“What wonders the compost bin is revealing, and who put in that avocado pit?”

That sounds like something I would do
I flash back to our full paper bag
That ends up behind our apartment complex
(And then? Who knows.)

Atwood has been gardening again
Planting and pruning
Knowing the helpful from the hurtful
Creating a balance I don’t understand

The generations before me,
Three of which I lived with,
Had farms
Or at least gardens

But they let me read
And kept me out of the chicken coop
My brain grew well red
My thumb grew black

My foremothers didn’t read dystopias
And my grandmother “retired” when her husband did
So I can cook, but not can
Sew, but not quilt

I’m not prepared for the zombies

Or even, as Atwood tweet-warns,
For the solar flare
Or an EMP attack

In my fantasy,
I find Atwood,
Who is prepared

In her books,
I’ve learned about replenishing ararats
And purslane
And what to do when it happens

I won’t be much help to her,
In terms of knowledge,
But I like to believe
That I would follow her directions

(Fantasy me is less bossy)
Not wasting her time
(Except in those moments
When she wanted me to)

I imagine us safe
-Ish
An evening lit by candles we made
After a cobbler that didn’t disappoint her

I would have had trouble
With the wood fire stove
But I’ve always known how to milk goats
And any fool can pick blueberries
(I even know to wear gloves
And watch for snakes.)

I manage to say something
She thinks is smart
And she laughs
And tells me to call her Peggy

And we no longer have leftovers
So I don’t have to worry
About the compost rules

I got my second vaccine! I could tell it was going to fuck me up, because I got numb in my arm, neck, and face right after the injection. Luckily, I had planned taking the next day off, which ended up being my only day off in Spring Break.

It was perfect for bingeing The Bureau, my new addiction.

My son and I have also decided to rewatch this little show called The Simpsons. Since we only get through a few a week, it will take a few years.

I saw two stand-up comedy shows and caught this month’s Sacramento French Film Festival offering, The Fantastic Journey of Margot and Marguerite, which was, as hyped, fantastic.

I did my taxes, got everything ready for UCD classes to start tomorrow, pulled my hair out over two problematic students at SCC, and attended a webinar on equitable grading.

I tried two new recipes:

Tumeric Black Pepper Chicken with Asparagus

Pork Chops in a Lemon Caper Sauce

And I got another air fryer.

Yup. Another air fryer.

I got a small one to experiment with a few months ago, and I fell in love with it. Lately, I’ve been disappointed that when I want to cook meat, potatoes, and a veg, I have to choose just one for the air fryer. I’m also thinking ahead to summer, when I will want to cook without heating up the kitchen. The air fryers don’t add much heat to the kitchen, and food cooks really fast in them.

My first night with two air fryers, I put a layer of green beans down in the big one, topped with a grill layer of chicken breasts.

The smaller air fryer got the potatoes. In 20 minutes, I had this:

I also discovered that I don’t have to do a boil and slow roast of pork ribs for them to be tender. They take 20 minutes in the air fryer.

Finally, Graymalkin got a new box. He’s a very happy boy.

Every time I hear the Republicans report what a Democrat said, I freak out a little bit.

Remember when Obama said he was moved by Treyvon Martin’s death because if he had a son, he would look like Treyvon?

And remember how Republican pundits said that what he said was “I only care if black children die. Kill whitey!”?

Recently Joe Biden said we could maybe safely have 4th of July BBQs.

Republican pundits lost their shit, claiming Biden was saying people aren’t allowed to have a BBQ without his express permission.

I freak out when I hear stuff like that because I’ve been gaslit like that my whole life, by a couple of family members with undiagnosed and untreated Borderline Personality Disorder.

