Author: Prof. Ornery

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Suitcases

Who would have thought that something as simple and as worn as old roller bag suitcases could send me into a well of sadness? For the fourth Saturday, we have been cleaning out the storage unit where I put all my parents things after my dad died in 2013, and then added in the few remaining items when my mom passed in 2016. Yes, it’s been over five years that we’ve been paying for a 10×15 climate-controlled storage unit. Running out of estate money has made it a priority to clear things out.

Three weeks ago we took all the remaining furniture and bed to Good Will and to the dump. Two weeks ago we shifted everything remaining into a much smaller space and then took boxes of books home to sort through. The suitcases did not make it into the first run to the dump. Nor did they make it to the second run. Today, we planned on getting the rest of the books and figure out what, of what remained, would go to Good Will and what would go to the dump. This time, I knew the suitcases should go. As we were talking before we left the house, I started tearing up. There’s something about those suitcases that, more than any of the stuff/items/furniture I’ve been sorting through over the last month, most fully evokes my parents for me. I can picture them in my mind’s eye, walking steadily, if not rapidly, through various airports, pulling the bags behind them. Philly, Dublin, Munich, San Francisco, Portland, London, Tokyo, Hong Kong…they traveled a lot and enjoyed the hell out of it. Always with those roller bags.

Interestingly, they were the exceptions among their siblings. My mom’s sister would come out to Philly after my parent’s moved out here and she made one epic trip to South America, including Antarctica, with her second husband. But after that trip, she stuck to traveling between Sacramento and San Francisco, and then Philadelphia.

My uncle, my dad’s brother, hasn’t left the West Coast since he moved there after leaving the Navy. Now he lives in central Washington and travel is limited to driving down to Sunriver, Oregon, where we all meet up for a family reunion every year, and down to Napa Valley for short wine-tasting vacations. Other than that, they don’t travel. Of course, my aunt (uncle’s wife) doesn’t drive and is afraid to fly. That will limit your excursions.

I find that I’m sort of halfway in between. I love to travel, especially to Europe and around this country. But, I find that multiple trips in a couple of months are tiring and afterwards all I want to do is sit at home for about six months.

We got to the dump and while I was fussing with getting a couple of old lamps out of the back of the car, Mike got the suitcases and tossed them into the back of the trash truck. I didn’t even see them go, and I actually thought we’d forgotten to get them out of the car until we left. I’m glad I didn’t see them go. I tend to anthropomorphize things a lot and seeing them in the trash truck likely would have wrecked me.

It’s done and I’m okay with it. It was time. Who knew suitcases could evoke such emotions?

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Friday Thoughts: Attitudes

For a while now, I’ve been trying to make sure that I arrive at work in a good frame of mind. When I manage it, the day is definitely brighter and more productive. There are times when I arrive and begin my day feeling pretty good and optimistic, and then something happens to wreak my carefully created mindset. An email from administration or a student or the dean or simply hearing some news about a program/project on campus. Pretty much anything that brings reality crashing in too early can wreck a mood immediately. I have one colleague who is very good at maintaining a sense of optimism and hope in the face of things that appear to spell doom. I am trying to follow her example and maintain an optimistic, or at least not totally pessimistic, attitude.

Granted, this is all work-related and does not affect the rest of the world outside of campus. Nevertheless, it winds up indirectly (and sometimes directly) affecting my life and tends to create a negative cascading affect. This cascading effect then leads to me having a bad attitude towards work (as I do recognize the source of the bad mood), which means I don’t want to go in the next day, or I spend the next day phoning it in. Neither of these are useful attitudes, nor do they help to make me feel any better.

This week was not a particularly bad week. I gave exams on Tuesday and Wednesday, which meant I only had to teach one class Monday, and the usual load of three on Thursday. Pretty easy, and not nearly as tiring, compared to a normal week. But, it was also one of those weeks where a number of threads and pieces of information came together and a more complete picture started to form. This is not a pretty picture and foretells of more chaos in the coming weeks and months.

However, I’ve managed to maintain my good attitude towards work. Why? Well, the picture that is taking shape is reminding me and emphasizing for me that I am making the right decisions going forward. In fact, I feel like I will be followed by others. Still others will remain trapped of their own volition (tenure tends to remove your ability to recognize when you should jump ship).

So, my attitude today is one of refining my route and moving forward along it. I will keep moving forward and work at keeping my attitude positive and resilient.

