Author Archives: Joe

About Joe

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I began my life in the South and for five years lived as a closeted teacher, but am now making a new life for myself as an oral historian in New England. I think my life will work out the way it was always meant to be. That doesn't mean there won't be ups and downs; that's all part of life. It means I just have to be patient. I feel like October 7, 2015 is my new birthday. It's a beginning filled with great hope. It's a second chance to live my life…not anyone else's. My profile picture is "David and Me," 2001 painting by artist Steve Walker. It happens to be one of my favorite modern gay art pieces.

Ugh! Friday

Usually, I look forward to Fridays. My regular work schedule has me working from home on Fridays, but not today. A mandatory meeting was scheduled for today to take care of an issue that should have been taken care of over a year ago, but my superiors have fiddle farted around and done nothing. If they were actually strong enough to be in the positions they are in, this would have been nipped in the bud the first time it happened, but that time, they fucked things up so bad, the problem just continued in a slightly different form. So, instead of addressing the problem head on by saying to the problem individual, “You can either be a professional at work, or maybe this is not the right place for you,” they are calling everyone together to discuss how we can “reduce workplace tension and stress.” I shouldn’t be so pissed off by the agenda, because none of it pertains to me. I already do everything that is on the agenda. 
The only “solution” that is being imposed is one that will cause more “tension and stress” not reduce it. Part of the reason this will cause more stress is we are currently understaffed because of another idiotic decision. We just don’t have the staff to make this solution work. The real solutions that need to be made should have been enforced since it was first identified as an issue. However, my supervisors can’t even regularly follow this rule (I’m the only one who does), which is simply to be at work on time and work the 8-hour day we are supposed to work. My supervisors have been so lax about this issue that everyone but me push the limits because they’ve been able to come in 

late and leave early, with the additional problem of not letting anyone know they will be late or leaving early. 

There are only one definitive solutions that will fix the issues: fucking communicate. With texting and email, it’s very simple to communicate, even if you’re too passive aggressive to communicate face-to-face. I think there is only one solution to take care of the “tension and stress” at my workplace is to get rid of the person who is the root cause of the problem, which is not currently a workable solution because it would leave me as the only full time employee at the museum. 

Quite frankly, I’m tired of being the only person trying to keep the peace because my supervisors can’t do their jobs effectively.

But hopefully, by mid morning today, this meeting will be over and I will be busy with other duties until my weekend will officially begin. Then, I can enjoy a cozy weekend at home with Isabella. With 14+ inches of snow expected tomorrow, I won’t be leaving my apartment this weekend.

Thanks for reading my rant. 

Have a great weekend, everyone!


Pic of the Day


Disgustingly Shameful

Yesterday, the governor of Alabama made ignorance a requirement at public universities in her state. Gov. Kay Ivey signed SB129, known as the “divisive concepts” bill, into law Wednesday. The law will become effective Oct. 1, 2024. The law lists eight so-called “divisive concepts,” with most covering topics related to race, ethnicity, sex, religion and national origin. 
A dumbass Republican state senator from Pike Road, Alabama, Will Barfoot, introduced the bill. (By the way, Pike Road is not even a real town. It fought to be declared a city because a bunch of rich racist white people didn’t want to be part of the city of Montgomery, so the took Montgomery to court to keep from being part of a city that was as diverse as Montgomery.) Barfoot stated nothing in the legislation prevents the accurate teaching of history. Educators who knowingly “compel” students to believe certain banned ideas, however, could be terminated or disciplined at the discretion of college and school board leaders.
In other words, any professor could be fired for teaching diversity, education, and inclusion, or DEI. That being the case, no public institution in Alabama should be allowed to call themselves a university. The word university (from the Latin universitas meaning ‘a whole’) is derived from the Latin phrase universitas magistrorum et scholarium, which roughly means “community of teachers and scholars.” How can any institution have a  “community of teachers and scholars” without teaching diversity? It’s insane, ignorant, and, above all, hateful. 

I hope my undergraduate institution, which is in Montgomery, will find a way to fight or ignore the new law. It was always a liberal institution, and a core aspect of my history degree was studying the Civil Rights Movement which began in Montgomery. It’s a sad and depressing day when a university is no longer allowed to teach the “whole” of the knowledge available. Censorship like that found in SB129 is one step closer to a dictatorship. 

I am ashamed of my home state. Vermont isn’t perfect either, but at least it is welcoming to all kinds of people.

And now, to bring a little levity to this discussion, I wanted to show you that at least Isabella is not scared of a little knowledge.


