I’m not dating right now. It’s been less than a month since I broke up with my last guy. In the time since, there’s been Christmas, a conference, the start of a quarter, a crisis for one of my projects, lung problems, a stolen purse, etc.

I’m exhausted; the idea of putting a profile back up makes me want to hobble to my bed and stay there.

(Maybe if I stay there long enough, I’ll fall asleep for 100 years. If fairy tales are to be believed, the stranger who comes into my bedroom and starts touching me is a winner. Plus, they say you find your mate when you’re not looking. Not being conscious = not looking.)

So imagine my annoyance when a guy on FB started putting the moves on me, like it was a dating site (I had confirmed his friend request because, even though I didn’t recognize him, I thought I might have met him at a conference or something).

I told him I don’t chat with random people on FB. He said he thought FB was for making friends. I said some people might use it that way, but that I didn’t–that I use it to keep in contact with friends, family, and fans.

He then started talking about my pictures on FB and complimented me in what I consider a cheesy way (no, I’m obviously not the first woman made after Eve).

The next morning, he tried again. I reminded him that I don’t chat on FB.

He said he wanted to get to know me and then asked about the weather.

Then he said I didn’t need to be rude, after I told him I was working and didn’t have time to chat, especially about the weather.

I explained that I was merely being clear, and that I was frustrated that he continued to try to chat with me.

Then many, many messages came.

He is godly, you see.

A widower.

A lonely widower.

His spirit tells him I have a good heart.

He doesn’t understand why “all [I] give [him] is rejection.”

Rejection, of course, is all one should expect when approaching strangers, no matter what one hopes.

I don’t make resolutions–if I did, breaking them would be just another thing to beat myself up about (like most Americans, I have a negative running commentary that tells me I’m too fat, that I’m not kind enough, that I don’t work hard enough (that one is insane, considering how much I work), etc.).

But I have aspirations.

I want to try more new recipes. My goal is at least four a month.

I want to discover new music. You, dear reader, can help me with that.

I want to watch more stand-up comedy. My goal is at least two new specials a month.

I want to buy more things second-hand. This is hard, because I hate shopping in the first place, so jumping on the internet for exactly what I want is much easier.

I want to be less aspirational when buying fruit and yogurt. I am not going to eat as many servings as I think I will in the moment, and I don’t want to waste food.

I want to blog more.

I want to spend more time with my friends.

I would like to hurt less and to work less, but I don’t have any idea how to do that right now, except for to keep doing what I’m doing–my exercises, my appointments, my paying down medical debt.

Most importantly, I want to try to fight back more against that awful voice in my head.

I would like to treat myself as well as people who love me do.

I want to remember that every picture of me is a beautiful picture, no matter what I look like, as long as I’m happy in it.

Failed relationships: 2

Failed attempts to get to New York for MLA: 1

Subsequent snow bombs avoided: 1

Freshman seminars taught: 3

Workload sections taught: 5

Other writing courses taught: 10

Shakespeare courses taught: 1

Grad classes taught: 1

Independent Studies taught: 3

Times I got to be in a room with Peter S. Beagle: 1

Plays/Performances (The Nether at CapStage, Cudamani at Mondavi, Eddie Izzard at Mondavi, Weird Al at the Crest, The Bluest Eye at UCD, Office Hour at Berkeley Rep, Angels in America at Berkeley Rep, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in London, Tartuffe in London, The Jungle in London, Everyone’s Talking About Jaime in London; The Thanksgiving Play at CapStage; Tig Notaro in Napa; three staged readings at CapStage; The Wolves at CapStage; Alan Parsons Project at the Crest; A Doll’s House, Part 2 at Berkeley Rep; Snow in Midsummer in Ashland, Manahatta in Ashland, The Way the Mountain Moved in Ashland, The Book of Will in Ashland, Brian Poshein at the Punchline; Sweat at CapStage; Rae Gouirand in Woodland; Paula Poundstone at PCA/ACA; Paula Poundstone at Mondavi; Meet Me in St. Louis at the Woodland Opera House): 29

(Best Play: The Jungle)

(Worst Play: Tartuffe (Runner up: Meet Me in St. Louis))

Campus Book Project Performances Performed: 2

Safe cars purchased for the boy: 1

Healthcare appts: too many (I average three/four a week)

Conferences (SWPCA/ACA (Albuquerque), PCA/ACA (Indianapolis), Great Writing Conference (London), WorldCon in San Jose; MPCA/ACA in Indianapolis; Utopian Studies (Berkeley): 6

Conferences turned down: 2

Trips with Melissa: 3

Trips with Vanessa: 3

Side trips to Santa Fe: 1

Times I had a color-changing cocktail: 1

Speakers hosted through Conversations with Writers: 1 (Mike Winfield!)

