In no particular order.

Trips to Marina’s cabin in the woods: 1

Octopus necklaces: 1

Octopus necklaces that need a new clasp: 1

Tire blowouts on the freeway: 1

Books Read and Reread: 75

(Blonde Roots by Bernadine Evaristo; The Swallowed Man by Edward Carey; State of Wonder by Ann Patchett; The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern; The Witch’s Heart by Genevieve Gornichec*; Middle-Game by Seanan McGuire; A Darker Shade of Magic (and its two sequels) by V.E. Schwab*; Vicious and Vengeful by V.E. Schwab; The Illigitimates by Killam, Andreyko, Sharpe, and Pantazis; Stiletto by Daniel O’Malley*; Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir*; 1st two books in The Sixth World series by Rebecca Roanhorse; The Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi; The Will and the Wilds by Charlie N. Holmberg; The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo; The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab*; McSweeney’s Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories; The Sunset Route by Carrot Quinn; The Children of Virtue and Vengeance by Tomi Adeyemi; Mrs. March by Virginia Feito; City of Ghosts by Victoria Schwab; The Line Becomes a River by Francisco Cantú; The Books of Magic by Neil Gaiman; The Inheritance of Orquidea Divina by Zoraida Cordova; The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik; Sistersong by Lucy Holland; Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood*; Artemis by Andy Weir; The Witching Hour by Anne Rice; How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse by K. Easton; The first six books of the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch; Fuzz by Mary Roach; Kill the Farm Boy by Kevin Hearne and Delilah S. Dawson; The Tale of the Wicked by John Scalzi; An Election by John Scalzi; The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss*; Ink & Sigil by Kevin Hearne; Snow White, Blood Red Anthology; Across the Green Fields by Seanan McGuire; the first three books in the Glass and Steele series by C.J. Archer; the four books in The Court of Thorns and Roses series by Sarah J. Maas; Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory by Martha Wells; the first three books in The Frost Files series by Jackson Ford; Spellmaker by Charlie N. Holmberg; Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells; Unexpected Stories by Octavia E. Butler; Kindred by Octavia E. Butler*; Passage by Connie Willis; The Master Magician, The Glass Magician, and The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg; A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher; the last two books in the Parasitology series by Mira Grant; I Met a Traveller in an Antique Land by Connie Willis; Take a Look at the Five and Ten by Connie Willis; four back issues of Asmimov’s)–asterisks denote the most beloved

The book from last year I can’t get out of my mind: Why Fish Don’t Exist by Lulu Miller

Books I’m reading right now: 7

Haircuts: 2, which is 2 more than last year!

Bras worn since I fucked up my shoulder a month ago: 0

Average number of times I scream during the day by moving my arm wrong: 3

Average number of times I scream and wake myself up at night by moving my arm wrong: 5

Dishes I made with my 2021 New Year Ham: 8

(Split Pea Soup; Baked Potato Soup; Ham Dinner; Herbed White Bean Soup; Ham Tetrazzinni; Jambalaya; Ham & Zucchini Bread; Quiche)

Letters of Rec written: 12 (they’re down because of the pandemic)

Magazine Subscriptions: 6

(Discovery; The New Yorker; Food and Wine; All Recipes; Asimov’s; Science Fiction and Fantasy)

Uncomfortable, unadjustable treadmills bought: 1

Other health and safety setbacks to my attempts to be in better shape: 5

Pounds I lost, slowly, anyway: 15

Equity Professional Development workshops attended: 3

Times I rolled my eyes when in equity workshops I was told that we shouldn’t ever count work as late, give zeros to missing assignments, or give credit to students who actually do all the assignments well (they are apparently all wealthy and entitled), or count anything in the final grade except the one assignment they did the best on: SO many.

