Day Diary Nov 14 2017
5:44-7: Alarm goes off at 5:30; I hit the snooze twice. At 5:44 I get up just as Bruce Hornsby’s “That’s just the way it is” plays on the clock radio. We switched from NPR to the North Central High School station a few months ago because the news was too depressing. The school station runs automation this early in the morning, so I hear this dumb song almost every day. It’s like “Groundhog Day.”
Set the phone alarm and meditate in the office for 15 minutes, while C makes coffee. Mind reasonably quiet, though it does wander to today’s activities (including doing this diary) and thinking about next semester’s teaching.
Brush teeth, floss, shower, dress, with Bruce Hornsby and Billy Joel songs playing in my head. Saw Billy Joel two weeks ago. Man, are his songs earworms! I’ve been playing “Bigshot” and “Zanzibar” in my head to the point of annoyance.
As I’m dressing, notice that the grey sweater I’m putting on has a brand label that says “Consensus” on it. This seems darkly funny to me. I’ve been thinking a great deal about our fractious political culture.
Warm a bagel in the oven and set the oven timer. Sit on the couch with my computer and send out a few emails. I usually don’t do this: I usually don’t open email until I get to work. But a few important things are on the agenda today so I had to get on early.
Oven timer rings. I measure two tablespoons of cream cheese and spread on my bagel. Pour coffee. Sit on couch and eat, writing this entry, and looking up now and then at the morning news on the TV. Silly news items—some guy put a camera inside a crevice so that hot lava would engulf it, then chipped it out. Weatherman on now: it’s going to be nice today.
7-7:23: Talk to C about a personnel issue that’s going on at my work. News is showing video of Roy Moore’s latest accuser. Put on shoes, pack up bag, fill a water bottle, grab a banana, and get on the road to Muncie.
7:23-8:30: Drive. In the neighborhood, the grass and the car windows are frosted over (not mine: I kept it in the garage last night), and steam billows from exhaust pipes and chimneys. Traffic is pretty light. The radio pops on as I’m pulling out and it’s a story about the founder of the Daily Stormer. He’s been profiled in the Atlantic; the reporter is being interviewed. The founder was a self-harmer as a young man, and came to neo-Nazism through conspiracy theory websites and Alex Jones. The founder’s followers troll Jewish people and other perceived enemies. The reporter has been trolled by these people; he tries to talk to them; in several cases he’s had conversations that ended with the men talking about their loneliness and their awkwardness with girls. “There’s a shared pain out there that I think we have to deal with,” the reporter says.
The drive is good. Sunny and cold. I have to keep moving the sunshades to block the bright sun. On a utility pole south of University on McKinley, someone has written, in white, “We Live 2 Die” beneath a quasi-masonic sign of a triangle and an eye. In a car in the parking lot by my Ball State building, a bumper sticker declares, “I serve a risen savior.”
8:30-9:10 – Refill water bottle; go into office and take off coat etc. saying hi to the women in the office; go to bathroom; come back and look over to-do list. Set alarm for a half-hour to write. This is something I’ve been doing for about a month to keep myself writing, keep intellectual content going in my job. I’ve got a piece that’s a combination personal/daily writing—analysis of my own news consumption and responses/Everyday Life Theory thing, and I work on this for 25 minutes before turning to this diary.
9:10 – 11: Work on tasks. Schedule meetings; send, answer, read emails; meet with my assistant to look at scheduling issues; check items off and add items to the to-do list. Slightly vexed to see a meeting on my schedule that I didn’t know about, and to think that someone else should be doing it. But overall working briskly and in a neutral mood.
11—meeting with four colleagues about schedules. Chatty and brisk, a short relatively efficient meeting in which we found a few small errors. I have a slight undertone of anxiety because I know I have to have an unpleasant conversation in the next few days with one of the folks at the meeting. Meeting is broken up by 11:40 and I’m back here typing this now, waiting for another colleague to come in and give me some info I need to plan for the unpleasant conversation. Very bright outside my window, a few very faint wispy clouds in the blue sky. Getting hungry and thinking about lunch. Colleague comes in and confirms my sense of events re: the uncomfortable conversation; we begin by talking about baseball. Makes me think of the rituals around how conversations get started in Things Fall Apart. Instead of sharing a cola nut, we talk about baseball until we’re ready to really start the conversation.
