Waking Myself Up

On the stereo: Funk Essentials

It’s 6:30 AM (or ‘six AM in the morning’ as they say around here). I’ve been up since 5 but not quite awake.

Sometimes, in the mornings, I just have to turn the music up to 11. Today, it’s the Funk Essentials playlist from iTunes. The coffee hasn’t arrived yet, but I’m awake enough to get my mind typing. James Brown’s ‘The Payback’ is playing right now, and I suspect that the never-ending loop of ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat’ stuck in my husband’s head has been derailed. Let’s hear it for the downbeat!

In the cup: Zambian coffee

The coffee’s just about ready. The coffee du jour is the bottom of the Zambian beans we got at the local cafe. It’s an interesting coffee with notes of bitter chocolate and something berry.

On the docket: Trying to motivate

The problem with writing so close to the beginning of school is that I want to soak up every drop of leisure I have left — and I have less than a week of it. I’m not that enamored of what I’ve started right now, and I have Canva advertising to play with. Ideally, I should get two hours writing today. Or even an hour. And it’s not speaking to me.

Maybe I need motivation.

Or a vacation.

Back from my Break

Upon our return

My husband and I arrived to four cats with varying demeanors: the Little Girl (Chloe) throwing herself at me, Chuckie wandering around in circles, Me-Me appearing and creeping off to sulk again, and Girlie-Girl saying “meh”. Cats don’t take kindly to change, it seems, and these four are no exception.

Then time to unpack and rest. I tend to rest heavily when I get back from a vacation, being one of those people who need a vacation from their vacation. Maybe I’m not much different than the cats.

This morning

What I see at my work station in the living room

The cats are back to normal — as normal as they’ll ever be. It’s a lot like having four space aliens living in the house thinking things that won’t make sense to humans. Unless it’s “food”, “pet me”, or the like.

I’m sitting in my usual place, on the loveseat at a computer desk. This is where I write my blog, do work, surf the internet, etc.

We’re drinking morning coffee listening to Herb Alpert, a staple from my childhood. (Richard lets me control the music because he says I’ve been exposed to more types of music. I would argue that I’m more adventurous — hey, here’s some Icelandic metal music!)

I’m still relaxed. That massage really helped. So did getting out without a face mask (US guidelines: no longer needed if vaccinated). Getting out in general. No longer feeling trapped. Feeling normal.

Now I have to appreciate what’s been given back to me.

Now a word from you:

What is the activity you have done/will do when you are off lockdown, free of COVID, able to travel again? Tell me in the comments.

My One-Day Spring Break

I’m having trouble waking up this morning, probably because this is my long-awaited Spring Break. Yes, my long-awaited one day of Spring Break.

What am I going to do with it? Edit Reclaiming the Balance. Look longingly at a picture of the beach. Nap, apparently. Drink coffee. Possibly make another couple submissions of short story stuff on Submittable. Take a nice long bath and put on a face mask.

But I will not work.

I will not answer a single student email all weekend.

This is my Spring break, and if I cannot have a spa weekend/writing retreat, I will make it a retreat at home.

The Relief

I finally have a break! I’m tearing up with gratitude.

This has been the most exhausting semester I’ve ever had. Not necessarily the hardest, although teaching both live and on Zoom at the same time was somewhat difficult and gave less than stellar results. But long and exhausting, waiting for students to drop in on Zoom, sitting in a empty office, scuttling from office to restroom with my mask on.

The sunny days out the window seemed so distant from where I sat, even though I have the best view on campus out my window. Then the leaden skies came, and at least they matched my moods.

There was the constant threat of COVID. There was a point where 9 out of 60 students were out over either isolation (COVID positive) or quarantine (contact with a COVID positive). The virus swept through peer groups and Greek life, and although I taught social distanced and masked, the random trips through hallways and in bathrooms worried me.

I focused on the task, knowing that thinking about any of this, much less all of this, would break me. And so I became an automaton, checking off each finished class session, each office hour. Not waiting for break, because that seemed too distant.

Now I’m here, at break, and I want to cry. After this week, I have a week of waiting for students to ask questions over Zoom (and they never do too much of this) and finals week, where their exams are essay and take home. I will be at home, comfortable, during all of this. So, in effect, I have survived the semester.

And I feel like crying.

Really fluffy towels

This is the Grotto (spa) at The Elms in Excelsior Springs, MO.
I wish I was there right now.

