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.

Last night, I dreamed I was Serena Joy–the one played by Faye Dunaway in the movie adaptation. I was in my step-father’s dining room (lots of my dreams are set in his house). The Commander was dead, and Gilead was trying something new: it was dissolving all marriages and redistributing partners, to increase the chance of successful baby-making.

For some reason, I was going to be married off to a very young commander. I told a confidant that I suspected something would happen to make me a widow again soon after the wedding.

I woke up and told myself to remember this dream, so I could tell you about it today.

As I slipped back into sleep, Serena/I was retelling the dream story to help me remember it. Of course, it morphed into other things. I was all of a sudden Serena beset by suitors, other commanders who had always wished I was theirs instead of Fred’s.

I was trying to decide which suitor would allow me to be freest–for a woman in Gilead.

Next Friday, if I don’t get Covid and if my medical team doesn’t get Covid and if the hospital isn’t completely overwhelmed by Covid, I’m going to have a hysterectomy.

All of the pamphlets warn that I might be depressed, because I won’t be able to have children anymore, but aside from the general concern about having a major surgery, I’m elated to lose it.

When I started birth control after my son was born, I told God (I was a believer then) my terms: I would faithfully be on hormonal birth control until I wanted another child. If I got pregnant beforehand, I would have an abortion.

I expected that at some point I would want another. I expected to get married and build a family. Let me be clear, though: I was a kid myself, and I didn’t know myself very well.

A few years on, I knew I did not in fact want another child. Every time I pictured it, I pictured all of the hard parts: the sleeplessness, the not being able to go to the bathroom by myself for a few years, the arguments over pickiness. I love my son, and, even more importantly, I like him, but motherhood as a practice and vocation didn’t appeal to me enough to start over. Many relationships have either not really started or have ended because I won’t budge on this.

I was also afraid that since my son was so great, I couldn’t possibly get another child I liked. Would another child share our humor? Our affinity for reading and learning over sports? Our intellect?

Having another seemed like hubris, tempting the gods to temper my good fortune.

Having been abandoned by my son’s father when I was seventeen, two weeks before I gave birth, I was also wary to have another child unless I wanted one enough to do it completely alone. I didn’t think I would necessarily be abandoned again, but divorces and deaths happen. Now, too, I know that I don’t ever want to live with a partner again.

Being a single mother is really fucking hard, and I have no desire to repeat it.

So I’m thrilled that I don’t have to worry about an accidental pregnancy anymore. Excited that I can tell all the men my age and older who are just now ready to have children, as women their age approach menopause, that I’m not the one for them and that they won’t be able to think they can talk me into letting half their genes take up residence in my womb.

That’s not to say there isn’t sadness, though; it’s just not the kind the pamphlets warn about.

I’m sad when I think about how my one and only pregnancy, birth, and motherhood should have gone.

It should have been planned.

I should have been an adult.

I should have had even one person say, “Congratulations.”

I shouldn’t have wondered where I was going to live as I held him in the hospital.

I should have known more about who I am.

I should have been able to live as an adult for a while without also being someone’s mom.

I should have been able to date for a while without being a single mom. (So many men were jealous of my son and the fact that I’d carried someone’s child.)

I should have been more financially secure.

I should have been more in step with my friends as they were having kids, so we could have gone through this together.

I should have had fewer people assume I’m my boy’s sister, or sometimes now, even worse, his girlfriend.

I won’t be able to have another child at this time next week, but it doesn’t change anything fundamental. I’m still a working single mom; he’s just an adult now.

And I’m still the woman who wants to hold all the babies. Until they’re gross or crying. I’m still the woman who loves my son and my nieces and nephews. Even when they’re gross and crying.

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.

I think it’s been three weeks, so there’s lots.

Anne Rice and Bob Dole died. I wrote about Rice’s passing, but not Dole’s, for whom I had a grudging respect. After he lost to Bill Clinton, he let his splendid sense of humor show. It’s rare to find actually funny Republicans, and I cherish them when I do.

I tripped a fell over two weeks ago, ending up in the ER instead of my very last class of the term. My chiropractor keeps taking down the swelling, but it’s really bad. I can’t move it in some ways at all–including to shave. I can only get deodorant on with a lot of painful noises, and I sometimes scream when I change tops or put on a coat. I probably have a tear.

The quarter ended–and the grades got in!

I had facet injections in my back for the first time. I wish they’d numbed me more.

Even one-armed, I simply had to make Christmas cookies. They shall comfort us this very cold and rainy week.

We finally got the Christmas tree up, but it only has the lights on. We’re very tired.

Complicating matters this week is my colonoscopy and endoscopy. Unfortunately, they decided to intubate me, which has hurt my throat and my jaw. It’s severely inflamed the TMJ pain and arthritis on my right side, so it hurts to talk, and eat, and also not to do those things. Happily, the abdominal discomfort seems to be over. Most embarrassing, though, was how I found myself after I woke. While I had forgone fluids for a long time, and emptied my bladder three times at the hospital, I guess the IV fluids I got while waiting had time to work themselves through. I woke up from my anesthesia having wet myself (and then still had to pee when I got home–maybe I’m a camel?); additionally, I started a good heavy period while while under, so I woke up literally a bloody mess.