Times I got to see what was in Frida Kahlo’s bathroom: 1

Close disasters that harmed our lungs and closed our schools: 1

Times I was featured in UC Davis magazine: 1

Margaret Atwood Journal volumes edited: 1

Times I walked past George RR Martin: 3

Honey festivals attended: 1

Presents from my mother for my birthday in August: unknown; she swears she’ll get around to sending it/them.

Appreciation certificates: 1

Showcases with my stand-up kids: many

Books turned in to publishers: 2

Book proposals turned in to publishers: 1

Awesome book covers Denise fought hard for and that we got: 1

Book club meetings at my place: about 50

Days I thought, “wow, I thought this country couldn’t get any worse, but . . .”: 365

Cheating students caught: 5

Upper Division Comp Exam Administrations: 3

Cats who passed: 2

Kittens we adopted: 2

Black cats who now live here: 2

Parts of my face that are safe from a black kitten: 0

Blind cats who now live here: 1

Blogs I discovered praising my teaching: 1

New restaurants: Many

(Favorite: Talli-Joe’s in London)

Museums: many

Times I decided to dye the ends of my hair blue-black, for a comic book Wonder Woman effect, which was supposed to be gone after 7-14 washes: 1

Months the ends of my hair have been green: 6 (and counting)

Books read: lots

Books given up on: 3

New musicians discovered: many

(favorite: Laura Mvula)

Nandos meals: 1

Shows binge-watched: Too many?

Haircuts: 1

Pedicures: 3 (lifetime: 3)

Manicures: 0 (lifetime: 0)

Time with friends: Never enough.

Abdominal migraines: 1

Visits to the ER for abdominal migraines: 1

Times during that visit that I had to explain to healthcare professionals what abdominal migraines are: 3

Times I had to go the ER because I suddenly started feeling really weird and it hurt to breathe but I was in a meeting with our HR person and I thought to myself, “something is really wrong. As soon as I get out of this meeting and teach my class and grade some papers, I should lie down.” But then the HR woman said, “you are rapidly changing colors. Can I call you an ambulance?”

Times I had my son come pick me up from the HR woman’s office because there was no way I was going to pay $800 for an ambulance again.

Times I told the ER doc that I was relieved that he didn’t know what was wrong with me, because if he did know, it would mean I’d had a heart attack or an embolism: 1

Times I took an actual vacation to Ashland: 1

Times my car was chased by a wild turkies: 2

New recipes: Many

(Favorites: crock pot pra ram; creamy creole pasta with shrimp)

Raises for an accomplishment from three years ago: 1

Raises for an accomplishment from two years ago: 1

Ridiculously awful things UCD has done since then (to me and mine), including making it impossible for me to get another merit raise: 2

Children graduated from college: 1

This summer, I got to be in the same room with Peter S. Beagle.

It was WorldCon, and we were celebrating The Last Unicorn, which will soon be reissued, with Beagle’s notes.

I love both the book and the movie (Angela Lansbury as a hag? Yes, please!). Not only did I watch the hell out of my VHS copy when I was young, but I’m sure I damaged it by spending a whole afternoon pausing, rewinding, and re-playing each song so I could write out the song lyrics by hand.

Here are a few things Beagle let us in on at WorldCon:

Christopher Lee, when agreeing to be the aging King in the film, said he wanted to do it because it was the closest he would get to playing Lear.

The butterfly’s ramblings contain a reference to Six Who Pass While the Lentils Boil by Stuart Walker.

The butterfly is Beagle’s “self portrait.”

Molly and Schmendrick weren’t in the first draft at all, which Beagle says is especially surprising since “Molly is the heart of the book.”

I’m looking forward to learning more when the special edition comes out.

Until then, I’m just gonna keep watching this cover of theme song by Ninja Sex Party.

Anubis, my son’s giant black cat, has had a cold. Even though he only touches the kittens when batting them away, he has passed it on.

Thoth (my little black cat) is sneezing quite a lot.

