Diary Day 12/14/25
This morning is a whirlwind, a dust storm of emails, texts, and Discord messages that I can’t seem to find my footing in.
It’s my own fault for snoozing the alarm so much and not getting up until 8:30 when I have a 9:00. I pull up Zoom at 9:02 to chat with my grad student, immediately excusing myself to grab the coffee that is ready. We’re talking through their comprehensive exams that begin soon. And life, too: teaching, tattoos, lots of subjects. Helping them both prepare and relax before the stress of the exam begins.
But I have an influx of emails from students in one of my online classes where a project was due Thursday. When I have face-to-face classes I make deadlines at the time of the class and I generally feel like the 11:59 default due time is a bad practice for everyone. But since this class is online, I made the project was due at 11:59. That means my emails are all from between about 9 pm and 3 am. Not times I’m reading or answering emails.
And then there’s the Discord threads from the activism I’m doing on campus. So much is happening so fast. There’s going to be a nationwide protest on the 19th related to the grant funding cuts to higher ed. So now we have to decide whether to quick organize something for that. We also have a meeting to plan and an event I scheduled for next Friday. So much is happening so quickly, and I can’t keep up.
By the time I’m responding to students needing help on projects and reminding them I have a 10 am office hour, it’s closer to 10:30, I’ve been sitting in my Zoom room alone, and I still haven’t eaten. I stick a biscuit in the oven and then hop on with a student for a few. It’s a bit crispy when I’m done, but still delicious.
I also have texts from a few work friends about work things. I had one first thing when I got up, too, from my wife wishing me a Happy Valentine’s Day. I realized we didn’t say that when she left, but we also don’t really celebrate it.
I have another student meeting scheduled at 11, but he doesn’t show, so I text him and reschedule, which gives me a slight breather to respond to these other things. I make a poster for an event next Friday. That’s actually pretty fun. I added some snazzy lines that make it look pretty good. I’ve come a long way from the time in graduate school where a faculty member asked me to make a poster for an event and NEVER asked me again. In my defense, orange and maroon school colors are hard to work with.
I heat up some leftover healthy food for lunch, some couscous with broccoli and chickpeas, and watch some TikTok. Then chat with my wife for a few about the job offer she received today.
We are getting out of Middletown. We don’t feel safe here in the current political climate, and anticipate laws coming that will significantly diminish our rights and availability of healthcare. This job offer is in Boston. It’s the third offer she’s had so far, and she’s expecting another one soon, too. (I’m having much less luck.) There’s a lot to consider, but she’s pretty happy with this one. And there are lots of prospects for me in the area, at least. This one feels like a really good possibility. It feels like hope.
At 1 pm I have a co-working hour with some graduate students, which has been great to have. I work on sorting through some data and feel unhappy with the way we’ve organized it, and also like I’m out of my element with this study. And I’m supposed to be teaching them to do it. So, I feel less than stellar about that and just don’t have a lot of energy for work these days. I chat with one of my students afterward about his hometown, which is a suburb of Boston. I’m pretty transparent about my life. I suppose that’s one reason I write these diaries, too. My wife and I have talked some recently about how private she is v. me. It came up around my father’s death. Do you check someone’s email afterwards? Do you read the things they left behind? She says no. I’m like, nah, you find stuff I’ve written, you have full permission to do whatever you like with it! The conversation did prompt me to ask if I should be coy about writing about the job offer today, but she says by the time this is out, we’ll have a decision, so, it will be old news.
I do more searching on Zillow for a bit with the neighborhoods Z mentioned in mind. Boston is PRICEY but also exciting to be looking at where to live near a METRO. My brain can’t quite wrap itself around this being anything that might really happen.
It’s hard to do much else on this day with so much pending, not to mention a Friday. I do some dishes and then talk to a close friend on the phone. Then I call the archives at the library at the university where my dad used to work. He passed away in December and has some materials I thought they might like. They seem interested.
Then, I talk to my mom, who seems like she’s doing okay today. I was worried with it being her first Valentine’s Day without my dad, and she seemed really sad and lonely earlier in the week. But her house cleaner/helper came today, and she also seems legitimately excited about Boston now that she’s found a few potential living spaces there and gotten over the initial sticker shock. I’m looking up the places online she’s talking about and do more looking for places we’d like, too. I found a really neat condo that reminds me of the one we used to own here, but it’s in a building with a swimming pool and isn’t falling apart. I love to swim!
My 5 pm student appointment cancelled, and I’m not being at all productive today, so I call it quits and get started on dinner. I make katsu chicken sandwiches, which is one our favorites that I haven’t made in a while. E’s home a little late because she goes to get her piercings changed out. She recently got a bunch of additional ear piercings that have names I don’t remember. (I didn’t get my ears pierced at all until 35, and even still I hardly bother to wear earrings at all.)
We chat about Boston, and jobs, and moves, which consumes a fair amount of the evening. We also chat about what we are doing this weekend. She wants to do something special and suggests going out for breakfast. I look into it while she does her ride on the stationary bike. What will it be like to live somewhere with restaurant options? We settle on the Café at the Crossing, which I remember going to once before and getting something to go.
- gives the cats their treats and is pondering what shape cat Greenies are. I thought they were a fish, but she’s arguing that the ridges on top are not a fish. I google it, and apparently Greenies are toothbrush shaped. Who knew?
We also working on planning recipes for the week so that we can head to the grocery store in the morning. I have a new “Toast” cookbook that I’ve been making things from, and I choose one with tuna and sun-dried tomatoes to try this week. I’m pondering making cookies, and wish I had time to this evening. I’ll put butter on the list in case I still feel like it later in the weekend.
At bedtime, I read the memoir I’m reading for a while. It’s about PTSD, so it’s intense, but also keeps my attention. I need books that distract me these days.