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I’d like to have him delivered for my birthday! All he needs is to be wrapped in a bow (or not).

46 🎂

On this day forty-six years ago, a scrawny, bald headed, and very pink baby boy was brought screaming into this world. I say screaming because apparently, I began crying shortly after I was born and that continued for the next year or so with little relief for my parents. It’s been suggested that I had migraines even back then, but I’m not going to think about that today. Today is a day of celebration. 🎉 

My birthday hasn’t been a big event for me in years for a number of reasons, and these days, I'm just happy to still be alive on this earth. I have to go to work this morning (I usually take my birthday off, as is a tradition with people at my museum), but I have a class to teach this morning, so I’m working until noon and then heading home. I’m also taking tomorrow as a vacation day. 

Other than possibly going to dinner with a friend tomorrow night, I probably won’t do anything special. Besides, I doubt anything will ever top my forty-second birthday in 2019. That year, I spent several days in Manhattan visiting my friend Susan. We had Thanksgiving dinner together, and for my birthday, she took me to see Chicago (a personal favorite of mine) on Broadway. It was no doubt the most special birthday I’ve ever had. 

That same trip, I got to see and actually go inside the famous/historic Stonewall Inn. 🏳️‍🌈 This photo is one of my favorites not only because Joe Coffee is on Gay Street, but Gay Street also crosses Christopher Street, where the Stonewall Inn is.

What has been your favorite birthday memory?

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Life’s a Beach

Yesterday, I asked my students how their Thanksgivings had been. One student told me she’d gone to Destin, Florida, which is one of my favorite beaches in Florida. Considering the fact that it’s 15 degrees F here in Vermont, and it’s 46 degrees in Destin, I wish I was at the beach today. I always loved the beach in cooler weather. It wasn’t so hot that the sugar white sands would burn your feet, it usually wasn’t crowded, and the waters were still their beautiful emerald green (Destin is part of an area known as Emerald Beach for a reason). Alas, all I get in Vermont is white snow, not white sands. Granted, with the current state of politics in Florida, I wouldn’t go there anyway, but maybe the beautiful beaches of the Mexican Riviera. There, it would even be warm. One can dream.

Pics of the Day

The Last Orgasm

The Last Orgasm

By Tobias Wray

 

Stars and people and daffodils won’t last forever.

Hands down, forever will succumb to a single sensation,

one last heaven, one last shudder     

lost voice carried over the winds of the body, the canyons

of the hands in a shower, snow or warm? Last ashes

of satisfaction dance above an open mouth, teeth like light

in an emptied room, the wet music of the tongue.

Somebody will find the edge to all of humanity’s joy, a flood,

a punctuation will flood her with its certainty,

or them, or us, all at once, and that lonely breach

will ripple through, on and out, with indefatigable atoms.

Those asking hands never to slow their speeding ship     

one last starry daffodil excess will blow its soft dunes,

that lost voice, back, over everything that ever came

before. Until emptied out. And if you slow, if you slowly reach

across your own body until you feel it, too, even now?

You can come to an end, even now. It lasts, wanting to.

 

About this Poem

 

“I often wonder about pleasure and how we talk about it, and about what happens in the silences beyond that is more alluring still. Those things are marked by the limits of our imagination, which it is the work of poetry to understand and expand. I wrote ‘The Last Orgasm’ in the spillover energy from a prose project on the sublime. In some ways, this poem serves as a meditation on the sublime edge between what we can witness and what we cannot bear to. It is also simply a love poem.”—Tobias Wray

 

About the Poet

 

Tobias Wray is a writer, teacher, and arts organizer.

 

Poems, reviews, and other writing appear widely in literary journals, including on Verse Daily, Poem-a-Day, Impossible Archetype, The Arkansas International, Hunger Mountain, and The Georgia Review. His work has also been anthologized in Queer Nature: A Poetry Anthology (Autumn House Press) and elsewhere.

 

An assistant professor at the University of Central Oklahoma where he directs UCO’s Creative Writing Programs, his interests range from experimental poetics to queer and speculative literatures to literary translation. He served as director of undergraduate and graduate creative writing programs at the University of Idaho until 2021. He was a poetry editor for Cream City Review and, until 2017, helped to coordinate Eat Local :: Read Local, a program that partners restaurants with poets from Milwaukee and Madison, Wisconsin.

