20160114.0613

Only a month remains
Get things ready
For red and pink and white
All night
All day
The flowers need buying
The candy, too
Restaurant reservations need making
And maybe babysitters need to be arranged
And all of it has to be done now
Because later will be
Too late

There is only one day to do it
Because there is only one day to do it
The others can simply pass by unattended
Since there is the one day to do it
Right?

One day
For an orgy of outpoured amorousness
Is all anybody needs
Right?

One day
It is coming.
Be ready.

20160113.0615

Work continues, if perhaps with fewer individual tasks than I had expected. Freelancing seems to be quiet at the moment, which is somewhat troubling; the money it brings in is quite helpful. My work in and for the classroom, however, resumes today, and I was busy with it yesterday, too, churning out two assignment sheets (close to 3,000 words each) for my students. I still have reading to do to be able to teach their classes, and I still need to write the sample assignments I provide them for use as models. (Students tell me that they help. I wish they would say it on the formal evaluations for which schools ask.) So perhaps it is good that there is a bit of a gap in the freelancing; I have other things to get done at the moment, even if they do not directly pay.

Family concerns are minimal at the moment, thankfully. The Mrs. continues to work her work, the two of us trading off working time and schedules so that Ms. 8 receives the care and attention she needs. (We cannot afford day care here, and most of the people we know are child-free or have kids who have already gone off to live their own lives, so there are limits to her interaction with other children.) Ms. 8 is forming short sentences now--a few of them, but only a few as yet--and is beginning to say "please" when making requests--without having to be prompted. She seems also to be engaging in more pretend play. These seem to be good things, generally, although I do wish there were better venues for her to engage with other children here. I suppose it is the price of living away from family and starting our own family relatively late.

The weather continues to be cool, into cold, around Sherwood Cottage. The deeper chill of earlier seems to have passed, at least for the moment; temperatures drop below freezing overnight, but they are ranging into the mid-40s F. Today, they are expected to get into the 50sF. How long the little snap of spring will last is uncertain to me; I anticipate another substantial drop in temperatures before too long, one that will wait just long enough for plants to think it safe to grow again, only to crush them in a cold blanket that catches the sunlight and throws it painfully into the eyes of those who look on. (I know that I anthropomorphize to do so, but I read reality as a smart-ass. How else to have the platypus, among others?) For now, though, things are reasonably pleasant.

I should do more to enjoy the relative pleasantness, I know. I also know that I am not likely to do so. Work continues, after all, and pleasant circumstances do not diminish what must be done.

20160112.0658

Work continues, as it of course does. Yesterday's went well enough. I met with my classes for the first time, laying out the syllabus for them, and it seemed to go over well enough. Tomorrow will see diagnostic writing exercises; I have my students do them so that I can get a view of the kind of writing they do. Having that view helps me to determine how to begin working with them as a class, and I tend to build review time into my course calendars--even if I do not always avail myself of it. So things are off to a decent enough start in the classroom.

I have much reading to do. My scholarly texts are piling up on me again, and I need to winnow out that pile quickly. Too, my teaching load is of an unfamiliar course and with textbooks new to me; I need to plow through them to get ahead of my students at the very least. And I need to find a text I can use to model some of the activities I need to do for the term, which means yet more reading in support of me writing the kinds of things I ask my students to write. No freelance work is currently on offer for me, though, so I have a bit of time to tend to that reading.

Perhaps I can get on to some of the needed writing, as well. In addition to needing to draft samples of the assignments I ask my students to complete, I need to draft assignment sheets for those assignments. One of them is already in progress and is, in fact, nearly done. I need to have more than one of them ready, though. I think I will not work on the others in the same way that I have worked on the one I have in progress; drafting the text offline works better for me than doing so online, as it happens. (Thinking with hyperlinks in place is markedly useful, however.) And the writing I need to do for my own other projects remains in need of doing, of course. I did not attend to it during the last month nearly so much as I ought to have done, and I will doubtlessly feel the lack of it in the coming weeks.

