Poseidon is sitting beside my chair giving me the absolute business. I told him I was working on a photo of him. He is not interested in my excuses. This needs to be online right now.
I usually write this part a bit tongue-in-cheek, of course, but this is not a joke. He will not shut up. I guess he knows it is Tuesday. And he’s somehow looking at the site and found that he’s not on the front page. Obviously he knows he’s a part of the most popular content on the site. He is, as we say, just trying to help.
Here he was earlier. Helping.
And here’s Phoebe, who would like you to know that they have a new shipment of food, and no one is feeding them from it yet. Not pictured, just off the left margin, is a bag of their food. And, around the corner, an entire stash of their treats. But this food, that box, in that sunlight, that’s where and why a statement must be made.
They don’t protest much, but they always make their point.
The kitties, as you can see, are doing just fine.
Today was our first day of classes for the spring term. Spring term, it is ridiculously cold outside. I get to park right behind the building I teach in, but I feel bad about that on days like today. Some people are walking great distances.
I walked into the office, did a few jots of last minute tittles, and then headed downstairs to my classroom for the term. Ran into a colleague, met a student in the hall, and then had the first meeting of the Rituals and Traditions class. I’m now calling the first day Syllabus and Expectations Day. Syllabus Day doesn’t cover it anymore. So we talked about the class. They all introduced themselves. (Everyone loves doing this.) I asked them to tell us all something they are good at. We discussed what the course will be about, which was new information for everyone, considering this is a brand new class. I told them that. I told them that, as far as I’ve been able to tell, this is a unique class you won’t find anywhere else. No pressure on me. We discussed what is to come and we discussed a bit of the syllabus. Now, I’ll wait to see how many of them come back on Thursday.
I went back tot he office and did a few more things, mostly a lot of walking up and down the hall to the community printer. It took three tries to get my printer act together.
It’s a long hall.
Eventually, it was time to go back downstairs, to have Syllabus and Expectation Day for the Criticism in Sport Media class. I have a few people in both classes, and so I had to apologize that today was a similar day in both classes. I also have, in both of these classes, a few people who have been in classes with me before. I take this as a good sign, overall. Criticism will be similar to the fall version. I am going to integrate social media a bit, we’ll talk about e-sports and gaming for a few days. I’m changing the criteria for story selection a bit. These are all changes designed to make the course better. I think it takes three tries with a class to get it right. This is the second time I’ve been able to offer this course. Maybe I’ll be able to do it again in the future to test that hypothesis.
My online class is also underway. I sent the students there the initial message last night. Two class notes a week, (usually) a lot of email correspondence from students, a bunch of grading and a time-intensive attention to detail on assignment feedback. This is a class about the philosophy and structure behind social media. It takes a lot of time, but there’s one week soon when I get to write about a particular German philosopher (not that one) and there’s always a new way to consider what he was working on (nope, not that).
And those will be my classes. Tuesday and Thursday. And working a bunch on that and everything else almost all of the time. I drove us home — my lovely bride had her first two classes of the term today, as well — thinking of the number of days I have in the term to help students accomplish what I ask of them. When I got home I started in on Thursday’s work.
It snowed a lot this weekend, but never amounted to much. Which is to say snow fell, and snow melted. Then more fell, and it, too, failed to cause much of a stir. Then more of its precipitory brethren swirled and twirled and danced and fell to the ground and made it just a little more soggy. Eventually, the ground started to catch on.
Oh, we’re supposed to let this stuff stay?
Those mounds beneath the trees held the snow first. I suppose it is always that way. So much mulch, so little insulation.
The second thing to catch the snow was this door mat. This is a mat with a warm greeting. But, just now, and since Saturday afternoon, it is neither warm, nor greeting.
By then, the snow was slowing.
When it stopped, or at least paused for a few hours, I thought I should get out and make use of the time. There was recycling to be done, earth to be save, habits to be fulfilled. So I loaded up the car. A big bin in the trunk, and a garbage can in the back seat. Both were filled with the mixed items, glass, aluminum, plastic. And in the front seat, and the rest of the back, cardboard.
The inconvenience center is on the other side of town, but late Saturday afternoon might be the time to make this trip. Two stop signs, and a red light. My memory of it is already unremarkable. But the inconvenience center was remarkable. The huge container for the cardboard sits in one spot, but the guy that runs the place had put some sort of netting over the top, which is their out of order signal. He was off down the hill in his loader, doing light machinery work, and, from that great distance, he read the confusion on my face. From inside the cab he gestured broadly — and he needed to, because he was far enough away I could barely see him. I had to walk all of this cardboard from over here to all the way over there.
