ThTh1: seems fitting to me now, that a guy who was in some ways "anti science of the time" (where people KNEW the earth was round but a westward route to Asia would take too long) insisted on his way, finally got it, managed to survive, and then some 450 years later was taught in primary school as a brave hero contrarian......I mean, maybe this is how we got into the mess we're in now.
Honestly I'd happily trade "perfect lawn" for "lawn service causing lots of noise every day of the week between 10 am and 1 pm during the work-from-home-enforced time"
I have a reel-type lawnmower. It works. My lawn isn't perfect but it does what it needs to. I also have a battery (electric) yard trimmer which also is useful but not perfect.
What I'd like to see banned are the leaf blowers, though someone argued with me that expecting people to rake leaves was ableist. I don't even know. (I find holding a loud, heavy piece of equipment more difficult than operating a rake is.)
I remember a time in the 1970s when noise pollution and "aesthetic" pollution (the fight over billboards) was a thing but we seem to have given up on both of those.
My neighborhood is very loud, and a lot of those noises are the "f you I'm doing what I want" variety (e.g., someone driving a boom car on volume level "11" at 2 am, people with trucks modded to roll coal/be extra loud). During the stay-at-home time of the pandemic it really soured me on where I lived.
I don't know that we'd be able to do ANYTHING legislative about noise pollution given the current climate of division, and "think of your neighbors who might be light sleepers or who have babies at home" seems to cut no ice with anyone.
I feel like this is a "never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by stupidity" moment. The conspiracies were fun for a while but it looks like someone just did something really boneheaded.
But yeah, this raises questions about the integration of everything and how few platforms run it. Can you *imagine* if something like smart-home tech went down for 8 hours and no one could adjust their thermostats or turn on lights?
not gonna lie, the idea that after locking down in 2020, taking continued precautions into 2021, there being a 2022 where maybe I can't easily get the few fresh fruits and vegetables I'm not allergic to, or maybe having to have an "imagination Christmas" (where you imagine the food and presents you can't get) kind of makes me want to lie down on the floor and throw a full-on tantrum.
also I have some latent hoarding tendencies; these past couple years have NOT been good for them
Interesting thing: for years and years, almost since I moved out on my own, I imagined myself in some kind of somewhat-remote space ALL BY MYSELF - a lighthouse, a cabin on the side of a mountain, a remote fire station. Then, during the pandemic....I realized that being all by myself, with no chance of the human contacts I had had every day, was not that desirable. So now I imagine houses in a quiet part of an artist's colony or something similar. (Or I just read until I'm too tired to keep my eyes open any longer)
Tomorrow MIGHT be some volunteer effort that I signed up for sight unseen (my church was doing it, I'm more able bodied than many in the congregation....) I found out the other day it's something the city would normally pay their employees to do and I confess I have a slightly bad taste in my mouth about it now. There's a good chance it will be rained out and if it is, I'll continue the house-cleaning I started this afternoon - I had let it get BAD during the worst of the pandemic, and haven't deep-cleaned some things for close to a year, so I'm going slowly and trying to work in detail. three to four hours in, I'm about 1/3 to being satisfied with the house....
As many of you know, I teach college. This past year where we've TRIED for normality (albeit with masks and me teaching with a "zoom option" for those having to isolate/who have medical concerns), it's been far, far from normal. A couple things I see:
- Some students think they can log into Zoom and then kind of....do other things during lecture, and not pay attention]
- I KNOW I teach worse online. I was not trained in online teaching and there have been few opportunities to get any, and also right now my brain is mush from a year and a half of dealing with the pandemic
- A lot of our students' lab skills have either atrophied, or they never learned them at all.
- I can tell the stress of the pandemic is doing a number on some students, especially those with school aged kids at home.
There seem to be some people struggling with mental health issues (which affects their performance), some people who never really learned study skills/think the pandemic is license to slack off, some people who in happier times would have just needed extra help but now with distancing and with some faculty (like me) hanging on to sanity by our fingernails, we can't always "be there" for them as much as we should.
Looking at how people are doing in my intro-level classes.....well, I worry about the continued future of my department. Thankfully I'm within a decade of retiring and if I decided to just chuck it after another year of this (and I just might if things don't get appreciably better), I won't take TOO big of a hit in retirement money.
