Heading out of town

I know it's March, but it sure doesn't feel like it. Where is the snow? Why is everything turning green? It honestly feels like it's a month later, like it's April. I've seen crocuses and even daffodils blooming in people's yards, and our maple tree is putting out little leaf buds.

I'm posting today because we're leaving on our spring break trip tomorrow morning, so I won't be able to do it then. 

This was a strange week for me because my old advisor, John, died on, I think, Tuesday night. We found out about it on Wednesday. I've been in a bit of a daze ever since. He was 86, a lifelong heavy smoker and drinker, had been on dialysis for a few years, had terminal cancer. By any reckoning, it was time to go and I think he was more or less ready. Actually, I'm not sure about the "ready" part. When he told us the cancer had come back, he did so very reluctantly, and sounded like he was trying not to cry. Maybe some people are never ready. He was still very involved in life, in the world, in his former students, i.e., us. Anyway, maybe he wasn't ready, but it was time.

I've been puzzling over what his death means to me. He's been a big part of my life, for oh, I don't know, almost 35 years? I can't remember when I started working with him, but probably around 1990, maybe 1991. I graduated in 1996 and we'd been struggling through my dissertation for many years at that point. After I graduated, I stayed on one more year and worked for and with him as well as another professor. Then in 1997 I moved to Boulder and I thought I was done with him and academia.

Ha ha ha. John tried never to let a student go, feeling responsible in some way, I don't know. After I moved, he continued to call me a few times a year, just to check up on how things were going. He occasionally came to Boulder, and I remember a bird walk we took together on one of those trips. I went back to Ann Arbor in 1999 and 2001, and then there was a conference in honor of him in 2006, and Rocket Boy and I went to that. I even gave a (very bad) talk. I think that was the last time I saw him -- but he kept calling. More recently, my old dissertation group started having these regular Zoom calls. I was looking back through old emails and I remembered that we tried to start zooming in 2020, but John got very sick, was in the hospital, etc. We finally started up in January 2021. So, a little over four years of those calls. 

I didn't always like the calls. I felt as though I had failed John, and myself, by not having an academic career, not publishing, etc. Sometimes that bothered me a lot, and I would try to think of an excuse to skip the call. Other times I would be in a better mood and would look forward to the calls. I liked the fact that he still cared about me, that he was still interested in anything I was working on, even my reading plans. But sometimes I wished he would leave me alone, so that I could forget that I hadn't been as successful as some of my friends. Mostly, though, I was tickled that there was still someone out there who cared about what I achieved. I mean, really, who cares what an unemployed woman in her 60s does with her time and her life? Nobody. But John did.

On those calls I sometimes still felt as though I were in my early 30s, with all my professional life ahead of me. Other times I absolutely felt my age -- but I felt as though mid-60s was a great time of life to start something new. After all, John in his 80s was still busily writing and publishing.

My friends and I are talking about having one more zoom call, on April 5th, and then after that I don't know. Maybe we'll keep doing calls occasionally throughout the year. I would like that. But John was the glue that held our group together.

 

Political stuff this week

Monday

Sunday night I unfortunately had another stomach issue. I took my first shot of 10 mg Mounjaro before bed, and that might have been the cause. God, I hate my digestive system! After extensive vomiting, I calmed down and was able to go to sleep, maybe around 2:30 am, but the wind was also blowing like a son of a gun (over 80 mph gusts). All this is to say that I was a basket case on Monday. After getting the kids off to school and feeding the cats I went back to bed and didn't get up until 3:30 pm. 

However, I did still make time for a political task. The whole point of these is that they're simple and can be done even on a bad day. I wrote Senator John Hickenlooper a nice email all about how I understood why he voted no on the CR, but I had supported it because I wanted the fired workers to have a chance to come back and get paid again, even if just for a short while. I encouraged him to get the other Democrats to kiss and make up, because it was a terribly difficult choice, no easy answers.

Tuesday

I was planning to go to a protest downtown at 5 pm, but 10 mg Mounjaro was kicking my butt, so I didn't. Instead, I got into a long conversation with someone on Reddit about protests and what the point of them is. I tried not to be snide, but to really listen, and at the end the other person said "I appreciate the different perspective, really helpful for me to hear." I responded that I was glad we found common ground, and then another person wrote, "This was a genuinely heartwarming interaction."

Although I don't normally count Reddit posts as political actions, I decided to count this one, because it affected multiple people in a good way.

Wednesday

I decided to write to Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, to thank him for "rebuking" Trump when Trump called for a judge's impeachment. But then I got an email from a friend telling me that our advisor had died the night before. That threw me into a tailspin. I wrote a letter, but it was kind of mixed up. I didn't mail it.

Thursday

I finally got my letter to Chief Justice Roberts written, though it took a couple of tries. My mind was just not functioning normally. I printed it out, signed it, put it in an envelope and mailed it at the post office.

Then, because that letter was really my Wednesday task, I wrote a "Comment" on Colorado governor Jared Polis's website, in support of the teachers rally that was held today at the capitol. (Nothing to do with Trump, but still a political task.) I would have gone to it, except that I had an appointment to get my hair cut. But I wasn't needed -- they had a huge turnout. School was canceled for the day because so many teachers wanted to attend. 

My comment to Governor Polis was not at all brilliant, in fact barely intelligible, but it contained the key words "No more cuts!" which showed which side I was on. I clicked submit. Done.

Friday

Rocket Boy and I were planning to go to the rally in Denver with Bernie Sanders and AOC this afternoon/evening. But in the end we decided we needed to stay home and get ready for the trip, not get ourselves all tired out right before we go. I heard there were over 34,000 people there!

But I still needed a political task. So in the end I wrote an email to the "answer desk" at the Small Business Administration. Trump has decided that the management of 43 million people's student loans will be moved from the Department of Education to the Small Business Administration. He announced this on the same day that the Administrator for the SBA, Kelly "I'm taller, thinner, blonder, and richer than you" Loeffler announced the drastic downsizing of that agency. Which makes no sense. I didn't write an angry email, just a puzzled one. I said I knew many people with student loans and also I had two teenagers approaching the time when they may need to take out student loans (I hope not, but we'll see). I said I didn't see how this was possibly going to work.

Just wanted to let them know that people out in the world are paying attention.

Saturday

My congressman, Joe Neguse, is holding a town hall in Louisville this afternoon, and if we weren't packing for the trip I would try to go. But I'm going to let others handle this one. I'm sure it's going to be crowded, which is wonderful! There's also a protest at the Tesla dealership in Superior, as there is every Saturday. I'd like to go to one of those some week, but not today. I feel OK because I did five things this week.

***

OK, that's probably enough for now. I'll do a post next Sunday to tell you about our trip.  I'm going to try to do political things on our trip, too, but it will obviously be more challenging. I am wondering if we'll see signs (literally) of protest at the national parks. We're planning to visit Carlsbad Caverns national park on Monday, Fort Davis national historic site on Tuesday, Big Bend national park on Tuesday and Wednesday, and Fort Union national monument on Friday, so there are lots of possibilities. Or I can just write postcards to Trump and mail them from each place. We shall see.