January

I always save reading my student evaluations until January, when I'm in a foul mood anyway. And since M. went back to law school this morning, my mood could hardly be bleaker. I wasn't going to read them until later today, but then a member of the evaluation committee casually mentioned in the hallway that one of my students from last semester hated everything about me. Cited offenses:

• Rudeness (quite possible, but always tempered with love and respect)
• Making fun of people's religion (it's likely that someone heard a mocking tone once or twice when I speak of religion in general, but I usually don't overtly mock it out loud, and certainly not with specific people in mind; anyway, it's hard not to take an irreverent tone toward religion in general when teaching the Reformation)
• Mocking speech impediments (I can't even think of who in my class had a mockable speech impediment, and I certainly don't recall mocking one. If anything, I tried to keep everyone's malice away from the more awkwardly-spoken students)

It doesn't matter for my temperament, of course, if this evaluation is outweighed by thirty glowing ones. My day is ruined regardless. The drawback of wanting to be liked.

I was thrown a lovely birthday party on Saturday last by my dear bride, who spent the majority of the day making tapas. The evening concluded, though, with a long discussion of ghosts and hauntings, and though I am a skeptic dyed not so much in the wool as in the deep dermis, I was a little spooked by my friends' experiences with angry specters and flying cans of beans. Then just before bed and after an hour's conversation about cowboy ghosts in New Mexico, M discovered a small white box wrapped in twine on the hall table, which I opened to reveal two tin cowboys. Why? I have no idea how this could be significant as either a birthday gift or a joke. It's just baffling, and more so because no one at the party admits to leaving them. I slept with the lights on, expecting to be assaulted by demon-possessed tin cowboy golems at any time. Still puzzling it.