Urban Honking

This weekend is the annual St. Patrick’s Day Massacre here on campus. The year before I got this job, this event made national headlines for basically turning into a Bacchanalian nightmare of drunk undergrads rampaging like a massive, lumbering tornado cutting a swath of destruction across much of campus and the surrounding communities, where actual […]

Well, it happened! We bottled our cider, which means we drank a bunch of our cider. As you will recall, we recently went to a somewhat life-changing event, in the form of a cider festival near our home. The following week, we purchased five gallons of apple cider from a local orchard (it is a […]

One thing that is amazing that I think I have not told you yet is that next semester I am on TEACHING LEAVE ODE TO TEACHING LEAVE O teaching leave I love you I kiss your alabaster palm I worship at your well-formed feet I lay my grading pen upon your uncreas’d brow I lightly […]

Sometimes people leave a box of used donuts in the copy room and then we all pretend like it’s gross but then within an hour all the donuts are gone. I really appreciate how everyone also will take just one little chunk out of a donut, until all that’s left in the box is a […]

The only sincere New Year’s Resolution I made this year was “say people’s names more often.” As many of you no doubt know, and have even experienced for yourselves, I have mild face blindness. I don’t know if it’s neurological or the product of poor paying-attention skills or if it’s because I’ve been so blind […]

It has been a long week! I’m so happy it’s Friday (the lesser-known acronym ISHIF) and not only Friday but a Friday with no meetings or oral exams. Huzzah! I am finally back in my office (coffee shop) drinking an americano and slamming a chocolate croissant. I have big plans for this stack of grading. […]

I am choosing to believe my suddenly poor work ethic is due to the fact that it feels so much like spring outside. They are tapping the sugar maples! In early February! It’s what everyone says when the subject of the bizarre weather comes up, which it does during every interaction with every person. The […]

I’ve been once again wonderfully schooled in my comments! I really like how smart and articulate my readers are; I will choose to believe this means I am doing something to attract such people, which reflects well upon me, even though all I did to deserve this particular schooling was declare that The Revenant was […]

A way up here, they got a name for rain and wind and fire the rain is jack, the fire is tess but they call the wind mariah You guys good lord! The wind blew up in the night, just as my weather app predicted it would. The kind of wind that cuts through every […]

It’s a new year! LAST YEAR Last year–which due to my profession I can’t help sort of blobbily thinking of as Fall semester 2015-Fall semester 2016–a lot of shit happened. You get to a point in your life where you feel like everything is just kind of the same all the time, and then a […]