May 25
Various travels and travails.
Another day of silence from 1965
Comment 2023
Oh, well.
1976
Visited Maryland; it’s a good place. Good people, too. I am not nervous at all about the courses I’ll be teaching. I’m replacing someone who has about the same amount of education and experience s I do. (If anything, I think I know more.) We may have even found a place to live. We’ll have to drive, no matter were it is.
I am sure this is the beginning of n important part of my life. It’s taken a long time. All those years of wanted something to do, wanting to figure out what I did well. At the same time, it will be hard to leave Rhode Island and all my friends here. It has been an exceptionally good two years.
1977
Two days slipped by so easily. Trivia first: the class is a nice size, and the first full lecture went extremely well. It’s been warm and damp, I had to pack stuff in the collection today and my back is killing me.
The American Studies course looks challenging. Nine books (and nine reports) in six weeks, plus a term paper. I’ve started one book, am 1/3 of the way through it. (Riis, How the Other half Lives).I’ve been trying to pin down my reactions to it.
He deplores the lack of change in 25 years. Yet so much is still unchanged!
Racist and comments about different ethnic groups. How was this necessary? What part of his own emotions are showing?
I get glimpses of the author/journalist…the finest parts, really. That’s the time when the book hits home, reinforces the reality of what he is showing.
His urge to interpret and explain is fascinating. Not content to merely record impassively, Riis does attempt to delve beneath the surface. In what way is this typical of the Progressive Era? In what way was this contrary to popular attitudes? I sense ( and that’s all it is) that the impulse is true to the period.It is his acting on that impulse that makes the difference.
I feel so very ignorant. Beall kept asking “Who’s read so-and-so?” There were always two or three hands (never mine).
Connie will be visiting in two weeks; I would like to be at least half done by then with the reading, and started on the paper. That means five books in the next 2 1/2 weeks. I should have this one done by Friday, and another by Monday night. After seeing the first two students giving oral reports tomorrow night, I should have some idea of what’s expected for that.
Comment 2023
Stepping out of my “home” of textiles and clothing into American Studies was terrifying. Doing it in a six-week summer course was lunacy.
1978
(Well, it’s 5/26, but…you know)
Got very wrecked last night, visiting with two of Rudy’s friends and watching the last game of the Boston-Montreal Stanley Cup series. It was much more interesting in color, even though it was still a walk for the Canadiens.
We found Jim’s cousin Jane at the boutique yesterday and had a nice, short visit. She impressed me as being an intelligent, friendly young woman. Then we went to Friendly’s for lunch (mmm) and on to a tourist attraction . We toured “Cranberry World”, and exhibit about Ocean Spray, which was actually very interesting. Then home, dinner and a good read…finished the second story in Balzac’s History of the Thirteen. It has been foggy for days now…no photographs and no sight of the water.
Comment 2023
Cranberry World, alas, is gone. It was the best tourist attraction in Plymouth, Massachusetts. (The famous rock ain’t much.)
1982
Books that sound interesting.
(A list of 19 books)
Comment 2023
The list includes just three I have since read: David Copperfield, Time and Again, Vanity Fair and one I am reading right now! Les Miserables.
1985
Tomorrow we leave for a week’s vacation. It’s going to be the old three days here, two days there sort of thing. But at least we’ll get to see Barbara and Bruce as well as Rudy and Carol.
Today is our last work at home, grocery, packing day. There’s so much I want to do. Yet I’m sure it won’t all get done. If I can get the important things done, I’ll be fine. I’d better back up my data, or I’m inviting disaster.
Later- -
I am defying disaster. I didn’t back up the disk. The project looks very promising. At the very least we’ll get the two papers out of it. (NY and Providence) and maybe an article for Dress and maybe one for Journal of Consumer Research. Who knows? At any rate, it’s promising. And embarrassingly easy. Now the real crush is to get some slides done after vacation.
I hope this vacation isn’t as hectic as it looks from here. Too late to back out now, though. See you next week. Journal is NOT coming along.)
Comment 2023
Our vacations were always hectic. Why, why, why?
1993
The music with DA and TS was great. (At least I enjoyed it; I hope D and T didn’t mind playing with a duffer.) Turns out D played with Peascods Gathering, a local group which includes Kiddo 1’s first soccer coach. We played a lot of Scandinavian, some other stuff.
Today I finish the laundry and do some grading 3-4 papers? Also I’ll head to campus and pack some, and measure for shelves at the new office.