The problem is everyone is stressed out and discouraged. I know because I'm the "adult" in the room and I'm getting paid, I have to step up, stuff down my frustration and worry, and teach the best I can and be extra accommodating and helpful. But even then, it doesn't feel like enough.
We may just have to accept that this up and coming generation will need a lot more remediation/on the job training as they head into adulthood, and provide it for them.
One of the retirement benefits that my dad got from his uni was that they'd sent one of their IT guys out (during off hours; it was understood that retiree-calls were lower priority than anything on campus) to fix stuff that got broken.
I think it would be an excellent thing for senior centers to offer, or really, any community center. (Here there are people who will do anyone's uncomplicated tax return for free or a donation; I am not sure why they wouldn't have walk-in clinics to fix simple laptop problems)
ThTh2: I remember the kid-lore that you needed "20 shots in the stomach" to prevent rabies if a rabid animal bit you, and we were (understandably) leery of any animal we didn't know. (I remember worrying slightly when the class pet mouse bit my thumb, but the teacher assured me that it wasn't rabid - after all, it came straight from a pet store to our class - and furthermore it didn't break the skin).
Still, as an adult, even if it WERE "20 shots in the stomach," I can't imagine dying of rabies to be preferable to that. But it's good to hear that it's a much more minor sequence, and that the painful part is the immunoglobulin shot. (Never have had one of those but have had corticosteroid shots which are pretty painful)
I remember a few years back I commented I wished life was more like musicals - that there'd be random songs and spontaneous dancing and a happily-ever-after but I guess instead the "theater" we will get will be an unholy hybrid of the things Kafka and Brecht worried about, with maybe a hint of Samuel Beckett....
Hm. Yesterday when I heard the news I was like "okay then I guess I don't have to plan a day to get one and then another day to lie around the house" but yeah, I am (technically) JUST in the "obese" category. But I don't know? My metabolic panels are always good (my doctor sighs "your blood numbers are better than mine") and I am generally in good health.
and of course I live in Vaccine-Refusal Central, so there are more potential sources of infection than some places.
The thing I have loathed most in all of this is how on my own I have been to figure out what to do. All of adulthood is making it up as you go along, but here, making it up wrong could possibly kill you.
I guess I'll continue to sit at home and do very little, and wait and see what my doctor says in January when I have a checkup :(
Ah, the town where I grew up! This is pretty much just Hudson being Hudson, frankly. The outrage, the half-cocked-ness, the alpha moms....none of whom REALLY check up on what their kids are REALLY doing
I will also note back in the early 80s, when I was in junior high (I actually was sent to a prep school for high school, and it may have saved my life), I knew PLENTY of kids who had not only "tasted" a beer but consumed multiple beers on weekends. Yes, JUNIOR high so like 13 and 14. I'm sure the sex went on too, but I didn't hear as much about that
frankly I think my life and my attitudes have been changed to a much larger degree by the pandemic than they were by 9/11. Because a lot of the "bad acting" in the pandemic has been on the part of some of my fellow citizens, people I was told I could trust - and who I DID trust, until the middle of 2020. And I'm not sure I will ever heal from that loss of trust or comfort in the world that I have now.
Honestly I don't think a lot about 9/11 except as the anniversary draws near. I haven't flown in years (I never do travel much or far). I am not a New Yorker; I knew one person killed in the attacks (and him only slightly - someone from my class in high school who worked for one of the financial companies) but I have known three people who died of COVID including a cousin, a number more who have had long-term effects of it, and others who have suffered other consequences of it.
honestly glad the anniversary falls on a Saturday this year, not sure how I'd deal with my v. young college students asking me about it or what I remember. This year the anniversary has hit harder when I look around and realize there were days last year we were losing a 9/11 worth of people to COVID and that there are now people talking about "armed rebellion" in re: anti-pandemic measures like masks and vaccines. (I know that's an extremely fringe minority but still).
Grading, and then probably hiding out in a figurative blanket fort (especially now I learned I can watch Community on Amazon Prime, including the epic blanket fort episode). This weekend is THE anniversary. I tried to read a bit of coverage of it and had to nope out because it's too much. Most of my adult life (I was what, 32, in September 2001) has been a blur of Big Events That Are Unprecedented and also an increasing polarization and balkanization to the point where I wonder how I navigate this brave new world with whatever time I may have left.
