Times I decided it was too much to wait to wrap everything up at the end of the year: 1

Nights I had gin and tonics with my brother, with a lemon twist provided by our great grandmother’s lemon tree, and, in reminiscing about childhood, discovered that I was mixing up a time we were robbed with a time we were almost murdered (but the man who was going to murder us was killed by his sister that night instead): 1

Times my (Grand)Daddy’s office had been dusted before he died 7 years ago: 0

Times I was able to breathe well when trying to find hardcopies of (Grand)Daddy’s autobio: 0

Parts of the autobio I was able to find: ~20

Parts of the autobio found that he wrote about taking me in when I was a toddler, which he’d let me read years ago: 0

Hearts broken: 1

Bottles of wine shared with my uncle: 1

Times my youngest relative almost took her very first steps, to me: 7

Times we found a weird newspaper clipping pile that made us wonder what (Grand)Daddy was up to: 1

Times we found porny things, meaning we knew what he was up to: 8

Times my cousin was trying to clean the wrap around porch, which had turned into a junkyard, & I heard my mother say, “Tessa, the dynamite box goes with the dynamite!”

Discovering which of my cousins’ kids will be the one to take over all of the ancestry stuff when I’m gone.

Steps onto the beach it took for my husband to realize why I’ve always been such a beach snob: 4

Servings of gulf fish: 5

Servings of fried okra: 3

Times I almost murdered by husband because he ate a serving of my gulf fish in the middle of the night and then threw away what would have been my fourth serving of okra: 1 (it’s one time, but it’s not over yet)

Relatives who wanted to make sure I knew it was my husband, not them, who betrayed me, since they know that fresh fish and fried okra is my favorite meal: 3

(Grand)Daddy’s paintings and drawings we found that we’d never seen before: ~24

Strange evidence of Florida weather encountered: 1

Eggs my mother boiled on a Monday morning, to be turned into deviled eggs: 12

Times a day, each day, that she would get up to go make the deviled eggs: 14

Deviled eggs made, by the time I left, 6.5 days after the eggs were boiled: 0

Times my cousin and Kelly and I complained that the well water back home didn’t taste like home anymore, which was terrible, because we love how our well water tasted, and then my mom’s partner said they replaced the corroded pipes, and Kelly and I realized maybe we love the taste of corroded pipes: 1

Extra suitcases appropriated so that I could bring back files, pictures to digitize, etc: 1

Flights to bring me back to California from a post-Christmas family visit in Florida: 3

Migraines: 4

Fall classes started: 4

Days taken completely down by a terrible cold/cough, which spread into pink eye and a nasty ear infection: 10

Health appointments (treatments) rescheduled or cancelled due to my illness: 7

Student comedy shows missed: 1

New recipes tried: 1 (Slow Cooker Parmesan Garlic Chicken and Potatoes)

Books finished: 5

Pages of Margaret Atwood Studies edited: 355

Day I picked to listen to my Chronic Pain: A Comedy video, since I need to revise it and perform it again next month: the 25th

Days I procrastinated & didn’t listen to it: 4

Presidents: 2

Presidents who shouldn’t have been allowed to take office after committing treason: 1

Days I’ve been able to listen to the news without wondering what new lows the other party and its leaders will sink to: 0

Severe close and extended family problems (mostly medical) that are stressing me the fuck out: 5

Miracles (when I realized I would need a new OSC for my Oxford course and then got a message from someone confessing she’d always wanted to do it): 1

Oxford AirBnBs, Stonehenge visits, and Wilton House visits booked for this summer’s Oxford class: 1 (each)

Times my car’s trunk wouldn’t open, and I was able to figure out that it’s because a reusable grocery bag’s handle got stuck in the mechanism, and I needed to fix it, but my car is a mini cooper, so it’s not really possible to get into the back seat, much less the trunk area, at least not without bruises, so I got bruises, but I fixed it: 1

