July 27

Wait! I can’t do ALL of those things!

1966 (Mexico)

Didn’t go to club. Got ranked out by Mr. D for not being more sociable with the professor’s family. I thought they would understand that I was tired or that I was worried about not hearing from my family. Oh well, I’ll be a good girl.

Comment 2023

Are you sure you weren’t - um- distracted by the two brothers, Juan and Raul?

1979

So what doesn’t get done? The Home Economics Research Journal paper. The Smithsonian paper. The TXCE 608 paper. The TEXT 445 lectures. All the big-ticket, large effort items. This morning, HERJ or bust!!

(She writes, all the while knowing damn well it will prove otherwise.)

Later - -

I did get a remarkable start on the HERJ thing (my third start, I believe). There is so much to say, and I want to say it concisely, which is taking me a very long time. Too bad I “committed” myself to it. Yet if I hadn’t, I never would do it at all. I think the next draft gets sent. It does need to be better organized. It doesn’t feel tight enough to me yet.

Maybe I will get Jim a Coleman stove for his birthday. Or a cooler.

Comment 2023

I never published anything in HERJ. Ever. And just what did I mean by “committed”? Sounds suspicious.

1982

Tomorrow I take Kiddo to the sitter for the very first time. She’s stayed with friends, and with Mom, but this is a real paid sitter. A few more weeks and she’s be there 3-4 days a week. It hurts, I tell you. I’m not worried about her - - - she’ll do fine. It will take me a while to get used to it. Jim leaves every day, and has since she was a week old. So can I, I guess. But right now, it’s hard. Of course, there’s the usual end-of-summer blues, the feeling I didn’t accomplish all I’d hoped. Also the dread of the next semester. 

Next week I’ll leave her at the sitter two days. Then, the week we get back from Connecticut, three days. After that it will be a regular schedule.

Really, now! The seven hours I’m going to leave her includes 4-5 hours that she’s asleep. And Remy strikes me as a really nice lady.

I suppose I’ll survive.

Comment 2023

Of course I survived. But every working parent knows how tough that first time is. 

1984 (Norway)

Conference is over and done. Tomorrow I move to a different hostel, closer to downtown, I am ready to go home. The sightseeing I have planned will keep me busy, which is fortunate. It really is only 2 more days here, then a day in transit. Oh, to see my loved ones again! This has been an excellent conference, and I have a little better sense of  work that is needed in developing nations. Now to find the time (ha!) to do these things. Where can I cut? That’s the real question. I must curtail my efforts somewhere before I am swamped.

Comment 2023

Four years after my dissertation, I was still being pulled in different directions. I needed some kind of “focus” for my research. I had produced a few publications and presentations based on my dissertation and done a bit of work on boy’s clothing from the same time period. The idea of doing something more “useful” was still driving me, and the work being done by the World Future Society was particularly enticing.  I just now tried to check up on them, and their web domain is for sale. 

Comment 2024

I checked again. And there they are, with Hazel Henderson at the bottom of the page. I got the “futurist” bug when I heard her speak fifty years ago at the University of Rhode Island. Do we still have a future?

2005

I believe that not having access to my own home office and having most of the joints on the left side of my body screaming at me is hampering my productivity. Here I sit with four glorious weeks before classes start, and I am getting zip-a-dee-doodah done! It doesn’t help that the weather is horrible and the other denizens of the house are hogging the TV.

2018

Friday! Time to tidy up, do a little cooking or baking, take a shower, write, swim.

Wait! I can’t do ALL of those things!

2023

Monday! Time to clear the table so I can work on Sandy’s quilt, edit the film article for the Riderwood Reporter, repot my succulents, revise my dissertation essay, draft the sex roles/gender essay, take a walk or swim, and do vocal exercises.

Wait! I can’t do ALL of those things!

Looking for more about my work on gender and clothing? Check out Gender Mystique, also on Substack.