Had I more personal bandwidth and less feeling of a need to keep communications self-disciplinedly directorial, I might have paused more often in July to write openly about how things have been going, from lifeworld to workplace and back again. July was my first month in a new faculty-director position; I was welcomed warmly and with goodwill for the most part, though countless special effects strobed the month—additional nuisance flooding in one area of the Center, which I discovered on Sunday, July 5, while erranding a floor lamp from the Goodwill Store to my campus office; wandering into a gust of documents arrayed in ways that left me feeling like a befuddled reader and which lent especially to a looping mode of asking again then one more time, where is x, where is y, and would it be okay to build finding aids for the Lost, like me. And then there was wayfinding with workload agreements, such a stabilizing staple in my former workplace, questions about proportions and managing expectations, about workflows, organizational charts, the top three things I ought to be prioritizing. Wayfinding with policy documents and forms, fundraising messaging due for wordsmithing, and surveys. I have been well-served by working in other higher ed workplaces; in fact, as I was walking Feta just a little while ago, I was thinking that I’ve received my paychecks from higher ed institutions since September 1997, twenty-nine years ago. It’s not a brag but an experience check-in; what can I claim to know? what can I claim to understand? what I have I seen before? Experiential volume and density have not been at issue; rather, the number and complexity of eddies on any given day, those have left me a bit more off balance than I have felt since at least February 2019. I rode the bus each day; on top of that, I’ve decided not to carry my work laptop with me everywhere I go, so that choice plays at least a small part in the nebula-tripping: I am adapting to a new document ecology on a more immediate scale, too.
I had not anticipated that July would include so many skunks and a skunk spraying incident. Also one possum. And yesterday, July 31, a gopher in the run, which scampered off without resistance. July included the flooding, which I already mentioned, but also the Fourth of July holiday, followed by Art Fair, which included wildfire smoke so thick it was unbearable to go outside for at least two days. It included more dealings with contractors who I am counting on to help me stop water from flooding across the garage floor every time it rains more than an inch in two hours; a contractor finally did the work, and so far the swale is doing its diversionary gravity guided best, not that we have had much rain. I’ve had to run a sprinkler to get the grass seed to sprout. There, too, the three hens have ignored the makeshift fence I strung up to keep them away from the swale. Forecasts suggest the swale will be tested in the week ahead, discourse communities taking note of foreseeable rainfall from wildly unreliable weather station clankers.
I’ve sunken more time than I guessed I would into a couple of matters that must be invisibly cloaked, a letter-non-letter written-not-written whose content I dare to be curious incurious about (I was incompetent with Rubic’s cubes, too, whatever this may say about the trappings of logic problems). More time than I guessed I would flush on it went into an unauthorized septic system dig-up at the selling, selling, soon-to-be-sold (?) house in Virginia; this was an enormously stressful lightning strike in that we had listed as-is and we knew the septic was aged but functioning adequately. The commonwealth’s laws evidently assign to septic tank companies responsibility for inspecting and evaluating systems; in the past five years, we are two for two with SW Virginia septic companies accipurpodentally arriving and digging at the house when nobody was home, THEN concluding that the system needed to be replaced, while not providing any visual evidence of what they claim to have witnessed that led them to conclude replacement, of a tank, for example, was warranted. Let’s just say that my trust for stewards of shit-flow systems in Virginia was low and was lowered. Even worse, the company never once contacted me. The realtor team sought to mediate and appease us; that appeasement ended up costing $3000. Could have been better and could have been worse.
And then there was the NCTE’s decharting of CCCC, speaking of shit-flow systems. In the past two weeks, we have seen the larger organization disband (kinda?) its subsidiary, followed by a flood of online sentiments with many insistent on continuation, and a dozen efforts to issue solidarity statements, to fundraise, to regionally reorganize, to more grandly reorganize, to sort and to rescue, and to stay afloat. A new listserv. I have thoughts and have kept them mostly to myself; I’d rather they went into the final chapter of the book manuscript I have been too slowly writing and drawing, whose fifth-final chapter I now understand due in part to the premise I had planned fitting aptly with what I think has happened these two weeks. There is of course a to be continued night sky of question marks floating above the field at this moment. I believe in the elected leaders sorting things out, though I don’t know how to keep up with who has resigned, who has remained, and who has resigned-then-remained; I respect the open processing by so many in digital spaces but am not myself feeling especially rewarded to engage about it there, not now, maybe not in those ways.
July included a visit from a long-time friend and former colleague, a visit from an aunt, a phone call with my brother, countless text messages, especially about NCTE’s heinous actions, and more. For the new job, at least three onboarding meetings that have exceeded two hours. Two on Zoom. One went three hours. I have had questions. My calendar is a domino chain with as many pieces tipping over as are being set up, such that our already-once-rescheduled August retreat will now have to be cancelled. The other day I noticed that the rhubarb plugs I planted in early June were clean topped off by a deer, but all things being morbidly equilibrating, Feta and I also saw that a deer was killed along Packard in the last 24 hours, and upon seeing it I immediately hoped for those rhubarb leaves to have been delicious. When delights are rare, savor them, for which delights are near to the end of any story, who can say. I wrote and sent a review of an article, which I wanted to be better because its premise is smart and its description widened my eyes, but then, I did what I could to offer constructive feedback, always rooting for the thing reviewed to gain shape through this process.
It’s Is.’s 20th, so I should carry on in that direction soon. July is only half-told. There was a trip to Detroit’s federal building; what a grayed out scene and the parking was $10 but the convenience was worth every cent. I didn’t have cash; the monitor allowed me to pay $12 on CashApp. Still worth it. There was an hours long intervention into a domestic dispute while walking Feta one evening; offering rides (let’s go to the store to get you the pack of cigarettes you want) to ease tensions; we don’t need the police to assist in this one. Later, texts of gratitude and the suggestion that I reminded everyone of someone famous who they could name, to which I confessed that I am ordinary. In July I had the right rear tire on the Maverick pick up a small nail, reducing its air pressure to 14 PSI. I aired it up, went about the day, then checked it later before driving it to the nearby Belle Tire. It had only psssed four PSI in three hours. Belle Tire fixed it quickly and for free. Those are some highlights; August’s onward song already fading in as I tap my foot c’mon c’mon.
