12/4: remembering
...the Pompeian graffiti on a launderer's shop that toys with the opening of the Aeneid. It was fun to bring into our last Vergil class.
12/3: extra apple
I didn't eat all of my lunch apple yesterday, so I included the remainder when I packed my new apple slices for today. And I ended up having to stay at school much later than I planned, so I was grateful for the extra fuel.
12/2: two things
1. Thinking about Vergil's Dido and her relationship to Circe, Calypso, Nausicaa, Medea, Ariadne, and Cleopatra--first in my office on my own (as I prepared for class) and then in class with the students' input and observations.
2. Receiving colored envelopes that perfectly match this year's holiday card.
12/1: the excitement
...of a student who was making a connection between the Percy Jackson class and a course they are taking on the Book of Job. They had a light-bulb moment during class and then came to my office hours later to explain the idea to me. The idea was very good, and I'm grateful that the student shared with me their excitement at making the connection as well as their fleshing-out of the idea.
11/30: spending time
...working on photographs and listening to My Friends by Fredrick Backman--2 good things which I could do simultaneously. Then I kept listening to My Friends as I put away laundry.
11/29: unexpectedly quiet
...on the roads and in town this afternoon. I drove in to spend some time with a friend as she was gallery-sitting. (It was quiet at the gallery too.)
11/27: walking with Chris
...at Cove Creek--good light, good air, good smell of the earth, good company.
11/25: shopping done
...as we head into the Thanksgiving holiday. Chris went grocering yesterday, and I went to Target this afternoon to pick up a few things. I'm glad we can avoid stores for the next stretch of days (fingers crossed)--they were already starting to get crowded and not so calming.
1/21: being thanked
...for putting a "thank you" post-it note on my reimbursement request. It was a good reminder to acknowledge people and the work they do, even in small ways and for seemingly small things.
11/20: a rabbit
...hopping in the yard as I drove up the driveway. I am always-always-always happy to to see a rabbit out in the world.
11/19: 2 new
...little animal figurines: a fox and a clouded leopard. I didn't mean them as a birthday-present-to-self, but they arrived today (my birthday), so they are.
Offerings from other people were also appreciated! A crocheted angel from my aunt, a cake and hedgehog calendar from my mother, a sweet card from my best-friend-since-childhood, cloth storage bins decorated with a rhino and a hedgehog from my sister, and cinnamon rolls from Chris. Plus notes from my brother (who sent a text at the stroke of midnight!), another friend, and a now-retired colleague.
11/18: a bluebird
...flying past my car as I drove to work this morning. It hadn't been a good morning, so the bluebird was a welcome suggestion that things might get better.
11/17: lucky timing
It was overcast this morning, and I checked the forecast to see if rain was predicted. It wasn't, so when I left for work I didn't take an umbrella. As I drove to school, it started to rain. But then it paused just as I pulled into the parking lot at school. I was glad not to have to start the day wet.
11/16: home by lunch
I hadn't spent any nights away from home since July 2024, so I was an out-of-practice traveller when I went to my conference late last week. Though I know it was good for me to go--to be on the road, to give my paper, to see a friend, to get out of my usual routines--I was also glad to have a smooth drive back this morning. I arrived in time to make myself fried rice for lunch.
11/15: keeping my phone out
...as I walked between my hotel and the Arkansas Union on the UA Fayetteville campus. I couldn't resist photographing the colored leaves piled along the sidewalk, and I was grateful for the ring stand/holder that I have on my phone, making it easy to hold securely.
11/14: finally liking
...my Daphne paper. I didn't get to work on it as much as I wanted this semester, but as I fine-tuned and practiced it in the lead-up to the conference, I came to appreciate the poems and what I did with them. That put me in a good mood for actually giving the paper in the afternoon, and the presentation went pretty well.
11/13: a photo
...of the students in my Vergil course. I couldn't be in class today, but I designed an activity for them to do together, and they sent me a picture of themselves working in our classroom.
11/9: not having
...a rushed evening of preparation for work tomorrow. I did a good number of bureaucratic things on Friday evening, so this afternoon and evening were able to be calmer. Because I've been under the weather, it was nice to be able to rest at times today without having to worry about getting things done.
11/8: figuring out
...an okay format for my presentation handout next week (and then making the handout itself).
11/7: talking
...with an advisee who emailed me in the morning. We set up a time for the afternoon and had a good conversation. It was an advisee I hadn't seen this semester yet, so it was especially nice to have an unhurried chance to talk with them.
11/5: mehercule
I told the beginning Latin students about the exclamation mehercule! today. Later in the class period, one student sneezed and another one said mehercule! I told them that I had a student (20 years ago!) who used mehercule that way during her whole time at college. It made me smile to hear it again in the context of a sneeze.
11/3: not procrastinating
...about changing my car clock to reflect the end of Daylight Savings Time. I didn't drive anywhere yesterday, so this morning was my first time in the car since "falling back," and I adjusted the clock as soon as I pulled into the parking lot at work. (Sometimes I've put off switching the clock for weeks.)
11/2: remembering my slippers!
I have a pair of reflexology slides that I really like and use as my "at home, inside" shoes. But today I've been feeling under the weather, and my feet were cold even with warm socks on. So I switched out my sandals for some fleecy slippers that I remembered buying last winter. They did the trick.
11/1: making some headway
...on my Daphne paper, but also knowing that I needed to stop for the night, even if I wasn't as far along as I wanted to be.
10/31: all books claimed
...for an upcoming reading group I'm running on Nancy Garden's Annie on My Mind.
10/30: two things
One thing not school-related: taking some pictures at the bridge this morning.
One thing school-related: having enough jack-o-lantern stickers to put on students' homework that I'm passing back tomorrow.
10/29: kindness
...from one of my students toward a prospective student visiting our class today. Before the class began, she struck up conversation with him and spent time explaining the topic of the class and how it works.
10/25: before and during
...the rain. Before it arrived: talking an abbreviated walk, including some time at the lake to take pictures. While it's coming down: making a half-recipe of the LA Unified School District coffee cake.
10/23: thinking about
...ablatives in Vergil's Aeneid, and hearing students' thoughts about which might be at play in particular instances and how different possibilities affect the emphasis of what's being expressed.
10/21: time in the morning
...to walk a little on campus, putting up posters for an event on Thursday. And some sculpture (by Dryden Wells) in the window-gallery of the campus art museum caught my eye so I routed myself to get a closer look.
10/19: a sweet strawberry
...pincushion in a sewing box Chris brought back from New Jersey. The box belonged to his great-aunt and a plaque on it says that it was gifted to her (presumably by her school?) in 1928 for her excellence in sewing.
10/18: thinking concretely
...about the end-of-semester project for my upper-level Latin class. It's time to give them more details, and I enjoyed working out some details through some morning brainstorming.