There are things I would LIKE to do, but the intersection of things I HAVE to do and the fact that the pandemic's still raging here and the hospital's half closed down (lack of staff) meaning if you're in a car wreck you're probably dead - so I won't be doing the things I would LIKE, not for a while.
I tell my students that if someone's gonna read Thoreau, they better do it before they're 25 or 30 or so. I read him first in my thirties and just....he's basically the nature version of a techbro. Maybe it hits different when you're a woman and you know his mom and sisters were doing his laundry and packing him lunches?
But yes, there are definitely some media that have an "age expiration date" for people.
I wonder if how much of the Salinger mystique of the past was how he was a near-hermit, and communicated fairly little with the world, and didn't write all that much by comparison to some writers.
Like, I liked CitR when I read it at fourteen, not sure I'd be able to read it without throwing it across the room today. I think I tried it again in my 20s and gave up partway through.
the whole "secret menu" idea does sorta bug me, because I tend to be a "not in the know" person, and, like.....if it's better and you're keeping it a SECRET from those other than your burger freemasons who know the secret handshake, that's not a great business practice, because if someone tells me "I ate at this place and it was amazing" and I go there once and it's mediocre, my reaction is more "Huh, they must be a lot less picky than I am" and less "gee maybe they know something I don't" and I wind up not going back to that place. (And yeah, most restaurants, their food isn't as good as what I can make at home. Barbecue excepted; I have no way to make real barbecue at home. And well, the kind of pizza made in a super hot oven; that too. But everything else, from pancakes to steaks, I can make better at home)
Even though it's STILL death-hot here (and I am so tired of it), I might try leaving early on Monday (my sole Federal Holiday off this semester) and driving the hour or so to Chickasaw NRA for some hiking and just a day that is somewhere other in town. If I can get my poop in a group enough I'll pack a lunch and eat somewhere at a picnic table in the park; if not, I'll blow my weekly sodium budget at the Sonic. (There are better restaurants in that town, I am sure, but I am still not eating INSIDE a restaurant and I know the Sonic lets you eat outside)
IF the pandemic ever ends (I am increasingly unconvinced it will with each passing day), I suspect we see a LOT of retirements. Or, if it grinds on - a lot of doctors/nurses/teachers/retail workers simply burn out and, if they can at all afford, just quit. I suspect the "worker problem" is only going to get worse and worse as time grinds on.
I admit I've had many days in this (college prof) where I thought "If I were within striking distance of retirement, I'd be gone" (I have 8 years until retirement with full benefits). I've told colleagues that if things aren't appreciably better the end of this year, I may just resign after 22-23. Because I'm sick of it and it's not really fun anymore, doing it half online, teaching masked, worrying about distancing, accommodating students who have to isolate. If we get a vaccine-escape mutant my quit date may come even earlier; I may just pull a UGA prof and walk out of the room some day.
the sad thing? I used to LOVE teaching and as recently as 2019 I was saying "I might just teach until I'm 75 if my health holds out"
And I don't even have it nearly as bad as the people working in medicine or in retail!
On “Thursday Throughputs: Captains in Ships Columbus Edition”
The plucky underdogs we thought we were were just the lucky idiots we were along the way, or something....
"
ThTh1: seems fitting to me now, that a guy who was in some ways "anti science of the time" (where people KNEW the earth was round but a westward route to Asia would take too long) insisted on his way, finally got it, managed to survive, and then some 450 years later was taught in primary school as a brave hero contrarian......I mean, maybe this is how we got into the mess we're in now.
On “Wednesday Writs: Mowing Through Laws That Blow Edition”
Honestly I'd happily trade "perfect lawn" for "lawn service causing lots of noise every day of the week between 10 am and 1 pm during the work-from-home-enforced time"
I have a reel-type lawnmower. It works. My lawn isn't perfect but it does what it needs to. I also have a battery (electric) yard trimmer which also is useful but not perfect.
What I'd like to see banned are the leaf blowers, though someone argued with me that expecting people to rake leaves was ableist. I don't even know. (I find holding a loud, heavy piece of equipment more difficult than operating a rake is.)