Noon-1:10. Walk to Noyer to have lunch with C. C’s mother died recently and I was a bit slow in sending my sympathies, so I wrote to him last week and asked if he could go out to lunch. It’s a beautiful day, crisp but not cold, and almost painfully bright. Noted the fallen leaves under the trees as I walked in front of the architecture building. Then got into Noyer and walked through the lobby with the big TVs, and remembered walking that way as Trump was giving his inauguration speech. An example of how the political anxiety, anger, and anguish is always there, like a thread waiting to be pulled, in everyday life.
At the Retreat I explained their awkward ordering system to C. Then we sat down to lunch; I got the roast turkey, mashed potatoes, and braised red cabbage. And, I’m not sure why or how it started but we got right into politics. It was an interesting conversation. We were talking about how and when to talk to Trumpists we know (he knows a lot more than me, in his family etc.) He talked about arguing with his nephew about assault rifles, and said, “I used to be that guy.” And I said, “You used to be a gun guy?” And he said yes, and went on to tell me about how he had a political conversion around the time of the second Iraq War, over the trumped up evidence of MWDs, etc., and that having a child and Columbine changed his opinion about guns, and how all of this settled in deeply when he was a grad student and building a friendship with M., our friend in the history department. And I told him my thoughts about the cultural mood. He talked about the difficulty of arguing well when angry. I told him I’m conflict avoidant and tend to walk away from the precipice.
1:10-1:30: Respond to emails, schedule a meeting.
1:30-2: Meeting with a prospective student and parent. They’re engaged and conversant and the time goes quickly as I do my schtick.
2-3: Tasks, emails, checking things off list, working on tomorrow’s list. At 2:40 walk to the library for coffee with B., a new colleague. We do this periodically. I stuck my nose in his office to see if he wanted to join me. He had to get books so came along. He told me about his conference in Chicago; his paper went well; had good talks with colleagues and new acquaintances. As usual he’s very upbeat, chatty, pleasant to be around. He’s a good conversationalist—you find yourself in interesting territory quickly.
Back in office, sit at my desk with coffee & two chocolates and take a 10-minute social media/newspaper break, and write in this diary.
3-6:10: Work on tasks, spending most of this time on a complicated scheduling problem. K. comes in to consult with me on my ideas about it. At 5:10 a co-worker comes in to work on this problem. Vexing—lengthy. This colleague is not a clear or effective communicator and so it takes three times as long as it should. As she’s leaving another colleague comes in with another small problem for me to solve. Says it will take 20 seconds. Takes like 5 minutes. Vexing. Tired and hungry and now to drive home. I have NPR playing on my computer as I get things wrapped up. Spend 10 minutes working out tomorrow’s to do list.
6:10-7:25: Go to bathroom; fill water bottle; text C. to say “ETA 7:20.” Drive home, catching the end of the NPR news (not listening very closely—a “been there” story about anorexia—I missed all the stuff about Jeff Sessions—probably just as well for my mood, and I’ll hear it tomorrow morning as I’m driving in); then hear the first 20 minutes of Fresh Air (the director of a new movie about racial conflict in the south, Dee Something, sounds interesting). Obviously, just vaguely tuned in.
7:25-8. Chat briefly with C. while I put on pajamas & pack clothes for tomorrow (going to gym at 5:45 in the morning); make breakfast (tuna sandwich) and lunch (salad with blue cheese) for tomorrow; then warm butternut squash soup and make myself a turkey sandwich on rye and a half cheese sandwich on raisin bread. As I putter in the kitchen I think with some annoyance on that last hour of the day. Shouldn’t schedule a meeting with a challenging colleague at the end of a long day.
Open a beer. Take my plate and my beer and at
8:00 sit down on the couch and watch 2 episodes of Bojack Horseman, including the underwater episode (very little dialogue, pretty psychedelic, hilarious animal jokes) that M. and B. said is the best one. Paused to go back to the kitchen for a seltzer and then some peanuts and an apple. After the second Bojack episode, at
9:05 C. says she’s going to bed (we’re in an early-bed, early-rise regime—I suggested this so I could get my workouts and my writing in, and it’s working pretty well). I tuck her in then do the dishes I made getting my meals together. Then sit down here and write this. Now it’s 9:34 and I’m going to read for 15 minutes before going to bed myself.