My goal to do a catch-up at least once a week just isn’t happening this quarter. I’ve got four classes, and I’m doing a couple of informal independent studies.

To complicate matters, my back went out just over a week ago, and then Dante got sick (ER sick), with lingering symptoms.

And here’s what else has happened since I last did a wrap up:

My phone died, but eventually I got another one.

I went to Chicago.

Where I saw Vanessa.

And Denise, who got to be taller than I for once.

I had Nando’s. (And other great food, but Nando’s is special.)

I got to go to a museum.

The government said they were transferring my loans to FedLoan (which I requested in December), so they could determine where I was on the loan forgiveness payback calendar.

I got teary-eyed at the start of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Not for the reason I would have expected–but for one I’ll try to blog about soon.

I served on an honors defense committee for a student at another college, who wrote an almost 100-page thesis on Atwood.

I gave a talk on asexuality in Sherlock and bit my tongue when a giant asshole in the audience started in on how he was going to shoehorn an asexual character in his not-yet-published (because he doesn’t want to publish it now, since he doesn’t have the second book done, and he knows when the first book is published, the public will DEMAND the sequel, and he just doesn’t need that) sci-fi series, even though he had not heard of asexuality until he entered the room 20 minutes before. Luckily, the other panelist, who is ace, politely suggested he do some research first.

I got a bottle of wine from a former student, who said if she hadn’t had me as her workload teacher freshman year, she wouldn’t be graduating now.

I got to go to wine country for the first time since the pandemic–and a rock shop!

I got certified in CPR, since Dublin is happening.

Several of my students have Covid.

I didn’t get to see people close to me because of Covid, and a member of my chosen family has been diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer. So I’m still masking, and I’m doing my version of atheist prayer, and I’m rallying the troops.

Stay safe, my friends.

The third week of classes is almost over. Most of my students are going to be okay. A couple are not. A few are awesome.

In addition to the usual course load, I’m working with two of my former comedy students to produce half hour “goodbye” sets (they’re graduating): something I used to do before the pandemic. It’s a lot of work, but I’ve known these kids for years, and I want to give them a proper sendoff.

Anubis just got his stitches out, after yet another bladder surgery. An unfortunate bout of diarrhea means we need to rent a carpet cleaner soon.

I saw John Mulaney at the Golden One Center. I love him, but I don’t ever want to see comedy in a venue like that again. It’s too big. And I was seated in the front row balcony–a really narrow space. Every time someone had to pee, I worried one of us was going to fall over to our deaths. Is there a little bit of plastic to protect your drink from falling? Yes. Protection from YOU falling? Nope.

After almost four month, I was finally able to re-start my allergy treatment, at a different clinic. Because it’s been so long, they had to take my dose way down, and I have to go in every week now. On top of that, I still go to my regular UCD place to get my Xolair shots twice a month.

In other words, I used to have two shot appointments a month. Now, because UCD can’t seem to find an allergist, I have six. That sucks.

I got to see the National Theatre Live production of The Book of Dust, at the Tower Theater. They did a really beautiful job with it. It was the first time my friend and former Oxford assistant and I had seen each other in a long time.

I have discovered there’s a technical term for another way in which my body is weird.

I saw my ENT last week, because ever since Covid, or whatever I had at the very end of 2019, my right ear has been off: feeling stopped up, with low level pain. My ears have never been great: any change in elevation, even going to the foothills, is painful. It also makes me look awful: my eyes start to water uncontrollably.

In his exam, my ENT asked me to pop my ears.

I explained I couldn’t do that. He assured me I could. So I plugged my nose and blew.

“Oh, wow. You actually can’t. Nothing in your ear moved at all.”

He used a complex scientific term for what I was supposed to be able to do, one I can’t remember now and which isn’t coming up when I search for it.

I honestly hadn’t realized that everyone else could just pop their ears at will; I just thought my painful ears were part of everything hurting when it shouldn’t.

The good news: there’s apparently a treatment we can try, after we run a few hearing tests. As much as I travel, I hope it helps.

Finally, the Dean said a couple of week ago that if I only had 11 students for Dublin in the Fall, we couldn’t go. I did one last push. And it paid off. My 12th student has enrolled, so Dublin, here we come!

Springtime is officially here, which means allergy season is in full swing. What’s making it worse: I haven’t been able to get my allergy shots this year. My new allergy doctor quit (or something, not sure), so none of us can get the treatment we need. My system is going to farm me out somewhere else, but they can’t see me until the beginning of March, and even then, it won’t be for treatment, but for an evaluation. And I have to go without any allergy medication for a week beforehand. See, they want to treat me like a brand new person who didn’t have a working treatment plan to keep me out of the ER.

