September 3
My fantasy is a life without scutwork.
1981
Still on the lookout for signs that I am pregnant. This morning I was slightly queasy. Nothing new in that, though…tuna salad at 6 a.m. often flips my stomach. I hope it works this month. I’m afraid my resolve will fade if it takes to long. The best schedule would be to have the baby in early June. After spring semester is over, delay teaching summer school until the second session.
These nice neat plans sound too nice and neat. I’ve cut out liquor already, and have been cutting down on coffee (1/2 cup a day). That, too, may go. In the meantime, I exercise, walk to campus, etc. Let’s go, egg and sperm! Get it together! I’m ready, why aren’t you?
Comment 2023
Sometimes I get a little too intense about planning my life.
1983
Classes started yesterday so it’s back on the merry-go-round. So far I can’t really complain. My classes are good sized, neither too big or too small. There’s too much advising right now, but that’s temporary.
I am having trouble advising graduate students. Can’t say if it’s them, me, or just a bad fit. Maybe it’s something about the people drawn to historic costume and textiles. That’s too easy, though. I am also a rank beginner at grad advising, and it shows.
1997
It never ceases to amaze me that the schedule that looks so wonderful and leisurely in August turns out to be so wacky in September. I hope next Thursday is calmer.
1998
I am in a very interesting section of Simple Abundance, where she writes about the tension between “work” and “real life”. I think it is not really about paid and unpaid work (home, family, community, self). It may be for her, but for me it’s about soul work and scutwork, between the haftas and the wannas. For me, it isn’t a matter of paid or not, but of connection and self-expression. Cooking and meal planning is soul work for me; emptying the dishwasher is scutwork. Sewing clothes and doing laundry: soul work. Cleaning bathrooms, scutwork. Most meetings are scutwork. Providing words or music for a sermon is soul work. My fantasy is a life without scutwork. But scutwork has to be done, like it or not. So I need to do my share of scutwork. But not a bit more, by God!
2023
Oops, I did it again! I had just the right number of knitting projects and the perfect range of complexity. (Real simple for conversations or watching movies with subtitles, complex for listening to classical music, in between for podcasts and audiobooks.) But I finished the simplest one yesterday, and am within 30 minutes of completing the medium one. Today is Sunday and all I have left is the complex one. Can I cast on a new simple or medium project before we leave for church? Or do I dare to take the complicated project and hope I don’t drop a stitch during the sermon?
2024
On an even keel with two knitting projects. Poor little Gender Mystique may be ignored for another week. Last week I was occupied with that book review (grrrrr) and a short article on my retired life for the Retired Faculty Newsletter. These week the diversion is a promised “Indian Film 101” talk for my church. I dreamed about it last night; too bad I can’t transcribe dreams. The good news: fall is coming.
