The biggest news of break is not happy news.

I got it just as I came in, and called my parents to let them know I had gotten home safely.

Their not-quite-22 year old cat had been fighting an infection for some time. Apparently it was an antibiotic-resistant infection; several antibiotics worked for a while, then her white count started going up again. She had made several trips to the vet when I was up there, and I kind of whipsawed between hope that she'd get better and a sense that she wouldn't.

The vet had managed to get a culture of the bacteria; it was a Pseudomonas species. She said there was one last antibiotic to try, but it was formulated for humans and she'd have to figure out how best to dilute it.

Well, that never happened. This morning, when my mom woke up, the cat was comatose. Either the infection finally overwhelmed her, or her kidneys gave out. (She had fought kidney disease for years). The vet had originally made plans - even though it was her day off - to meet with my mom to discuss the plan of action for the antibiotic, so instead she met my mom to have the cat put to sleep.

I guess the good thing is she didn't know what was happening. And she had a catheter port already (from an earlier rehydration treatment), so it was easy for the vet to administer.

I'm sad about it, but not devastated the way I thought I might be. (I "knew" this cat from my days in grad school - both she and her sister, who predeceased her, were middle-aged cats at that time).

In a strange way - and some people might find this a little cold - I'm sort of relieved. For one thing, there was no guarantee the antibiotic would work, or that it wouldn't have horrible side effects on the cat (the vet said she had never used that antibiotic on a cat before). The cat had suffered some from nausea in the days before and she had gotten very dehydrated over the weekend I was up there.

And also, there's the sense of, "I knew it was coming some time, now it's over, I can cry about it and then move on." Better now when I have a little free time to process it than while I was actually in the middle of teaching.

And I got to say goodbye to the cat. (Well, actually, before I left I said "Please get better because I want to see you when I visit in August" but we don't always get what we want.) She did purr for me one last time the night before I left, and she purred for my mom one last time last night. I don't know but sometimes I suspect that animals somehow "know" and manage to say goodbye the best they can.

Another thing that's maybe kind of horrible to say, but I'm also relieved this didn't happen while I was up there. Especially that it didn't happen yesterday morning, while I was hurrying around trying to get everything together for coming back. And I'm just glad I didn't have to be there for it. 

This is going to be hard on my mother; she was really the caretaker for the cat, especially lately, where she would put towels down for her (in case she couldn't get to the box in time when she needed to urinate) and gave her all her medicines and everything.

I don't think my parents are getting another cat - at least, they've said up to this point that they wouldn't. That might change, I don't know, but I know it will take a while.

It's still a little bit unreal to me.

This is not the usual sunny cheerful post. Go ahead and skip it, I will not be offended.

Some years back, there was a show on MTV. I have no idea if it still is or not. It was called "The Real World." It was one of the early "reality" shows (Scare quotes because even when I was watching it as a callow 20-something, I realized there had to be come creative editing going on). The tagline of the show always bothered me: "What happens when people stop being polite and start being 'real'."

It sounded to me like they were saying impoliteness was something to strive for. That to be in a place where you considered the feelings of others was somehow unreal.

And that went against everything I had been taught.

And yet, still I watched it. It was somewhat of a train wreck, it was hard to look away from. I remember one character who apparently made it his goal to offend as many people as possible - until he was kicked off the show.

I do not understand that. I totally do not understand someone being as offensive as possible, then blaming everyone who gets upset with him or her, and saying "That's just how I AM, man, just how I am." And then being upset when people don't want to associate with him or her.

Actions carry consequences.

I have, several times in my life, either been called upon, or taken upon myself, the role of peacemaker. It has never gone well. Usually the two aggrieved parties have wound up turning on me instead. Or I've been "blindsided" by a "surprise" meeting to criticize everything I had done. Or when I and others did what we believed was the best possible thing, one upset person went over our heads and overturned our decision

And yet, somehow, I forget those things, and I keep trying to make the peace between groups of people.

I'm almost to the point now of saying NO MORE. NEVER AGAIN. Where, if I see a problem a-brewing, I will just look at it, shrug, and walk away. No one likes a busybody, even if they are just trying to help. I will just let personal conflicts blow up in the future. If people come to me looking for adjudication, I will shrug and say I am too busy, or that I did that a few times and wound up paying for it, or that they are older than I am (true in some of the cases I've been involved with) and they should know how to fix their own problems.

If I can overcome my own personality to do this. I WANT harmony, darn it. What I want even more though is for people to like me.

I also have a couple of students - well, I have a couple of students who are pretty wonderful and should balance these guys out, but still - I have a couple of students that, every day they are in class (they don't even bother to show up every day), they carry a constant, ongoing, conversation in the back row. I've stopped and stared at them until they shut up. I've spoken to them. I've done everything short of ridiculing them in front of the class (which I cannot bring myself to do) to try to let them know that what they are doing is NOT. COOL.