 

He is a 2023 National Endowment for the Arts Fellow.

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Monday Morning

Today is the last day of my weeklong respite from work. I’ll have to go in tomorrow, but I’m off today because I have a dermatology appointment. I’m glad I have today off, but I wish I didn’t have to go anywhere. We received what looks like 6” of snow last night. Thankfully, it’s not the 9” predicted. As is usually the case in many things, 6” is much easier to take than 9”. Hopefully, the snow will get plowed soon, so it won’t be too difficult to travel. 

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Pain and Deliverance

You’ve kept track of my every toss and turn through the sleepless nights, each tear entered in your ledger, each ache written in your book.

— Psalm 56:8

 

I had a really bad migraine yesterday. As you know, having a migraine is not an uncommon occurrence for me. In fact, I’ve had one all week. I’ve been having migraine headaches all of my life (literally). Sometimes the pain is mild, sometimes severe. Yesterday’s migraine was a severe one. I have three medicines, Anaprox (550 mg naproxen), Amerge (naratriptan), and Vistaril (Hydroxyzine), that I can take all at once that usually will knock out the headache, but it also knocks me out of commission for at least 24 hours (my former neurologist said they did the same to her), so, I rarely take them in combination even though that’s how they are prescribed. I slept until 7 am this morning, which is why this post is being put up so late. I’m amazed Isabella let me sleep in this long. She tried to wake me, but she seemed to know when I was sick, and it was going to be a losing battle for her.

 

Thankfully, I was able to get out of bed in the morning with only a shadow migraine and without the nausea that often accompanies my worst headaches. Since it’s Sunday, I figured I’d see what the Bible says about migraines. I found some Psalms that offer a little guidance, though I do not believe anyone in biblical times understood migraines (see Hildegard of Bingen for a possible medieval view of migraines). They were probably thought to be demons within a person.

 

(Today, I will use a translation of the Bible called The Message, which is a translation of the Bible in contemporary English by Eugene H. Peterson. It can be quite a wonderful translation for understanding the Bible.)

 

Psalm 56 is David’s psalm asking God for deliverance from his enemies and his declaration of confidence that God will act to bring that deliverance. If you think of a migraine as a battle, this Psalm applies, and migraines are an intense battle. Psalm 56:8 says, “You’ve kept track of my every toss and turn through the sleepless nights, each tear entered in your ledger, each ache written in your book.” Yesterday, I hadn’t been running from enemies seeking to take my life as was David, nor was I lying awake crying out to God for deliverance from oppression or violence. But I was lying awake for quite a while last night trying to fall asleep, as I have many times before, asking God to bring deliverance from these headaches and sickness. Psalm 56:8 is one that can speak to someone with migraines. Every toss and turn I’ve made all these years, every sleepless night, every tear I’ve shed, every agonizing plea for God to heal and deliver; every headache, stomachache, nerve ache, and body ache—God knows, and God cares.

 

Think about this: God keeps track of our sufferings because it matters to him. He knows everything we’re going through and how it specifically and intimately affects us. Every physical, emotional, and spiritual misery we feel is laid out before him. He knows, and he cares. David knew this to be true. That’s why he can declare in verse 9 that “this I know, that God is for me.” Later in verse 11, he sings, “in God I trust; I shall not be afraid.”

 

The pain and misery I feel with my migraines may try to convince me that God has forsaken me. The pain and misery we feel may try to deceive us into thinking that we cannot always depend on God, but we cannot give in to those lies. God is always present, always aware, and always cares for what his people are going through. Because this is true of God, I can trust him as I continue to pray for healing. I can hold firm to his promise that he is for me and will bring me deliverance from the pain (whether physical, emotional, or spiritual) in my life. He will answer my plea. It may be today or next Tuesday or the day I stand before Him in heaven, but deliverance is coming—physical, emotional, and spiritual. So, when you find yourself tossing and turning, turn to God. When your tears flow, let Him collect them. When your aches become more than you can bear, cry out to God, who listens, cares, and answers. I have often done this, especially with the worst of my migraines, and while it may take strong medicines to give me relief, I know that, ultimately, that relief is because of God.

