January 5

Wow, so much wheel-spinning.

1965

My project broke! I fixed it with Scotch tape, though. Mr. W didn’t say anything about it. I love that man! (Not “love” in the romance but adoration sense.) Paul McCartney is married! He married Jane Asher. I’m kind of sad, but glad it wasn’t George. I hope they’re happy. Also they have to pay such high taxes on the money they earned here, they said they’re not coming back! I’m unhappy - now I’ll never meet them!

Comment 2023

I had very strong feelings about marital infidelity, based on my family circumstances. I loved my smart, funny, charming father. Unfortunately, he cheated on my mother at least four times during their 30-year marriage, beginning a year after the wedding. That night when the Young People’s Fellowship watched the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, some of my friends were swooning over John Lennon. I judged them. I judged every fan who didn’t stop crushing on Paul after he married Jane Asher. As soon as I found out a celebrity I liked had a serious girlfriend, I lost interest. My fantasies could not include being a home-wrecker.

I consider it a sign of maturity that I have had a crush on a married actor since 2015. His name is Shah Rukh Khan, and I don’t mind sharing him with his millions of fans, because it’s just a crush. Celebrity crushes are harmless fun. They aren’t cheating. (Unless you start to lose interest in your actual partner because they aren’t your crush.) My husband is not Shah Rukh Khan, but he has many other fine qualities. 

1979

I am in the New York Public Library, waiting and waiting for my books. It’s already 10 o’clock. I may have to stay longer than planned. I hate waiting. I hope they have what I need and that I can do everything I have to do before I have to leave. Grumble, grumble. Now the nice man comes over and tells me their holdings start with 1898, not 1885, which is not desirable. This is going badly.

Well, not entirely. I am getting an improved sense of the style changes during this period. Best of all, I believe I have an idea why there were two “bustle eras” so close together. They weren’t ready to discard it completely. A lot of these styles were worn without bustles. So the styles were simplified first, then the bustle was eliminated. Makes fashion evolution seem much less frivolous.

1982

Back to work yesterday. Already I feel the usual midwinter lethargy creeping over me. Maybe it’s just the holiday hangover that leaves my energy level so low. I actually got a lot done (all little things..writing and typing still get put off.) Sometimes I feel like my “organization” is the only structure my body has. My class comments from TEXT 463 were reassuringly positive. Now if I can only put more energy into my research. It is quite simply no longer a matter of time management. Teaching is now reduced to a reasonable portion of each week. The rest of my energy - and my time - gets frittered away on whatever diddly job looks most attractive. (i.e, Fun) It’s not a matter of setting priorities. I know what they are. It’s a matter of sticking to them. Right now I am inclined to stay here cozily tucked into bed. My toes are nice and warm. I could play the “just until the furnace goes on” game. Bears do love to sleep!

The furnace just went on. Time to roust myself.

1996

Had a nice outing at Potomac Mills with Mom. Does mall-crawling count as exercise?

1997

“Turn away from the world this year and listen”.

Breathnach suggests that the feelings of longing and sadness I have sometimes are the result of having lost touch with my “authentic self”. It’s true that sometimes I marvel at how much I’ve changed, I have always chalked it up to just…life. Am I really so different? Or am I just doing different things?

Last night I went out with Sandy and four other friends to celebrate Sunday’s 55^th birthday. I have seldom written about her, but I would count her on my short list of very best friends. Maybe thinking about my very best friends will tell me something about my “authentic self”. There are also the “almost” people who could have been closer friends, had I known them longer or kept in touch better. 

Comment 2024

Sandy died last year, at 81. Thinking of her at 55 gave me a jolt. Yes, we were friends a very long time.

Sandy and her art.

1998

What a beginning! I couldn’t get Kiddo 1 to school because I lost my car keys! (Where???) So she took the bus. Luckily, she is a forgiving soul and took it in stride.

The kids are back in school and life is more leisurely, for an entire month (Yay!!) I have all manner of ambitions, for all the good they’ll do me. More exercise. Paint the bedroom. (Where did that come from?) Deal with the book (a perennial favorite to-do item). And get ready for spring semester. I am off the church board, much to my relief. Free to get myself into more trouble.

Luckily this promises to be a nice day. Walking to campus won’t be a problem. I need to get new keys at some point. Too much to do, too many little ditzy things. Time to focus momentarily on the inner landscape, before the day runs away with me.

Too late, it already has!

2003

I am reading"Why America's children can't read", and I'm reading it slowly.

First, it is not an easy book to read. He is urgently trying to engage the reader in a subject he finds very compelling, and every paragraph cries for a response. Second, I am feeling personally wanting. I can’t even begin to understand why America's children - - or my students or sometimes my own kids - - can't think. After so many years of teaching, you think I would know. But I don't and I don't even begin to see how I can.

2004

Who am I meant to be?

I think I was meant to be an arranger, an organizer. I can see the big picture. I have a low tolerance for clutter and chaos. It is a good thing to be organized, but it is not good to try to arrange and fix other people and solve their problems, unless they ask you to. The odd thing is that I expect my students to be arrangers, too. I sometimes adopt a hands-off stance that doesn’t work because they need me to help solve the problem. 

2013

I am feeling inertia and doubt about the unisex book. The only solution is to plough ahead and see what happens. Some puzzles can only be solved by writing. Odd, but true.

2023

So I decided to try a different journal/task list and ditch the emphasis on days of the week and foreground (is that a word?) the next action list. That way I will just have a list of tasks that can be done any time in the week and move them around as convenient. Maybe colored pencil instead of colored ink?

Comment 2024

Wow, so much wheel-spinning.