Earl

Earl's just waving hello...

A quick Earl joke: A friend, who lives in Atlanta, texted me to tell me she’s coming to town this weekend for a visit. I told her I was excited and expressed my hope that Earl would not be visiting us at the same time. A few minutes went by, and then she replied, “Who’s Earl?” (This was before the news and Facebook became nothing but Earl-Earl-Earl-Earl.) When I reminded her of the storm, she laughed and said Earl sounded “more like that disagreeable cousin every family has and doesn’t like to invite over.” And I thought, yeah, that’s about right.

This morning started gray. A perfect sleeping-in morning, except we didn’t sleep in. After a morning of watching A. (playing with now-ironic green BP trucks and reading books about construction sites), I had my annual physical check-up (“Well, you’re healthy,” was the official result).

Then I ran errands and came home to pick up everything that could potentially be blown around our yard and put it in the garage. Our back patio (i.e. concrete slab) is nice and clear of patio furniture and various garden-related things that had been abandoned there since the garden had started its decline.

The afternoon has become increasingly windy, and while I moved chairs off our patio the gate in our fence kept slamming shut. Now the sky is the color of steel and the bending trees are indication of what’s just off our shores.

In all likelihood, we’ll sleep through any drama that comes our way. Classes for tomorrow have not been cancelled (my students have their first exam, so apparently they don’t pray hard enough). But, we’ve still got the three-day weekend to look forward to. And hopefully we won’t have too much to rake up during said weekend.

Hello, Earl. Be kind.

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Community

This is being back on campus: The other day, on my way to my office from my first class, I passed a guy playing a guitar and a harmonica, just standing there with his back toward the pond and the clocktower, facing the waves of students going to and from class. On my way out of my last class that same day, I passed a group of students, maybe six of them, singing while one of them played a ukulele.

That night, I dreamed that Jesse and I were students again, first years (but married), and we had a great dorm room in a really fancy dorm on a really fancy campus (hey, it was a dream), and after we unpacked our things we left the room and met up with some friends and had no plans other than exploring campus.

Three of my nieces are starting college for the first time this year. On Facebook, they post pictures of their dorm rooms, and their status updates are all about early morning classes and meeting new friends and going home for the weekend.

Sometimes I ache for that. And I’ve been wondering, why?

The question has been bouncing around my brain for a week or so, and I think I’ve stumbled upon an answer. It goes something like this: The day I moved out of my parents’ house and into my first apartment, a wave of homesickness I wasn’t prepared for hit me as I sat alone in my new room. And then Scott and Jesse and I went out to dinner at some Tex-Mex place, and I felt better, was reminded of the excitement, was reminded I wasn’t alone. In the weeks afterward we’d meet up for lunch on campus or we’d go to Taco Bell at 2:00 in the morning, just because we could.

For the last two years of school, Jesse and I lived in apartments across the street from one another. After class, I’d grab a book and head over to their place and just hang out. Maybe the boys would play a video game, or maybe we’d talk about politics or philosophy or homework, or maybe we’d all just sit and study together. My roommate Marianne and I would sit in our living room and study for finals together. And even though we didn’t study the same thing, it was enough to be in the same room, eating bowls of cherries. And when it wasn’t finals week, we’d cook dinner together, we’d look at recipes, we’d watch Food Network back when Rachael Ray still just had one show, and we’d work puzzles with Samie, and we’d carve pumpkins and make gingerbread houses.

Our lives were lived in concert, and we had a rhythm, the semester-long ups and downs, the midterms and finals. We shared a campus; we went to the same movies, the same football games, the same restaurants.

Even though I think the community we have now is considerably closer than many others get to enjoy once past the college experience, it’s still a post-grad community of married people who own their own houses. We don’t hang out anymore. Getting together with friends involves cooking dinner or going out to dinner, going to a movie (a half-hour drive away), going to the beach, etc. It’s a production. It’s scheduled, often a week or more in advance. Outside of small group, we rarely see the same people on even a weekly basis, and some of our friends we might see once a month.

I never needed an invitation to Jesse and Scott’s apartment. I just needed to know if they were back from class yet or not. And vice versa. It was expected, it was natural.

So, while I very much enjoy being back on a college campus—the impromptu music and the library and all the opportunities that come along with academia—I do still miss being an undergrad, miss the evenings when Jesse, Scott, and I sat around trying to figure out what to eat and decided to walk to Big Daddy’s for pizza, feeling like the world was ours, knowing that it was.

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In Case You Were Wondering About the Garden

It died.

The herbs are still puttering along, but everything else has become bug food. We are feeding bugs. We’re very generous like that. And I think our gardening days are going on a leave of absence, duration unknown. Farmers market, here I come…

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Sweetness

When I arrived at my office yesterday (feeling rather icky after not sleeping well), I found a lovely card and a DIY stand-up kitty from my friend Allison. Could she be any sweeter? Now the office finally has its first decoration. I promised my office-mate David I wouldn’t bring in anything girly…I guess a stand-up kitty could classify as girly, but it’s got lots of blue and brown and green in it. Hopefully he won’t mind too much.