Simpsons/Davis/Doctor Who paintings acquired: 1

New to me TV watched/binged: 51

(Bridgerton; Supernatural; Star Trek Lower Decks*; All Creatures Great and Small; The Flight Attendant; Miss Scarlet and Duke; Mr. Mayor; Flack; Resident Alien*; Call My Agent; The Watch; Luther; It’s a Sin; The Bureau; Staged*; Lupin; Made for Love; The Nevers*; Family Business; Shtisel; Falcon and the Winter Soldier; Hacks; Ted Lasso*; For All Mankind*; Atlantic Crossing; Wandavision; Loki*; Feel Good; Us; Ragnarok; Blindspotting; Schmigadoon; I’m Sorry*; Dickinson; Katla; Harley Quinn*; Only Murders in the Building; The Chair; The Cook of Castamar; Reservation Dogs; Y The Last Man; Ghosts*; Seaside Hotel*; Landscapers; Station 11; The Miniaturist; The Chaperone; The Long Song; Dexter: New Blood; Another Life)

Air fryers bought and used SO much: 2

Spiders falling into in my wine, drowning, because they were hiding in my aerator: 1

Shows I kept up with: 28

(Doctor Who–I actually finished rewatching all of them again, which I started last year; His Dark Materials; The Discovery of Witches; SNL (except Musk); Seth Meyers (not the interviews, though); Disenchantment; Ramy; The Simpsons; Bob’s Burgers; Stath Lets Flats; John Oliver; Avenue 5; Breeders; The Handmaid’s Tale; The Daily Show; Shrill; Kim’s Convenience; the end of Conan’s show; The Kominski Method; Miracle Workers; AP Bio; After Life; Dead to Me; The Great; Star Trek Discovery; Lost in Space; Grace and Frankie; Woke)

Not-new shows I rewatched in their entirety: 8

(The Expanse; Star Trek: Voyager; Brooklyn 99; Torchwood; Futurama XMas episodes; BBC’s Pride and Prejudice; Call the Midwife; finished rewatching Schitt’s Creek again)

Seasons of The Simpsons the boy and I rewatched: 27

Campus Book Project Talks Given: 2

Postcards and letters sent: not sure, but about 200

Awesome Keynote Speeches Given: 1

Amazing Online Margaret Atwood Conferences: 1

Favorite New Recipes: 13

(corn ice cream; skillet enchiladas; air fryer katsu; greek chicken; air fryer tandoori chicken; harissa chicken; lentils with sausage and apples; drunken noodles; gingerbread cake; green curry chicken with green beans; salmon in fig sauce; fig cake; honey-glazed chicken and shallots)

Average number of health appointments per week: 3

Average number of pills I take first thing: 10

Time-to-take-my-pills times per day: 5

In-person conferences: 1

Audience members at the in-person conference presentation who were not the chair, a speaker, or a speaker’s boyfriend: 1

Movies watched and rewatched: 176

(The Thin Man Returns; Another Thin Man; WW84; Soul; That Touch of Mink; Elizabeth is Missing; Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid; Nomadland*; The Thin Man Goes Home; Coming 2 America; The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone; The Age of Innocence; How to Be A Good Wife; The Adventures of Margo and Marguerite; SFFF Short Films; Judas and the Black Messiah; Minari; Trial of the Chicago Seven; Mank; Over the Moon; Oscar Shorts; Borat Subsequent Moviefilm; Sound of Metal; Wolfwalkers*; White Tiger; Covergirl; Tenet; Hopscotch; Thunder Force; The ABCs of Love; Army of the Dead; Wild Irish Thyme; Shrek 1 & 2; Song of the Thin Man; 36 Hours; The Goonies*; Willow; Rava and the Last Dragon; Murphy’s Romance; Design for Living; Eat a Bowl of Tea; SFFF Shorts (2nd set); Love Affair(s); Faithful; Live Flesh; Dark Habits; The Sunshine Boys; De Gaulle; Delete History; Josep; The Bears’ Famous Invasion of Sicily; Red Soil; The V.I.P.s; A Son; All Hands on Deck; June Bride; Appearances; Chariots of Fire; In the Heights; Blue Bird; The Circus; Passion Fish; Waiting for Guffman; Ready or Not; Torn Curtain; The Madness of King George; The Man Who Came to Dinner; Father of the Bride; Pulp; Body Heat; Rachel, Rachel; Running on Empty; Gypsy; Antonio Gaudi; Stowaway; Deathtrap; They Met in Bombay; And So They Were Married; Black Widow; Spider-Man: Homecoming*; Spider-Man: Far From Home; Tequila Sunrise; Secrets and Lies; Any Wednesday; Fun with Dick and Jane (the original); Beverly Hills Cop (all three); The Hard Way; The Suicide Squad 2; Bowfinger; City Slickers; After Earth; French Exit; Greed; See No Evil, Hear No Evil; Batman; Shang-Chi*; Gunpowder Milkshake; Star Trek; Xanadu; The Extra Man; Addicted to Love; Reminiscence; Their Finest; Contagion; Free Guy; Practical Magic; A Promising Young Woman; Primal Fear; No Reservations; Cabin in the Woods*; Blood and Wine; Get Out*; The Witches of Eastwick; Scotland, PA*; Hocus Pocus; Death Becomes Her; The Addams Family (2019); Beautiful Creatures; Super 8; News of the World; What About Bob; Edward Scissorhands*; Ruthless People; Let the Right One In*; The Philadelphia Story*; Alien*; And So It Goes; My Octopus Teacher; Journey 2; Jungle Cruise; Dune; Psycho; For Your Consideration; Shaun of the Dead*; Cinema Paradiso*; Single All the Way; Six Minutes to Midnight; Bridget Jones’s Diary; The Electrical Life of Louis Wain; Russell Howard: Lubricant; The Nightmare Before Christmas; Ironman 3; Jim Gaffigan: Comedy Monster; The Power of the Dog; The Matrix Trilogy; Ocean’s 11; Four Weddings and a Funeral; Breaking News in Yuba County; Scott Pilgrim vs. the World; new Pixar and Disney and Marvel shorts; Silent Night; Oceans 12; Oceans 13; It’s a Wonderful Life; The Bishop’s Wife; Miracle on 34th Street (original); Eddie Izzard: Unrepeatable; Eddie Izzard: Definite Article; Eddie Izzard: Glorious; The Matrix Resurrections; Eddie Izzard: Dress to Kill; Seven Psychopaths; Spiderman: No Way Home; Encanto; Rush Hour; Deadpool*; Deadpool 2*; Eddie Izzard: Circle; Tig Notaro: Drawn; Taylor Tomlinson: Quarter-Life Crisis?; Daniel Sloss: X; Daniel Sloss: Dark)

