I don’t know if anyone else got pulled out of class to talk about their essays. It was the beginning of the term, ninth grade. Our history teacher gave us a warm-up free write–what were we afraid of?

I should have said sharks.

But I had written about the end of the world.

HBO’s 1981 documentary/movie, The Man Who Saw Tomorrow, about Nostradamous, is partially to blame. The image of the man who will bring about WWIII, turbaned and entering a room through a Star-Trek door, is imprinted deeply in my mind.

I’d also been reading the Bible. I was trying to understand the religion I was being raised in.

My essay included a detail from the Bible–about how God would not spare anyone, not even women heavy with child. I’m not sure why I picture her running away from earthquake fissures, but I do. My small Conservative town had many people in it who thought abortion was the worst thing you could do (our town had one of the first abortion doctor murders). God, though, was willing to take the life of that unborn child.

We were all fucked.

My history teacher told me I didn’t have to worry about fleeing God’s wrath while pregnant.

My apocalypse fears didn’t go away, of course. I just talked about them less. My long-term boyfriends knew about them; my long-term therapist did too. Mostly because of the nightmares.

One of my boyfriends, when I was ending our relationship, tried to use this fear to persuade me to stay. “You’ll need me if there’s an apocalypse. And I would protect you. I would kill you before I let someone rape you.”

Note: People can survive rape; it’s not the worst thing I can imagine. It’s up there, but not the worst thing. Something happening to my child is the worst thing.

Also: The smart thing to do would be to use their distraction to figure out how to get us out of there.

Of all of my nightmares, one is the most vivid. Something had happened. I needed to pack a backpack and go, never to return. “How many underwear?” I remember thinking. I started to pack my pills, all the drugs that keep my alive. In my dream, I stopped packing and sat down beside the backpack on my bed. It was useless to flee; I was going to be dead in a month.

I woke up.

Therapy did help. The nightmares lessened.

Not surprisingly, I’m being triggered right now. In between the panic of having to get Winter quarter graded and keep my semester classes going, now online, and rearrange the whole way I teach for Spring quarter, and fears about the economy tanking so badly that I lose my job, I’m having lots of intrusive thoughts.

“What if this is the last time I have ice cream?”

These thoughts do not lead to a mindful enjoyment of any given experience.

I don’t know how to end this post.

I don’t know how things like this end.

Los Rios, where I’m teaching two semester-length classes, has moved their courses online indefinitely. Davis is also online for the rest of the quarter.

Today will be spent figuring out how to make next week’s classes work (in addition to the other work that was already on the schedule).

The chaos has upped my workload and my “I have to be on the computer” time exponentially. I’m already feeling the strain on my spine.

Frankly, I’m worried about losing my ability to take care of myself under these circumstances. It’s too easy to get lost in tinkering with a syllabus or in grading. And there’s no forced break where I have to walk to class and teach for a few hours, standing up and walking around. (I realize how perverse it sounds to say teaching is a break.)

So if any of you want to send me a message every once in a while, telling me to take a walk around the block or to go pet a cat, it would be welcome.

I may have walked a few too many miles than I should have on Thursday, but I love walking in the Quarter, my old haunt.

Yesterday, as I set out for the Pharmacy museum on a sunny day, I didn’t see a big hole in the sidewalk, and I sprained my ankle. I hobbled on–and got to rest at the museum (which was amazing–more later).

About two blocks after leaving, I rolled the other ankle, badly. Luckily, I was within a couple of blocks from the theatre where I was going to spend the evening. Later, I took a Lyft home.

Today, I’m going to try to do the WWII Museum. I don’t want to stay in bed all day, though that seems to be exactly what my ankles want.

They are both swollen and bruised (from where they hit the sidewalk when they rolled). They are painful to touch, which means they are shoe-averse.

I have my cane with me. And I’m gonna lure myself out with the promise of more seafood.

Americans who want a single-payer option are often told horrible things about how such medical programs work around the world.

“You have to wait for procedures,” they say.

I get injections in my skull and neck to help prevent migraines. I’m supposed to get them every three months, but when I try to schedule the appointment, I can’t, because the doctor’s calendar isn’t open.

They always promise they’ll call me, but they never do. Instead, they assign me an appointment time and mail me a “reminder,” which is always the first I’m hearing about it.

Yesterday, I learned that I would have to skip the first day of UCD Spring classes if I were to keep the appointment time they chose. I called, but my doctor is booked until six weeks later. He is going to try to scold me about going almost five months between treatments.

If he wanted me to see the migraine specialist again, the wait time would be nine months.

Americans with insurance often have to wait for our care. Americans without insurance usually can’t get on a calendar at all.

I’ve already voted via mail-in ballot. This year, Warren is my choice.

Last time, I voted for Bernie in the primaries and then happily for Clinton in the national. Do I agree with Clinton on everything? No. Was she better in every single respect than Trump? Yes.

The person I wanted the whole time, though, was Warren. We line up well, politically. In addition to our shared aspirations, I like that she proposes actual plans to get them done and has a track record of doing the work to make things happen.

All over my social media, I’m seeing debates about who can beat Trump. Will moderates (of both parties) come to a Democratic Socialist, when studies and observational evidence show that most Americans seem not to know what that term means? Will sexists (in both parties) vote for–gasp–a woman?!?

(A woman won the popular vote last time . . .)

I honestly don’t know how this will all play out, mostly because we are so horribly irrational.