We go to some lengths to save the earth around here.
This was the view from the road.
I went a town or two over and met an older couple. The man had some sort of light stroke, he said, so he had to move some of his tools that he can’t use well anymore. We were out in his oversized shed and I told him I was jealous. He has this whole place to work and if I want to turn wood into sawdust I have to rearrange the entire garage. I spend more time moving equipment around than cutting things up. He laughed, but didn’t offer me his whole shed.
He did sell me this wonderful little router table.
It’s obviously handmade, and done perfectly well for shop duty. There are a few joints in there that are more elaborate than necessary. I asked him if he made it. He said no. He named the man who did, as if I would know the name, but I do not. That man gave it to his friend, who gave it to this guy. And now he’s sold it to me. I’m the fourth owner of the table. Mounted to it is a Craftsman router.
I got it home, put the top back on the legs, tinkered with the router for a minute and put a piece of scrap wood through it, and it works. You can see the sawdust!
Pretty good deal, for $30.
And then, just as I said, I spent several minutes finding a way to fit it in the garage, and cleaning up a bit of sawdust. It was ridiculously cold, but when it warms up, some weeks from now, I’ll go out and experiment with it some more.
We were forecast for snow through the early afternoon on Sunday, and it snowed all day and into the night. When I took out the garbage last night, we had about two inches on the ground.
Or, as I put it on Bluesky …
I think I’m due a series of long hot steamy nights where the stars twinkle in time with the crickets and the bullfrogs. The sort of night that begins at about 10 p.m. and runs into the tomorrow after forever.
Anyway, I had to put on a coat and some light gloves and boots to take out the garbage.
All day today I spent on the work stuff, wrapping up the pre-term emotional roller coaster. The creative process for course development is just about as intense as anything else you can make. There’s curious excitement, then some real enthusiasm and joy, and then the self-doubt sneaks in as you continue on. This is a weeks- and months-long process. But all of that is behind us, because class is before us.
This weekend, then, I prepared my first message for the online class, where I will be teaching about the structures of social media. Yesterday I locked down the changes I am making to my criticism in sports media class. I am working in a bit of e-sports and trying to find a place to slip in some social media. I am changing up some of the assignment structures. It was an easy series of changes, but I find myself staring at calendars and lists and counting weeks and items over and over and over. You want to get the small things right.
So you can imagine how many times I reworked the smallest things, trying to comb out every error today. And, somehow, the more of that the did, the more of the roller coaster changed direction. Today, as I locked up the brand new Rituals and Traditions course I found myself very intrigued again by what this class might become. I added the last details of the assignment structure last week. Today I spend a good chunk of the morning and pretty much all of the afternoon building the page where all of this will reside.
Which is where the worry comes back in. Will it land with students? Will it work? Is it enough if I like the class? Will they learn as much as I will? Will they like it if they do?
Can I get this in a regular rotation?
Anyway, I need one more important thing to click into place for that class, and then we’re set. Starting tomorrow, we’ll ease into all of these classes. They’ll be off and running next week. A few days after that, this little break will be forgotten, we’ll be in the regular rhythm, and focusing on all of this fun learning until May.
It’s a lot of fun, even when it is a lot.
And this evening I got in a little ride. I chose an 18-mile ride around part of the island of Cozumel. We’ve been there, in real life, three times. I know this road well.
But I’ve never been on that side of the island. Never been on a bike there, with the ocean off my shoulder. It is difficult to imagine the desert island air, the stiff breeze, and the crashing waves in my coolish little basement setup. At least I had a fan in my face. I wonder where I’ll ride tomorrow, after three hours of dancing in front of classes. It’s funny how simply being underway frees the mind and opportunity.
Got in some quality work today. I all but locked down two syllabi. I decided to give myself an extra day or two to meditate on whether I made any big errors there. Sunday. I have started the final polish on the first two days of lectures. Monday. I thought about laundry. Tomorrow. It was a great afternoon.
And sunny. Suuuuuuunny. Spring is on the way, sunny. We made it, sunny. The world is full of possibilities again, sunny. When I finally went outside it was 25 degrees.
There was some mild discussion about a jacket. As in, You need a jacket and, “Nah, it’ll be fine.” It was, you see, an evening with brief moments of outdoors.
It was not my birthday, but it was the day of my present. So we took a ride to the train station, and took a train to Penn Station, and took a subway up to 72nd. And this is where my jacket risk became a consideration. It was sunny and 25 when I climbed into the car. Now it is dark. And I have no idea how far we are walking from station to venue.
