November 11
In retrospect, I needn’t have tried so hard or worried so much.
1975
Bob called! Has a new woman, “Bonnie Jean”, and he wants to show her off and come to visit, around Christmas. Loverly! It seems funny that I didn’t mention Bob’s visit of last spring…it was one of the (many) high points of the summer. It was so great to have him around, that it affected my whole summer. It may even lie at the root of my problems this fall. I have been thinking about Bob a lot.Friday night/Saturday morning I dreamt that he came to visit, I even hugged him, and it felt real. Then I work up, and it wasn’t real + I was so pissed.
I have an image of my life: a trout struggling upstream, hardly knowing why, only knowing he must.
Comment 2022
There’s my brother, Bob. Only two years apart and often the new kids in town, my brother and I were very close. I used to describe him as the only one who had known me all my life.
In the decades since that photo was taken, we moved from Nebraska to New Jersey to Connecticut. We graduated from high school and college and moved away from New Milford. We both married our college sweethearts. In 1969, Bob decided to leave the US to avoid the draft. Bob and his wife had moved to Canada and eventually divorced. When he was in Toronto and we were in upstate New York, we saw each other once or twice a year. By 1974 Jim and I had moved to Rhode Island. Bob’s visit in the summer of 1975, after President Ford’s amnesty for draft evaders, was the first time he came to us since 1969.
Since then, Bob and his wife Bonnie have moved farther north; we’ve moved farther south. Visiting means a seventeen-hour drive or an expensive flight. We are both in our seventies and it has been too long. Soon, Bob. A real hug. It can’t be too soon.
1978
I just had an argument/discussion with my mother about children. I feel so isolated. I want to call Connie; I want to sit down and write to Mom. I wish Jim were here, so we could talk about it. But I also want to be alone right now.
Is my increasing intellectual life causing me to turn inward, to shrink from contact with others? Certainly, I feel less comfortable with groups than before.
There are so many people I am polite to, yet I have so few close friends. Help!
1998
What desires do I need to relinquish? Mainly, the desire for perfection without effort. At first, I wrote just “perfection”, but that’s not true. I don’t work hard enough to be a true perfectionist. I’m a hollow perfectionist, wanting success but unwilling to work for it.
Witness the book. I hope I can rescue it, even if it means work.
Comment 2023
Which book was this? It could be any of half a dozen I started and never finished. It amazes me that I eventually wrote two books, in a flurry of activity between 2006 and 2014.
2002
I did 1/3 of my to-do list. I am still not done with grading, and did nothing to contact my PTSA board. But I did (finally!!) return the library book Kiddo 2 borrowed, and took out an audiobook on procrastination. I figured if I am going to procrastinate, I should try to perfect my technique! LOL, just kidding. I am sunk so deep in procrastination I never know what to do first. I feel like I should head for the office, but then what? I would just be hiding there, unless I had a plan. So I will devise a plan…soon.
Comment 2024
The audiobook was David Allen’s “Getting Things Done”, which changed my life. I still rely on my 43 folders, over twenty years later, and I credit him with being able to publish two books (2012 and 2015), after thirty years of masters-level procrastination.
2003
Savannah Amtrak station, waiting for train #98, now early three hours late. It was a good meeting, with quite a few former colleagues and - even better - former students, who are now teachers. I had quite a few excellent talks with good old friends, and am now determined to get back to fashion research and teaching. It’s bound to be different now; my experience in American Studies have altered my viewpoint, and the years have fogged my memory! So I have no choice but to start from scratch. Tomorrow is bound to be one odd day. I will have to work around my ETA, still unknown. Maybe around 9:30 am? And may I say thank heaven I didn’t stay with my original plan of returning on Tuesday, in time for my 9:30 class! Too crazy to contemplate. As it is, this will be inconvenient, but not fatal.
2016
Woke up at about 3, and had trouble falling back asleep. (Trump, writing deadline at 10 a.m., drippy nose, all of the above). Finally turned on my Live in London Leonard Cohen album and fell asleep to Anthem, woke up to Goodbye, Marianne. Thanks, Leonard.
2023
These entries, written over a span of 25 years, encapsulate so much of my struggles to become the “professor” of my imagination. In retrospect, I needn’t have tried so hard or worried so much.
Comment 2023
Sorry this is so boring today. But some days are like that…
Comment 2024
Not any more! Boring would be an excellent alternative to “interesting”.