Category: The Mean Reds

Since yesterday my computer has not been into going online.  I’ve been into it, but the computer?  Not so much.  The wireless signal (yeah, probably not the right term, but I’m a girl under duress) is fine.  Excellent, in fact, according to the computer.  The best I can tell, it’s some sort of firewall issue, but I don’t know what to do with that suspicion of mine.

So, I’ve been checking e-mails at the library and now at work.  Golly pop rocket, though, I miss going online at home!  I like to sit in my comfy chair and peruse blogs and Ravelry, of course.  If you e-mail me and don’t hear back, please send the geek squad, or some sort of help.  In the meantime, I’ll jet home and try to figure it all out.

Makes a girl think, doesn’t it?  Just a mere two years ago Scout showed me how to use the wireless feature on my laptop, and now?  Now I can barely imagine life without it.  I’m sorta tongue in cheek here, but sadly, not entirely.

There will be a post about a graphic novel and a special patch of grass, along with a too-late for Earth Day post.  One day.  One day soon, hopes me!

Probably not.  I mean, I don’t have kids, and anyone with kids automatically trumps me. 

This post has been brewing in my brain for a while now.  I’ve noticed lately that there seems to be a secret competition for many of us (go ahead, tell me not to include you.  I know I’m generalizing.  It’s wrong of me.) to have the biggest list of tasks of anyone, ever. 

I know I’ve been feeling mighty burdened the last few weeks, and I’ll continue to feel the same way for another month.  Then my life will free up, and something else will fill the void.  I recently responded to an e-mail from someone I know pretty well by saying that I didn’t know how I was going to manage to get the four tasks done that had to be finished by a certain deadline.  In reply, that person gave me a detailed account of just how much was on his to do list.  Over and over I see this in play.  The kind side of me thinks, well, we all just want a little empathy.  We all feel overwhelmed.  The not-so-kind side, which has emerged this week due to hormones and fear of deadlines that I’m not sure I can meet, says WTF? 

At one point in my life I seriously considered selling my co-op and renting a room because I was so rarely at home.  I’ve made it a point, along with a lot of coaching from Neal, to free up my life.  I’ve surprised myself with the things that seemed so vital to my To Do list that, actually, I was able to let go.  Arguments can be made, from myself to myself, even, that all of the items on my list are there by choice.  Even the kid card is a choice, one that I have decided to refrain from.  Arguments could be made, too, that these are vital things that MUST be done.  But isn’t that because a choice was made? 

Truthfully, I don’t even know what I’m getting at, but you’ve been nice enough to suffer through the mess I’ve created.  All I know is that I’m really tired of feeling like, when I mention things I have to do, others must one-up me or dismiss me.  After all, I’m just spending my time making up stories.  And I don’t have kids.  I’m lucky.  I have all the time in the world, right?

Here’s what I want to try to take away from this crankiness:  I’m going to strive to be empathetic to those people who share their weighty lists with me.  I’m not going to one up them, nor am I going to bring up my list.  If I can’t stand the pressure of that list, I need to pare it down, and no one really cares about that except for me.

Thank you for putting up with my fussy little episode of the mean reds.  It will pass.  One way or another, things will get done, I’ll feel less stressed, and I’ll be able to be kinder.  Until then, don’t ask what I’ve been doing.  I don’t want to get started!

This crazy arse snow storm would be a lot more festive if Neal were home.  Normally he takes the bus into work, and when the state closes early, he either waits for the next bus or gets a ride from someone who will be going by the bus stop where he parks his car.

Today he had a seminar or something on the other side of the state, so he drove to work.  He was taking the second part of the day off, so I was all happy about life.  Thursday is one of my work at home days, but today I don’t have papers to conference or grade, so I’m taking the day off.  How fun to have my husband home halfway through the day!  Except it’s now an hour and a half after he should have been home, and there is no sign of him. 

Dudes, we’re Luddites.  We totally don’t have cell phones.  It’s not like a simple phone call can alleviate my growing worry. Here is a moment when I wish I embraced that technology.

To keep calm I’ve been tidying the house with plans to finish Maggie’s Socks this afternoon.  If I can sit still while I wait for Neal.  Why am I being such a nervous Nellie?  You don’t have to answer that.  Instead, maybe you could tell me what you do when your nerves are on edge.  Besides, you know, having a cocktail.  Is it too early for that?

ETA:  He’s home!!  What should have been a 40 minute drive took five hours.  I hope your loved ones are home safe and sound, too.  I think I will have that cocktail now!

