Drop-kicked to the middle of next month

I'm writing this essay inside-out, I tell myself--violating the advice I often give to students. Instead of synthesizing source material as I go, I'm writing the central analysis in full and then going back afterward to squeeze in the scholarship. But I've got time to make it work. I mean, it's not as if I'm writing this for a grade or a deadline. But why am I writing this? Where shall I send it when it's done? I'll worry about that tomorrow.

This is what June does to me: gives me plenty of reason to postpone action until tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Once June is over, I have to get serious and finish things, because August will be right around the bend and at that point everything needs to be done. And here we are at the end of June. No more messing around! Work work work!

But it's too hot to work. I know it's hotter elsewhere; I know others are suffering more that I am; but it's hot enough here to make breathing outdoors uncomfortable and to make brownouts inevitable. But at least the highways aren't melting. Yet.

In other news, I was just talking with an old friend about how much I'm looking forward to teaching African American Lit this fall, and she wanted to know whether students ever resist or resent reading minority voices--Don't you get nervous about teaching Black literature in the current environment?  But who has the energy to worry about such things in the middle of June? Coincidentally, the day after my friend asked the question, I bumped into a former student at a restaurant in town, and he came up to tell me how much he appreciated my class. I couldn't remember his name and I had to ask him which class he'd taken from me, and he said, African American Lit. It totally changed the way I think about things.

That's the kind of comment that can keep me working and thinking and reading and writing even in the laziest days of summer. In fact, that's the kind of comment that drop-kick my lazy butt right into the middle of next month. Watch out! Woman at work! Better get out of the way! (Tomorrow.)