I didn’t get November’s list out, so this is Nov & Dec, with some overall updates
New Nieces: 1
Divorces accomplished: 0
Times I told the ex he had to do some paperwork the lawyer sent him: many
Times he recently texted to ask when our divorce would be final, despite having done no paperwork: 1
Times he then told the lawyer he couldn’t do the paperwork at all: 1
Times the lawyer said that would end up screwing me over completely, because I would have to liquidate everything I have and give half of everything to the ex: 1
Exes who have decided he should do a little paperwork: 1
Realizations that I should have left him the second he threw my fried okra away at this time last year: 1
Book events attended: 3
New Dolly Parton pans: 1
Plays: (Dec): 1 (a Christmas Panto)
Total plays: 22
Last meals from Ding How (it’s closing): 1
Tiki Bars visited: 1
Weeks this year I didn’t have a working washing machine: 6
Times my landlord’s “handy”man installed a new drip pan incorrectly and then put the washer back in incorrectly and the bathroom flooded and water came down on my desk and Dante burned themself trying to figure out why the dryer was smoking and then the “handy”man had an insane reason why it wasn’t his fault: 1
Catch ups with friends (Nov): 5 (not counting catch ups with people who are more than friends)
Catch ups with friends (Dec): 4 (not counting catch ups with people who are more than friends)
Times I won Christmas by making what someone had described as the worst possible sandwich and wrapping it up as a present: 1 (mayo and sweet relish with lavender on dutch crunch bread (with the dutch crunch top as top, bottom, and sides))
Taste Panels at the Mondavi Center (Nov): 6
Taste Panels at the Mondavi Center (Dec): 1
Total Taste Panels: 11
Completely awful open enrollment, with a coding error necessitating many calls, tears, and assorted bullshit: 1
Courses taught: 13
Days Celebrated (Nov): 9 (Deviled Egg Day; Sandwich Day; Vanilla Cupcake Day; Sesame Street’s Anniversary; Chicken Lady Day (though mine was a Kids in the Hall-centric one); Candy Day; Doctor Who Day; Margaret Atwood’s birthday, which is the same day as the Pepper Spray Anniversary; Thanksgiving)
Days Celebrated (Dec): 7 (Finnish Independence Day; Cocoa Day; Bacon Day; Christmas Eve; Christmas/Life Day; Eggnog Day; Champagne Day)
Health appts (Nov): 15
Ingrown toenail surgeries that happened in Nov and went fine until a couple of weeks ago when my toe started bleeding again and is still bleeding now, as I type this: 1
Days I scared myself in the mirror when I woke up with a hematoma in my eye: 1
Times I was convinced the hematoma was caused by rolling my eyes too hard at the unceasing MAGA nonsense: all
Health appts (Dec): 12
ER appointments total: 1
ER appointments for insanely embarrassing reasons: 1
Refunds I’ve been able to successfully obtain for Jimmy Carr’s show being cancelled: 0
Oxford Info Sessions (Nov): 1
Student stand-up performances (Nov): 1
Live Comedy Attended: 12
Live Comedy Performed: 5
Fall Term:
Students who argued that I should be more accommodating to late students, by not taking roll at the start of class: 1
Students whom I spent SO much time trying to help and whom I graded higher because he was trying who made me regret that: 1
Students who were surprised being late every single day was a problem: 1
Students who were great: most of them
Students who were told to read more to prepare for the GRE (and to specifically read Camus): 1
Times I shut that shit down and gave her a tailored recommended reading list: 1
Times someone tried to pretend they were the President of the Margaret Atwood Society to try to get me to send them money (I’m the treasurer): 1
Times people wrote to me, thinking I was Margaret Atwood: 6
Atwood seminar students who think I should pretend to be Atwood when the questions are really stupid: all of them
Times I fainted from exhaustion: 1
25th Year Anniversaries celebrated with Melissa: 1
Times I had to pick up Anubis at the vet all dressed up for a date and the vet techs just wanted to talk about that, instead of Anubis’s urethra: 1
Times later that day my neurologist gave me dating advice: 1 (the advice: be three minutes late). I wasn’t, and it still worked out.