I’m using my rescue inhaler every day already. God help me when I have to go off my daily zyrtec and claritin (yes, both: I’m that allergic to every. fucking. thing).

In other news, I’m getting ready for my show on Saturday: I’m headlining at 8 p.m. on 2/19 in Kleiber Hall. I rehearse* every day, and I’m happy with how it’s shaping up.

*Rehearsal consists of me saying the routine out loud while taking a brisk walk around the neighborhood. I carry a pen and paper to write down new tags. I probably am getting a reputation.

I’m still doing pretty well, post-surgery, but I still get fatigued really easily. But it’s hard for me to rest. The boy catches me doing things I shouldn’t and yells at me to go lie down. The file cabinets have been cleaned, I’m trying new recipes, and working on my syllabi for Spring, though.

I’ve also been watching one short film every day this year. I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep it up when I’m back in the classroom, but it’s been a good New Year’s Resolution so far.

Finally, it’s Valentine’s Day. I’m going to have a quiet one here at home, with Jack.

The green light in the pictures? That’s just a bright bulb on the Christmas Tree.

Yup. It’s still up!

Happy Valentine’s!

It’s my half birthday! (Yes, I had cake.)

It’s been a little over two weeks since my surgery, which went well, though the immediate recovery didn’t. The doc and I were both relieved the surgery didn’t get cancelled; the nurses hadn’t even been told that was a possibility. I asked the anesthesiologist to use a smaller tube, due to the malformations in my neck and to my TMJ–she did, and I didn’t have a scratchy throat for days or major flaring of my TMJ. Instead, when I woke up, my back was absolutely killing me for some reason–and I was terribly nauseated. For hours.

Even though I was the first surgical patient, I was the last one out. The doctor expected them to admit me, but the nurses decided to send me home at 5 p.m., even though I was puking in the wheelchair down to the car. A little while later, I was on my hands and knees, with bile coming out into the bushes in front of my apartment.

All in all, the boy and I were at the hospital for 11 hours.

Once the nausea cleared, things were much better. I started getting an infection last week, but antibiotics cleared it up quickly. And I’m up and about and off the pain meds faster than anyone anticipated. I think it’s because I’m in pain all the time. If I lay in bed all day every day I hurt, I would be in bed all day every day.

That said, I’m being careful with what I lift and taking it as easy as possible. I get fatigued really easily, so I’m trying to let myself rest.

My shoulder is still messed up, two months after falling. It’s much better than it was, but there are still certain positions I can’t put it in, and I scream when I accidentally try to stretch it above or behind my head.

My friends made sure I had lots of yummy food the first week after surgery.

In other news, I’m sad Louie Anderson died. He has been one of my favorites since I was a kid.

The boy wanted to eat all vegetarian this week, so we’re doing that, including trying some new meat substitutes.

My car reached the unfixable point (more money to fix than I paid for it), so I had to buy another used car–in this market. Still, I got a decent price, all things considered.

It doesn’t have a working CD player, which means the hundreds of CDs, mostly burned into themed playlists, have to be replaced by an MP3 player, which is basically just going to be on shuffle forever. This upgrade hurts my OCD.

I’ve been slowly digitizing some of my old pics. Somehow digitizing apps make things fuzzier than just taking pictures of pictures.

Mostly, of course, I’ve been reading and watching tv. I recommend: Framed: A Sicilian Murder Mystery, Acapulco, Invasion, and Silent Sea.

Christmas was quiet and lovely. We had our traditional orange rolls for breakfast and appetizer lunch. (We tried Trader Joe’s Green Bean Casserole bites–we’re not fans.) The boy wanted Lamb Shawarma, so dinner was an easy crock pot creation. For dessert, we had local salted caramel ice cream in waffle bowls.

We watched the first Simpsons Christmas episode, the Christmas Futuramas, three classic Christmas movies, and two early Eddie Izzard specials.

We sat on couches under blankets and cats.

It was perfect.

(Except for how I worried that there was something in my ear for a long time because of weird noises coming from inside. But then the boy got it out–a stray piece of my hair was touching things and driving me mad.)

Right now, I’m half-watching the new Matrix, after rewatching the originals throughout the week. The first was so astounding all those years ago. The technology is of course not new now, and I prefer Matthew Vaughn’s fight scenes to these. I want to love this series, but maybe I’ve read too many boring, formulaic undergrad essays about whether we’re living in a simulation . . . Spotting all the layers of allusions and myths engage me mentally, and the meta-ness of the film I’m sort of listening to while I type might too, but I don’t think the series will ever have my heart.