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Moment of Zen: Shopping

I love to go shopping (and people watching), especially when it’s not too crowded, I’d never go shopping on Black Friday, unless all of these guys were in the same store, then it might be worth it.

Leftovers

Like many others in the United States, I had leftovers from my Thanksgiving dinner yesterday. I ate all the cornbread dressing, but I did not eat all of the turkey. Most people seem to slice the turkey and make turkey sandwiches. I’m not one of them. When I have leftover turkey like I did yesterday, I prefer to make a soup. I love soups, and for me, it’s the best part of winter. I have my usual go to soups: Zuppa Toscano, chili, vegetable soup, Brunswick stew, beef stew, and tomato soup. However, my favorite recipe to make from leftover turkey is actually a Halloween recipe (I used to make this for a Halloween party each year) called Ghostly White Chili. It’s actually not a chili, it’s more of a spicy chicken and wild rice soup, but I’ve never tried to give it another name. So here’s the recipe:

 

Ghostly White Chili

 

Ingredients

• ½ tablespoon olive oil
• ½ tablespoon butter
• ½ medium onion, chopped
• 1 minced cloves garlic
• 1 ½ cups cubed cooked turkey
• 1 cups cooked wild rice
• ½ can Great Northern white beans
• ½ can white corn
• 1 cans diced chilis
• 3 cups chicken (or turkey) broth
• ½ teaspoon cumin powder
• dash of tabasco sauce to taste
• 3 ounces shredded Monterey Jack cheese

Preparation Steps

1. Sauté the onion and garlic in the butter and olive oil until soft.
2. Add the remaining ingredients except for the cheese and cook for 1 hour.
3. Place in individual bowls and garnish with cheese.

 

Note: I love white chili and the addition of wild rice makes this dish really special. For the Halloween part, make sure to tell your guests that it used to be normal chili, but it got so scared, it turned white. I prefer turkey in white chili, but cooked chicken can be used. You can also cook this in a slow cooker: 8 hours on low; 4 hours on high. In my opinion it is best if the wild rice fully opens and curls up.

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Happy Thanksgiving! 🦃

In the United States, Thanksgiving means different things to different people. For some, it’s about the food. For others, it’s about family and friends. The one thing it should be about is what we are thankful for. I am thankful for many things. I am thankful that Susan is in my life and is such an important person and a wonderful friend. I am thankful for my little furry companion, Isabella. I am thankful for all of my friends and blog readers. We may wish for some things to be different in our lives, but hopefully, we all also have much to be thankful for. On this Thanksgiving, wherever you are in this world, know that I am thankful for you.

 

This Thanksgiving, I will be cooking just for me. I have a small turkey breast to bake along with some Brussels sprouts. I am also going to make a pan of cornbread dressing. It is one of my favorite holiday dishes, and I thought I’d share the recipe with you. This recipe makes a big batch. I will use less than half of this for mine today since it will just be me.

 

First, you have to start with making the cornbread. This is a recipe for the cornbread I usually make, but I add in the spices that I need for the dressing: celery salt, onion powder, Cajun seasoning, freshly cracked black pepper, sage (or Bell's seasoning), and poultry seasoning (to make regular cornbread, omit those spices and just add in one teaspoon of salt). If you’d prefer to have celery and onions in your dressing, chop one to two stalks of celery and a small onion. I prefer for mine to have the taste of the vegetables, but I don’t like either of the vegetables cooked in my dressing. So, here’s the recipe for the cornbread:

 

Cornbread for Dressing

 

Prep Time: 7 min

Cook Time: 25-30 min

 