Movies in a movie theatre: 3

Times I’ve watched Labyrinth since Vanessa moved to Indiana: 0

Plans to watch Labyrinth on 1/1/21: 1

Movies I watch without cleaning, answering email, or otherwise trying to be productive: almost none

Days without period blood this month: 8

Days until my hysterectomy: 14

Wine advent calendars: 1

Whiskey advent calendars: 1

Things I didn’t do, places I didn’t visit, friends I didn’t see, because of Covid: innumerable

Classes taught: 16 (four in person)–it’s one line, but this was the bulk of the year

Plays, live, on PBS, and on Zoom: 18

(Angry Raucous and Shamelessly Gorgeous; Joy, Unboxed; Smart People; The Baltimore Waltz, Content; On the Rhine; The Sisters Rosensweig; Writing Fragments; Dear Elizabeth; Small Step; The Brunch Club; A Bee in a Jar; an MFA project on food; Ripe Frenzy; Freedom of Speech; Still Will Be Heard; Ann; Gloria: A Life; Admissions)

Days I didn’t do school or admin work this month: 6 (the most of any month!)

Wisconsin things I tried: 5

(A brandy old-fashioned (I prefer an old-fashioned old-fashioned); fried cheese curds; local sausage; local beer; apple pie in a paper bag)

Public Service Loan Applications I filed: 2

Times the DOE gave me terrible advice, which caused the first application to be rejected, which upped my monthly payment amount to more than my rent, which restarted my PLSF clock, which would have changed what I ultimately paid to the DOE to a quarter of a million dollars, and which caused incredible tension and stress: 2

Fingers I have crossed that the second application works: all of them, toes too. Please cross yours.

Nights of shagging: 1, which is one more than last year

Trips to Indiana: 1

Incredible birthdays in Indiana, which included “duck and duck” and “corn brulee”: 1

Trips to Chicago: 1

Atwood Presidencies ended: 1

Atwood Journal Editorships that continue: 1

Merit raises I won in the last three-year review, on top of my regular cost of living raise, because I am a bad-ass: 1

Fights the union won, after years of negotiations: 1

Strikes averted: 1

Raises I’ll get because of my union in the next few years: several

Cable cords cut: 1

DVRs the company said I didn’t have to give back: 1

Subscription streaming services, though not usually at the same time: 8

Cars in our household: 2

Currently working cars in our household: 1

Energy to deal with the non-working car: 0

Kimonos bought: 6

Kimonos kept: 5

Days I tried to edit an essay about the Sons of Jacob right-wing overthrow of the American government in The Handmaid’s Tale while an actual right-wing coup happened: 1

Republican officials who seem to take a fucking coup seriously: 1

(Oh, wait: her party voted her out.)