It seems, then, that I remain busy as the new semester begins, shifting once again the kind of work that needs to be done but altering in no real way the quantity of it--unless it will be, perhaps, to increase it more than the initial bump at the term's beginning suggests. I will somehow get done all of what needs doing, as I have no other recourse. I can only hope that it ends up being worth the effort; I still have no idea how effective have been my earlier efforts.

20160111.0610

The new school term begins today,
And so I must soon away
To face new classes and to say
To each that I can show a way

Through school's demands that perhaps aid
In job-getting and comments made
By pundits yelling undismayed
As for their minds the public's played

And if two deaths have blemished things,
As I go out to work, there sings
Yet now, and still there rings,
The voice ignored by many kings

And queens and others of all state,
For wisdom notes that much we hate,
Since we enjoy, to abate,
Should stop, and now instead of late.

20160106.0632

Work continues, of course. I find myself scrambling to put together materials for my courses, which begin next week. The first two days of classes are accounted for; given the schedules I am facing, the second day of class will be the last day in which all four of those I am teaching will be aligned. (One section is on a two-day schedule; the other three are on a three-day.) I suppose I am about to plunge into another headlong rush, but that is as I should expect it to be; my line of work is what it is, after all, and after as long in it as I have been, I ought to know that the teaching term is a pressing series of weeks. Not that things get easier between terms; all that happens is the work changes form.

Not only do I have classes at two institutions to handle, I have my own research to do--and freelancing demands attention, as well. I have a gap in that at the moment, which is to the good, but I also know the gap will not be long. The money freelancing brings in is entirely too attractive for me to leave alone for long; it is an addictive quantity. (I would say the access to resources it affords is addictive, but I know that the truth is that the money itself is the compulsory thing. I am acculturated as I am, and even if I might try to fight it, I rely to a great extent on the system that compels the constant search for money. I do not have the luxury of extricating myself from it, not if I want to do the work I do--and I do want to do that work.)

Attending to my family also demands attention--and rightly. Ms. 8 was somewhat problematic yesterday, waking in a foul mood and venting that mood repeatedly during the day. Some such venting took the form of screaming, as it does. Some took the form of playing slap-daddy, which occasioned a pointed response from her unwilling playmate. Some took the form of bite-daddy, which also occasioned a pointed response from her unwilling playmate. I know that matters will ease in time. I simply hope to have a face and arms yet when they do, as well as intact genitals--since Ms. 8 manages to kick, slap, or headbutt them daily or more. (I gather she does not want siblings.)

I suppose there are things to be said against my writing the kind of writing I write in this webspace. I suppose many will read it as whiny--"Suck it up" comes to mind as a likely response, as does "Back in my day, we didn't complain." But I do not think that "sucking it up" (which requires sucking; am I being told I should suck? Then why complain if I do?) has helped people, and "back in the day" was a good time only for people whom I and many of those for whom I care are not. Why would I want to go back to that?

20160105.0639

There have been changes around Sherwood Cottage in the last few days. For example, the Mrs. and I had had a child-latch on the one toilet in the house, as Ms. 8 was at one point lifting up the lid and playing in the water in the bowl--as toddlers will do. The latch ceased to function last weekend, and so I removed it; there is no sense in keeping around a lock that does not lock, and I am not a locksmith that I could repair it. More, it would have cost more to repair said lock than to simply purchase another--not that we have bought another. Instead, the toilet lid shows the marks of having had the lock on it, and Ms. 8 has not yet begun again to play in that particular font of holy water. (And if you recoil at that image, consider how many note praying to the porcelain god. I am hardly the first to make the connection.) I am not about to test her forbearance in other matters, however, and I am not going to remove other locks from the house. They may not stop a dedicated thief, but they will keep honest people honest. Supposedly.

