November 19

Meta is megastupid.

1964

I didn’t get a chance to play Julius Caesar in English. We had to do all of Act II and my part doesn’t come in until the very end. Tomorrow I am going to Bridgeport for a Girl Scout debate and field trip. It will last three days and only costs $5. 

Mom has almost finished my fuzzy robe. She is 1/2 done with the hem and still has the buttons to do. I won’t have much time to sleep in Bridgeport, but I don’t care. Rosemary and Marcia are going with me and Dad in our car. I can hardly wait! I have to go to Wykeham Rise in 30 minutes, and walk Sam now.

Comment 2023

Ah, Wykeham Rise: the local ritzy boarding school for girls, where a few kids from my public high school attended arts classes once a week. I took music, my brother took drama and drove the carpool. At first, it was fun, but eventually it became awkward and excruciating.

Oh,my. And now it’s gone. Firefighters battle blaze at former Wykeham Rise School for Girls in Washington

1981

I keep thinking I should put more in this notebook about my feelings, my thoughts. After all, someday the baby inside me may read this (hello!). What can I say, though? I expected to have second thoughts; I haven’t. I worry about being able to cope with a new, fuller schedule, but I don’t recoil from pregnancy because of it. There is a baby in the house next door. Her bedroom window faces ours. Every morning I open the curtains, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. 

When I was little, I used to plant carrots in my garden. It was so frustrating to not be able to see them grow. I used to pull them up and then stick them back in the ground. Can’t do that with you, child. I’ll just have to wait and be patient. (Hah!)

In the meantime, I decided to make the announcement at school; It was getting to be distracting, wondering if anyone suspected, fretting over what to wear every day.  Now if I look pregnant, so what. As it turns out, Joan thought I was losing weight. No one guessed, and no one would have guessed for another 2-4 weeks. There will be about a week or two of silliness and interest, and then I hope work gets back to normal. Or should I say “normal”?

1983

A very nice autumn day. Cool but comfortable, a bit of color still clinging to the leaves. I went to the Smithsonian for an all-day symposium with Mary McFadden. Left at lunchtime. Too many ideas buzzing in my head, too little stimulation from the symposium, too nice a day. I spent the afternoon thinking and wandering. Mostly the same three words were going through my head:

Food
Clothing
Shelter

What is a reasonable amount? What is necessary? How could our resources best be spent? Why do I feel pinched? Time to budget again, to feel in control.

1990

First entry since August. That’s how BAD it’s been. I have a better grip on the associate dean job, though the advising rush took me by surprise. I was also totally unprepared for my class, but it has turned out well, anyway. Department politics have gotten messy again, after a bit of a calm stretch. I believe the department will survive it, if a few of us stay sane. (Ha!)

Jim’s job continues to be a drain, emotionally and physically. Dave’s  death made so little sense, so very little sense. And that one day changed everything for everyone in the shop.

I am becoming a fiddler, by gum, and now a Junior Girl Scout leader. Both give me joy and satisfaction. Kiddo 1 is so grown-up and so amazingly bright. Kiddo 2 is so clever and sweet and so very funny. And they both have such fun together!

Jim is talking to himself downstairs.

Comment 2023

This entry is chock full of memories. I tried to escape from departmental unrest by taking an administrative  appointment in the college office. Loved the job, but the conflict followed me and got worse. Jim’s boss and good friend had been murdered that spring, stabbed to death in his car by a former co-worker. Jim would have been in the car, except it was the kids’ spring break and he had taken the week off. Then he had to replace Dave as manager, which he hated. But there were wonderful bright spots: learning to play the fiddle, watching the kids grow up, fun with my troop of Girl Scouts.

He still talks to himself…

2016

Because this is likely to be a long post, it's going to arrive on the installment plan. It could be the result of a long drive (including a 40 MPH, single file stretch between Ogallala and the Colorado border decorated with four jackknifed semis). Or it could be that it's a stew that has been simmering for the last three or four weeks. Buckle up.

Weeks before I left on this trip, I joined a Facebook group called "You know you are from North Platte when ...", at the suggestion of someone from the local paper. It was a good way to make advance connections and arrangements, even though most of the people who post appear to be from North Platte, but not actually in North Platte. For the most part, it's a stroll down memory lane; people post questions or old pictures and people wax nostalgic. Then this happened:

Group member A posted this. She's a frequent poster, a bit spelling and grammar challenged. She often posts questions meant to start discussion, such as "What was you favorite NP restaurant?" Poster A then answered her own question, revealing that she wanted Hillary to win. Discussion ensues.

It strikes me that if anything belongs in a Facebook group called "You know you are from North Platte when...", it's a political discussion that gets smothered at birth. In nearly four weeks, at the climax of the most controversial and widely-discussed election of my lifetime, not once did I hear an actual conversation among people with different political views. Now this is just my informal coffee shop observation, and I am comparing North Platte with my world back in Washington, DC, where political discussions crowd out sports talk in our social gatherings.

There's been a fair amount of analysis lately about "bubbles" and "red feeds and blue feeds", which focus on social media as an engine of division. But I am not so sure. This was the culture in North Platte -- and probably other similar communities, as well -- long before Facebook. This brings me to the heart of my original question, "Who would I be if I had grown up in North Platte?" 

2023

The craft bazaar is over, my “finished project” bin is empty, and I have to buy more yarn! I have already started one new project and am on the verge of casting on two more. Wheeeee! I was up in the middle of the night reading two chapters of David Shi’s “The Simple Life”, as prep for my course. I am feeling slightly guilty about not working on the Other Writing Project, but there’s no help for it until this class is over, or at least all prepped. 

While I was transcribing the 1990 entry I found - in the same notebook - 12 pages of forgotten fiction. 

2024

The bin is empty; needs to be fed for next year’s craft fair. I have cast on two more new projects. (And finished one, below.) 

I am slowly working on a post for Gender Mystique. In the meantime, Facebook just notified me that it removed "sexual content" from my timeline. It was the cover of my book "Sex and Unisex" (2015). I use it for the icon for Gender Mystique. It showed up in my timeline in 2023 (!!!) when I cross posted from Substack. I knew those nipples on the cover would get the book banned, eventually.

Meta is megastupid.