I think I will need to bring a bottle of water to class with me; my voice was failing by the end of class three.
I did announce my recent bereavement to my students; I did it very low-key and hopefully not sympathy-seeking, but they need to know if I seem distracted or forgetful or if I have to stop and take a deep breath. (Ugh, I remember this time last year, having to tell one class my dad was in the hospital when something happened and I almost lost my composure in front of the class)
I have a reminder set (we'll see if the alarm actually goes off; I don't seem to set the tones right on my phone) about the prescriptions and also about Bell Choir.
I also downloaded Neko Atsume. I know, that was popular like four years ago and "no one" does it any more but it's just....nice? It's not really a game so much as it is just an "oh hey, here's a new cat" thing or a "hey, I can 'buy' something different to put out to attract cats" (you are given "fish" in the game that you can buy stuff with. When cats visit, they leave you fish, presumably as thanks for giving them toys or food). I like things like that. I am not really a gamer - I think perhaps my tendency to get extremely tense when I'm timed or when it seems like there are too many things that need to be done work against that - but I like untimed puzzle games, or things that are just sort of gentle and nice like Neko Atsume. (The only bad thing is it eats battery life on the phone). The nice thing about Neko Atsume is that I can just quickly look at it now and again to see if there are any new cats or if I have to put out more food. (it seems to me that Tubbs sneaks in, eats the food, and then leaves, but I never see him).
Another thing that struck me as nice* today is this article from the New Yorker on How 'Peanuts' Created a Space for Thinking.
(*When I say something is "nice," I am not damning with faint praise. Niceness - in the sense of things that are quiet and pleasant, or people who are mannerly and orderly - is all too rare in our world today)
I read the older Peanuts strips obsessively as a child. My mother had a bunch of paperbacks (the strips were printed on cheap newsprinty paper and the covers were kind of like oaktag. I suspect the paper is slowly rotting; I haven't looked at the books in years but I think they are still in the shelves in the room I use as my bedroom when I visit up there. I remember a couple of things about the strips:
- How oddly melancholy so many of them were. Not really sad, and yet....the kids of Peanuts were by and large more thoughtful, more concerned with ethics (Linus especially; Linus was my favorite human character). There was less of the antic stuff that happened in many kid-oriented entertainment.
(Though really: WAS "Peanuts" for kids? Or was it more for adults? I wonder now. I don't mean "adult" in the debased sense of "adult entertainment," which tends really to be more sophomoric - but "Peanuts" did often attack more grown-up concerns like, yes, morals and ethics and our place in the universe. Then again, I remember feeling some of those concerns as a kid but not being able to articulate them)
- The vocabulary was complex. My mom noted once that she had to explain to me what sarcasm was (I was six or so) when I read a strip with the words "bitter sarcasm" in it.
- The strip had some of the most incredible memorable and heartbreaking moments: the article I linked to notes one of them: "In the Sunday strip for June 30, 1963, she feels low and rages, “I’ve never had anything, and I never will have anything!” Linus patiently replies, “Well, for one thing, you have a little brother who loves you.” And Lucy, her reserves spent, cries in his arms."
and another one, one I remember poignantly because I felt it so much - where I think it is Lucy* asks Charlie Brown something about his deepest wish or something, and after demurring and then being promised it's okay if he shares, he admits, that he lies in bed at night some nights and listens and hopes for a voice that says "But we LIKE you, Charlie Brown." And Lucy bursts into uproarious laughter. (Yes, I know, Lucy is troubled and insecure but I admit as a kid I always hated her a little for that). Oh, I felt that. I felt that a lot.
(I could be misremembering a bit there, and it could have been Violet or the 1950s/60s Patty (not *Peppermint* Patty, she was never really mean to him and it was occasionally implied she might have had a crush on him)
(*I looked on the Peanuts search engine but failed to turn it up)
- And the one I've quoted numerous times here, where Linus says he loves humanity and it's people he can't stand. (Though I really feel more the reverse: I love individual people, from my colleague who calls me "Kiddo" even though I'm a year older than he is and he knows that, to the people at church, to people I interact with online, to the young woman at the quilt shop who always says "Okie-doke!" instead of yes - but humanity as a whole gets me down)
Another quotation from that article, and yes, I see this, though I never considered it before: "The thoughtful pacing in “Peanuts” is reminiscent of that of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.” The two also share a rejection of the violence and manic energy that characterize other children’s media of the time."
Maybe I liked "Peanuts" as a kid, because it was fairly quiet? I didn't like loud frantic things - I remember actively disliking "The Electric Company" because it seemed too loud to me.
(On the basis of that article, I ordered - used - a copy of the Schulz biography referenced therein. I remember reading "The Gospel According to Peanuts" some years back and I confess I found it a bit tedious, even as I do think there are some interesting theological discussions that come out of the strip....of course Schulz was a pretty observant Christian, and famously he insisted on the passage from Luke 2 being in the Christmas special, or else there would be no Christmas special...)
I don't know. Right now I find myself needing things that are quiet and nice. There is altogether too much screaming in the outside world, and I am not up for that right now. (Not that I ever am, but right now it's worse than it usually is to have to experience it). I slept most of last night with my head on Corey my stuffed Corgi. (I should post a photo of him....I think I did back when I bought him, he was one of my Easter-presents-to-myself and one of the things I love about him is how his face is so cute and so "loving." Yes, even as I 100% know this is an inanimate object and is merely a pillow that is vaguely dog-shaped, there is something about his face that is so much an "I love you and I want you to be happy" face that it cheers me up when I'm sad). And I had the new stuffed ray squished to my chest. It helps, a little...
(Here's a photo with Corey in it but I can probably take a better one later today)
Here's a nicer photo, this is what I see when I lie in bed with him on my chest:
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