August 5

Mexico winds down; what next, I wonder?

1966 (Mexico)

Juan and I are all patched up now - friends again. He apologized and said he was jealous.

He says he’ll wait for me to come next year. (Like fish.)
Went to Club - saw Miguel Angel - he said goodbye - o, so sad.
Mr. Doring looked at my outline today, and approved.

Goodie. Tomorrow, the Pyramids with Marta, mi amiga preferida.

Remember “Crossfire” - open window (reading). Juan or Raul? The playboy or the professor?

I love them both as if they were my own brothers.

Comment 2023

The girls at school were obsessed with the song “Crossfire” and had me sing it over and over so they could learn the lyrics. As for the “open window”, I don’t think I needed a note in my diary to remind me of the time I was walking down the street with my nose in a book and walked into an open casement window. Ow.

1978

It’s after midnight, so technically the 6^th. Saw Olivier’s Hamlet on TV tonight, and was deeply impressed and - as usual - gripped with a sudden obsession with mortality. Olivier is old, but the performance will live as long as there is an audience. What about me? Am I concerned about my individual existence, or about being famous, or with the death of my ideas, my beliefs? Some of each. I don’t want to be notorious. I want to accomplish something that will outlive me. Is this a weakness, a failing?

Comment 2023

Honestly, some of this grad school-era stuff reminds me so vividly of what a miserable time it was. I started the PhD program so full of confidence, after a prize-winning MS thesis and two successful years of teaching. One year into my coursework and I was a mass of insecurity. I described going for a PhD to someone long ago as “jumping  off a cliff”. It sure felt that way for a while.

1985

Kiddo has been sick over the weekend, keeping us home and inside on an absolutely glorious summer weekend. I still got a reasonable amount of work done, both office-type and house-type. Kiddo was kept amused with a videotape of Disney’s “Alice in Wonderland”.

I am trying to figure out my next step in the children’s clothing project. The extension project is fun, and I am mightily enjoying it. But the children’s thing is a BORE now. Heaven knows what I will think in 6 months. One option is to look at just infants’ clothing, which is reasonable. Most of the changes in sex-role or gender-related aspects of dress seem to occur in the infants size range.

Well, I should probably take a shower now, or I may have trouble “scheduling” one. It’s true: my time has been much freer since Kiddo turned three (or thereabouts). I hope with the next one I won’t be so restricted and harried. It’s been my fault, not Kiddo’s…my tendency has been to amuse her and play with her rather than encourage her to learn to amuse herself. So for a long time, she dictated my schedule. Would it have been any different had I tried more to disengage?

1986

Well, it’s Tuesday night and we are at John’s house in Connecticut, and it’s August. I spent some time shopping alone, and ended up getting a shirt for the baby. It still seems so far away. DECEMBER. Maybe when fall arrives I’ll believe. Also, I continue to worry. I looked at a book about “Boys” today. Very anti-non-sexist childrearing, full of assertions about what boys are like. It all comes down to generalizations and stereotypes. Kiddo 1 fits into some of the generalizations they make about girls, but not all, and not even most. Why should my son fit into those other generalizations? Some I hope are not true - such that boy babies sleep through the night much later. Lordy, I hope not. A little aggressive behavior I can handle, IF I get enough sleep. Hope you’re listening, Kiddo.

Comment 2023

He slept through the night (finally) when he was going on three years. His sister slept through the night at two months.

Comment 2025 I wrote a thing about that book I read:

The recent history of the gender binary, part 1

1997 (UUMAC)

I was exhausted today. My feet hurt from dancing and my brain felt hollow from lack of sleep. Late afternoon brought sadness, even grumpiness. The Kiddos seem to be having fun. The weather is wonderful; I watched the sunset and listened to Mahalia Jackson, Jacques Brel, and Tony Bennet on my Walkman.

Tomorrow may be brighter.

I miss Mom, and wonder if she lives somewhere, some way. Can she hear music? I hope so.

2023

My other big project right now is revisiting my work on gender and clothing and writing essays reassessing it from my current vantage point. This stack of entries reminds me that one of the driving forces behind my work was becoming the parents of a girl and a boy at the exact historical moment when baby clothing was becoming much more gendered. It wasn’t something I read, it wasn’t my hours and days of intense library research. It was a complete accident: something I experienced personally. Go figure.

2024

My thoughts about parenthood and my research finally turned into an essay.

Parenthood opens the door