I realize it's a big world and it takes all kinds to make it, but to me, it feels like it's not too much for me to ask for people to shut up and listen, you know, especially, maybe, when I'm giving instructions of how to do stuff in lab?

I also have the Laptop Brigade now in another class. And the room is configured in such a way that I can't easily walk behind them to see what's on the screens - so I don't know if they're legitimately taking notes, or if they're updating their facebook pages. I admit I'm reaching the point of not caring: if students don't want to pay attention, fine, they can take the D they earn. But on the other hand: when I go to trouble to look stuff up, when I try to find the most up-to-date information on, I don't know, stem cells or something, and a critical mass of the class is "checked out," it just is very discouraging. And when I try to start discussion, I get met with blank looks and silence.

And I tell myself: if you were a better teacher. If you were more interesting, more inspiring. You could get these folks to pay attention. Because that's the storyline we have now: Star Teacher encourages even bored pupils! And by extension: if you can't get everyone in your class interacting and into it, you're not a Star Teacher (and you'd be better off digging coal or something else). And of course, that doesn't help my fears about upcoming peer evaluations, or about the fact that I've really put off applying for Full Professor for too long and I need to do it this fall. (I honestly don't think I deserve it...which is why I keep putting it off).

There's also the issue of the economy. Of my perception (despite what any in the news are saying) is that it's getting worse, and it's going to get much worse before it gets any better. I realize I'm triangulating from only a few small points: one individual giving up a retail business, lots of empty storefronts when I was in McKinney last, rumblings about state economies being a lot worse than they are, more generic products showing up at the grocery, some of the more expensive brands being dropped by the local grocery...and it makes me worry. The big worry is that things will get really scary-bad, that they will wind up having to RIF people at my university, and (as my department is one where people tend to stick around for a long time), as I am actually one of the junior members, I will be one of the ones let go. And literally, if I were to lose my teaching job, I don't know what I would do. I mean, I probably COULD limp along (seeing as the house is paid off and I could drop having cable and cut back in other places) doing something like waiting tables, but I think I lack the temperament for doing so. And if the university cuts back, that means that there will be fewer people eating out...so fewer jobs of that nature.

And yeah, I have the "six months to a year" saved up, but it would scare the daylights out of me to spend money out of my savings with no money coming in.

So there's that worry over my head. That feel, when I'm at work, of the "need to make myself seem indispensible" which has not been going so well this week because I am still kind of sick and worn out. And of course, having people "checked out" in my classes doesn't help that worry.

And then there's the, for lack of a better term, "first world problem" of my fear that all the fun stuff - all the nice and pleasant stuff - all the stuff that makes the daily slog worthwhile - is going to go away, snowed under by the fact that no one feels able to spend the money on it. Seriously? Every e-mail I receive from the local quilt shop, before I open it, I fear it will be a "so long and thanks for all the fish, but we can't turn a profit" e-mail. Or that my favorite magazines will go away (one of them already has...) And while I know a lot of stuff survived the Great Depression, and a lot of stuff became available after it ended...still.

And another issue I am dealing with: at what point does someone's asking for mercy and accommodation because they have various problems become an exploitation of the person they are asking? I have someone I am working with right now who seems to have multiple issues (or at least they've confessed to me). But they've also flaked on a couple things they were supposed to do, to the point where it became difficult for me. I like being nice to people, but there is a point at which I feel I should be permitted to get my own work done in a timely fashion rather than having to mop up repeatedly after someone who doesn't have their stuff together yet.

So, I don't know. Once again I'm treated to watching a few things fall apart around me (and in one case - the person referenced above - it's directly affecting me). My shoulder pain has come back and I find myself wanting to hide in my room and read books about ancient Greece or Rome (when I have to read non-fiction, and can't read fiction, that's a sure sign I'm distressed at the world).

No. No, no no no! Another campus shooting.

Apparently it was someone who was not granted tenure. Even worse: a biology professor. And a woman. Someone like me - and yet, obviously, profoundly UNLIKE me in some very important ways.

I don't know. These kind of things make me profoundly sad. I remember my own tenure-seeking days and how stressed I was. But had I not got tenure? My response would have been very different: I would have started scanning the job ads for positions opening up somewhere else. I would have cried, and gone home and raged to my empty house, beat my fists on the walls, screamed and cried and cursed in private. I would have called my family and wept on the phone to them. But I would never have dreamed of hurting another person.

I know that universities are workplaces like everywhere else. But it's a horrible thing to think that your workplace might be unsafe...and not unsafe because there's asbestos in the building or you do research with pathogenic bacteria. The thing that I find so scary about these shooter incidents is that there is nothing you can do to take precautions...with hazardous bacteria you can wear a respirator and gloves, and work in a laminar flow hood. With things like snakes and alligators good training and care and attention can protect you. But a person bent on doing evil....you're defenseless. You can't plan for it, you can't foresee it, you can't try and prevent it.

