7/31: 3 things

...dropping off picturebooks to be put on reserve for my seminar this fall.  It feels good to have done enough planning at least to have this taken care of.

...reading an article in Artforum about Hilma af Klint's envisioned temple/museum.  The how of the article was interestingly connected to the what.

...meeting up with a friend who's been away since early May.  We got gelato and had a 2-hour conversation. 

7/30: recreating

...our standard order when we used to go to the (now closed) Mean Bean Café:  veggie reubens, chips, and peanut butter pie.  We make veggie reubens relatively frequently, but it's rare that I make peanut butter pie--it's dangerously good.

7/29: two sightings

...on the deck: the fox in the morning and a road runner in the afternoon.

7/28: watching

...and hearing Ella Fitzgerald's "One Note Samba" performance in Montreaux, 1969.  Oh my goodness.  (YouTube video here.)

7/27: picking up

...new glasses.  I chose them last week while my eyes were still dilated from the exam, so I wasn't seeing very clearly--and I've been worried that, when they were ready, I'd find out that I made bad choices with my compromised sight.  But the two pairs I picked up today are nice!  And hopefully the third pair will be good when it arrives too.

7/26: having made

...enough food for multiple days' lunches and dinners.  It meant that I didn't have to do much in the kitchen today, when I was feeling under the weather.

7/25: listening

...to a presentation about Emily Dickinson's collection of sheet music.  It was hybrid in two ways:  it was online and in person (I attended virtually), and it incorporated traditional lecture with the performance of some pieces.

7/24: finding it easier

...to find words as I was writing Trollope commentary this afternoon.

7/23: going through

...years of digital photos and deciding which ones to order--then actually ordering them.

7/22: another collaborative

...collaging session with Chris, and I love the result.

7/21: beginning

...to write commentary on the uses of Classics in Phineas Finn.  It took me 2.5 hours to write 6 glosses today.  That's a bit daunting (given that there are about 170 glosses to write), but there was also an element of fun.  For instance, I got to think about how Trollope was combining elements of an Aesopian fable and a Hans Christian Andersen story to set up some imagery that will connect with a poem by Juvenal later in the novel.  It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it's mine.

7/20: ordering

...square prints of photos from a new place.  I hope they'll be/feel/look nice!

7/19: getting some nice feedback

...on book descriptions I wrote for a Classics and children's literature website.

7/18: writing

...all afternoon, while a friend in Indiana was writing at the same time--writing buddies at a distance.  (We texted one another at the beginning and end, and once in the middle.)  I left the trickiest of my three writing tasks until then end.  It seemed risky, as if I'd run out of steam and convince myself that I was done for the day.  But it helped.  By the time I got to it, I was more comfortable in words.

7/17: two

...more long overdue things done:  an eye appointment for an updated prescription, and a reply to an unexpected email (received months ago) from an old friend.

7/16: outside and inside

An outside good thing:  I drove to Woolly Hollow this morning and spent time photographing the creek before it got too hot.  I hadn't been there since May.

An inside good thing:  Chris showed me how to use the carpet shampooer, and I tried it on the bedroom rug.  It's belated--I should have learned to use it years ago--but now is better than not.

7/15: collaborating

...with Chris on a collage this afternoon.

7/14: my abstract

...on "creative deformance" and Greek tragedy was accepted for presentation at the annual Classics conference in January.  I'm bummed that the conference is not going to be online (I'd rather not travel, and not to Chicago in the winter time), but there are some ways in which an in-person presentation would be easier.  And overall I'm glad that I'll have a chance to talk about the various found-poetry-inspired activities I've done with students recently.

7/13: two things done

...that I wanted to accomplish this summer:  opening a CD and writing an essay about Annie on My Mind.  Chris and I went to the bank today and got the CD set up, and I finished (and posted) the Annie on My Mind essay this evening.  Chris read the essay yesterday evening and gave it a thumbs up, and that really helped me push through with some final edits today.

7/12: tasting

...a Monte Cristo sandwich (made with vegetarian "meat").  The sandwich is mentioned in one of the acts of California Suite, which my father directed in the mid-1980s.  I helped to run the lights for the show, so I got to know it well.  Sometimes I just exclaim the line from the play, "and a Monte Cristo sandwich!"  Today we each made one for dinner.  It was so good--I definitely shouldn't have waited 30+ years.

7/11: being delighted

...by a photo my sister texted to me.  I've been sending her purple or pink Pantone postcards, and the one that arrived on her end today perfectly matched the shirt she happened to be wearing!  She sent me a picture with her phone camera so I could see the serendipity.

7/10: homemade

...Russian(ish) dressing using vegan mayo.

7/9: finally

...sending out copies of a pamphlet I had designed in 2020 but had never mailed to more than a handful of people at the time.  A pile is now ready to be posted tomorrow.

7/8: scrubbing

...the wood floor in our kitchen.  Long overdue.

7/7: slowly

...the marks (hurts? scars? wounds?) from my June surgery are fading.  This week there's been real progress on that front.  It might just be the passage of time, but I'm going to credit the onion skin and vitamin E lotion I started to use.

7/6: trying out

...some new collage formats.

7/5: going

...to a local business--an olive oil shop--and buying some special things.  I used two of them (lemon infused oil and a vegan fig "salami") in a salad with romaine, green onions, and grapes--and it was probably the best salad I've ever made.

7/4: putting together

...ingredients for a coffee cake, words for sentences.

7/3: continuing

...to work through my correspondence basket, and feeling grateful for people's kind mail over the past months.

7/2: having company

...when I woke up at 4 am and couldn't go back to sleep:  Trollope's Phineas Finn.

7/1: a very good sunset

...viewed from our porch.

And another good thing: a very good placement (by Chris) of band-aids in the cupboard next to the knife block. (I needed one today after a mishap while cutting a tomato.)