What I’m watching: The West Wing*; Randy Feltface: Smug Druggles; Randy Feltface: Book of Randicus; Elsbeth; Futurama; The Conclave; Star Trek: Section 31; All Creatures Great and Small; Harley Quinn; Gladiator 2; St. Denis Medical; Your Friend, Nate Bargatze; Abbot Elementary; A Real Pain; Roy Wood Jr: Lonely Flowers; Vienna Blood; The Sticky; Seth Meyers; SNL; The Wild Robot; Jim Gaffigan: The Skinny

What I’m listening to: Various NPR shows, including This American Life & Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me; Savage Lovecast; Serial; Working it Out; Levar Burton Reads; Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend; American History Tellers; Radiolab; This is History

What I read every morning: Heather Cox Richardson’s “Letters From An American”

*I restarted The West Wing on 1/20. I said to myself, I’m going to skip that stressful season when Zoe’s kidnapped. I can’t handle it when the Republican Speaker of the House tries to ram his stuff through while he’s in charge. While I remembered it as a season, it’s two episodes. Two very traumatizing episodes.

Dear readers:

Please help me spread the word about my film class in Oxford this summer!

We tour film and tv sites (including the home of Bridgerton’s Duke of Hastings), learn from Dr. Liam Creighton (a filmmaker and scholar), and get a private tour of Stonehenge!

Enrollment is open now!

https://globallearning.ucdavis.edu/pathways/academics/studyabroad/sa/uk_oxford

My 1.5 min video about it: https://youtu.be/aEFHUiLR9Ac

This is a pretty sparse list. I usually try to flesh these out with my notes from conferences and overseas trips, but I’m visiting my hometown and the notes are in Davis …

Books Read: 118 (See here)

Things missed due to illness: 8 live comedy shows; 1 film festival; 3 plays; 1 book release; 1 dear friend’s birthday party; 2 conferences in Spring; 1 opera, staring a friend

Times Thoth broke a neighbor’s heart, when she thought he was her long-lost kitty, but then he turned out to be ours: 1

Wineries visited: 8

Times I was driving to see Vanessa for a brief moment when our schedules in California could overlap and my car completely died: 1

New cars: 1

ER visits: 5

ADD diagnoses: 1

Seeing Deborah Harkness live: 1

Grad school mentors and friends lost: 2

Poetry books I wrote blurbs for: 1

Poetry books blurbed: 1

Ancestors added to my tree: 1101

Atwood journals out: 1 (449 pages)

Times a boss sent a cryptic email about how we were all being forcibly moved out of the University Writing Program but refused to answer any follow-up questions: 1

Massive job reorganizations, the consequences of which are as of yet unknown: 1

New ergonomic office set ups: 1

New air fryers: 1

Times I was in the waiting room for a online panel at WorldCon, and I talked a little to myself and to the cats, including telling myself that of course I was going to try to have diarrhea just before it started, and then finally being added to the online room, where I could see a tech guy’s message that said “I can hear you”: 1

Wedding anniversaries: 1

Times Jeff and I got a hotel room in Woodland just so we could get into a pool once that summer, only to find that the pool was closed: 1

Windshields destroyed during atmospheric rivers: 1

Broken computers / new computers: 1

Phones that broke in Vienna: 1

New phones that I dropped within 24 hours, shattering the screen: 1

New phones total: 2

Times a student’s parent wrote me to complain about the course schedule: 1

Times a student’s parent apologized, after seeing the actual schedule: 1

Cancer scares: 1

Days in winter quarter that I couldn’t move my neck: 5

Hosting the campus femme show: 1

Times a guest speaker in my stand-up class asked me afterwards if two particular students were giving me problems. They were, I confirmed. “They’re just so smug,” he said. “I wanted to slap them”: 1

Times I thought I lost my glasses: daily

Times I actually lost my glasses: 1

Times Anubis was jealous that Snowball was getting goo in a tube, so he just licked it out of her mouth: 1