And what an awful way - what a horrible, unspeakable way - to lose someone you loved. To have them suddenly taken from you like that, without a chance to say goodbye. Just, poof. My thoughts and prayers are with the families of the victims.

And with every one of these that happens, I can feel my campus inching closer to restrictions like metal detectors and requiring us to wear our IDs on a lanyard at all times (though in this case? That might mainly be to identify the bodies; it looks like it was a professor who failed to get tenure who did the shooting).

I know lots of workplaces have those restrictions, but I really like the relative freedom of my campus - where you can come and go at will, where no one has to check you in or out or inspect the bags you are carrying. I hope that doesn't wind up going away in the fear over keeping us "safe."

Because I think if a person is really bent on doing evil, no amount of restricting the movement of the innocent is going to truly keep the innocent "safe."

Sad. My mom's friend Faith (well, she was also a friend of mine) was undergoing treatment for an abdominal cancer. She died on Tuesday. (My parents were out of town and didn't hear until they got back today).

They think the chemo probably reacted badly with an underlying heart problem she had.

I'm kind of sad and shocked right now, because she had been doing pretty well on the treatment. (And it's almost a year to the day that my friend Dorothy died). I think it will take a little while for this to sink in. It will be strange to go back and visit my parents and not see her around.

On the other hand, it was probably preferable to lingering in pain for a long time. I know her "goal" was to live the longest of all her sisters and she didn't quite make it (I think she was 88).

She was a quilter. I should probably finish the doggie quilt I was working on for Project Linus and donate it in her name. Maybe that would be something to do during the rest of my mid-fall break after my trip to Longview.

I don't know if it was the horrid week, or if viruses and their attendant immune-response can mess with a person's mood, but when I was doing some cleaning and changing the sheets in my room, I decided to put on some Christmas music.

(Yeah, I know, it's way early. But when you're as busy as I am...you don't really always have time to ENJOY).

And suddenly, I found myself thinking of all the people (not all of whom I enumerated on the blog) that I won't be wishing a Merry Christmas to - or going to parties with (because they moved away) or that I won't be able to even send a card or a gift to (because they died). And I just had to sit down and cry. I don't know if I'll have the energy to put my little tree up this year. Usually this weekend is when I do it, to get the maximal enjoyment time out of it before I leave for Christmas. But I also have to get the leaves raked up and plant the daffodil bulbs I bought. And I have to get back to the rule of working a minimum of an hour on research a day.

So I don't know. I'm hoping this is just a transient after effect of the virus and not something more serious. I've never had that happen before - think about Christmas and then just sit down and cry because of all the people who won't be "around the table," literally or metaphorically, this year.

More sad news. (Seriously, this has been a hell of a summer and fall).

My friend Dorothy - she was 87 or 88 - had fallen and hurt (some said broken) her back. She had gone into a nursing home - this was just last week - and the pastor said that he thought she "wasn't going to be leaving."

But by that, I had assumed he meant she'd be there for months to years, the rest of her life.

She passed away late last night. I just got the e-mail message from the church secretary notifying me.

The really sad thing is that I had plans to go out and visit her this afternoon as soon as my office hours ended today. I had even put aside a couple recent issues of "Arizona Highways" (a magazine I get - one of the few ones that would be an "overlap," interests-wise, for us) to take to her to give her something to look at.

I'm really pretty torn up. It's different in a way than my aunt dying (earlier this summer) because I knew my aunt was in a bad way, I'd not seen her for a few years, and I knew she had been in pain. Dorothy, I had been driving places (she didn't drive any more) just a few weeks ago.

That's one of the things I hate about deaths. How you have to suddenly reconfigure the world to remind yourself that a certain person isn't in it any more.

Dorothy was...well, as my secretary (who knew her well) put it, was a "character." She could be very opinionated and even rather short with people who didn't live up to her standards. But she was also highly intelligent and had a strong respect for education. And I got on very well with her, in part because in the ways I just described, she reminded me of my Grandma Rushford...the same opinionated quality, the same tendency to speak her mind, but still with that strong and recognizable undercurrent of LOVE and RESPECT for the other person...she wasn't "gushy" but you knew she cared about you.

I have a number of books she gave me. (Some of which - oh, gosh, they were loans. Well. I guess I keep them now, unless her kids specifically ask for them back). My lovely hardback copy of "A Sand County Almanac" (one of the early editions of it) was a book she had given me when she learned it was one of my favorite books and that I only had a cheap paperback copy. And my copies of Thoreau's works came from her as well - she claimed she "mistakenly" ordered two sets from Daedalus but I suspect she may have ordered the one set with me in mind.

She was one of the first people to welcome me when I moved down here. One of the first people to talk to me, to open up the closed circle that sometimes exists in smaller towns and seeing to it that I was let in.

She had, at times, a pretty wicked sense of humor. And she was the most cutthroat Scrabble player I've ever met.

I guess the two perhaps-not-AS-sad things out of this are that she was mentally sharp and with-it up to the end; there was no "long forgetting" as there is with some people. And also, she didn't spend months lingering in the nursing home, hating it because she couldn't go out and do the things she did.