"
I remember a time in the 1970s when noise pollution and "aesthetic" pollution (the fight over billboards) was a thing but we seem to have given up on both of those.
My neighborhood is very loud, and a lot of those noises are the "f you I'm doing what I want" variety (e.g., someone driving a boom car on volume level "11" at 2 am, people with trucks modded to roll coal/be extra loud). During the stay-at-home time of the pandemic it really soured me on where I lived.
I don't know that we'd be able to do ANYTHING legislative about noise pollution given the current climate of division, and "think of your neighbors who might be light sleepers or who have babies at home" seems to cut no ice with anyone.
On “Facebook And Related Sites Go Down, Chaos Ensues”
I feel like this is a "never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by stupidity" moment. The conspiracies were fun for a while but it looks like someone just did something really boneheaded.
But yeah, this raises questions about the integration of everything and how few platforms run it. Can you *imagine* if something like smart-home tech went down for 8 hours and no one could adjust their thermostats or turn on lights?
On “Always Prepared”
not gonna lie, the idea that after locking down in 2020, taking continued precautions into 2021, there being a 2022 where maybe I can't easily get the few fresh fruits and vegetables I'm not allergic to, or maybe having to have an "imagination Christmas" (where you imagine the food and presents you can't get) kind of makes me want to lie down on the floor and throw a full-on tantrum.
also I have some latent hoarding tendencies; these past couple years have NOT been good for them
On “Weekend Plans Post: On Sleeping (Specifically, On Melatonin)”
I build and furnish houses to shut up my brain.
Interesting thing: for years and years, almost since I moved out on my own, I imagined myself in some kind of somewhat-remote space ALL BY MYSELF - a lighthouse, a cabin on the side of a mountain, a remote fire station. Then, during the pandemic....I realized that being all by myself, with no chance of the human contacts I had had every day, was not that desirable. So now I imagine houses in a quiet part of an artist's colony or something similar. (Or I just read until I'm too tired to keep my eyes open any longer)
Tomorrow MIGHT be some volunteer effort that I signed up for sight unseen (my church was doing it, I'm more able bodied than many in the congregation....) I found out the other day it's something the city would normally pay their employees to do and I confess I have a slightly bad taste in my mouth about it now. There's a good chance it will be rained out and if it is, I'll continue the house-cleaning I started this afternoon - I had let it get BAD during the worst of the pandemic, and haven't deep-cleaned some things for close to a year, so I'm going slowly and trying to work in detail. three to four hours in, I'm about 1/3 to being satisfied with the house....
On “The Last Normal School Year”
As many of you know, I teach college. This past year where we've TRIED for normality (albeit with masks and me teaching with a "zoom option" for those having to isolate/who have medical concerns), it's been far, far from normal. A couple things I see:
- Some students think they can log into Zoom and then kind of....do other things during lecture, and not pay attention]
- I KNOW I teach worse online. I was not trained in online teaching and there have been few opportunities to get any, and also right now my brain is mush from a year and a half of dealing with the pandemic
- A lot of our students' lab skills have either atrophied, or they never learned them at all.
- I can tell the stress of the pandemic is doing a number on some students, especially those with school aged kids at home.
There seem to be some people struggling with mental health issues (which affects their performance), some people who never really learned study skills/think the pandemic is license to slack off, some people who in happier times would have just needed extra help but now with distancing and with some faculty (like me) hanging on to sanity by our fingernails, we can't always "be there" for them as much as we should.
Looking at how people are doing in my intro-level classes.....well, I worry about the continued future of my department. Thankfully I'm within a decade of retiring and if I decided to just chuck it after another year of this (and I just might if things don't get appreciably better), I won't take TOO big of a hit in retirement money.
The problem is everyone is stressed out and discouraged. I know because I'm the "adult" in the room and I'm getting paid, I have to step up, stuff down my frustration and worry, and teach the best I can and be extra accommodating and helpful. But even then, it doesn't feel like enough.
We may just have to accept that this up and coming generation will need a lot more remediation/on the job training as they head into adulthood, and provide it for them.
