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I made it through Yule and Christmas. Just New Years to go. This part is usually the worst, though, so I'm feeling fairly confident in myself.

It really really helps to have family nearby. Seeing my sister, BIL, and niece several times during this holiday season is priceless in my emotional balance! Wish I'd been able to see my dad too, but I have to think that seeing him on Thanksgiving was sufficient for now.

Today and tomorrow: movies, movies, food, friends, and lettuce. Planting lettuce, that is...time to put in the second crop and hope that I haven't miscalculated...the first crop went ZOWIE and I have more buttercrunch and arugula than I know what to do with.

Peace, my very dears. You are all precious to me and I am so glad for you.

Oh, you guys. We are all a nation traumatized by 45. The trauma is a real, tangible thing, and the physical effects of psychological abuse like this are also real, tangible things. Imagine how much this seeping poisoning of our atmosphere is affecting your breathing, your cortisone levels, your drinking habits, your sleep patterns, your cognition, your reactions.

So, I made space. I stopped my Pilates class after two plus years of awesome. I'm glad I did it and I was a good teacher--and on some days I was a great teacher--and I'm glad to be moving on. I don't remember what Sunday mornings used to be, but I'm pretty sure they were full of lazy breakfasts and walks on the beach. In fact, I now realize that part of the reason I stopped the class was my thinking that I might get to spend some extra time with my husband.

There are stresses here. Most are minor, but underlying the surface tensions, which are basically about as important as a tube of toothpaste, are one or two problems that are getting bigger. One came about after an insane weekend in which he found a house he wanted to buy, put down a deposit on it, secured a pre-approved mortgage, and then--because I HAD NOT SEEN IT--took me to see it. I was out of town at my dad's when this all blew up, and I was angry because we'd agreed to hold off on house hunting until spring, and I didn't realize the test that was in front of me. I got home and we went to see it. It was a wonderful house, spacious and beautiful, with a LOT going for it. It also had a smaller kitchen than the one I have now. I'm not paying $300K for a house I have to do major work on before moving in. I vetoed the purchase. D appeared to be fine with it. And he wasn't. Turns out he REALLY wanted this house and knew he didn't have time to tell me everything he was thinking (which would have probably changed my mind) and had assumed I would trust him and agree to buy it. It took weeks before he could talk about it with me and reveal the depths of his disappointment in me and my lack of trust in his decisions.

We're working on that. I still don't understand why he kept looking when we'd agreed to STOP looking until spring.

He's spending less and less time here. I see him in the mornings, before work, but he's spent the last five weekends working on the cars. That means he isn't here. (This is partly why he wanted the house: the huge garage.) He comes home late. If I didn't know him better, I'd say he was avoiding being home.

I've asked him a couple of times if that's the case. He always says no. He always says he'd rather be here than anywhere else. It sounds like he means it.

I dunno, guys. We're on Year 11 of marriage now, with 15 years total behind us. Is this how it works?

So a few weeks ago, I got a fairly personalized invitation from our President (no, not 45) for today, a midday retreat (conveniently eating the best part of my last day to prep for class). In it, she references needing an expanded body of faculty input about the future of the school. Thirty of us gathered yesterday, thirty more today. She did not come out and say that our Faculty Senate's stance is irritating her, but I've been here long enough to know what lines to read between.

Shortly after the invitations went out, a Super Sekrit FB group got set up, and I was added, and lo, there was great unrest in the land, because the traditional "voices" in what we do here--our Faculty Senate--have been excluded from this invitation. In fact none of the typical voices have been invited to give input. Paranoia rose like a snake and transformed itself, because lo, all the ones who had been excluded have joined the Super Sekrit FB Group and are speaking out about how deeply inappropriate, nay threatening to shared governance, this meeting is. I can't tell if they're butt hurt or legitimately worried by the President openly seeking input from faculty traditionally not empowered to give it. I said in the FB group, before the echo chamber of paranoia drowned me out, that perhaps it wasn't a bad thing to seek input from multiple constituents. Senate doesn't always represent me, after all. (The response to this was that I ought to be running for Senate.)