She's going to leave a huge hole. She was not only active in the church we both belonged to (she was, for years, the Sunday School superintendent), but she was active in AAUW, and in some conservation-related groups.

I really have nothing else to say, other than the standard saying about spending time with the people who matter to you NOW. (Oh, if only I'd pushed myself to go visit her on Sunday...). Send them flowers NOW. If someone you care about can't drive any more, and you can drive them, do it. (I will never, ever regret the times I drove her to AAUW or CWF meetings, or picked her up at the grocery when the town bus service pooped out on her. It was a small thing on my part but she always seemed to appreciate it).

I'm kind of in shock right now; she was that kind of person that you sort of imagined would go on forever.

This has been, in a lot of ways, a difficult summer with lots of unpleasant news.

I just found out this afternoon that my Aunt Chickie passed on. She was 90 and had been in not the best of health, but still, it's sad news when you get it (she was my favorite aunt).

My mom called to let me know. I guess she's doing OK (it was her sister).

There's absolutely no way I can get to the funeral, and in fact my parents aren't sure they're going, because it's a long way away, they just got back from a reunion, my dad's back is bothering him (and they've had some car trouble). Where my aunt lived is some 700 miles from my parents, and it's more than twice that for me. (My parents are going to arrange to have flowers sent with all our names on them)

I think my mom feels kind of bad about not going but one thing that my aunt's daughter (the one who had pretty much been her caretaker for the past few years) reminded my mom of - which was a good and helpful thing and I'm glad she said it - that my mom had called my aunt twice a week every week for a number of years, and that was what was important, that was something my aunt really looked forward to, especially when she was in the nursing home, and that my mom's having been there for her while she was alive was far more important than her being at the funeral.

Which is true, of course. (Standard comment: pay attention to the people you love now. Hug them, listen to them, even send them flowers. That's what matters, not so much you sitting in a pew after they're gone or sending a big fancy floral spray to the funeral home.)

I'm sad, but in a way this wasn't unexpected. My aunt had been in the hospital last week with what sounded like complications of the congestive heart failure she's battled for years. I guess in the end her body just wore out and gave up and, though I'm sad, at least she's not in pain any more.

But yeah, I'm about ready to be done with hearing about deaths or illnesses in people I care about for a while.

Well, I received the news that I was expecting but dreading.

My parents' cat (her name was Patty) lost the ability to walk this weekend, and stopped drinking water. So they had her put down this morning.


There's really nothing more I can say. She was a good, good cat. She was smart and funny and had all kinds of interesting behaviors. I'm going to miss her a lot, and it's going to really be hard to go home for the short visit I was planning next week (before the Prairie Conference) and have her not be there.

I thought I had already cried it all out when she first started failing but I guess I was mistaken.

My parents called this evening. At the very end of the conversation my father warned me that the cat - yes, the same old cat - is probably "on her way out."

So I has a Sad.

I told them they were NOT to do any kind of heroic measures to keep her alive until I got there - it was more important to me that the cat was not suffering than that I got to see her one last time. (And honestly, I'd rather remember her as she was than see her suffering and emaciated.)

(Okay, maybe that doesn't read right. What I mean is, I don't want them to think that it's at all important to me to be able to say goodbye to the cat in person, and so they do things to keep her going after she's ready to be gone. I know I'm not making much sense.)

The vet is trying a program of rehydration - she said that the cat is not yet in such a bad state that she wants to euthanize, and sometimes rehydration does bring the animal back to a reasonable quality-of-life for a while.

But I'm preparing myself. (And yes, there were tears over the phone. And not just on my end of it.) It's been 20 years since I last dealt with this so it's a hard feeling to remember. I tell myself though that I managed to move on after Sam left us, and I'll manage now.

So if I go quiet for a day or two before I do leave on my break...it'll be because I don't quite feel like talking. I know you'll understand.

I'm going to allow myself this evening to cry and be sad and feel bad about this; tomorrow morning I have class again and I will have to be on top of things.

Aw, crud.

So my mom calls me up last night - "Is there anything you want from the little yarn shop here?"

Turns out she's asking, not because they're having a sale - because they're going out of business. Looks like their last few days will be the first few days I'm up there for a visit (but I suspect they'll be largely sold out of stuff).

The building they were in has been sold to a developer (boo, hiss) and like so many of the modestly-sized buildings in the downtown (sorry, I won't call it "Uptown" even though that's what the developers and stakeholders are insisting it be called), it's going to be torn down and (probably) replaced with some god-awful excrescence that some land-developer is using to immortalize himself.

The owner of the shop said in the letter she sent out that it was a hard decision to close - they had looked for other locations but they were either too expensive, too out-of-the-way (they got a lot of foot traffic from the University where they were), or they were next to fast-food places where the food fumes would embed themselves in the yarn.

