getting rained on

 I'm tired, and I hurt. 

It poured down rain today - just as I had to leave my normal building (where my office is, and where, in a NORMAL semester I'd be teaching all my classes) and drive over to the nearest parking lot to what I call the Exile Building. It's still about half a football field's walk to the building. And it was raining *extremely* hard - hard enough that driving over was slightly scary (hard to see) and once I got parked I sat for a while hoping it would let up, but then realized I should use the restroom before my two hours of class, so I went through the Chemistry building (better and more reliable bathrooms, and as it turns out, apparently at least one women's room in the other building was closed for cleaning) and then over to the building I taught in

 I was soaked to the skin even with a rainjacket on. Fortunately I had the exams I was giving deep enough in my backpack they didn't get wet.

But my dress was wet, and my feet were wet, and my hair was wet. When I got to the room I took out my ponytail holder and shook like a dog to try to get some of the water out of my hair.

Unfortunately, they've put on the AC for the year, which would be fine, except I was soaked to the kind and it wasn't that warm out to begin with. So I was chilled all through giving the exam and through the student presentations in the next class. And then, back to my car, through less heavy rain, but still rain, and I ate lunch in my car (as I have been doing on Wednesdays this semester - not enough  time to get back to my building and then BACK to the other "exile building" before lab

 So yeah. That was my view at lunch. 

Then another hour and a half or so with more presentations in another chilly room, and then back over to my office to do some hang-over grading and to tidy up the lab grades for the lab section of gen bio I taught, and pass them on to the people in charge of the lecture sections. 

By the time I got home, I was really cold. I made a cup of hot chocolate and got into long pajamas and put the heat back on (earlier in the week I had had to put the AC on - very humid and could not breathe)

I guess I'm better now but I also ache because everything tensed up while I was cold. 

and it's here

 I mentioned finding a (somewhat) affordable copy of Dan Dindal's Soil Biology Guide.

(Somewhat affordable: $150 instead of $220)

Yeah, it was a big investment but I've wanted a copy for a long time and it will help with whatever remaining invertebrate research I do*

It's huge. It was published in 1990 but has been out of print for a while and it is hard to find copies for a reasonable price.

 

 It's a nicely-produced book, with LOTS of detail on MANY groups. Like here is a page showing some of the "ornamentation" on the integuments of tardigrades:

 And the spine has another favorite invertebrate of mine on it: a pseudoscorpion, which are extremely cool in a lot of ways.

 The person who had this before me was careful with their books - it's in good shape - and they even kept the little folder of printed errata for the book and it was tucked inside the front cover (nice to have)

 

(*I do wonder, what happens if I either choose to retire in four years, or get forced out - either because of declining health/injury gets worse or because a financial crash shutters the small regional universities. I also have a set of Britton and Brown's plant identification guides I bought like fifteen years ago. I suppose years back I could have passed them on to a newer researcher,but most people now seem to like to use online resources - not that there a whole lot for soil invertebrates - and we also don't turn out as many organismal biologists as we once did. I have a few books I inherited from my dad, not that they're even in my specialty)

Monday afternoon things

 * Gonna be a stormy week; I expect tomorrow night I'll have to spend time hanging out in the middle of the house hall/bathroom area (it's the part of the house most surrounded by walls and far from windows). I don't like it. Been a bad spring. I suspect it's gonna be bad because I have a headache ALREADY tonight from the pressure difference; it's 20 degrees cooler in OKC (so, about 150 miles to the northwest from here) than it is here (I'm having to run the AC because it's super humid and that's bothering my asthma pretty fiercely)

*I've been watching a channel on YouTube called Ryan Hall, y'all. He's a "Weather analyst" who kind of collates storm chasing information. During our last storm outbreak I found him and it does help, it's information that The Weather Channel USUALLY doesn't give (unless it's a highly populated area, seems they ignore it, especially in the evenings when they're running their dumb reality shows). And the local weathercasters (well, "local" from 45 miles away) do a decent job, but they're only on when it's bad weather right nearby - this youtube channel covers everything, including things off to the west of me that might be coming in in hours. And he's fairly low-key but also tries to emphasize when people need to take cover.

Weirdly, I find bad-weather coverage easier to take than most news: yes, it's bad things happening, but it's not bad things directly caused by people, and the people involved are doing their best to try to mitigate the risk to human life. 

* I spent some time yesterday after church and did some brush cutting/weed removal. Not as much as I'd have liked and a lot of it was having to use my big shovel to "pop" the wild lettuce and the pokeweed that was growing up where the tree was removed last year out by their roots. I've been stacking the stuff up by the back gate; the city no longer picks up yard waste unless you pay through the nose for it, but you can take it to the dump yourself for free, so I'm going to get a big stack and see if I can get someone who has a pickup to bring it into the alley and let me load it up and drive with me to the dump.

I suppose an alternative would be to get a trailer hitch put on my car and buy a small trailer, but then, I've never learned how to back up with a trailer and stuff like that, and I'd need a light enough one I could wrangle it myself. 

* I will say being more active where I can periodically rest for a few minutes leads to less knee pain than the constantly-on-my-feet of lecturing. I think I'm also bending and flexing more. The worst knee problem is if I happen to bend the knee a bit far back (my knees hyperextend easily). I didn't hurt after doing the yardwork. 

I'd have done more today but I graded until kind of late, and I need to buy some new gardening gloves and I didn't feel like running out to get them when I was headed home at 4 (and I did wind up spending another hour or so grading once I was home). It's supposed to rain the rest of the week so I may not get to do more right away

* I knit some more on the "wood pigeon" (a self-patterning in shades of greyed purple) socks this weekend, and more on the yellow vest (while invigilating an exam). 

* I probably need to take my car out for an oil and filter change tomorrow; it's overdue by time but not by mileage (I don't drive much) but I also want to do it before the tariffs chaos and I worry that things are going to wind up being in short supply - lots of people worrying about empty container ships. And I KNOW if there are supply chain troubles, we will be hit harder than more prosperous/connected parts of the country. (And I hate that I have to do this kind of calculus now. I did also order ahead a few things and I stocked up on tp and paper towels some weeks back. It does feel VERY much like early pandemic days, that "I don't know what's coming but it feels bad" At least this time people won't be dying of pneumonia?)

 

a better thing

 I will occasionally browse Etsy for vintage handmade doll clothes, especially for Barbies, seeing as the main dolls I have here right now are Barbies.

I don't often find things, or what I find isn't great, and once or twice I've been a little disappointed in my orders

But not today. A seller had a lot of dresses for about $20, she said she didn't know if they were commercially or hand made, but there were no tags, so I decided to try.

They came today. I really think they are handmade, BUT made by someone who was an expert seamstress and who had a sense of style. Everything is machine sewn but the way the snaps are sewn on by hand look like how people who sew at home do it. And there's an attention to detail, but the fabrics also don't seem like ones a big company would have used. 

I really like them, and I was a little tired tonight, or I'd have tried them on the dolls (they seem pretty clean, so I'm not going to try handwashing them)

First up- two red "day dresses" or "school dresses" that if they're small enough, would probably fit the little Creatable World girls I have - I will probably try those on them first. 

 There's also a pinafore - it has big patch pockets on it so I wonder if it was an attempt to recreate a Candy Striper uniform. I suppose it would have had a white blouse under it. And then the coatdress is made out of something like felt (it seems a little faded) and it reminds me of an ice skating dress.

And then, my second favorite of the dresses - a white eyelet garden-party dress (not quite formal enough to be a bridal gown, and you wouldn't put bridesmaids in white) or maybe a prom dress? 

 It's lined with lining fabric, there's a green sash with a tiny silk flower on it. 

And then there's what I think is intended as a suit, with a VERY thin fabric (and very narrow; I'm not convinced it will fit even "skinny Barbie") shift, and then a skirt and suit jacket that could go over it. And a peach-colored semiformal that's made out of something like lining fabric, but heavier:

And then finally, my favorite: an evening gown in turquoise silky fabric with silver embroidery, and on the back there is a short train (I tried to fold it out in the second photo)

 

 I want to try the turquoise gown on maybe Olivia (my African-American Barbie), both because the color would be good and I imagine her as being elegant and stylish; and the white one on blonde Barbie. And maybe the suit on Sam, who is more businesslike in her attitude and who has slightly tanner skin and brown hair (I don't think she's supposed to be Hispanic, but could be). And maybe try one of the red dresses on Gabby; she represents a younger woman so the red dresses might work for her.

