February 8

I am basically a pleasant person, not a bad person.

1965

I was no good today in school. I almost fell asleep in F period study. We didn’t do anything, but tomorrow we have 3 tests - Biology, Geometry, and History. Ugh! At Girl Scouts only 5 girls showed up I told them about the Senior Planning Board Meeting. I got a letter from P. She sounds like a real hood, but I still like her. I hope I can see her next summer. I like V, too. I was reading parts of her letter to Bob and came to a part where she asked “How’s V?” I almost gave my love away.

Comment 2023

And so my secret crush begins to leak out. My best friend from New Jersey was a safe confidant; she had a crush, too, and we traded stories of missed opportunities and hallway glances. I notice that this was the first time I used the word “love” to describe my feelings for V, and in a peculiarly awkward, song-lyricky way. 

1978 (Grad school)

I don’t like my attitude toward my superiors. I need to stop trying to impress them, and learn to keep my mouth shut when I don’t know what I’m talking about. I am basically a pleasant person, not a bad person. A little patience and humility would help. Also a nap.

1983

Kiddo has an ear infection. I need to take her to the doctor in the morning and talk to the honors group in the afternoon. So much for Wednesday! 

I am supposed to talk to the honors group about research, but what can I say? I’ve learned a lot from finishing a thesis and a dissertation, but still have so much to learn. It’s mental exercise, it’s hard work, it’s fun, it’s like rolling off a log. Different every day. Asking good questions is easily more than half the battle. Reading helps, especially when it helps you learn what the big questions are in your field and what the standards are. You also get a sense of what’s do-able and what’s not.

1997

A snowy Saturday morning. Yesterday I made cheesecake and some truffles for Suite Treat. I hope we don’t need to cancel it. Also night the forecast was 2-4” of snow, now they are saying 4-8”. But they are often wrong. 

Yesterday was long, but excellent. Today is looks even better: snow, crafts with children, and Suite Treat (I hope).

Comment 2024

Suite Treat = our church’s cabaret-style fund-raising event for the music program.

1998

Today is Sunday. The sun is out at last.

My second voluntary simplicity group is today. I had three people last Wednesday, and expect a few more today. It’s hard to lead; I don’t know why. It’s a path I have been on my entire adult life, without meaning to or being aware I was trying. I look back at our lives in the 1970s - the used furniture, the old cars, the handmade clothing and homemade food - and realize that life was as satisfying then as it is now. Sometimes more. 

I am struggling with editing grad student work. How do I explain what they need to do without just re-writing it for them? Or is re-writing ok? How is an A essay different from a B essay? It seems very arbitrary.

2010

2018 (half a year into retirement)

Today is Monday and I am on campus, of all places! The heat has been off in the house since Wednesday, but the needed part for the furnace will arrive today. Fingers crossed. The project I started last week no longer interests me. I don’t need any more big, long-range projects right now. I want crunchy little morsels of creativity to snack on while I work on a few medium-range projects. And I need a work schedule of sorts. This retirement thing is hard. 

Some kind of generational sartorial autobiography still calls to me. Not just fashion, but fashion as a lens/doorway to something else. That project needs to wake up.

Comment 2024

This morning at 5:50 I was awake for about half and hour and the various pieces of my current Big Thing briefly locked together perfectly. Then I went went back to sleep.

2021

In 2016 I was visiting my girlhood home in the Nebraska sandhills. A coffee shop acquaintance described herself as living "in the middle of nowhere", then paused two beats and said "or the middle of everywhere, maybe". It's stuck with me ever since, as a person living "on the coast" and how that never feels like the middle. 

Comment 2024

Poem coming tomorrow.