Republican officials with any integrity or moral compass on this issue, now that the one is kicked out: 0

Atwood journals out: 1

pages of the Atwood journal: 340

Great covers for the Atwood journal by Scott Shaw: 1

Toes I quickly dipped in the dating pool: 1

Times I was stood up: 1

Times I wasn’t stood up: 1

Toes pulled back up out of the dating pool: 1

New slogans, taken from student evals: 1

(“terrifying in all the right ways”)

MLA presentations in slippers and pajama bottoms: 1

Zoom classes, presentations, and conferences without shoes: all of them

Museums/Exhibits attended: 2

My back going out ruining the first week of class: 1

An ER trip ruining a last class: 1

Facet injections: many, but just one session

Colonoscopies and endoscopies: 1 of each

Uterine scrapings: 1

New xmas tree ornaments: 1

Christmas trees put up, with just lights and that one ornament: 1

Handmade figurines of Emmet Otter’s Jug Band: 4

Christmas card to (and from) a penpal I’ve been writing to since middle school: 1

Presents the boy got me after I nursed him through his oral surgery: 1

Double Mix CD for Valentine’s Day: 1

Double Mix CD for Halloween: 1

Double Mix CD for Christmas: 1

New artists I like that I discovered by listening to NPR’s New Music Playlist on Spotify each week: about two dozen

Live and Zoom Stand-Up watched: 30

(Judah Friedlander; Judy Gold; Dr. Katz Live (3); Todd Barry; SF Sketchfest; my students 7 times; Invisible Disabilities; Birbiglia (2); Maria Bamford (2); Myq Kaplan; Sarah Silverman; the Sklar Brothers; Greg Proops; Todd Barry + Natasha Leggaro birthday show; Pete Holmes; Star Wars Day Show; Louie Anderson; Keith Lowell Jensen; Jackie Kashian; New Year’s Eve Show)

Grief counseling in office hours: many

Night guards made: 2

Night guards I had to stop wearing because it made me grind more: 1

Night guards that may help with something, not sure yet: 1

Students who got into Prized Writing: 2

Podcasts: 21

(Radio Lab*; You’re Wrong About*; Fresh Air; This American Life*; Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me*; Morning Edition; All Things Considered; Working it Out; The Improvement Association*; WTF; 1619; Don’t Ask Tig; Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend; The Experiment; On Our Watch; Invisibilia; Savage Lovecast*; Sex, Death & Money; LeVar Burton Reads; This Podcast Will Kill You; Reveal)

(The two episodes of Radio Lab I most recommend: “Everybody’s Got One”; “Oliver Sipple”)

My stand-up performances: 3

(mon chatte; my partisan pussy; bikes)

Times I got to geek out over Zoom with Ellen Forney: 2

Vaccine Doses: 3

Primary care physicians who retired but came back, like they said they would, despite what everyone thought: 1

Letters from Atwood: 1

Days the cats made me a little happier than I would have been without them: 365

Years I’ve wanted eggnog pie, but not made eggnog pie: so many

Times I finally made eggnog pie: 1

Times I screwed up the texture of the eggnog pie, because I got distracted by Betty White, one of my heroes, dying and thus let part of it set too long while I cried: 1

Slightly-screwed up eggnog pies that I’m going to eat anyway: 1

Sorry I didn’t get this out yesterday. I had to binge the end of Katla instead.

This week, I got even more figs from my chiropractor’s tree, so I have made some lovely salmon with a honey-fig sauce, in addition to the raw figs I’ve been enjoying in abundance. Today’s lunch will be teriyaki salmon with figs.

I also decided to try cooking an entire chicken in the air fryer this week.

I usually do my whole chicken in a crock pot.

I like them both. Neither heats up the kitchen too much. The air fryer took an hour at 360. The chicken was juicy and had a great skin, but the crock pot chicken is just a bit juicier and much easier to de-bone for leftovers.

Also, after having pickled watermelon for the first time in Indy a couple of weeks ago, I made my own batch yesterday.

The boy had a lot of stress this week, but that’s not my story to share. I will say, though, that the angst of parenting never ends. When they hurt, you hurt.

I haven’t been able to walk much this week, due to the smoke. I’m actually pleased that I miss it so much.

