1964
Music class was great today! We did more on intervals and that stuff and played the recorders. Y’know? We’re getting pretty good! In English we had a Shakespeare test and a book report -neither was very hard though. We had to list the 8 conspirators and I forgot Cinna - how could I? We got inside froggy-woggy today. Urp! Tomorrow - out of school for 4 1/2 GLORIOUS days. I’m going to help at the hospital on Thanksgiving and meet all those nice people.
Comment 2022
I did not enjoy biology class. The teacher was not the problem. Mr. Pelletier, a heavy-set French Canadian, was funny and fair and enthusiastic about his subject. He even sponsored a weekend entomology club that I might have enjoyed if I had cared to sign up. But I had an uneasy relationship with biological science. To begin with, there was too much memorization, and too many terms that sounded alike. There was a human skeleton hanging in a glass cabinet next to my seat, and I was still afraid of skeletons. Third, there was dissection: a worm, and then a frog, both reeking of formaldehyde and truly disgusting. At least I was not the lucky student whose frog was full of little frog eggs.
But the deep reason I disliked biology class was because biology scared the bejesus out of me. There was disease and death involved, and - worst of all - reproduction. My most vivid memory is not the skeleton, or the worm, or the frog. It was the time Mr. Peletier asked the class to name the male reproductive organ in a plant and, seeing no volunteer, called on me. “HOW SHOULD I KNOW?” I wailed.
It still makes me blush. (And, for what it’s worth, it’s the stamen.)
That’s my note added to his picture in the 1964 yearbook. A “pickaroon” is wood- handled metal-topped log handling tool. Mr. P enjoyed regaling us with a story about the time he had a painful run-in with one while working as a logger in Maine.
1978
I’ve made a list of places where I could submit my work. (13 journal titles follow). The thing to do now is actually do it. It is so hard to start.
Comment 2023
I never published in any of them
1979
The photocopying is over 1/3 done. That still means 4-5 weeks at 3 days a week. (TTh Sa for two weeks, then switch to MWF.)
I continue to struggle to get organized. Stephanie Winston says that procrastination is a symptom of perfectionism. That might be my problem, but isn’t perfectionism a symptom of something else? Fear? I need to get to the root of the problem.
Problem areas:
1) meal planning
2) housekeeping
3) phone calls (hate, hate, hate)
4) no time to read
5) not writing up my research because it’s “not ready”
6) not sticking to new routines long enough to create good habits
Comment 2023
FIVE pages of analysis follows, which I will not share. Boring for you, embarrassing for me.
1981
There’s a baby boom in the department! One of my colleagues is pregnant, too; her baby is due about the same time as ours.
I have been reacting to the stress at work, mainly by avoiding the big jobs and working hard at the little ones. Very frustrating. So I must work a little harder at getting my important work done. I have been intending to write letters for a while - - I owe a few. So far, nothing. Perhaps tonight. (We watch “Cosmos “on Tuesday nights and doze off.) Between his voice and the music, it’s positively soporific.
2006
I find that three, good focused hours in the morning is my limit. When I start to spin through emails and blogs, it’s time for a walk or a nap.
2022
I am trying to get back into a daily writing habit. I have a third book that is floating face down in the bathtub. Right now, it’s the diary thing on Substack and those poems that appear in my mind from time to time.