Let’s review the symptoms, according to the Mayo Clinic:

• An intense fear of abandonment, even going to extreme measures to avoid real or imagined separation or rejection [let’s overthrow the government so King Trump won’t leave us!]
• A pattern of unstable intense relationships, such as idealizing someone one moment and then suddenly believing the person doesn’t care enough or is cruel [John McCain is a hero! Wait, nevermind, he’s a coward. Let’s insult his family!]
• Rapid changes in self-identity and self-image that include shifting goals and values, and seeing yourself as bad or as if you don’t exist at all [2020: We don’t even have a platform anymore!]
• Periods of stress-related paranoia and loss of contact with reality, lasting from a few minutes to a few hours [Fake news! Qanon! Democrats are massive idiots who somehow stole an election!]
• Impulsive and risky behavior, such as gambling, reckless driving, unsafe sex, spending sprees, binge eating or drug abuse, or sabotaging success by suddenly quitting a good job or ending a positive relationship [Nothing could possibly go wrong with aligning with white supremacists!]
• Suicidal threats or behavior or self-injury, often in response to fear of separation or rejection [If you end the filibuster, this will be a scorched-Earth Congress!]
• Wide mood swings lasting from a few hours to a few days, which can include intense happiness, irritability, shame or anxiety [We’re #1. No, wait, we’re a terrible country full of pedophiles and traitors! No, wait, we need to do everything to resist any change, cause we’re #1!]
• Ongoing feelings of emptiness [Life isn’t even worth living if I can’t show my dick to women at work and read a couple of Dr. Seuss books I’d never heard of before I learned they’re racist.]
• Inappropriate, intense anger, such as frequently losing your temper, being sarcastic or bitter, or having physical fights [Let’s dox all the cucks and have a civil war!]

Last week definitely had more ups than downs. This week, not so much.

The bad:

Both the boy and I had to deal with medical b.s. Mine included driving all the way to Sacramento with a migraine, to see my TMJ specialist, only to be told that my appointment had completely disappeared from their system.

I’m also prepping for some facet injections in my back. The pain clinic and I are sort of at a stand-still. I don’t respond well enough to the treatments we’re trying, and they’re also a little dangerous (since I’m so young, I shouldn’t have frequent disc injections). They want to burn the nerves in my lumbar spine, but I’m unconvinced, both because nerve pain isn’t the only thing going on and because I’ve had a nerve burn done in my neck, and it backfired. Instead of my brain saying, “we’re not getting pain signals from her neck anymore, so let’s not make her feel pain,” my brain said, “holy fucking shit! They BURNED HER NERVES! Let’s send the regular pain signals and the pain one should feel after being burned!”

The facet injections are a compromise, basically. They’re hoping to show me, through it, that a nerve burn would work there.

Anubis decided that two family members having health problems wasn’t enough, so his urethra got blocked. Now we’re monitoring his pee, and Dante has to help him keep is clean (Anubis’s surgery to widen his urethra has helped, but not quite enough.)

We didn’t get to really celebrate St. Urho’s Day, due to the chaos.

In other news, I took a break from celebrating getting out of medical and consumer debt to check on how those student loans were coming.

Borrowed: 133,733

Paid back so far: 88,744

With interest, what I owed Tuesday: $154,213

My laptop’s keyboard is starting to have sticky keys. Apparently, it’s a known issue, and they should fix it for free, but the fixers say I have to be prepared to be without it for a couple of weeks. My desktop can’t yet do Zoom, so I’ve had to order a web cam with mic before I can get the laptop into the shop.

The meh:

My 300th college course began this week! It’s an intro to lit class at SCC; unfortunately, it’s an 8 week class. And while I got rid of a few units (postmodernism, the Southern Gothic, and fairy tales), it’s still a challenge to do a semester course in half a semester.

5 of the 26 enrolled students didn’t respond to emails or log on to Canvas the first week. Half of the rest are already failing because they haven’t turned in the homework. I’ve reached out to everyone, and most are telling me they just didn’t think the course would be time consuming. When I explain that they would have physically been in a room with me for 6 hours and 40 minutes each week if we were in person, and that they should therefore be prepared to do at least that much (which is much less than the Carnegie expectation of 20 hours/week for this class), they are shocked.

I’m not shocked that they’re shocked, but I’m disheartened.

Many of my students are working full time and also taking a full load of courses, which an 8-week course isn’t compatible with.

Half of the students hated “Hills Like White Elephants,” and I had fun reading their interpretations of what the “operation” was. The most creative was that the American wanted Jig to join a prostitution ring. I also included “Bullet Points” by Jericho Brown in this first week, to show them that poetry isn’t just dead white guys writing about daffodils. Most of the students loved it; the one who wants to be a cop found it offensive.