Things I had to cancel this year because of my stupid body: I lost count
Recipes tried (Nov): 12 (Creamy Butternut Squash and Coconut Noodle Soup; Skillet Broccoli-Cheddar Rice; Potsticker Soup; Chinese Garlic Green Beans; Ensalada Campera; Smoky Lentil Stew with Leeks and Potatoes; Ground Beef and Broccoli Stir Fry; Slow Cooker Chicken Tagine with Butternut Squash; Cranberry Chutney Grilled Cheese; Air Fryer Butternut Squash and Brussels Sprouts; Best-Ever Green Bean Casserole from Bon Appetit; Apple Cheddar Quiche)
Times I discovered using the “Express Cook” setting on my bread machine is a very bad idea, even when I forget to set the bread on time: 1
Recipes tried (Dec): 11 (Ham and Gruyere Quiche; One-Skillet Ham and Cheese Gnocchi; Baked Shawarma Ribs; Pancake & Dumpling Dipping Sauce; Broccoli with Garlic Butter and Cashews; Hoisin Garlic Noodles; One-Pot Roman Cacciatore with Potatoes; Suffering Bastard (cocktail); an invented Persian Lamb, Pepper, and Rice Soup; Venison Enchiladas; Venison Curry with Carrots)
Total new recipes tried: 80
Times I finally made brussels sprouts turn out wonderfully: 0
Best new recipe: Skillet Gnocchi with Miso Butter and Asparagus
Books (Nov): 4
Books (Dec): 7
Books Total: 90
Times I got my hormones tested and they were fine, but then I felt weird in summer and so we tested them again and found that I had rapidly slidden into menopause: 1
Times I asked about starting HRT ASAP and the doctor admitted she didn’t know enough about it because when she was in med school, the advice was that it was dangerous: 1
Appointments with a doc who should be able to help me set up for March: 1
Minutes I had a song stuck in my head, because I have OCD, and sometimes it’s just a jingle or a line a character kind of sings instead of delivers straight, like Bill Murray saying “oh oh oh, somebody’s comin,'” which was on repeat a few times: 525600
Cold December nights on which Thoth tried to come in with a rat, was blocked from doing so, and then pouted about it: 1
What I’m watching (Nov & Dec): Death by Lightning; Too Much; Nobody Wants This; The Inside Man; Stranger Things; Futurama; Bob’s Burgers; Seth Meyers; SNL; Stephen Colbert; Taskmaster; The Simpsons; Elsbeth; Miss Scarlet; Call the Midwife; Resident Alien; 30 Rock; Murdoch Mysteries; Emily in Paris; Abbot Elementary
Shows I was saddest to see go in 2025: What We Do In The Shadows & Lower Decks
Favorite New Show of 2025, which I’ve watched three times and am ready to rewatch again: MurderBot
Movies (Nov): 2 (Paddington 2; Oh. What. Fun.)
Movies (Dec): 11 (The Bishop’s Wife; The American President; Sleepless in Seattle; When Harry Met Sally; Freakier Friday; Train Dreams; Goodbye June; A Muppet Christmas Carol; Kathleen Madigan: The Family Thread; Wake Up Dead Man; Bridget Jones’s Diary)
Times I planned to sneak off into a Tuesday afternoon movie in Winter Quarter: 10
Times I actually did it, instead of just working more: 0
Movies total: 102
Times a doctor confirmed that sleep apnea isn’t what’s causing me to be chronically exhausted (maybe it’s CFS): 1
Times at the end of this objectively awful year when a doctor told me to relax and balance more: 1
Endoscopic confirmations that my GERD is not controlled right now at all: 1
Things I finally started caring about, which I should have cared about sooner: 1 (skin care)
Times I then learned that most “eye creams” shouldn’t go on your eye lid, though I’d been doing that the whole time: 1
The worst things this year: The end of my marriage and the lingering b.s. associated with it; the loss of so many documents due to the ex somehow being the administer of my computer and him trying to fix that; renovations meaning I didn’t have an office in Fall; having the staff person in charge of the UDCE quit right before it, throwing Fall Quarter into chaos; losing my phone in the UK; not being able to work on my Ancestry stuff or on putting together Daddy’s writings, due to all of the above.
The best things this year: Time at Panama City Beach; having some of Daddy’s pictures on my walls; my Chronic Pain: A Comedy show; having someone new in my life who makes me take whole days off; Karlissa in Paris; Oxford
New Year’s Resolutions: Working on defeating the negative voice in my head via therapy; resting more; playing in my family tree; seeing more movies & comedy; getting divorced; remembering that every picture in which I’m smiling or doing something I love or being with those I love is a great picture of me.
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