November sunset

This has been, by far, one of the mildest and most beautiful falls I remember since we arrived in Ohio 14 years ago. Today, the weather was good and warm for November so we took Lizzy with us to one of our favorite metro parks and walked around Turtle Pond as the sun was setting.

I like that it's light when I leave the house early in the mornings when I commute to my small college on the hill, but I hate the darkness that now falls shortly after 5:30 p.m. I know that the days are quickly growing shorter as we move toward December so I have more of this darkness to contend with until the days begin to inch toward more daylight in the new year.

It's almost unbelievable to think that we're already only weeks away from 2016! I don't know if it's a function of growing older but it sure feels like time moves so much faster these days.

In the meantime, I'm really enjoying my new job as Associate Provost and learning so much about higher ed administration, and I'm looking forward to teaching my American Fear class next semester with a reduced number of students (though keeping my own list means I've already inadvertently let in 17 students instead of the 15 at which the department chair and I set the limit).

My book manuscript is on hold since I haven't had any time to go back to it, but I plan to do so in every chance I get from now until Dec. 31st, when I plan to send the revised "Monster" (as I used to call my dissertation) back to the editor. I'm really looking forward to a 2016 without this manuscript hanging over me like the fated albatross of Coleridge's poem...

Still, I've managed to produce one chapter for a collection on the "Southern Gothic," which was accepted and is scheduled to be published this year, and another one of the "Queer Atlantic" that gave me the chance to stretch my wings into queer theory, something that is a new area for me. We'll see what the editors of that second piece say.

Looking forward to a break over Thanksgiving and for the chance to see my family but already, and always, so thankful for everything.