One more day

 ...and I get full use of my kitchen sink back. The garbage disposal has had what seems to be a seal failure, and it's leaking out the bottom when I run water down the drain. I kludged it over the weekend by putting my crummy old stockpot (it's very thin aluminum, so not good as a stockpot) under there but unless I looped the powercord just right, drips would run down it.

I cleared the area out, to get rid of what I euphemized the other day as "mouse dirt." I threw out a number of older pots and pans because (a) I don't really use those and (b) I do not feel like doing what it would take to make them seem sterile to use again. (After all this is fixed, maybe I just keep cleaning supplies under there)

I had to finish the cleaning today - I had bought bleach wipes. Fortunately, no new mouse evidence so maybe they're gone. But I was dreading doing it, and dreading cleaning up the rest of the kitchen, and I admit it soured my mood the rest of the day (Well, also it was my longest day, and also some little tools I use in lab with my students were borrowed without my knowledge and not brought back in a timely fashion, and that snowballed into me mildly fussing at the TA for another class - mainly in asking him if he had any spares, and then commenting that "things walk away when I need them" and he actually took pity on me and borrowed a set from ANOTHER lab room....the original ones did show up again after I sent out an e-mail asking if anyone had seen them, they had been borrowed and "buried" under herbarium specimens, so the person forgot they had them)

But finally I did it. Also washed up the accumulated dishes and put away the clean ones that were on the drainboard. And dumped the stockpot of water outside. And then I cleaned all the counters, and threw a few more things away that could go out, and finally vacuumed and wetmopped the floor. So it's as clean as it can be, and I also cleaned the floor in the dining room and part of the living room, and did a little tidying.

And I realize one thing I need - a shoe cabinet, like homes in Japan have. I don't keep my shoes in the bedroom because I take them off as soon as I enter the house and I don't feel like carrying them to my room, and then carrying them back before I put them on to leave the house, so I have just left them lined up on the floor, but that looks untidy and of course you have to move them all to sweep  or vacuum the floor. I have a space where it could go, I just have to find one and tell myself it's okay to spend maybe $150 on one (I think I saw some on Wayfair one day when I was idly looking). But it would make my life easier and better. 

Anyway, I feel a little better for having a cleaner house, and also having a plan for storing the cleaning supplies once the garbage disposal is replaced. I did decide to splurge on carry out (a "two meat" meal from the nearby bbq place, and given that I only ate half of it, it amortizes out to $8 a meal which isn't so very bad). And I did get a bit more knitting on the striped socks, but they're not at a photogenic stage, so no photo.

My plan tomorrow other than getting the new garbage disposal in (fingers crossed the plumber doesn't get a long job and he can come close to the START of the 2 pm to 5 pm window) is to MAYBE do a bit of grocery shopping ahead, because Friday I plan to get the flu shot (the season is starting early this year) and I know I might not feel up to shopping Saturday morning then.  

More vest progress

 I got the back of the vest done, and the stitches onto a holder. Didn't quite have the energy to start on the front; this will take more concentration because once I do the first fourteen or so rows, I have to start decreasing for the v-neck (I guess that takes breaking off one side, and then working each side separately.

After the front, all I have are the arm bands and the neck band to add.
 

Monday evening things

 * I did some more cleaning this weekend, a big part of it was emptying the undersink cabinet (threw a lot of stuff away) and then masking and gloving up to clean out the mouse, uh, "dirt" that was under there (apparently this is a hangout for them). I'll have to check it again before the plumber comes (it was still fine tonight; I did find another small gap that I stuffed steel wool into)

I bought some bleach wipes this afternoon but didn't have the energy to wipe the area down

* and then, after taking some junk out to the trash, and I was in the shower when the call came in, my neighbor across the street (slightly nosy neighbor) called. She had seen me in a mask, was I sick? Did I need something from the grocery when she and her husband went?

No, I explained, I was cleaning up after a mouse and was being cautious. But of course it made me feel weird. I had THOUGHT as was heading out the door "you should take off the mask because if your neighbor sees you in it, she will make Assumptions" and I guess I was right there.

* Later, got a call from my brother. The pretext was for my niece to thank me for the birthday presents, but then my brother asked if I'd been able to get through to our mom, it kept ringing over to voicemail. 

I was slightly nervous then (didn't really let on, I think,) but I said I'd look into it.

So I tried calling. Yeah, rang through to voicemail. Tried the cell phone but no answer, but then again it could have been in her car. 

So I called the neighbor. By now I was pretty nervous, but she said she'd go check. She and her housemate went over (housemate has a key for emergencies). She almost immediately called back - she's fine, she thinks maybe her upstairs phone got bumped off the cradle and then my mom got on the neighbor's cell phone and told me that when they asked her about her phone, she noticed the downstairs one said "line in use" and then she knew.

And yes, when I called her back that evening, the phone was fine. The problem is, of course - if that happens again I have no easy way (she can't get texts, I don't think, on her cell) to let her know it's not working and I'd just have to hope that if it was a usual time for me to call she'd wonder why I hadn't and check.

But yes, I'm too aware these days there will come a time when my phone never again will ring and have it be her, and I don't like thinking about that.

* I pulled the yellow cabled vest back out but haven't done much on it this evening yet. It's just tiring times at work; I have a couple students who need a lot of help and attention and that wears me down. Also I wrote a whole exam this afternoon.

* I want to try to finish this as some mustard-colored yarn (Ordered from Quixotic Fibers) for a different vest came - I want to make the "professor vest," which is a cardigan vest that has sort of a waffle stitch to it out of this. But I need to finish other things first. 

* I did successfully change the bulb in the ceiling fixture in the entryway. It's pretty high up (had to climb up on a step stool and my knee has been hurting a lot because I twisted funny cleaning on Sunday). I was concerned maybe the switch or the fixture was broken - I had to have another switch on the same circuit fixed about six years ago. And it's an older fixture. But a new bulb took care of it. (Tiny successes matter too) 

* Becky Chambers has a new book coming out called "As You Wake, Break the Shell." I'm buying it (preordering) on the grounds that I enjoyed her two Monk and Robot books so much, and this one is apparently about a botanist (what's more: it's Botanist! In! Space!) and I want to read it

And anyway it gives me something to look forward to. 

And it's Socktober

 This is a thing some knitters do, though it's less publicized back in the days of widespread knitting blogs (and yes, I still miss that, it was fun to be able to see what other people were making). Louise Tilbrook mentioned it in the e-mail she sends out from time to time (to advertise her online journal, which I get the full one is a paid subscription).

Anyway, I looked at the three pairs of socks I have on the needles (and I have a lot more yarn and ideas) and thought, "maybe this month I intersperse this with working on the big sweater."

I didn't knit any last night; it was AAUW and we also had a water main break in town which I felt compelled to keep checking up on online to see if we were going to get a boil order (I guess because the water never got stagnant in the pipes? there was a huge gusher of an open hydrant on the way to the library for the AAUW meeting, and it was still going an hour later when I went back home. So I was kind of preoccupied. (Also, my sink garbage disposal failed, and I had to figure out how to stick my old stockpot under it to catch the drips, and I will have to clean out under there before Thursday when the plumber can get in to replace it)

But tonight, after a bunch of grading, I decided to sit down and work on the "Diode" socks (that is the name of the String Theory Colorworks colorway for it) that I'm knitting with an arrowhead lace pattern. But there wasn't anything good on tv "late"

I had watched the very end of "Hocus Pocus" on one of the Disney Channels; I was already an adult when this came out but it's a likeable movie and I can see why the generation just behind mine has a lot of people with fond memories of it. (I wound up catching the part with Binx'....resolution, I guess you'd call it? And I wound up crying, it's just been a hard week, and stories of self-sacrifice [even though it did work out well for him at the end] always get me)

But after that.....nothing. Unless there's a movie I want on TCM, cable is pretty much a wasteland on Friday nights, and it's hard not to see it as "this is Date Night, loser, we're not going to waste programming on the nerds stuck at home"

But then I remembered I have PBS Passport. It's the only "paid type" streamer I have access to. I give a little money every month to PBS; I started doing it back when That Guy basically said he wanted to starve PBS and NPR, and in my state, the PBS system (OETA) was kind of hanging by a thread for a while because our governor thought he wouldn't reauthorize their license.