Despite everything that’s happened in the last three years, there are still voters who will sit out the election if their favorite person isn’t the nominee. That’s irrational. Despite everything, Trump’s supporters will never, ever defect. Some of them literally think he’s God’s new prophet. They’re irrational (and terrifying). Despite everything, all those “never Trumpers” and “good” Republicans will vote for Trump to avoid having to pay a cent in higher taxes (also known as paying the same rate I do), to avoid enabling people to live longer and healthier lives (even if it lowers their overall out of pocket costs for all of us), to avoid being a member of the party that loses the election. They’re rational, actually, if we acknowledge they’re just assholes.

I have no idea which candidate could actually beat Trump. The world slid off its axis several years ago.

In this primary, I get to vote my conscience.

I want Warren as my President, so badly.

In the general, even if she isn’t my candidate, I’ll vote Democratic. And I’ll still be voting my conscience. Because none of these candidates, not even (shudder) Bloomberg, is as dangerous as Trump.

I just finished the third book in N.K. Jemisin’s Inheritance Trilogy.

The end of the book has a glossary, which a previous reader has some thoughts about.

For the last nine years, I’ve compiled a Valentine’s Day mix for my nearest and dearest.

It’s never quite about love, but about when love goes wrong. It’s about obsession. About stalking.

Here’s this year’s mix:

1. I Will Possess Your Heart—Death Cab for Cutie
2. Cactus—Davis Bowie
3. Honey Honey—ABBA
4. Settle for Me—Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
5. Why’d You Come In Here Looking Like That?—Dolly Parton
6. The End of the World—Julie London
7. Don’t Talk to Strangers—Jonathan Coulton
8. Titus’s Lemonade Song—30 Rock
9. Hell of a Way to Go—Kasey Chambers
10. I’ve Got You Under My Drawers—Brak
11. We Get On—Kate Nash
12. Satisfied—Hamilton
13. Cry for Me—Camila Cabello
14. Baby, Won’t You Please Come Home?—Louis Prima
15. I’m Going to Get You—National Lagarde
16. Cool—The Simpsons
17. Baby, Let’s Play House—Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
18. Overnight Observation—Olivia Newton-John
19. Nevermore—Queen
20. Pictures of Your Dick—Rachel Bloom
21. Love Me or Leave Me—Nina Simone
22. Are You Lonesome Tonight?—Elvis Presley
23. Is It a Crime?—Sade
24. It’s Me Again, Margaret—Ray Stevens

Almost all nine years of songs are on this Spotify playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4lNFkVYXu7VtWiDtLjGgxX.

(Spotify doesn’t have everything . . .)

Each year, I keep a desktop playlist of songs that might make it onto the next disc. Right now, there are 284 contenders for Stalkers 10.

Want non-spotify versions of past years’ discs? Hit me up!

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!

I don’t like the term self care.

I know a lot of young people who use it, expecting that the responsibilities they’re shirking will just go away if they use it (or mental health day) as a code word. And then I have to be like, okay, but your paper was still due last week.

It also strikes me as a fairly privileged thing to say. When poor people take time for themselves or buy themselves that coffee as a treat, we call them lazy. We tell them they wouldn’t be poor if not for that coffee. We begrudge them necessities (you don’t need a phone! a car!), so of course we don’t tell them to take care of themselves, except when we’re saying we won’t be helpful at all; then, it’s a harsh command.

But maybe I just don’t like the term because it doesn’t motivate me to take care of myself.

It’s so hard to relax that it stresses me a little to think I have to do it.

Over the years, though, I have gotten better at it. A little.

I remind myself that I’m the machine that has to keep working. This machine needs food, exercise, sleep, rest, friends.

Part of what’s hard is that my schedule changes every ten weeks, so I have to recalculate each term–when can I commit to walking? How can I get enough sleep when I have an early class and a late one (and those other three)?

But I’m trying to make positive changes.

I’m taking myself to more plays and movies.

Some days, when Thoth comes to me and asks me to lie down with him, I give in. (He asks by climbing on to the back of my desk chair, moving down to my lap, and then trying to climb up the front of me.)

I’m realizing that I need a day each week when I don’t have anything social to do–hopefully one in which I don’t teach, either. On this day, I will be able to really focus on my work, so the days that follow are easier.

I need more sleep than I’m getting. So I need to get to bed earlier. I’m going to have to say no to things that keep me out late. This will make it difficult to do some of the cultural stuff I love, to see some of the friends I love.

But I’m bone tired and achy all over, and I gotta keep getting through the day.

Alabaster, written by Audrey Cefaly & directed by Kristin Clippard, is playing at CapStage until Feb 23rd.

This production is part of the Rolling World Premiere program, in which new plays are performed on many different stages in the same year, which allows the playwright to get feedback from lots of audiences and allows us to showcase new writers.

In Alabaster, a big city photographer comes to photograph a deeply scarred farm owner in Alabama.

But this isn’t The Odd Couple–their differences are ultimately small, while what they share as women who’ve had immense losses is what really counts.

One of the charming aspects of the show is that the two goats on the farm are played by humans. (They beautifully capture the goat personalities I saw when I was briefly growing up on a farm.)

The performances were great–I especially loved Amy Kelly as Weezy.

I don’t know how I feel about the ending (and I can’t tell you why because I don’t want to give it away), but I’ve been thinking about it for over a week. In fact, I can’t stop thinking about this play.

Which means it’s definitely worth seeing.