This is unfortunate, since he frequently sleeps on or near my face.

This morning, he woke me up by sneezing directly into my mouth.

So that was the start of the day, followed by an awareness of pain on the left side of my back, which isn’t unusual–it’s been acting up.

I checked the clock, discovering it was one minute after I was supposed to be at my allergy shot appointment.

(I’m not usually the type to sleep in, so I hadn’t thought to set the alarm.)

I ran into the bathroom, to pee and change.

My back went out in between the two.

So I ended up at my appointment, limping, twenty minutes late, and still in my pajamas.

While my shot nurse was injecting me (it’s four vials every two weeks–it takes a while), we discussed my problem. Then she called my GP’s PA, upstairs.

Luckily, I’m around there so often that everyone knows my name and the things my body gets up to.

My GP said he would fit me in in an hour.

I went home so the boy could drive me back (I’m not allowed to drive after a back pain shot).

On the way, we discussed the morning and the unliklihood of my getting a cold from the a cat.

“But this is how bird flus and swine flus start.”

I decided that we should definitely call it the Anubis plague if it does happen.

The boy said I should ask the doctor about it, but we had other things to discuss.

Doc: How did you throw it out?

Me: Trying to change into big girl pants.

Doc: Yeah. Each time I throw my back out, I try not to repeat that motion.

Me: I have to change into big girl pants again someday, Paul.

Doc: That’s true. One time, I was in the closet and I [starts bending down] . . . I should not act this out.

Me: Probably not.

Doc: I thought about just letting [the shot nurse] give you the meds cause I was busy, but then I thought that was irresponsible, but now that I’m with you, saying it out loud, I realize I should have just let her give you the shot.

Me: Probably.

So now I’m home, on my back.

A little sick black kitten is cuddled up with me, sleeping on my neck.

And sneezing on my face.

Your boyfriend says he wants to talk to you about his fears concerning your relationship.

It’s Christmas Eve.

Your fears flood into your brain–you didn’t now there was a crack in the dam, because you were ignoring the dam itself.

You fear that, even though he fits you in every way, you’re not happy.

You should be–he’s wonderful, your friends like him. There are no big problems. The small ones are too small to bother with.

So why do you not melt into his hug when he embraces you on the way to the kitchen? Or reach out to take his hand at the theatre?

I’m so busy, you’ve told yourself. So stressed.

And now he has worries.

They’re about something else–something that might come down the road–something he’s right to be worried about.

But in this moment, you aren’t worried about the problem down the road ending things.

You’re worried about this moment, when all of a sudden, you can’t see the road anymore.

You are the asshole who breaks up with her boyfriend a few minutes before Christmas.

The first time I saw Fight Club, when it came out in 1999, I said, “I am going to teach the fuck out of this.”

And I have.

It’s a beautifully constructed film (dir. David Fincher), based on a powerful novel by Chuck Palahniuk.

It also strikes a chord with those of us who want to understand and who fear toxic masculinity.

(Sadly, it also appeals to those who are toxic. I have had a few young male students misunderstand the film, seeing it as an endorsement of Tyler Durden’s worldview, instead of as a critique of it.)

I most recently taught it in an advanced composition class as part of a zeitgeist assignment.

Fight Club set now would be a very different movie.

A 2019 Fight Club would still critique consumer culture and its role in what’s bothering our straight middle class white men–Susan Faludi explained in 1999 that contemporary Western men feel adrift–they are no longer respected simply for being men; they struggle to financially support themselves and their families. Faludi noted that they were actually in a position close to women in the 1950s–encouraged to find satisfaction by looking good (hitting the gym and using product) and buying the right things. Faludi called this the culture of ornament.

The protagonist in the film isn’t satisfied in ornamental culture. Divorced from real connections with people, he attempts to find happiness in self-help groups and then in a hyper-masculine paramilitary terrorist organization.

Notably, he doesn’t ever try helping another person or finding an honest connection with others.

Our protagonist would still have the same choices before him if he were having his crisis in 2019. More might be made of escaping with drugs, though. In the film, he asks for sleeping pills–his doctor refuses because the narrator needs real sleep. It’s likely he would have gotten his hands on pills some other way–and perhaps pain killers–if the movie were set now. (One can also imagine an epidemic of opiate use in the Fight Club members–there are so many emergency room visits–so many broken bones.)

