What I Did on My Summer Vacation

The purpose of this post is to get the last post further down the screen. The last post came out of anger and frustration; and having remain the top post kept me in anger and frustration. Anger and frustration then became demoralization when reading comments in Historiann's post that linked to that post; and the demoralization became downright oppressive throughout last week's incessant stream of meetings, one of which was the OA meeting and one of which was a union meeting. You can read about the results of the union meeting in the Washington Post and Inside Higher Ed. (I won't link because I don't want a linky trail.)

Ironically, two or three of those meetings were supposed to be sort of pep rallies to get us all geared up for the new semester. For me, that was a big fail; but, then, I always hated pep rallies when I was in school, so their effects seem to be lost on me in general. Now, however, I'm looking at getting back into the classroom and talking about history and watching a group of people discover that history actually holds some interest and relevance. In fact, the one good thing coming from those right-wing "tea parties" might be that the students will find the Boston Tea Party a little more interesting. Dumbasses do have a function in this world, after all!

I am sad to see the summer end, as are most people on the academic year. Aside from the teaching burnout, exacerbated by that online class in the first summer session, I had a great summer. I had the writing class back in June, which released so much creative energy. Then, I had the NEH institute that, despite the drawbacks of the hotel, was phenomenal. I met scholars working on slave resistance in so many different locations and from so many different points of view that my whole approach to teaching U.S. history, especially African American history, must be revised. The revisions will draw in much more about Africa and the Caribbean, which will have greater appeal to my students, at least half of which come from one of those two areas.

With the NEH institute being held in Baltimore, I was able to spend hours and hours wandering about Frederick Douglass sites. I still have several posts to work out of that, which will help me get that writing groove back, and which will help me work out some of my ideas for my book. For instance, I'm still finding Anna Douglass to be an enigma, but I'm teasing out more details about her life. In the absence of any writing from her hand, I must do as Annette Gordon Reed did with Sarah Hemings: interpret her actions. So, I'm gathering as much as I can about her actions, no matter how small. I'll never crack open the Douglass marriage, and I may never fully understand even part of her life; but, as someone at the institute pointed out and as I've found in trying to trace fugitive slaves, sometimes people from the past demand their privacy, even a century or more after their deaths.

Oh, and I met a guy. If you follow my Twitter feed, you may have figured that out. This should be terrifying news, given the chain of fools who comprise my ex-boyfriend-whatevers, but this one seems to be a keeper thus far. My antennae are up for red flags, which made me realize that, in the past, I've actually been very good at identifying red flags almost from the first meeting. I just never heeded them because, from about birth, I was taught to ignore the self-preservation instinct (had I heeded it, I probably would have crawled away from home at age 2). This time, I'm being extra careful because I'm happy alone and don't need a new fool to mess that up. So far, no red flags. None. Really!

The guy, the Gentleman Caller, is responsible for my lack of blogging. My most interesting and eloquent words have gone his way; but they are only interesting to him and me. Blog readers would become ill reading them. Gentleman Caller has also been responsible for me walking around like I've been hit over the head, and feeling like a 16-year-old. Not ME at 16, but some other, normal person at 16. It's been quite a trip.

In any case, I wanted to mention the Gentleman Caller because he may or may not come up. Also, I couldn't not mention him. For over a week, every word that I tried to write always went back to him. Again, not anything anyone would want to read; but, I realized, not something that he would want to have public. In fact, I ended up asking him if he wanted to appear on the blog and have agreed not to write directly about him, just the fact of him. I've also agreed not to give him any identifying features other than to say that he gets what I do and the things that I face at work, and that this is a long-distance relationship (which makes the "caller" part of his pseudonym literal). Also, he's over 6-feet tall. He did specifically ask for that detail to be included.

I think that was the first serious conversation that I've had with a person whom I know in real life about their appearance as a character on this blog. Last year, at the Little Berks, my dinner companions said, straight up, "no blogging about us;" but this was an actual, back-and-forth conversation about the balance between my freedom of expression and his right to privacy. I brought the subject up, too, so he seems to have given me a case of the ethics.

Anyway, that's all for now. The institute knocked me out of my writing groove, so I'm getting myself back on track here.