I perked right up after getting this. Made my morning!

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An Open Letter to Last Night

Dear Last Night,

I was good. I was in bed by 10:00, alarm set for 6:00. I was finally going to walk with Sharon at 6:30 this morning, had texted her to confirm, even though I’d been a delinquent and had begged off for at least a week or two. This was the morning I would finally exercise. After that, I had a long day of teaching ahead of me, but I was all prepped for that and ready to go.

At 9:00, I was exhausted and ready for bed. But we were still at small group, and people were parked behind us. But by 10:00, my contacts were out, my face washed, my teeth brushed, and I was nice and comfy, snuggled in bed, ready for my eight hours of blissful sleep.

Well. First, I was too cold. I got another blanket. Then I was too hot. Like, feverish hot. I kicked off the other blanket, then the regular blanket, then the sheet. I cooled down and eventually returned the sheet and regular blanket to their normal places. And then I turned over. And then I turned over again. I thought about happy things. I thought about nothing. I counted and counted and counted and counted. I got up to use the bathroom. I got a glass of milk. I chomped down a TUMS. And still could not fall asleep.

I came close, several times. Eventually, I’m pretty sure my despair over not being asleep is what kept me up.

Finally, sometime after midnight I think, I fell asleep. Then woke up before my 6:00 alarm went off. Once it finally rang, I texted Sharon to bow out of walking—again. And Jesse re-set it for 7:00 so I could squeeze in a bit more sleep.

Which, of course, didn’t happen.

I counted to somewhere in the 400s before the alarm rang again, at which I gave up and got out of bed, grumpy and feeling kind of sick.

Not cool, last night, not cool.

Love,
Erin

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Waterworks

Slowly but surely, I am getting into a routine. Now that the first week with its summer cold is over, and the first weekend enjoyed, I’m feeling a little more steady, a little more solid. Jesse and I have been getting up at 6:00 each morning; we’re going through that whole “Read the Bible in 90 Days” thing, because we are gluttons for punishment, or something like that. It’s actually a nice way to start the day, about an hour of reading, him on the couch and me on the loveseat, wrapped up in a quilt, glasses on, the cats eating breakfast and the house generally dim and quiet. We ease into the day. Tomorrow I may add some green tea to the mix.

Though I am recovering from the cold, yesterday I had an eye disaster. Dis-as-ter. I left the house with my left eye kind of irritated. I’d thrown away my old pair of contacts and had a fresh pair in. As I locked the door, I thought, maybe I should grab some eye drops just in case, but then I decided against it because the clock it was a-ticking and the contacts were new, so I was sure they’d settle down.

Ha. Well, the first class went fabulous, and then I ate lunch in my office (turkey sandwich—a departure from the typical peanut butter and honey, woohoo), and then I went to my second class, and by the end of that class my eye was trying to claw its way out of my skull. I had ten minutes before my last class, and I spent them in my office, trying to get my eye to stop this nonsense. Didn’t work. I showed up to my last class looking like I’d been crying, and I apologized for the appearance, made some joke about contacts, and then spent the next hour and fifteen minutes alternately weeping and itching. Oh, torture.

After class, I went home (with a quick stop on the way to surprise Jesse at work!) and took out my contacts immediately. Relief, I was sure, was on its way.

Not so! I had already given myself the rest of the evening “off” because I’d gotten so much work done in the wee hours of the morning. And how did I spend the time? Pouring about a half bottle of Visine in my left eye, rinsing it, putting a cold wet washrag on it, ordering it to Stop This Right Now, and generally sitting on the couch looking and feeling miserable.

Nice. Well, the eye seems to be better today, thank goodness. Now, I’m going to input all the quiz grades so far into the handy-dandy Excel file Jesse made me that does all the math for me. Brilliant!

Ta-ta!

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Clocks and Wet Cats with Bladder Stones

Today, I:

Took lots of cold medicine.

Taught two classes (which were populated by surprisingly brilliant people who blew me away).

Watched A. and M. on campus while their parents attended a faculty meeting (A. loves clocks and loves pointing them out. The problem is, he can’t really do consonant blends yet, so the “l” sound gets dropped. So, you can imagine my mild horror as we walked to the bookstore and then the library, past the giant clock tower twice, while A. pointed and hollered his version of “Clock! Clock! Big clock!” Oh, my.)

Dropped Gracie off at the vet this morning and picked her up this afternoon. She’s got a bladder stone. Yay.

Fought ridiculous traffic, which had resulted from a major wreck and an “All traffic must exit” sign that had been mistakenly left out.

Got home, realized my plans to attend the department welcome back party were foiled (there was absolutely no way I’d make it there on time with the traffic the way it was—and I couldn’t have stayed in town to wait it out because I had Gracie with me). Was bummed. (This was my night to make a smashing impression!)

Gave Gracie a bath because she had peed at the vet’s office and then sat in it. (Ugh.)

Hello, Friday. Thank Heavens it’s the weekend…

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