VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). You're open-minded, flexible, amenable... and you still should try to get your way. Sometimes your way is just better. Today is one of those times when all will benefit when you politely advocate for it.

uh oh. and everyone always looooves that, too 😂. 

during one of those how to be in leadership things they mailed me off to, they had a bunch of personality tests. I was there with a coworker friend who scored like I did, only I was worse. she since re-assigned her gender to non-binary (they/them), left academia, went into a MFA program (I wrote a letter of rec), and leads a rock band. the difference between them and me is that while we were both extremely introverted, down to the 1%ile of the population in every inner-turning way, the very last thing they had that I did not was a dose of "campaigner" = free-spirited party thrower. my dollop was "advocate" = spiritual idealist. my employer thought that was a great thing, because translated into leadership it meant the capacity to "inspire". they didn't read the fine print, my complete disinterest in inspiring anyone to accept shit. it's kind of funny to think how much money they spent sending me through "trainings", as if that was gonna work some fucking miracle 😂

Yesterday in the waiting room for hours and hours, I was with my daughter's friend. she was sitting right next to me, and at her age they live all online, so we didn't talk, because it was as if I wasn't there, and that suited me. when I wasn't reading, I was listening to the other groups of people who were in the waiting room and what their loved ones were "in for", everyone trying to understand the health prison sentences that had been brought down on the heads of someone they loved. nearest to us was a brain tumor, and the waiting friends and relatives read aloud from their phones about what that even is or how someone might get it out, saying the "aggressive" in a quiet wincing way whenever it was in a sentence. 

I made a note to myself to add "aggressive" to my list of gritwords, and to ask my students what they think of it. 

In bill burr's most recent comedy special ( cannot recommend it enough both because it's hilarious and wise ), he talks about how the only thing he could do for a living was to be a comedian because what he does all day is think, and think about thinking, and keep reflecting on everything until he finds the fucked up thing(s). so there are two things I could have been when I grew up - a stand-up comic or this, whatever they're calling my job these days. have you noticed that everybody wants to rename stuff as if that changes the stuff? like we don't "brainstorm" anymore,  we "ideate" 👀 - everyone wants professors' heads on pikes over politics and "educator" is equally suspect -  in my last grant, I called myself a "healthcare workforce developer" 😂

at closing time, we bid goodnight to alllll of the nurses my daughter had made friends with, trading tips about places to try/go in Southie - always be nice to the nurses (!). good girl

Today, I'll go get her and bring her back to the cat palace and sneeze my brains loose and get bloody noses and binge gay homoeroticism, until my daughter is well enough to start correcting all of my opinions. she is in her roommate's phone as "source of correct opinions" 🤣 oh my god that's so perfect. and when she starts doing that, I'll know I can go home (she's fine). as I write this, she's already texting me about what I am to go get at this deli and that to please her within the bounds of a clear broth diet today. in other words, she's bossing me around from the hospital bed she's still in down the street 🤣 . 

it really is funny how we are all so much ourselves, and yet it takes us a whole lifetime to figure out how to do that fully. 

these trans kids are the inspiring ones, in alllll their personality types 💓