Ingredients

• 2 cups self-rising cornmeal mix (if you use plain cornmeal, add 2 tablespoons baking powder and one tsp salt)
• 1/2 cup self-rising flour (if you use plain flour, add 3/4 teaspoon baking powder and 1/8 teaspoon salt)
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1 3/4 cups buttermilk or regular milk (Start with 1 cup of liquid if you are using regular milk and add the rest as necessary)
• 1 teaspoon celery salt, or to taste
• 1 1/2 tsp onion powder
• 1/2 teaspoon of Cajun seasoning (like Slap Ya Mama), or to taste, optional
• 1/4 teaspoon of freshly cracked black pepper, or to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon of sage (or Bell's seasoning), or to taste, optional
• 1 teaspoon of poultry seasoning

Preparation Steps

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
2. Melt butter as the oven preheats in an 8" x 8" pan.
3. Add cornmeal, self-rising flour, and seasonings in a bowl and mix with a fork. Make a well in the center of the mixture for the butter and buttermilk.
4. Add the melted butter and buttermilk to the well.
5. Mix until combined.
6.  Grease the pan well so it does not stick. I spray the pan liberally with additional butter-flavored PAM. Pour batter into the baking pan.
7. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden and set.

Note: You can also mix in two beaten eggs to this recipe, but I have never liked eggs in my cornbread. Also, never, ever, add sugar, honey, or any other sweetener to this cornbread. If you like sweet cornbread, it's fine on its own, but you need a more savory cornbread for dressing.

 

Once the cornbread is done, let it cool enough to be able to handle it. I sometimes take leftover cornbread that I have frozen, thaw it out, and add the additional spices.

 

Cornbread Dressing

 

Servings: About 10 to 12 servings

Prep Time: 5 min

Cook Time: 45 min

 

Ingredients

• 6 cups of cooked, crumbled stale cornbread, as directed above (fresh is also fine)
• 1 cup of turkey gravy (canned is fine)
• 4 to 6 cups of turkey or chicken broth or stock, more or less

Preparation Steps

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9 x 13-inch pan and set aside.
2. Add the crumbled cornbread to a large bowl. Add the gravy and 2-4 cups of the stock. Taste and adjust seasonings.
3. Add more of the broth as needed, taking care not to make the dressing too soupy. The dressing should be the consistency of cooked oatmeal. Lightly spoon into the casserole dish, but do not pack down. Bake at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes. For moister stuffing, bake covered. For a drier stuffing with a crunchy top, bake uncovered.

Cook's Notes: Make cornbread a day or two ahead when possible and allow it to go stale. This dressing is also excellent with cooked turkey or chicken. Mix in about 2 cups of roughly shredded, cooked chicken or turkey before baking. Serve with gravy on top. My Grandmama used to add shredded chicken or turkey to hers, and it was especially delicious and could become a main dish instead of a side dish.

Make-Ahead Tip: While dressing is best when freshly assembled and baked, you may prep most of the ingredients ahead to save time. To prepare the entire dish ahead, assemble it all the way up to the baking stage the day before, using additional broth to make it more soupy, but don't bake it. Cover tightly and refrigerate. Any longer ahead than that freeze it. You'll need to allow for a day for it to thaw in the fridge before baking.

How to fix a too-dry or too-wet stuffing: If you find your stuffing is too dry, add additional warmed broth to it, stir well, and return to the oven, checking periodically. If the stuffing is overly wet and too gummy, cook it uncovered for a bit longer, checking periodically.

PS My leftover turkey is going to become a recipe for a special turkey “chili” that I love. Maybe I’ll post that recipe tomorrow, if anyone is interested. It’s more of a soup than a chili, but it is delicious. It calls for wild rice, which is impossible to find in New England. I had to order it special, and hopefully 🤞 it will come tomorrow.

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Snow

In the movie White Christmas, the main characters are on a train heading for Vermont, and they sing “Snow” by Irving Berlin:

Snow, snow, snow, snow, snow

It won't be long before we'll all be there with snow
Snow
I want to wash my hands, my face and hair with snow

Snow
I long to clear a path and lift a spade of snow
Snow
Oh, to see a great big man entirely made of snow

Where it's snowing
All winter through
That's where I want to be
Snowball throwing
That's what I'll do
How I'm longing to ski
Through the 

Snow
Those glist'ning houses that seem to be built of snow
Snow
Oh, to see a mountain covered with a quilt of snow

What is Christmas with no snow
No white Christmas with no snow
Snow

I'll soon be there with snow
I'll wash my hair with snow
And with a spade of snow
I'll build a man that's made of snow
I'd love to stay up with you but I recommend a little shuteye
Go to sleep
And dream
Of snow.

