A week ago, my husband made me go to the ER, due to an injury. They noticed a growth while examining me, and said I need a biopsy (which will happen Tuesday).

I was in so much pain on Monday that I couldn’t really walk, but held my three classes and my office hours over Zoom.

I’ve also been juggling appointments (my primary, my therapist, my allergist, my chiropractor, since I woke up yesterday unable to move my neck).

Getting a med I needed took four not-quick phone calls and two visits to pharmacies.

This is all on the heels of weeks and weeks of extraordinary stress about work, family health issues, and family conflict.

This has definitely made me less sympathetic to a student’s proposal that college instructors should allow students to miss 2-3 classes per term so the students can sleep in.

Two stressors have risen in awful prominence lately.

First, health. (Warning: this is gross.) Several weeks ago, my gastro doc asked me to do a cleanse, to determine if I have IBS-C (her guess) or IBS-D (my guess). It’s D. It’s so D. Now, after the cleanse, my diarrhea is so much worse, both in frequency and, grossly, consistency. I have to carry wipes with me to the bathroom, if I hope to be able to put clothes back on after I go.

Naturally, the clean up takes a while, and at work, the lights (on timers), turn off before I’m done.

Yesterday I was dealing with that, and then when I went to bed, I turned my head and my neck went out. It was extremely painful: I couldn’t control my tears, in addition to not being able to move my head. Hubby had to lift me up so I could take medication; the lifting made me scream.

It was the third time in the last five weeks that my neck has done that.

So I’m exhausted, and I’m worried, and all of this is exacerbated by my other big stressor:

Work.

The university is up to something. All UWP lecturers are being moved to the Writing Center, we’re told. The profs in my department heard the news at the same time.

This decision, about how writing will be taught, was made without input from a single writing instructor.

It has also been made without the larger senate being notified. It really seems like having most of the courses in a department being taught by people outside the department, not to mention gutting a department that serves all undergraduates, would be something the senate should have to vote on, right?

(It’s not the first time campus-wide decisions about writing instruction have been announced to us without us being given any advanced notice, the opportunity to advise, or without the senate being informed.)

The university is not being forthcoming about what this change means. In fact, they often claim they can’t answer our questions because we have a union, which is 100% bullshit.

Then, this afternoon, my husband told me he met an app developer who has a couple of employees who have also been hired by UC Davis to create an app to grade essays (we would upload our rubric and some general comments and the AI would do all the grading). The developer said grading would take seconds and that it’s obvious the university would need fewer writing teachers.

Of course, writing teachers know that’s not how grading works. Even those teachers who grade with a points-based rubric, instead of holistically, like many of us do, could never trust AI and some impersonal comments to do the work.

AI isn’t smart enough yet. I can’t think of a single writing assignment I have that could be responded to in that way.

My doctors would like me to have less stress, but just writing this out has made my neck tighter. I’m really worried about my health, and I’m really worried about my job. And I live in a country where my healthcare is dependent on my job.

A not insignificant reason why it’s easier to have IBS when working from home:

At work, I have to remember to take my phone into the bathroom with me, for its flashlight function. UCD’s bathroom lights are motion operated, but only counts motions outside the stall.

When I have terrible diarrhea, as I do today, it’s not fun to find myself in a completely dark bathroom.

I finally got my grading done on Friday. Saturday, I did a lot of cooking and cleaning, and yesterday, I took my beloved to a play in SF.

I couldn’t get to sleep last night, though, because my brain kept telling me everything I needed to do over break: mostly the usual (prepping for my Winter courses, editing the Atwood journal). I also have to do a lot of prep for my new Oxford summer course.

After not getting enough sleep, I got up and went straight to the computer and got to work. I was only an hour in, though, before my back seized up.

To add insult to injury, it was the second time in the last month that I’ve humiliatingly had it freak out when I was getting off the toilet.

So now I’m trying to at least send out some emails, heavily-medicated emails.