But you know? A lot of the time it's the only real "intelligent" tv on. Them, and TCM, and some of the cartoon channels are the main things I watch these days. 

And yes. I am old enough to remember when TLC  was "The Learning Channel" and they showed re runs of old educational programs, like The French Chef and a show with a tailor making 70s-fabulous clothes (they were out of fashion but the techniques he taught were solid). And I remember when Arts and Entertaining actually had arts programming, and things like broadcasts of stage musicals. (And I remember when MTV showed music videos....) But like everything, en....uh, enpoopification....came for cable, and everything descended to a lowest common denominator, and TLC now shows programming about couples who would benefit from either a lot of counseling, or maybe never having got together in the first place, arguing. And a lot of those channels are now a bit like modern freakshows, and it's kind of uncomfortable and it feels voyeuristic

But, as I said, I remembered I had Passport. Logged back in. Started with one of the modern-reset Sherlock episodes but noped out because it seemed sad (it was about deaths-by-suicide, apparently) and so I shifted over to what was billed as the very first episode of the Suchet Poirot.

The Poirot mysteries with David Suchet have long been comfort programming for me. First of all, the period setting is just INTERESTING. Different clothes, stylish interiors, the hairstyles, the different entertainment - an entirely different world. Second, Suchet is just SO GOOD as Poirot, so enjoyable to watch. I love the character even as I know working with a man actually Like That would probably drive me up a wall. And third: like a LOT of the "vintage mysteries," it's a show that fundamentally celebrates intelligence and curiosity and being observant of small things, and those are things it feels like our society currently devalues, so it's cheering to see the "little grey cells" work and come up with the solution. And there's the fundamental morality of a lot of these mysteries: someone did something that was Wrong, they need to be found out, and justice needs to deal with them. (There are a few - there's a Poirot mystery early in the canon - where the perpetrator decides to take "the easy way out" and that almost feels to me like a cheat). 

This one was about a cook who was given an "inheritance" (that actually wasn't), and the murder and theft involved was something she was not at all involved or implicated in (Though Poirot does note sadly, "She will probably find out there is only a six month lease on the cottage she supposedly inherited). I don't remember seeing it before but then there are lots of these I didn't see in their original runs, and my local PBS substitutes another mystery for that on Saturday nights now (I am not complaining: I enjoy Sister Boniface or Father Brown)

But it is nice to have a comfort show back, and I noticed after watching it that they have the NOVA on the Chauvet caves that I saw only the end of, so I might watch that this weekend and knit. 

Getting it out

 I have to go to bed soon, but this is something that's been camping out in my head and low-level upsetting me, maybe writing it out gets rid of it.

 

You know yesterday, how there was the "botched" execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee? And how all the news outlets claimed she was heard "snoring"? 

 Someone else, someone with some medical knowledge I think, said it wasn't snoring, it was agonal breathing, which is a known phenomenon when  someone is dying.

 

And this is where it hit me hard: when my father died, my mom told me she knew his time was close, because he did that breathing, and the hospice nurse had warned her and explained what it was like. ANd so, yeah, great, that grief comes back up now and the "pain ball in the box that triggers pain" is big again. 

 

So that's just dandy, on top of everything else. It really does feel like our society is needlessly cruel and garbagey now. 

 

and on top of that? I'm gonna have to clean well under the sink (the mouse hung out there, apparently) and get a plumber in, apparently the seal on the insinkerator has failed and it's leaking and I CAN'T EVEN USE THE SINK NOW.

 

well, I could, if I put a bucket I could dump outside or in the tub under it, which I might do until I can make time to get the plumber in. 

 

But yeah, I'm just tired of dealing with all kinds of bad,sad, angering, and frustrating things 

needed something simple

 I was just TIRED this evening. I think the weight of all the stuff that's happened in my day-to-day these past few weeks just hit me, and I was not just tired, I was despairing a little.

At first I thought I didn't have the energy to do the second bit of piano practice for the day (did the first bit before going in to work), but after dinner I decided to force myself and it DID make me feel better. At times like that, when I feel like I can't handle something complex, I pull out one of the books of Philip Keveren hymn arrangements, which are really scaled to "early intermediate" (I am PERHAPS advanced intermediate, may never get better than that) and it's nice to play something that is familiar (a number of these were assignments back when I took lessons) and is simple enough I don't have to fight the music, I can just more or less play.

I didn't feel up to the sweater, so I pulled out the plain stockinette socks (Dream in Color, from before PE bought them, their yak blend yarn in the color "alive");

 I didn't do a lot on it tonight but I am getting close (one more inch at least, though) for the heel flap.

Watched some of the new iteration of "Scrubs," I remembered sort of liking the show when it was first on. One storyline was about self-doubt and I admit that hit kind of hard, because with the difficult students (and some other things), that's kind of my constant mental companion right now (just like grief was in the weeks after my dad died). I still kind of enjoyed it. I dunno, I know my taste in tv is not great and also a lot of the "prestige type" shows (the few on cable; I don't want to deal with paid streaming - I do get Passport because I have a monthly donation to PBS) are often so dark and so populated with antiheroes. I don't think distressing, violent, sad, or cynical content is really any smarter than something that maybe either cheers you up or reminds you that what you're going through, other people experience. But it seems a lot of folks do think that. Also watched the tail end of a NOVA that I would probably have watched more of if I knew the episode was about the cave paintings in France; that's interested me for a while.

Had the first person ask me about my Bluey lunch kit today. Our grad student TA (who is, I think a bit older than the average grad student; I've seen him wear a t-shirt declaring he's "from the 90s" which would make him at least 5 years older than our typical grad students) poked his head in my office and asked me if I was busy, because he had a silly question. (I wasn't, I was contemplating leaving for the day) and he asked if I REALLY carried a Bluey lunch kit. And I said yes, I had to have SOMETHING to carry my lunch in, and it is insulated, and there's a pocket where I can stow an ice pack in warm weather and I can tuck the spoon for my yogurt. I didn't come out and say something like "I like Bluey, what of it?" but I think that's implied. 

But now I feel weird about it. 

I have too many memories - I talked about being mocked by my peers for liking the (OG: 1978-ish) Muppet movie as a fifth grader. And while I don't think this guy would mock me, or even really think less of me....well, I have an ongoing issue with feeling judged by other people. 

But whatever. I'm telling myself it's okay, everyone is messy and weird, and as being weird goes liking a cartoon aimed at under-10s is a pretty innocent form of "weird." 

But I don't LIKE seeming weird. I would like to seem more normal. Because I've always been weird and often been excluded for it.  

More sweater progress

 The image of the wings is starting to emerge. It's slow, though. I didn't remember big complex projects being this slow. Maybe I'm just busier now. 

 Okay, it won't upload my photo. What the heck, Blogger, I don't need this tonight.

 

 

 

Anyway, there was supposed to be a photo there.

Okay I fixed it. I was so tired I forgot to save the photo as a .jpg, my cell phone saves and transfers them in the weird HEIC format that nothing else recognizes. 

so that's fixed, but I am still kind of mad at the world. 

 

This was another not good day though it ended okay

y. I had to speak sharply to a student for watching VIDEOS WITH THE SOUND ON in my intro class. A lot of these kids just aren't "done cooking" yet, they don't understand what it is to be an adult, but it's upsetting and insulting to me. I commented that the noise broke my concentration and it probably broke the concentration of the people around him. 

I know I'm boring. I know I'm not good at my job any more. I know I'm too sensitive. But dammit, can I NOT HAVE IT SHOVED IN MY FACE?

Anyway, at the end of the day I went to talk to my chair about the OTHER student. When he asked me who it was and I named them, he said "oh, it's not just you. They treat everyone like that, and they've had a couple instances  where they were allowed to succeed at pushing for extra credit without pushback, and they got it, and now they feel emboldened"

So if they go and complain to him, he's got their number. But I still have to put up with their nastiness. 