And it's Thursday

 Still fairly discouraged; have hit the point of reflecting that as much as I loved fairy stories as a kid and still love things like movies or shows or books where the "good guys" win in the end (and that they're not overly-complicatedly-good, aka "problematic"), maybe we shouldn't be exposed to them. Because then we begin to expect that good will be rewarded or at least wrongdoing will see consequences of that, and it doesn't feel like that right now.

 In the middle, currently, of some dissention around me about a decision that needs to be made. I see what I think should happen but other people want not to "settle" (which means more work for everyone, and more insecurity, and maybe some people getting burned out and quitting). And I hate it all. I hate how hard everything seems to be.

 

Sorry. Ice cream machine broken right now. 
Maybe next week will be better, which is something I've said roughly every week since mid 2019. 

Still, I would like to see some evidence that doing the "right" thing gets you something other than punishment, and that sometimes, being selfish comes back to bite you. But I don't see a lot of that in the world now.

Anyway, back to knitting I guess, it's the ONLY thing I have control over

 

"The world rewards might" claims a slimy character just now on "Elsbeth," and though it'll probably work out that he pays (and it seems he just did), still.....don't see much of that in the real world, you just see that "might gets rewarded" I wish I weren't so discouraged, but....it's been a long semester; 2025 has been decades long so far.

Looking for comfort

 Part of it, I suppose, is that I'm just tired. This semester has been long, and it's been full of unpleasant things - having to truck across campus every day to teach in unfamiliar buildings where there aren't good bathrooms or working drinking fountains, feeling displaced, the added cognitive burden of "okay I need every piece of paper I might remotely need because there's no running back to my office"

And also....a friend of mine here is ill and while she sounds like she's on the mend, I won't relax until she's back doing what she's always done. And dealing with the difficult person was more upsetting to me than I think I realized. 

And hearing today that the unelected, unvetted group of wreckers in the government apparently now have control of public lands including the National Parks....

(One of my vague "do in retirement" plans was to travel around to a number of the National Parks. If the worst happens? I won't get the chance)

And yes, darnit, I'm still mourning JoAnn Fabrics. 

And I drove by our little downtown the other day, and there are so many empty storefronts again. 

So yeah, I regretfully put aside "The Poison Squad," though I think I'll try it again before the summer's out; I wanted to read it for  the environmental policy and law class I teach (I also cover workplace safety, like OSHA, and food/drug safety). But right now I can't with it. 

I think it's also been a really brutal allergy season; I wake up congested every morning and I think there's something in one of the "exile rooms" where I teach that sets it off. And I know having bad allergies makes other things look worse to me. But I do think also a lot of people are struggling right now; there's a lot of chaos, and there are some people who seem to feel empowered to be rude and nasty again, and I dislike that.

I admit I also feel a lot of ... dynamic tension? or cognitive dissonance, or something. On the one hand, I look at the world, and I see the liars and the dirty dirty cheats prospering, and I see people who try to be empathetic and to help others called "losers" and similar. And then I go to church. And hear about what God is calling us to do. And when I can be kind to someone I feel good that I was able to help. And them I think, "well, maybe I'm not the loser." But I do increasingly find it hard to live in this world when you have a particular set of beliefs at your core, and the world seems to hammer away at those, and try to make you feel bad, wrong, and strange. Or maybe cringe? I mean, I've always been what people now call "cringe" - I liked juvenile things way too late and I remember being mocked for talking about some of the television programs or book series I liked when I was in junior high, and I realize now that I was bing , you might say "cringe policed" by the other kids. 

So anyway - I'm reading a couple nonfiction books now in the stead of the one I had to put aside; one called something like Mississippian Beginnings which is about the early First Nations people in the southeast (Some of them lived this far west, the people who became the Caddos and others). Distant past history like that interests me, and it does feel somewhat removed from modern problems (though I am sure the people of the past had different and sometimes worse problems than we do). I tried to read it a couple years back but my brain was still melted from the pandemic and I found it too slow going; now it seems to be working. 

And I'm reading Judith Butler Bass' "Freeing Jesus." I'm not very far into it but it's good - I've read the chapter on Jesus as Friend and Jesus as Teacher (she's essentially walking through the different ways she viewed Jesus over her life). I like it because it's not sentimental in the way some Protestant writing tends to be; it's very real, but also....I'm not sure how to phrase it than that she takes her faith seriously but also doesn't idealize things. (One of my problems with how Christianity is sometimes presented is the idea that if you have problems or concerns or upsets or doubts once you're a Christian, you're doing it wrong and your faith is too weak, and....again, that seems judgmental to me)

I've also been picking away at the couple of socks I have on the needles. And listening to a lot of the "background music" streams on YouTube (the "quiet jazz" and also the lofi stuff; again, it kind of shuts up the bees in my head sometimes). 

I probably need to be sleeping more; I've been staying up past 10 and that's not great when you get up around 5:30....

Tuesday evening things

 * Having to put "The Poison Squad" aside for a while; it's too distressing to read while real-world food-safety regulations are being repealed. 

I hope we don't get milk with formaldehyde in it again like in the 1890s.

* Managed to finally get some research reading done. It's hard to fit it in, there are  millions of pecked-to-death-by-ducks things when you teach. Like, I had to do (re-do, in fact: we have to do it every semester and have had to for at least 10 years) training on avoiding needlesticks, and SDS sheets, and the hazmat safety plan. And all of those together took about an hour to do. 

* I *think* I am going to try to find someone who has land with red cedar on it and try to do some comparisons of invertebrates under that with under broadleaved trees. Or maybe go back and try to revive the "different sites out at the field area" sampling, but this time do some soil analysis too. But first I have to get my light stands and lamps out of storage, and set them back up in the room where I HAD been teaching soil lab. 

Of course, I'll have to move THAT stuff somewhere; they're not done with the renovations yet, so I'll have to move it "back" twice - first to a room to store it in, and second, back to the lab where it normally stays. But I can't go the entire summer without at least trying to do some research. 

* Thanks to a friend on Bluesky, I tracked down a minimally-affordable copy of Dan Dindal's "Soil Biology Guide" (out of print, but very useful, and I could never get a copy to keep). So hopefully that will be here soon. 

Yes, I know: I'm perhaps within a decade of retirement so I don't know how useful an investment it is, but it's kind of been a "grail" publication for a number of years. And who knows? I might get a few more good projects done, or I might even be able to request office and lab space in retirement and continue the research. 

* But other than that, a challenging day. I mowed the lawn yesterday evening so I hurt a bit from that, and my allergies were bad.. And there were challenging things. The equipment for the lab I was supposed to teach was slightly wrong, and things didn't work out (this is a gen ed class, I don't design the labs). And then a somewhat contentious meeting about "what do we do about the failed search." We may have a solution but.....it means more work and I'm honestly worked-out about things that are extra over and above my teaching and research. 

* And just sad at the world, more news of tariffs, and speculation that there will be massive supply chain disruptions which may make even simple things harder to find (as well as more expensive) and it kind of undoes me, all the uncertainty: maybe it'll be nothing and if you buy ten toothbrushes ahead you won't need to have done that* or maybe it'll be TERRIBLE and it'll be years before being able to get things is normal again, or maybe food will get hard to find like it was during COVID where being able to actually GET milk was a big victory and you had to spend more time and energy getting things

(*though in that case I could always donate them to....well, I'd say a homeless shelter, but it seems my state's governor has largely banned those from being built in the smaller cities, and we don't have one...)

And it all worked up into a ball of suck, and I was sad and anxious for much of the afternoon. I did buckle down from about 3:30 to 5 pm and get some reading done, but....there are a lot of days now where just snowballs and makes me unhappy. 