10/15: a sticker
...from a student. When I asked at the start of the quiz if there were any questions, she said that she had a sheet of stickers and wanted to know which one I wanted her to put on her quiz for me. It was a nice recognition of the stickers I routinely put on their homeworks. (I know--they're in college, but Latin is hard enough, and a sticker can bring a smile.)
10/13: asters
...along the road and on my shirt. In past Octobers we've had glorious patches of them in the yard, but not this year. Still, there are some good bunches along the ridge road. And as I drove to school today I realized that my button-down was seasonally appropriate since it is dotted with asters.
10/12: peanut butter cookies
...made with my childhood cookie stamps. I made 2 dozen for Chris' father and 2 dozen for a friend. (There were a few extras for Chris and me too.)
10/11: the turtle
...that Chris has often seen in our yard over the years was on the driveway this morning when I finished up my walk. I hung out with it until it had crossed into the grass.
10/10: laughter
...in Latin class as they recited the endings for the future active indicative: -bo, -bis, -bit, -bimus, -bitis, -bunt.
10/9: really noticing
...and enjoying the shadows that the trees cast through the windows in the hallway outside my campus office. (I actually want to trace them but don't know if I'll have the courage to do it when so many people would see me at it. Maybe I should try tracing some shadows at home first.)
10/8: learning a new trick
...in the campus room-scheduling software. This might not seem like a big deal, but it will save me time and computer clicks in the future!
10/7: an unexpected postcard
...delivered to my school address. It was from a former student (now a professor himself). He was writing from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where I had taken him--along with a small group of other students--when he was a senior (2 decades ago!) so that we could study Twombly's Fifty Days at Iliam together.
10/5: lakeside
I didn't feel well enough for a full morning walk; my cold has returned. But I went down to the lake and took a few pictures of reflections on the water.
10/4: celebrating
...the first Saturday after 5 weekends of dealing with the process of pamphlet-photographing. I mailed some pamphlets, took a walk, tried out a new printing kit with Chris, and made a cake. Chris suggested that we decorate it with punctuation, so we did.
10/3: a good workshop
...this afternoon. I called it Vergil, Venn Diagrams, and Visual Poetry. It might have been one of my quirkiest workshops yet, but once I got the idea, I really wanted to give it a try. So I did. And I'm so grateful for a room of students who were willing to experiment.
10/2: good things amidst
...busy-ness, bureaucracy, and a broken HVAC in my office building. It was 85 degrees inside my office and classroom (not good)! Hard for me to feel professional when drenched with sweat, and hard for the students to focus and learn when they're in such a hot and stuffy space. But on the happier end of things: I had good office-hour meetings with some students (even meeting one student's parent); the class translation of Vergil's description of Fama went well; my cold seems to be waning (knock on wood); and at home tonight I had time to write notes to three friends after finishing tomorrow's prep.
10/1: a quick, not long
...walk to some buildings on campus to put up some posters for an event on Friday. I was glad that I finally had the time to do it and that the morning air was still somewhat cool as I made my way.
9/30: soup!
I made garlic, ginger, and noodle soup for dinner, something we haven't had for years. It was a good choice, given our under-the-weather-ness. And the noodles were ready right as Chris pulled into the driveway.
9/29: remembering
...a good thing from the weekend: Chris harvested 4 gem-like muscadine grapes and we shared them. It's a good thing to remember that a day may have more good things than I can recall when I sit down to write a blog entry.
9/28: deciding
...that I'm too sick to teach tomorrow. Making the decision today means that I can go to sleep without wondering or worrying about how I'll feel in the morning--and that should translate into a better chance of getting some actual rest tonight.
9/27: finishing
...a piece of writing (about my Cuckoo Grey pamphlets) that I thought would take longer than it did.
9/26: yellow-orange
...flowers on the roadside. A welcome part of Arkansas autumn as I drive to school.
9/22: realizing
...how good Book 7 of the Aeneid is. It had been more than a decade since I last read it, and some parts I remembered (Allecto and Amata, Lavinia and the bees, Silvia and the stag), but other parts I did not (Allecto's reaction to Turnus' put-down!).
9/21: starting my day
...with games from The New York Times. It's something I began doing in 2020 or 2021, and it's been a regular part of my wake-up routine since then. I can't say I haven't missed a day, but I haven't missed many.
9/19: considering the wordcraft
...of a passage in Rick Riordan's The Sea of Monsters in class today. I like the chance to zoom in.
9/18: reading
...The Hounding by Xenobe Purvis. I'm not sure where it's going and if I'll continue liking it, but I find myself eager to return to it for some before-bed reading each night.
9/17: trying
...to hang onto the memory of a good class conversation in the early afternoon. It's hard because it was followed by a very not-good meeting in the later afternoon, but I'm trying to let that good thing count.
9/16: remembering
...to open the online submission portal for some student assignments this afternoon. I'm usually good about remembering to do this, but yesterday (when I'd normally do it) it slipped my mind. So I scheduled timed openings for the next 2 weeks' assignments.
9/14: making headway
...on taking photos of my pamphlets. I need them for a possible exhibition opportunity, and I had hired a professional photographer to take some pictures last week, but it turns out that the resulting photos weren't right, so I'm doing it myself : ) Mine aren't perfect, but they capture more of the pamphlets' feel.
9/12: a hummingbird
...zipping by the window in the morning. I was lucky to be there to see it! I thought to myself, "If nothing else particularly good happens today, at least I already have this as a good thing."
9/11: 100%
...all around: everyone who turned in their Latin homework got full marks on it. (I'm not sure this has ever happened before.)
9/10: matching colors
I picked a shirt to wear today that had a light blue background with flowers in dusty shades of yellow and pink. As I drove to school, I saw flowers of those colors along the roadside, and the sky was the same blue too.
9/8: taking the time
...this morning to make a batch of tofu "tuna" salad to have for lunches this week.
9/6: getting photos taken
...of some of my pamphlets. It's for an exhibition possibility, so they needed to be high-quality. I don't have the equipment and know-how to do a good job of it myself, so I found someone who does. The session seemed to go well, and I'll look forward to seeing the results.
9/5: quiet time
...in my office from 2:15 to 4:00. It was a much needed space to get some things done.
9/4: another Daphne poem
...or rather, several Daphne poems. In a chapbook by Mari Ness that arrived in my mailbox today.
9/3: a trio
In the morning: coming up with a format for a new artist-book workshop at school.
In the afternoon: admiring a student's embroidered t-shirt. (I usually try not to comment on students' appearances and clothes, but I knew this student wouldn't mind. It turns out that they bought the t-shirt at a thrift store, and we enjoyed enthusing over the hand-embroidered creepy crawlies on it.)
In the evening: sweeping the floors! Which translates to making time on a "school night" to do something for the house (not just schoolwork).
9/1: finishing and starting
...audiobooks while doing today's pamphlet-making. I finished Grady Hendrix's Witchcraft for Wayward Girls and started A. S. Byatt's The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye (recommended by a friend I made 40 years ago). This sentence in Byatt's book made me happy: "She was by nature a reading, not a traveling princess."