Fortunately, it was just two blocks. And there was a line. But it moved quickly enough that the cold didn’t set in.
And so we went inside the Beacon Theater, which will celebrate its centennial in a few years. The Beacon opened in 1929, it was to be part of a chain of elaborate movie theaters. But then, right after this incredible place opened The Great Depression sank in. This was one of the last things to go up in that older world. There was a hotel attached to the project, and an airway beacon placed on the roof of the hotel, hence the name.
It was a daily movie theater, which ran 12 hours a day. And then they added radio broadcasts. (Your live podcasts aren’t that novel.) They stumped for bonds during World War 2. In the 1960s, plays became a part of the rotation. In the 70s, it became a concert hall, and also got a renovation. It almost became a night club and disco in the 1980s. That plan got tied up in court and plans changed. It became an IMAX, then got renovated again in the ‘oughts.
Today, it’s a popular live event venue, having entertained Manhattan for almost 100 years now.
I said this in the venue. I know people in New York aren’t mean. People from elsewhere might think so, but that’s not the case. It has been argued to me that the people in New York just aren’t concerned about you. But under that, there’s a kindness there, as you will find in any decent person. A decent one, anyway. Sometimes you get the random person who will try to help if you look lost. You will also get the person who will walk by you or cut you off if you’re not moving. They’re just focused on what their focused on, and not you.
The people outside the venue were all in the usual mode of evening happiness. They were going to see a show they’d been looking forward to. On a date. Out with friends. Faking a birthday. Whatever. And we got up to the woman who scanned tickets, who had a small talk conversation with you, which I don’t know that’s ever happened to me in the city. It stood out enough that I considered asking if she was originally from there, but if not, then I run the risk of insulting her. So I let it slide. The security people were security people. Inside, someone was handing long-stemmed roses to the ladies.
I went to the restroom. In the restroom there is a man who has the job of standing there and making sure everything is clean and orderly. I walked in and he welcomed me to the theater. This man is on bathroom duty. He’s drying countertops. “Welcome to the Beacon, sir.” After I washed my hands, shaking them brusquely in the sink so as not to mar his dry workspace, he handed me a custom, artisanally torn stretch of paper towel and said “Enjoy the show,” with a sort of sincerity that you don’t often occur in a men’s room, or in the liminal space between that room and the rest of your life.
And, you know what, I was going to enjoy that show. It was my part of my birthday present, after all.
Mandal was the opening act. Here’s a guy who is cleverly pretending to be foolish. Not that it is clever to do so, but that he is clever at it. Online, I found a set he did for a Netflix comedy fest eight months ago. Here’s his debut on The Tonight Show six months ago. And, so, between these two points and what we saw tonight, I’ve gotten a little sense of how his set was evolving, which is fun.
He did about 20 minutes, I guess, but I wish he had more. I was ready to settle in, in that way that you do when someone has brought a really funny person over to your party and you sit around the kitchen and listen to them go on and on until the evening ends.
But the evening wasn’t ending. Josh Johnson was the headliner. He’s one of the most prolific — and topical and timely — comedy writers of his generation. Just has to be. He’s produced almost five hours of material on YouTube just this month, plus his day job working (and now occasionally hosting) at The Daily Show. I wonder if this set will go online in the next few days. I’d watch it again.
When the show was over — and the bathroom gentleman was right, we did enjoy it very much — we went across the street for dinner. Because it is Manhattan we had a host of nearby things. Mediterranean, two cheesy American places, Italian, something else that didn’t really get a lot of consideration, and Thai. So we chose that, and it was right across the street.
The woman working up front at Sala Thai asked if we had reservations. We did not. She said it would be 15 minutes, and asked for a number to text us at. There was nowhere to stay inside, so we ducked back out to the street and I said, “Let’s walk the block. Keep us warm, see a bit more, and we’ll be close.”
We rounded the corner and got buzzed to come back inside. It is a tight, crowded, hopping little place. It reminded me of home.
I’m from Thailand.
No, there’s an incredible — incredible to me, anyway — Thai place in my hometown and I miss it a great deal. This place I was excited to try because they also offered a coconut soup, just as my favorite place does. And, being a cold night, it was perfect for coconut soup. (I’d eat coconut soup in the middle of summer, and have.)
Theirs was a bit sweeter, compared to what I recall, and had some odd little mushrooms, compared to what I prefer, but it was tasty. Also on the menu was this.