After three days or so of hand wringing, outrage, tales of impending woe, and silence from a number of us I trust, the Senate Chair, who had been more outraged than anyone else that Senate was being bypassed, wrote reassuringly to we who are going to this gig. She asked us to go in with an open mind.

Oh FFS. YOU are telling ME to go in with an open mind? When you just wrote paragraphs about how Senate is the recognized voice of the faculty and this meeting today not only undermines but subverts shared governance? Puh-lease.

Academic politics. I truly hate the adversarial stance the Senate has taken over the last five years and I wouldn't join it if you paid me. That is some toxic shit right there. No wonder the President is looking for other input. I look at this meeting as a) a waste of my time, b) a waste of my time, and c) a waste of my time. I guess I didn't have to say I'd go to this thing but I'm hoping that the others like me, neither fish nor fowl, will also be there.

Maybe I'll have someone to sit with.

I must keep writing or I will stop. Or maybe I'll continue being stopped. What's the right word here, anyway?

A few things of interest have happened (other than open treason from the sitting president of the US). I've agreed to take on additional responsibilities at campus, which is a decision I fought for a long time because the timing was just not right and the offer was for WAY too much work. But I think the continuous discussions--which started spring of 17--have been good for the administration as well as me to come to an agreement. So that's good. Assuming all the other small pieces fall into place, I should take up these new duties starting fall semester.

I'm determined to work in my small way to get racial and social justice in my courses, so for my grammar course, I've incorporated a section on AAVE as part of a bigger discussion about why grammar matters in the real world: because people will use it to judge other people. Being able to code switch and understanding the effects...should be useful for every student in my class. Watching the star witness testimony in the George Zimmerman murder trial (and more painfully, reading the comments on those videos) was eye opening--yes, she isn't well educated, but the level of racist bullshit and outright hate that got thrown at her for speaking the way she was speaking...shocking. If she'd been able to code switch, it's possible that Zimmerman would be in jail.

In my other course, I'm developing a section on how to speak across differences--and making a big point out of the difference between dialogue and debate. Their major assignment will be to produce a pamphlet that people can use to guide careful and open dialogue about politics (obviously) but not just about politics.

I'm also feeling deepening depression. In the course of my reading about serotonin I started thinking about dopamine and studying the ways neurotransmitters work their way along the pathways. After a lot of thinking and reading, I realized that my dopamine levels are undoubtedly low, most likely because I'm not getting a lot of the things that make me feel rewarded, happy, and so forth: music and dancing. (That oversimplifies the equation but it's still valid.) So I've begun listening to upbeat music more, which makes me want to dance, so I do...and for a few days now I've woken up feeling better about the world and not wanting to escape so much. So that's good...and of course, dancing around the house will hopefully lead to more dancing in the real world. Hard to do that when my usual dance partner is working 80 hours a week but whatever. Gotta be upbeat about it. Also, getting more massages will help my dopamine level. Gosh, that's a shame. Really.

Eh, nothing much I guess. Not quite a waste of bytes, maybe.

I've spent the summer traveling here and there, short and long trips, several times to my dad's place, and now, with almost the last trip of the summer starting tomorrow, I'm ready for a vacay. Off to the warm green waters of the Gulf of Mexico!

Well, the semester of teaching is over, and I'm almost done with all the post-semester writing of reports. So that's all good. I hope the course evaluations bear out the remarkable honor I was awarded on Saturday at Commencement--the University's highest teaching award. Talk about a surprise! (During the presentation speech, which keeps the winner a secret for as long as possible, one of the student accolades was "I never walked out of her class feeling like I'd wasted an hour of my life." I leaned over to my colleague Greg and said, "That's a pretty low bar!" Ha ha, joke on me.) It is a really big recognition and I'm genuinely humbled and surprised by it.

I have wound up most of my work--not all of it but most of it--and am now in the liminal space where I am both supercharged to get some writing done and so ass-draggingly tired I just want to lie around and roam through Netflix. But I do have to write. I'm going to get one more article out there and published, or at least in revise/resubmit, and then I'll feel good going into this academic year with one more checkbox of publication under my belt. Promotion will bring one more boost to the income and then I'll be set to retire when I'm good and ready, which will be the moment I'm eligible.