I should call for a Drs appointment for me (mole) and order that LLBean bathing suit for Kiddo 1. Tomorrow I can finish grading, pack for Busch Gardens and work on the Montreal paper.
Did I make an appointment for Kiddo 1 for the wrong time?
Ugh! I think I did.
There is so much to do! (And so much of it fun and exciting!)
Comment 2023
I believe that last comment was sarcastic.
2016
I don’t think it is cheating to use small paper for morning pages, any more than it would be cheating to use a legal pad and write really, really big. So it will be three pages MY WAY. I am in the empty bar of the Wyndham Playhouse Square Hotel. I think there are poltergeists attending this meeting. My car attendant didn’t wake me up at 2:30 a.m. (but I was awake anyway), the taxi driver was new and didn’t have a meter - or any idea where the hotel was - the computer was down so I couldn’t check in, the elevator wasn’t working, there was a bunk bed in my room, and there was a flood last night in one of the meeting rooms. So it begins. Costume Society of America 2016 Symposium: the Full Cleveland.
I want to wander the downtown and explore. I want to play Candy Crush. I wan to look at Shah Rukh Khan’s face and watch him dance.
I want to have a conversation.The Sheri Turkle book on conversation has been my companion for the last week. I have been reading in short bursts, at first resisting her ides ALL the time, and then less, and finally admitting she has a point or two. I do spend too much time on my devices. I do cycle through them. I do use my devices to avoid boredom, even while I claim that boredom is good for creativity. So here I am in Cleveland, avoiding wifi and restarting “The Artist’s Way”. Now that my year as an administrator is almost over (and my decades as professor, as well), I need something besides Candy Crush and Shah Rukh Khan’s dimples to occupy me. I need to reconnect with my own life. Not to pick up where I left off. That’s impossible. I am 67 years old, and will only be older, never younger. The Kiddos are too big for my lap. Grandkiddo will someday be too big for my lap, as well. I need some Grandkiddo time. I need to draw. I need to read. I need to spend time with cherished friends. There will be some cherished friends here at this meeting and I need to hold them close while I can.
In the meantime, my nose is dripping and my back is complaining (just a bit). I stubbed my toe this morning and it isn’t very happy with me. I have nothing to do today except go to
The Rock ’n Roll Hall of Fame!!!!!!
So very excited to get there. The last time I was in Cleveland was 1981. If Jim were here I would be more adventurous about exploring. I just dropped off my donations to the silent auction and now have space in my bag for purchases. But what? Might they have any Zappa stuff at the museum?
The attendees all seem so old. So am I, of course, and these are my peers and colleagues. I prefer to hang out with the young scholars.
Comment 2023
No Frank Zappa stuff in the gift shop, but we did get a behind the scenes tour of the collection. Janis Joplin’s sweater, Lady Gaga’s meat hat, and these:
Guess whose?
2020
Vision in 3-5 years
Book done or dead
new skills:
baking
drawing
music (but what?)
poetry
multimedia storytelling
dance
acting
social media instruction
And my hectic schedule continues, but I am not complaining. I am happily busy. The only dark cloud - personally - is the lack of ambition for writing. Maybe I am writing the wrong chapter?
Comment 2023
I did learn new skills.
Making simple syrups (Basil and rhubarb are both great with gin or just plain seltzer.)
Learning to use GarageBand
Video editing with various tools
Line dancing
Zoom moderation and hosting
Fair Isle knitting
Tunisian crochet
Current status:
The book has risen from the dead. Have decided that the first chapter should actually be the last chapter.
2024
I just attended my first Costume Society of America meeting since the Cleveland trip in 2016. Since I actually let my membership expire a few years ago, I almost didn’t go to this one. But several things changed my mind. First, it was CSA’s fiftieth anniversary, and this promised to bring more than the usual number of retirees out of the woodwork. Second, It was local, just a Metro ride away. Finally, I scanned the program and noticed quite a few very interesting presentations on a wide range of topics - wider than usual. I was not disappointed I saw some colleagues and friends I’d hadn’t seen in a long time. I also met students and emerging scholars, designers, and entrepreneurs who are doing groundbreaking work.
But two days wore me out, even though I sprung for a hotel room and also took an hour-long nap on the first day. And there were the ghosts. The people I remembered who are long gone. Pat Warner, my shoe-shopping buddy who always knew when it was time to play hooky. And Claudia Kidwell, my first mentor, who died suddenly a few months ago. If she looks like a force of nature, it was because she was.