* At least I'm done with labs now. Monday was the make-up for a couple students who missed one of the soils exercises due to illness (and I emphasized today that if anyone was still missing one, it was too late, they had their chance). Today was the last intro lab, and I'm already done with ecology (tomorrow is extra office hours for people to consult about the write up of their final project. Several people already gave me "finished drafts" for me to look over, I like to do this even though it takes time, it means the final papers are better). So maybe tomorrow I get more research reading done, and maybe I can get home at an earlier hour to relax. (I do have two exams to write for next week some time, and then the finals to brush up.)

*  The other day I was listening to something on Sirius XM (I think it was the Spa channel, and yeah, yeah, I know, but sometimes you need that kind of calm trancy stuff when you're driving) and they advertised a new channel called Mom Jeans (they featured an Enya song) and I thought "It's 'Yacht Rock for Her' " and kind of laughed to myself.

An eventful weekend

 Three day weekends all the time would be nice: a day for running errands, a day for relaxing at home, a day for social/spiritual stuff. Sadly, I rarely get them, and sometimes it's even hard to swing a two-day weekend....

Friday I did go out. I wanted to do "nicer" grocery shopping than I can get locally, so that means Albertson's. Which, of course, is only a few blocks from the yarn shop, so....

 Dream in Color in "Element 79" (I looked it up: it's Gold, which makes sense given the color). And another in "Alive" (this one a DK weight, for mitts). And the name makes me think of that one episode of Bluey where Bandit pretended for his kids he was "born yesterday" and at one point was wonderingly saying "Alive?" to things like plants. 

And the third one is another one of those paired skeins of Gusto yarn that stripes/ombres, for another pair of socks. 

The book is "Victorian Cats to Knit" which is amusing - rather realistic cats you can hand knit; I might make myself an 'arnj' one. 

I also got my grocery shopping done. 

Saturday we were supposed to have storms, so I stayed home and knitted on the "Roadside Attraction" socks. 

The heel flap on these is clever; it has purl rows on it that mirror the design on the leg

 Unfortunately, the bad storms came late Saturday evening - we wound up getting a tornado warning starting around 10 pm and lasting off and on (they'd cancel one and then start a new one) until almost midnight.

So I wound up hanging out in the bathroom (my tornado safe space). Here I am at about 11 pm, tired and worried (both because of the storms and because I had to play handbells at church the next day and was afraid I'd mess up from being tired)

 (That's a big red panda stuffie I have)

Sunday - well, handbells went fine despite my being tired, and there was other good music, and it was just in general a good Easter service.

And then in the afternoon I took a minute to do this. This thistle - I think it was a Cirsium arvense, so an invasive- had come into my back yard and while I'd mowed it down several weeks ago I knew I'd have to get rid of it, so while the soil was wet from all the rain I got my shovel and popped it out from the roots. (Normally these things have a tap root but I didn't seem to get it. Or maybe it just hadn't developed yet?)

 

It's Good Friday

 Man, it's been kind of an emotionally-brutal week (I am still thinking about the student who disclosed sexual abuse to me; I hope they are okay, I hope the appropriate office on campus reached out to them). 

And other things, I won't list the whole litany here, other than to note that sometimes hopes get dashed and you're back to square one, and people can be difficult and play the victim while simultaneously alienating everyone around them, and having computer problems bad enough you get flustered in front of a class and earn a bit of what felt like mocking laughter as a result, and there are a thousand worries out in the world, some of which make your own personal worries about things like finances seem petty and selfish.

And another campus shooting. 

Last night we did a Maundy Thursday service. We typically don't do a Good Friday service; the Episcopalian church here does and they invite people of other denominations to attend.

We are small, and between pastors at the moment, so for these "special" services - because our interims travel to be here - it's usually on the laypeople to run them. That's okay; Disciples of Christ kind of started with that, and it's something some congregations continue. The church secretary, who also serves as sort of a worship leader (announcing hymns, etc.) and I (as head elder) often take care of these things. We did that for Ash Wednesday; we did it for tonight - a couple other elders did readings as well. (It's the traditional "history of Passover from Exodus" and then "brief account of Christ's arrest and trial" and because this also takes the place of Good Friday, at the end, the verses from John about the Crucifixion). 

Maundy Thursday can be a hard day. It's the very end of Lent, and if you've observed Lent or even thoguht much about it, you're probably weary. And I admit it: I *feel* Lent more this year than I have some others; I can feel the "wandering in the wilderness" as now a lot of the time it does feel like my country is stumbling around in the dark, doing wrong things and hurting people. (Maybe it always was thus, or always was thus for some groups, but I think it's broken through to a lot of us now). And, as I said, there were some difficult and upsetting things to deal with this week.

And the service is often emotionally kind of raw: for one thing, it being in the evening means it's "different," and for some of us, being a bit out of schedule has us off our guard. And then, many years (though not this one) it's been stormy (one year the power even went out). And of course the subject matter is hard and raw and if you take faith seriously there's a lot about what's going on that affects you.

I did say when we were planning this out "don't give me any of the last readings" (because one year I started to cry when referencing His arrest and crucifixion in a prayer, but that was at a time when some other things were going on to make me emotional) but I was also responsible for the opening prayer and the benediction. I wrote out the prayer so I wouldn't stumble or hang up somewhere in the middle. The benediction was one I quoted - it's a poem by Rev. Shelli Williams that I liked, and I did credit her when reading it: 

A Sending for Maundy Thursday

This night is our calling to go into the world,

scattered to the ends of the earth

to love as Christ loved

and serve in the name of Christ.

It is our calling to remember,

even in our darkest hour,

who we are.

We remember that Christ is always with us.

And we remember that on this night,

we were taught how to love.

On this night, eternity begins

and the fullness of God’s Reign begins to spill into our lives.

So go into the world to give yourself for others,

in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Go into the world and love

in the name of the One who loved you until the end.

It all begins and ends and begins again with Love.

That IS the story. Amen.

A link to it is here. (And yes, it's a bit over a decade old but it still applies.)

I admit my voice was bordering on shaking at the end, but I made it through. 

And yes, as a pastor friend reminded me: Good Friday was when things looked the worst and bleakest; no one knew what was coming on Sunday and I guess that means you fervently hope for something that is miraculously good and unexpected to come in the future, but I admit it's hard and what hope I might have is often hard to find...

 

my own, personal....

 Yes, I know the song Personal Jesus is not LITERALLY about Jesus; it's about taking a human person (I think the original was supposed to be about Elvis?) and casting them in a role no human can fill. 

But I admit I thought it when I saw my first-ever instance of the Tiny Jesus phenomenon in public

 This is something I had heard about: it's possible to purchase tiny (like, 1" tall) cartoonish little figures of Jesus (and yes, yes, He looks far too Northern European here, of course). The standard procedure seems to be you ask someone if they could "use a little Jesus" and then you hand them one.

I admit, I'd find it cute and I'd probably answer "always" if someone asked if I could use a little Jesus, but I also don't know that I'd take so kindly to it if I weren't a Christian already. (So: maybe better as a thing for people you already know ARE, rather than an evangelism thing)

And yeah, I'd happily accept a tiny Jesus if offered one, and probably keep Him on my desk at school.

This one is fairly typical of the ones I've seen in pictures: white robe, the sash is red. It's hard to read but it also has "Jesus (heart) You" on it. 

I spotted Him in the building where I teach on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, the person had left Him (as you can see) on one of the fire-alarm pull boxes. So, not obvious, but I tend to notice things like that.

I left Him there; I don't know the etiquette of picking these up if you find them "in the wild," I had only heard of people offering them to others. And who knows, maybe someone else who passes by needs Him more than I do. 

But it was a nice little.....if I can say it? *Easter* egg for my day. 

I also taught lab this afternoon; the last few violets were out and I got a decent photo of one while the students were trying to catch insects for our samples

 

what a week

 Yes, I know:

 But it's been A Week. And if you count the incidents since last Wednesday.....