Go have a positive weekend!

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Life and friends

Last night was a good night. I got to hang out with some friends I haven’t seen in a long while. Hubby was playing poker (hosted by the husband of one of said friends), so we each had separate social engagements. This is a very good thing. He got to hang out with a couple of our friends and some others, drink and play cards, and I got to see friends and talk chick things.

One thing I am reminded of when I meet up with this group of women is how lucky I am with regards to my husband. He’s thoughtful, supportive, and an equal partner in all things in our marriage. He does laundry, cooks, cleans, and takes care of a number of the grosser chores around the house (cleaning litter boxes for example). Last night I listened to the frustrations, anxieties and downright anger from two friends about their husbands. One has just told her husband that she wants a divorce. She has gone back and forth about this for several months now. She’s clearly not happy. Several times during the evening, as we were talking and she was describing some incident, or a reaction, she started tearing up. The other friend was having mild anxiety attacks as she listened to some of these issues. She’s also having problems with her husband and simultaneously dealing with her parent’s estate, trying to sell her childhood home, deal with a sister who doesn’t want to leave the house, a husband who seems ignorant of her wants, needs, desires, until and unless she spells them out. Multiple times. She wants to leave (I’m pretty sure), but she does not work outside the home and is unsure of her own skills and talents (which are numerous). Plus her daughter is pregnant and she is stressing over that as well.

As we all talked, I realized that I am very grateful for what I have. I have had a couple of bad relationships (patricide anyone??) but, I like to think that I learned from those relationships and avoided repeating the mistakes.

On the other hand, I felt a bit guilty. Not because I had nothing of consequence to complain about, but because I found myself thinking “you have said the same thing, made the same complaints for the last year or so. Do something!” Of course, without a job, and feeling like she has no skills, or is too old or whatever, makes contemplating leaving extremely scary. I cannot overlook that. I do try to remind her that she still has her skill set and that she is capable of taking care of herself. And, I try to dial back my annoyance (the annoyance is what makes me feel guilty).

All of this is by way of saying, life is funny. We fight some battles forever and always simply on the principle of the matter. Other battles, we seem to give up before the battle even starts. Lately I’ve been contemplating major life changes. Thinking about what I want to do/will be doing is very scary. There will be less money, we’ll be in a different city. This whole thing will take a lot of work and effort. And, there will be times when it won’t work out. But I’ll have to keep going. The more I think about what’s ahead, the more excited I am to get started. But then, I have started in many ways. While I still have a day job, my priorities are changing. This is going to be an interesting ride.

Life is funny. But, that’s what makes it an adventure.

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48 Hour Rule

It’s been a busy week; the first week of the semester is always cramped, stressed, and moving at the speed of light or the speed of molasses in January, depending on what exactly one is facing at any given moment. However, I have been generally, in a headline skimming sort of way, keeping up with the news and goings-on in the world. Switching back and forth between our national shenanigans and the Brexit shenanigans, I’m starting to run out of popcorn!

The one incident that did capture my attention was the kerfuffle surrounding some kids at the March for Life and a Native American elder, Nathan Phillips. The original story was based on comments from Phillips, a 64-year old political activist. He said that the kids were yelling “build the wall” (link goes to original story) and using racist comments towards him. And, that story went viral almost immediately with multiple calls for the kids to lose any college admissions, to be expelled from school, to closing the school, to rabid anti-Catholic screeds. In less than 8 hours however, the story was blown apart. Even CNN admits that the video flying around the internet was extremely selectively edited.

Several things have crossed my mind over the last 24 hours regarding this incident. One is that I will be discussing this with my students this week. The second one is, what do we call it when a 64-year old man harasses and confronts teenagers? Isn’t that bullying? Thirdly, you would think that by now, most people would realize that they should wait 48 hours before passing judgement on ANYTHING. Especially if it perfectly fits into a narrative you desperately want to believe.

I posted two different corrections on my FB page, the one from CNN and one from Reason. The response? Crickets. I had hoped that at least one or two people would step up and admit they had jumped in with full-throated condemnation before getting all the information. But, sadly, no. The desire to maintain the fiction that one’s view of something (the political opposition can never be right, even if the story one is relying on is false) appears to be so strong, that, publicly at least, people are afraid to admit they were wrong.

