Yesterday

Yesterday, I turned 53 years old.

I was planning to spend it pretty much the same way I have spent most of my Thursdays this fall - rehearsal for the Voyagers Shakespeare Company's fall production, Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter, followed by lunch and then tutoring, teaching, and hanging out at Voyagers for the rest of the day.

Oh well! So much for my planning.

When I arrived for rehearsal, the door was already open, and fans were blowing to dry off the carpet, as a result of a flood. We held the rehearsal, though sans any effort at blocking. But classes for the afternoon and evening were canceled.

But while I was there, much to my surprise, a birthday cake arrived - baked for my by Jenny, the older sister of one of the V'ger teens! It was quite yummy - and still is, though not much longer. (I was expecting a cake from Ethel, but she apparently ran out of time...)

And I got a new book for my birthday, Dark Matter: Reading the Bones (SF/F stories and poems from the African Diaspora, including Jesus Christ in Texas, by W.E.B. Du Bois, written roughly 100 years ago). And the promise of another present, but I gather it isn't out yet.

It was a good day, overall.

A visit with my mother

As most of you know, my mother died a bit more than a year and a half ago. Since then, slowly (if not surely), I've been weeding her paperwork and out-of-date reference books (college guides and phone books).

As I unearthed her (downstairs) desk and the stacks of paper on the floor beneath it, I was struck how much I am my mother's child - and not always in the best ways.

The sheets of mostly used mailing labels, with one strip of unprinted labels left at the bottom...

The multiple copies of different stages of drafts of writing, stacked but not recycled...

The records of clients who she helped into college, and who have gone through and out again long since - and left over mailing lists never used, equally out of date...

Blank forms for potential college financial aid applicants - for 1999/2000, 2000/2001, 2001/2002...

Three staplers.

On the desk.

In the back of my mind, I hear her explaining why they are all there... it's perfectly rational - but wrong.
*****

I think I will print out a copy or two of this, just in case...