Although my official title at work is "Visiting Lecturer," we all know that’s just a nice way of saying "part timer."  While my department is really generous to VLs, there are some things that can’t be helped.  Example.  I share a large office in the basement of a building with most of the other VLs.  It makes conferencing challenging at times, and I sometimes find it difficult to work if the chatty people are there.  There’s one man who began at the college with me last year, and we got off to a bad start when he began seriously dissing New York and New Yorkers the first day that we were both in our shared office.  I tried to reason with him; I informed him that I was (am, really) a New Yorker, having spent my adult life living there.  He ranted, his voice louder and louder, so I ignored him.  I was short with him for the rest of the year, only saying the bare minimum necessary for politeness.  When he overheard me talking about my wedding to another office mate, he started in on how obnoxious families are, and how the fathers compete to show off how much money they have.

Huh?  Since my dad is the most humble man I know, and since Neal’s dad is deceased, I told him that was unlikely.  He barely had the grace to be quiet about the subject after that.

Fast forward to today when this VL began a rant about how rude NY Yankees fans are.  I’m not a big baseball fan, but as I’ve mentioned before, I’ll always offer my support to the Yankees.  Even so, I was gracious to my students and friends who are BoSox fans when their team won the big title last weekend. While there will often be friction among fans of different teams, I’ve rarely witnessed anything seriously rude from the Yankees’ fans I know.  This guy just has it in for New York.

I couldn’t take it.  I told him that I thought he was trying to bait others in the office for an argument, and that I thought it was obnoxious to make such a claim.   I probably should have kept my mouth shut, but sometimes I have to wonder:  Is it wrong to want to make a voodoo doll of this guy and stick 100 pins in its tongue?

Starting next week I’m holding my office hours in the student union.  I don’t want to get into an argument with this guy, and I’m done holding my tongue and unless I get that voodoo doll in action, harsher words will fly.

Dana just listened to this on the phone.  She’s a good listener.  "If it keeps you out of jail…" was her sweet response when I apologized for ranting.  So, thanks, readers, for letting me rant.  It just might keep me out of the slammer!

On the UFO front, I finished the Dulaan-now-for-some-other charity hat today.  That’s good progress!

Last year was my first year teaching at WSC.  I like the first semester at a new college; the students and I are on equal footing as we get to know our new home.  I have a little extra tenderness for those students, and I’m pleased when I see them around campus in subsequent semesters, settled in, confident, happy to see me (especially since I’m no longer their teacher!). 

Several of my students registered to be in my class for their second semester.  I know that students do this in part because I’m familiar to them; they know the kind of work I require, and they know they can handle it.  G. was one of the students I had for both semesters.  His major was criminal justice, and he always wore his BoSox hat, and his cheeks were always ruddy in that Irish boy way.  He had to think hard to understand a lot of what we covered, but he did it.  He wanted to be a good cop, and he understood why he needed to learn to write to prepare for his profession.  I end my conferences by asking students, "So, do you know what you want to do?  Do you have a plan?" Sometimes G. would say that he didn’t know, so we’d take some more time and write down a plan.  I admire honesty and hard work in my students more than I admire smarts.

Today I found out that G. passed away over the weekend.  I am so sad for his family.  I have never met them, but I know how much G. loved them; he wrote an essay in which he discussed the support his family gives him.  I just wrote a note to his parents to tell them about that essay and to offer my sympathy.  There isn’t much more to do, is there?  Except mourn that young people die when they should live. 

These are the times when art, when poetry, is most necessary to me.  This poem, especially.

In the scheme of things, nothing really bad is going on, but I’m filled with anxiety–not a normal state for me.  There are irritants, though: the "n" key on my laptop is dissing me half the time I try to use it.  When I used to write on the couch in the living room, Maddie would fling herself across my lap to tell me it was time for her stroll.  Inevitably, her paw would jam into the "n" key, and now it’s just gotten stubborn on me.  This doesn’t cause me anxiety, just irritation.

But my hubris in posting the sale pending picture of my condo has come back to bite me in the tush.  No sooner did I post that picture then my realtor e-mailed with issues that may delay our closing.  I immediately took down the post–I regret jumping the gun on my excitement there.  My ex-MIL told me once that when one sells a house, closings are always problematic to help move one away from sentimentality.  By the time the closing comes, one no longer moons about the wonderful times in the house; one instead cries "get this effing thing out of my life," and it’s much easier to move on.  Meantime, though, my stomach is constantly in knots and sleeping has not gone well.

The topper for my sleep is that one of my sisters is having health issues.  It seems things are as good as they could be given circumstances, but that’s always a sleep sucker, too.