So, dammit - no more yarn shop in my parents' town. They didn't even get to be open 2 years.

I know a lot of people are disappointed about what's happening in "don't call it Downtown any more." A lot of the older, familiar places are gone, replaced by pricey spots that are clones of ritzy places in Chicago. (Seriously - my brother, who knows whereof he speaks [He works at the University of Chicago] noted that "They're trying to turn it into another Hyde Park!")

While I suppose that's great for the rich kids from the Chicago 'burbs who might be homesick, it's kind of disgusting to a lot of the long-time residents. And I'm sure a lot of the college students (heck, probably some of the faculty and staff for that matter) are priced out of a lot of the downtown things now...the funky cheap pizza places are replaced by an Italian restaurant with cloth tablecloths, the used book store had to move, tenants are being imperiously told that their building is going to be torn down in x months...even when they just finished putting in considerable money to renovating/decorating their space.

(If I were a small businessperson, those stories would make me think twice - or more than twice - about locating there).

And I wonder...if the economic downturn continues, what will happen? What does a $30 a plate restaurant do if it doesn't get enough patrons who can easily afford that?

I really don't want to go visit my folks some day and find that the downtown has tumbleweeds rolling through it because everyone built too big and too expensive too fast.

But it makes me sad, especially looking at the town where I live now. When I first moved down here, the downtown was (I'll be honest) depressing. There were about 20 shuttered storefronts and maybe 6 or 7 places doing business. That balance is slowly reversing - we now have a really nice Italian restaurant (where you can get a decent dinner for $9, and $20 will get you the fanciest dish in the house). We have a quilt shop now. It looks like another antique shop (this one specializing in horse tack, but I hope that's not its exclusive line) sometime soon. And each one of these businesses represents a little victory - a little fight against a general mentality that says, "People only want what they can get cheap at Wal-Mart." Or a mentality that says "Downtowns are dead; everyone goes to the malls these days." Each of the little shops or restaurants I go in down here represents someone's dream, someone's hope. I do try to patronize them when I can - I especially like going in the quilt shop because it's so nice to be able to have a source of supplies SO CLOSE. (I will gladly pay a bit extra for my needles or skeins of floss if it means I don't have to drive to Sherman).

So it makes me sad to see what I perceive as an imperious attitude at the hands of the developers and movers-and-shakers in my parents' town - where there is (apparently) subtle pressure on building owners who haven't sold to sell, and where (as I said) modest one or two story buildings are being replaced by towers that blot out the sky. (I feel rather claustrophobic in the old downtown now; it's taken on a titanic scale that makes you feel small and a bit crushed).

And it's rumored that there's a particular "vision" these folks have, and if your business doesn't fit their "vision," they don't want you. (There was a lot of flap a couple years ago about a certain restaurant coming into town: the developers were at first aghast because it was a chain that was family-friendly - and it was DARING to go into an "upscale" area where they envisioned some kind of fancier place. Yes, they actually said "chain family-style restaurant" with disgust and horror and described the area it was moving into as "upscale." If I were the person in charge of bringing that chain to that town, I'd've said, "Thanks, but no thanks, if that's your attitude." But they came anyway - and they are always busy.

Sometimes, I think the developers in that town forget that the majority of people IN town are people with families. People who can't, or don't want to, go to an exclusive fancy place where children aren't really welcome, on a regular basis)

So anyway. This is another way that people annoy me sometimes.

I will admit - I did mention one yarn I had been contemplating to my mom. No idea if the particular color was there or if there were enough skeins. My mom said she was going down there (first day of the going out of business sale). She said she'd deliver my "condolences" to the owner, and also, if she could get a word with her, ask if there were any hopes of them relocating (It didn't sound like it in the letter, but you never know).

I wonder what's going to go in its place. Another damn bank, to go with the 15 others in the downtown? An Old Navy? (For years, that was the rumor - hoped-for by some college students, met with rolling eyes on the part of the townspeople who know there's already one in the mall). Some kind of place where there's a meter in the front to measure your coolness, and if you're below some pre-set level, you're not allowed in? (I know, that doesn't really exist. But I swan, there are some shops where I FEEL almost like there is that).

Happy Independence Day to all of us in America.

I'm not really doing anything - I don't quite feel up to fighting the crowds in the parking lot down at the semi-local casino to go to the fireworks show (that's the closest one to me, I guess). And I don't like buying and shooting off fireworks myself (though enough people in my neighborhood do).

And I really need to get some stuff done on the paper and presentation, so I'm in working.

****

I guess I'll share part of why I Has a Sad - at the risk of looking a bit silly to those who do not have the experience of owning pets. One of my parents cats is failing. She's not eating well, she seems listless, the doctor can't find anything obviously wrong (though she is treating the cat for a possible infection). But this is a 19-year-old cat. A remarkably good and long run for a cat.

Intellectually, I know that. But emotionally - I got really attached to this cat when I lived with my folks during grad school.

(Dammit, I'm crying now.)