8/31: an upturn
...in the day. This morning's walk wasn't what I was expecting: I thought it would be cooler than it was, and when I went to pick up trash alongside the road (which I often do), the bag I picked up was full of pee (yes, really--luckily it was tied closed). This afternoon we ran errands, during which I was out of sorts. But at dinner we watched 2 episodes of the latest season of Fisk (I love it!), and this evening I worked on pamphlet-making without having to worry that it's a school night (since tomorrow is a holiday).
Added later: I remembered a good think from our errand-running. When I went into the UPS store to pick up some packages, I told a woman in line that I liked her dress. (It was a colorful, cleverly constructed sundress that used a variety of prints.) She smiled and told me that she made it herself--which made me so glad that I had the courage to tell her rather than just keep my admiration to myself.
8/30: coming upon
...a paragraph in R. F. Kuang's Katabasis that made me smile:
Now, magick had progressed a lot since, say, the primitive rituals suggested by the Uffington chalk inscriptions, and there had since been a proliferation of flashy subfields that in fact had nothing to do with chalk, but rather all sorts of arcane objects, enchanted music, and visual illusions. One could now study the archaeology of magick, the history of magick, the music of magick, and on and on. Over in America, visual illusions and flashy showmanship were all the rage. In Europe they were going on about things called postmodernist and postructuralist magick, which seemed to involve lots of spells doing the opposite of what their inventors wanted, and spells that did nothing at all, which everyone claimed was very profound.
8/29: folding
...lots of small, double-square pamphlets in different colors, enough to fill a punchbowl.
8/28: working from home
...this morning. My school office has been way too cold, so it was nice to be able to control my environment a little more by staying home until I had to go to campus to teach. Having Chris and the cats for company was a bonus.
8/27: a string of students
...in office hours. It was nice to have steady "business" in the first office hours of the school year.
8/26: Latin Scrabble
The students in the upper-level Latin course made grids of words (collaboratively, not competitively) on some Latin Scrabble boards I bought a few years ago. I think it was a nice first-day-back-at-Latin activity for them.
8/24: three good things
Morning writing (since it won't be easy to do regularly starting tomorrow), and during it I worked out a new assignment idea for the upper-level Latin class.
More cleaning--of my school office and my home bathroom.
Good emails about my pamphlets.
8/22: impromptu
...brownies. Chris mentioned wanting some, so we made a batch after dinner, then delaying our dessert until they had cooled just enough to eat.
8/21: having
...somewhat more energy today than yesterday. I used it to work on cleaning my home office (long overdue).
8/19: organizing
...a cabinet in the afternoon and my semester calendars in the evening--welcome orderly counterbalances to meetings yesterday and this morning.
8/18: having a task
...not related to school to work on at home this evening. It was an intense day of workshopping with faculty, staff, and administration, so I appreciated having something (pamphlet-related) that I had to do this evening that shifted my thinking to other topics.
8/17: a good at-home day
...for the last day before back-to-school meetings begin for me tomorrow. I read some Artforum, wrote morning pages, texted and emailed with a curator about a possible exhibit of my pamphlets, organized cupboards with Chris, read, worked on some photos, walked on the treadmill (too hot outside), listened to an audiobook, cooked, ate figs and cheese for dinner, and generally hung out with Chris and the cats.
8/13: finding a pen
...decorated with pegasuses inspired by Greek red-figure painting. It was the only one left at the store, and I feel lucky to have it. (I'm also heartened at the thought that its now sold-out status means that a bunch of people have bought pegasus pens.)
8/12: a calmer day
Some things threw me for a loop yesterday. I dealt with them, which made me feel good, like an actual functioning grown-up, but they were still destabilizing. Today I followed up on those things some more, with a clearer, less anxious mind, and that also felt good.
8/11: being fine
...with a noisy cart in the grocery store. Over the past handful of years, I've been weirdly grateful for jangling or otherwise loud carts. The me of longer ago would get embarrassed by such carts; the more recent me thinks, "This cart's noise is not my fault; there is no shame attached. It's fine if the store's equipment makes noise in the store, and I need to focus on my shopping not on other people's possible reactions."
8/10: lemons again
This morning I ordered a mini paper lemon tree, a pop-up greeting card for myself.
8/9: preserved lemons
...rinsed, minced, and added to pasta with butter, tomato, green onions, vegan feta, and pepper.
8/7: setting up
...a little "showing" of my work in the classroom I usually teach in and run workshops in. A curator from Little Rock asked to see my pamphlets, and that classroom seemed to be the most fitting spot to meet. I went well in advance to create four different stations and arrangements of pamphlets on the tables; each clustering focused on a different aspect of my work (line, type, form, and words). It was good to see the pieces in a new way, in the context they create for one another, and to feel afresh the affection I have for them individually.
8/6: working at getting better
...at talking about my pamphlet-making. Because I send things out through the mail, I don't have much practice in talking with folks in an extended or formal way about my process or the particular pieces. A conversation this afternoon with a wonderful ceramic artist pushed me further in my articulation.
8/4: done revising (for now)
There are a few pamphlets I've made in the past that didn't come together in a way that felt wholly right to me. I've spent some time over the past three days reworking two of them. They're better for sure, but the difficulties I had with them were harder nuts to crack than I thought.
8/3: compiling
...an information sheet about myself and my Cuckoo Grey pamphlets for two artist-book meetings in the coming week. It felt good to put it together.
8/2: an hour outside
...this morning, since it was cool enough to walk. (Not "cool," but "cool enough.")
8/1: shown to the children
In the morning I read that Leonora Carrington had Insects Shown to the Children on her bookshelf. I looked for a digital copy online but didn't find one. However, I did find out that it was one in a series of books, and Project Gutenberg had another title in the series: Butterflies and Moths Shown to the Children. Even the cover is amazing! (I wish I had the whole set.) It was fun to poke around in the book and do a few on-the-spot erasures.
7/31: making some progress
...with preliminary thinking about an abstract that's due in early September.
7/30: after-dinner writing
...about the Vita Nostra series (which I finished listening to last night). I didn't write this morning, and when a free time for writing came around this evening I thought that I was too frazzled, but I gave it a try anyway. And it was really good. My thoughts coalesced more. I also became un-frazzled.
7/28: pigs & figs
Chris has harvested many figs from his trees! It's fun to try the various kinds and taste the differences.
We donated today to a pig rescue charity that Chris' aunt liked to visit. We'd been thinking about a fitting way to honor her, and when we heard today from her daughter about the pig rescue, it felt perfect.
7/26: writing
...4 pages in the morning for the past 10 days. It's something I used to do regularly. It's nice to get the habit back for a little while and to have thoughts emerge as I write. Today I realized some things about how my artist-books are different from a lot of others--many others are extending the tradition of medieval manuscripts, while I am extending the tradition of early modern pamphlets. It turns out, that's a tidy way to express a collection of significant differences, and it was good to work that out through writing this morning.