We're starting the process of looking around for a second home. Not leaving the beach, but thinking about alternatives. I'm not keen on having to evacuate two years in a row for hurricanes, and some place inland would be much better protection. I will need, within a couple of years, a space big enough to house my father's baby grand piano. My husband would love a place with enough garage space to bring home the hot rods...and I am pretty sick of paying for storage for the hot rods every month! So. Minimum requirements: pool, fireplace, tile floors, 3 car garage, big kitchen. Lots of storage. Just getting these items means probably a 3/2 or more. Sigh. I worry about the money, but he assures me we'll be okay. Live there for 10-15 years and then, when we're starting to think about a simpler life, move back to the beach? We'll see. That's the plan.

Lots of traveling this summer. New Mexico for a week of desperately needed, soul refreshing pinon air and high desert. Vermont every few weeks to spend time with my dad. A trip to the Gulf side for a much needed get away with D. For once, no conferences...but two this upcoming fall.

Personal goals this summer: get fit again. That's it, really. Three years out of the game and I'm sick of myself. Dancing, walking, cutting back on sugar and wine, adding more protein and water...time to get back into training.

Hugs to those who need them. Isn't that all of us, really?

Oh, you guys. Remember my dear friend Tim? Who got married, then it all fell apart? (Not even due to the fact that his husband was a goddam pedophile, already on probation and now at risk for going back to prison for sexual activity on a 15 year old...) Tim had a psychotic break, landed in the hospital after drinking toilet cleaner, was on lockdown, then released to the streets, and finally taken in by the husband's ex wife (are you following all this?). He seems happy and stable with Catherine's company--he cleans, she cooks, it's a win win.

So he's on all these lists of places to move to once housing becomes available. And I'm watching him get less and less able to make decisions (to the point that when a one bedroom became available, and they let him know, he utterly froze and was begging me to tell him what to do. I refused, gently, but damn...). And he texted me 911!!! one day...before I could see the message, he'd also texted three more times: "Not kidding! Really important! Call me!" and then "Doing okay?" and then "How's D? Everything good with him?" Like, this is obviously not an emergency, my love.

All this is backstory to provide context for my utter consternation when he said to me, right out of the fucking blue, "So, how much does it cost to get from where I am to where you are?" So we talked airplane costs, blah di blah, and I say to him, "this is really a terrible summer to visit, hon. I'm traveling a lot, I've got a few major projects, I will be spending a lot of time at my dad's place..." and he's all "I don't care! I don't care if it's just for a weekend, I want to see you, meet your husband, see your house..." and my reaction is, frankly, oh HELL no, because if he comes here, he will not leave. Ever. And you know I adore him, but oh no, hell no.

What would YOU say to him? I have every intention of noping right the hell out of this situation, but I'm interested in how your minds work...

Earlier this afternoon, I went into the bedroom to start folding laundry, and as I looked out the window (as I always do, hoping out of habit to see our box turtle Tina) I saw...two people on the sidewalk looking at me, smiling. I was momentarily freaked out and then realized they weren't looking at me. They were smiling at the various concrete critters among the plants. From their vantage point, they could see the elephant fountain tucked near the gardenia bush, the 30 pound loggerhead turtle hiding among the leaves of the enormous crinum lily, and the seagull peeking out from under the seagrape tree. I'm so glad someone else finds joy in my choices!

I've been battling a particular committee assignment for this entire year, wanting very much to do the work and do it well but NOT liking at all the way I was assigned to the gig. (Brief backstory: I was offered this work as an actual shift in my contract, compensation included, in April...and two weeks later was told that the Provost had decided to go in another direction. I was heartbroken and pissed, even more so when I saw that that says about the office that makes those decisions. THEN I was, without consultation or warning, put in charge of a committee that didn't yet exist, charged with the same task writ even larger, and given a team but no compensation.) After almost six months of thinking, listening, studying, talking...I spent Thursday putting together a report with recommendations, graphics (because our Provost gets off on visuals), and two appendices. I was then useless for the rest of the day and my brain finally kicked back in late this afternoon, but hey---I did a good job. I showed the draft print to D and he actually raised his eyebrows, he was so impressed. :) That's always nice.

