearing geese piping differently in the winter storm
- having waffles with bananas, maple syrup, and whipped cream for dinner
- listening to Marissa Meyer's "Little Android," an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's "Little Mermaid"
2/13: deciding
...to drive out to Woolly Hollow to take advantage of the good weather. It was cold, but the sun was warm, and I walked along the creek above the cascade, below the bluff.
2/12: pulling myself
...out of a slumpy day by doing some quick baking after lunch and then heading to campus and town for some errands.
2/11: not as severe
The ice storm wasn't as bad as had been predicted. It still woke us (and the cats) up in the middle of the night, but the power didn't go out and the ice came down as pellets rather than in freezing sheets.
2/10: participating
...in an online ekphrastic workshop focused on contrast. At the outset we were asked to consider what the concept of "contrast" meant to us or how we feel it at work in our lives. That made me think about contrast as a phenomenon or happening (rather than a thing), an experience of difference that has time and place.
2/9: lightly revising
...my conference paper from January for posting online. I added two paragraphs, some footnotes, and a bibliography. It wasn't hard, but it was something I had been somehow to anxious to do (and hence I'd been delaying doing it). I'm glad it's done now.
2/8: receiving a gift
...for Valentine's Day from my mother. When we were growing up, each winter we'd put gumdrops, small marshmallows, and LifeSaver candies on the branches of a small, clear plastic tree (like this). In a burst of sweet nostalgia, my mother sent me and my siblings our own trees this year, along with a big bag of red cinnamon and white peppermint gumdrops with which to decorate it.
2/7: e-filing
...our federal taxes. We'd been submitting paper forms until this year, but now paper returns get process so much more slowly that we realized we should go electronic. Usually we do our taxes right before the due date; it's nice to have the federal ones at least done early.
2/6: calling
...today a "rest day." I had said to Chris that it was a "lazy day," but he said that "rest day" was more accurate. And it's less judgmental, too.
2/5: taking a trip
...into the Ozarks for a walk with Chris at Alum Cove.
The view from inside a cave on the trail:
We stopped at an overlook on the way back; smoke was in the air.
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