And I started forbidding “what if we’re living in a simulation” papers last year.

In the last week (plus, since I left a lot out of the last one), I’ve gotten to see many of my closest friends, I’ve gotten a swell heated blanket, gotten a Margaret Atwood stamp from Margaret Atwood, gotten to see the Banksy exhibit, which I have mixed feelings about, have had to shift my pill times around (it went from five to seven and back to five times a day), made my annual Christmas music mix . . .

I forgot three important details about my colonoscopy last time: how I bled all over the blanket before I went under, when the nurse putting in my IV messed up, how three of my nurses were named Julie (which was convenient when I needed to get one of them “hey, Julie, I’m bleeding all over everything”), and how they did a pregnancy test for everyone except me, not even asking if they needed to, even though had a whole month of fertility possibility!

The best thing that’s happened recently, though, is that Paul, my beloved primary is back. When I went to the ER a few weeks ago, there was a message from Paul about it before I even got back home.

My arm is still fucked up, but my throat is healed from the colonoscopy day, and I have good doctors, and I’m typing in the light of a Christmas tree, so I’m very lucky.

The strike was cancelled, after the union and the UC came to a 4 a.m. tentative agreement. I’ll be able to finally read the proposed contract this week, but early indications are good. We have secured more protections for junior lecturers, better pay, and the prospect of even more security for old folks like me.

This is incredibly happy news.

Here’s what else is going on:

I had a lovely Thanksgiving with chosen family. I even have leftover turkey from one I didn’t have to cook. So far, I’ve made two kinds of turkey sandwiches and tetrazzini.

Hulu’s The Great is back, and not only does it live up to its name, but one of the women in the last episode I watched had underarm hair. Period pieces with hairless women always distract me. Finally watched Dune: it’s a great first installment. Star Trek Discovery is back, but I need to rewatch the last season before I left myself enjoy it.

After getting some stress-grinding chipped teeth fixed, I picked up a new device from my TMJ dentist. It’s a lower and upper guard attached by a cord. It feels really weird, but it’s supposed to help me breathe better, after we discovered my airway is malformed.

I’m trying to withhold judgement so far and give it a fair chance.

My students did a great comedy show, I got to see another comedian I love introduce her new album, and I saw a depressing piece at the Mondavi center that didn’t really come together. I also made an ass of myself at the Mondavi. When I took off my coat and scarf, I took off my mask too.

I didn’t even realize I’d done it. I’m so thankful the patrons in the room behind me said something.

Atwood’s birthday was also the 10th anniversary of the pepper spray incident. My Atwood seminar spent a lot of time talking about both.

Week 10 starts tomorrow. I have a lot of little medical procedures in December, and I need to get the next Atwood journal, which promises to be the longest, out. I have to fight with the Department of Education, which STILL is saying I owe double what I do–the coupled loans are still showing up, although they were decoupled months ago. Something appears to be wrong with my car.

But I don’t have to start prepping courses for January, so the rest of the weight doesn’t feel so heavy.

When I had my first back surgery, 20 years ago, I was back at work in just six days. This was a bad idea, but I wasn’t going to get paid otherwise.

When I had an emergency surgery a few years ago, to remove my gallbladder, my students sent me angry emails because I missed that week. I had arranged for subs–the students were on track, but I was being selfish, you see, not to be there myself.

In January, I’m going to have my hysterectomy. The recovery will be 2-4 weeks, and I’m going to use a quarter of Paid Medical Leave so I don’t have to worry about students and subs and pressuring myself to go back too early. Leave has just been approved.

This week has been busy. The Atwood conference was amazing, and my presentation went well. I’m disappointed that I didn’t get to go to Germany and have meals with my fellow conference participants, but it was the best Zoom conference it possibly could have been.

My SCC online class started in the middle of the week. Several students haven’t logged on yet. And I’m having trouble communicating with some of them–my emails and my Canvas messages / announcements are going to spam. Canvas announcements are going to my spam too.

The misplaced messages aren’t the only problems, though. Many students who did get my emails failed to read them properly. I told all the waitlisted students to ask me for a PTA if they wanted to join, only to have a bunch of them respond to that email by asking . . . how they could join.

Sigh.

I got to help give one of my students her award for being published in Prized Writing, which was wonderful.

But my body had to bring some bad news this week, too. This is part of a conversation with my dentist, from my cleaning:

Dentist: So you’re still grinding.

Me: Yup. At night. The other dentist hasn’t given me the new appliance to stop it yet.

Dentist: Well, it seems you’ve ground off two fillings. We’ll have to replace those.

