1964
Back to the old homestead - the library, that is! I finally took back that nun book. That was good. I had to get a whole mess of books on Julius Caesar (the play).
I feel so bad that Sam is getting old and slow lately. It seems like only yesterday that he was a spry young gentleman, but now he’s 10 years old.
I guess I’ll go to Danbury Wednesday and see what I can get for Mom and Dad for Christmas.
Comment 2022
What a quandary! Do I write about the New Milford Library or our brown mutt, Sam? The library is tugging a little harder, so I will save Sam for another day.
I wasn’t kidding about it being “the old homestead”. Next to our trilevel split house on Sherwood Drive, my happiest times were spent at the beautiful old library on the town green. It’s bigger now, with a new modern addition. But they didn’t touch the original 1897 building, thank goodness.
Not being old enough to drive, I usually had to depend on one of my parents to get me to the village center. Mom might be shopping at the First National - grocery store, not a bank - or Dad heading into the newspaper office where he worked. Once at the library, I could stay only until their errands were done. There was a limit of the number of items that could be charged out, so the “whole mess” of books for my Julius Caesar project in English class was actually not more than four. At some point, I discovered that I could also check out LPs; the only one I remember was Andy Williams’ “Danny Boy and Other Songs I Love to Sing”, which I borrowed more than a couple of times. His performance of the title song was so unforgettable that in 1986, I named my son Daniel so I could sing that song to him. He hated it.
1977
Must do something about my energy level! But then, it’s never been too great in the fall. (Faint excuse) My class is frustrating, in many ways, but I can tell their enthusiasm is no greater than mine.
So far, graduate school has only increased my feelings of lowliness and ignorance.
To read:
Wordsworth, “Poems Founded on the Affections number 2 (Artergal and Elidure)
Comment 2023
For the life of me, I do not know why I needed to read that poem. I blame graduate school.
1978
One more week.
Sometimes I wonder if I should put a little star next to the date on days when I write while sitting on the toilet. Not that writing and shitting have anything in common; I just do both in the morning and some days I am very rushed.
My ECON paper sounds fairly good. I wonder what the professor will have to say about it. It’s a lot of biography and history, and a little economics. But that’s alI I could find. My main problem is drawing conclusions. (Or even developing new questions, as I so pompously promised to do in my introduction.) The interactions between luck and effort still stymies me. That is a very big question. My own belief is that they are interdependent. Opportunity is useless without a willingness to take risks. Risk-taking at the wrong time leads to failure. Is there any way to increase the probability of success? Increasing the frequency of opportunity? Preparation? Where does training and education factor in?
I’ll think about it.
Later that day -
What am I interested in is:
What happened. What we believe happened. How our beliefs about what happened effect our belief of what’s happening now.
Right now I am still looking at what happened - what really happened.
People’s relationship with the past often puts them in an awkward situation. If we imagine our ancestors as fools or villains, then we carry the stain of their foolishness or villainy. On the other hand, if we think of them as giants and heroes, then we strut around wearing the mantle of their greatness. What if they were - just humans like us?
“There will always be connection between the way in which men contemplate the past and the way in which they contemplate the present.” (T.H. Buckle, 1856, quoted in The Nature of History by Arthur Warwick.
1981
Back to work after a very pleasant five-day break. We shopped around, ate turkey, lazed here and there, raked leaves. Now it’s getting cold as we settle into winter. I tried, without success, to sell my old Victorian dresser with an ad in the Post. Maybe it was a bad weekend, with everyone away. I hope they read their papers when they get back.
I am still trying to work out a reasonable work schedule for myself. The best plan would include time for research, exercise, recreation (mental, not physical) and diddly work. Right now the diddly work is taking over. Always does. The research gets done, half-assed out of guilt, and exercise and recreation get a lick and a promise. I realize I left “housework” off the list. Ha.
I lie here in bed writing in my diary while I do NONE of the above. Oh, I suppose it’s mental recreation, of a sort. Only 1 1/2 weeks left of classes before final exams.
2022
November was a busy, satisfying month. More writing, interesting conversations and socializing. More physical activity. New activities. Play reading, trivia. Feeling content and settled. Early music concert prep going beautifully.
Now What???? For real.
2023
“Now What” is the name of the new residents’ group here at Riderwood. It’s a name I picked out of a hat when our weekly Zoom meetings during COVID needed to be transformed into an actual resident organization with a name and such. The idea was that people move here after a lengthy and demanding process of downsizing and rearranging their lives, sometimes moving from another state. Moving in is also a flurry (because we moved at the start of the pandemic, it was all done in a day, by a team of ninjas). At the end of moving day, we were sitting in our new home, with the dishes in the cupboard, the clothes in the closets, and the bed made, all by the ninja army. And then we said, “Now what?”
If you ever went off to summer camp or college or basic training, you know that moment. The planning is done, the journey is over. Your things are unpacked, and now…what? If I could, I would have that feeling every day.
I am nearly finished with my latest “I love Maryland” hat, and am ridiculously pleased with it. Now what?
2024
I am rearranging my various communications channels. Personal stuff on Facebook. Professional (gendered fashion) stuff can be found on my Gender Mystique Substack and on Bluesky (@jbpaoletti ). Come January, the diary material on Spiral Notebook will be archived and still available, no longer posted daily. Instead, I will be posting short true stories/poems inspired by the journal entries a couple of times a month. My recent “digressions” are an example.
