August 29, 2016

City workers are grinding away in the street at the end of my drive. Was going to talk with them, but thought if they had bad news it wold be best not to hear it.
   
Poem accepted by Ekphrasis. Not the one I thought they’d want.
   
Good classes. Playwriting tonight. My special needs student emails me that she has done her assignment, and then emails asking why I didn’t respond to her. The answer: didn’t know I was supposed to; there was no question to answer. I can see how this might build into a – thing, wherein I am accused (as I have been in the past) of not responding to student emails. I do respond when response it called for. I never respond to hysteria. Response, in that case, is encouragement. The academy has had all sorts of troubles and made all sorts of wrong choices through its long history. The current one is to allow– to encourage– emotional blackmail. It doesn’t matter what IS, it matters what I FEEL. Education and Sociology departments are the breeding ground–these days–of wrong choices.
   
Many of my English majors are double majoring in Classics. This is brilliant. Even though it brings them within grasp of the Boy, the benefits outweigh the perils.

Started to apply for a Guggenheim, but was stalled by what has stalled me in the past. You need four recommenders. I do not know four people whom I would 1) bother or 2) trust with such a task. So, goodbye to that yet again. Twice in the past I have been torpedoed by recommendations. “Oh! I forgot! Is it too late??” Yes. Yes. It is always too late.