 The most recent ones: 

- a delegation was sent to speak with the parents (one is a stepparent) of the difficult person. The hope was they'd be told "oh no, it sounds like they went off their meds again, we'll try to step in" BUT now it looks increasingly like it isn't a "meds" situation, it is "this person's parents are like this too and they learned to act like this* from them" and so there's no good resolution going to happen

(*acting like the victim in every encounter while at the same time being deeply unpleasant to other people trying to help them)

So there's really no fixing the problem.

People are so disappointing and heartbreaking.

- Got an e-mail late in the day yesterday (fortunately did not see it before I left campus) where a student disclosed to me sexual abuse (recent) at the hand of a relative. I am a required reporter. I have no choice in the matter; it has to be reported to a couple offices here. The biggest thing is that the student reported that the perpetrator is disagreeable and can get violent when confronted.

So, I took a deep breath and e-mailed the student explaining that I HAD to report it, there was no two ways around it*

And with the help of a colleague who had done it before, I got the details submitted. I haven't heard anything back yet; maybe I won't. I hope nothing bad happens to the student as a result. 

It is an upsetting and horrible thing now (maybe always has been) that doing the right thing makes you feel worried and bad.

(*I abide by laws. Depending on what laws may come down the pike that COULD change; for example, if I were told to submit the names of students "not born in the US" I would not - not only do I not know unless they tell me, but I am not going to hazard a guess based on things like accent. After all, Lawrence Welk grew up in one of the Dakotas but sounded German) 

And I know; someone told me that "it speaks well of you that the student trusted you enough to disclose this to you" but still. I wish none of it had happened

***

I was driving back to my office yesterday after teaching my morning classes and the thought popped into  my mind: "you'll never be able to go to the JoAnn's near you again, you'll never be able to wander the aisles looking at craft supplies" and I was just so deeply sad again.

And if Michael's goes? Not much left. And as I said before: I doubt in the current economy that there will be craft stores starting up again. Maybe online. But online ordering only takes you so far, and you can't use it as a way to get AWAY from home or from work to just go to a neutral third place where I felt welcome. I'm not even sure what there will be for me in the future; it's like nowhere wants to appeal TO ME and I get it, I'm a woman and I don't have tons of money or kids or a spouse so I don't matter. But I wish there were at least the illusion somewhere I did.

*** 

I keep seeing snarky comments or snarky discussion of stuff online and I wish we could grow past snark. That kind of surficial attitude towards everything, where everything is worthy of being mocked and made small, hurts my heart. There should be some things that are still important; some things we should still be earnest and serious about. 

And also deriding people for the small comforts in their lives, calling it "cringe" or whatever.....Life is hard. Life is so terribly hard right now. Let people have a little comfort if it's not hurting anyone. Let people watch tv shows you think are silly, or do hobbies you find pointless, or "waste" their time re-reading books that immerse them for a few minutes in a nicer world than this.

I honestly  don't know why our society thinks being that "over it all" sixteen year old, or that supercilious college sophomore who thinks they're smarter and cooler than everyone else is such a thing to be striven for.

Our goal, frankly, should be to be kind to others. Or at the very least, to leave them alone. 

***

I don't know. My lab for today is done, I technically don't have office hours. I have to finish my lunch and try to do a little research reading but I might knock off early just to get home a little earlier and maybe, I don't know, just watch cartoons and try to knit. 

I did get more done- not quite to the heel flap but within a couple rows -  on those multi socks using the "Griswold Family Christmas Tree" yarn.

I still want to start new projects but I need to work on the things I have going currently 

***

I can tell something in my emotions are raw right now, someone responded rudely (not directly to me; about the concept I was quoting) online to something and I just recoiled.  I know I have always been "too sensitive" but some days it's worse, some days all I want is a little comfort and maybe something equivalent to  a headpat, but of course the world isn't in the business of doling those out even when you need them. 

 

I'm afraid I'm going to cry at Maundy Thursday service; and I'm one of the leaders of it. Holy Week is hitting really hard/differently/making me think about all the evil in the world this year and it's honestly a little tough to bear.    

Another little adventure

 So Sunday, after I got home from church and lunch, I was sitting in my chair and my lamp started flickering. I groused to myself about "cheaply made lamps, only thing I can get locally, will probably have to replace it"

 I didn't notice other lights flickering (come to think of it, it was probably early enough the fairy lights I have strung up over the entryway weren't on yet). But then I went into the bathroom and that light flickered. 

This always makes me anxious - older house even though the wiring was updated before I bought it, but also I had that issue last May, about the tree coming down and damaging the electrical box, and at first my only clue was flickering lights. So I went back to my sewing room to be sure nothing had come down on the line.

Then I head a bunch of rapid fire pops. At first I thought it was someone shooting off little firecrackers, it sounded like that. But I went out back anyway to get a better look.

And then, out there, I saw it: when the wind was blowing, a tree right at the corner of my lot and a neighbor's (and out in the alley, which I don't own) was touching one of the smaller lines and making it arc. At first I didn't believe what I was seeing but then it registered and I ran back in my house, shut down every electrical thing I could, and called O G and E.

O G and E is pretty good, at least in my region, and when I finally did get through to a person I described what was wrong. I admit I was a little flustered because....well, an arcing power line is scary. She said she'd get someone out as quickly as they safely could get there and took my contact information in case they needed to call me. 

And then I debated - was that a polite "we'll get to it during business hours on Monday" or a genuine "we have guys in the area but they're clearing up another job, just be a little patient"

I needed to do a workout (if I skip more than one day, arthritis kicks in) but I also worried he'd knock on my door and I'd have only my crummy sports bra and short-shorts on. So I did put a simple loose sacky t-shirt dress nearby so I could pop that on. (As it turned out, I didn't need it). Went and did the workout. Sat down after and realized the lights on the modem and router were off - the power had been turned off.

And yeah, there was a service truck out in  the alley. So they were on it.

I watched for a while - guy went up in a bucket and cut branches. I guess that the power being turned out was for that - he needed to be safe (and yeah, he bumped the lines once or twice while moving the big cutter around, so it's good he had the power off)

It took a while. So I got bored and went back and sat. I was able to dink around on my phone just using bars (and that tells me I can still use Pandora without wifi here, because the power was already out when I was working out). Eventually though there was a big click, and my CO detector beeped and I heard the dvd player kick on....and the power was back. And gradually the modem cycled through back to life. And I put the AC back on (it's been in the upper 80s and humid here) 

A few minutes later the O G and E guy phoned me - he wanted to be sure my power was back. I told him yes, and thanked him for his effort - I was glad how quickly they got out and dealt with is, as I said, the arcing was scary to see, and we're supposed to get even more wind later this week. 

Driving home after CWF tonight I peeked down the alley - the guy removed all the branches he cut (I think they're supposed to do that anyway) so it's all fixed

Long week over

 * Didn't get a lot of time to knit this week, outside of while proctoring exams. Either there were upsets and problems or evening meetings. 

* I'm picking away at the various books. I picked up a mystery book I thought I hadn't read ("Weekend at Thrackley" - one of those vintage mysteries from some time in the 30s). Turns out I had, partway through (when I hit the antagonist's "jewel cave" part) I realized I had. But I kept going, sometimes it's too much in the evening to read "The Poison Squad" (about how we got all the food safety laws, some of which are doubtless being repealed now) and sometimes you just want the escape of an entertaining novel. 

I am still reading on the Witches series by Pratchett but sometimes that even feels a little fraught. 

* 12 measles cases reported in my state. In every case the individual was either unvaccinated or "status unknown" - no one reporting one or two doses was infected. We'll see if that holds. I've had three doses (two as a child even though my age cohort largely only got one dose, I got a second dose when my brother got his first because the pediatrician we went to at the time said he didn't believe a single dose would be effective.. And I got a third dose when we couldn't find my records when I started grad school). But if a fourth dose seems advisable, I guess I'll go get it. I might if, for example, cases show up on campus. I have no idea if there's a vaccine requirement here or not. (There was for grad school in Illinois, for example. And the public schools when I was a kid had pretty strict vaccine requirements). 