7/25: finishing
...a commentary project that started in 2020. I had been waiting on my collaborator's contributions, and I received them at the beginning of this month. Since then, I've been re-reading the novel we were writing about (Trollope's Can You Forgive Her?) and editing our entries. Tonight I posted the whole commentary online. Whew.
7/24: thinking
...about Joan Brown's Flora and its relationship to Rembrandt's Flora as well as the Roman wall-painting of Flora.
7/23: receiving
...another pair of pants that I love. I bought the first pair on sale a few weeks ago, and they fit so nicely and feel so good that I decided to order another pair (since it seems they're being discontinued).
7/22: a quiet polyptoton
...in Trollope's Can You Forgive Her? "But the slow clouds were passing over [the lake], and the shades of darkness on its surface changed themselves with gradual changes." I love the gentle movement and variation from changed to changes, as if the words are doing the same thing that they describe.
7/21: 11 things
...in honor of Barbara, who told me about the strategy of keeping going until completing at least 10 things in a day. I try not to count regular chores (e.g., taking care of the cats or making meals).
1. Reading Artforum.
2. Writing morning pages.
3. Doing more botanical line drawings.
4. Preparing mail to go out to my siblings and to someone on the Angel Card list.
5. Getting my hair cut.
6. Going to the craft store for paint, a small sponge roller, and colored pencils.
7. Picking up packages in town.
8. Putting a layer of new paint on the canvas (whose previous colors I'm trying to cover up).
9. Making energy bites, which will be my breakfast in the coming days.
10. Walking on the treadmill and doing a spin with the seated elliptical.
11. Reading some Dungeon Crawler Carl.
7/20: pulling down
...my Botanical Line Drawing book from the shelf and trying my hand at a few of the plants. I think I did especially well with the hydrangea.
7/18: writing
..."morning pages" about Matt Dinniman's Dungeon Crawler Carl, which I'm about one-quarter through and am puzzled by. My writing touched on episodic rhythms, spectacle and power, personal growth, The Pilgrim's Progress, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, chutes and ladders, and more.
7/15: reading
...a good article in the February 2025 issue of Artforum: "Out of Order: Mario Carpo on Mannerism, the Canon, and Generative AI."
7/14: cool enough
...to do a morning walk outside. It wasn't really "cool" at all--it was about 78 degrees. But it was overcast, and compared to hotter, sunnier days it seemed cooler than it was. It was nice to be moving in the world.
7/12: no list
I've been making to-do lists for most days, but today I took a needed break from a check-things-off mindset.
7/10: out of my hand
Emma the Cat eats his daily pill right out of my hand (along with a little morsel of wet food). He doesn't fuss or resist, and for that I'm very grateful.
7/9: maybe fixing
...my coffee machine by giving it a good clean? Now that I've cleaned it, a spring that seemed to have given out is working once again.
7/7: stories
A new story by my friend appeared on her Substack (link to the Substack here), and I read a short story by Naoko Awa to Chris.
7/6: cleaning
...the carpet in the bedroom. It needed to be done, but I kept putting it off. When I finally got to it, I enjoyed the work and the results. < I need to keep this in mind in the future, so the lesson I learned is an additional good thing.
7/5: so happy
...that my mother gave me the 6 cookie stamps we used at home when I was a kid. I love them, and I love using them to make peanut butter cookies (like I did today).
7/4: echoes
...of a meal. Last year on 7/4 I wrote about the dinner I had with my mother and a friend in Pennsylvania: pierogi, baked beans, vegan dogs, sauerkraut, peanut butter and jelly pie. I wondered what they were having for dinner today, so I texted them to ask. My friend had opted for pierogi, vegan dogs, sauerkraut, and a vegan ice-cream sandwich. It turns out that I had decided on that same menu for Chris and me!
7/3: happy finds
...via Artforum today: an essay on Blythe Bohnen's brushstrokes and a recommendation of Max Davies' Inventions for Broken & Prepared Guitar. The digital world has caused troubles for sure, but today it allowed me to see more of Bohnen's art and listen to Davies' album.
7/2: working
...on websites I manage. I'm not good at it, which frustrates me, but I kept going, and that's a good thing.
7/1: good emails
...one of which I received yesterday, from a friend I first met 40 years ago; the other I received today, from a former student I first met almost 11 years ago.
6/29: a decrease
...in wrist pain over the course of the day. (Fingers crossed that the decrease holds.)
6/28: having the energy
...to go grocery shopping this afternoon. I meant to do it yesterday but was too (inexplicably) wiped out.
6/27: phew
Tilde the Cat was limping yesterday, and Chris called in the late afternoon to get her a vet appointment today. Our vet isn't in on Fridays, but they scheduled us to see another vet at the clinic. We really love our vet, but it's also nice that he now works in a joint practice so that there can be a back-up option on days when he's out. When I took Tilde in this morning, they x-rayed her leg: no break and no signs of other chronic troubles. So they gave her a meloxicam shot for inflammation and pain, and we're hoping that the limp disappears over the weekend.
6/25: persisting
...or trying to persist through an awkward day. Nothing bad happened, but the heat and my migraine are lingering, and I got very itchy for a chunk of hours until an antihistamine took the edge off. I had a hard time settling into anything. But I got some mail ready, read some of Maggie Su's Blob (a kind of Pygmalion story), listened to the rest of Marie-Helene Bertino's Beautyland, made crumpets (but sort of messed them up), did some Heron Tree work, tried to write about Gender Swapped Greek Myths, and exercised on our indoor machines (treadmill, rower, sitting elliptical).
6/24: in spite
...of a migraine (and associated eye trouble and nausea), there were many good things today! I dealt with a practical website problem that I was anxious about addressing. I wrote notes to go into the mail. I texted back-and-forth with my brother for 45 minutes and had a quicker text exchange with my sister. I received a great set of Rhode Island trading cards made by a friend and his son for a school project.
6/23: doing some work
...on my Pegasus website that houses my work on Classics and children's literature. Today I added to it the short write-ups that I've done for the Calliope's Library project. It was affirming to read them altogether: I can write! I'm a professional! (Things that it's too easy to not register/remember/feel.)
6/22: returning
...to a pamphlet I planned last June but didn't finish formatting in Word. Today I realized how I could make that job easier. There were still hours of tinkering involved, but it's done now. It's a little strange in that it feels like something from an Old Me rather than the Current Me. Perhaps that should make me especially fond of it, as a way of honoring last year's self.
6/21: sorting
...through 2 years of personal mail. It's not that I hadn't read it--I had! And I'm grateful for every bit of it! But I had put off working through it systematically and deciding where to store certain things (e.g., artist-books go somewhere different from postcards which go somewhere different from letters).