So I guess I've kind of given up on her still being there even the end of this month when I go up for a brief visit before my conference-going. And that's kind of hard to think about. (Dammit, why does stuff have to CHANGE? Why do people - and animals - I care about have to get old and sick and ultimately die?). I'm already mourning. (And dammit, this is how even when emotional, I am too rational sometimes: I was thinking, if you can get all your sad out this weekend, no matter what happens, at least you'll be more functional teaching next week.)

No, that's not all of that. As I mentioned, a couple people I care about (including part of my work-family) are facing surgery. And a lot of people I care about who are up in years are experiencing some of the typical things (and some atypical and unfortunate things) that people being up in years experience.

But it's funny - it's the cat that really gets me. That's sort of the nucleus around which all my Sad has congealed.

And I have to admit, with some embarrassment, this is part of the reason why I don't own a pet myself (the "never being home" excuse is just that: an excuse). I can't stand the thought of getting so attached to something and then waking up some morning and find that it has died during the night. Oh, I know, other people deal with that. And maybe having done it a few times, it gets easier.

But I do get very attached to animals. I suppose it's because they don't talk back and don't disappoint me in the ways that humans often do.

So I'm trying not to be too idle this weekend - because idleness, when I'm sad, brings a sort of paralysis - I don't really DO anything, I just kind of sit there and flip the radio on and off, or cycle through the television channels, or pick things up only to put them back down. And that's not good, because I risk getting stalled in that state.

Several days ago, Luciano Pavarotti passed away. (I didn't comment on it - I thought others better equipped than I had made better eulogies).

And now, Madeline L'Engle has passed. (I sort of gasped when I read the headline this morning. Of course, she was 88 and had lived a very full life and it was of natural causes...but still, there are some you expect to keep going forever).

Over the past couple years, she has become one of my favorite writers, so I feel the need to say something.

I only read one of L'Engle's books as a child - her most famous one, "Wrinkle in Time." It was only as a teenager that I came to the other (2, at the time) books in the series (I re-read them recently - they made a bigger impression on me as an adult than they did as a teen).

But, more recently, I've come to her essays. I love her essays that touch on faith and art. One of the things she said, that I always carry with me, is that you can look at the universe and see "chaos" or "cosmos" - where "chaos" is disorder, lack-of-meaning, basically all the nihilistic stuff that certain philosophies espouse. But "cosmos" - that is a connectedness, the hope that there is a pattern or a plan to things. I don't think you necessarily have to be religious or even a Theist/Deist to believe in "cosmos" (but perhaps it's easier). I have to admit I agree with her on her assessment of art - that the art she related to best was the art where the artist looked at the universe and saw "cosmos." And that it was hard - and sometimes kind of depressing - to relate to art that only saw "chaos."

I am not saying this as well as she did.

L'Engle was in some ways what you might call an "unconventional" Christian. She was a very free-thinking Episcopalian - so much so that some would have had her "Time Quartet" books banned because they thought they were "too pagan" or "too New Age" for their children and their schools. In one of her essays, L'Engle talks about trying to calm an angry, angry woman who was challenging her about the use of unicorns in one of her books - that unicorns were a pagan symbol, and therefore unChristian and that L'Engle herself must be a New Ager....and L'Engle talks about quietly trying to explain to the woman that unicorns are also a Christ-symbol (and even if it weren't, should it MATTER? or that's what I'd add...)

At any rate - I read her essays and feel this tremendous love and peace emanating out from her writing. It helps to center me and makes me feel less "weird." And as someone who's always felt more or less "weird" in the world, I value highly anything that makes me feel less so. (And it makes me even more puzzled at those who are so very angry about her writing - have they actually READ it?)

I also have read one of her "grown-up" novels (though the novels aimed at children and teens are every bit as complex - and in some cases, more complex, especially in terms of moral questions asked - than your average best-seller for adults). It was called "A Severed Wasp" and it's one of those rare books that I press on people. It's not an EASY novel - there are points where I had to put the book down and walk away for a couple hours to a day because of the pain that some of the characters had to live through. (As it was for many in the early-midcentury time, the villains of the piece were the Nazis...what they did to one character, and the repercussions it had for several others). A choice must be made, a painful choice, one where the "conventionally right" choice actually has more bad repercussions than the "conventionally wrong" choice...I'm trying not to give too much away here. But it's an unbelievable book, it made me THINK and it made me care about the characters and I think it made me grow up a little bit more after I read it.

Once upon a time I said I wished I could go and meet Madeline L'Engle and shake her hand and thank her for everything she wrote. I guess I will not have the chance now.

Rest well, Madeline. You made the world a better place. And just as you had your own "personal saints" (including Bach and Einstein), I have come to regard you as one of MY own "personal saints."

Thank you.

I started back up on the left front of Kenobi (where I had left off).

And I realized - I had made a bunch of errors.