It was also suggested if the loud student doesn't calm down (if I have to speak to them again) I report them, apparently they are an athlete.

 

Anyway. For that and other reasons I am already done with people for this week. (I also found out more about the personnel issue and while it's not the worst I was fearing, it's not just a simple "family issues meant they had to resign" and I'm unhappy and I'm going to have a problem if I'm asked for a recommendation because I DID NOT HAVE FULL INFORMATION WHEN THEY ASKED ME IF I WOULD). So yeah, really really really done with people. People eternally disappoint me. I get lonesome, I hate always being alone, but you know? People will break your heart every time, so forget 'em. If that means I die alone in my house and they don't find me for a week, fine, so be it. It's better than always feeling sad and wondering who's going to break bad next. 

So yeah, it's mildly upsetting that I don't even get the TINY comfort of being able to post a picture of my sweater in progress.

 

I need something to be better, I really do. I'm losing hope in a lot of things right now and I don't even have any dreams for my future any more, I realized - because I feel like so little of what happens to me is under my control any more! Like, I could lose my job because the legislature here did something dumb, or because the university ran out of money, or whatever. I could be hung out to dry with no help from any quarter because the world is random and cruel and even trying to be a good and kind person doesn't help, and perhaps it even hurts, because it leaves you vulnerable and the selfish and amoral people grab what they want for themselves where you're trying to follow your scruples.

Just super disappointed in life tonight. Like I said: I need for something to get better. 

Finished one mitt

 I finished the first of the worsted-weight mitts. The pattern is called "What's that on your hands. Watson?" and it's apparently based off a sweater Watson was shown wearing in one of the shows/movies about Sherlock Holmes. The author is Maria Ahlholm.

It's a nice, simple pattern, and it works up quickly.

The front and the back are different:

 

The yarn is a random skein of Paton's Classic Wool in sort of a salmon color that I had in my stash. It probably came from JoAnn's (yes I still miss them) because the wool yarns Michael's carries is all very plain and neutral.

I ran down to Sherman before Zoom knitting Saturday; I needed some things from the Albertson's, and I remembered I needed a birthday present for my niece. (My mom is sending a check; I wanted to send a THING). I found a couple kits; she likes doing crafts (one is a butterfly paint-by-number plaque she could hang on her wall; the other is a beginner embroidery kit of a pine forest)

The embroidery kit came from the yarn shop. And I found a couple other things.

First, a bag, to serve as "wrapping" for the gifts:

 She's a chicken keeper, and of course her birthday is in October; I hope she'll find this amusing.

I also realized I could knit her a pair of the worsted-weight mitts for Christmas, and I saw this yarn:

 A Texas-based dyer, and her favorite color (green), and I plan to include the label because chickens. 

Other than that, I'm just TIRED. For various reasons today wasn't a good day, had a couple unpleasant interactions and those wear on me harder than they did a few years ago. (I really think pandemic isolation did a number on my ability to relate to other humans; I now assume people are either mad at me or dislike me sometimes). I'm also still sad from all the bad news and I think that's weighing on me.

I'm going to try to cut out early tomorrow, partly to mail off my niece's gift, but also.....I just need some time to be quiet at home.

some kinda day

 That's all I can really say. 

 I did give an exam and knit more on the mitts but I don't even have the first one done, so no picture.

But two other things.

First of all: the "personnel issue" I had alluded to has resolved. I don't know all the details, and I hope there aren't bad ones that I later learn, but one of my colleagues went on a leave of absence and is now leaving. They came to me personally to tell me. I was awkard as always, I said I was sorry and followed it up with "I expected this was coming" and probably should have said "I was afraid this was coming"

they also asked me to be a reference for job apps, hope no information comes out that makes me regret that, sometimes I am too nice and I also sometimes have the self-preservation instincts of a dodo bird. 

This morning, after getting the news (like a half-hour after), teaching my last class of the day, I found it was hard to concentrate and even find words (I couldn't say anything; I don't know if the students know yet, and I don't even know if my other colleagues know yet). And I realized: this is grief. You are grieving. It's not like someone died, but it's still a type of grief. And yeah, it is, but grief has been the theme of well....these past seven or so years.  

In addition to the whole thing just being sad, I'm losing someone who was friendly towards me. And  this will likely mean another drawn out search, and I'm not sure I have another search committee IN me, and certainly not this fall (I have several "challenging" students - challenging in different ways, and one of them really isn't bad, just anxious, but it still wears me out)

And that's on top of all the mess with the building I have spoken about. Things feel less...rewarding...than they once did, and I feel like that nearly-six-months we were turfed out to other buildings last year was for naught, given how little good the renovation seems to have done. 

Then tonight - I was set to explain to my mom about the colleague thing, but I didn't, because she asked me if I had heard, but that last December, my graduate advisor died. 

For lots of folks with advanced degrees, this is kind of a hard thing. It does feel a bit like being orphaned, and I had collaborated with him on papers other than my own research. So I do feel sad and.....yeah, orphaned is a good word for it. 

I'm glad I found that out after I was done for the day; I did carry my exams home and grade them before dinner and I think finding out about my advisor would have made it harder to focus on working. 

And yeah, it often feels like the world's falling apart around me and yet I continue to do my dumb little grading and read the dumb little research articles and I can't tell if it's brave (to keep working in the face of all this) or deeply stupid (if I'm dead in a few months, in some kind of cataclysm, what was even the point of this?) But I don't know what ELSE to do, so I do it.

I've decided I'm taking the weekend off (well, I do have to make something for a potluck Sunday, perhaps cheese grits) but I am going to go to the Michael's (I need a couple things) and to a bigger, nicer supermarket than in town.

But really, I just need to get out of town, and to go somewhere I'm not going to bump into someone I know when I'm trying to find skim milk or choose food for dinners next week, and just be away from HERE. 

Little more socks

 I added a couple more repeats to the columns socks. They move slowly, and also I made a bad mistake (dropped one of the purl stitches) and had to do a LOT to get it fixed. And even then, it's not perfect, but I don't think it will show too much.

 Other than that, I'm just TIRED. I have some difficult students this semester; the one unhappy with their grade was back to hector me again about extra credit and I think next time I'm going to point out that they DID finish the exam but they got several high point questions wrong. And if they ask in class tomorrow I will note I had someone who was out with an extended illness (it was a form of staph, and they were told by their doctor "under no circumstances return to campus before this date") and that person still needs to take it. I need to see the whole distribution of grades but given that a lot of folks scored decently well I'm disinclined to do extra credit. 

They can go complain to my chair if they want. But if I'm told I "have" to do it, I might play the "good luck finding someone to do my job" card (I am close enough to retirement, and I also admit, I am FED UP TO HERE with the broken AC, and the fact that the reno was done cheaply and it's failing in the hot rooms (trim peeling off in the lab where I teach) and there are loud fans everywhere and I've endured like a year and a half of extra work and disruption for.....nothing. AND the whole AI thing - I got an ad for an on campus "webinar" (UGH) about "using AI for productivity" and no. I am too close to retirement to care. I do not want to use AI. I do not want to have to be more "productive," teaching four classes now (a total of just over 100 "unique" students - a couple are in 2 or 3 of my classes) and I feel like I might not have that much life left, so why spend it grinding away for something I rarely hear thanks or appreciation for? (And yeah, in the face of all the disruption and unpleasantness, the administration has acted like....we don't matter. Obviously they don't care about what we've had to deal with)

But anyway. I hope things get better. I have a tiny doorsign now I did warn one colleague about (IOW: "Don't knock on my door if this is up, unless it's a real emergency")

 I even remember the episode that's from. But yes, more and more after I walk out of class I need 10 or 20 minutes of quiet where no one is haranguing me or demanding things. 

I did get a little package from a friend, which makes things better. Some stickers, and an artist's painting of what looks like a nerve cell, and then a weird old (publication date 1994) cookbook. I think she remembered I love these oddball cookbooks that groups put together.