Unfortunately, public admission of falling for such traps is the only way we can begin to heal this great schism. That and telling media types that perpetuate this crap to take a hike.

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Friday Thoughts: Oops, I did it again

Totally didn’t get to my morning post. Still writing syllabi like a fiend. Oh, hey. What if a fiend really did write syllabi? What would those look like? Hmmmmm. Must. Work. On. Syllabi. Must. Not. Get. Distracted….

Seriously, back to work. More later.

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Coddiwomple

This word popped up on my FB memories thingy today. “Coddiwomple” means to travel purposely towards an as-yet-unknown destination. This is perfect for 2019. I’m coddiwompling into the year! Whee! The definition is a little bit off, I do know where I want to end up, I’m just not sure, right now, how I’m going to get there yet. I’m writing (in fact, I need to get back to it as soon as I finish this post), and I’m creating a vision of how I want my life to look (found those ideas from this book by Jen Sincero, along with inspiration from Scott Adams). This is not to say you can sit on your butt dreaming and expect it all to fall into place before your very eyes. There is a lot of work involved. But, this is what I want, so the work is almost immaterial. I will look back in a year and say, yes. It is all worth it.

At the same time, this is a very scary thing to contemplate. I find myself saying things like “Well, if it doesn’t work, I/we can always do X”. And, I have to remind myself, that no. X is not an option, not if we want to move forward with our lives and into a new, more fun, and more in our control life. Writing this blog, and writing fiction are my new world or worlds. I have discovered a creative streak in myself that I never knew existed. Or, rather, I knew there was a little something there, but the über-practical voices of my mother and grandmother were always reminding me that one could not, and should not try, to make a living being creative. So, I threw my energy elsewhere. I threw it into education and into being an educator and a researcher. But, now, 25 or so years on, I’m realizing I’m not happy. In fact, my annoyance trigger is dangerously close to the surface. And, right behind the annoyance trigger is the “I don’t give a f*&%” trigger. This is not a good thing. Regardless of how I feel about my life right now, I don’t need to be going off on students and colleagues. Bad form, as my dad would say.

So, sitting here on Day 9 of 2019, I’m going to go for what promises to be a cold, very cold, windy, walk, and then come back and write, write, write. And, then squeeze in some class prep and syllabus work. And, then continue to coddiwomple!

Go coddiwomple!

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The Last Week…of break

A week from today classes start. I will be back in the rhythm of the semester by the end of next week. This is a very familiar place to be. I am working on prepping my classes, because I put that task off until now. I am also trying to write and do research. More personal, but still research. As always, I head into the spring semester with a mixture of hope and dread. Hope, because it’s a new semester and that always brings a sense of optimism. Also, the spring semester is followed by summer! Yay!

Dread, because I’m afraid that the freshmen will not have learned anything from their mistakes last semester (years of teaching supports this hypothesis). and because, administratively we’re entering another period of uncertainty and that means faculty never really know if their ideas, programs, trips, etc. will be approved as before, cut, or ignored. Regardless of whatever else the semester brings, it will bring change. And, change is a scary, exciting thing.

I am a creature of habit; got it from my parents who definitely were creatures of habit (when the bartender pours your beers as he sees you through the window, you’re a creature of habit). But, I think that the majority of humans are creatures of habit. So are other animals. We have the ability to recognize long-ingrained habits and to persuade ourselves to ditch those habits. Hence, the plethora of books, blogs, articles, etc. that urge us to get out of our comfort zones, push the edges of the envelope, change our world, etc. etc. etc. While exciting to contemplate, such change is often scary to implement.

So, where am I going with this rambling? Well, in the words of Mal Reynolds, captain of the spaceboat Firefly, “no more runnin’. I aim to misbehave.” I am embracing change, some of it pretty radical, and I am going to enjoy the hell out of the roller-coaster I’m currently building. I promise to post updates.

(picture is personal photo)

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Friday Thoughts: Late Afternoon…

I missed blogging this morning due to sheer, unadulterated sloth. Just didn’t feel like moving off the couch. This has happened before and in the same time frame. The closer it gets to the start of the semester, whether fall or spring, the less inclined I am to do the work that’s required of me. Every semester I swear I’ll get an earlier start so I’m not hammering along as the semester starts. And, like clockwork, every year, two weeks before the start of the semester, I’m doing any but prepping classes. At this point in my career, I’m just going along with it.