Next week, we do plays: Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune and Mr Burns: A Post-Electric Play. It’s my first time teaching the latter; I’m cautiously optimistic. Am I having them watch the “Cape Feare” episode of The Simpsons first? Of course!

I finished my four Winter courses, and I got the syllabi and Canvas pages up for my three Davis Spring courses, which was quite a feat. There were a couple of days, including yesterday, when my brain broke.

The good:

I got to see the Sklar Brothers and Grep Proops perform virtual shows.

Spring came.

I took The New Yorker‘s recommendation to watch The Bureau, which is excellent.

I had many students thank me for my work last quarter. A few of them realizing how much time I spend writing to them and talking to them is the only thing that makes it worth it. One student wrote this:

“I have never had another teacher like you before. You terrified me for all of the right reasons. I kept feeling called out in the beginning. I used to write papers for the grader instead of the purpose because of their biased writing styles. In fact, I used to do everything to please other people because I thought that is how life works. I know now how incorrect that way of living is. Maybe this wasn’t your intention, but I understand how I want to live my life from now on. You taught the class with humor, honesty, and empathy: three characteristics I strive to perfect one day. There was never any bullshit, and for that, I am so thankful. You taught the class not only how to become better writers, but also how to be better people.”

I’m pretty sure “[terrifying] for all of the right reasons” should be on my tombstone.

I didn’t get this update out yesterday, because of a migraine. Since migraines are awful, let’s start with the bad:

• Migraine, surrounded by crazy tension headache days, including today.
• The hail on Wednesday scared poor Snowball.
• Fighting constipation for the third month in a row. 🙁

The Meh:

• I started seeing a new acupuncturist, which is good, but I had weird hip spasms later, which is bad, but may be unrelated. The guy’s name is John Frink. Pretty sure I’m going to call him “professor” on accident at some point.
• I put a great seasoning on some lamb, but the cut wasn’t great. Nice seasoning on some pork chops a different night, but needed to take them out two minutes earlier (both in the air fryer).
• I put the hammock back up, although it’s still a little too cold for it.
• I had to say goodbye to my courses, which is always bittersweet. There are usually one or two students whom I’m glad I don’t have to deal with anymore, but there are often more students whom I’ll genuinely miss.

The Good:

• My college roommate’s audio play was available for a listen!
• Another former student got into the grad program of her choice.
• Gilbert Gottfried made me laugh way too hard while doing an impression of Bob Dylan as Elmur Fudd, having chased Bugs Bunny off a cliff.
• I was able to see the Cesar nominated shorts via the Sacramento French Film Festival.
• I made a good Green Curry with chicken.
• I attended a pre-conference focused on Atwood.
• I got five new-to-me books for $10 at the friends of the library sale.
• I’ve decided to stop having one side of the bed be where the books accumulate. After decades of sleeping on the side of a queen mattress, I’ve moved to the middle. The cats like having more space on both sides of me.
• It’s the end of the quarter, and many students have thanked me–for designing the course so that they couldn’t do the work without doing the readings. They told me they skip the readings in their other courses, and were at first upset that they couldn’t do that in mine, but now realize that they did learn a lot from the readings, the exercises that accompanied them, and my copious comments.
• My union was able to force the UC system into providing us with Covid protections!
• As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I finally got out of medical and consumer debt (I’ve been paying $1028 a month to do so, for many, many years)!!!
• And just this morning, I got a beautiful painting, from a wonderful friend.

This last week kind of exploded on me. I got a last-minute assignment to teach an intro to lit class that starts next week. I’ve taught the class before, but not online, and not just in 8 weeks.

But I think I worked out how to do it, and I’ve just finished the Canvas shell, so now I can think about what else I did this week.

The Best:

Ellen Forney gave a talk to my writing students, which was wonderful in all sorts of ways, but possibly the best was when she admitted that she was apprehensive about how to do Marbles after she’d decided to try. My students often think good writing just happens, when it’s extremely difficult. Being reminded that even great writers struggle was important for them.

