Found in my phone...

...words I had texted to myself, that were spoken by an aging bartender at a bar in the south of the city, I believe the one that locals had warned us against because they didn't turn over enough beer and had weird skunky taplines:

"Back when the mills was working, this place was hopping round the clock, round the clock...  Them days is gone."

. . .

Yet another mundane dream of death and decay.

The other week I dreamt that I opened up the vegetable drawer in my refrigerator to use a head of Romaine-looking lettuce that I had boughten like 7-10 days before, and when I pulled it out of the plastic bag that I had stuck in the refrigerator, I noticed that a fine gray mold was growing here and there among its otherwise relatively crisp leaves.

Texts about my one friend's baby.

My one friend from high school who runs an integrated homelessness/domestic violence shelter's daughter had been teething and keeping her up a few weeks ago, so the other week I sent her a text to see what was up w/that, and she said her daughter had been over it, but was back teething now like mad even though she only had 2 teeth to show for it, and was crawling everywhere and getting into everything and was saying "dadda" a lot.

I then texted her back something to the effect of -

"dadda"?! wtf?  patriarchy gets them young.  doesn't she see who's doing all the work?

- to which my one friend responded back w/"lol" or something like that.

I then texted back again, that I hoped her next words were "equal pay for equal work", to which my friend responded -

The other day I swear she told me "my body my choice" When I said it was time to change her diaper

- to which  I wrote back if she had been sleep-deprived etc., and what the heck happened where she could have thought that.

Then, my friend wrote back -

Dude...  She only says Dadda

. . .

Drugstore positivity.

The other day I popped into the drugstore to get some chocolate bars (they always have good sales on chocolate, and keep bars in my freezer so I can break off pieces for dessert if I feel like it).

When I was checking out, in response to my asking him how he was doing, the older, kind of spacey and smiling (white) guy said he was "happy to be alive", and when I asked further, he said that he loved his job since he could spread positive energy, and what you give out into the universe, you get back.

Odd classroom behavior...

I've seen some odd classroom behavior this year among students, esp. freshpersons in my classes:

- 2 (female) students going up to a (female) prof w/designer clothing and loudly complimenting her on it after class.

- In class, 2 (female) students mentioning unpaid internships and study abroad trips - that they took in high school!

- In section, students not bringing the requested 7 hard copies of the handouts that they had prepared, instead assuming everyone would have a laptop or an iPhone on which to read it.

And this is above and beyond the bourgeois culinary aesthetism of the restaurant reviews in the campus newspaper!

The other week I gently brought up how cumulatively these could make students w/o $ feel like they didn't belong, 1st getting into how respect for persons who are different underpins a vital academic community, and then segueing into how they might feel uncomfortable and how expecting iPhones/laptops puts a price of $260-700 a year on simple academic participation w/peers.

I also gently suggested to be very conscious of how actions including comments could affect people, and that if someone were to bring up travel experiences since they were germane, for example, to preface them with something simple like, "I had the good fortune to travel to..."

I wonder what the students think of that.

Afterwards, I segued into the ethics of discussing sex in class, esp. focusing on the Northwestern University fucksaw incident as a story with which to tease apart delicate issues of what's appropriate in the classroom and why.

"Why do we need a thought experiment when we have real life," I told the kids.

Three great texts:

1) From my one (light-skinned black) friend from Arkansas, on Valentine's Day:

Be my valentine?  Haha - hope youre doin well wherever you are,[my name]!!!

2) From my one professor friend who studies modern Czech literature, in a crack about her being able to be a human shield for me:

I, as you know, am large so I will cover your front and back.

3)  Another from my one professor friend who studies modern Czech literature, in response to my asking her perspective on freshpersons not knowing the novels "The Education of Henry Adams" or "Seven Years Before the Mast":

Well, I'm wondering what they know in place of this.  Or do they have just empty spaces.

. . .  

Addendum addendum.

Also also, instead of focusing on how little dissertation work I've gotten done that week b/c I have to work so much just to make ends barely meet, I focus on pleasant things, like my bike rides or walks on errands, or all the wonderful people I've met in bars that week.