I’ve been avoiding the news, aside from skimming headlines to make sure we’re not involved in yet another war, or that California hasn’t fallen off the continent after the “Big One” earthquake. I’m a much happier person if I just keep up with news and information versus dwelling on it and getting into meaningless Facebook arguments. And, I find that I like the happier me much better than I do the deeply involved and “very concerned” me.

This may seem like a “no duh” sort of statement, but actually recognizing that I feel happier is something of a revelation. It’s a lighter feeling; I have more energy to pour into other aspects of my life.(even class prep!). I pay more attention to what’s going on in my immediate surroundings and more attention to the people in those surroundings. I sat on the bus this afternoon on my way home and just watched the neighborhood go by, looked at the people on the bus and tried to guess where they were going and from where did they start (the family of tourists was pretty easy since son was holding a map and checking it as the bus made stops). Just idle speculation with no real purpose, but enjoyable nonetheless. And, bonus: I didn’t wind up with a crick in my neck from staring down at my phone. Win!

Home, doing laundry and looking forward to a quiet evening with Mike. Enjoy the weekend, all!

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Heading out into 2019

Well, OK then. It’s 2019. Still no flying cars; bummer. But, then, given the way people tend to drive (or pilot shopping carts for that matter), that may be a good thing. As I sit at my computer supposedly prepping my spring courses (but, obviously, writing this post), I am forced to think about the year ahead. Academic calendars run about a year ahead of the current time. For example, I already know what I am supposed to be teaching this time next year. That forces one to plan out a year at a time. Right now, I’m not sure I’m enjoying planning that far ahead. Tends to lock you in and remove flexibility. But, once the prep for this semester is done, I should be facing a relatively easy-going semester which will leave more room for personal pursuits.

On a less confused note, I’m looking forward to this year as I know it will bring new and exciting changes. Not sure what exactly those will be, but for about eight months now, I’ve been trying to face the world in a positive way, expressing gratitude for everything, large and small. One thing I’ve certainly noticed is that I am less frustrated with situations and more inclined to examine what I can take away from any given issue for future learning. It really does help. In addition to noticing what I can change in terms of my reactions or actions, I’m noticing that it is becoming easier to put stressful, annoying, or frustrating situations and issues behind me. This does not mean ignoring things as they come up, but rather, taking care of it and then letting it go. I’m also getting better about dealing with things that come up in a timely manner, rather than putting them off and letting them fester. And, I’ve become better about doing silly things and enjoying small moments in the day. I got a small BB-8 droid for Christmas. It’s powered by an app and I am having a lot of fun rolling it around the house to the great interest and consternation of the cats. They’re not really sure what to make of it!

So, it turns out, you can teach an old dragon new tricks. I’m writing more, learning German, about to revisit Spanish, and generally having a good time. Classes start in a couple of weeks, so I will get into the rhythm of the semester soon enough. For now, I’m off to take a walk and then more prep. Happy New Year! Here’s to an interesting and joy-filled 2019.

*Image from Pixabay

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Winding down the year

We got back from California this morning after a red-eye flight from San Francisco. It was a direct flight, so not as bad as previous trips. I think I actually managed to sleep on this flight and I’m grateful for that.

There are a number of things I’m grateful for as this year winds down. I’ve been keeping a gratitude journal; trying to make sure each day I write down 10 things I’m grateful for. There are a couple things that appear every day. I’m always and forever grateful for my husband. I totally won the lottery in that category. I’m always grateful for the purrs and snuggles of our cats. I’m grateful for my health (cliched I know, but I am). My point here is that I did not keep the journal while we were traveling. So, this post is a sort of catch up on gratitude for the last 10 days.

I’m grateful:

  • that we got to visit our families
  • that we got to peek behind the metaphorical curtain that is covering some of the family tension (it was enlightening and for that I’m grateful).
  • we got to walk on the beach on Saturday
  • we had easy travel days
  • we got to eat a lot of good food.
  • that we spent quality time with my cousin and his wife
  • that I got to spend time with my favorite cousin who is a sister and best friend to me.
  • I got to have lunch with my best friend from college.
  • And, maybe most of all, I’m grateful that I get to sit here on my own couch, surrounded by snoozing cats, while I write this.

So, a very happy, healthy, and enlightening new year to everybody. May 2019 bring you much joy and fun living.

Image ©Rebecca Jones, 2018