Lots of things now seem frankly kind of stupid. I'm only one generation removed from when measles was common and widespread - my mom had a bad case that wiped out one of her schoolgirl summers, and I think my dad must have had them. The vaccine came out in the early 60s, not that long ago....

I guess we have to refight old battles of many kinds once the first-hand witnesses are gone, or don't talk about their experience. 

* I'm back to putting on Bluey re-runs as a comfort show thing - the kindness of the characters to each other (like: how kind Rusty is to new-kid Jack, where Jack is implied to have ADHD or some other learning disability. And Rusty just....he looks at Jack and goes "here's a new friend" and plays with him. I've said several times I wish the kids I went to school with had been as nice as the "kids" portrayed on the show). 

It also has nice music even if you just have it on in the background. What I refer to as "friendly noise" is something I need when I'm home alone - I use a lot of the "lofi streaming" channels online too, that's something that doesn't require attention but it's pleasant enough and it covers up the silence (and the creaks and crackles of an old house).

* A weird thing I noticed though - I was half watching something on tv and listening to music, and then I thought I smelled something.....and I hit mute and turned off the music so I could smell better. I suppose what it was that I wanted to focus my concentration but that struck me as odd when I thought about it later on. 

(I thought I was getting a hint of a smoky smell, and in an old house you always worry. But I think what it was was some vehicle passing outside that was poorly tuned)

* I would like to go out to Albertson's tomorrow for groceries BUT I'm not sure I want to go back out on 69/75 just yet (and apparently again today they were shut down for a while) and also, I have zoom knitting, so I don't want to be late after missing it a couple times. I guess I'll shop locally but I admit I often run out of ideas of what to fix. I need things I can fix quickly and that are nutritious but also don't have any of my allergens in them, and that gets hard. I admit some days I consider those meal replacement things but that feels too much like giving up. 

*I keep feeling like I want to start new projects, but I have so many things tucked away places that I have to continue to work on and finish. I pulled out those brown-and-multi socks ("Griswold Family Christmas Tree") to work on them but I didn't feel like I had the energy tonight (I got home around 4:30 pm after spending the entire afternoon grading, and then I had to do a workout)

quite a week

 Well, one thing: I got some more done on the sweater vest (gave two exams this week)

 But other than that, it's been a weird and stressful week. Or at least a weird and stressful Wednesday.

I taught a field lab on Wednesday. 

Going over to pick up the van, I got out of my car in the lot and looked down. I saw what looked like a folded-up bill. I saw a "100" on it and was like "no, that can't be. I seem to remember seeing how some rather conservative Christian group used to have tracts that were printed to superficially look like bills so people would pick them up" and then I thought "or maybe it's an ad or a fake"

But I picked it up and it looked legit.

And this is where all my childhood Sunday school training kicked in: "This was probably important to someone. It might even be part of someone's rent or something similarly essential. You better turn it in in case someone comes looking"

The good news was that the motor pool is also the campus police department. The not so great news was I had limited time to get the van, get back to my office, quick eat lunch, and grab the equipment before the students showed up.

But I did bring it to the officer on duty, explaining that both (a) I didn't know if it was counterfeit or not because I literally found it on the ground and (b) maybe someone was desperately looking for it.

He checked it out: it was real. So he took my description of where I found it, and he wrote down the serial number, and he had me sign an affadavit of where I found it. And I stood there, thinking: next, he'll ask for my contact information, in case no one claims it, so they can have me come pick it up. At least, that's how I THOUGHT things worked. 

But nope! Apparently because it was  found on state property, if it went unclaimed.....it goes into the campus' general fund.

Yeah. Great. No good deed goes rewarded, I guess, or something. I mean, I suppose I did the right thing. And I really, really hope some panicked student - or the head of the Church of Christ campus ministry, which was right next door and had got it as a donation - came in asking if someone turned it in. Because "general fund" will probably mean it goes to athletics, or some tchotcke for an admin's office, and not actually to help on campus. 

And yeah, I bitterly thought of how if I had kept it, no one but me would have known, and I would have been $100 richer. 

Oh well.. I guess I did the RIGHT thing, for all that was worth.

Sometimes it does feel like following the ethics I was taught as a kid is a chump's and a fool's game.

Anyway. I gathered up the students. Several of them lived in Denison and asked to drive themselves (it's closer to go straight home there from the field) so I wound up with only three in the 15-passenger van.

We got out and did the stuff, got off a little late.....and then, the road going back out to the main road was blocked by a parked train. (By federal law they are not supposed to block intersections, but around here it happened). So I turned around and said I knew another way. But. When I got out to the road that would take us to the main road, I got turned around and wound up getting closer to the interstate. 

"Okay, hang on" I said "I don't like taking these things (the fifteen passenger vans) out on the interstate, but it'll just be a few miles and we'll be back to campus"

Famous last words. We got on fine, and drove for a bit.....and then came upon stopped traffic. At first I thought "ugh, rush hour" (it was a bit before 3).

Nope. There must have been an accident up ahead. We sat. And crept forward. And sat more. It was stop and go for almost an hour. We were SUPPOSED to be back at 3. The only saving grace was no one in the van had class or work (I think a couple of the Denison folks had work at 4 pm). One of the guys in the van said anxiously "if it's possible to get off for a restroom soon...." (later he revealed to me he had a medical issue where he....needed to have access to a restroom periodically). Finally the jam cleared - I couldn't see any clear evidence of an accident other than some cop cars and an ambulance sitting around - and I was able to pull off and get to a gas station for the student. 

And then we slowly worked our way into town and back to campus. I finally returned the van around 4:30. I was SUPPOSED to gas it up, but they didn't give me all the stuff I needed to buy gas on the campus' dime, so the person on duty told me to just bring it back, they'd have an intern go get gas. 

I got home around 5. 

And then I have elder's meeting and board meeting at church, and without giving much detail....we have a tenant in our few small lower-rent apartments who has been causing major problems, and it involved figuring out some boilerplate for the next round of leases AND ALSO seeing if a relative of theirs could be enlisted to help deal with their increasingly erratic behavior, but it's really honestly a very difficult and sad situation. (And reminds me that the claim of "make passive income by renting property" is largely a lie; you have all kinds of headaches as a landlord that I would not want)

So it was late when I got home, and even later when I got to bed because I had to wash the pollen from the field out of my hair and wait for it to dry.

 

So I got up this morning, really apprehensive about my dental check up today. At the best of times these things make me nervous - I don't like the sonicator, and I don't like having metal instruments in my mouth. But this time, I figured, the way my luck had gone, I'd probably turn up at least a couple cavities, and while it's rare they can handle them on the same day, I'd still have it hanging over my head.

But nope, I guess my luck had changed or my good dental hygiene paid off, nothing was wrong on the x-rays and nothing found when the dentist checked my teeth and gums (and he looked really carefully inside my lips; I guess they're getting more careful about looking for oral cancers even though I'd be at low risk as a non-tobacco user and someone who doesn't drink alcohol). So I just had to go through the cleaning (which I don't love either) and being sonicated, though it wasn't as bad this time as it is sometimes; I seemed to have less tartar. 

So at any rate: I'm kind of exhausted. One more day this week....

socks and frustration

 I've been working a little more on the "wood pigeon" colored socks. This is a West Yorkshire Spinner's colorway; I think I actually have most of the "bird" colorways but haven't knit most of them up yet. (I did make the Kingfisher one into socks as part of my mom's Christmas present.

I like this one. The colors are more muted than in many of these self patterning yarns - purples and purplish greys

 So those are good. (I also found the colorway called Blue Tit, which yes, I know I'm 12 inside, but I always giggle a little at that. Maybe I knit those up soon).

....And then the frustration. This was a Guardian story today. I admit I didn't read the whole thing, I noped out when I saw that a lot of Those Guys think "evolutionary psychology" is the new explains-everything theory. I am old enough to remember when the proto-versions of those guys were talking about "sociobiology" in the same way, back when I was in grad school, and I thought it was bunk then. And I realize now: it was the same tired old "blame women for men's woes" thing, because one of the tenets was "women do the choosing in selecting mates and those hussies don't know what's good for them" or similar. Now, granted: sexual selection does seem to play a role IN SONGBIRDS but humans aren't songbirds, not remotely so.