Kao Soy (a northern style curry noodle soup, the menu said) looked very similar to my beloved Chicken Noodle Bowl. And it was close.
This is egg noodles, onion, bean sprouts, pickled mustard greens in a red coconut broth. I immediately scooped the pickled mustard greens out of the way. I wish it had just a bit less of the broth, and had some plump long grain rice. Then it would be my beloved Chicken Noodle Bowl. Not quite the same, but very, flavorful and filling.
The tables in this place are so on top of us that, to my right, there was an acrylic divider between us and the next table. An older couple sat there. The table to my left was so close that we couldn’t leave without interrupting their meal. Two younger people sat there, still very much in an early phase of dating. She was still talking about her school work.
So my lovely bride and, being between them in the phases of relationships, alternated between sounding like an old couple and acting like two young people just finding one another.
We left, walked the two blocks to the subway, and talked about the merits and challenges of living in a big city. She, who grew up in a suitcase town and lived a few times in Atlanta, regrets never having done it. Me, having lived in suburbs and exurbs most of my life, am set in my ways and glad I don’t live in a big city. But I do appreciate being so close to world class cities. It was something I reflect on the reverse trip. Five quick subway stops. A late train out of town, and then a quick ride on an empty late night freeway. A couple of easy moves and I can be up there for the 100th anniversary of the Beacon, or celebrating other events, or enjoying some of the other fabulous looking things on that Thai menu. And, most importantly, it is even easier to get back out again.
I’ll be back for more of that menu.
And the Chicken Noodle Bowl? I’m going to have that again, this spring. That will also not be my birthday, but I might celebrate it just the same.
It was cold here today. At the peak of the afternoon the thermometer, which is, of course, an app, said it was 32 degrees. But, just below that, all proud and sure of itself, was a line that read: Feels like 22°. But at least it was sunny, here on the inner coastal plain — where the heavy land and the green sands meet.
Yesterday it was 50, for a time. Right now, this evening, it feels like 15.
All of these numbers have been verified against other outputs, because I’m not the simple sort of person who thinks we don’t need weather forecasters or forecasts anymore because we’ve got phones.
Some people think of it that way. I talked with one over the holidays. He was playfully griping about his wife always watches the weather, and why is there so much weather, and where did the sports go on the nightly news.
Rare is the day when I can tell people what I do and they want to talk about it. So we did. And I’m pretty sure he came to regret it. As I explained … ahem … the National Weather Service, and Accuweather, and IBM and it’s super computer and The Weather Channel and the private equity firm that owns them now, and satellites and buoys and forecasters … to a man who has been in commercial aviation for longer than I’ve been alive.
Just your random guy, this would make sense. But you have to figure, a man that flew for Delta, and now boasts of flying rich people around on their whim, would have some passing familiarity with the demands of the atmosphere on the needs of his job. But, no, it’s right there, in your phone.
Friends, it is not.
Anyway, cold, but sunny. I will take the former because of the latter. I accepted it cheerily today, albeit with a shiver, and because this was the last night of the season when civil twilight arrives before 5:30 p.m. We are, friends and loved ones, making progress out of the darkened season.
It occurred to me the other evening, as I put on a fancy new sweatshirt, that a simple and small thing I would do if I had no cares in the world money, would be to buy up a bunch of sweatshirts. Don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of old sweatshirts, several of them decades old, and they occupy an important place in my mind and in my wardrobe. But there’s something magical about slipping on that new sweatshirt the first few times, when the inside is just so.
It is the tactile version of the new car smell. It is soft and luxurious, and maybe in a way most of our torsos don’t deserve. Of course, you say, that’s silly. When has a torso ever deserved anything. Others will say, a new sweatshirt isn’t an extravagance. But, no, I’m saying I’d figure out how many wearings and washings I could get out of each shirt before it didn’t fit this criteria any more. Then I’d give the thing away, and wear a new one. How many would that be a winter? Thirty? Forty? If I had money that I’d never miss, that’s a thing I would do.
I thought of that recently while I was slipping on this handsome little fellow.
It was a gift from my godmother-in-law (just go with it). She has three of us to shop for, though really she doesn’t need to buy me anything, so every year her sons-in-law and I get basically the same thing. And she’s good at it. I have some really nice lightweight pullovers from her thoughtfulness.
And if I spread out wearing them, they’ll last a long time. Decades, maybe.
I managed to avoid a Thursday meeting about a Tuesday meeting, which was to precede a meeting next week. I wrote something that kept the meeting from happening. I wrote it on spec last night. It was requested today. I blew it up and rewrote the thing, just to make a few points more carefully and clearly.