I’m also trying to enforce my rule that I’m not even allowed to do that if Snowball wants on my lap.

Despite everything, I’m trying to be grateful. I already had a chiropractor appointment scheduled for later this afternoon, and Jeff can take me to it. My fridge is stocked with lots of lovely things I cooked on Saturday. There are homemade cookies, and my tree, whose name is Matilda, is beautiful.

I am not going to see it in all its glory, but I’m at the Halloween capitol of Europe.

(Death with a King keyring, in honor of my 6th GG, Thomas M. King, born in Derry on 8 April 1695, who emigrated to the Pennsylvania colony)

I got to Derry on Saturday, after securing what was likely the last room in the city (though it’s across the river, in “Waterside”).

The Derry Halloween festival was running all weekend. The city is decked out, but I have to say I felt out of place being dressed for the season Sunday: only the kids were done up that day.

My festive wardrobe was more appreciated at the conference yesterday, where I gave my paper on Juan of the Dead.

Today, I’m just in my low-key Gaiman’s death get up, sadly, when some of the other adults in town have decided to join in.

My body just isn’t up to more. My IBS has been wrecking its havoc, I had to use my cane a bit already, and I’m definitely coming down with something.

After grading this morning, I managed to go out and get something to eat and hit a store for some provisions in case I can’t leave my room tomorrow: storm’s a-coming!

(What?)

A storm WITH A NAME is coming!

(Like a hurricane?!?)

Yup! Exactly like a hurricane. And since it’s a UK hurricane, it has a name I’m not sure how to pronounce: Ciarán.

The storm is a “danger to life” to Southern England–we’ve got an amber warning here, which means flooding (not a kidnapped child, like in the US).

I couldn’t find a gif of this, but here’s the video of Meryl Streep warning about a storm in Only Murders in the Building.

So: difficulty walking + no cabs at all because of the crowds + cold weather + my cold + my lungs still not bouncing back after COVID + cold weather- and cold-induced asthma + an upset stomach + a typhoon or whatever = me not being out in all the festivities tonight.

(a totally normal decoration to have on a bridge)

All I want are hot toddies and bed, but getting my hands on whiskey at a store has been surprisingly difficult (WTF, Derry?1?!). Thank goodness there’s a pub next door.

Happy Halloween!

(Death with a scarf from Vanessa & a glass of verdejo)

I have a lot of things to update my two readers on. In fact, there’s so much it’s what’s kept me from updating in a while.

I can’t do it all now, but here’s the health stuff.

For this, just know that my back and neck and head are still awful.

My gut is SO much worse.

Before the pandemic, I was used to chronic diarrhea, and I was managing it. For some reason, during the pandemic, I swung the other way.

Since I’ve been back to teaching in person, I’ve swung back. However, I’m not managing it well now. Before, I could be okay on half an immodium a day. I would wake up in time to eat, get a sense of my gut, and see if I needed the half a pill before heading to class.

Current status: I almost didn’t make it to the bathroom after class a few weeks ago, and about two times a week, I’m crippled by my IBS. Along with the diarrhea comes cramping that leaves me whimpering on the floor. I have to take up to three immodium to make it stop, which means I don’t go at all for two days after. Then, it’s back to a system in overdrive.

All my docs have been able to confirm so far is that I indeed have IBS.

In other, more hopeful, news, I’m having a little surgery on Monday to try to fix my ear problems. Unlike most people, I can’t pop my ears. Any change in elevation, in a car or plane, hurts.

I’ve managed to convince my team to use a smaller than normal breathing tube during the procedure, since I have an obstructed airway, and a nausea patch, since my last surgery recovery went so badly.

I haven’t, however, gotten them to agree to catheterize me. They think they don’t have to, since the procedure is short, but the last two times docs have thought that, I’ve woken up covered in my own piss. I’m thinking it’s because I only ever truly relax when a doctor puts me under.

Fingers crossed that they listen to me this time.