I didn’t get my wrap up up last week, cause my back wouldn’t let me. Monday before last, it wouldn’t let me get something out of the fridge. I ignored my son’s advice and went to school anyway, though I had him drive me, since I was physically unable to. It hurt an immense amount, and my heart was working too hard to handle the pain, according to my fitbit, but I made it through my classes without falling down.

The boy picked me up and took me straight to the chiropractor, but the pain was so bad that I threw up, cutting my treatment short.

The boy now has my permission to keep me home when I can’t walk by reminding me of the shame I felt throwing up during treatment.

Classes were online the next two days. I got a shot of toradol and a massage and started to re-enter the world of the walkers.

I was supposed to be at the pain clinic this last Monday to talk about my neck, because its pain has been nauseating lately, but of course we focused on my back instead. I’ve had an x-ray. We’re going to do another MRI, then facet injections. And we’re going to try trigger point injections on my neck too.

So that’s this Fall.

Which works, because I can’t have my hysterectomy until January anyways. How will I cope with weeks to a month of recovery in Winter quarter? I’m working that out: stay tuned.

My shot nurses weren’t available to give my asthma drug injections this week, so the allergy doctor had to do it. Thus, it took three times as long, and I had to talk her through a lot of it. “It says you only get half of this third vial. Do I just start injecting and stop halfway through?”

No.

I ran into my old shot nurse while I was there. She’s retired now and confessed that she watches tv news all day. I can guess which station, based on her complaints about how America isn’t the same anymore, about the refugees sweeping the border, about how socialized medicine will kill us all . . .

When I told her I had a great experience with European health care, she pushed back. Didn’t I have to wait for treatment? I haven’t had to there, actually. I reminded her that, here, it took me 8 months to see a migraine specialist for a problem that kept sending me to the ER and that I was having to wait 5 months for my hysterectomy.

She said I was the only person who had ever praised non-American care.

So maybe there’s hope, if she ever gets out of her bubble. I hope so. I really liked her.

In other news, I had an intense erotic dream about one of my colleagues. It’s not the product of a crush; I miss sex since I’m not dating, and my body is starting to go a little crazy.

What I most want to do is to write up a description of the dream, with pictures, to show my colleague how weird it was. But my sexual harassment training indicates that would be a bad idea.

Plus, I’m not much of an artist, and I would be disappointed if my stick figures couldn’t capture the soft but burning passion we shared.

This week is going to kick my ass. My fifth class is starting, and the SCC students always need a lot of hand-holding in the beginning. I have a bunch of medical appointments, my neighbor pays video games all through the night very loudly, I’m dehydrated from not being able to drink while I teach, this is the week we score the Upper Division Comp Exam, and the first all-Atwood conference is this week. I’m doing an introduction, chairing a panel, and delivering a keynote. All of the Atwood stuff is very early in the morning, since the conference is being coordinated virtually from Germany.

Blessed be the fruit.

Summer session ended, and fall session started, and it felt like there was nothing in between, though I did take last weekend off from school work, and I took myself out to a movie (Free Guy is charming as fuck).

Maybe due to the chaos of students moving in, I had weird problems with my Safeway order. I almost didn’t get it. And then almost got it twice. And when it finally arrived, the delivery guy was confused that a white lady answered the door. Karma is a Nepalese name, he explained. Dude, I know.

It’s weird being back on campus, but luckily, I’ve only had to remind one student to put back on his mask. And even though he rolled his eyes, he did it. (It was a random student in the library, not in my class.)

My head has been absolutely killing me the last two months–I wake up in the middle of the night because of it, get waves of nausea from the pain. I was supposed to have an appointment with my pain clinic RN, but she was sick this week, so I have to wait a little longer to be told there’s nothing they can do since the injections don’t work on me and since I won’t let them do another nerve burn (it increased the pain last time, which they assure me was a fluke). But something has to give.

The boy’s car is in the shop; we’re hoping it just needs a new battery or alternator.

My uterine scraping came back normal, which means we can go ahead with the hysterectomy, but I can’t get one scheduled until the middle of January. I would be unable to physically teach for at least a week, possibly more. So I have to figure out how to handle that as the Winter quarter rushes past.

Since I had initially thought I would be able to do the surgery in December, I have most of my Christmas presents ordered already. (It’s much easier to prep for surgery recovery over Christmas than during a quarter.)

I got started on a brand-new Atwood quarterly newsletter.

The absolute best thing about these last couple of weeks, though, is that our stand-up club got to have its first in-person show in a year and a half. I added a new tag to one of my jokes that I’d only thought up that afternoon, and it got my biggest laugh.

That’s one of my favorite things about stand-up. Each show, even if you’re doing the same basic routine, is a little different and surprising.