Pic of the Day


Urge to Escape

Do you ever wish you could just crawl back in bed and tell the world to fuck off and leave you alone? I kind of feel that way this morning, and I’ve been feeling it more recently. Mostly, this is just because of various aggravations that just make me want to scream. I have a bad habit of not taking action until it reaches a boiling point. I either hope it will get better if I’m just patient, or I try to ignore the issue. However, every so often, all these aggravations get too much all at once. I think that’s what’s going on right now. I just can’t decide if I want to crawl back into bed and ignore the world around me or if I just need to run away and have a vacation. I have only taken one “me vacation” since before the pandemic. I’d really love to go up to Montreal for a few days, but finances aren’t going to allow for that or any other vacation. Regardless, whatever it is I need, I want an escape, but none of that is going to happen because the world doesn’t stop just because I want to escape for a little while.


Pic of the Day


Spring

Spring
By William Blake

Sound the flute!
Now it’s mute!
Birds delight,
Day and night,
Nightingale,
In the dale,
Lark in sky,—
Merrily,
Merrily, merrily to welcome in the year.

Little boy,
Full of joy;
Little girl,
Sweet and small;
Cock does crow,
So do you;
Merry voice,
Infant noise;
Merrily, merrily to welcome in the year.

Little lamb,
Here I am;
Come and lick
My white neck;
Let me pull
Your soft wool;
Let me kiss
Your soft face;
Merrily, merrily we welcome in the year.

About the Poem

In the poem, “Spring,” the poet introduces a vivid picture of spring’s beauty clamped with springtime activities. The speaker happens to be a little child. The sound of flute welcomes the spring season and so does the other merry sounds after the long silence of winter. The child bids to play the flute and Nature seem to embrace the child’s request. The Nightingale and Skylark welcomes the spring followed by other birds and crow.

Blake spoke of the Skylark, the Nightingale, the little boy, the little girl, the lamb and the crow. The first five characters in the poem perfectly portray the theme of innocence, but this is not so with the crow. We don’t usually consider a crow to be an angel of innocence.  The second stanza is actually an illustration of the happiness. Both the little boy and the little girl are happy. All are happy and merrily welcomes the season of spring. The third stanza stands as a unified joyful welcome. By introducing the character of the lamb and creating a bond with the child, the poet actually wishes to welcome the Spring universally.

Blake’s last lines again to understand the implied meaning. Notice the last line, “Merrily, merrily, we welcome in the year.” He replaces the word “to” with “we” in the third iteration of the line above. Blake does it in the best way, uniting the little boy with the lamb, for a purpose. Mark, he has devoted 8 lines out of 27 to create the bond between the lamb and the little boy. Is it only to welcome the Spring (or the New Year) together or something deeper?

Spring’ may be thought as a rendering for the children. The expressions are akin to lullabies yet the poem possesses inner significance. The very anonymous opening lines “Sound the flute…” signifies the breaking of the dark silence of the night and marks the onset of the Spring after the deep Winter slumber.

The poet dedicates the entire third paragraph to the lamb, considered as the highest symbolization of Innocence. The child (the narrator of the poem) says, “Let me kiss your soft face;” makes the reader think of the inner implications of the lines. William Blake closely attenuates his thought of innocence with age! To Blake, everything is young and playful. He seems to be parallel with Mark Twain’s idea of aging – “Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”

About the Poet

William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognized during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. What he called his “prophetic works” were said by 20th-century critic Northrop Frye to form “what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language.” While he lived in London his entire life, except for three years spent in Felpham, he produced a diverse and symbolically rich collection of works, which embraced the imagination as “the body of God,” or “human existence itself.”


Pic of the Day


Aggravated

I enjoy my work from home days. It means I can actually make myself something for lunch and do some housework, like laundry, while also monitoring emails and getting some other work done. Not to mention, it’s one less day I have to drive into work and that saves a little gas money. Normally, I work from home on Fridays, but this week, I was supposed to work from home today. I have work responsibilities Tuesday through Friday that require me to be in person. 

However, it’s not going to work this week. I had a coworker who took a trip and was supposed to come back yesterday and be in person at work today so I could have a work from home day this week. When I rescheduled my work from home day to Monday, I had said that I doubted I’d get to take it because with this coworker, there seems to always be an excuse for why they can’t work on a day after returning from a trip, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt this time. By the way, this coworker had a commitment that they were supposed to be in person for, which I why I gave them the benefit of the doubt.

Maybe it’s not just an excuse this time. Maybe my coworker’s plane really was delayed and the airline couldn’t rebook a flight until today. Maybe those things are true, but I looked to see what flights were delayed, and the only ones that were would not have been flights my coworker would have been taking. Maybe I’m mistaken, but this delayed flight fits in with this coworker’s pattern of behavior. Regardless, I’m aggravated that I have to be the one to lose my work from home day this week, and I’m sure my coworker will still take their work from home day this week because they never, no matter the reason, miss their work from home day. I’m hoping to have two work from home days next week, at least that’s what my boss has promised me. We’ll see. 🤞


Pic of the Day