First off - I neglected to do the "slip 3" at the beginning of every wrong-side row (presumably so the front band will be stabilized). And then, the moss stitch was a big mess - part of the time I had been doing moss stitch, part of the time I had been doing seed stitch (which is like moss st except you have ks and ps that alternate every row, rather than every 2).

So I ripped it all out and started over.

Seven inches of knitting all gone.

It has not been a good week.

(I posted about this earlier, then took down the post. I don't know how to summarize this easily and in a non-whiny way).

Apparently the grape fight (and another thing that I haven't mentioned here), brought out a bunch of complaints. There was a "surprise" meeting today to discuss. I'm not happy. One of the possibilities may be that the youth group disbands. I explained that I'd laid down the law, and one of the instigators of the grape fight won't be back, but apparently there are Certain Individuals who think the youth group isn't worth the effort, apparently this has been the case for a while and no one's told me, that it's not bringing in the "right" kind of kids. So I don't know. I'm just sad about it. I thought things were going fairly well (well, at least up until the grape fight). I mean, these are primarily 13-year-old boys. And 13 year olds are different than they used to be. They're even different when I was a 13 year old, and I remember being 13 as about the most miserable time there was to be alive, mainly because of how the kids acted. Thirteen year olds know exactly what to do to push people's buttons but they've not yet learned tact; they're also very good at dreaming up mischief but not yet very good at thinking through the consequences of something before they do it.

I offered to quit but that wasn't what they wanted; I don't really know what it is that they want. It was almost like "You're going to listen to people's complaints but there's not really anything to be done." How on earth does that help, other than making me sad and self-doubtful? They told me I was still doing a "good" job but I find that impossible to believe given the complaints.

So I'm just kind of sad and angry and frustrated and this is one of those times I really wish I had someone I could just come home to and cry on the shoulder of. Because I feel like all I can do in this is cry.

(And yeah, I'm kind of offended about the "right" kind of kids thing. I'm not entirely sure what was meant but I have a horrible feeling it was code for "kids from the right side of the tracks." I'm sorry, but I work with whoever comes. I'm not going to exclude someone based on their family status or the amount of money they have.)

I'm trying to put a good face on things, but I'm just having a really difficult week.

Part of it is a paper rewrite I'm doing - some of the stuff that needs to be included is stuff I no longer have, and I'm trying to do reconstructions of analyses and not getting very far. I'm almost getting the sense that my co-author just wants to spike the paper but isn't coming out and saying it. So it's hours and hours of trying things (each try takes 15-20 minutes to run) and so far, no success.

Also, I think the rain - the constant, unending rain, coupled with flood worries and mold worries and all that - is getting to me. Yesterday afternoon when I gave up on doing more analyses at the end of my office hours, I thought, "It would really be nice just to go somewhere - maybe go to Sherman and go to the bookstore and then out to dinner." But by then it was bucketing down rain, and on the local news channel they were talking about how OHP and its Texas equivalent were closing highways right and left and how there were accidents because of people going off the road. So I just stayed home.

It's not unlike the cabin-feverish feeling I get, usually later in the summer, but that's when it's 100* out and it's not rained for weeks and weeks and it's way too hot to go and do anything - and again, it's kind of a trapped feeling; you are trapped either in your house or your office.

I'm having to cancel the field lab for this afternoon because there is a very good chance the place we would be going to is flooded. It's really, really bad, and it seems the news only shows the people who foolishly drive into high water and get stuck - but it's also taking a toll on us prudent ones. I do need to get out to at least the mart of wal this afternoon as I am out of both milk and orange juice. (But mart of wal isn't much of an "escape.")

I think also, as much as I gripe about all the responsibilities I have during the school year - committee-work, and AAUW, and the youth group, and all that - it's actually GOOD for me to be involved in a large number of things. One of the problems that I have when I focus too closely on one thing (like this paper) and don't have any other "essential distractions" (knitting and quilting are a distraction, but it's not "essential" that I do them...I'll explain in a moment), so if things go badly with the research, I just generally feel incompetent and like a failure. Like everything I touch gets screwed up.

(For me, for something to really work as a "distraction" it has to be something I feel competent at, but also something that there would be problems if it didn't get done. If I didn't show up to do youth group, people'd have to scramble around and find a substitute; if I couldn't do my committeework, it wouldn't get done, and things would slow down a tiny bit on campus. With the knitting and quilting, I am the only one who's affected if it doesn't get done - so it doesn't feel 'essential' in the same way that, say, typing up the yearbook for my women's group feels 'essential.' In fact, when I get into the "I suck, I'm incompetent, I'm a loser at research" mode, I feel like knitting or quilting is something I should not be doing - I don't know if it's some subconscious desire to punish myself or if I just feel like I should be over at the office cranking analyses instead of trying to relax.)