Times I fell: 1

Oxford wine bars and shops where they knew Vanessa and I by name: 2

Roses from a former student: 6

Noroviruses: 1

Getting to see my college friend, Kaaron: 1

Getting to see Tiffany, Liam, and Courtney, with Vanessa, in London: 1

MRIs and X Rays, etc: 5

Times I got to give a talk at the amazing Woodland Shakespeare Club: 1

Days I couldn’t walk well in Fall Quarter: 15

Really fancy lunches in London: 1

Times when Dr. Liam got to guest lecture in Oxford: 1

Cold, rainy summers in Oxford: 1

Visits to Dishoom in London: 2

Times Vanessa and I had to keep a window open in London with medicine bottles: 2

Times I watched the World Cup in my local pub: 1

Explaining how American healthcare works to horrified Brits: 2

Times Vanessa and I stumbled across the ruins of an abbey where King Henry II’s mistress was sent to retire: 1

Rum Festivals with Vanessa in Oxford: 1

Times we thought we were fine at the rum festival, until it was time to walk down the stairs: 1

Wine tastings in Oxford, after which we were better on the stairs: 1

Times I got Covid in Oxford: 1

Vienna trips in which Melissa and I were confronted by a the equivalent of a hurricane (the storm had a name: Boris): 1

Purses lost or stolen in Vienna: 1

Visits to Nandos in the UK: 7

Living rooms I couldn’t hang out in in Oxford, because I was allergic to something: 1

Side trips to Salisbury, to visit the museums and the famous cathedral, where one of my ancestors is entombed: 1

Trips to Stonehenge and the Wilton House: 1

Ways venison was prepared for my lunch at the Haunch of Venison in Salisbury: 3

Museums: if I had my notes, I would know: probably about twenty

Visits home: 1

New Recipes Tried: 69: Slow Cooker Mississippi Pork Roast; Bison Noodle Bowls; Garlic Rosemary Lamb Chops in the Air Fryer; Indian Lamb and Spinach Curry; Garlic Paprika Chicken!!!; Air Fryer Maple Dijon Salmon; Pork Pernil; Salmon en Croute with dill hollandaise; Farfalle Pasta with Zucchini and Ham; Ground Beef Noodle Bowls; Three-Cup Chicken; Prairie Pie; Sauteed Chicken with Meyer Lemon; Chicken Gratin with Turnips; Beef Tortilla Soup; Creamy Chicken Casserole with a Cheddar Biscuit Crust; Air Fryer Corned Beef; Shrimp Scampi with Garlicky Miso Butter; Orange-Glazed Baked Salmon; Baked Blueberry Pancakes; Puff Pastry Chicken and Leek Casserole; Shrimp, Cilantro, and Tamarind Soup; Pork with Grapes and Tarragon; The Best Baked Salmon (Food Kitchen Network); Honey Garlic Shrimp; Cucumber Salad (from Food and Wine); Potato, Steak, and Chorizo Pie; Sheet Pan Pesto Chicken; Skillet Shrimp and Corn with Lime Dressing; One Pan Garlic Butter Chicken; Sauteed Salmon with Leeks and Tomatoes; Creamy Asparagus Pasta with Peas and Mint; Creamy One-Pot Spaghetti with Leeks; Pan-Seared Ranch Chicken; Sheet Pan Roasted Salmon Nicoise Salad; Lamb Biryani; Lamb Makhani; Slow Cooker Lemon Piccata; Zatar chicken; Grown up fish filet; Chicken, pesto, couscous, balsamic, mozzarella, tomatoes, basil, garlic, olive oil salad; Air fryer shawarma lamb; Honey and soy glazed chicken; Chicken lazone; Pistachio cake; Honey and miso glazed; Tri tip in the air fryer; One-pan-shrimp-enchiladas-verde; Chicken-stuffed bell peppers with orzo; Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole; chicken noodle salad by Chef John; italian pork in the crock pot; sheet pan salmon and crispy rice (F&W); Tomato Butter Salmon; Lamb Stew; Lo Mein; another Dutch Baby; Apple and Persimmon Crisp in the crock pot; Thai Red Curry Butternut Squash; Cilantro Lime Butter Shrimp; Potato and Bacon Quiche; Smashed Cucumber, Avocado and Shrimp Salad; Chicken in Basil Cream; Black Pepper Chicken; Pumpkin Bread; Brussels, Squash, and Fried Sage; Air Fryer Chicken Bites; Creamy Italian Sausage Soup; Voodoo Pasta