On “Thursday Throughput: The Heavy Price Of The Great Barrington Declaration Edition”
One of the retirement benefits that my dad got from his uni was that they'd sent one of their IT guys out (during off hours; it was understood that retiree-calls were lower priority than anything on campus) to fix stuff that got broken.
I think it would be an excellent thing for senior centers to offer, or really, any community center. (Here there are people who will do anyone's uncomplicated tax return for free or a donation; I am not sure why they wouldn't have walk-in clinics to fix simple laptop problems)
"
ThTh2: I remember the kid-lore that you needed "20 shots in the stomach" to prevent rabies if a rabid animal bit you, and we were (understandably) leery of any animal we didn't know. (I remember worrying slightly when the class pet mouse bit my thumb, but the teacher assured me that it wasn't rabid - after all, it came straight from a pet store to our class - and furthermore it didn't break the skin).
Still, as an adult, even if it WERE "20 shots in the stomach," I can't imagine dying of rabies to be preferable to that. But it's good to hear that it's a much more minor sequence, and that the painful part is the immunoglobulin shot. (Never have had one of those but have had corticosteroid shots which are pretty painful)
On “The Georgia Howl Of The Trump Vendetta Ride”
Sadly, "theater" is probably right.
I remember a few years back I commented I wished life was more like musicals - that there'd be random songs and spontaneous dancing and a happily-ever-after but I guess instead the "theater" we will get will be an unholy hybrid of the things Kafka and Brecht worried about, with maybe a hint of Samuel Beckett....
On “Much Ado About Nothing In Hudson, Ohio”
"Write it in a way you wouldn't show your mom, and then rewrite in a way you WOULD"
On “FDA Approves Boosters for Over 65”
Hm. Yesterday when I heard the news I was like "okay then I guess I don't have to plan a day to get one and then another day to lie around the house" but yeah, I am (technically) JUST in the "obese" category. But I don't know? My metabolic panels are always good (my doctor sighs "your blood numbers are better than mine") and I am generally in good health.
and of course I live in Vaccine-Refusal Central, so there are more potential sources of infection than some places.
The thing I have loathed most in all of this is how on my own I have been to figure out what to do. All of adulthood is making it up as you go along, but here, making it up wrong could possibly kill you.
I guess I'll continue to sit at home and do very little, and wait and see what my doctor says in January when I have a checkup :(
On “Much Ado About Nothing In Hudson, Ohio”
Ah, the town where I grew up! This is pretty much just Hudson being Hudson, frankly. The outrage, the half-cocked-ness, the alpha moms....none of whom REALLY check up on what their kids are REALLY doing
I will also note back in the early 80s, when I was in junior high (I actually was sent to a prep school for high school, and it may have saved my life), I knew PLENTY of kids who had not only "tasted" a beer but consumed multiple beers on weekends. Yes, JUNIOR high so like 13 and 14. I'm sure the sex went on too, but I didn't hear as much about that
On “9/11: A Day Like Any Other, Until”
frankly I think my life and my attitudes have been changed to a much larger degree by the pandemic than they were by 9/11. Because a lot of the "bad acting" in the pandemic has been on the part of some of my fellow citizens, people I was told I could trust - and who I DID trust, until the middle of 2020. And I'm not sure I will ever heal from that loss of trust or comfort in the world that I have now.
Honestly I don't think a lot about 9/11 except as the anniversary draws near. I haven't flown in years (I never do travel much or far). I am not a New Yorker; I knew one person killed in the attacks (and him only slightly - someone from my class in high school who worked for one of the financial companies) but I have known three people who died of COVID including a cousin, a number more who have had long-term effects of it, and others who have suffered other consequences of it.
"
honestly glad the anniversary falls on a Saturday this year, not sure how I'd deal with my v. young college students asking me about it or what I remember. This year the anniversary has hit harder when I look around and realize there were days last year we were losing a 9/11 worth of people to COVID and that there are now people talking about "armed rebellion" in re: anti-pandemic measures like masks and vaccines. (I know that's an extremely fringe minority but still).
On “Weekend Plans Post: The Study Group”
Grading, and then probably hiding out in a figurative blanket fort (especially now I learned I can watch Community on Amazon Prime, including the epic blanket fort episode). This weekend is THE anniversary. I tried to read a bit of coverage of it and had to nope out because it's too much. Most of my adult life (I was what, 32, in September 2001) has been a blur of Big Events That Are Unprecedented and also an increasing polarization and balkanization to the point where I wonder how I navigate this brave new world with whatever time I may have left.