I had cleaners come in and give my house a much-needed reset. Between my ridiculous dust allergies and my awful back, I just can’t do the deep work. My house never stays clean for long, but having it somewhat cleaner helped me focus while my mind was spinning with the lit class.

I decided that because I get SO excited when it’s time for a new issue of Science Fiction and Fantasy, that I would treat myself to a subscription to Asmimov too!

I also started The Girl Who Could Move Shit With Her Mind, by Jackson Ford, which kept me up way too late last night. Can’t wait to finish it later!

Finally, the boy and I binged the last few episodes of The Watch, which we adored.

The Worst:

My body is unhappy, which isn’t unusual, but I was rocked by neck and shoulder spasms so badly the other night that it made me nauseated.

I don’t like the way I talk to myself. As I’m in the throes of an amazing story in SFF, a negative voice is berating me for having so many unread important news articles, biographies, and texts for classes. It tells me I’m fat. It makes me feel guilty for hiring cleaners two or three times a year, berating me for laziness, though I can objectively say I’m not lazy.

The Meh:

Coming 2 America was fine–mostly a nice nostalgia piece.

I was going to get my second Covid shot next week, but due to my allergy shots and some bullshit about my allergy office being closed over Spring Break, I had to push it back a week.

My pain clinic wants to put cortisone into my lumbar facets, but those can’t be done until awhile after my vaccinations, and my bursitis treatment has to wait until a couple of months after the lumbar treatment.

Ultimately:

I’m reflecting on this year. One year ago today, I flew back from a conference in New Orleans, to a changed world. It was the last week in the quarter–we were given the choice to move that week online. We cancelled Book Group. I haven’t eaten in a restaurant or hugged my California family in a year.

This week, Ellen Forney said to me, about our getting on well in a Zoom meeting, that she thought we would, after she googled me.

Ellen Forney, the amazing author of Marbles, googled me.

Getting to have a conversation with her was one of the best things that happened to me this year.

I haven’t been good about blogging lately. Like everyone, I’m tired and torn in a bunch of different directions.

But I still want to talk to you, so I’m going to start a weekly (hopefully) best and worst list, inspired by The Bloggess’s Weekly Wrap-Up, which will likely be about the media that’s kept me sane.

The Best I’ve Watched Lately:

• The Watch
• Wanda Vision
• Resident Alien
• Ramy (especially the Ne Me Quitte Pas episode, which can be watched on its own)
• the Calvin episode of Flack, which can also be watched on its own
• Nomadland, which finally helped me visualize Wall Drug

The Best Podcast Episodes

• All of the Parts of the “DC Sniper” debunkings on You’re Wrong About–I didn’t know what this story was about at all–I don’t think any of us did.

Best New Bands/Artists I’ve Stumbled Across:

• Danielle Durack
• Tele Novella

Best Books lately:

• The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
• A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Mass
• Mira Grant’s Parasite Trilogy
• The Witch’s Heart by Genevieve Gornichec

Best moments of the week:

• Geeking out with Ellen Forney
• Hosting the Invisible Disabilities Show for UCD
• Learning a student got the internship she wanted
• Getting my first dose of the vaccine
• Talking about mon chatte in a new stand-up routine with my students

The worst moments:

• Trying to combine a paprika lemon chicken and a garlic lemon chicken recipe–why did it turn gross?
• Learning that Paul, the best doctor I’ve ever had, is retiring.

Tomorrow, Thursday, 2/25, at 7 p.m. PST, the Invisible Disabilities Comedy Show will be performing for the UCD Campus Book Project.

The event is free and open to the public.

Register here.

On Saturday, 2/27, at 8 p.m. PST, I will be performing a brand-new set with my stand-up students.

This event is also free and open to the public.

Join us here:
ucdavis.zoom.us/j/95805414976.

Come laugh with us!

Or cry. Or come to do that weird cathartic thing when you don’t know whether you’re laughing or crying.

For the last ten years, I’ve made a Stalkers mix for my beloved friends for Valentine’s Day.

This year, I had over 20 hours of potential songs. And since we’ve just barely survived 2020 and the start of 2021, I decided this year needed two CDs.

Most of the songs I’ve chosen this last decade are available on Spotify, which means you can all listen to them here.

And now, it’s time to take down my Valentine’s tree.