I am now pondering how the hell to end the report, since one of the recommendations I need to include is what to do with my committee next year. They've been champs this whole time, and I hate to commit them to another year of this without proper compensation, but on the other hand, we are very well suited, the five of us, to doing this work. I'll obviously ask them but I'm the chair, so it has to be my call. Ugh. NOT TO MENTION that if we keep doing this work, I will almost certainly end up in the position I was originally offered, the one that was then pulled out from under me. UGH. Not the way I want to do this.

Stuff has been happening at my dad's place in Vermont, with my stepmom's slow slide into Alzheimer's now creating what I think are some related issues of muscle control and balance. Basically, she's been unable to stand on her own for several days, and my physically lightweight dad has been tasked with getting her out of wheelchairs, into bed or bathroom, and so forth. He can't get her up if she falls right to the floor, though. Plus, his own balance is not so great and sooner or later they will crash to the floor together. So incredibly worrying and I wish to goodness I had some magical power to resolve the situation. Her disease has stolen so much joy from HIS life that I worry. As one does. There's a window, there, when he will be unable to manage but also unable to see any other options, and I'm hoping that soon, he will be able to identify some choices.

So tonight there's a pow-wow with my brother, and he sounds serious. As he should. I think he thinks I'm not prepared to help or to understand, but of course I've been up there often enough to know what's happening. I'm not blind, and I've been doing my research, and I have all kinds of investment in Dad's situation. His love for Dad translates to assuming he's Dad's only protector, so I'm hoping that he can share this with me, at least, if not my sister as well.

I'm finishing spring break as I usually do: one or two vigorous days of exercise, two or three days of casual garden work, some reading and TV, and more wine than usual. But not as MUCH more wine as usual, and somehow, in the last week or so, I've lost a few pounds. At least, my jeans are loosening up. Odd. The only thing that was really different was making a very serious effort to drink about a gallon of water a day. I managed it three days. Could that really have made a difference? Maybe.

My husband is off to the back of beyond again on Monday, and this time he's gone until April 17. SIGH. It's a long time. On the upside, this time, I am better prepared for the length of time and I intend to take full advantage. My meditation practice deepened significantly this week during break, and I want to let that continue. I'm going to get at least two solid weekends of work in on the back yard projects. And I will watch movies. YES.

A Wrinkle in Time
Blank Panther
The Post
Annihilation
Shape of Water (maybe...)

Ready for escape, anyway. Movies, new books, rewatching ST Discovery (which, if you were not watching, you SHOULD BE--it is stunningly good), yoga, meditation...

All good. How are you?

Hugs to those wot needs 'em!

It's been a month, or so, and as I look back I see that I'm writing less and less often, for fewer and fewer entries, and bleah. That's not what I intended. When I started writing at DreamWidth and cross posting to LJ, I immediately stopped posting as much, but that coincided with the mass exodus from LJ, and the already declining engagement there is not being helped by my move to DW. So that kind of sucks.

But it isn't really about the tech. I'm just boring. I mean, not boring, but most of what I'm doing is stuff like thinking hard about the programs I'm working on, the committee work, the ongoing slow but profound changes as a result of dedicated meditation, and so forth. There's no social life to speak of, not that that's a bad thing--who has time? I miss dancing a lot, but apparently not enough to start taking re-entry more seriously. D and I are buzzing along cheerfully and his trips overseas will continue, but there's nothing there that I can write about since it's all Top Seekrit. I'm just boring. Soooo boring.

I'm hoping this is a phase. I'm hoping that the deep inner work will start to manifest outwardly. Maybe then I'll have more to say, more to do and report on, more interesting questions or material to generate response.

But I never had a huge following here anyhow, and only two people currently comment. Has everyone gone to Facebook or Twitter? How are you getting your "write at length" fix, which FB and Twitter don't really encourage?

Urgh.

