Thank goodness it’s Friday. For the first time in weeks, I am getting back on my regular schedule and working from home today. I’ll have to work at the museum the next two Fridays, but then I should be back to my regular schedule of working from home one day a week. At least today, I can get the rest I need after being so busy these last two weeks and can work at my own pace. Besides, I also have some comp time that I’ll take today.
This evening, I’ll unwind by having dinner with a friend. We are going to a restaurant that was damaged during the floods but is now up and running again. Not only do we want to support the restaurant, we’ve also both been craving some fried pickles as an appetizer. I’ll probably also get a French Dip sandwich for dinner. I’m also looking forward to one of their chocolate martinis or one of their other alcoholic beverages.
After a week and a half of teaching classes almost all day each day, I am exhausted. I taught three history classes yesterday morning and four English classes in the afternoon. I got about a 20 minute break for lunch. Last night, I’d have done almost anything for a foot massage. I’d been on my feet nearly the whole time. I always feel that I need to be standing to teach, and there is part of the lesson when I have to walk around guiding the students through the assignment they are given. I have my regular class this morning and one last make-up session for the series of classes I’ve been teaching. After today, the majority of my teaching for a few weeks will only be my regular class. Thank goodness, I am working from home tomorrow.
First off, I had an appointment with my neurologist at the Headache Clinic yesterday. She’s moving away and is leaving the clinic, and I’d been trying to get in to see her before she leaves. She’s not sure who will replace her, but she said they found a doctor they want to hire who was very nice. However, she said she doesn’t know if they can convince him to take the job. She said they’ve more than once thought they found a great candidate only for them to be snatched up by someone else. We also talked about me restarting Botox treatments, so I will get to see her one more time before she leaves. Hopefully, the combination of the Qulipta that I’m currently taking and the Botox will help. The Botox helped before but when I developed trigeminal neuralgia (TN), it wasn’t as effective. Now that the TN is largely in remission, we are hoping the Botox will help again.
Second, today is my last day of marathon classes. I have classes every hour from 9 am to 4 pm. Since last Tuesday, I have taught more than two dozen classes. Those classes include my regular semester long class that meets on Tuesday and Thursday but also numerous English classes each day. The English class is the same class over and over, but I still have to prepare lectures for my regular class. Today, I’m addition to four English classes, I also have three history classes. It’s been an exhausting week and a half.
Finally, actually I don’t have a third thing. Everything else seems to be going fairly well. I haven’t had the time to keep up with emails and messages, but hopefully I can do that Friday while I’m working from home.
Oh, is it, then, Utopian To hope that I may meet a man Who’ll not relate, in accents suave, The tales of girls he used to have?
The poem today is short and sweet. (I don’t know that Dorothy Parker was ever “sweet” in her prose. It’s just an expression.) Dorothy Parker always goes straight to the point, and usually in a humorous way. A founding member of the Algonquin Round Table, Dorothy Parker’s work was known for its scathing wit and intellectual commentary. She may have used humor, but there is often a lot of truth in what she says. In this poem, she basically is saying: In a perfect world, I would meet a man who won’t tell me about his past lovers. We probably have all known people who are constantly comparing people to others in their past. We may have even had a boyfriend who constantly told us about his ex-lovers. While it’s good to know about someone’s past, we don’t need to hear them compare us to those who they have known in the past.
De Profundis is Latin: “from the depths.” De profundis often refers to Psalm 130, traditionally known as the De Profundis (“Out of the depths”), from its opening words in Latin. There are several works in literature titled “De Profundis,” several of which include more serious poetry. These include:
De Profundis (letter), an 1897 work written by Oscar Wilde during his imprisonment, in the form of a letter to Lord Alfred Douglas
“De Profundis,” a poem by Federico García Lorca, set to music in the first movement of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 14
“De Profundis,” a 1998 poem by Regina Derieva
“De Profundis,” a poem by J. Slauerhoff in the 1928 collection Eldorado
“De Profundis”, a short story by Arthur Conan Doyle written in 1892
“AMERICA ’62: De Profundis,” a 2007 prose piece by Panos Ioannides
Suspiria de Profundis, a collection of essays by Thomas De Quincey
Appropriately, the watermark at the bottom of the photo above reads, “GAYS WITH STORIES.”
The Vermont Pride Parade was yesterday. Luckily, it only rained a small amount, not enough really for an umbrella unlike last year. There was the usual mix of oddness that has become a hallmark of Vermont. The Flynn Center (a Burlington theater) had a performance of their “Playing Field” horse. It would be difficult to explain, but you can go to this link to get an idea of what I’m talking about. A friend of mine said, “ It was totally weird but fitting!” I replied, “ If it’s weird, it’s always fitting in Vermont.” This is the same friend who when talking about the dating pool in Vermont said, “The odds are good, but the goods are odd.” It’s a perfect description for Vermont.
I always love seeing the various groups marching. There are politicians, drag queens, contingents from various colleges (the local Catholic college always has the most students), and various affirming religious congregations. Then there are the furries, Wiccans, medieval reenactors, etc. There was also a float with a stripper pole with different girls pole dancing for the crowd. As I said, the usual Vermont weirdness.
The local television stations also always march in the parade. One of the local meteorologists added a picture of the parade and it’s crowd for his Instagram story. I mention this because my friend and I are in the picture, though we are really small and blurry. If you’re able to zoom in, I circled us in purple. We are on the right side of the crowd. (The picture above is not part of the Vermont Parade, but the one below is.)
Joe
The Closet Professor 