New Cocktails Tried: 5: Fool’s Gold (with lemoncello and bourbon; Full Monte #2 (bourbon & Amara Montenegro); Vesper; Italian Sunset; One Dance (gin, lemon, lillet)

Stand-up specials (live and recorded): 28: Gary Gulman: Born on 3rd Base; Randy Feltface: Smug Druggles; Alex Edelman: Just for Us ; Randy Feltface: Feltopia; Taylor Tomlinson: Have it All; Daniel Sloss: Dark; Daniel Sloss: Jigsaw; Daniel Sloss: X; Jimmy Carr; Neal Brennan: Crazy Good; Rachel Feinstein: Big Guy; Daniel Sloss: Can’t; Chelsea Handler: Big Little Bitch; Jim Gaffigan: Dark Pale; Natasha Leggero & Riki Lindholm at the Punchline; Nurse John; Seth Meyers: Dad Man Walking; Ali Wong: Single Lady; sStuuc or treat; Eddie Izzard: The Remix Tour; Mulaney: Kid Gorgeous; Nikkie Glazer: Someday You’ll Die; Gaffigan: Comedy Monster; Rachel Bloom: Death, Let Me Do My Special; Eddie Izzard: Dress to Kill; Russell Howard: Lubricant; Whose Live Anyway?

Plays 5: Six!; Vanya; Now Circa Then; Operation Mincemeat; Richard III

Movies: 131: The Holdovers; The Color Purple; Oppenheimer; May December; Elemental; Indiscreet; My Favorite Wife; Arsenic and Old Lace; Killers of the Flower Moon; Maestro; Nyad; Rustin; Society of the Snow; the new Mission Impossible; Godzilla Minus One; The Marvels; 3000 Years of Longing; Dune 2; American Fiction; Anatomy of a Fall; Poor Things; The Zone of Interest; Rustin; The Boy and the Heron; Nimona; El Conde; Napoleon; Bobi Wine: the People’s President; Golda; Perfect Days; The Teachers’ Lounge; American Symphony; The Creator; The Goldman Case; Memento; The Seventh Seal; Mean Girls; Kick-Ass; Scoop; My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3; Brideshead Revisited; Nausicaa of Valley of the Wind; The 39 Steps; To Catch a Thief; Lawrence of Arabia (twice); Deadpool; Deadpool 2; Aquaman 2; Easy A; Anyone But You; Madame Webb; Ghostbusters: When Hell’s Kitchen Freezes Over; The Saint (twice); Delicious; Ghosted; Bridesmaids; Marcel the Shell with Shoes On; The Marvels (again); The Third Man (twice); Lilo & Stitch; WALL-E; In & Out; Hot Fuzz; Runaway Bride; Shaun of the Dead (twice); Notting Hill; Jim Hensen: Idea Man; Bridget Jones’s Diary; Priscilla; Hamilton; The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare; About a Boy (twice); The Fall Guy; Lightyear; Roxanne; Sense & Sensibility; Inside Out 2: Inside Outer; Deadpool & Wolverine: Horny Like the Wolf; If; Minions: Rise of Gru; Fallen Leaves; Dirty Little Letters; Imitation Game; Problemista; The Martin (extended cut); Alien: Romulus; Forgetting Sarah Marshall; The Proposal; Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose; Gosford Park; Man Up; Dr. Horrible’s Singalong Blog; Love Actually; Spirited; A Clüsterfünke Christmas; While You Were Sleeping; The Happiest Millionaire; Betelguese Betelguese; Scrooged; Die Hard; Damsel; The Adam Project; Lover Come Back; Nosferatu; Emilia Perez; Shadow of the Vampire; The Shop Around the Corner; Paddington 2; Persuasion (twice); An Education; They Shall Not Grow Old; Chicken Run; A Fish Called Wanda; Labyrinth