Now that I’ve griped and probably irritated you with my whining, I’m going to hop in the shower.  I’m meeting Blogless Sara in Hartford for lunch today, and time with her is always a good thing.  We’ve got a dyeing day planned this weekend, so we’ll have some plotting to do over lunch.

If you’re in the Hartford/Springfield area, join me and my posse tonight for the Tobacco Valley Stitch and Bitch.  We meet at 7:00 p.m. at the Starbuck’s on Rte. 75 in Windsor Locks.  I’ll be drinking caffiene so I can blame my sleeplessness on something other than anxiety!

Tomorrow:  that revised book review post. 

My practically perfect briefcase was filled with student papers.  Final papers.  The last papers I’ll have to grade until sometime in September.  My keys were safely zipped in my adorable spring handbag (mine is pink).  As I walked across the parking lot, I kicked out my hip to swing the briefcase to my back while I twisted my other shoulder for better access to that zipped pocket.

I teetered.

I tottered.

I fell.

I thought of my favorite television heroine, picked myself up, and smiled my way to the car.  But, golly!  I’ve got a bruise that’s taking over my right hip, and a scrape the size of my ipod mini on my elbow.  This bride is going to look like she’s been playing roller derby!

Believe it or not, for several hours the day went more downhill.  I tried to remind myself that no one I loved was seriously sick or dying; how bad could life be?  Even when one knows that, though, sometimes the mean reds take over, and it’s hard to triumph.  I’ll spare you the story about crying in two dressing rooms and merely suggest that when you have a good seamstress, follow her advice and save some tears.

A walk in the woods with the mutts, a nap, a trip shopping for Neal’s wedding clothes (all bought in about 30 minutes flat), and dinner out helped chase away the mean reds.  Not quite as well as Tiffany’s, but a girl has to take what she can get.

Wedding shawl news later.

I’ve been saddened by the tragic events in Virginia, and as I looked around at my kids this morning, I thought of how beautiful they are…beautiful in that on-the-brink-of-adulthood-but-sometimes-still-a-child way of older teens.  Being a part of an academic community is wonderful in so many ways.  Most wonderful to me is the little tiny glimpses I get into the lives of the young people I teach.  They can drive me crazy (oh, especially the ones who are so smart but don’t believe it at all), but by the end of every semester, I’ve fallen a bit in love with my students.  I can only imagine the heartache of the kids at VA Tech, of the staff, and of the faculty, and I wish I could ease it for them.

But those aches are all around, aren’t they?  During my office hours today, I had an e-mail from a dear friend and former co-worker to call her asap, which I did.  The news she gave me has left me feeling ill; I feel like I did in the months after 9/11: stunned, ill, disbelieving, and a little afraid.  Another co-worker of ours, MP, is missing.  Her car was found, but she is gone, and it’s presumed that her car went over a New Jersey bridge during Sunday’s storm.  I can’t stop imagining the different scenarios that may have unfolded, but mostly I can’t stop imagining how her teenaged daughter feels right now.  MP was a tough lady, often difficult to work with, but she knew her stuff, and she cared deeply about her work.  My favorite memory of her is playing over and over in my head:  a few summers back, in the Hudson Valley, we had record-breaking heat.  MP saw me in the hall at work and asked if I’d like to go for a walk. 

"How often do you get to see what record breaking heat feels like?" she asked, luring me into the nearly unbearable temperature.  We had a delightful walk that ended with each of us drinking a bottle of water and laughing about the silliness of what we’d done.

I’ve never forgotten, though, the curiousity MP had, and the willingness to take on something unpleasant just to experience life a little more richly.

Please send good thoughts to her family in New Jersey and around the nation.  Her loss, like the loss of the victims in Virginia, is a great one for so many people, and my heart aches for them all.

Two of my great heroes in art passed away this week.  Sol LeWitt, the great Conceptual artist, was critical in my understanding of line.  Years ago I saw a retrospective of his work in New York, and I was astounded.  Before that day, I’d never heard of Conceptualists or of Sol LeWitt, but after that day, my perception of art was radically changed.

This morning I was deeply saddened to hear of Kurt Vonnegut’s death.  In the late 1990’s my ex and I listened to one of his books on tape on a road trip, and after that we bought everything by him that our local used bookstore had and ripped through it.  His wit, his understanding of humanity, his desire for a better world, his poignancy all moved me.  I’ve wanted to hear him lecture since that time, and now I regret that I never have.  He was a true visionary, and an artist with a voice that could not be denied.

I’ll see you in Heaven, boys.  To paraphrase Beatrice, St. Peter will show me where the artists sit, and there live we, as merry as the day is long.

So it goes.