weekend in review

friday:

1. i went to the faculty retreat in "the barn." to clarify, the barn is owned by a man in the B school. so it was, once upon a time, a barn. but it is really now a sort of retreat center, an outbuilding on their property. it would be inappropriate to say it is a dependency...it has so many amenities that it is fairly autonomous.
2. i delivered my ten minute (or less) assessment of the state of our department with respect to race, gender, and ethnicity.
   
1. i began by quoting richard wright's retort to a french journalist's question: what about your Negro problem in the U.S.? [wright replied: we don't have a Negro problem; we have a white problem.]
2. it was hard, but i think well received by most. or at least patiently received.
   
3. i sped off to dtw and flew standby to bwi.
4. i was met by the little people who had a hand-made banner welcoming me back to their lives.
5. we shared a big meal of bmore food at my mom and dad's with parents of things and one and two.
   

saturday:

1. my mom, dad and i went to manhattan. we separated shortly after arriving in the city.
1. en route, my mutha inadvertently and unintentionally insulted my writing in this hilarious moment where she commented on my blog.
2. and then referred me to some "good writing" by tom cruise on j.j. abrams in time.
   
2. i ate lunch with the totally divine miss ladies shelley and marsha at vinyl on 9th in the 40s. i don't know what harissa is but in mayonnaise + chipotle pepper jam on grilled chicken with a big slab of bacon = heaven. and we hatched a plot to go to austin folk festival in september with or without karen + the boys.
   
3. i went to see sarah jones' "bridge and tunnel." she rules. (go see it before july 9th; it has been extended.) one can obtains 1/2 price tckts at the vendors on 46th.
   
4. i ran to h + m to look for hair goodies and bought some tights and socks.
5. i met my mom and dad for an italian meal also in midtown before we left. the dinner gave me the chance to play some jokes on my mutha. i so love that.

sunday:

1. my parents and i went downtown in bmore, a city i love, but probably will never live in.
   
2. we went to bma to visit some old friends in the cone wing. the cone sisters' galleries at the bma conjure extremely pleasant memories of my childhood when my mother seriously helped to cultivate my intellectual curiosity and visual imagination. (remember that totally rad puppetmaking class, mom?)
   
3. we also tore through a major installation of baltimore county school children's art. i was so enamored of the concept: elementary and middle school children's art hung on the walls in about five major rooms in a central exhibitions space.
   
1. they came, as guests of honor, with their parents to check out the pieces and to be photographed or filmed near them.
2. my mom and i both engaged several children to congratulate them and to ask for their autographs.
4. next, we descended upon the walters for an exhibition of louise bourgeois' work. the museum invited her to pair her works with various pieces in their collection across time and space. it was a total scavenger hunt through their rooms of antiquities and middle ages and on. i loved it; my mom not so much. turns out that bourgeois isn't just about skeletal, sculptural spiders, but also about violent pink fuzzy women who have lost some body parts.
5. then, the three of us scooted to parkside cafe near patterson park for more mischief making and a meal.
6. my dad and mom dropped me off in lutherville to hang out with the little homies and their parents for a few hours just before bedtime.
   
7. my dad picked me up and returned me to their home to enjoy an evening of hbo as it should be in total, holy silence.
   

monday:

1. my mom and i went to ikea to check out the new d.i.y. scandinavian design interventions.
2. she and i had a quick lunch while my dad went off to the doctor. (no emergency, just an unpleasant infection).
3. my mom shuttled me to the airport for a return flight during which i counseled the mother daughter duo in my aisle about college admissions, obtaining your first post liberal arts job, and family relations. the petulance was palpable when i buckled in. they had been in maryland, on 11th hour campus visits to check out st. john's and goucher. i asserted, "no question: great books is the way to go." in sum, herodotus: yes!; prozac: yes!
   
4. returned to ann arbor. it's still here. it's still green. we still have a mound of dirt in our driveway. but kd md was making a rachel ray meal that we shared at the proper dinner table by candlelight to music on the sony cd player i recently repaired.

i got to sleep in my own bed!