Other changes include some of the refurnishing going on. Ms. 8 is growing and changing, herself, and she has a tendency to rearrange the furniture in the living room. I am not always thrilled at this, of course, but the work is easily enough undone. What perhaps presents more difficulty is the increasing presence of her toys about the place. She is beginning to have playsets, and putting them outside seems...inadvisable at present. But there is only so much space inside Sherwood Cottage, particularly space in which she can play. Finding where to put her stuff is becoming a challenge, and while I know that the Mrs. and I do need to pare down our own holdings, we do not need to do so to such an extent as would easily allow Ms. 8's things the room they need in full. (This is both because she does not need so much of it out and because the Mrs. and I do need to have some of ours out and accessible. We get to live here, too.) At present, such changes are reasonably slow and easy to manage, but their acceleration seems to be coming.

I had thought that I would have more to say about the matter when I started. I do not, though, at least not that I am willing to share with the world, and that annoys me somewhat. I had had the thought in the shower; shower ideas are often good ideas, and I was pleased to be able to hold on to one after drying off. Evidently, it was something in the water that allowed the idea to form, and removing the water removed the thoughts. I am certain a metaphor inheres in it, but explicating it will have to wait for some other time.

20160104.0701

Work continues, as ever it must. I have a few items left to complete on one task before sending it off for review. Afterwards, I have preparations to make for my classes in the upcoming term (it begins in a week), and I have a book to read for a write-up that needs to get done in haste. The reading, at least, should go quickly; the book is short and is a work of popular romance. I have read the author's work before, and I found it akin to a liquid diet; it is taken in quickly, and it leaves just as fast. So I have some hope of getting things done in the next couple of days so that I can be ready to move on to the next thing. It is not as if my "to do" list has an end in sight at any time near to hand, after all--as if anyone's ever actually does.

The Mrs., Ms. 8, and I had a visit from an old friend yesterday. The Mrs. and I have known said friend for more than ten years now, having met her while we were all in graduate school; Ms. 8 has known her for most of her life. She seems to be doing reasonably well, our friend, finding that teaching at the secondary level has substantial rewards and positioning herself to find yet others through particular programs that involve teaching at the secondary level. (Were I not in the position of having had, and having let lapse, certification to teach, I might avail myself of them. But I am, and so I am given to understand that I am not eligible for them. But I do not think I could go back to that kind of teaching, not because I am "too good" for it, but because I am not likely good enough a teacher to do it anymore.) It was good to see our friend, to be sure; it had been entirely too long. We understand about having to go where the work requires, though; it is for that reason we are at Sherwood Cottage even now, handling the dry chill that pervades the area this winter so far.

The visit is done, though, and things are beginning to return to some semblance of normalcy after two weeks of disrupted calendars and crazy travel plans. How long it will take for them to get back to "normal" and how long they will remain so is yet to be seen; I know that my teaching schedule will be somewhat disordered by another observance soon enough. I think I will be able to adapt readily enough, however; I always seem to do so. Having so much work to keep me busy is a help with that; the amount to do changes little, even if the kinds of things to be done differ. And that, too, is as it is for many if not for most or all.

20160103.0821

Just three days in, I'm already behind.
Lag from the last time yet lingers in mind,
And I scramble about greatly hoping to find
A way to do all of the tasks I've outlined
For myself and all of them to me assigned
By writers of paychecks, not always kind.

What can wait for later? What must be done now?
What order of working allows me to cow
The many tasks facing me? Let me know how
To structure the day such as will best allow
The discharge of duties, will help me to plow
Under the work, increasing somehow.

20160102.0746

Work continues as the new year progresses. I have another order on deck already, as well as the continuing work on the other project-for-pay that I am doing. The usual gamut of other concerns is also in place. There is much for me to do, and I feel as if there is no time to do more than a small part of it. Such is life, I suppose; there is always more to do than there are time and resources in and with which to do it. (At least in the sense of what is accessible; time and resources may well exceed the amount of things to do in toto, but none of us has access to the actual totus. And you thought I'd make a joke about a Kansas dog or a band most popular in the 1980s...sensibly, I admit. I do make that kind of joke, and far too often for anybody's comfort.)

