Dear you:
Eve of Cinco de Mayo, I realize I have been here in Panama City Beach, as resident, as random adjunct faculty function, etc. for a year. Well, my my my.
The pop-Artemis photo pasted in this entry conveys my "neighborhood" life: the local non-workers/non-participants in anything larger than their property, annoy me and want to ruin the land. Case in point, the part-time residents in the condo to my west (intrusive and bizarre) are obsessed with trimming the wild shrub oaks that they can simply see from their paved and dead backyard space. Oh hell no! This is my screening device so they can't see into my porch or windows and, more importantly, they are bird havens. This couple, too, loves to drive back and forth in front of my beach house when the road is flooded by climate-change prompted water (I had to cancel a class this week due to deluge and road dangers) and push the crap into my yard. Nice. Total assholes.
In a larger sense, this Artemis avatar is my approach now as I continue to live in a strange familiar yet unfamiliar zone: what is up with students who don't read, professors who clock-in and don't revolutionize (or unionize, but that is another story), and people in bad bathing suits? The hilarity will continue as I close out final exams, submit grades and focus on two simple priorities:
1. Killing the Buzz-Killers (or not being affected by them in any way)
2. Getting a "real" job here in the minimum wage land.
Do they make workers at Bed, Bath and Beyond wear stupid uniforms? Bad pants and polo shirts? Let the tragic fashion begin!
The world rolls on ---- Putin in Ukraine, kidnapped girls in Nigeria, and constipated-conservative-politics baffling us all.
Turn your phones off everyone and dive in the Gulf of Mexico while you can.
XO for now -
Ms. Fleming