Still: I am very happy to have had these tests; we’re waiting for the biopsies to come back, but so far, there’s no cause for alarm.

The car is acting up, but since I can’t drive with my shoulder like this, figuring it out will just have to wait.

In the meantime, I’m trying to balance the desire to see my beloved California family with the desire to be safe from the new variant, indulging in excellent TV, like Station 11, Seaside Hotel, The Expanse, and the BBC Ghosts, and working on getting the next issue of Margaret Atwood Studies out.

And there may be some good news. Mohela said my loans were decoupled back in August, but the Department of Education wouldn’t verify it–and for the last many months, they’ve said I owe double what I do: the original amount to Mohela and the same amount, consolidated, to FedLoan. Last week, I finally got a letter from FedLoan saying the consolidated loans were “paid in full.” I guess, since loans never get decoupled, this was the closest notification I was going to get. And then this week, the DOE finally listed the correct loan amount.

So I’ve filled out the PSLF paperwork again and mailed it in.

Fingers crossed!

I can’t remember who recommended Anne Rice’s vampire series to me when I was a teenager, but I quickly fell in love. I quickly moved on to her other books.

I loved how engrossing they were and appreciated that they were long, so I could stay in those worlds for a long time.

I also loved that so many were set in New Orleans. My stepfather had a time share there–one week a year, it was my home.

In my early attempt to read everything she’d written, I picked up Sleeping Beauty, only to discover S&M. It wasn’t my thing, but my mom and aunt thought it was hilarious that I’d accidentally read porn.

It wasn’t only the Vampire series, though. The Mayfair witches books weaved their spell. The two books I remember most, all these years later, though, are stand-alone: The Feast of All Saints, about free blacks in antebellum New Orleans, and Cry to Heaven, about the castrati in Italy. They’re the books I still own, the ones that survived all the purges and the moves.

I haven’t read an Anne Rice book in a long time. I tried a late entry in the Vampire series a few years ago, and while it felt . . . familiar, it wasn’t anything I wanted to sink my teeth into.

But I will always remember those early days with her books. Once, I was reading Cry to Heaven on a beach. When my boyfriend tried to ask me about lunch, coming back to reality was a struggle–I had to blink several times, to reassure myself I was in fact in Florida and not in Italy. I said we could do whatever my boyfriend wanted, hoping he would let me get back to the cobblestone streets of centuries ago.

I haven’t read Fifty Shades of Grey, but I’m sure Rice’s S&M book was written better.

When my students say Stephanie Meyer made vampires sexy, Antonio Banderas’s Armand rises from his slumber and wraps his lips around my heart.

Tonight, I’m going to raise a glass of very red wine to heartthrobs, New Orleans, and Anne Rice.

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.

I’m really tired today: there’s some extended family b.s. that’s draining energy and making it hard to sleep.

But I’m still determined to get my wrap up out today, since it’s been a while since I’ve done one.

Last weekend, I was at a conference in Wisconsin. However, my brain was convinced I was going to be in Minneapolis rather than Milwaukee, so that’s where I’d told everyone I’d be.

I was very relieved when a Milwaukeean at the conference told me she’d spent months telling everyone she was moving to Minneapolis by mistake, prior to her Wisconsin move.

The conference wasn’t well attended (we were all surprised they did it in person at all), but I got to see my beloved Tiffany and company and Denise and Jade.

Tiffany spoiled me, while Ben had to fight the kids to get to spend a few moments talking sci and sci-fi with me. I’m such a beloved aunt that Lucy got to stay home from school. Jack’s review of me (to Tiffany): “She’s really funny. And very quick-witted. I can see why you like her–her humor is perfect.” Tiffany’s mom went out of her way to get me an apple pie in a paper bag.

I didn’t know what that was.

But after tasting it, I had to get one to put in my suitcase. It’s in the freezer, waiting to be my end-of-quarter treat.

Du and Jade had lots of good food and drink with me too. While Du and I were in Wisconsin, I tried many things I hadn’t had before. Although I didn’t like the Wisconsin take on an old fashioned, with brandy, I do see the appeal of fried cheese curds.

Denise thought I wouldn’t be prepared for Northern weather, so she brought an “undercoat” for me. It turned out to be warmer than we all expected, so I used it as an outercoat. While she said what I was doing was akin to wearing my bra on the outside of my shirt, the midwesterners were kind enough not to mention it or stare.

Since returning home, I’ve gotten my flu shot. I’ve done a lot of mentoring: three hours on Veteran’s Day alone. I went to the Mondavi center for the first time in two years, and tonight I’m heading into Sacramento to see Keith Lowell Jensen at the Punchline.

After years of b.s. from the UC system, it looks like we’re striking this Wednesday and Thursday, so I’m preparing for the picket line!

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.