EDLM Diary
Dec 15, 2018
The fact that this third diary starts with sinus troubles when I know they were in the other two makes me glad I’m going to a sinus doctor on Monday.
I woke up around 3:00 am with a splitting headache, got up, took some Advil. I woke back up around 4:00 feeling even worse, added some Sudafed to the mix and held a wet, warm washcloth over my face. I was so hot, I thought maybe this is becoming a sinus infection. Finally went back to bed and slept restlessly.
Woke up with the alarm at 7, still feeling pretty bad, although somewhat better than during the night. Hit snooze and got up around 7:20 and got me and my wife coffee and breakfast. Getting up felt better, as did caffeine and a hot shower.
It’s graduation day and I’m hooding a doctoral student. So, getting ready for work even though it’s Saturday. I packed a small purse that I could fit under my robe. I put in tissues and cough drops, essentials for graduation. I wondered if I should wear heels—the student is tall and I am short. But I only have sweater tights right now and I don’t feel like they’d work at all with my heels. It’s not the best look—grey sweater tights, Mary Jane flats, and academic regalia—but it works.
Just after 8:30, I head to the bus, and notice a random sea-blue chair in the parking lot I cross through. Odd. The bus is a little late, so I head in the station where Christmas music is playing. I’m already feeling like the Cheerios I had for breakfast are not going to be enough for the day. I wonder if there’s still that granola bar in my office.
I notice the flag outside the bus station window is at half-mast. I haven’t kept a formal count, but it seems they never fly at full mast anymore. Is this still for Bush? School shooting? Who can keep track?
Two guys with Santa hats board the bus with me. I decide to get off at my office and check for the granola bar; even with the bus a few minutes late, I have time. Sadly, when I get there—no granola bar. I try to shove a snack someone left in my mailbox in the tiny purse, but it isn’t going to work, so I shove a few peanut M&Ms in my mouth, hit the restroom and head to graduation.
I find the entrance and put my coat and my umbrella on the coat rack. I distinctly remember that I put the umbrella on the hook underneath the coat, which comes into the story later. Then I find my line and put on my robe and hat. Chat with my grad student for what seems like quite a long time as we wait to go in. As we are about to enter the main area, I notice that one of my friends, B. is there doing the flag-bearing for one of the colleges. That’s cool.
Processing in is always one of the best parts. I kind of like Pomp and Circumstance and can’t help but hum when I hear it. K.—my student who is graduating—sees her family right near where we are. Her boyfriend’s daughter is eagerly looking over the railing and waving and her grandmother is crying already, which makes her cry. I can’t help but tear up a bit, too. Unzip the robe and dart into the purse and hand her a tissue. I’ve done this before. She tells me that the little girl (8) asked her in the car if she could walk her down the aisle. So sweet. I’m so happy she’s a part of this family now. So much has changed in the last year, and I feel so proud for where’s she come—not just academically. It’s hard actually building a life, particularly at the same time as finishing a degree.
Next up is the singing of the National Anthem. The woman singing has a beautiful voice, but I’ve always felt awkward during the national anthem. Some people take their caps off. Some put their hand over their heart. I just fold my hands together awkwardly like I’m at church or something and wonder what would happen if faculty started kneeling like NFL players.
After that this famous scholar gets an honorary doctorate, so I take some pictures of that. Then the key speaker is up; she’s pretty good. She talks about how “perfectionism is a lazy goal” because it’s an unattainable one. That’s a good point. One I’m horrible at, but a good point. And she talks about practicing love, and faith, and gratitude. Sure. That sounds good, too.
We’re up next—the doctoral candidates. I take the hood and get nervous that it isn’t going to lay right, so I mess with it. And in my stupidity, I button it, which is a no-no because then it won’t actually go over the head, even though the button helps it lay right after the fact. So, it’s a bit awkward, with me and the provost trying to make it go on until I lean over and undo the button. Then give my student a big hug. I hope I didn’t make that moment too awkward for her by forgetting the button thing. Perfectionism… yeah… guess it’s okay.
The list of MAs and BAs and whatnot is long, as it is in winter and summer when all the graduations are combined. So, we chat on and off through it. We talk about regalia. The sexist and racist nature of the caps that are clearly designed to fit men and don’t work well on natural hair. And the way my hood (Virginia Tech) is really peach and fuchsia rather than orange and maroon and the guy in front of us, who seems to be a Clemson grad, has a much truer orange. I let K. use my phone to text her boyfriend and tell him to grab her a snack for when the ceremony is over because she hasn’t eaten at all. See, the food wasn’t a random worry. I need to remember to tell future students to eat. I almost had one faint once. These robes are hot. The faculty member on the other side of her gives her a peppermint.
We are finally done at 12:30, about what I expected, and as we are heading back we catch some other faculty members for some pictures, which is good. And K. briefly gets to meet the super famous honorary doctorate scholar. So, I’m happy for that.
We say good-bye for now, and I go to get my coat. AND my umbrella is nowhere to be found. Which is weird since I swear I put it UNDER my coat. Seems like some stole it, but that’s weird. Who knows? Oh, well, it’s not raining, so whatever. After all that time at graduation, I really have to use the restroom, and I have no idea when the next bus home will be. So, I search and keep going in circles around the men’s room before finally finding the women’s. And then, of course, I just miss the bus. Sigh. I hate this building.