At any rate, I find it deeply tiresome.

But basically, the article in question  is about Elon Musk and people even worse than him (yes, there are a few, I think, but perhaps poised to do less damage because they're not quite richer than God at this point). And my biggest frustration/sadness/ complaint is his apparent belief that "empathy is a sin" and that societies can be "suicidally empathetic" by "caring too much.

And I have a couple of thoughts on this.

 First: if you brand things like empathy a "sin," it means that you are then absolved forever from having to feel it or show it. You can go on your own selfish way, and in fact, feel rather morally superior that you're not down in the mire with hoi polloi who feel that gross empathy for other humans. 

Some people are apparently even trying, somehow, to graft it on to the language of Christianity, which infuriates me. (And of course then over at Metafilter, where I saw it linked, several people took that as license to say "oh look, I knew it, every Christian is rotten all through" and I really wonder if they'd feel comfortable saying that if this bogus philosophy were being grafted onto some minority faith instead....)

And yes, I'm deeply upset at how some people are twisting the faith I was raised in - the thing that has given me tremendous comfort in life while also pushing me to be a better person, and which at times gave me one of the few places I felt welcome, and makes me worry: what if I lose this, too? What if this evil philosophy is all that remains as the small churches wink out over time? Then what?

But the other thing, it's antithetical to something I've learned as an adult, and something I've really felt since the pandemic:

The only thing we have of meaning, the only thing that lasts, the only thing that really matters, are our relationships with other people and how we treat them. You'd think after the isolation of the pandemic more people would realize that but....it seems like rather, a lot of people have forgotten it. (Or maybe most people didn't take the "isolation" as seriously as I did, and didn't go weeks and weeks without human contact?)

But anyway: how we treated people may be the only thing of us that lasts on this earth after we're gone. People at church STILL talk about kind people who were members who passed away 20 or more years ago! Their deeds live on, how they treated people still matters. 

And it disgusts but also frightens me that people are trying to drive all of that away by deeming kindness and empathy bad. We won't have a civilization if we extinguish that.

And I don't know what do do about it, other than "keep on keepin' on" in my own life, but I feel like me, being kind - maybe being a voice crying in the wilderness - won't help much in the face of powerful men with the seductive message of "you really only need to care about yourself, just scrape everyone else off" And I worry what the future world I live in may be.... I hope these articles are overblown, or I hope the proponents of what I'd call "radical selfishness" either (ideally) learn and change their ways, or failing that, have short lives and are then forgotten. But I don't know. Some days it really feels now like The Golden Rule has been changed to "he who has the gold, makes the rules" and I don't know that we can push back against it. And it's all very discouraging and discombobulating right now - discombobulating because I KNOW IN MY HEART more than I know almost anything that caring about other people and helping when you can is the RIGHT thing, and the thing we should be doing. And yet, I see people like that being trodden down and walked over and having their rights violated by selfish, rich (mostly-) men. And again, the old spiritual words: "this world is not my home" ring in my ears.....but I'm stuck living here until I don't anymore, and so I struggle to make sense of it all and try to reconcile what's in my heart with what I see....and it makes me sad.

I guess I believe too much in fairy tales; if this were like a fairy tale we would see some casting down of the proud at this point, and raising up of the humble (I don't count myself necessarily in either group, for what it's worth). But that's not happening and.....maybe some of the early Christians were right, and this world is just a fallen, evil place, and the less you engage with it the better?

It is very hard to know how to live right now.

Something I noticed

 And it got me thinking about several other things. 

When I pray at the table, my prayers often include something about how we have been invited to it by God, or we've been welcomed into God's family, or some such.

(And by "we" I very much mean "we" - everyone there who will accept it. Disciples of Christ doesn't make distinctions on 'is this a person In Good Standing)

(And I also probably have to explain a bit for people who aren't Disciples of Christ: we do the Lord's Supper (as we ordinarily call it here, also known as Communion or Eucharist) every week. It's one thing I particularly like about the denomination; that small communal moment. In the congregation I belong to, we all take the bread and cup simultaneously - basically who ever is presiding - the minister, or the person standing in their stead, uses the "words of institution" for the bread, and then gestures that everyone (including them) is to take the bread, and then does the same for the cup. After that, the Elder at the table offers a prayer, and then, typically, the minister offers a benediction, and if it's a week we have a potluck, they usually ask the blessing for the food right then, so people can start lining up and filling their plates as soon as they get to the Fellowship Hall)

But it struck me how often I default to that language.

And then the other day, while working out, Peter Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill" came across my Pandora stream. (Yes, I like prog rock or art rock or whatever you call that).

And there's a line in it - well, I guess the whole thing is kind of describing a spiritual awakening (Solsbury Hill is apparently an Iron Age fort in the southwest of England). But the line that always catches at my heart is

"Son, " he said
"Grab your things, I've come to take you home"
Hey, back home

 (And at the end, he changes it to "You can keep my things, they've come to take me home") 

And I think that gets me for a similar reason - the idea of being explicitly told "I am here to take you to where you should be, where you are welcomed, where you belong"

And while, yes, I recognize there are places now where I more or less belong - at church, and to a certain extent at work - I still do carry with me, every day, the memory of being that kid who wandered the length of the lunchroom in junior high before I found a table where I was "allowed" to sit by the other kids. Or on the bus, when I sometimes wound up standing (unsafe!) because none of the kids would "let" me sit with them. 

(And now as an adult, I marvel at this - not that I was so meek and accepted when they told me no, but that NO PERSON OF AUTHORITY stepped in. Like, there were teachers monitoring the lunchroom! Then again, to quote Bandit Heeler: "It was the 80s, man" (or rather, the 70s), and most adults figured, I guess, kids have to work that out on their own.)

But yeah, I still carry that with me, to my detriment. If I walk into a place and feel even slightly unwelcome or like I am "wrong" for being in there, I don't stay. I've had it happen in some boutiques, when I walked in and decided in a snap that all the clothes were more than what I could afford, or were sized for women smaller or more stylish than I am, and I didn't even stay to look. And I admit at times when I walk into Ulta Beauty I really wonder if I belong there - I don't wear very much make up (don't even do eye makeup), I'm not young and beautiful and my hair is usually a mess. But it's the easiest place to get the cosmetics I DO use, and they often have nice soap or things like barettes, so I stay, and I will say the one near me is actually pretty good at hiring and/or training "associates" who aren't snooty and who do try to be welcoming. 

But I think among other things that is one of the comforts of faith for me - it's kind of like the old saying about home (which really isn't true, not for many people) - that it's the one place, where, if you go, they have to take you in. 

And yes, Christians can be vexing and difficult people and I've had my share of troubling interactions. But the Spirit part of it? Yeah, I can usually feel that welcome, that "yes, you are where you are wanted" and that makes a difference to me.

I wonder how I would be different as a person if I had never - or at least, much more seldom - felt rejected and excluded as a child. I suspect I'd be more confident about some of those situations where I ask "would I really be welcome, though?" 

trying to work

 I've been trying to do some more on the current vest (the yellow one I posted earlier) but it's slow and it's hard to be motivated. It's been a hard week. Both because of the outside world (all those years I had money taken out of my paycheck to invest towards an eventual retirement, and it's now all burned up, because of a small group of selfish men and their bad moods - 25 years of making do with less because I thought it would ensure my future, and, oh well I guess I teach until I die now). It's hard not to feel cheated because you played by the rules you were taught, and it turns out either those rules have changed, or you were actually lied to all along and those rules never existed in the first place.

And the world is just MEAN. I wonder if I'm just not suited for this world. Or if maybe it is just an evil place where it really is "grab all you can before the other guy gets some"

I don't know how to cope with the world now.

Or that I never grew up to the point where I can cope with the world. I mean I still watch mainly kids' programming! (I have Wreck-It Ralph on right now, and it just passed Vanellope's "transformation" scene, and, oh, how good it would be to suddenly be shown that because you are....I guess good, and have a pure heart, and stuff, that you're really a princess, and the people who were nasty to you apologize...and of course you forgive them). 