And then I wrote a document that, hopefully, will be of some help to my faculty colleagues. Our university does a wonderful job of building up support services and resources for the student body. And what is in the surrounding community is quite robust, as well.
The problem I have seen, on every campus I’ve worked on and probably the ones I attended, as well, is one of awareness. Not everyone knows about all of these programs. How could they? Why should they? So in each class I build a one-page document with some of the most important resources and share it with my students. Last semester I thought, I should share this with my colleagues, in case any of them would like to add to whatever they distribute. I did that earlier this week, and that led to a few people sharing what they share.
I began to think of synthesis. I said I would pull all of these together once the semester got under its own power and nothing needed my attention anymore.
Well, that’s silly, of course. Everything will always need our attention. So I just did the thing today. And what emerged was a three-page Google Doc full of campus and community resources. And maybe someone can make good use of them in the days ahead. Or maybe we can keep building the thing out in weeks and months to come, because, even at three pages, it is hardly complete.
So I wrote six useful pages before lunch. And then I had lunch. And late this afternoon I have built two more lectures. That means … hold on, I’m doing math.
…
…
Seriously, this takes a while …
… probably longer than one of those documents I wrote this morning …
I think approximately half of my semester’s course work is laid out.
Barring the unforeseen and small changes.
(This is the part I’ll keep repeating, if only to see the list grow smaller.) That should leave me only with grading the work of 93 people throughout the term, plus the 15 or 20 things I’ve planned to write, plus finishing two research projects, and three panel presentations. Plus committee work, my contract packet, whatever else pops up, and so on.
So I have some free time between now and early May, clearly. Obviously I volunteered to present guest lectures via Zoom in Minneapolis if a teacher somewhere needed it.
photo / Wednesday — Comments Off on Just us cool cats14 Jan 26
Let us begin with the most important part, and the most popular part of the site, our regular check-in with the kitties.
Just the other night, a blustery and chill evening with the wind whipping, when it wasn’t howling, and the house creaking when it wasn’t popping, we all curled up together on the sofa. When the four of us are in one spot it feels like a life raft scenario. Or, maybe, a dangerous one: the entire brain trust in one spot!
At least I know where everyone is, and that everyone is happy, and not locked up or somehow magically slipped outside. These are self-imposed concerns, but they cross my mind a few times a day. And more in these days when there is less going on.
Like there’s less going on. There is. There is less now, than there will be. And so I looked at our feet and looked and the drowsy cats and enjoyed the moment, and then went back to reading the news.
Poseidon had a nice afternoon in the sun. I wonder if they perceive the differences of time. Or is it too subtle. Maybe one day from the next is far too little, but do they get a sense of “These naps are longer than the ones I enjoyed several naps ago?” They say time is a construct, but shadows disagree, and so would a sunbathing cat, I would think.
Phoebe climbed up on my shoulder, which is something her brother normally does, and decided to take a nap there. Forgive the poor composition, but I was hunched over for critter comforts and balance, and trying to get both a book shelf and ceiling fan out of the background.
So the kitties are doing just fine, thanks for asking. They would like, however, some more cuddles. They’re routines are bafflingly precise, which is why I wonder about cats and the passing of time. And, if you’re good, you can do a lot in the seven minutes between their needy demands.
I am not that good.
Today I was asked to be in a meeting, tomorrow, about yesterday’s meeting. And another meeting next week. I demurred on the latter, and think I can miss the former. In lieu of that meeting I wrote a three-page document that detailed all of the things that I would have said, which were only slightly more specific than what I said yesterday.
I’m sure I’ll send it on tomorrow. I’m sure I’ll blow it up and re-write it beforehand.
Today I also cinched and locked one syllabus. Which is great! Class starts next week! I’m close to the other.
I get to a place where some part of me says, “Ya know, you’re just tinkering with this for the sake of it.” And then I spend another hour or so on it, and call it done. It isn’t the best writing process, but I fall into it sometimes.
This process does have one added benefit, that when I apply it to regular writing, as opposed to sectioned and portioned off things like a syllabus, I can look back on the product and say, confidently, “Yep, I edited that to within an inch of its life.”
And then I send off the edited-and-barely-still-standing document. And then I notice the typos.
I also built my two first slide decks of the new semester today. I’m wondering if I should do more.
I should do more.
Update: I would not do more. I came back by the office later, and noticed I’d left my light on, which has become code for Go back in there and do some work. But I don’t always.
But I should. I like the work and all.
And that part is best of all, because there will be more of it tomorrow.
