Sunday Confusion
While crawling into consciousness this morning, listening to the rain drumming against the window next to my bed, I found myself contemplating a very weighty issue:
"What do I wear to Ronin's party?"
Ronin turned five a couple of days ago and I have been invited to his birthday party as the guest of his mom, Olivia. (Each parent is allowed to invite one friend.) At Ronin's choosing, and much to Olivia's chagrin, the party has an army theme and thanks to the marketing geniuses at birthday express.com, the party will be complete with army-themed plates and cups, party favors and party games.
So. What to wear...what to wear? Ronin's invitation requests appropriate, combat-ready attire. The closest I've got to camouflage is khaki capri pants and an olive green t-shirt. Sort of 'Old Navy goes to the Army'. The problem here, the complication that my sleepy brain is trying to work through is that shortly after the conlusion of the birthday party, I am expected at the May Day open house of Kirk and Peter. Kirk, a running group friend, and his partner Peter have been renovating and redecorating for years. And now finally, as the humorous but unsettling invitation suggests, we are all invited for crepes and chablis to celebrate both the end of renovation as well as the end of Kirk and Peter.
Kirk likes to make jokes about how The Wallpaper vs. Paint Standoff and The Hall Carpet Conflict have simply become insurmountable barriers to domestic peace. Really, he insists, we should all just be happy that they haven't scratched the beautifully refinished floors during any of their recent skirmishes. I'm still not sure about how to react to the 'Come celebrate our disfunction' theme but everyone else seems very jolly about it so I will go and be jolly, too. I mean, why NOT celebrate a break-up?
Anway, back to the real issue. Have I made my case?! Do you see my problem with outfit selection? I can't run around playing paratrooper on a muddy mid-spring lawn and then walk directly and elegantly into a swanky catered gig at a big house on St. Ronan Street. Maybe I could change in a phone booth, like Superman. Hmm...
The burden of solving this problem on a rainy Sunday morning in a warm soft bed quickly became overwhelming and I decided that I could delay dealing with the whole issue by eating breakfast and checking my e-mail while still in my pajamas. That seemed like a much more soothing Sunday morning activity.
Or not.
When I opened my inbox, I discovered that even though I had conducted a one day boycott of e-mail yesterday, the students of WGSS355 had not. A small pile of last minute panic e-mails about the final paper due tomorrow and the final exam on Wednesday sat waiting me. All week I have been receiving a steady flow of requests for extensions, clarifications and precise instructions on exactly how to format an html reference in the MLA citation format. (Answer to that last one: "Sorry Katie, I have no idea.") Each day the number of e-mails increases, many trying to sneak in quietly with subject headings like, "Really quick question" or "One last thing." But despite the breezy subject headings, I can tell that the panic is mounting: Brian finally concludes that he needs an extension at 1:45 a.m., Meg has urgent questions about the brain at 3:22 a.m.
All lined up, these messages, with their middle-of-the-night time stamps and and semi-coherent questions, create a palpable sense of jittery, last minute freak-out in my normally peaceful e-mail inbox. These are not the happy Sunday morning messages I was hoping to browse. I'm actually going to have to THINK, and RESPOND and figure out some tactful way to tell Brian to stop asking for extensions without a formal notice from his Dean.
Now the idea of laying in bed debating khaki pants vs. jean skirt seems heavenly. But it's too late. I have seen the e-mails and the guilt of leaving my students' neurotic queries unanswered will find me under my covers and smother me there with a pillow.
"Hi Nora,
With regard to citation format, I have asked that students use endnotes instead of footnotes because..."
"What do I wear to Ronin's party?"
Ronin turned five a couple of days ago and I have been invited to his birthday party as the guest of his mom, Olivia. (Each parent is allowed to invite one friend.) At Ronin's choosing, and much to Olivia's chagrin, the party has an army theme and thanks to the marketing geniuses at birthday express.com, the party will be complete with army-themed plates and cups, party favors and party games.
So. What to wear...what to wear? Ronin's invitation requests appropriate, combat-ready attire. The closest I've got to camouflage is khaki capri pants and an olive green t-shirt. Sort of 'Old Navy goes to the Army'. The problem here, the complication that my sleepy brain is trying to work through is that shortly after the conlusion of the birthday party, I am expected at the May Day open house of Kirk and Peter. Kirk, a running group friend, and his partner Peter have been renovating and redecorating for years. And now finally, as the humorous but unsettling invitation suggests, we are all invited for crepes and chablis to celebrate both the end of renovation as well as the end of Kirk and Peter.
Kirk likes to make jokes about how The Wallpaper vs. Paint Standoff and The Hall Carpet Conflict have simply become insurmountable barriers to domestic peace. Really, he insists, we should all just be happy that they haven't scratched the beautifully refinished floors during any of their recent skirmishes. I'm still not sure about how to react to the 'Come celebrate our disfunction' theme but everyone else seems very jolly about it so I will go and be jolly, too. I mean, why NOT celebrate a break-up?
Anway, back to the real issue. Have I made my case?! Do you see my problem with outfit selection? I can't run around playing paratrooper on a muddy mid-spring lawn and then walk directly and elegantly into a swanky catered gig at a big house on St. Ronan Street. Maybe I could change in a phone booth, like Superman. Hmm...
The burden of solving this problem on a rainy Sunday morning in a warm soft bed quickly became overwhelming and I decided that I could delay dealing with the whole issue by eating breakfast and checking my e-mail while still in my pajamas. That seemed like a much more soothing Sunday morning activity.
Or not.
When I opened my inbox, I discovered that even though I had conducted a one day boycott of e-mail yesterday, the students of WGSS355 had not. A small pile of last minute panic e-mails about the final paper due tomorrow and the final exam on Wednesday sat waiting me. All week I have been receiving a steady flow of requests for extensions, clarifications and precise instructions on exactly how to format an html reference in the MLA citation format. (Answer to that last one: "Sorry Katie, I have no idea.") Each day the number of e-mails increases, many trying to sneak in quietly with subject headings like, "Really quick question" or "One last thing." But despite the breezy subject headings, I can tell that the panic is mounting: Brian finally concludes that he needs an extension at 1:45 a.m., Meg has urgent questions about the brain at 3:22 a.m.
All lined up, these messages, with their middle-of-the-night time stamps and and semi-coherent questions, create a palpable sense of jittery, last minute freak-out in my normally peaceful e-mail inbox. These are not the happy Sunday morning messages I was hoping to browse. I'm actually going to have to THINK, and RESPOND and figure out some tactful way to tell Brian to stop asking for extensions without a formal notice from his Dean.
Now the idea of laying in bed debating khaki pants vs. jean skirt seems heavenly. But it's too late. I have seen the e-mails and the guilt of leaving my students' neurotic queries unanswered will find me under my covers and smother me there with a pillow.
"Hi Nora,
With regard to citation format, I have asked that students use endnotes instead of footnotes because..."
posted by Eva Marie at 1:47 PM
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