6/19: having a little breakthrough
...in designing a pamphlet for my Bloomsday erasure. I also had a little breakthrough in my mental block about sending out past pamphlets--I readied a stack for mailing tomorrow.
6/18: thinking about
...different Greek words for "holy" in the Divine Liturgy of John Chrysostom and talking about that with Chris as we prepared lunch. It was part of getting ready for my last online session with a student who has been working on translating bits of the service, and I've enjoyed spending a little time over the past three weeks with this particular stretch of Greek.
6/17: revisiting
...a pamphlet that I thought was done last night--but when I woke up, I realized I needed to do some more tinkering with spacing.
6/16: a quick erasure
...of a paragraph from Joyce's Ulysses this evening to mark Bloomsday: the possible is a library of candescent forms.
6/14: reading good articles
...in Artforum this morning. Now that I've worked through my stack of past NYTBRs, it's time to move on to accumulated Artforum issues, which tend to get my brain going in interesting ways. During the school year I don't usually have time to let my brain "go in interesting ways," so the copies pile up until breaks and summer.
6/13: more website work
...though this time for Altered Odysseys, the online gallery in which I post students' creative projects using Greek and Roman epics. I needed to add a selection of pieces from each of the 3 students who did the project this year, and I also spent time checking past posts and tinkering with them if/as necessary (for formatting issues, consistency, visibility, etc.). I've had 20 students participate in the project since it started (in 2016), which I think is a nice number for a wholly co-curricular, self-motivated, and admittedly off-the-beaten-track undertaking. I felt fondly grateful to each of them as I revisited their pieces today.
6/12: learning
...a new word: hocket. It's a noun that names the alternating of a melody line between two (or more) voices or instruments. One voice or instrument picks up when another ends. The musical practice (from the Middle Ages) is interesting, and so is the word's etymology: it comes from the French word for hitch or hiccup!
6/11: some tidying
...of the Heron Tree website. I decluttered the archive contents pages. As websites go, they weren't very cluttered to begin with, but I wanted to streamline them even more.
6/10: the whole night through
I've been waking up in the middle of the night most nights recently, but I didn't wake up in the wee hours today.
6/9: four for four
I've attended four Zoom lectures since the semester ended, and all of them have been good.
6/8: reaching the last
...in my pile of to-be-read issues of the New York Times Book Review. I hadn't been keeping up with them weekly during the spring semester, so reading one a day has been a nice way to enjoy more leisurely summer mornings.
6/6: making crumpets
...for lunch. I found a no-yeast recipe online (here) and used some credit card points I had to buy a set of crumpet rings. Chris helped when it came to getting them out of their rings to turn them over. Success!
6/4: working on
...Heron Tree. We're reading through volume 12 submissions, and I picked the words that will be on the cover of the volume 11 collection (one word from each poem): branch, bread, cargoes, door, echo, equilibrium, expedition, faces, figures, filaments, forest, gown, grass, haze, history, impression, jar, lesson, light, lightning, line, miles, night, path, quilts, relief, roofs, room, search, shade, shell, shoes, summit, surface, translation, variations, violets, visitors.
6/3: connections
A Teams meeting with a student to do some Greek, a sweet message from a neighbor, two pieces of mail from friends, various texts with family and friends, and an email from another friend.
6/2: inside / outside
The morning inside: listening to a lecture about Sylvia Plath, Adrienne Rich, Harryette Mullen, and Sappho.
The afternoon outside: visiting the cascade and creek at Woolly Hollow (a long deferred trip).
6/1: submitting
...my paper abstract before lunch (today was the due-date). It wasn't something that I had to do, but it was something that I wanted to do. Given the flurry of the past 2 months, it recently seemed like I might not get it done--and though that would have been understandable, I would have felt like I let myself down. I'm glad not to have let myself down.
5/31: an abstract
...unexpectedly taking shape at the end of the day. It was a difficult morning and afternoon: tiredness, low spirits in general, frustration (a lost stapler became a symbol of larger frustrations!), uncertainty about a research topic, and a missed walk. But I somehow rallied after dinner, and I'm going to bed with a full draft of an abstract that's due tomorrow.
5/30: finishing
...my last bureaucratic task for the academic year. I was working on it down-to-the-wire (since today was the last business day of 2024-2025), but I got it done, and my spirit feels lighter.
5/29: having a cache
...of potato chips. We get "free" money to spend on food at school, and at the end of the semester I spent mine on lots of little bags of potato chips from the campus snack shop, stocking up for the summer. We each enjoyed a bag at dinner tonight, along with grilled peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
5/27: not procrastinating further
...on some emails I needed to write and some photo prints I needed to order. There are plenty of other things I'm still putting off that I shouldn't, but at least this is progress.
5/25: matching
...collages, photos, and stamps for my offerings in the iHanna postcard swap. I included copies of my second abstract comic too.
5/24: in Rome
...(kind of) for the day. Our electricity went out during a morning storm and didn't come back on until dinner time. In the interim I settled into Brian Selznick's Run Away With Me, set in the urbs aeterna in 1986. I spent spring 1989 in Rome, and the places and atmosphere felt heart-pullingly familiar. (But maybe that's part of Rome's magic, its combination of the particular and the eternal?)
5/23: a quick virtual meeting
...to conduct some business with colleagues this afternoon. It was a 15-minute session. The brevity was especially welcome after 19 hours of in-person meetings over the previous 3 days. (I'm not complaining about the in-person meetings--they were necessary and often really good. But they were also exhausting.)
5/22: getting to talk
...about the college's engaged learning program with two people who also really wanted to talk about it and who were enthusiastic about a thought I had for revising it. We were able to work my initial thought into a more fleshed-out possibility.
5/21: realizing
...that I needed to step out of a meeting to attend to both health and other business. (Sometimes you can't do everything.)
5/20: fireflies
...on a walk this evening. I couldn't walk this morning because I had another Zoom event, but it was cool enough after dinner to walk for a full hour before dark.
5/19: Zooming
...a talk by Chella Ward on "Reception and the Epistemic Violence of the Classical" hosted by the University of London. I miss all the online events that were available during High COVID Times. Though the pandemic-as-impetus is not-to-be-wished-for, the result was a rich celebration of ideas and activities. Today I enjoyed a taste of that again.
5/18: fresh
...administrative troubles at work. Not a good thing, but my ending the evening having done what I can do about them for now is good.
5/16: punctuating
...the last of my grading for the semester with collaging, emailing (not for work), reading mail from postal friends, and preparing meals without rushing. I'm glad that I've taken a few days to do my grading more slowly and sanely.
5/14: phew
I had been expecting a reimbursement check at work through campus mail, but it didn't appear when it should have. This morning I wrote myself a note to give it one more day before trying to track it down. But then it arrived at my home address in today's mail. I'm grateful to whoever decided to have it go through USPS rather than campus mail, since mail at school gets tricky once the regular semester is over.