Editing Apocalypse (for the fortieth time) is a real bear.

One moment I think it’s looking good, the next I know I’m feeling discouraged. I feel I have it all together, and then I think it’s missing something. I forget I’m reading for character and start changing grammar in sentences.

It’s a frustrating time.

I think it may be time to go on to something else. I need to make a poster of my latest research for an online convention poster session. Great idea, I think. My mind is tired of six hours of reading a day. Of course, it will take me at least six hours to do this poster, so …

Sigh. I need to take a break. One that involves a spa and really fluffy towels.

Taking a vacation

Feeling a little down. That happens at the end of every semester. I think it’s because I’m always in high gear to get through the semester, and then nothing. I don’t know what to do with myself. I’m tired yet antsy. I suddenly have no goals. It’s hard to deal with.

Too much time to think. I suddenly have to fight a bunch of negative self-talk, I don’t feel inspired to write. I get grouchy.

The solution: get up, do something. Go to the cafe and perhaps try something new. Conversely, get lots of sleep and meditation. Do something different for a change of pace.

In other words, take a vacation.

Tha

Because our families are so far away and it’s no fun to cook for two and our house is too chaotic for guests (with now four cats, as Buddy has been shunning our house for brighter prospects with his buddy the black-and-white cat), my husband and I go somewhere fun and eat turkey there.

This year, we’re off for a couple days to a mini-holiday in Kansas City: Staying at a bed and breakfast on the Plaza, eating turkey at a restaurant in Waldo (all together: where’s Waldo?), knocking around and watching shoppers on Black Friday. The bed and breakfast — Southmoreland on the Plaza — promises to be a treat, with afternoon sherry and turndown chocolates.

I started dating my now-husband on Thanksgiving break in 2005. He got acquainted to my ritual of watching Black Friday shoppers rather than shopping (much cheaper, fewer hassles). I think that’s why we got married: he liked my quirk.

So this should be a pleasant break before going back to work (I’m a professor of human services) on Monday. But there’s only one week of work, then finals, then I’m off for Winter Break. That’s just strange.

Time to Go

I’m heading out today for my moulage stint at New York Hope, housed at the New York State Preparedness Training Center, otherwise known as Disaster Disneyland. This is a wonderful opportunity to take a working vacation, as my husband and I take the train (California Zephyr; Lake Shore Limited) and get a sleeper car.

I will try to post on the trip, at least a little. Maybe some photographs. You’ve been on this trip with me before.

Strange activity on the blog

Occasionally, my blog will get bursts of energy, with several countries visiting all at once — a bouquet of visitors from Japan and Ukraine and Moldova and Sweden and Moldova. All on the same type of browser. All reading the same note — which is not the current post. Usually a day or two after I’ve last posted on a slow post week.

The most obvious solution is that my post count has been increased by a bot, probably one that can spoof countries. But why? Why bother spoofing different countries? Why bother actually connecting to a post? (I’ve noticed times when my hit count has increased with no specific blog posts hit). It doesn’t seem to be an effort to disseminate porn links (which happens now and again). If it’s a DDOS attack — well, it’s too modest for a DDOS attack.

The only thing I can think of is that something or someone is trying to inflate my reader numbers. Thanks, I think.

*************
Today I’m at the Graduate Hotel in Iowa City, IA, home of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop (the ranks of which are too rarefied for me). Here’s a picture, apropos of Gaia’s Hands:

To my family

I don’t get to see my dad and sister often, owing to the fact that I’m about seven hours’ drive away from them. I see them twice a year, at Memorial Day and Christmas, and Christmas is a bad time for my dad since my mom died at that time.

I’m very different than my dad and sister, having collected a few college degrees along the way and having a larger vocabulary (I can’t help it, Lisa, I like using the right words). And the fact that I’m an extrovert, and I couldn’t tell if they were listening to me because I wouldn’t get much of an answer. It was hard to be around them, then.

But now, I get an inkling of who they are when I come visit. I am reminded of the family I came from, full of compassion and anger banked into sarcasm. The family whose fortunes turned sour when a fifteen-year-old Gerald Leach chose the farm rather than the foundry which now makes most of the garbage truck hoppers in the United States. The descendants of both Michel Cadotte (the spelling varies) and Iksewewe. Child of a man who served in the army and became a pacifist. A family that accepts me without marveling at me, which makes me happier than could anything.

Thanks, Dad and Lisa. I had a wonderful time.