3 of 5 Documentary Shorts nominated for an Oscar

New Shows: 31: The Serpent Queen; Rome; Beef; Murder at the End of the World; Girls5Eva; Elsbeth; Funny Woman; Manhunt; Lessons in Chemistry; Astrid; Nolly; True Detective; Mr. and Mrs. Smith; Mr Bates vs. the Post Office; Franklin; The Sympathizer; Mary and George; Star Trek: Short Treks; Baby Reindeer; Renegade Nell; The Three Body Problem; Acolyte; Ms Marvel; House of the Dragon (season 1); Loot; Palm Beach; Bletchly Circle; Bad Sisters; Man on the Inside; Nobody Wants This.; Monsters; Black Doves

Old Shows Kept Up With: 25: Miss Scarlet and the Duke; All Creatures Great and Small; Loki (fin); Sisi; Resident Alien; Call the Midwife; For All Mankind; Abbot Elementary; The Simpsons; SNL; Bob’s; Seth Meyers; The Daily Show; Star Trek: Discovery; Hacks; Doctor Who; Star Trek: Lower Decks; What We Do in the Shadows; Last Week Tonight; Colin From Accounts; Shrinking; The Diplomat; The Empress; Star Trek: Lower Decks

Shows Re-binged: 14: Brooklyn 99; Unbreakable Kimmie Schmidt; Schitt’s Creek (twice); Malcolm in the Middle; Bridgerton; the Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance; The Umbrella Academy; The Bear; A Discovery of Witches; Staged; The Good Place; 30 Rock; The Great

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A student just cited the magic toaster as a source in her essay.

Explanation: I am a visual thinker; AI is nebulous, so I envision it as a magic toaster. It’s not a great toaster, as it routinely makes shit up (aka hallucinating), cites things published in predatory journals, etc. It’s also a terrible writer.

I spend a lot of time telling my students why I don’t want them to use it. I have no interest in what the toaster thinks, and I shouldn’t spend the too-little time I have on this planet commenting on its nonsense. I also ask them what will happen when I give AI a bad grade: will they go to the toaster and explain that I hated that introduction?

Despite this, I’ve seen an explosion of AI use, and now I’m spending more time turning people in to SJA than in trying to warn them.

I have an online freshman course at SCC, and it’s been most destructive there. One homework assignment was to gear us up for an analysis of a film of their choosing: the students will argue whether the film ultimately upholds traditional gender roles and stereotypes or subverts them.

The assignment asked for a one-paragraph summary of the film and a one-paragraph explanation of why it would be a good fit for this assignment.

1/3rd of the students had AI write those paragraphs. How could I tell? The paragraphs didn’t sound like any other writing the students had done, and they all sounded the same. Each assignment ended, for example, with AI saying the film would make a “nuanced case study …”

None of the students denied using AI. And none of them apologized for it.

Several of them later turned in drafts written by AI; I wrote them all notes about how they were going to fail the assignment. I also told them all I would be running each essay through an AI detector, and stressed that AI should not be used on this essay, other than for grammar/spelling.

As I was glancing through the essays yesterday morning, my heart dropped. Students were required to use three secondary sources. One had AI as her third source. “According to AI, Moana is a movie about . . .” The Works Cited page entry was “AI. Google.”

I emailed the student, who said she remembered me saying they could use AI if they cited it.

Here’s what the syllabus says: “… You may use Grammarly and other editing programs to identify and fix typos, spelling errors, punctuation, and sentence errors. You may not use these editors to add new words, sentences, or ideas. I’m fine with you using [AI] to brainstorm and to edit/proofread (as long as you cite and talk about it in the memo). What’s not okay: letting AI write a draft for you. If you can point to sentence in your paper and say, ‘AI wrote that part,’ then something’s wrong.”

I have also done extensive source work with the students, going over reliable sources and how to find them. I have stressed that AI is unreliable, and I have forbidden students to use sources with no authors and cheat sites. AI, in this context, is a combo of both.

AI isn’t an expert on Moana, I explained to the student; it hasn’t actually seen the film.

My last message to the students before the paper was due said: “Don’t use one of the four forbidden sources. Don’t use AI.”

The only comfort I have is reminding myself that the student doesn’t watch most of the videos and didn’t do all of the homework on sources, but I still feel like a new line has been crossed.

Our old couches are really old: they were used when I bought them in 2007. They bear cat scratches and have almost no support, so hubby wanted something more comfortable.

I suggested doing a curb search: it is move in/out season in Davis, after all.

