Things to be Pleased About

I am making lists of things to be pleased about (they are in short supply around House Delagar these days, what with the kid suffering from a baby version of PTSD, apparently -- anyway, that's what her doctor thinks, I'm looking into a therapist for her who will give us a better diagnosis soon, I hope*) hoping to cheer myself up. Here it is:

(1) the weather is breaking, at last. It was almost cold here, the other night, and is sort of cool here, most mornings. Leaves are falling from the trees. Not turning red or yellow, mind you, because of the drought, just giving up and falling off, but still. It's almost like autumn.

(2) mr. delagar has bought me all the remaining Billy Bragg CDs that I don't have already. (I couldn't buy them myself b/c this is September. September, at least at the low-rent universty I work at, is the poorest month for academics -- the fiddling summer pay has long run out and the much higher winter pay -- that nine-month pay that is our regular pay -- has not yet kicked in (we get that starting at the end of September) -- and so all through September and usually a good bit of August too we are dirt poor.) Well. Where was I? Oh. mr. delagar, though, has a bit of money left, and he bought me the rest of the Billy Bragg albums with it. To cheer me up. What a saint the boy is. 37 pounds Brit money. Anyone know how much that is in American? mr. delagar assures me it is a lot.

(3) I found a way out of the plot tangle I had gotten into and couldn't get out of, in the third book of the trilogy. So I'm writing again, though not at the ripping pace I was this summer. But I can't, not with the kid melting down and five classes with five preps. At least the book is moving forward again.

(4) I got the class I wanted for next semester, a Special Topics: Mythology through Literature class. This is a class which is I proposed to the Chair, one I actually want to teach, one that is actually in my area -- one I am qualified to teach, in other words. It's been, ah, let's see, eight years? Nine years? Since I actually taught a class in my area? Fuck's sake. I may not remember how.

(5) I am also scheduled, so far, to teach only four classes next semester: Chaucer, History of the English Language, Special Topics, and Honors World Lit. It is four preps, and one of them is Chaucer, but I have taught all but one of those before, so that counts as good news.

(6) My What Would the Flying Spaghetti Monster Do? teeshirts came yesterday, one for me and one for the kid. These have cheered me up immensely.

(7) mr. delagar also bought me some Hornsby's hard cider, so I can have snakebites later. Even though he thinks I drink too much. (Compared to what? I ask. Compared to how much I want to drink?) (I don't, btw, in case anyone out there is worrying. He's just got the Jewish POV about drinking. A Jewish drunk is better dead, after all.)

(8) Tomorrow is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Yay! That's enough to cheer anyone up, right there!

I've got a much longer list, of things that have pissed me off lately. But I've decided to keep those to myself. As a public service, y'know.





*As we're leaving the doctor's office, where I have taken the kid to discuss her endless nightmares, her new refusal to sleep, her increasing phobic behavior, her developing school fears and OCD-like behavior, the kid says, "Does this mean I'm going to need a therapist?"

I say, offhand, like it's no big deal, "It does, in fact."

She brightens. "Oh, good!"

I'm relieved, but a bit surprised. I think aboout how to approach this issue, and take an indirect approach: "How do you know about therapist, Miss Girl?"

"Hank the Cowdog," she explains. "The chickens have therapists."

Gotta love that Hank the Cowdog.