When they get to Vermont, there is no snow to be seen. If they arrived in Vermont today, they’d find plenty of snow. We got our first major snowfall last night. Where I live, we received 3-4” of snow. By the time I woke up, the snow had mainly stopped, and we were getting freezing rain. When the sun rises, that freezing rain is expected to turn into regular rain which is supposed to last for the rest of the morning.

I wish I could just stay in and enjoy the scenery, but I need to run to the grocery store. I hate grocery shopping the day before Thanksgiving, but I wasn’t able to do it yesterday. I was in the grocery store when I developed a terrible migraine, and I just went to check out with the few items I’d already picked up. My headache remained for tye rest of the day and night, and I woke up with it again this morning. However, I’m hoping that it will be better by the time they’ve plowed my parking lot, and I am able to go to the grocery store.

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A Thanksgiving Poem

A Thanksgiving Poem

By Paul Laurence Dunbar

 

The sun hath shed its kindly light,

   Our harvesting is gladly o’er

Our fields have felt no killing blight,

   Our bins are filled with goodly store.

 

From pestilence, fire, flood, and sword

   We have been spared by thy decree,

And now with humble hearts, O Lord,

   We come to pay our thanks to thee.

 

We feel that had our merits been

   The measure of thy gifts to us,

We erring children, born of sin,

   Might not now be rejoicing thus.

 

No deed of our hath brought us grace;

   When thou were nigh our sight was dull,

We hid in trembling from thy face,

   But thou, O God, wert merciful.

 

Thy mighty hand o’er all the land

   Hath still been open to bestow

Those blessings which our wants demand

   From heaven, whence all blessings flow.

 

Thou hast, with ever watchful eye,

   Looked down on us with holy care,

And from thy storehouse in the sky

   Hast scattered plenty everywhere.

 

Then lift we up our songs of praise

   To thee, O Father, good and kind;

To thee we consecrate our days;

   Be thine the temple of each mind.

 

With incense sweet our thanks ascend;

   Before thy works our powers pall;

Though we should strive years without end,

   We could not thank thee for them all.

 

 

About this Poem

 

“A Thanksgiving Poem” by Paul Laurence Dunbar is a heartfelt expression of gratitude and devotion to God. The poem rejoices in the bountiful harvest and acknowledges divine protection from calamities. It reflects on human imperfection and the recognition that their blessings are a result of God’s grace and mercy, not their merits. Dunbar emphasizes divine providence and the vastness of God’s blessings. The poem invokes feelings of reverence, awe, and gratitude, inspiring readers to embrace a spirit of thanksgiving and humility in the face of divine abundance.

 

 

About this Poet

Paul Laurence Dunbar, one of the first African American poets to gain national recognition, was born on June 27, 1872, in Dayton, Ohio. By the age of fourteen, Dunbar had poems published in the Dayton Herald. While attending Dayton Central High School, where he was the only student of color, Dunbar further distinguished himself by publishing in the high school newspaper, and then by serving as its editor-in-chief. He was also president of the school’s literary society and was class poet. In his free time, he read the works of the Romantic poets, including John Keats and William Wordsworth, as well as the works of the American poets John Greenleaf Whittier and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 

 

Later that year, Dunbar moved to Chicago, hoping to find work at the first World’s Fair. He befriended Frederick Douglass, who found him a job as a clerk, and also arranged for Dunbar to read a selection of his poems at the exposition. Douglass said of Dunbar that he was “the most promising young colored man in America.” By 1895, Dunbar’s poems began appearing in major national newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times. With the help of friends, he published his second collection, Majors and Minors (Hadley & Hadley, 1895). The poems that were written in standard English were called “majors,” while those in dialect were termed “minors.” Although the “major” poems outnumber those written in dialect, it was the dialect poems that brought Dunbar the most attention. The noted novelist and critic William Dean Howells gave a favorable review to the poems in Harper’s Weekly.