I remember a t-shirt I once saw, that said something like "in kindergarten, we learned to be kind to one another. Why wasn't that lesson repeated through life?" and yeah, really.  

***

I'm also just tired and hurting. It's been chilly again and rained nearly all week, and I find rainy weather makes my knee hurt worse. And yesterday morning I woke up having a near asthma attack (probably a combination of allergies, having gotten too cold overnight (I had to put the heat back on when I got up), having tensed up the day before because of some things, and then having to drive a 15 passenger van which always makes me anxious. In me, they manifest like muscle cramps around my chest and upper back so I'm sore today from that. (I did manage to get a workout in this afternoon and that helped a little) 

***

Yesterday I worked the children's play twice. I normally don't have time during the days but because of my goofy schedule this semester, I was free from 11 on on Thursday. So I volunteered to help.

I kind of wish I hadn't. It was chaos - every class had a teacher with a baggie of bills and change (the schools are *supposed* to send a check for all the classes going but more commonly they put the burden of dealing with the money on us/they don't have the money to pay for the kids so they ask the kids to ask their parents for the couple of bucks). It came fast and difficult and we may have missed getting some of the money and we definitely missed getting an accurate count.

It was also LOUD and I find I have an increasing lack of  tolerance for LOUD. There were also a couple kids melting down - screaming and crying, and yeah, I get it, at least one of them probably had autism (they were wearing those big noise blocking headphones) and while I sympathize and get they don't control it, it did not help my mood to hear it. (more and more I wonder if I was some flavor of neurodivergent as a kid, it was just that I got good at covering it up and stuffing the way I felt down - I mean I have always reacted strongly and negatively to noise and chaos and learned early on that that wasn't "normal" for a kid, so I sort of gritted my teeth and went through it.

But I do notice that as I've gotten older -especially after living through the pandemic and also some of the losses I've had, I've developed even less tolerance for things that I once just put up with. Oh, I never say anything, because I know it won't help, but it seems like I feel the discomfort of noise or rude people or chaos even more. 

But I don't know how to deal with it. I don't know how to get good again at just stuffing down the discomfort and ignoring it, but I also think that there's not going to be much consideration in the future for my own comfort. (Maybe I just mostly stay home, where it's quiet, forever)

 

Probably too sensitive

 I mean, I know I am, people have always told me I am.

Right now it's hard, for a couple reasons. For one thing, the having to go to different buildings to teach is just a drag, especially in the spring rainy season. I never appreciated how good it was to be able to walk less than 300 feet, all indoors, from my office to my classroom. I could come in in the morning and park and not have to worry about moving my car or finding parking somewhere else. My building is a modern building and it has plentiful restrooms (and PARITY in restrooms, as many women's as men's). And the water fountains work (they do not, in some of the other buildings, or the plumbing has been deemed unsafe for potable water in the old fountains). And you also have to remember everything you might need - or do without it. There's no "I gotta run back to my office, I was going to hand your exams back but I left them on my desk"

So it just wears on me.  

But also, other things.

In another group I am a part of, one of the members is having issues. Apparently they have some either undiagnosed or undermedicated emotional issues, and they're kind of going off the rails - the sort of "everyone is against me, everyone is being rude to me" and they're firing off e-mails to the whole group. It's not an issue I caused in any way, I am not involved with the thing that upset them, and I furthermore have no authority to do anything to fix it. 

but they keep e-mailing everyone. I finally set up a filter, it really was that distressing, and in some cases there were eight coming in an hour. I asked a more senior member what we should do and her response was that we should ignore the e-mails and some in the group are trying to get the person help. But still, it is distressing to me - when this person is medicated, they are fine and I like them as a person. But now I'm gonna feel like it's walking on eggshells because I don't want them to go off on ME and think of me as an enemy. 

And another thing at work, today - I have a couple students in class who have been difficult. I've had to speak to them several times about being loud in class (side conversations, and, more commonly, CLEARLY texting each other and then laughing about it. As a result, I feel like *I'm* the target of what they're saying (it could be) and it throws me off my game and it's also.....just rude. It's loud enough it disturbs the students near them. So I keep reminding them, one day it was rather sharply said because I was TIRED and I was HURTING and it was like the third time I had to do it that day.)

well, one of them was coming down the hall and griping in to their phone - "I'm on my way to lab. I hate lab. I really hate lab" (the student sees me coming out of my office to go to my other class) and loudly adds, twice "I HATE BIOLOGY"

and yeah, I know, I take things too personally. But right in that moment - when I was tired and hurting and had been rushing around (taught two lectures, was leading a field lab, was unsure about the field lab because we'd had heavy rain and I was afraid the place would be muddy and difficult to sample in), it just hit me and deflated any confidence I had. Oh, I didn't react to the student, and they may never even come back to lecture (they skip A LOT). 

But the other, more clear-headed thing: why major in something you hate? I mean, yes, granted, maybe in that moment they were frustrated, but I don't remember ever saying I hated my whole major. I might have said, like "organic chemistry lab is super frustrating" or "I don't really see the point of me having to learn this specific thing for what I want to do, but okay"

But I have also dealt with people where, when I was doing something like career counseling and I asked them what they got interested in or excited about in biology, and their response is "nothing" (In some cases it comes out that they were told certain jobs in biology paid well, or they somehow thought they'd enjoy it once they got to med school or something). But like I remember I would have said stuff like "how plants work!" and "the different kinds of insects in areas" and things like that. In fact, I had a little difficulty choosing a major because I also liked French and English and linguistics....though I do think I chose the best one for me. 

But I also realized another thing: my immediate assumption when I get the sense someone dislikes me is to wonder what I'm doing wrong, what I could change that might make me more likeable (or: more likeable to them). Intellectually I know not everyone will like  a person, and I do have some people I am uncomfortable around or that rub me the wrong way. But I do wonder if maybe my "gee maybe I need to tone down my specific brand of weirdness and become more Normal" is a response to having been unpopular as a kid, where some of the teachers actually seemed to obliquely hint that if I were more "like" the other kids, they wouldn't harass me. 

I don't know. I struggle some times with human relationships because I dislike rejection and I also like to keep a lot of myself "back" because I'm afraid if people find out too much about me, they will use it against me (another thing that happened when I was a kid; confiding in people sometimes meant they just had ammunition against me). 

But I wish I could break through and go from "they don't like me, therefore something must be wrong with me and I have to figure out what it is and work to change it" to "they don't like me, that's their loss" or even "they're being rude to me not because I deserve it but because they're acting like a jerk" (seriously: being flipped off by a random driver if, like, I am not driving fast enough to suit them - even if I'm going the speed limit or a tiny bit over - it can ruin my whole day)

I also realize that lately, most of my human interactions have either been unpleasant (you see a couple examples here) or someone needing something from me. And I don't know how to get more "good" interactions, or ones that aren't "talking shop." I probably identify with my career too much (an offhand comment on, of all things, Monday night's NCIS, made me sit up and go "oh no. That's ME") and I really do need more "outside" things where I can interact with people without doing "work." But I'm not sure even how to do that! I can't find just-plain social groups here that meet when I'm free. 

That said, bringing the van back, I pulled in to try to park it (the parking area for the motor pool is TERRIBLE because some of the area was taken over for tennis courts, and it's too small) and the fifteen passenger vans are always hard to park. A man in a pickup pulled in in front of me (I didn't realize who it was at first) and it meant I couldn't easily fit into the place I wanted to go into. But then he got out of the truck and I saw it was the chief of campus police (whom I know slightly). He had come back from a funeral (our county sheriff died suddenly last week) and he motioned for me to roll my window down, and when I did, he said "do you want me to park that for you so you can just drop off the mileage sheet and go" and I thanked him and said yes - because I know he could do it better than I could, and anyway, if he clipped one of the other vans it wouldn't be MY fault then. (but of course he got it parked just fine). But yeah, that did make my day a little better, but I seem to experience too little of that sort of thing.

 

And yes, I realize some of this is that I'm over tired and my allergies are bad and it's the middle of the semester, and there are a lot of bad things happening, but it's just hard and human interactions have mostly not been great. 