I leave for Dublin on Tuesday.

Not surprisingly, I’m losing my mind.

In the past, when I’ve gone abroad for a while, I’ve packed just one big suitcase to check & then end up having to buy another bag to come back with me. This year, I’m skipping that step. My checked luggage will include a big suitcase and a duffle (how else could I actually pack warm clothes?), but I will have some room for what I buy there, after taking all the supplements and eating all the grits that are coming with me.

In the midst of all the panicking and packing, I’ve been googling my future neighborhood. There’s a Nandos just a five-minute walk away, so I may not be able to lose weight this Winter.

My greatest challenge right now is that my insurance told the pharmacy that I couldn’t have a 90-day supply of my medications. I spent several hours on the phone the other day, resulting in a request for an emergency authorization. We’ll know tomorrow how that went.

If they don’t approve it, I will have to pay out of pocket for two months and then fight them for reimbursement when I get back. Without insurance, it will be over 700$ to take the meds I need.

This has been your reminder that American healthcare is mean and dumb.

I got my final grades in today for Spring 2022–it’s the end of my 23rd year of teaching.

My 24th year begins on 6/20, starting with class 316. Over the next week, I need to finish putting the course page together.

And I’m starting to panic: in addition to teaching both summer sessions, I have to get ready to leave the country twice. I leave for Spain in three weeks: I have two conferences back to back there.

And it’s official: I’m going to Dublin at the end of September.

I need my brain to shut up about it all, though, so I can sleep. It’s especially worried right now about how to pack for over two weeks in Spain (while working) and almost three months in Dublin. It keeps reminding me that I’m not supposed to carry anything heavy.

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve introduced the senior comedy show, been to Jacob’s goodbye show, and hosted the extraordinary stand-up class final performance.

I got all dressed up for the senior comedy show: the theme was black tie, and I didn’t have an appropriate outfit, so I had to get a new one. I pulled some black heels out of the very top of the closet. The bottom of both came off before I made it out on stage.

Saying goodbye to my graduating comedy students is breaking my heart.

Last weekend, I saw three plays: a workshop of a new musical about Houdini, Henry V via National Theatre Live, and The Lifespan of a Fact at CapStage. I was especially interested in the latter, since I’ve met its subject, John D’Agata. His aversion to fact checking (and the play about it) is mentioned in Melissa and my sources textbook. One of the authors of the play and I got to chatting on social media after I posted about it.

I’ve recently started dating again. In fact, I was a very sweet guy’s first date from the internet ever. He seemed genuinely surprised when I told him how common it was to find someone there. I had an awful second date with someone too.

Dating is always anxiety producing, and I think of Margaret Atwood’s quote in Cat’s Eye: “I’d been reading modern French novels and William Faulkner as well. I knew what love was supposed to be: obsession, with undertones of nausea.”

The boy and I saw Bob’s Burgers: The Movie, which was great.

My colleagues and I got together at the park–someone missing how I used to spoil them at the grading sessions I ran asked me to make something, so I treated them all to rum cake.

My son’s new girlfriend gave me farm-fresh eggs, and I made quiche, scrambled eggs, and pound cake. She also brought me a new whiskey: so good!

I’ve also been writing a lot of letters of rec, I got a dental cleaning and filling fix, did my yearly eye appointment, and ordered new glasses. I also wrote a furious letter to UCD, after a shot nurse there decided she was done giving me the asthma drug I desperately need, without telling me (I was still on the schedule and still showed up for my appointment, though she was nowhere to be found), and without making sure I could get the shots with my new allergist. So I guess I’m just going to miss this month’s doses.

I watched the first day of Congressional testimony in the January 6th investigation and cried.

I didn’t get Covid, though I feared I would. It’s a matter of time, I know. It’s just too contagious to avoid it forever.

In closing today, I’ll leave you with the best compliment I got from a graduating student: “Yours was the first class at UCD that I couldn’t bullshit my way through.”

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.