It does feel like a soap opera sometimes.
Life has been . . . life. Our house felt like a train station for about a month as friends and family visited. The distraction was a welcome one, as we dealt with a rollercoaster of administrative abuses at our jobs that have negatively affected so many people (we both work in academia). No matter what we do to appease the administrative overlords, they blindly throw us under the bus to save their own skins. Our faculty recently fought and won a union contract; my spouse is in a union-exempt job and has no protections. I used to think academia was a safe space where we could give back to our communities and contribute to the greater good of higher learning, focused research, and artistic expression. I now realize I caught the tail end of a golden era in higher learning. Today, state schools that used to be funded by tax dollars are increasingly forced to rely on high-dollar donor relations and their wallets to stay afloat. And the faculty and staff who dedicated their education and careers to this calling are watching our passions and livelihoods shrivel and die.
Anyway, I saw a book title the other day that was something to the effect of “we’ll laugh about this in a year,” and I gotta tell ya, I really hope that’s true. I have to believe it’s true. In the meantime, I’ll keep planning my weekly meals but will be getting even more creative with stretching that dollar.
Here is my cry into the internet expanse: go be curious. Go be creative. Make art. Stand up for what you believe. Fight those who use you as a step stool in a desperate attempt to hold the high bar of power. Be the off-brand stool that crumples just long enough for people to fall off as you slowly regain your shape. I’ll have Tuesday tacos waiting for you when you stand up again.
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