 

Howells’s recognition helped Dunbar gain national and international acclaim, and, in 1897, he embarked on a six-month reading tour of England. He also produced a new collection, Lyrics of Lowly Life (Dodd, Mead and Co., 1896). Upon returning to America, Dunbar received a clerkship at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Shortly thereafter, he married the writer Alice Ruth Moore. While living in Washington, Dunbar published a short story collection, Folks from Dixie (Dodd, Mead and Co., 1898); a novel entitled The Uncalled (Dodd, Mead and Co., 1898); and two more collections of poems—Lyrics of the Hearthside (Dodd, Mead and Co., 1899) and Poems of Cabin and Field (Dodd, Mead and Co., 1899). He also contributed lyrics to a number of musical reviews.

 

In 1898, Dunbar’s health deteriorated; he believed the dust in the library contributed to his tuberculosis. He left his job to dedicate himself full time to writing and giving readings. Over the next five years, he would produce three more novels and three short story collections. Dunbar separated from Alice Dunbar in 1902 and, soon thereafter, he suffered a nervous breakdown and a bout of pneumonia. Although ill, Dunbar continued to write poems. His collections from this time include Lyrics of Love and Laughter (Dodd, Mead and Co., 1903); Howdy, Howdy, Howdy (Dodd, Mead and Co., 1905); and Lyrics of Sunshine and Shadow (Dodd, Mead and Co., 1903). These books confirmed his position as America’s premier Black poet. Dunbar’s steadily deteriorating health caused him to return to his mother’s home in Dayton, Ohio, where he died on February 9, 1906, at the age of thirty-three.

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Monday

I’m only working on Monday this week. We have Wednesday through Friday off for Thanksgiving, and tomorrow, I’m off to go to the DMV to renew my driver’s license. My birthday is coming up next week, and I have to get a new picture done to renew my license this time.

Giving Thanks

 

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

—1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

 

The Thanksgiving holiday in the United States is on a Thursday. A lot of people see the holiday in terms of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, turkey and all the good food that comes with it, or football. However, even if that’s the case, remember that it is a holiday to give thanks. When is it easiest to be thankful? The answer is usually when things are going well. While it might be easier to praise and thank God when you are most happy and comfortable, it is just as important, if not more important, to thank Him in the midst of trials.

 

In 1 Thessalonians, Paul tells the church at Thessalonica to rejoice always and give thanks in all circumstances. This can be hard to do, especially when things aren’t going well. So why do we have to give thanks? Why can’t we give in to cynicism and thanklessness? Because God calls us to a life of continual thankfulness. It is God’s will that we give thanks. This is not to say we need to be always smiling. Sometimes things in life are bad, and we should mourn or be upset, but it is in these moments that God asks us to thank Him anyway. Philippians 4:6 tells us, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.” The trials in our lives are not pointless. God has a purpose for everything, even the bad. We might not be able to see the good, but God can see the whole picture, and we can gain hope in knowing that our suffering is not in vain, but rather, part of God’s greater purpose.

 

Colossians 3:17 says, “And whatever you do whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” No matter how we feel at any given moment, we are still in control of what we say and do, and we should use this opportunity to point our lives back to God. A defining characteristic of a Christian is how he or she responds to trials. By finding the good in the bad and giving thanks despite the negative circumstances, Christians set themselves apart from the rest of the world while simultaneously lifting their own spirits by fixing their eyes on God instead of on the world.

 

So, this Thanksgiving, whether you see the blessing abounding in your life or you are struggling to find anything to be thankful for, look to God. He blesses us with grace and salvation and wants us to praise be thankful for being a child of God and trusting Him and His purpose for our lives now and forever.

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He sleeps in an odd position. I wonder if he’s part cat.

Moment of Zen: Outdoor Showers

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TGIF

I am so glad that it’s Friday. For the past two days, I’ve had a really bad migraine. The weather has suddenly “warmed up,” and I think the change in temperature has triggered my migraine. I had to go home early from work both days, so I’m particularly glad that today is a work from home day. Thankfully, my headache seems better this morning, and I hope that will continue. I’m also glad that I don’t have a lot of work to do today. 