 This is the group:

 They don't exist any more; apparently they were folded into another group in 1998. (I looked them up). Apparently they were involved with logistics.

Anyway, there's also this:

 SO there you go: according to the NAESU and Linda Newton, Mac and Cheese counts as a vegetable.

Looking for relaxation

 This was not a great day. It was very busy - tomorrow is going to be very busy and I had to get a bunch of things taken care of (typing up minutes, finishing the AAUW yearbook, stuff for all my classes, mixing up a solution for tomorrow's lab)

But I also had a couple negative interactions. First, a student from one class came in to complain about an exam grade. They passed, but it was a low pass. They told me my exam was too long, and they couldn't finish. They said they were a pre-med and needed good grades. Could I let them redo?

My policy is no redos. Sometimes if everyone struggles, I give a make-up assignment - but I had people earn grades in the upper 90s. I went over the exam with the person - they did complete the questions, but fluffed a couple of the high point value essays (wrong answers, very much in the wrong direction in them) so I THINK they may have been trying for a higher grade.

I admit it's a stereotype of pre-meds that they are overly concerned about grades (and arguably, our med-school admissions system is to blame for this) but .... yeah, that's an issue I've dealt with since I was a TA. (I remember as far back as fall 1990, sighing at a student and saying "No, Will, I am not going to give you that 0.25 point on a 10 point quiz back, you answered it wrong"). I forget, because I have so many Botany/Zoology/Conservation majors, many of whom, if they earn a low pass, go "Man, I screwed up on this test, I need to work harder next time" instead of coming and blaming me. 

Anyway.

Then, in my actual class of the day, I had low attendance, and about a half hour into it, two people got up and just left. Okay, fine, maybe they were athletes and had to leave for a game - though usually students like that will warn me ahead of time. And then more people got up and left. I was down to five at 15 minutes before the end and I just ended it early because I felt like I'd start to get ragey - or teary - if anyone more left. (This is an intro class, lots and lots of first years, and maybe they're still sort of teenager-self-centered or else they don't know the etiquette, but it DID offend me, and more importantly, it demoralized me. I am not good at reaching people who don't want to be there or don't care. I work best with the slightly nerdy students who are already interested in stuff; then again, I was that student and I liked almost all my professors. I know I lack the skill or the personality to reach the people who aren't interested, and that's what a really GOOD teacher can do, and I just *have to accept I am NOT one* and that maybe I wasted my whole career on something I'm not very good at)

And I got home later than I wanted (giving an extra-time-extension exam, so it was something I needed toi do, even if the timing wasn't the best)

I tried to knit a bit on the "columns" socks but only got a couple rounds done; my right wrist is hurting - I think I tweaked something during the lab set up, or maybe I slept on it funny)

I did watch a new-to-me show. I had seen "Best Medicine" advertised and my reaction was "Oh, it's Doc Martin with the serial numbers filed off" and it really kind of IS........but I liked it. This was the second season premier, I guess I missed the entire first season. The plot - a woman dressed as a mermaid with some mystery skin condition is rescued from the ocean and they figure out her story from there, and there's also a woman who cannot give up smoking despite being on oxygen (played for laughs - it leads to cartoonish explosions (her face being covered in soot from it) rather than horrific third-degree burns, which is what I thought actually happened).

The show actually scratches a couple of "itches" for me - slightly goofy setting (it's coastal Maine, the houses seem older and idiosyncratically decorated, there's nice scenery), side characters who are people I "know" (Didi Conn is in it! And I think there was the same actress who was the grandma on Young Sheldon, just with less pouffed up hair and a different accent).

And there's a strong "found family" thread in it, and this is something I'm a huge sucker for, and I honestly wish I had more real found family rather than "just this collection of acquaintances I happen to be around some of the time" but I'm also not sure how to get that (I suspect my problem is I'm still not able to get past the mortifying ordeal of being *known* with all my flaws in order to get to the joy of actually being loved as a found-family member). And the show telegraphs that pretty hard at the end, where the mermaid-girl is implied to be suicidal (up on the lighthouse threatening to jump) and people call out their own personal weirdnesses, and the doctor reveals that he's there because he developed a blood phobia while a surgeon (he has to get someone else to do the phlebotomy work for him).  And eventually the mermaid girl safely comes down, and says she's going to check in to (a presumably-psychiatric) hospital for help. 

And she comes down thanks to the kindness of another character - the sheriff, who at least in this episode, is a WONDERFUL "himbo" type character ("pure of heart, dumb of ass") who reminds me a bit - even in his style of speaking - of a right-side-of-the-law version of Jason Mendoza from The Good Place. He's mildly in love with mermaid girl and only wants to see her get better. 

So, fundamentally, the episode ends happily - the characters learn a bit more about each other, there's some mutual acceptance, and people go back to their lives. And I NEED that sometimes, I need the idea that "things have shifted and gotten better" because in the real world so many of the shifts are for the worse, and it seems people understand each other worse now and care less about each other. So it's a relief to be reminded a better way is possible. 

So yeah, even if it's a rip off of Doc Martin, it's enjoyable. And sometimes that's all you need - not great art, not great insight, just something pleasant that smooths off the unpleasantness of the day. 

more sweater progress

 I did a bunch of cleaning this weekend, and I assembled a plant stand I'd had in the box since I bought it. I think it was in early 2024, just before I injured my knee, and first I wasn't able to get down on the floor to work on it, and then I was busy, and then I kind of forgot it until I was cleaning in the dining room and saw where I had tucked it away in a corner. 

I had had a mouse in the house and it was chewing on the leaves of my hibiscus, so I thought maybe putting it up high would move it out of the mouse's path. I THINK they can still climb, but maybe making it harder will help.

I've not seen any new "sign" of any kind for a couple days, so I'm hoping it left on its own, but I did find a spot that I can't move/get into where it could be hiding, and I lined up traps next to the opening in and out, so if one snaps, I'll get it. I really hope it did decide to leave though. (We finally had rain; I think it came in in search of something with water, and that would be hibiscus leaves)

And even if it did just leave, the plant stand looks good and it replaces the extra dining chair/folding tv tray table/other little storage ottoman I had been using to set the plants on. I got some "solar recharging" led tealights and set them on there (they come on at dusk and go off at dawn) to make it a little fancier.

***

I also worked on the sweater, I finally got up to the round where you start the moth pattern - this does require more counting and care than the "lice" and crosses pattern, you might see the two groups of four dark stitches; those are the very first row of the bottom of the wings:

 I gave an exam today and needed something portable; I had wanted to do a pair of mitts called "what's on your hands, Watson" (apparently based on a sweater design seen in the Sherlock tv program) but the yarn I bought was the wrong weight (I was remembering the requirement as a dk, and it took a worsted/aran). I had a Paton's worsted in a different color (a sort of coral pink they call "Currant") than the yarn I originally bought (a pretty turquoise), but they are portable and if I don't like them, they could be a gift for someone. (I give another exam Friday, so having a project for it will be good)

Friday night things

 * I did take more books to the library yesterday for the used book sale. I could probably get rid of MORE, but Monday is the last day they accept them and I don't think I have the energy to cull more this weekend. (We don't have little free libraries here, at least, I've never seen one. We have blessing-boxes, where people leave nonperishable food or hygiene items for the people who fall through even the cracks of the food-bank system). 

I suppose I could look into something like Books for Africa, at least for the "educational" or science books. 

* I'm still working on the sweater. I think I like colorwork now? Or at least this part of it - when I have to do the knit-flat part of the yoke where the design is asymmetrical I bet I slow down a lot. (Right now, it's just "lice" and whatever you call the little plus-shaped designs)

* The new Knitty is out. I really like  Spell Check and I think I have enough of a sort-of-caramel colored worsted weight I bought years ago (I think it was from the short-lived yarn shop in Normal, so I might have had it as long as 10 years). If there's not enough of that I do have some reddish purple yarn that I know I have enough of (7 skeins of 220 yards). I think I prefer the caramel color. And for the pocket edges, I have MANY sockyarns I could repurpose; I know I have some pink and brown combinations that would look good with the caramel color. 