I haven’t used the treadmill as my back up, though. It’s so uncomfortable (you can’t adjust the incline, like it said, and the handlebars are too low). I need to suck it up, though, in weeks like this.

I finally saw my gyno about the bleeding. My bloodwork and thyroid are fine. We’re going to do one more ultrasound to see if anything has significantly changed in the last 11 months. But it’s looking like I’ll have a hysterectomy soon. She talked about trying more birth control, but I’m on two kinds already, both of which are supposed to stop me from having periods at all, much less the super-periods I’m experiencing. She agreed with me that adding another on top or switching out was unlikely to fix anything.

She said that some women are attached to their uteri, but I told her that we’re not getting along, obviously, and I’m not having more kids, so why not just break up? I added that showing all this grey is partly to signal to the world that they should stop asking me why I’m not having any more!

I spent hours on the phone with CVS again. As you might remember, they wanted me to tell them each prescription I filled in the latter half of last year. So I got that information and called them back. In addition to reading out the number, I had to spell out the name of the drug, etc. When the woman realized we would have to do that 50 more times (she thought I was calling with ONE prescription), she decided to send me up the chain.

Now, CVS is claiming that they don’t owe me money, since they didn’t know any better when they charged me for copays. They say insurance has to refile all the claims.

But my “stupid hours on the phone” this week will likely be spent dealing with student loans.

In fact, I just got off the phone with Fed Loan Servicing. I didn’t actually talk to anyone, mind you. The call was disconnected before I got to a person. And all of their “chat” agents are busy.

But I need to talk to them, because I still don’t have confirmation that the deconsolidation has been approved. Their site lists two loans, with the same $ total as the three I have (subsidized, unsubsidized, and parent), so I’m confused–which loan still has the parent loan in it in their system?

The Department of Education site is even more confusing–and panic inducing–since they say I owe them 317,138. That’s exactly double what I actually owe them.

I’m hoping this is a side effect of the de-consolidation request actually going through. In other words, they’ve updated to show my three loans, but they haven’t yet gotten around to erasing the consolidation one, which is why they seem to think I owe double.

This is still so stressful.

I’ll end on a weird moment.

I was reading an interview of Werner Herzog, and there was one paragraph that prompted this thought: I need to get Dante to read that aloud in Herzog’s voice.

A few minutes later, Dante returned from work, explaining that he had the limes I wanted and noting that his Werner Herzog impression just wasn’t coming together the way he wanted.

Had I texted him after reading the interview? No.

Is this proof that telepathy is real?

Yes.

Is this the first time this has happened to me? No.

Buckle up: this one’s a doozy.

The Bad:

Some things I’m going through this week, you’re going through too. We watch as Haiti gets wracked by another earthquake.

Those of us in California got our voter guide for the ridiculous recall. Governor Newsom is in trouble for enforcing life saving measures. When things started to loosen up and our economy was once again good, polls showed he would survive it.

Now, with the Delta variant and a bunch of selfish, stupid assholes who won’t get vaccinated, we need to mask up again.

And the polls are showing he might lose. ‘Muerica!

We could go the way of Florida, with one of the 40+ bozos on the ballot signing an executive order forbidding us from mask mandates.

In more personal news, the other day when I came home, I saw a man walking out of our complex with two bikes–one looked like the boy’s.

I almost shouted, “hey!” But I didn’t want to be a Karen, accusing an African American man of something before I got my facts straight. So I ran around the house first to make sure it was my boy’s bike. It was, but by the time I circled back, the thief was gone.

I’d been wanting the boy to donate it, since he doesn’t use it anymore, so we’re not hurt by the loss, except for the sense of violation.

The Huh?!?

I am supposed to have 50 students this term, but I only have 20 active participants. I usually lose a couple, but since most students who take upper division writing in Summer Session 2 are sort of stuck, I’ve never lost this many. They’re mostly students who have already “walked,” having put off their writing class until the very last moment.

The only thing that’s changed, though, is that I put a prerequisite on Module 1. It’s always a battle to have students actually read the syllabus and to go through the Modules instead of trying to do the assignments without having done any of the readings.

This term, Module 1 wouldn’t open for them until they read the syllabus. And they didn’t even have to read the pages, really; they just had to click on them.

I kept getting students emailing me on the first two days, asking me to open the assignments. I cheerfully explained that they just had to read the syllabus first.