5/13: a good meeting
...with a student this morning. I arranged it so I could sleep in just a little and could also be home by lunch--nice practical bonuses.
5/12: getting home
...in time for lunch. I had to give a make-up exam this morning, but the student finished in well under the allotted time, so I brought my day's grading back to the house to work on it here after lunch with Chris and the cats.
5/11: putting off grading
...for another day. There will be time to get it all done before the cut-off for filing grades, and I needed the mental space of focusing on other things today. I put away laundry, walked, worked on photos, read, and rested.
5/9: seeing
...one of my Myth students picking mulberries from one of the trees on campus. She said she's been doing it regularly since I mentioned it in class.
5/8: a good vote
...at the faculty meeting today. (A calendar change with too many potential pitfalls got voted down.)
5/7: seeing
...photos of Loretta Dunkelman's Ice Sky and Park Seo-Bo's Newspaper Ecritures. (I got to spend a little time with Artforum today.)
5/5: slipping in
...a walk this morning before finishing some grading and heading to campus.
...and a grocery run. (At the store, one woman said she liked my haircut and another said she liked my outfit, and those nice comments from strangers made me feel like the world could be a friendlier place than I often think it to be.)
5/4: fresh & remembered
Two good things on my walk today made me remember good things from recent days.
I saw a periwinkle butterfly! And that reminded me that Chris showed me a tarantula in our yard yesterday!
I picked a wild raspberry! And that reminded me that I talked with the Myth students about the mulberry trees (with now-ripening fruit) on campus, since we just finished discussing Pyramus and Thisbe. Earlier in the week I pulled a ripe berry from one of the trees as I passed by it, and I encouraged the students to do the same.
5/3: despite
...vertigo (and a late start while I was trying to disspell it), I commented on half of my students' altered pages today.
5/2: listening
...to some of a new-to-me Brian Eno album while I got ready for work: The Pearl, a collaboration with Harold Budd. It turned out to be perfect for a rainy morning, though I didn't know that when I decided to give it a try.
5/1: realizing
...that I had bills that needed to be paid today! Luckily that fact popped into my head as I was ironing my clothes this morning, so I was able to take a few minutes and pay them online before heading to work. Phew. It's just been too busy recently for me to keep everything straight, and I've been relying on sticky notes rather than my calendar book. Lesson: I need to get back to using my calendar book.
4/29: long but successful
My afternoon and evening, that is. I had to keep the Myth classes to a tight schedule so that we could touch on all the day's topics. It's the end of the semester, so there's no time for later follow-up if something is left hanging. I managed to do a decent job of setting up questions/activities that were clear enough, scalable enough, and thought-provoking enough. And then a student gave a presentation on their research project, and so many people came that we had to move to a bigger room. The student did a good job, and the audience seemed pleased. When I got home, I had to do some frustrating (and unexpected work) on some advising issues, and it delayed me from starting in on my own work. But once I did, I got a full draft written of the final writing prompts for the Myth class. I closed up shop much later than usual, but I think it was worth it.
4/28: having new thoughts
...about Ovid's stories of Orpheus and Pygmalion and how they fit into the program of the Metamorphoses.
4/27: because of the long post
...I wrote on Teams last night, I was able to spend this afternoon and this evening grading. I am now caught up on grading, and that's a nice place to be as we enter the last week of classes tomorrow.
4/26: writing a long Teams post
...for the students about the endgame in the Myth class. I prefer not working on Saturdays if I can help it, but in this case it will help me to have this done.
4/25: mentioning
...volleyball to a student I had advised when they were a freshman (they're now a senior). I had remembered their talking about volleyball (and how they weren't going to play it in college) in our earliest conversations, and I wanted to show that I still remembered who they were. And then they said something like, "Well, you'll never guess...." The student had studied in France and while there played on a professional team, even in international competition! That was fun to hear about, and I never would have if I hadn't pulled out that little memory.
4/24: Facebook connections
...with some of my parent's students from the time when I was really young. I don't know what to think about big tech these days, but I'm grateful for the chance to have ongoing connections to people from my early years. Today I heard from two of them.
4/23: more Redon
For the past few years I've shown my Myth class one of Redon's Phaethon paintings after we've read Ovid's Phaethon story in the Metamorphoses. I also mention to the students that Redon did multiple treatments of the myth throughout his career. Today a student came to office hours to talk through several of those other treatments, and it was a treat to spend time with Redon's work in that way.
4/22: transcribing
...the Margarita epitaph with the Latin students. I think of transcribing inscriptions and manuscripts as "listening with one's eyes."
4/20: enjoying creativity
...both mine and other people's.
This evening I commented on some of my students' altered pages.
4/19: my turn
...with a customer service queue. Last night Chris spent time with the Bosch folks; this evening I spent time with an HP representative. Neither of our problems got fixed, but we at least have a few things we can try.
4/18: all 40 seats
...filled at a workshop I ran this afternoon. Students learned to write the Greek alphabet, and then they practiced writing and pronouncing some of my favorite snippets of Greek literature. What a great way to end the at-school part of the week.
4/16: a string
...of good office-hour appointments today (9 in a row). Then, when I left the building to head home, I was struck by the floral-filled air.
4/15: an hour early
I went to work earlier than usual today so that I'd have a chance to run some errands on campus. The morning air was wonderful to be out in.
4/14: remembering
...a good thing from yesterday: I saw an iris bloom iridesce, its petals sparkling in the sun.
And a good thing from today: I learned that the word iridesce is a back-formation. Once I typed it here, I decided to look it up, and the OED identifies it as a 19th century back-formation of the 18th century iridescent. (It's hard to identify back-formations, so it's always a pleasure when I find one.)
4/13: as I sit
...and think about a good thing for the day (in a day that held some not-good things), I see sweet Emma the Cat in the cat-bed that's on the small table next to my chair. And there it is: Emma.
4/11: finishing
...the preregistration meetings with first-year students. It's been a tiring two weeks with these meetings on top of regular office hours, teaching, and prep, but there have been gratifying moments as I've gotten to talk to and work with advisees one-on-one.
4/10: hearing
...a whippoorwill. It's the first time this year! And I'm grateful that Chris signaled to me to come out to the porch to hear it.
4/6: spending time outside
...twice today.
In the morning, Chris and I went to see the dogwood blooms in our woods. There was only a single tree flowering this year. It's sad to think that "our" dogwoods may have run their course, but I'm glad we got to see one today. I also checked out the tulips whose bulbs Chris had planted. The strong storms this week came at a bad time for them: their stems got broken. But their colors were bright on a grey day, and there are maybe two buds that escaped damage and may bloom in the coming week.
In the afternoon, I squeezed in a short walk. When we finished doing our federal taxes, it wasn't raining, so I took advantage of the window of opportunity.
4/5: sending out
...a swap. I send a lot of mail, but it's been over a year since I've participated in a formal swap. When partners got assigned last weekend, I got nervous about what to send and if the recipient would like it. But this morning things felt more possible--I felt more optimistic--and I put together a (hopefully pleasing) envelope of things and got it in the mail before I could second-guess myself.