But first I have to get some other projects finished. 

* I will say these days are struggles. It's still very hot - 20 degrees or more over the normal, and I'm at the point of not knowing if this is El Nino (and so might not happen next year), or if this is just what to expect now (because of climate change). If it's the second I may have to consider moving away when I retire; close to two months solid of no rain and temperatures not sensibly different from 105 F is really getting me down. It doesn't help one bit that the lab side of the building still doesn't have its air conditioning fixed; they're still apparently fabricating the unit and I wonder if the various tariff and "we're not going to do business with that country" nonsense is slowing things down. 

And to try to move the air around, we have big industrial fans in the halls. They're starting to blow fuses when we try to use other equipment (anything that heats) and the NOISE is very wearing to listen to.

I don't know. I need something fun but it's too hot to be outside and I can't think of anything indoors I would want to do. (And at any rate: I could not bring myself to grade the project proposals on top of doing a biostats homework and grading a set of article critiques for another class, so I must do it tomorrow). 

some human interactions

 ...thought not necessarily in the way I would ideally desire. Last weekend, our oldest AAUW member (she was 94) passed away after a short decline. I could not make it to her funeral tomorrow (classes) so I decided to go to the Family Time or Family Hour (up north, we called that "visitation"). Basically a time to meet with the family and friends of the deceased, and pay your respects. Usually in the evening, I suspect for people whose work schedules would keep them from the funeral. 

I don't love these, especially since I don't know many people in town (despite having lived here longer than I've lived anywhere) and I never know where to stand or what to say to people and I feel awkward. 

Also, now, these carry a real frisson for me; I've lost enough people and gone to enough of these. And I think of my mother, at 90, and how it won't be impossibly long before I'm probably one of the bereaved children at one of these (unless something terrible happens to me first, or unless something terrible happens to all of us - which, given geopolitics, seems less impossible than it did a few years back) 

The one tonight, also, was open casket. And fine, fine, if that's what the family needs for themselves, or if that's what the person wanted, but I admit to me - the person in the casket never looks like they did when they were alive (no matter what people might say) and I admit it makes me uncomfortable. (Most of the funerals/visitations I've been to have NOT been open casket. My dad was cremated, and I think that's also my mom's plan)

There were a FEW people I knew there - a couple people from my university who attend the same church as Mary Ann did, and a friend from church who had been her neighbor, and several of the AAUW members (I knew Mary Ann from AAUW). So I talked to a few people and signed the book and after about 25 minutes my friend Dana was leaving, so I left to. I don't think you're expected to stay the full time.

I mean, it's something I do out of obligation rather than joy (A lot of things I do these days...). I do it to honor the person who died, and maybe to be there for their family or the other folks there.  But I admit that when I remembered it early afternoon today when I was sitting in my office writing an exam, I groaned inwardly about having it to do (rather than just being able to come home and fix dinner and relax).

Also, as I was putting on my shoes to go, there was a knock on the door. I paused and froze. I never know to open or not - I've had too many pushy salespeople wanting my time, but this time I figured I could tell them I had to get to the funeral home. 

It wasn't a salesperson; it was two men, one standing back on the sidewalk, one on my porch. The one guy had a small card in his hand I knew what it was. He wanted to invite me to his church (one of the more fundamentalist Baptist  churches, I've driven by it). I told him, politely but truthfully that I "already had a church home" (that phrasing usually satisfies people) and he still offered me the card (which it was easier to take than refuse). I said that I was on my way out for a visitation but he kept talking - he asked "so, were you saved in the church here in town?" 

Okay, I admit this is not a phraseology I use. I don't know that many "Progressive" Christians think in terms of "Saved" as a one-and-done thing; I frankly see the faith journey (which I might be more prone to call it) as something you have to work on every day. You can't, I think, as a human, magically say the Sinner's Prayer and be good forever, and never hurt anyone or offend God again, I don't think humans work that way. But I also understand other people look at the thing differently so I just kind of chuckled and said "oh, no, I grew up in a church" and he commented - happily, I think - "Oh, so you've been Saved almost your entire life" and I said "I guess you could say that" as I walked to my car.

I admit I don't think it pays to be rude to the evangelists, even if I find it uncomfortable a bit, but I figure as a fellow Christian I can at least truthfully say that yes, I "have a church home" and as I said that usually satisfies the person. (I know some folks who are rude, and yes, that's their prerogative, but that's not me)

I would never go out door-knocking, I know people hate it, and what I feel more called to do is just.....to help. To give to or help out at a food bank, or to serve meals, things like that. I don't like trying to persuade people and I know I'm not that persuasive. And I prefer to have my actions speak rather than my words. 

But yeah, that was a lot of "peopling" for one night, and not exactly the fun kind, and tomorrow/this weekend I have a lot of grading.... 

A life's scraps...

 I hope non-members will be able to read the linked story (on Medium), it gets at something that's occupied my mind of late as I battle mice (GOT to find how they're getting in and block it off; the peppermint repellant seems to be helping) and look in dismay at my too-many-books (will take more to the library tomorrow to donate) and the too-much yarn (not sure what to do with that, the places I've looked toward donating it aren't taking yarn)

But yes: "Stop erasing yourself before you're gone" 

 

A couple of pull quotes: 

 "...some homes now look less like places where human beings lived and more like emotionally unavailable Airbnbs.

Gray walls. One beige throw blanket. Three identical candles that smell vaguely like eucalyptus and tax fraud. No photographs. No collections. No weird ceramic rooster from 1987.

No evidence of joy."

And while I admit, yes, I have too much stuff, and it's suboptimally stored, and yes, I really SHOULD donate all those books I've weeded - the author is right. If you try to live like you will leave no traces, you're not really living. 

And yes, I've heard the "no one wants your junk" argument, and yes, that's probably true - too many people today can't settle down because they can't AFFORD to settle down, and so having a weird ceramic rooster from 1987, or a lot of books, or craft supplies, becomes a burden if you have to move frequently, or if you share an apartment made for two people with four roommates,, and that's probably why antique shops are dying (And yet, where I live, thrift stores boom,because everyone's broke, and the way to get new-to-you clothing, or to get kitchenwares if, for example, you had to up and leave a bad partner situation and you couldn't take anything. But that's different, that's necessity shopping, not fun shopping)

But things do matter. The author writes about losing her stepdaughter and how the young woman's hoodie and hairbrush became precious to her and her husband (I presume, the stepdaughter's biodad) because "And those things became sacred to my then husband and me. Not because they were valuable. Because they were proof. Proof that she had been here. That she laughed. Planned things. Got distracted. Loved certain colors. Wrote down grocery lists and dreams and frustrations like the rest of us do."

 

And what made me think of that was something I did today. I started the Clean Air Act in my course on environmental policy, and I brought in something I retrieved when my mom and I went through all the boxes of stuff my dad had taken from his office when he retired, and refused to sort. It was this:

 It's the Federal Register publication of some of the standards of the Clean Air Act. It was sent to him when he was at University of Akron by the Representative from the district we were in (Charles A. Mosher). I don't remember if he was Coordinator of Research at that point (I would have still been a toddler) or if he was a professor then. But it reminds me of that era, and the environmental contacts he had, and I remember a lot of other things - the going out to metroparks, and hearing about Seiberling Nature Center (I was remembering him as another governmental official, but at least that Seiberling was a rubber baron. I guess his son John was the Congressman). And so it brings back early memories of being in Ohio, a place I weirdly miss more and more now. 

Anyway. I bring it to class. I explain its provenance and hand it around with the warning that it's more than 50 years old, it's on that high-acid newsprint paper that crumbles easily, be careful with it. And they always are. I saw several of the students very carefully and almost-reverently looking over it, and that made me happy. It's a weird, probably-worthless piece of ephemera, but it means a lot to me. (I keep saying I need to get one of those Mylar sleeves like they use to protect comic books - it's the standard 8 1/2 x 11 paper size - but I've never seen just single sleeves for sale anywhere and I don't want to buy 100)

I wonder what my dad would think if he knew I was handing that odd old document around while I talk about the Clean Air Act.