And more than half of the class dropped.

In other words, I scared away a bunch of graduating pre-med students by just asking them to read something.

The Sad:

My AT&T contract was up this week, so I finally cut the cable cord. I know most people did so a long time ago, but until recently, I needed to have cable to record (and burn to DVD) every Simpsons and Doctor Who, etc. for use in class. Now, with students able to access everything streaming, and with my burning system not working with AT&T’s set up, I find that almost everything I watch on cable/DVR is on TCM. It’s hard to justify paying over a hundred a month for TCM and a few shows on other networks.

Every week, I would go through what was coming up on TCM and record beloved favorites I wanted to revisit, new to me works that sounded fun, and classic horror for the boy. I discovered a lot of wonderful things that way, and I loved TCM hosts telling me trivia.

I know I can find old movies on other sites, but I also know that some of the obscure ones won’t be there, and that I’m less likely to go hunting for those gems, when streaming sites bombard me with all the unwatched contemporary stuff I like.

The Annoying:

For the last year, I’ve been trying to get my various healthcare providers to refund me for payments I made after I hit my out-of-pocket copay last summer. My CVS pharmacy copays are still outstanding. I spent an hour on the phone with them this week, which was possible only because I bitched about them not answering my emails, on Twitter, and then they gave me the number to call.

A good twenty minutes of the call was them trying to find me in the system. The agent had to reboot her whole computer.

When she finally found me, she asked for the prescription numbers I was calling about.

“Can’t you pull up my list of prescriptions and payments to see what I got after I hit the maximum last year?”

“No.”

And that’s bullshit.

I told her I’d have to call her back.

As all my friends know, I’m on LOTS of meds. There are three just for GERD.

Luckily, the Target CVS pharmacists printed out a list of everything I filled, so I can spend who knows how long reading numbers to CVS tomorrow.

The Disheartening:

Remember how I discovered I might have a new peach allergy? Apparently, it might be that I’m just allergic to them when certain things are in bloom.

But I found out I have a sensitivity to figs, too, when I eat a lot of them.

So maybe it’s an allergy, but maybe it’s just an oral reaction to too much fruity goodness.

But I will NOT stop eating too many figs when they’re in season. They’re my favorite fruit, and they’re not available that often.

The Good:

Now that Karlissa can go to museums again, and since we’re still wanting to do that museum book, we had to see the Van Gogh immersive exhibit in SF.

Melissa took me on Wednesday for my birthday. We had an amazing lunch and then got to meditate on Van Gogh.

It was wonderful.

The Good, but Tainted:

Last October, it was time for me to ask that Davis grant me another three-year contract. According to the union rules, if I can prove I’m “excellent,” they have to give me a 6% raise. I also asked for a 3% merit raise, for the textbook Melissa and I published in Spring 2020.

Our new contract year started on the first of July, but I only learned this week that I’m indeed staying at Davis and that I’ve been granted the raise.

However.

The letter said the University Committee on Personnel tried to stop me from getting the merit raise.

Even though Melissa has already gotten that raise for our book.

You see, they wanted to enforce a rule they’re trying to put in place that lecturers can only get merit raises when they win a university teaching award.

Luckily, the Vice-Provost and Dean overrode them, explaining that the draconian measure isn’t in effect *yet*.

What makes it draconian, you ask? According to the new rule, only four lecturers could ever get a merit raise at UCD in any given year. Amazing lecturers will also therefore be pitted against each other.

I’ve already won a teaching award, so I will probably never get a merit raise again. As one of our tenured colleagues put it to Melissa, we could win the Pulitzer, and they would tell us no.

I could stop mentoring, serving on committees, teaching the independent and group studies the university gets paid for, but that I get nothing for, researching, etc, and get the same excellence raise.

If I were smart, I would stop.

Teaching faculty like me don’t get to decide what the standards are for raises. The research faculty have decided that our research will never be rewarded, even when it directly relates to our teaching, and that clearly outstanding teaching can only be rewarded in an excessively limited manner.

I wonder how they would react if someone got to make the same rules about their raises. What about if only “award-winning” research counted?

While I’m happy I got my-probably-last merit raise, I will also admit that the first thought that popped to mind was how the Department of Education might decide my monthly payments need to be even higher!

