I spent yesterday sitting in the too hot sun during Commencement at Bloomfield College, a little north of Newark, New Jersey.  I was also searching my mind for something to write about this afternoon, which had been pretty much a wash since the shocking death of a colleague on Tuesday.

Jane Cheng had been my discipline coordinator since I started working here in 2000.  It was she who had convinced me to apply for a tenure-track position here in 2001, even though it was not in my field.  As I kept telling everyone, I was a mathematician and new very little about programming languages.  But Jane had faith that I could teach myself enough to be an effective teacher in this area.  She and the academic dean, Ilona Anderson, whose retirement takes effect at the end of this month, had faith in me.  So I have felt more than a little bit adrift.

But stuff happened at Commencement that spurred an idea.  And other stuff happened today to broaden that idea.

Maybe it is not too far astray.    

Muse in the Morning

Once upon a time long, long ago, this blog was started and needed some daily features so that it wouldn’t appear stale and all.  On Monday, September 10, 2007 this feature first appeared with the name it has now, Muse in the Morning, after appearing twice at the end of the previous work week with a concept but no name.

Through the magic of auto-publishing, it has appeared at least five days a week ever since then…at 6:00am eastern/3:00am pacific.

It has changed a bit over time.  The original “outside” is on the flip.  Please consider it an invitation to join in.

I was a sophomore at Lake Oswego High School for the first half of 1964 and a junior at at the end of it.  

Like 1963, the music ranged from the Beatles at the beginning of the year…to the Beatles at the end of the year.  The meaningful music, as far as I was concerned, was in between.

I pulled the news from 1964 out of wiki, every fifth story or so.  I’ve added some content and some memories and followed a few threads forward.

I found it an interesting study.  I hope you do, too.

I’m tired…in more ways than one.  The end of a long academic year contributes a great deal to that.  Recent illness certainly has added to it.  And just being old certainly has to be acknowledged.

But nothing seems to do more than having fruitless conversations with people who just don’t get it.

It’s really old and extremely tiring to have people say things to our political detriment and then say that if we complain, we are overly sensitive.  It’s frustrating to have to ask people not to use our identity as a weapon, with the assumption that accusing someone of being one of us is degrading to that person.  It’s depressing to have our identity used as the basis of unfunny jokes…and then be told, should we ask that it not be done, that we have no sense of humor.

So tired.

I even ended up too tired to write much about all that.  Too tired and not in the mood for more idiots who wants to defend their behavior.

So instead of doing so, I looked for some GLBT news.  I found some of the good variety and some of the bad.  The world changes slowly…oh, so very slowly.

Muse in the Morning

An Opened Mind XXXVIII

Film at 11 Froth Deep down below past even the words are ideas and concepts normally unthought except by the weird unkempt minds of those who dare to be different Whipped creaminess of dangerous notions, syllables expressed too rarely and more seldom heard, whizzes by faster than can normally be sensed Grabbing on to a possibility I was taken downward further than imagination could conceive There is truth here There is more wherever I look And who wanted to be normal anyway –Robyn Elaine Serven –December 28, 2007