 

I have another thing of his, this was something that was up in his office, and now it's up in mine:

 I've titled its file "Manifesto" on my computer because it is the thing closest to a manifesto I have - the importance of teaching and learning, and that "What value will it be to make a prosperous living, unless you know how to live?"

It's on my little "Keep on keepin on" wall on my file cabinet, along with a few postcards folks have sent me, and a poem my paternal grandfather wrote, and some little trinkets like the reproduction Kilauea Crater benchmark and the LOTR quotation magnet ("There is some good in this world, and it's worth fighting for") and while I admit some days it's hard to FEEL some of those things (especially about the good in the world), I keep those things up. To remind myself. Just like I keep that bit of the Clean Air Act to remind myself of how my father went before me and how there were other people from my past who, if it's not too pretentious to say it, whose banner I am trying to carry forward into the future. 

I admit I don't feel the hope and the idealism as much as I did when I was younger (it started to fade about 10 years ago, at the time of the budget failure here, and also when a former student of ours was arrested, tried, and imprisoned for committing fraud on the job, and it's continued to wane through the pandemic and now with the rise of AI ("you can tell your students they can't use it but that won't necessarily stop them, and other faculty will encourage them to"). 

I try to grab on to and recapture what I can - a good discussion in class, a fun lab. The other day a colleague told me one of her students said that I was her favorite professor and she particularly noted how much she enjoyed Ecology. (I didn't ask for a name, felt I didn't need to know it, but my colleague did say this was a medical-sciences major, not a fish-and-wildlife major). 

 And yes, some of those reminders of the past DO help. Help me remember  a more idealistic time, and a time when the world seemed more new and things seemed more possible. 

And yes, I still miss my father for many reasons, even if the acute grief is long gone.  

 

Finished the hat

 I did the last few rounds this evening It's done now, and that's good, it will be my AAUW gift-exchange gift. (I also got the "yearbook" that lists everyone's address and when and where the meetings are done yesterday. I had to put a "RIP" for one of our long term members; she passed away on Saturday after a short medical decline - she was 94)

It does make me a little sad. (Also a former member of church died this weekend; his wife got angry about some thing some years back and they went back to the Methodists). 

Mary Ann's funeral is Friday; I can't make it because of classes (I reserve "funeral going requiring cancelling class" only for VERY close people. I think I did it for Dorothy when she died, but she had almost been a substitute grandmother for as long as I knew her). There is the "Family Time"/"Visitation" Thursday night, and I probably should go. 

But it does just make me sad. I know, I know, it's the lot in life once you're over 50 to have more goodbyes than hellos but every one stings now; these past six or eight years I feel like I have lost A LOT of people and places I cared about, and there's not much to replace them! And that's upsetting in itself. 

***

A happier thing. Someone I follow on Bluesky linked this and it brought back happy memories. I think I saw this particular movie only once or twice (when it was originally shown, and maybe in a rerun at some point) so the magic's not dimmed like some of the Disney movies I've seen a couple dozen times - it did bring up memories of how I felt then and such.

 

I think the Rankin-Bass version of the Hobbit was seriously underrated when it first came out, and even more recently. But I do think some people are realizing how well done it was now, and how much vocal talent is in it (Orson Bean as Bilbo!)

The song is by Glenn Yarborough, sort of a folkie singer, and that sort of high, wavery male voice doing a story-song is so 1970s to me. The whole song reminds me of being a kid, and sitting on the dark brown shag carpeting in our family room in front of the big old console TV we had, and watching the whole movie through (We had only one tv in those days, I think, and I begged HARD to be able to pick that night, and The Hobbit was what I wanted. I think I was about 8). 

I would like to watch the whole thing again some time (I guess HBO+ it, but I don't subscribe to any streaming services). It would be interesting to see how it holds up to my memories.  

Monday night reading

I did go through the bookcases more this weekend, found a few more books to donate. But also found a few I definitely want to keep - my big book of Sherlock Holmes short stories and the Folio Society edition of Father Brown stories.

 It's funny, I'm generally not a big re-reader, but some of the mystery stories - especially the short stories - I like to keep on hand. They're a form of comfort reading I guess. I enjoy the atmosphere of Holmes' London, and the puzzle-nature of those stories in particular.

Honestly, I think I'd find a real-world Holmes annoying; I'd probably like Dr Watson better. 

 But Fr Brown - I admit I now conflate the Chesterton character with the BBC-mysteries version played by Mark Williams. And yes, the BBC Fr Brown is much less - dare I say orthodox? - than the Chesterton version, and is forgiving of some things I'm not sure a 1950s era British priest would so lightly forgive.

I admit it had been some years since I read the *stories* about Fr Brown, and I was reminded (happily) of how good they are, and how much I enjoy Chesterton's writing. And his Fr. Brown is more tolerant than I remembered him as, and better-humored.

 

Yes, I put "Far from the Madding Crowd" aside for a bit, I need something a bit simpler (some of the more complex sentences, for a tired 21st century reader, take a little more parsing than I might want) and I KNOW sad things are going to happen in that novel, and.....well, it's been a sad couple of weeks (most recently: one of the long-term, beloved AAUW members passed away this weekend) and I need stories that end happily, where the good people are forgiven and made whole and the only people who suffer are the wicked. (It pains me that in real life, more often it's the people who are basically decent that suffer, and seemingly the wicked prosper). And there is a humor in the Fr Brown stories, as he quietly, bemusedly, observes human nature.  

***

My mom did get her landline back. She had been concerned something might be wrong with the wiring *in her house* (none of the neighbors she asked had a landline, so they didn't know) but apparently it was "upstream" in the Frontier wiring because midday today she noticed the screen on her phone was operating again, and then she tried calling out, and found she could.

I'm glad; I spent a while Sunday night trying to talk her through getting the ringer louder on her cell phone and the model she has is so far different (it's a flip phone), I couldn't figure out how. And it's old enough (pre-pandemic!) that there's no manual online any more.

But I'm ready for the bad little surprises to stop. 

it's THAT day

 Yeah. 25 years on. Almost half my life. 

I still have vivid memories of the day - we had just moved into the building where we are right now, but I was still walking across campus (a half-mile at that point) to buy a copy of the Dallas Morning News (the bookstore used to get it) to read while I sat in my office hours.  And in those days I didn't have classes on Tuesdays, so it was an office hours/other work day. That may actually have been the last day I bought that paper, ever. 

When I walked in the room - it was probably around 9 am local time. Normally the bookstore was playing a local country-music station but today it was a newscaster on, with that terrible hushed-but-urgent voice that meant - even before I could comprehend the words - that something bad had happened.

I asked the clerk about it when she checked me out. "Oh," she said, "A plane hit the World Trade Center in New York City." I don't think any of us realized at that point; I visualized a little tourist plane (I don't even know if they do plane tours, I knew in Hawaii they did helicopter tours and those occasionally have tragic crashes) and thought "how awful, and what a foolish mistake that pilot must have made. I hope everyone in the building is okay...."

As I was crossing a parking lot (over by the old Arts building, since torn down), one of the Art faculty stopped me: "They are saying it's terrorists" she said. 

I got back up to my office and tried to bring up some news. NY Times, CNN, the usual news sites - could not get access to any of them because there was such a load of people trying to read them. I finally checked in with a bulletin board I was part of back then and someone who lived in Manhattan was on and was explaining what was happening. 

After a bit I went down to the office, because I guess I didn't want to be alone. Our secretary had managed to rig a small black and white tv with extra antennas (this was back before the digital conversion, back when you could pull in signals from the air). By then the towers had collapsed but we all saw the replay; I remember we were standing in a semi circle around the tv. I was hugging myself with my arms because I was scared. (And now: only one person who was in that group, other than me, is still teaching, everyone else has retired)

Eventually they sent us all home. I don't know to this day if they thought it was for our safety (expecting more attacks) or if it was "Well, no one will be able to concentrate on work anyway" or if it was done out of respect for the dead. 