4/4: safe travel
...to and from work over the past three days, which have been filled with tornado and thunderstorm watches and warnings.
4/3: a meeting
...that turned out to be much better than anticipated. A bunch of us were so relieved and glad as we left together after it was over.
4/1: reading
...the students' comments on one another's altered pages. They were perceptive and generous.
3/31: dropping
...a big mailing of pamphlets (40-ish envelopes) into the post office blue box this morning.
3/30: a sweet hour
...or so this morning. I was drinking coffee and reading. One cat was in my lap, one was in a cat-bed on a side-table next to my chair, one was on my footrest, and one was on the chair opposite mine. We were quiet, content, and cozy. As I read and they dozed, I finished The Ellsworth Assortment series by Christina Dudley. It ended with a celebration of family, and that felt fitting because the cats and I were having our own sort of celebration too.
3/28: closely reading
...translations a friend had sent me, one a passage from Tacitus, another a passage from Thucydides.
3/27: cleaning
...the outside of the big windows in our main room. It's something that Chris usually does, but I figured I could do it too. So I did.
3/26: medicinal gin
I'm trying not to drink much alcohol these days, substituting Shirley Temples and other mocktail (not a word I like) concoctions, but today my arthritis was especially bad, and Chris suggested that I try just a tablespoon of gin, since it often helps. And it did, even just a tablespoon.
3/25: looking through
...lingering copies of past pamphlets and deciding which ones to send to someone as examples of my work. It's another thing that should have been done months ago, but at least it's done now. I'm too tired to get them ready to mail tonight, but they'll be ready for me (and I'll be ready for them) tomorrow.
3/24: packaging
...the complimentary copies that I received of intervals of so that I can get them in the mail to friends. I'm in a should-have-done-this-months-ago situation, but better late than never.
3/22: heading down
...to the lake at sunset. It's something we used to do several times a week--I don't know how we used to have the time. But it's spring break, and the evening was mild, so I took advantage of the combination and was glad I did.
3/21: spring-y things
Dandelions on campus! There usually aren't many, but this year there are clusters of them, and seeing them makes me happy.
Violet syrup! I treated myself to some violet syrup since I'm not drinking alcohol these days and I miss the taste of violet liqueur. When I got home after work, I made mixed some violet syrup into elderflower tonic and added a squeeze of fresh lemon.
Spring break! Not a moment too soon.
3/20: a calm day
...after a tricky Tuesday and Wednesday. Maybe the fact that it's also the first day of spring is a good omen for the season.
3/17: starting and ending
...my day with some music. Some recently released pieces by Brian Eno in the morning, and "Prosperina" by Kate McGarrigle in the evening.
3/16: weekend baking
Yesterday Chris and I made "cannoli cookies," and today I made Irish soda bread.
3/15: looking for wild plum trees
...while driving into town with Chris. The ones in our woods are blossoming more fully than usual this year, and that seems to be the case with others we spotted on our route.
3/14: having a good
...wrap-up/reflective conversation with a student about a project they recently finished. That's a nice way to end the at-school work-week.
3/13: a third run
...of the scribble etymology and artist-book workshop, since some students who wanted to come couldn't make it to the first two sessions. It was a sweet group. They were glad they came, and I really needed to end the on-campus part of the day on such a happy note.
3/12: a silver lining
...to another day-ending snafu. Once again I forgot something at school: this time, a book I needed in order to get some work done this evening. I didn't want to drive back into town, so I moved some tomorrow-morning work to this evening. As I read tomorrow afternoon's assignment, I looked at the Greek for bits of it and very much enjoyed that. If I had waited until tomorrow to do it, I probably wouldn't have given myself permission to poke around in the Greek as much.
3/11: picking up a pizza
...for dinner. I had to drive back to campus because I had left my phone in my office (ugh!), but we worked it out so that Chris ordered a pizza while I was doing that, and then I picked the pizza up on my (second) trip home after retrieving my phone.
3/10: blooms
Chris brought the potted Japanese quince into the laundry room (it had been outside) so that we could enjoy its flowering. And the Japanese quince at school is starting to blossom.
The winter honeysuckle that Chris planted for us is having a second round of wonderfulness, its smell in the air as I walk to my car in the morning.
The white magnolia trees on campus are in full glory, which I got to witness as I walked past them on an errand in the late afternoon.
3/8: remembering
...that it was International Women's Day, and making a yellow scribble book for a friend to mark the occasion.
3/7: the difference of a week
Last Friday night we were worried about Tilde, whom we took to the urgent care vet the next morning. Tonight she's bright-eyed and prancy.
3/5: a close companion
Phineas the Cat, that is. He curls up with me each morning as I play some word games online to get my mind going and each evening as I do some prep work for the next day's teaching. He loves being hugged and handled, and I'm grateful that he shows such physical trust (and is so tolerant).
3/4: catching up
...on texts that I owed to my friends. I have gotten so overwhelmed with work that tapping out messages felt beyond me. This evening I used my sweet bluetooth keyboard to type notes.
3/2: Tuesday on Sunday
Tuesday will be a busy day, so I decided to make Shrove Tuesday pancakes today instead. I found a good lemon sauce recipe online (here), and I added za'atar to the crepes.
3/1: phew
Tilde the Cat had to go to urgent care today. Chris remembered that a vet in town has Saturday hours for folks who are in emergency situations, so we didn't have to go down to Little Rock. We got her there first thing in the morning, and she was able to come home around dinner time.
2/27: writing
...a bureaucratic document over breakfast. I learned last week that I needed to do it by the end of the day tomorrow, and I almost forgot! (Such has been the busy-ness of the week.) But once I remembered, the words came more quickly than I thought they would, and some work I had previously done came in handy.
2/26: time to walk
...across campus. It wasn't a long distance, but I've been so busy and so sick that walking outside at all hasn't been possible in a regular way for over a month. So today's walk (or "stroll"?) in nice weather was very welcome.
2/25: some relief
...from pain. By the end of my teaching day, I was really hurting. It took hours for the medicine to help, but it finally kicked in. And I can go to bed feeling better.
2/24: morning/afternoon coincidence
When I smelled the winter honeysuckle this morning, I thought of a former student because my winter honeysuckle pamphlet had made him laugh (in a good way). When I got home in the afternoon, a letter from him was waiting for me in the mail!
He has moved. I knew his old apartment because a college friend used to live in the same neighborhood; turns out, the same college friend also used to live in his new town. Not a profound coincidence, but still a secondary serendipity. I'll take it as a sign that sometimes the pieces of my world click together.
2/22: grabbing minutes
...in which I could somehow distract my mind from thinking about bad things at work. There were plenty of minutes--and hours--today when I had to think about those bad things and deal with them. But reading a novel for a while and writing some recommendations for really nice students were reprieves.
