Monday Night Potpourri: I Have An Excuse!

OK, maybe part of it is my fault — midterm grading and such, but late last week my computer’s recharge port apparently got wobbly, before tanking altogether this past weekend. This meant I had to use the computer very sparingly, in order to make sure that it had enough juice to do the things I needed for work. It’s at our IT office now — I’m using a spare machine that was bought in 2019, and hadn’t been updated until this morning. Until I did the updates, I couldn’t even log into WordPress, so here we are. The sick machine is under warranty, but I’m told that there’s about a 50/50 chance that the company will find a way to disavow it. If that’s the case, I’m stuck with this one until at least the end of the fiscal year. But I’m still here, so I thought I could at least let y’all know.

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The right knee replacement is scheduled for 16 May, not quite a week after Spring Commencement. I passed the college’s mandatory online pedagogy course, so while I plan to teach a class this summer, I’ll be able to do it a few weeks post-op, from the comfort of home — I hope so, anyway. If things go as well as we hope, I’ll likely have the left one done in a year or few. But the urgency scale definitely tends toward the right one, so it’s the first to go.

In the meantime, Mrs. M and I are heading up to NYC this weekend, and since I figure I’ll be doing some walking, I went ahead and got cortisone shots in both knees today.

The tan badges of courage.

I’ve had several shots in the right knee over the years, and as I mentioned elsewhere, the biggest ordeal of the day wasn’t the shots — it was having to go to the monthly faculty meeting afterward.

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In more pleasant news, I got a note from Mr. B a week or two ago, telling me that someone at a major university in the Midwest is using my stories in class. Thus far, they’ve looked at “Office at Night” (from In Sunlight Or In Shadow) and “Ampurdan” (from Alive in Shape and Color.) I’m delighted, of course, but I have to admit that I’m also amused. The school in question is much higher on the academic food chain than Mondoville — not only would they not be willing to hire someone with my background, I’m reasonably certain they wouldn’t have admitted me to their grad programs. (I applied to about ten M.A. programs, but the only schools willing to give me a shot were the home state programs at the U of Kentucky and Western Kentucky U. I applied to three Ph.D. programs — Ball State was the one to give me a chance. I’d like to think I’ve justified their decision.) But I’m glad to know that someone in the big leagues of academia thinks I’m worth sharing with their students — that’s a rush. I may have to start writing “Literary Figure” on the waistbands of my underwear.

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I also have officially tendered my resignation from my position as Humanities department chair, effective at the school year’s end. By then, I will have served the year I promised to serve, so I can step down with a reasonably clear conscience. I don’t especially feel that I’ve done a very good job — I knew going in that I wasn’t organized enough for the gig and nothing has happened to change my mind, so I expect that my successor will be an improvement. Also, I found that the position was occupying enough of my head space that I had trouble focusing enough to write (see also my less frequent blogging this year.) Honestly, while I don’t expect to make a significant contribution to the fields in which I find myself, I do think that what I do as a writer is considerably more valuable than what I might do as a pseudo-administrator. (Humor me.) In any case, I feel like I’ve fulfilled my obligation as a good citizen of the college and department, so I can pass the office to someone else with a smile on my lips and a song in my heart.

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Tomorrow, I’ll be recording my contribution to our Lent-and-Easter devotional series. This time, our subject is the Beatitudes, and as usual, I’ll share mine here on or about the appropriate date. In the meantime, you can check the series out here.

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All right; I have to talk about Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe tomorrow, so I’d better call it a night. But why not share a bit of music as I leave? I shared this one about thirteen years ago, in the early days of the blog, but I still like it, and if I can share an Auden poem multiple times, I can repeat a song on occasion. From Stroudsburg, PA, here are the Bentleys.

See you soon!