Trying to wind up the year (heh, initially typed "wine") and reflect. Studying Buddhism this year--a serious start on studying yoga as a discipline that involves more than poses and breathing--reminds me that all I ever experience is change. It just looks like something else at the time.

That's probably a good insight to take away from the year that's nearly over.

Last year I said to you all, "My 2017 wish for all of my LJ loves: a year in which your worst nightmares are not realized. A year in which you experience a sharp and unexpected joy. A year in which hugs are common and hearts are open." I know I had more hugs this year than I could have imagined. I did experience sharp and unexpected joy. My heart remained open. And although I spent the year in the psychic political hellbrew of gaslighting, fury, and helplessness, the absolute worst has not, actually happened. Although it still looms. :)

My Favorite Things from 2017:

--bought me a shiny new Honda, sparkly diamond white.
--finally reconciling with my goddam body. Almost 3 years after back surgery and 8 months after physical therapy, I got (and got through) cancer, so...I'm ready to dance again.
--the occasion of my tenth wedding anniversary, which we didn't actually celebrate because this year has been a train wreck
--a whole lotta family time. Parents, inlaws, stepkids, nieces, and a bunch of cousins.
--getting an article accepted in a special collection
--meditation instruction certification YES
--keeping my self-growth promises to myself
--the discovery of a fierceness, a late arrival to my personal party but one I have missed for a few years
--the realization (long simmering) that when I hit my earliest retirement age, I'm done. So. Done.

My Worst Nightmare of 2017:

--not breast cancer
--not my husband in harm's way for weeks at a time in a foreign country
You know what it was. I'm sure it was the same item for everyone else. The lunatic petulant child in the Oval Office caused hell for 99% of the American people. Get him out.

My wishes for us all, in 2018: enough resilience to get us through tough times. Let us, in other words, be the spark that starts the fires of revolution.

Hugs to you, every one of you.

So much going on. My meditation in the mornings is increasingly difficult in the concentration element since there is SO. MUCH. GOING. ON that my concentration is just in ribbons. Good for practicing mindfulness but not particularly peaceful to process all this.

So, huge emotional issue: my dear friend Tim has been released from the hospital and taken to a homeless shelter. Here, he is now automatically in the system that Washington state has for those about to fall through the cracks: he'll have access to counseling, housing, transportation, medical treatment, and food, All that is good. It's just that it's taking a while, of course, and meanwhile he's, like, living in a homeless shelter. It's a little dehumanizing. I just hope he doesn't walk out of it. And I hope to god he starts counseling soon, because in my phone calls with him he is incredibly, deeply angry and hostile at his ex for what Tim sees as abandoning him. He's angry at the world, too, for not helping him. "Nobody's helping me," he said to me with fierce bitterness, and it was all I could do not to say "Honey, EVERYONE is helping you." And they are. Friends have stopped his former landlord from selling his belongings; friends have packed up things; friends have secured a storage unit and put things in there; friends have taken him here, there, and everywhere for visits to doctors; friends have brought him items he's requested. He's the victim, he thinks. Classic alcoholic thinking but I am not saying any of this to him. My role here is to be a sounding board and a shoulder until he gets a residence somewhere and can start therapy.

Work: I do not know how I will do this in spring semester, when I'm teaching two new preps and a trailer class of developmental writers (who will have failed not because they can't write but because they don't turn in their work). In the spring, I'll be teaching, leading this hot shot new committee, and rolling out a number of things in the writing program. I'm barely keeping up now...and I'm teaching only two small classes! Sigh. But onward.

Family: my brother and SIL have moved. Again. This time to Connecticut. Lord, I do not know how they keep doing this. They're experts by now, but seriously, they've moved about 8 times in 10 years, and I just do not know how they keep doing it. This time, though, they moved to be closer to my dad, and even if Dad's days in the Vermont house are numbered, they'll still be closer to him geographically, so it's all good. I miss them, even though I barely saw them while they were here.

I've spent the last three days recovering from a major muscle pull last Sunday, and today I'm approaching normal, finally. Three nights of wine and hot tub for the win! Seriously, too much wine. But also exercises, stretches, ice packs, and ibuprofen...and today I'm mostly functional.

Bleah. Tired.