That was such a strange fall, and perhaps in some ways, it sowed the seeds for the divisiveness we have today. I remember some businesses in my parents' town (more diverse than here) that were owned by various Middle-Eastern (or even Indian or Pakistani; people wanted to attack anyone with brown skin and an accent in those days) put up big "GOD BLESS AMERICA" signs on their stores, I suppose hoping it would protect them. (When really: the attack was carried out by a very small minority of what was a very small minority group within only one of the ethnic groups, and I'm still not totally convinced that their motivation was what we were told it was)

And I remember all the accounts of missing people; one I remember is how the Patternworks webpage (this was back before they were bought out, back when they were still in Poughkeepsie under the original owners) had a photograph of the husband of one of the people who worked there. I presume he died in the towers...

(I might, this evening, get out one of my KnitLit books and read the couple of essays that were written shortly after that time, just as commemoration) 

 

Anyway, some years later I came across this on Sirus XM on September 11. It took me a while to figure it out. I can't say I LIKE it given what it commemorates but I think it is good art, and I think the feelings it brings  ring true for me - the numinousness, the "what would you do if," the horror of thinking of all those lives ending at about the same time - and all the families changed forever and horribly so, no real chance to say goodbye:

 ****

Other than that, it's been an upsetting week. A few things I can't talk about. The latest thing that jolted me momentarily, but which resolved okay - I was trying to finish up grading in my office (it was already after 4 pm) and my phone rang. I didn't look at the number, it just announced "Mom" and I wondered "why is she calling now"

Well, I picked up and a neighbor gave her name and said "I have your mother here...." and I thought immediately "oh no. Did she fall? did she get hurt? Did Jackie have to call an ambulance? Are they at the hospital" I didn't exactly yell into the phone but I know I shakily asked if my mom was okay. "Oh, she's fine. Her landline is broken." Jackie was helping my mom refamiliarize herself with the cell phone she never uses and had her call me so I would know. And she wanted me to call my brother so HE'D know. (I wound up having to text him her cell phone number, she didn't have it). 

Apparently someone is coming to fix it Monday but hopefully my mom is clear enough on using the cell phone (these days sometimes her working memory isn't the greatest, especially when she's flustered.) I guess I'll know in a few minutes when I try calling her on her cell. 

But yeah. This week has been A LOT and it's still hot out, and I am just extremely tired. 

Thursday evening things

 *The chart row-keeper I ordered came yesterday, so I set it up and continued on. I'm up to the point of making the small + shapes before actually starting the moth

 I really need the chart keeper for the "non rhythmic" parts of the pattern, this row  is 3 of the mushroom color and three of the purple, so it's easy to remember 

I'm trying to maintain a consistent and looser tension; I think the reason I don't like colorwork is that I do tend to knit tightly and it doesn't look good when it pulls in at a tight tension, and it's not comfortable to wear (I am making a large size - 46" - here and will have a fair amount of positive ease which will also help). 

I gave an exam today and knit more on the hat; it's still not done. 

* I'm still thinking about the Thing I Can't Talk About at work; it doesn't *directly* involve me but it's distressing, and it's something that negatively affects a couple colleagues and it's another reminder that everything you do causes ripples in this world. I try to leave only good ones, but I know no person can do that all the time (and now I think of Chidi Anagonye from the early seasons of The Good Place, and how tormented he was by trying to be maximally ethical, and I relate to that and admit I fall into that trap).

But also, this has just been an exceptionally stressful start to the semester. Not just this, but also the fallout from the cyberincident, and the fact that there's no AC in much of the building, and there are loud industrial fans in the halls to circulate the cool air from the rooms that have it, and it's loud, and stuffy, and driving in on one of our chewed up roads yesterday something briefly snapped in me and I said to the empty air of my car, "Why must EVERYTHING be so unpleasant? why must we always have discomfort and trouble and difficulty? Why can't at least one thing be nice and pleasant?" and yes, I know, you have to make it or find it for yourself but some days that's very hard.

And I really do need some comfort, and not just the tiny comfort of maybe a fancier dessert with dinner (not that there's anywhere really in town to get a really good slice of cake or similar) or of ordering some stickers from Etsy. I need BIG comfort, and probably comfort involving another person, just hanging out with me or doing something with me. But that's not likely to happen so I just kind of plug along through the discomfort, and hope that maybe in the future things will be better but every day that thought that that would be possible gets smaller and more distant. 

And I think of "The Professor's House," which I read in Summer 2020, and how at the end the eponymous professor has a brush with mortality (poorly vented gas heater in his attic workroom; Augusta, the family's German maid finds him and saves him, and he thinks about how Prohibition was starting (and this is someone who liked his wine and sherry) and the quotation from the book is

"He had never learned to live without delight. And he would have to learn to, just as, in a Prohibition country, he supposed he would have to learn to live without sherry. Theoretically he knew that life is possible, may be even pleasant, without joy, without passionate griefs. But it had never occurred to him that he might have to live like that."

And yes. Maybe that's becoming an older adult? learning to live without delight and passion and maybe even joy? I mean I still have the relief of, I don't know, getting home on a Friday and being able to fix a nicer dinner than I normally have time for, or going to bed and knowing there's not an alarm to have to wake me the next morning, or getting a few minutes at the piano. But it seems like the bad things are worse now, and the good things are not as strong about wiping them away as they once were - and maybe this is just how it is? And I just have to accept it? 

and it's Tuesday

 Already a hard week. It's still brutally hot here, to the point where I replaced what was going to be one of my few field labs with the "trapped inside by bad weather" version of it (with simulated organisms) that I wrote years back for an extremely rainy summer.

The heat is really unpleasant and distressing; I think everyone feels it. I retrieved the washers I spray painted for another lab from one of the (non climate controlled) outbuildings and it about did me in, as did working in the teaching lab in the part of the building where we're down to "portable" AC units. 

So I'm punting to a "bead based" lab. They'll still learn the calculations, it won't be as fun, but I won't get overheated and if there's anyone with worse heat sensitivity than I have, they won't be in danger. 

I am VERY ready for the heat to break but it could be another month. Not sure if I'll make it.... 

And something happened. I can't give details; it's a personnel thing, but if it's what I think it is, it's sad and upsetting and while it doesn't directly affect me it still affects me because I care about people and also random unpleasant changes upset me a lot. And its quite a thing to have sprung on you without fully expecting it. 

This has been the worst start to a semester - between this, no AC, the cyber incident, and several other things - that I have had. I'm actually wondering if the universe is telling me to quit a few years short of retirement and, I don't know, find a whole new career in something else. Well, the universe picks LOUSY economic times to hint that, I doubt I could FIND another decent job. 

***

Added a couple more rounds to the "collection of columns" sock, but didn't have the energy to do much (I got home later than I planned because I tried to work on my "annual productivity report" after everything else but didn't get far (They're due next week; I hope I can finish it Thursday - tomorrow will be too busy)

I thought about working on Bankhead but I might have just enough left on it for Thursday's exam, and I don't want to start something new. 

***

I took the two tubs of books to the library. They seemed happy enough to get them and said they were accepting up until the 21st when I said I might have more. I have to decide quickly if a few "more expensive/more like new ones" I have should go there, or if I should save them back in case I ever get down to Sundrop again and could trade them for store credit (and replace several books with one)

*** 

I am considering putting "Far from the Madding Crowd" aside for a bit and either restarting "The Enchanted Greenhouse" or reading another one of the light-fantasies I have, because life is heavy and I need something light and ideally funny. 

I don't like that there aren't "happily ever afters" in life (or if there are, looks like I won't get one) but at least I can have them in my books. 

***

This came in the mail today; a friend of mine's sister had a lot of these Happy Meal toys and was sending ones out to people her sister suggested.