There are things I would LIKE to do, but the intersection of things I HAVE to do and the fact that the pandemic's still raging here and the hospital's half closed down (lack of staff) meaning if you're in a car wreck you're probably dead - so I won't be doing the things I would LIKE, not for a while.
On “Ordinary World: Labor Day”
"HOLDEN! The Musical!" would probably be a thing
with a chorus of people suited up as rye plants and as children trying to run over a cliff, it would be the big production number.
"
I tell my students that if someone's gonna read Thoreau, they better do it before they're 25 or 30 or so. I read him first in my thirties and just....he's basically the nature version of a techbro. Maybe it hits different when you're a woman and you know his mom and sisters were doing his laundry and packing him lunches?
But yes, there are definitely some media that have an "age expiration date" for people.
"
I wonder if how much of the Salinger mystique of the past was how he was a near-hermit, and communicated fairly little with the world, and didn't write all that much by comparison to some writers.
Like, I liked CitR when I read it at fourteen, not sure I'd be able to read it without throwing it across the room today. I think I tried it again in my 20s and gave up partway through.
On “Weekend Plans: The Trip To In-N-Out Burger”
when one-off places are good, they're REALLY good.....and when they aren't, they're terrible. That's one thing I've learned living in a small town.
"
the whole "secret menu" idea does sorta bug me, because I tend to be a "not in the know" person, and, like.....if it's better and you're keeping it a SECRET from those other than your burger freemasons who know the secret handshake, that's not a great business practice, because if someone tells me "I ate at this place and it was amazing" and I go there once and it's mediocre, my reaction is more "Huh, they must be a lot less picky than I am" and less "gee maybe they know something I don't" and I wind up not going back to that place. (And yeah, most restaurants, their food isn't as good as what I can make at home. Barbecue excepted; I have no way to make real barbecue at home. And well, the kind of pizza made in a super hot oven; that too. But everything else, from pancakes to steaks, I can make better at home)
Even though it's STILL death-hot here (and I am so tired of it), I might try leaving early on Monday (my sole Federal Holiday off this semester) and driving the hour or so to Chickasaw NRA for some hiking and just a day that is somewhere other in town. If I can get my poop in a group enough I'll pack a lunch and eat somewhere at a picnic table in the park; if not, I'll blow my weekly sodium budget at the Sonic. (There are better restaurants in that town, I am sure, but I am still not eating INSIDE a restaurant and I know the Sonic lets you eat outside)
On “The Covid-19 Vaccine Booster Shots Are Coming”
I will feel guilty and probably still go get one, before Thanksgiving break if possible, in order to protect my mom if and when I see her
this frickin' pandemic has magnified every Chidi Anagonye tendency I have. I better look out for falling air conditioners...
On “Why The US Has More Job Openings Than Ever Before”
IF the pandemic ever ends (I am increasingly unconvinced it will with each passing day), I suspect we see a LOT of retirements. Or, if it grinds on - a lot of doctors/nurses/teachers/retail workers simply burn out and, if they can at all afford, just quit. I suspect the "worker problem" is only going to get worse and worse as time grinds on.
I admit I've had many days in this (college prof) where I thought "If I were within striking distance of retirement, I'd be gone" (I have 8 years until retirement with full benefits). I've told colleagues that if things aren't appreciably better the end of this year, I may just resign after 22-23. Because I'm sick of it and it's not really fun anymore, doing it half online, teaching masked, worrying about distancing, accommodating students who have to isolate. If we get a vaccine-escape mutant my quit date may come even earlier; I may just pull a UGA prof and walk out of the room some day.
the sad thing? I used to LOVE teaching and as recently as 2019 I was saying "I might just teach until I'm 75 if my health holds out"
And I don't even have it nearly as bad as the people working in medicine or in retail!
On “Weekend Plans Post: The Third Gate of Summer (Edit: It is the weekend *BEFORE* the third gate of summer)”
his test came back negative, it was just a stupid sinus infection, of which he gets many. Great relief here.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.