A 2019 movie would likely show the men to be even more misogynistic than they were in 1999. Tyler explains that they were raised by women and abandoned by their fathers–he questions whether they need women. But it’s likely those same men now would also be incels–the whiny, insecure men who think they are owed sex, that women shouldn’t get to turn them down. Tyler famously said: “We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.” Inherent in the promise of being a millionaire movie/rock star is the promise of women chasing you. Not having easy access to sex is part of why weak men are very, very pissed off now.

And incels are a growing problem in domestic terrorism.

Speaking of domestic terrorists, Fight Club‘s world is overwhelmingly white. Would today’s Tyler be resorting to racism and a fear of immigrants to make his army? Probably.

Watching Fight Club in the #metoo era is interesting. Project mayhem isn’t just attacking corporations and chain coffee places–one of the headlines we see is “Performance Artist Molested.” One shudders to imagine what they did.

But the biggest change when watching this movie now is the intense discomfort when the protagonist threatens to commit a mass-shooting at work. We hadn’t had as many of those incidences in 1999–not enough for the manager to fire him and call the cops, which is what I’m assuming would happen now.

The protagonist makes a clear threat after his boss asks him about the Fight Club flier in the copy machine:

“Well, I gotta tell you: I’d be very, very careful who you talk to about that, because the person who wrote that… is dangerous. And this button-down, Oxford-cloth psycho might just snap, and then stalk from office to office with an Armalite AR-10 carbine gas-powered semi-automatic weapon, pumping round after round into colleagues and co-workers. This might be someone you’ve known for years. Someone very, very close to you.”

He then notes these words are Tyler’s.

How does anyone watch this now and think Tyler’s ideas are good ones?

Update: McSweeney’s also played around with how we should understand Fight Club 20 years later here. It’s awesome.

Second update: When I taught this in Winter 2020, one of my students said it looked like a pretty Republican world, because he saw so many American flags. I then had to explain that back in the 1990s, flying or wearing a flag had nothing to do with political party. It’s only after the 2000 election and 9/11 that Republicans somehow co-opted it. (Notably, that’s the election that invented the idea of “red” and “blue” states.)

A few days ago, I had lunch with an old friend. She admitted she was worried about bumping into her ex, who presumably still lives in Davis.

“I’ve been rehearsing in my head what I’d say to him,” she confessed.

“I do that all the time,” I admitted.

And I do. I rehearse arguments in my head rather chronically. I think it’s a mixture of being a worrier/PTSD sufferer and a conflict avoider. My brain is convinced that if it worries and plans enough, it can solve things and avoid conflict and the things that lead to PTSD.

It can’t, of course–and my head spinning excessively in circles makes my body sick, but my brain won’t listen to me when I tell it to stop. 

So when I happen to think of exes (I see something one gave to me, hear a song that reminds me of them, listen to a tale of woe that sounds familiar), my head starts rehearsing what I would say to them.

It’s not every ex–mostly the recent ones and the ones I might have unfinished business with, emotionally. My brain knows that I didn’t get to have my say.

“You were rude to my friends,” it says.

“Would it have killed you to come to my place sometimes?”

“Dating you was the worst mistake I ever made.”

And that’s it, really.

It all has way less to do with these men than it has to do with me.

My anger, my prepared speeches–they’re a form of projection.

It’s me I’m actually mad at.

Why didn’t I stand up for myself?

Why did I think I didn’t deserve better?

Why did I let you treat me this way?

Until I can answer, I guess my brain will keep scripting.

In 2016, I mentioned that I had the pleasure of seeing John Leguizamo’s Latin History for Morons at Berkeley Rep.

You can now have the pleasure of watching it too–it’s on Netflix.

Leguizamo’s shows are amazing–he’s funny and high energy and always dances for us (he’s a great dancer), but more importantly, they are poignant.

This is my favorite of them all.

Leguizamo’s son is getting bullied and is stymied by his history project, which asks about heros–who are the heroes from his culture? They certainly aren’t in his history books.

Leguizamo realizes that he knows nothing about his culture’s heroes either. But he did a lot of research. Here, weaved into his family’s story, we get the highlights. You’ll learn, you’ll laugh, you’ll cringe. This is a master writer, actor, and comedian at work.

Watch this with your friends and family. And then make sure you watch it again next year for Thanksgiving, as we balance our thankfulness for family with our mourning for our colonial past and our admiration for the Latinx heroes in this nation, like John Leguizamo.