August 1

The teacher's Day of Reckoning; Trump's cosplay

1966 (Mexico)

Went to the aduana to get my slacks. It took a long time - 9 stops. It turned out I needed my tourist card number, so we called up and got it. Raul lent me a book by a German author. I like him. Juan is nice, but he’s a playboy - that’s all. 

Comment 2023

First, my mom mailed me a pair of slacks I forgot to pack. They arrived about a week before we headed home. Oh, mom.

Second, the “book by a German author” was “The Gods in Exile” by Heinrich Heine. In Spanish translation. Raul apparently had a very high opinion of me and my language ability.

1978

So I went to the library and did some reading; looked at history books and also at two journal articles. (One, in the Home Economics Journal, and skimmed through the latest Journal of International Home Economics.) The next issue has an article about furniture in it; should be interesting.

Now I’m trying to think about my course. It would be easy to just teach it as is, from last year’s notes.But it would also be boring. So I’ll think I’ll see how I can make it a bit more interesting without overloading myself. I can’t act as if I am teaching full time. Basically, all I have is the next three weeks.

Blah, Summer went too fast again.

Comment 2023

When I was a baby scholar, I made a list of “must-read” journals, and every week I went to the periodicals section of the main campus library and spend half a day working my way through the list. Because I was insane.

1982

August already! Kiddo is 3 months old today. The months have sped by. She’s no longer a tiny newborn. She’s still dependent and small, but she’s much bigger - nearly 14 lbs and probably 24-25 inches. And she can smile and coo and wave her arms and legs and hold her head fairly steady when I carry her and lift her head, arms, chest and legs off the floor at the same time! She sleeps through the night, notices sounds, watches me from the living room when I’m in the kitchen, and only cries a couple times a day. (Usually when she’s hungry and I can’t get right to her.)

I’m doing well, too. Down to 140 lbs, though I can’t figure out where it went/

Busy week ahead. My plans to get work done and leave Kiddo at the sitter have flown out the window. There’s too much to do here to get ready to leave for a week. 

We went to see E.T. on Saturday night; Jim’s first drive-in movie! The speaker wasn’t working well, but it didn’t create any problems, since we could still hear enough to follow the plot. It was a really fun, enjoyable movie. If I were about 10, I’d have adored something like that!

Time to get moving.

Comment 2023

Proof that I married a city boy. 

1983

Kiddo is 15 months old today. My, how time flies when you’re busy/having fun (or both!). She really has become an individual rather quickly. After months of being “the baby” - a good, even placid baby - she’s now a rollicking toddler who loves to be read to, to climb, to go to the pool, to go up and down stairs. She has a cheerful “Hi!” For everyone, but still gets serious about eating. She looks more like me now than she used to. How strange, after all these years of thinking I didn’t look all that different from anyone else, to find my own specialness in my daughter’s face. Is her smile really like mine? How nice to have a smile so wide and friendly; to hell with the wrinkles; I’d rather smile.

It’s been a good summer, too. I can say that and it’s not even over yet. A good blend of work and play, concentration and recreation. I wish Jim had this freedom, too. One more month before school really starts, and I don’t feel rushed and guilty like I usually do in August. Not this year, anyway.

Kiddo has just wakened from her nap. How nice it will be when I don’t have to lift her out of bed. (My aching back!)

1997

Do I always panic on the first day of August? If so, there is a reason. I never accomplish everything I set out to do over the summer, and August 1 is the Day of Reckoning, the day when my sights must be lowered. So I may as well do it calmly, not try to rush out and do EVERYTHING at once. Then next week I go to UUMAC; is there any hope of accomplishing anything?

Spirit, guide me through today’s clamoring, conflicting demands. Help me to enjoy the day that has been given and to give thanks for whatever it brings. Let me remember to focus my thoughts.

Comment 2023

August 1 is the teacher’s Sunday night, when you realize that your leisure time ate your to-do list. I do not miss it.

2024

Still thinking about the drag show we saw on Sunday. Monday morning, driving to campus to return books, at least four different ideas popped into my head. Good ideas, things I could write about. I tried to record them on my phone but failed. And now they are gone. Such is my my life. 

RuPaul is right: We are all born naked and the rest is drag. I take that to mean that everything we wear is a costume. I used to cosplay as a professor.

My professor costume, early 1980s

One of my four Monday thoughts was something about Donald Trump’s public self as a kind of cosplay, the big, strong, bully hiding the unloved little boy who just wet his bed and is waiting to be punished. (Empathy does not mean endorsement.)