 Hello Kitty as Godzilla! I don't even know if the local McDonald's got these or not, and anyway, they're all the way across town and I don't eat Happy Meals.

(When I was first learning to walk, my dad nicknamed me Zillah, short for Godzilla, because I "walked so stompy" (except I think all babies kind of do? but I was a first child)) 

Labor Day over

 Well, I didn't have a lot of fun, but I didn't get a lot useful done either.

 

I did get a couple more rounds done of the colorwork; the next one starts to resolve the + shaped colorwork on the sweater. Eventually I get to doing the moth; I did order a magnetic chart-board to hold the charts and it should arrive before I get that far (sadly, neither of the yarn shops within a drive of me had one - I asked in Farmersville when I was last down there this spring, and I checked at my local and they don't carry them. So I mail ordered. 

 It distresses me slightly how long this takes; I think I knit more slowly now because I have a little arthritis in my hands. 

I also started sorting through the books. I really have too much stuff in a too small house and that's why I'm getting mice (too many places where they can hide) and so I have to get rid of stuff. I worked in my bedroom today and got two big tubs - one of juvenile and YA books, which I used to read a lot but recently got away from, and one of other books. (I AM keeping my copy of "My Side of the Mountain" and "No Flying in the House," and also the various Folio Society ones I've bought over the years - The Little Prince, the 101 Dalmatians, some Rosemary Sutcliff books). I did also find my copy of "The Great Divorce (though it was pretty much where I remembered it was). I want to read it again after seeing a quotation from it somewhere; I remember it's one of the few books that made me openly cry in public (I was waiting in an Amtrak station when I read it)

I also did a little cleaning-cleaning but that's not the hard part for me (and yes, it's the part I COULD hire out, if I had less stuff to have to work around); it's the tidying and finding places for stuff that's hard, so I really thing a purge of stuff is the only way.

I have the tubs of books in the car, on the grounds that "I have the time and energy to put them in now" and if I have time after work tomorrow I can call the public library and see if they're accepting donations for their sale. I had a few older paperbacks (older = 1980 to 1999 or so) that had gotten kind of foxed-looking from being in storage and I just pitched those, figuring people wouldn't want to buy books that look dirty.

I think I will find more later; there were a couple shelves I didn't look on yet, and there's still the shelves in the living room and the guest room. 

Messy, loud, weird

 A couple of intersecting thoughts. 

First: a few weeks ago I went to a cookout. It was people I work with, whom I generally like, and get on well with, but I do find in social situations I run out of things to say. (And after a couple hours I just want to bail. I guess I really am an introvert after all despite thinking during the pandemic, when I was SO isolated, maybe I was actually more extroverted than I thought).

Also, my life experience is a lot different in a lot of ways: I don't drink alcohol, for one thing, and while there's no pressure to at these things (and they are generally BYOB if you want alcohol), I still feel weird FOR MYSELF even if other people are drinking water or soda, or if they stop after a beer. (I probably compare myself to others too much). I'm not partnered up (not everyone is, but also: I have not "dated" as extensively (really: not much at all). And I don't travel and don't have the sort of interesting and exciting stories. I mostly just....work? And my hobbies are different.And what kind of movies, music, etc. I like is different - I prefer older movies (I'm going back to TCM more and more of late, and not just because they don't break into the movie with ads - which I dislike and which takes me out of the narrative - but also, I just prefer those. I don't like horror, I'm not big on action or superhero movies unless there's more underneath it than the special effects) And I prefer kiddie movies! I like Bluey and I like a lot of the Pixar movies. 

And the thing is, I'm really quiet about that kind of thing and usually try to pretend I'm different from who I am. Because I feel like people might not understand or might thing I'm weird. (I"m actually kind of the same way with people I know from church). I think, I guess, people would think something was wrong with me, that I never grew up "all the way," and heck, maybe I didn't? One thing that scares me is that people will think I'm a failure at being an adult. 

And that brings me to this evening, and the title of the post. Turning Red was on one of the Disney channels, and I watched it (first, just on in the background as I finished piano practice and later as I worked on the current hat). I remember some people panning it when it came out; one online Brosephus type (derogatory) said it was pointless because the only person who could relate was the movie's creator, that it was a project made for just her, or maybe a FEW other women who grew up Chinese-Canadian in Toronto in the early 2000s. And I don't know. I liked it. Even if maybe some of the cultural things (which I don't even know how accurately they were portrayed) were interesting (I admit I like the concept that some Asian, and I guess also some Latino, cultures have of "The Aunties," a group of older women, usually the sisters of a parent but maybe not necessarily, who are sometimes strict, sometimes loving...) And yes, there's a strong fantasy aspect with the turning-into-a-red-panda thing (a metaphor, I guess, for how traditionally some women are pushed to suppress strong emotion?). But it's still interesting. (And I also remember Some Dude On The Internet trying to claim the panda was menarche, and while there's a scene in there where - perhaps the joke flies over the head of kids too young to know - but there is a reference to that, where Ming, the mom, thinks MeiMei has had her first period when she first turns into the panda and freaks out, because yeah, a lot of girls freak out when that's happening, *even when they know to expect it* (ask me how I know))

But yeah, the idea of suppressing emotion. I never had the familial conflict with my mom or which aunts I had (the aunts all lived too far away and we saw them too infrequently) and my mom and are both very much "I'd rather not talk about it, especially not with someone so emotionally close" so perhaps some of the suppression-of-strong-emotion was something we did (I don't remember ever seeing her very angry, and I only remember her crying on a few occasions, where it would be expected someone would cry, like the death of one of her siblings). I think I suppressed that less; I remember getting very angry as a teen (mostly at myself, which is also something in the movie relatable to me - I often feel like I'm not good enough). 

But at the end, Mei Mei makes some comment about how you should be your messy, loud, weird self. And while maybe I'm not that often "loud" (though sometimes I forget "indoor voice" especially when I'm afraid I'm not being heard), I'm definitely messy. And I think I'm weird given that my interests in movies and things like music are different than the modal person my age (or younger; most of my colleagues are a decade or more younger than I am now).  And maybe the reason I never DID push harder to find a partner (and certainly am not now), and while I don't have a lot of what you might call close-close friends is the whole "terrifying ordeal of being known" thing - the fear that people will learn how weird I am and be a little repulsed by it. And that is a bit of a burden to carry at times. 

And then the third thought: one of the things people remarked on about Dolly Parton, after her death, was a comment she made along the lines of finding who you authentically were, and being that person. And while a lot of people on social media commented on that potentially being a pro-LGBTQ people statement (And Dolly does seem to have been supportive, commenting that she had people in that community in her family), I suppose it really applies to everyone, that in the long run being who you are is more joyful than trying to suppress it. 

And while there are some things about me I'm pretty open about with everyone - like I have pretty firm (possibly even rigid) ethics I stick to, and I'm proud of working to be an ethical person in what looks like an increasingly fallen world, and while I'm okay with it when I occasionally get on odd tangents in class and maybe go down some rabbit trails of esoteric natural-history information that aren't really necessary for the students to know, I like that I know that stuff and can share it, and maybe some of the students remember it. (Or maybe they just think I'm weird, it's hard for me to know for sure). But things like the types of movies or novels I prefer, I'm more quiet about, and the fact that I'm basically asocial unless I'm being explicitly invited to go do things. 

Again, I think I'm afraid of being thought weird, that I can suppress my natural awkwardness only so long, and when it comes out - well, it's not lovable in the way that turning into a giant red panda would be lovable. And I have had some past experience of rejection for being who I am...and I guess on some level I decided that staying quiet (or going to see the movie I'd rather not see rather than suggest a different one) is preferable to being made fun of, or maybe rejected...

at long last

 It wasn't a very good day for "failed renovation of work building" reasons and "mice" reasons, but at least I got the colorwork started on the sweater.

 

Just barely, just a few stitches of the first row, but it's SOMETHING:

 This is the Moon Moth sweater. The yarn is KnitPicks Gloss dk in moonlight and blackberry (yes, that is a very dark purple, not a black).