2/20: discussing
Briton Riviere's painting of Athena with Eumaeus' dogs (link here) in the Myth class today. It's the first time I've used this painting in class, and it was fun to hear the students' thoughts about it.
2/19: a snow day
Though we didn't get as much snow as expected, what we did get was more ice than snow, and school was called off. It was a good timing, as I felt under-the-weather for most of the day--my cold just won't go decisively away. So I did some work but also some resting, and hopefully I'll make it through tomorrow smoothly.
2/18: postal serendipity
I put an envelope to my aunt in the mailbox this morning. I found an envelope from my aunt in the mailbox this afternoon.
2/17: blood orange juice
...freshly squeezed and added to tonic water. I look forward to blood orange season every year!
2/16: taking advantage
...of the fact that there are no classes tomorrow. I bought a bigger selection of crayons so that I'd have more greens. (I remember when the 64-count box of Crayolas was a big deal. Now I could get 152!) And I made some more scribble books while continuing to listen to David Byrne (post-Talking Heads) albums.
2/15: listening
...to Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, a Brian Eno / David Byrne collaboration.
2/14: making
...little scribble books using the meander format. It's something I'd been working toward for over a month now, but today things clicked. And the first one I made was a valentine for Chris.
2/12: making
...a meander book, then adding a flowing line and some words from Lucretius' De Rerum Natura. It was an experiment to see if it would be feasible as a possible workshop on campus, and I think it might be.
2/11: talking with the students
...in the Myth class about the double simile that describes the gouging of Polyphemus' eye in the Odyssey.
2/9: peeling
...off a post-it note that's been on the armrest of my chair for almost a month. It was a reminder to order some postcard prints. I had been weirdly blocked (self-conscious and more?), but I got things ready last night and this morning uploaded the order. My armrest is, for now, post-it free.
2/8: taking a walk
...for the first time in nearly 3 weeks. This has been a bad cold, and I think I may have turned the corner toward recovering now (knock on wood).
2/7: happening to catch
...the NPR short audio documentary about Margery Kemp on my drive home this afternoon (link here). I liked the way it was done.
2/6: using
...the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine to find a webpage that I wanted to show my students but that has gone offline.
2/5: a smoother day
...than yesterday. Yesterday wasn't bad, but Tuesdays are my busiest teaching day of the week, and yesterday I was feeling very hot-and-cold from my lingering illness, which made the day more taxing. On top of that, I encountered some issues with students using AI, and that made me fret into the night. But this morning I found a way out of the AI issue, my Latin class was nice, and my office-hour conversations with students were good.
2/3: starting the day
...with music. As I was drinking my coffee, I looked at the list of Grammy winners, and the title of one album caught my eye: Rectangles and Circumstance by Caroline Shaw and Sō Percussion. I found the title track online and listened to it, and then listened to the rest of the album as I was getting ready for work.
2/1: fixing
...some chili I made last week. It was too spicy to eat! Today I made another batch, but without seasoning, and mixed it with the old batch. Now we have eatable meals for the week ahead.
1/31: reading
...students' thoughts about images of Penelope which I asked them to respond to. Two of the images were ones I often use, but I added three other ones (which were a little more challenging), and I especially enjoyed reading their thoughts about those.
1/30: easier
...swallowing. Yesterday and earlier today it hurt to swallow, an effect of my cold and/or the medicine I'm taking. But this evening it doesn't hurt as much.
1/29: a lost voice
...literally. I caught a cold and so can't talk much. While that isn't a good thing in and of itself, it made cancelling my in-person class and office hours an easy call.
1/27: using
...a new handbag for the first time. It's been years--perhaps a decade?--since I bought myself a new bag, but the zipper on my old go-to gave out (months ago), so it was more than time. It felt spiffy to be carrying something new (and not broken) as I did my grocery shopping.
1/25: resting
...from the week. And no new work arrived in my email. (There's plenty of old work I need to address, but I'm glad for a day when something new isn't added to the pile.)
1/23: thinking about Hephaestus
...in preparation for the Myth class today. He's a figure I hadn't spent much time with, and it was good to move around in some new-to-me ideas.
1/21: coming home
...to pierogi casserole after a day at school that kept getting longer and colder. The sun had set by the time I made it to the parking lot to drive home, so it was chilly and late. All I needed to do was heat up the casserole for some quick comfort.
1/20: seeing
...a comment from a longtime blogging/mailing friend when I signed into the blog today!
1/16: inside
...our house: Emma the Oldest Cat grooming Simon the Newest (But Not Very New) Cat.
...a neighbor's house: beautiful art of all sorts.
1/15: getting
...the first appointment slot so I could see the doctor before the daily back-up of patients began.
1/14: colors
...for eyes and ears. I watched the sunset at the lake while listening to the Bloom app.
1/12: another trio
Morning: Reading Deer Run Home by Ann Clare LeZotte pretty much immediately after I learned about it (and its mention of the myth of Iphigeneia) and finishing it in one go.
Afternoon: Doing more shoveling while finishing listening to Clear by Carys Davies.
Evening: Welcoming Chris home (!) and reading Artforum after he went to bed.
1/11: trio
Morning: getting caught up in a new pamphlet idea.
Afternoon: shoveling the driveway to clear the low wall of snow made by the plow.
Evening: sweeping.
1/10: organizing
...my browsing and archive copies of Cuckoo Grey pamphlets. It was kind of amazing to see them all at once.
1/9: falling snow
...in the afternoon, so I got myself motivated and took a walk. At first it was just me outside. Then a neighbor came out with her two toddler children, and it was great to hear them laugh as they played. A little later her spouse was walking down the street and we remarked on how great it was to be in the weather--its prettiness and quiet. You could hear the flapping of birds' wings when they darted from bush to bush.
1/8: the heated birdbath
...was popular with the neighborhood birds this afternoon since water elsewhere outside is frozen. Bluebirds, chickadees, woodpeckers, finches, and more.
1/7: tinkering
...with pamphlet ideas, not with entirely successful results, but with gratitude for a day spent in trying. I watched some Jeff Baena films as I worked, and that seemed right.
1/5: mundane & musical
Mundane: cleaning the bathroom.
Musical: listening to The Dawn of Everything by Brian Eno and (in a $3.99 splurge) downloading the Bloom app.
1/3: picking up
...the copy of Dom Sylvester Houédard: FrOg pOnd plOp that I ordered and reading it as soon as I got home.
1/2: not attending
...the annual Classics convention this year. I gave presentations (online or in person) for the past 4 years, and I was ready for a holiday that didn't include finalizing a paper, fretting about professional interactions, and/or traveling for work. Vertigo has been a real problem for me recently (especially today), so I am extra grateful to not have to be on a plane.
1/1: spending the morning
...writing about some highlights of 2024. It was a tough year, and I didn't make it through it gracefully. Still, there were good things, and I'm glad I made myself revisit some of those.
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