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Early Day

Whether Isabella wakes me up at 4:00 am or 4:30 am doesn’t really matter that much. I can rarely sleep past 5:00 am anyway. It seems to be only the days when I want to wake up early and get moving that I seem to always sleep a little later and am moving very slowly when I do get out of bed. Of course, Isabella doesn’t allow me to move too slowly because as soon as she sees me sit on the side of the bed, she’s ready to have her wet food in her bowl. She can be very impatient.

Today (I’m actually writing this before I went to sleep last night), I’m hoping is a day that I will wake up early and get moving. I teach on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, and I like to get up and go over my lecture before class. I usually go over the first part while I’m eating breakfast, and then, I do my best to get to work early so I have some quiet time at work before anyone arrives to finish going over my notes and get ready for class. 

Teaching this class has been a lot of work this semester because I’m teaching something I’ve never taught before, so there are no previous lecture notes or anything else to make things easier. I only have a few more weeks of class, and I know I’ll miss teaching when this semester is over. I realized years ago that I did not want to teach full time, and usually the classes I teach for other professors let me still be in the classroom some. 

I really do love teaching and getting to know my students. When I teach for other professors, I get to see the students for one or two classes, and that’s it. Having a full semester with the same group of students has been nice. I hope that I will be teaching at least one class every academic year, but we’ll see if that happens. The extra money is nice too. It’s been a lot work, long days and early mornings preparing for this class, but it really has been a joy teaching this semester. I’ve had a great group of students, and that always makes a huge difference.

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At a Loss 🤷🏻

I’m at a loss for what to write today. Not much new is going on. I’m just back in my usual daily routine. Oh well, sometimes there’s just nothing to say. At least the week is half over.

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Mending Wall

Mending Wall

By Robert Frost

 

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun;

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it

Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offense.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,

But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather

He said it for himself. I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me,

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father's saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'

 

 

About this Poem

 

We might interpret this piece of family wisdom as meaning: having clear boundaries between ourselves and others leads to healthy relationships between neighbors because they won’t fall out over petty territorial disputes or ‘invading each other’s space’. For instance, we may like our neighbors, but we don’t want to wake up and draw the curtains to find them dancing naked on our front lawn. (Although, that’s according to who your neighbor is. I’ve had a few that I wouldn’t mind dancing naked in my yard.) There are limits. Respecting each other’s boundaries helps to keep things civil and amicable. However, does this mean that Frost himself approves of such a notion?

 

“Mending Wall” is frequently misinterpreted, as Frost himself observed in 1962, shortly before his death. “People are frequently misunderstanding it or misinterpreting it.” But he went on to remark, “The secret of what it means I keep,” which doesn’t really clear up the matter. However, we can analyze “Mending Wall” as a poem contrasting two approaches to life and human relationships: the approach embodied by he speaker of his poem and the approach represented by his neighbor. It is the neighbor, rather than the poem’s speaker, who insists: “Good fences make good neighbors.” The phrase has become like another of Frost’s sentiments: “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, / I took the one less travelled by.” This statement, from “The Road Not Taken,” is often misinterpreted because readers assume Frost is proudly asserting his individualism, whereas in fact, the lines are filled with regret over “what might have been.”

 

“Good fences make good neighbors” is actually more straightforward: people misinterpret the meaning of this line because they misattribute the statement to Frost himself, rather than to the neighbor with whom the speaker disagrees. As the first line of the poem has it, “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall”: this, spoken by the poem’s speaker, clearly indicates that Frost does not agree with the view that “good fences make [for] good neighbors.”

 

It is also worth noting that this line, “Good fences make good neighbors” did not originate with Frost: it is first found in the Western Christian Advocate (13 June 1834), as noted in The Yale Book of Quotations.

Pic of the Day

Sick Day

I’m still feeling crappy. I felt better yesterday than I did on Saturday, but I’m still not feeling 100 percent (or even 75 percent). I’m going to stay home today and continue to rest and keep hydrated. For several different reasons, I have to go back to work tomorrow, so I hope more rest and some cold medicine will help me feel better before tomorrow morning. But, for today, I plan on keeping comfortable on my couch.

Pic of the Day