April 16
My inner dialog... and more ellipses..
1965
Happy Saturday! (What's so happy about it?)
I feel great today. (You ought to - you didn't do any work.)
I bought the cutest little madras hat for $1.49 at Grants. (Yeah - and it was supposed to be an Easter hat.)
I baked brownies and bread and colored the Easter eggs. (And sat on your chair all day.)
Well, now to bed. (Aren't you tired of going to bed all day?)
Comment 2006
And to think this was 30 years before I even heard the phrase "inner dialogue".
1973
And now I am in California. It is harder to take than the time change. These impossible distances! Saw Nebraska today, and the Rockies. I hope I get some decent pictures. Met Aunt Lois and Uncle Russ, who seems to be a neat person..my third uncle in the “air” business…how strange. Now he works for the phone company.)
And I met my grandparents…how old they look… and how fragile. Will Mom and Dad ever be that way? Yet 80 years is a long time…they are old. They were in their sixties when I last saw them. I suddenly feel how much I have missed in not seeing them for twenty years. They are close to me, yet I hardly know them.
Mom is getting on my nerves…she babbles a lot. Thank God that lady sat next to her on the flight today and kept her out of my hair. Aunt Grace and Carol and Lois and even Grandmother seem so strong. And Mom is so weak, and silly at times, and self-centered. Her back, her pain, her unhappy life…I see the ennui cross their faces as they listen to her… Argh.
Comment 2023
Oh, the travails of an introvert traveling with an extrovert.
1989
I continue to have this mental conversation with my dept chair. I want to continue to teach Clothing and Human Behavior and manage the costume collection and do research. I’ll direct graduate students. But I won’t do undergraduate advising or teach any more history of costume courses. I will still research one day a week for research (and laundry). The question is: which for better for the kids: campus by 9 AM or home by 3 PM?
1998 (On day before my solitary retreat in Pennsylvania)
Things are restless right now. I feel like there’s a lot to do, but I also yearn to relax and unwind , to enjoy the warmth and sunshine. I don’t want my retreat to devolve into Something That Must Be Done. I want the weekend to fold me into myself and then unfold me into something new.
I want to write out my soul this weekend; exorcise my fears. I also want to rest and relax. I will write and nap and write and write and nap.
Comment 2024
That retreat lingers in my memory as a singular, pivotal weekend in my life. It was coming up on the first anniversary of Mom’s death, and one year before Kiddo 1’s high school graduation. Change was in the air, and I wanted to pause and really feel it.