It continued yesterday, of course, although the work was largely around the home, with the Mrs. and I tending to the domestic chores that had piled up around Sherwood Cottage. There are yet things for me to do in that regard; many of my shirts need ironing, as some of them have for some weeks now. But that does not mean I did not get things done during what ended up being a two-pot day. Among others, I secured a pair of shoes to replace an old pair I had worn for at least five years; I may have bought them in The City when I lived there, but I might have bought them while I was yet an on-campus student in Hub City. (The latter label should not be difficult to untangle, given my love of crawfish and boudin.) The uppers on the old pair were letting in air and water through several large tears; it was time to replace them. My feet will take some time to get used to the new shoes, though; things ought to be interesting for a while.

As the Mrs. and I worked, Ms. 8 showed that she continues to develop. Her vocabulary is increasing markedly, and she engages in pretend play, "feeding" dolls she received in the past weeks with play cookware and food she also received in the past few weeks. (She makes slurping sounds as she puts spoons to their lips and tilts them up and chewing sounds as she puts fake fruits and vegetables to them.) She also plays with blocks she has had and received in the past weeks, and she dances enthusiastically at odd times--whether or not music plays around her. I admit to some worry about the potential enforcement of gender norms, but the Mrs. points out that what she does mimics much of what we do and have done; we feed Ms. 8 (albeit not from a spoon anymore), we push her around in a stroller at times, we carry her, and we both cook for her. (The Mrs. admittedly cooks more than I do, but I do a fair bit of cooking, and not just eggs on occasional mornings.) Ms. 8 also likes to rough-house, which I take as a good thing, although as her doing so continues, I hope she will stop kicking or slapping me in the genitals...

20160101.0741

A new year has begun, as it would seem often to have done; I have spoken to it here, here, and here in this webspace. The Mrs., Ms. 8, and I were all abed long before the beginning of it at Sherwood Cottage; waiting for midnight has lost its allure, although I do recall some good transitions from year to year. (I recall some far less pleasant, as well.) My wife and I have had our fun, and Ms. 8 is as yet too young to recognize the holiday or value it. The neighborhood in which Sherwood Cottage stands is relatively empty with school not in session. Between the two, we were able to have a quiet evening spent reasonably peacefully. It was nice enough, if hardly the kind of thing valorized in public perception--but it has the great benefit of having prevented us from being hung over.

For me, the world has not much changed; I have to alter numbers on my blog posts and on the checks I sign (and, yes, I still write checks for a fair number of things; I like the existence of a physical record). Work still continues, with more freelancing waiting for my attention, as well as class prep and any number of other projects about which I have written on no small number of occasions before. The weather around Sherwood Cottage remains wintry (by area standards), with nights below freezing and days not much above it; the ground remains wet from the passing goliath, since there seems not to be enough warmth in the air to dry it. The lawn needs no attention, however, so some of the consequences of that problem are mitigated. Ms. 8 still does not get to play in her yard as much as she would like, though, and that is far less good. Unlike her father, she enjoys the outdoors, and I would give it her if I could. I would give her many things if I could. I cannot, though, which I do not think is a mark of pride.

To return to an earlier point--that I like the existence of a physical record--I am beginning a new volume of my journal today, having wrapped up the last one (after entirely too long) yesterday. It will be the thirtieth such volume since I began keeping a journal on something other than a legal pad in 2005. Just shy of three volumes a year is not an impressive rate of completion, I know, and there are gaps in each volume I have maintained that bespeak times either of substantial stress or indolence. Each time, I hope to do better; each time, I do not. I know such things about myself; it is part of why I do not make resolutions, as is traditional as one year becomes another. I know I will break them, and I am already often enough forsworn. I do not need to compound errors by repeating them; I can, at least, make new and different mistakes in the new year recently begun.