He shot me down, but I didn’t really know where one gets new couches. Then I remembered hearing that some conservatives think a furniture company traffics children, so I went to that company’s site & looked at what was on sale, opting for a couch / chair combo.

(Not because I endorse child trafficking, but because that’s not happening & I figure this conspiracy theory might be hurting their bottom line.)

I knew we needed some pillows, and I remembered seeing some cat themed ones years ago, so I ordered the slips and shoved the old couch pillows into them.

At the same time, I have been undertaking an organizational clean up around here. I’m not going to post pictures of the closets and under sink cabinets, but I sometimes open the bathroom cupboard when I’m stressed just to remind myself that I am getting things done and that, for this brief time, things are actually where they should be.

(Why am I stressed? The usual health stuff, some less usual family health stuff, having been forcibly moved to an academic “unit” & not knowing what that means, and the oncoming storm that is five courses (four preps) for Fall.)

The reorganization has necessitated some accent shelves and a small spice rack.

As the hubby and I are both bad about putting things up straight, we contracted a task rabbit, who then didn’t show up cause they were sick. A week later, they were still sick and then a different task rabbit just didn’t show up at all, so I figured out how to do the straight and even thing, cussed a lot, because the drill and I are not friends, but got it all up!

My husband has what he describes as “man feet.” Last Friday, I went to a very overdue pedicure & insisted he go with me. When I told him he would get to sit in a massage chair, he agreed.

He proudly announced it was his first time, and the ladies who worked there made a big deal about him–telling him he was lucky to have a wife who cared about his feet, etc. They clapped when they learned he’s an AEMT.

He was enjoying his pedicure so much that he let them upsell him to a manicure. He didn’t go for any polish, but he got the works, including paraffin.

I let him pick out my toe color.

Today, he went back to buy the bottle, so I can do my hands to match. On the way, he picked up some thank you flowers for the women–one of his toes, which had chronic pain, no longer hurts.

They gave him the nail polish for free.

When sick in Oxford on a rainy day, what’s an American to do but cuddle up with a cuppa and read a book set in Oxford?

I started The Moving Toyshop, by Edmund Crispin (1946). The series features an Oxford literature professor as the detective and lines like the ones below, so I thought I would love it:

“I am getting old and stale. I act with calculation. I take heed for the morrow. This morning I caught myself paying a bill as soon as it came in. This must all be stopped. In another age I should have devoured the living hearts of children to bring back my lost youth. As it is . . . I shall go to Oxford.”

“Oxford is the one place in Europe where a man can do anything, however eccentric, and arouse no interest or emotion at all.”

But then there was the first look at the murder victim:

“There was no ring on her left hand, and the flatness of her breasts had already suggested that she was unmarried.”

Later, we’re told that a picture of the victim is surprising: “it was not the face of an ineffectual spinster.”

In these instances, my brain threw up defenses: “hey, we’re not all . . .”

What’s weird here isn’t so much that a 1946 novel written by a man was sexist.

I’ve been married and divorced, and I’m married now. I’ve been a mother every single second I’ve been an adult.

What’s weird is that I’m not a spinster, but my brain decidedly thinks I am. It’s always had a “we” response to statements about us . . . I mean, them . . . ever since I was a little girl.

I guess I was always a black sheep enough to know that I was destined to be the maiden aunt, well, not the maiden aunt, but the eccentric aunt who was a “bad” influence on the children.

Wallie William Waltonen married Winca Jewreen Graves. They went on to raise four children (Kativa, Monty Ree, Marty Dee, and Mindy Lee) and a trouble-making granddaughter, Karma Jewreen.

This week, I got the Atwood journal out, after finally getting a missing piece. It was important to me to do that before doing the all-day upper division comp exam scoring yesterday.

Since then:

There weren’t enough scorers, so I have to find time this weekend to score a bunch more essays.

Came home to a dead water heater.

Thoth brought in a rat and put it in the food bowl, like “I made dinner!”

I spent most of the night sick in the bathroom.

Just got an email that the last piece of the journal has a mistake they didn’t catch, so it’s technically not done.

I’m tired.