Ahead of curve?

 Or, "I was doing it before it was cool, or even before it was seen as 'okay'"

 

CNN: Adults can sleep with stuffed animals, and in fact, it might even be a good thing 

I admit this was something I downplayed/pretended not to do for years (in college, I kept the couple I had stuffed under the pillow) because when I was growing up, it was seen as "abnormal." "Normal" people gave up stuffed toys somewhere before adolescence, and if they kept one around it was "I might give it to my kid some day" or "I keep it ironically"

But more and more we are learning that a lot of us are anxious people, and there are a number of little things we can do that relieve that anxiety and *don't hurt anyone else*

Stuffed animals are this. I have a lot. I've always had them. The low point in having them around was college/first-time grad school when I wanted to seem adult and sophisticated and thought "I don't want people to laugh at me if they come to my apartment" (almost no one ever DID come to my apartment)

Eventually, I just gave up. Realized I'd always be alone, realized few people ever come to visit, so I put more out and especially now I've bought and made a lot more. They're *everywhere* in my house now - I have a lot lined up on the back of the sofa and I have a chair with a number of them (including a couple of the iterations of Garfield - the vintage 80s-style plushie I bought from an Etsy seller when I couldn't find the one I had had and figured I had disposed of it, the "Gorf" that is a bootleggy version of one of the recent movie Garfields, and now a "Baby Garf" that was apparently from a poorly-received CGI movie that had his origin story. I know nothing about the movie in question but the baby Garf is awfully cute.)

I also have a lot on my bed - mostly Ponies, yes, I am still a fan, but also some of the Bluey dogs now (including the Bluey I crocheted) and a few other random animals (including Francisco, the maned wolf I ordered as a "symbolic adoption" from WWF a couple years ago). 

I have a couple big ones - I still have Pfred the horse and the big polar bear I bought (and perhaps, I should try running at least that one through a gentle cycle on the machine; I do worry about dust mites and what they might do to my allergies).  The big ones serve almost like "crib bumpers" (back in the day, people used to put padded things up around the edge of cribs so the kid wouldn't bonk their head on the wood or something) and it does make me feel less alone. 

But yeah. When I finally gave up trying to be so "adult" and said to myself "where's the harm in hugging a stuffed animal to your chest when you sleep?" it did make things better. I dare say having them around helped me make it through the pandemic - for a while I was doing a little "stuffie of the day" post on Twitter - I'd get one of the animals and just hold it while I wrote stuff or graded stuff or whatever in my wfh set up. 

I do hope, as we seem to be going backwards as a society in compassion to one another (I have read many stories on how people seem to feel empowered again to use what we now sometimes call the "r-slur" (an old word for an intellectually challenged person) again, and that hits like a slap, because I remember kids calling me and others that in grade school and it was unpleasant), that we don't decide to once again mock coping mechanisms that, as I said, hurt no one and help the person using them.

two cable turns

 Working on a sweater where you're doing it in the round (so: the entire body circumference in every row) goes slowly. This is the current vest I'm using for invigilating knitting (but also knit some on it tonight)

 The yarn is a recycled polyester (they claim "old water bottles" but I don't know). It's not as unpleasant-feeling as you'd think, and I like the color. It was sort of an impulse purchase about a year ago at JoAnn's (sigh). 

The pattern I'm using is the British School Slipover from Cheryl Oberle's Folk Vests. So far, it's a pretty straightforward pattern.

Got the painting

 I DID need to go out yesterday, I needed a day away from the stuff that had been worrying me and a day looking at other things. 

The first thing I did was go to Michael's. I asked the young man at the door and as I was explaining about the painting a woman walked over and said, "I'll walk back with you and see if it's done" (I had explained I knew the framer wasn't in yet for the day, but "it was supposed to be done and I never got a call...")

She apologetically said - after looking my name up - "oh, we marked down we had called...but it was the day our phone system was messed up so likely you didn't get it." It was the 15th, so I would have been sitting on a train, anyway (probably stuck in Poplar Bluff). So no harm, no foul.

 They did a good job. It's something to see the art you did professionally framed. I had to take a peek when I got it back to the car

 

I'm glad I chose that frame, not only is it a good color match but stylistically it works; it looks like weathered board-fence wood for a picture that could be West Texas.

After I got it home I took down the old reprint of a Pathe records poster I had up next to my piano, and hung it.

 Originally that was going to be a temporary home, but I like it there. And it's really nice to be able to see it in the room where I spend most of my waking hours. 

Here's another view, you can see it's next to the little shelves I have up, one is where I keep my Mirabel doll

 I also bought a book of simple cardigan patterns; I have some stash yarn I could eventually turn into cardigans. I'm also more and more feeling like "physical copies of things like patterns are good to have" 

I also went to Ulta - I needed more of the concealer I use and I wanted a new lipstick. I didn't go into JoAnn's but they do have a STORE CLOSING banner up and yeah, I'm still sad about that. (I admit the best case scenario might be Ulta moving into that space and expanding; the store near me is smaller than some I've been in). Or if we could get a  Barnes and Noble, that would be a little consolation. (There's a Books A Million in the same strip mall as the Michael's, but it's really gone downhill in the past year)

On my way out, I contemplated: grab lunch now, or try to get through the Albertson's and then eat at home. I decided to get lunch, since then I'd be able to go to the yarn shop, too, and I want to support them even if I have waaaaaay more yarn than I need (then again: yarn brings joy and I've dug out a few skeins recently from deep in the stash and planned projects with them)

I decided to try Cracker Barrel but when I went in there was already a MINIMUM 25 minute wait, and, ugh.

Going out - driving on a surface street that was basically two lanes each way, not an interstate, just a regular road going between shopping areas - I was nearly sideswiped not once, but twice, by large pickups (two different ones). First, they were going 10-15 miles per hour faster than the flow of traffic (I was in the righthand, "slower traffic" lane; they were in the lefthand one). And then they seemed to swerve over even closer to me,, like practically on the paint line dividing the lanes.

So I wonder: just really lousy impatient drivers, or is this a new person-in-a-giant-pickup-decides-to-act-like-a-jerk-to-people-in-slightly-smaller-vehicles behavior? I'm hoping it's just the first but it's hard to know; you see more instances of unpleasant behavior out in public now. 

Anyway. I got safely to Denison. Got to the Katy Depot where the knit shop is. I spotted this on a siding next to the building and thought it was nice, so I grabbed a photo:

 Yeah, I kind of like trains, and the old ones are interesting to see. I don't think this one actively runs; it looks like the windows are painted out. And few real trains use cabooses anymore; I assume it's there for the nearby railroad museum. 

The owner of the shop was in; she knows me by name, which is somehow a comforting thing. I decided to get yarn for a pair of the Huldre Socks (Ravelry link). I thought I MIGHT have had a dark brown or dark green for the background; I wanted to get the cream for the colorwork and the braid. I asked about the cream yarn; she showed me a couple choices including a West Yorkshire Spinners' yarn, which is both pretty affordable and well-made, so I grabbed that, and then saw a dark forest green in the same line, so once I finish one of the sock pairs I'm working on, I can start those. I also bought a skein of the special "limited edition" Dream in Color colorways - one called Kiss Me which is various shades of turquoise (from very dark to very light) with some reddish pink. I had seen it in the e-mails that the shop sends out (and mentioned it to the owner when I paid for the yarn) so yeah, I guess those e-mails work as advertising. 

Then I went to CJ's, which is a little coffee place that does a few sandwiches, including  a "breakfast sandwich" that is a croissant with scrambled eggs and cheese and meat if you want it, and it's surprisingly good for something so simple, so I had that and a hot tea and felt a little better after the upset of the bad drivers.

And then I got to Albertson's and got supplies ahead (including blueberry pie filling for a simple cake I made for today's potluck), and then home. 

But it's really nice to have my painting back and have it up on the wall. (I admit to vacillating between being kind of proud that even as a rank amateur I could do something that good, and feeling like "yeah it's not really very good at all" but that's how I am about EVERYTHING I do)