At 10 I’m in the car and on the way to Muncie, where my day is to start with a one-on-one with an administrator at 11:15. I’m in a rented car because my car broke down. As I drive, climate change is on my mind. (OK so no comment required, but here comes one anyway): They’re calling for a high of 91 today; yesterday was the highest September 30 temperature on record in Indiana; and September was the hottest September on record. Today the sky is pale and washed out by the bright sun like a midsummer sky, with no clouds. Lunching with A.B. last week, he said, “I keep thinking we’re going to have left-wing violence about climate change before long.” I think: What are future generations going to say about us? Like, for instance, that we drove in little air conditioned boxes through blazing hot terrain then got out of our little air conditioned boxes and walked to bigger air-conditioned boxes, all that air conditioning all along making the planet hotter.
I flip the radio between BBC news and music. A Cage the Elephant song I listened to a bit in the summer is stuck in my head.
I get to Muncie a couple minutes after 11 and park in the garage behind the library (I can’t park in my usual spot with the rental car). Outside it’s not as hot as I was imagining, breezy and kind of nice. As I walk to the administrator’s office, a voice calls me from behind. It’s the chairperson of another department; we walk and talk shop, and arrange to have coffee soon. We’re both relatively new in our current roles.
At the office, the administrator is sleepy and low-energy, but characteristically dilatory in his speech. He apologizes at the end of our chat and says he slept poorly last night. But he gives me some good advice and an answer to offer my faculty about a question that’s come up. He walks me to the door and at about
11:55 I’m walking to my office, through the Atrium, where I pick up a small salad and an iced tea. En route D., one of my best friend/colleagues, passes in sunglasses and earbuds, absorbed in whatever she’s listening to; I don’t disturb her.
I arrive at the office at 12:15 with just over a half-hour to eat lunch. I warm a small serving of vegetable lasagna (ground turkey and squash/eggplant instead of noodles). I sit at my desk and eat, reading impeachment news on my computer.
At 1 I have my weekly admin check-in with my assistant chairs & program director. We get caught up on each other’s agendas. At 2 I have a meeting with a committee chair and a faculty member. Both of these require focus & attention; tiring. After the 2 o’clock meeting I have about 20 minutes of goofing. I make tea and look at social media. I have a phone chat meeting with B., my co-editor on a journal, to get caught up (we’ve both been remiss in our editor duties, swamped with other things). I text to ask her for a 10 minute delay and drink my tea. The meeting with B. is short and efficient and pleasurable: she’s amazing, a good friend and colleague and we work together well & enjoy each other.
From about 4 o’clock I field emails and cross the most pressing matters off my ‘to-do’ list. I’m feeling tired and, thinking of recent advice from C., I decide that I’ll leave a bit early and drive home, establish myself in a coffee shop, and finish the day’s work there. That saves me from driving at the end of a long and tiring day; I can drive home when I’m more awake and alert.
By about 4:35 I’m answering emails as they come in, and I realize I’m going to get stuck if I don’t move it. So I leave at 4:40, saying goodbye to the student workers and the secretary and walking across campus to the garage. It’s good and hot now, but not that uncomfortable. I still have some work to do to prepare for a 9:30 meeting tomorrow morning: there ain’t gonna be no haircut or exercise.
I drive, listening to the news. [I’m writing this some days later and don’t remember anything about what I heard.]
I get to Broad Ripple and drop the rental car off on the top floor of the parking garage at the corner of College & Broad Ripple Aves. The exchange is quick and efficient. I take the elevator down then cross the street and walk to the Starbucks. I get a bottle of water (too late in the day for coffee) and set up at a comfy chair facing the dormant fireplace. I open my computer and read some documents I need to familiarize myself with for tomorrow morning’s meeting. I’m tired and yawning but feel good about having a productive day and being in good shape for tomorrow’s meetings & class.
A few minutes after 7 I pack up my things and walk to the bus platform. This is the new Red Line, so-called Bus Rapid Transit, where the buses have dedicated lanes and platforms like light rail. The “rapid” has been questionable so far, especially at night on weekends. But I only have to wait 5 minutes or so, on the platform with a couple young African American guys, one singing along loudly to whatever’s in his earbuds. I get off the bus at 54th street and walk past the bars at the corner, thinking it would be nice to get a burger & a beer but I’m not going to do that; I’m going to be healthy. Walk the 2 ½ blocks home; C. is on the porch and shouts a greeting as I get to the corner. We embrace and I change into sweats and a t-shirt while C. warms dinner.
We eat on the couch in front of the TV; Peruvian chicken stew (Aji Gallina) that C. made on the weekend. I dip a wheat pita in mine as I eat, and drink a small glass of red wine left over from when we had friends over on Sunday. We watch a taped episode of Milk Street, a cooking show. It’s about making Italian food in simple, authentic (non-American) ways, and includes a recipe for Risotto Milanese that I’ve made a couple times (we also subscribe to the Milk Street magazine, and we went to Milan last fall, where a Risotto joint way out on the outskirts of the city was one of our most memorable meals). There’s also a good simple recipe for a lemony pasta.
Now I’m yawning a lot and have my computer in my lap, looking at headlines and then for a minute at email. C. asks, in a slightly scolding manner, “Are you working?”
By 9:45 I’m in bed, and I’m asleep minutes later. A busy, tiring day, going from appointment to appointment and task to task all day. But fine.