It’s going to be a long wait, so I start walking. There’s so much traffic from graduation down McKinley. I check the bus app as I go and see that I’m also not going to make the bus that goes down University. It’s really feeling cold with the wind. I thought it would be warmer today. So, I duck into the Atrium and pull out the small notebook I brought with me to record today so far. The bus on the app is moving so slowly. Maybe I should have gone to meet K’s family. Maybe I should have driven in. The traffic is completely gone in the next 30 minutes or so that I wait for the bus. When I go out to the spot, there’s one car pulled in RIGHT in the middle of the bus pullover. So annoying, and I get a little nervous that the bus won’t stop. That happened once. So, I stand right where the driver can see me, and he does pull over and honks at the sitting car who finally collects the graduate they were waiting for and pulls off.
I get on the bus and a stranger tells me “congratulations.” I nod, and later feel like I should have said “thank you,” even though it always makes me feel so weird when I’m going to graduation as a faculty member and get that, which I always do. The bus driver announces that he is early on his route and has to sit for a few minutes. I’m really glad K’s party got pushed back to 3 instead of 2. It’s already 1:30. I check myself in my phone-selfie mode. My hair is a disaster between that wind and hat head. I notice that there are several people with groceries on the bus. It’s really too bad the weekend buses aren’t as good or frequent. Clearly people need it.
My mind wanders, as it always does at some point when I go to graduations, about the oddness of the way my own undergrad and PhD graduations book-ended my first marriage. He proposed the day of my graduation from undergrad. And while it took me another month to do it, I felt like my graduation day from PhD school was a defining moment in knowing I was done with the marriage and feeling the confidence to make that decision. These thoughts are more neutral than they used to be.
Finally, I arrive home and drop off my regalia, pull up my hair and touch up my make-up to head to my wife’s work holiday party. I mean to get my regalia cleaned this time, so I lazily leave it balled up on the kitchen table knowing it will be a spot for Baby Boy cat.
The wife only works a block away, so I head over, and she is very happy to see me. They are just starting a game of Mafia—a bluffing, social card game. So, I sit near my friend S. and join in. I get to eat some of my wife’s homemade sausage, and cake and some dip someone else brought. After the first round of the game, and some good chatting with S., one person leaves, and I move across the table and sit next to E.—my wife. I completely stump her in the next game, which is good fun. I also get some really funny pictures of my friends, and a few nice ones, too. Then the group decides to do doubles ping-pong. The office has a ping-pong table. I watch that one. Then L. (the boss & a friend) says we should do this version of ping-pong where we all are in a circle around the table and when one person hits the ball then the next person moves in and grabs the paddle. It’s a bit nuts, and it feels like he’s making it up on the spot, but he says he’s not. So, we try that for a bit, which is definitely funny. I suck at anything with coordination, so I originally tried to get out of it, but they were having none of it. So, I did it, and it was entertaining. Then, before the second round, I say my good-byes to head down the street two blocks to Vera Mae’s where K’s graduation party is being held.
I get there right at 3 pm, and there’s no one I know. I meet K’s partner’s mother, who is hosting, put my coat away, and sit next to O., K’s friend, who I have met a few times. I had to think for a few to remember who she was. Then, K arrives with her family. And a couple of faculty members arrive. I save a seat for J. K’s grandma comes over and chats with us, and she’s super sweet. I have a bit of cheese and veggies, and then some of the amazing cake O. made. It’s white cake with layers of chocolate mousse and berry. Perfect! Around 5, J & I say our good-byes and walk out together.
Home! My wife got a package in the mail that I bring upstairs but do not open because it’s that time of year. All our holiday lights are on and have been all day, she says the don’t get hot like the old ones. Baby Boy is indeed curled up on my regalia, and he stays there basically all night. I want to get a few things done before I collapse, so I change the towels, and get a load of sheets going, and check my email. There is an update on my mom about my uncle who had surgery last week. He’s having some problems, but it’s unclear how major it is. While I’m on the computer, I share some pictures from the day that I took. Then I hang out in the bed and scroll online on my iPad for about 30 minutes with the little grey cat and by 5:30 I’m already in PJ bottoms and a sweatshirt. A sweatshirt makes it real clothing, right?
Then I plop down in the recliner and play some Tomb Raider on the PS4 for about an hour and a half until I get really stuck on what seems to be a timing puzzle. It involves swimming, and I think I’m doing what I’m supposed to, I’m just not doing it fast enough. So, after many, many tries, I give up and turn it off for awhile. Clearly I’m missing something. MSNBC is on the TV, and I don’t usually watch, but I tune in for about 20 min to see what the update on Trump is. He has to be going down, right?
I’ve been feeling not so great since I got home. My cough has been bad, and despite a blanket and a sweatshirt, I’m really cold. So, I decide to take my temperature. It’s 96, so definitely not high. I don’t really think I’m sick, probably just run down and my sinuses being dumb.
Around 7, I head up some leftover BBQ pulled pork for dinner and peruse movie trailers while I eat. I want to watch a movie tonight while my wife continues on into the night with the rest of her holiday party. Her boss goes all out. Last year they went to Indy and didn’t get home until like 3 am. Tonight is Muncie and will be earlier, but I’m still not expecting her until close to midnight.
After even more trailer watching on Netflix, I settle on a movie I haven’t heard of before called Wind River. It’s very well rated and is a crime drama about a murder on a reservation. It’s definitely well done. I have to turn the dryer off to watch it because it is always so loud. But eventually I do get sheets washed and dried and the bed changed.
As I’m typing up my diary, my wife comes home about 11 with a co-worker to show her the cats and the house. She only stays a few minutes, but even the shy little cat does approach her. I finish making the bed and getting ready, and we lay down to read before going off to sleep around midnight.