I'm also stressing about the paper I'm giving at meetings next month. It's as good as I can make it but sometimes I feel like my "best" doesn't count as "good enough" in the wider world of the big research societies. I'm just hoping there isn't someone there who feels the need to assert his/her dominance by totally taking apart some minor researcher from a small regional school, but I know that's a distinct possibility. In some research societies, everything is (pardon my French) a pissing contest, and often times it's the innocent, earnest people who are just trying to share some research they did and maybe build their c.v. a little, who get pissed on.

So I don't know. I'm already gunshy because a co-author suggested we drop a paper earlier this spring, and I'm still hurting from all the work put into that going for nothing. (I know, it's a part of science, but I feel like I haven't had something published in so long, that it's really hard to see something like that die.) And there's a certain amount of apprehension among certain folks on campus - we're going to get a new president sometime soon, and if he or she is someone who doesn't understand the history and background of the school - well, they could shift the balance and expect far more research/grants than have been expected in the past, and there's also a rumor that we might be going to a strict merit-pay system. (And that just brings out ALL of my inadequacies and ALL my senses of not being good enough).

So, in short:
it's raining
I'm getting nowhere on a paper and may not successfully get anywhere
I'm feeling like nothing I do right now is quite good enough
it's even hard to enjoy knitting right now.

dragonknitter, you're probably right. However, I'd need to alter the pattern - leave an opening somewhere for stuffing (you stuff it before you do the last bit of I-cord for the "snout."

I also was thinking that stuffing before felting might compact the stuffing too much. I don't know.

***

I'm kind of beat this afternoon and am having a hard time getting motivated to work on the paper that I came in to work on. I "worked a funeral" this morning - one of the members of my church who had been fighting ovarian cancer for 5 years finally succumbed. (It's one of those, "It's sad...but at least she's not in pain any more" situations). I volunteered to help with the lunch. I was there from 9 until 1:30 setting up, serving, and cleaning up.

It seems kind of an old-fashioned thing to do..serving lunch to the family after a funeral. I was (by about 25 years) the youngest person there serving. I wonder if after the "old guard" goes, if the tradition will be lost, or if everyone will look at me and go, "YOU helped at some of those things...YOU know how it's done...YOU run it."

I don't know. I hate to see some of the old "community based" things go away, but it seems any more people are so busy with their children, or both members of a couple have to work, that it seems that few people of my generation have the time for that kind of thing. (And perhaps that's part of my periodic frustration with "It seems like I never get time to myself" - that I don't have kids and don't have a spouse so I tend to volunteer for things, and then I get asked to do more things than I really can take time to do.)

But I wonder...will there come a day when after the "old guard" is gone, I'm the only one left to do these kind of things? Will I overextend myself by still forcing myself to do it, or will I say, "Unless you help out, this tradition is going to die."

I don't know.

sad.

I just found out that someone I knew from church - a man my dad's age who had been somewhat of a mentor - died suddenly this afternoon.

it's going to be hard teaching Sunday school tomorrow with him not there.

I just found out one of my colleagues had a cousin who was killed in the attack.

:'-(

My heart goes out to all of the families involved with Virginia Tech and the tragedy that happens there today. Being a college prof - being someone who's long been associated with campuses - I'm well aware of how the people you work with, your students, the staff, all become kind of a little family.

Even the people who are sometimes hard to deal with (every family has its black sheep).

My heart especially breaks for all the parents who lost kids in such a senseless way.

And I also admit a little feeling of fear...the realization that campuses are not as safe as we all assume they are, that there are isolated incidents of people bent on doing harm, and that just about any of us is potentially vulnerable.

I'm allowing comments on this one for now but I may wind up locking them later, because on some other sites I've already seen the devolution of comments into fights about gun control, violent video games and movies, freedom to come and go vs. locked-down campuses, etc., etc. And I'm just not at a point where I want to argue any of that stuff. Because, at the very end, despite it all, it came down to one individual choosing (on whatever level) to do what he did, and I tend to think that people bent on doing evil will manage to do it, regardless of metal detectors, or laws restricting purchase of certain items, or security cameras everywhere...

This is going to be a sad and difficult day on campus. Late yesterday evening, the secretary called me (she called everyone in the department) to let me know our department chair's husband (who was also a professor here, in Psychology) died suddenly. Apparently he was working out and collapsed and could not be revived. He was not a very old man - probably only three or four years older than I am.

I don't often find myself in a situation where I have no words, but really, I have no words - I cannot even imagine what my department chair is going through right now. It was a very stressful fall for her and things were just starting to look a little easier.

I also feel for the students who were working with him - I think he had a couple research students. He had consulted me at times on matters statistical and he always struck me as a very happy person, as someone who was doing something he was really good at and who enjoyed it.

I guess the only conclusion I can draw is the kind of conclusion I always draw from things like this - that when you talk to someone as they are leaving the house for work, or when they call you on the phone, or when they're heading out to do something, or when you're heading out to do something and they're staying home - do all you can to let your last words to that person at that moment be kind and loving ones, because they may truly be the last words you have a chance to say to them.

And appreciate the people you love. Hug them if you are so inclined.

Life is so short and so fragile.