Not All Who Wander Are Lost

Family Days, Radio Nights

My first year here I realized that the librarians I worked with worked one night a week, and took a morning off in return. Seemed like a good idea. I, too, work one night a week, albeit in the dorm, a requirement inherent in being the only dorm-resident faculty in the instructional bunch. I also fill other responsibilities unparalleled by my peers, some part of my official "job" and some just stuff that seemed like it needed/wanted doing and fitted me well: grading papers, chairing the faculty professional development committee, answering the door at 2 a.m. to key a kid back into his room, helping to advise the Jewish Student's Alliance, doing the radio show. I checked with Patty, the woman I work with in the media center, to make sure she'd be willing to cover the center, and discovered that my predecessor had done the same.

With a morning off I'm free to take care of Willow on Mondays until my 2:00 class. She's such a different, more relaxed-and-focused baby in the morning; it's wonderful to be able to rediscover her morning side once a week. We sat splayed on the hall carpet and threw the dog's ball down the long cinderblock strip while the boys were in class, and danced a little to the Dixie Chicks on the stereo. The baby sits up now, on the couch and between my legs in the hall, and a third tooth has poked through her upper gum; it looks like she's sticking her little pink fat tongue out at the dog, but she's really just running her tooth along the back of it (tongue, not dog).

Patty and Neil, Darcie's parents, arrived at 1:00 to babysit; both teachers, they're on school break for the week. Their phone was out, so Neil was glad of the opportunity to check email on the LAN while I went to teach the last installment of my course on mass media messages, Satire and the Animated Sitcom. The theme for the final day was the recycling of other media and popular narrative in the nobrow cartoons; The kids ate chips and cookies and deconstructed that Simpson's episode about the Monorail, Beavis and Butthead's take on Beverly Hillbillies (spoiler: the oil they think they've struck in their backyard turns out to be a sewage), and perhaps the funniest South Park episode, Chinpoko Man.

Willow was getting cranky with the 'rents when I returned, but I managed to keep her occupied for another hour or so until Virginia arrived in her father's car (the engine's dead on her's). Picked up Darcie at the yearbook office and went to dinner at the dining hall, some sort of odd asian-style steakum shreds with carrots and peppers on that squiggly pasta that should be rotini but isn't. Forgot babyfood but managed to semisuccessfully mash brown rice with the remnants of some homemade turkey soup which didn't seem too salty or spicy.

Tributary, the radio show Ginny and I DJ every Monday night from 10 to midnight, was quiet. Someone left their CDs in the studio and I played a couple of them, most notably Randy Newman and Hank Williams. Talked a lot about the Grammys, which I hadn't seen. I read two-minute mysteries and promised free coffee for a week to the first caller who could solve one, but no one called. Tonight's featured album: Home, by the Dixie Chicks. As always, tonight's setlist follows.

Bob Dorough -- Too Much Coffee Man
Dixie Chicks -- Truth No. 2
Eddie From Ohio -- Quick
Dave Matthews Band -- Satellite
Keller Williams -- Breathe
Stevie Ray Vaughn -- Chile Con Carne
String Cheese Incident -- Up The Canyon
Dixie Chicks -- Landslide
Norah Jones -- Don't Know Why
Hank Williams -- Cold, Cold Heart
John Gorka -- Hank Senior Moment
Dan Hicks -- My Cello
Barenaked Ladies -- Grade 9
Phish -- Esther
Indigo Girls -- Love Will Come To You
Dixie Chicks -- Travelling Soldier
Kris McKay -- Wish You Were Here
Rani Arbo -- Comes Love
The Story -- Dog Dreams
Lucy Kaplansky -- It Ain't Me Babe
Randy Newman -- Sail Away
Dar Williams -- Iowa
Cindy Kallet -- Sarah's Song
David Wilcox -- Wildberry Pie
David Massengil -- Rider On An Orphan Train