February 27
It’s been movie time lately. I like movie time.
1965
It wasn't tonight. Dad wouldn't let me go to the dance because I didn't have anyone to go with me. Maybe next time! Instead I went to the Millbrook-Rhinebeck game. Millbrook lost, but I really wasn't interested. M came, too.
I wish I had gone to the dance. I like V a lot. Someday - he'll be mine - I hope!
1983
D and I went clothes shopping yesterday — it was considerable fun. I even bought a gorgeous suit and a very attractive white sweater. Now that I’m a size 12 I suddenly look good in my clothes (a novelty). I also enjoy trying them on more now. I’ve decided I don’t want to go away for Spring Break. I want to do good stuff I don’t usually get to do. For me, for work, for home…a change of pace and yet a rest. It’s important to me to be productive. What should I produce?
[Here follows a list of things I want to do, with a time estimate for each one.]
So I’ll take M to the sitter as usual four days!!
Day A Baltimore trip and evaluate spring clothes
Day B Textile Museum and shopping downtown
Day C Spackle and prime bathroom, sew pads for under sleeping bags
Day D Wallpaper bathroom
Day E Paint bathroom, plan library work
Day F Campus - Library research, computer work
Day G is mine!!
1998
What new influences are trying to come into your life?
Certainly my interest in visual expression is re-surfacing. I want to try more drawing and painting. I also want to revive my Spanish in some way. I am not sure how to do it. Maybe more music would be good. Folk songs in Spanish. I am also longing to garden, but lamenting my acheyness and stiffness, which prevents me from doing too much kneeling, bending and digging. I want to plant peas and tomatoes. Zinnias and other flowers would also be nice. (Enough to cut!)
What is working so well? I think it is just being able to take the time to plan and dream. But is really is more than that. I am more at peace than I have been in a long time. I attribute that to my spiritual journey, among other things.
2021
Slept in, but not well. Terrible dream about finding and then losing a good friend. Moving to a new house is a town I happy to leave so long ago. Jim and the Irish band played loud music with offensive lyrics to a groups of our new neighbors. We ends up at a nearly pub with Kiddo 2, who announced that his workplace was closing in May and he was thinking of becoming some kind of therapist that I didn’t understand. I woke up exhausted. Now it is after noon and I need a nap.
But I now have an idea of how to arrange my office.
Later:
Office rearranged. Very pleased with the results.
2023
Oh, Dad! I never did get to go to a CYO dance. Was it the lack of someone to go with me, or his anti-Catholic bias? Both of my parents harbored suspicions about Roman Catholics, which was quite common among Protestants of their generation. (Mom’s father was a German Lutheran minister and was both anti-Catholic and antisemitic.) I wonder if they noticed that nearly all of my high school friends were Catholic? I didn’t, until we all sat together at our 30th reunion and they were all sharing memories about the nuns at St. Francis School.
How I adored that gorgeous blue size twelve suit! I only got to wear it for about a year. Once my daughter started eating solid food, my weight went back to normal. The white sweater still fit a bit longer. Just reading that Spring Break list makes me tired. That is what happens when your life runs on an academic calendar. You save so much for the “breaks” that they are hardly breaks at all.
As for my neglected interests in 1998. I garden no more. There’s a community garden where I live now, but there is also a really great farm stand a short drive away. It’s open seven days a week spring through fall. In the battle between a long walk or a short drive to get my produce and cut flowers, the short drive wins. Music is good, though it has morphed steadily over the years, from Irish fiddling to church choir to early music ensemble. We are rehearsing two Spanish songs for our next concert, so I am even shoehorning in a bit of my rusty language skills.
I think a lot about visual arts, but don’t do much. Like many folks, I suspect, I have discovered the ease of taking great photos with my phone. Can you imagine how nonsensical that sentence would seem even twenty years ago? Thanks to a downsizing friend and my own reluctance to shed art supplies, I am well-stocked with pens, pencils and paper should the impulse to draw ever return. I used to be pretty good. My favorite thing to do during meetings or lectures was taking notes like these:
2024
Yesterday I took a new notebook along on my tracks around my retirement community. Discovered that drawing older people is easier than younger people because the older move more slowly. (Except for the staff member who stopped for a conversation, conveniently leaning against the wall for several minutes.) But drawing people using wheelchairs, walkers and such is hard, when they are coming right at you.
Finally re-watched “Dunki”, the Indian film about illegal immigration, with a couple of friends. It’s been movie time lately. I like movie time.
It’s Gender Mystique Tuesday!