Which bring us to:

The Student Loans:

When Melissa and I had a wonderful lunch at Chao Pascao in SF, I got a call from my contact at Mohela. She said my request to de-consolidate the loans has been approved!

!!!

When the consolidation went through, it took about a month before all of the sites updated to reflect it. So I’m trying not to panic that everything looks the same now–that everything still looks consolidated.

I don’t know how all of this is going to work. Will everything go back to the way it was, as I hope? Or will I have to fight them to recognize the 14 years of payments I made, even after de-coupling? When I start the TEPSLF application again, how long will it take? Will it even get approved? (Less than 1% of people who filed for forgiveness under Trump were accepted. We don’t have numbers under Biden yet.)

I’m going to hire a student loan consultant to help me through everything.

I haven’t let out the breath I’ve been holding yet. I won’t be able to until I see the sites say I’ve made all those qualifying payments.

But this is the face of a woman after she got a great call from Mohela:

A couple of hours after this picture was taken, Melissa and I were having a drink on the rooftop of the Van Gogh exhibit.

When my phone rang, it told me Senator Dianne Feinstein was calling. One of her staff members wanted some more information from me so they could contact the Department of Education on my behalf.

I got to tell him that they might not need to intervene.

Say what you want about the Senator, and I know a lot of my friends don’t like her, but she was the last government official to receive my request for help.

And she’s the *only* one who’s responded.

Thanks, Dianne!

This was my birthday week, and I had the privilege of spending it in Indiana with Vanessa and Kevin. Due to the Delta variant, we didn’t go out much, but a few great restaurants lured us to their patios. I especially loved Bluebeard’s Corn Brulee, Flatwater’s Brisket, and my Duck and Duck dinner at Oakley’s Bistro.

Flying was nerve wracking–all of the flights were completely full, and too many Americans either don’t understand how masks work or don’t care.

But I’m so glad I got to go, to have V & K introduce me to Dickinson and I’m Sorry, to try new amazing cocktails, including the incredible MarTEAni, to break in book group’s drink cart tenure gift to V, to spend time with other old and new friends there, to get closer to my nephew cat, Mack, and to see Flower Alley.

I’m also glad that the new food allergy I seem to have discovered a couple of hours before the first plane ride maybe isn’t serious. My whole mouth went numb after I ate a peach–I think something in the skin did it. The numbness didn’t escalate, so I’ll have to experiment to see what’s safe.

This week, I managed to submit the grades for my last class, greet my two new classes, and to keep up with all the emails and grading.

I came home to a bunch of cards and lovely gifts from Du, Jenni, and the boy.

But I’m also having trouble sleeping and concentrating.

Every time I wake up, even for a second, my student loan problem pops into my head. In my waking life, any reference to money, debt, contracts, embarrassment, shame, anxiety, etc. summons it.

To proceed with any kind of legal case, I need to be able to see the pages I saw when filling out the forms, and to take pictures of them, but I can’t, now that the consolidation has been done.

If you know anyone who has unconsolidated loans, please, please, please send them my way, so they can send me some screen shots.

Aside from the practical life-ruining effects of the consolidation, I’m also haunted by the fear that my memory is faulty–that somehow the loan pages were clear and that no one else could have been trapped like this.

Eye witness testimony is often faulty.

My logical mind keeps reminding me, though, that NONE of those pages should have suggested consolidation, since every person who would be filling out that form believed they had made payments that should count toward forgiveness.

Consolidation invalidates the form. It should NOT be part of the TEPSLF process at all.

My stress and stress-related physical and sleep maladies make me want to give up fighting this. It’s tempting to just mourn the loan forgiveness and less financially difficult future that might have been, to accept this as one more time life knocks me down hard, and to know that I’ll manage to survive.

I won’t give up yet, but it’s so very tempting.

A social justice lawyer is interested in my case, but we have a roadblock.

Right now, I have to rely on my memory for claims about what the TEPSLF page told me to do. You see, now that my loans are consolidated, the page no longer has “consolidate your loans” as Step 1.

We need screenshots that show it is telling people with multiple loans to do it.

Please help me find someone who can log on to the TEPSLF page–someone with multiple types of loans. I don’t know if the page will give the same information to everyone, regardless of loan status.

In other words, it might not show that step to students who are still enrolled in classes or who are in a grace period. But we can check.

I spent the majority of this week writing and workshopping an article about the student loan problem. I haven’t sent it out yet, though. On the advice of a journalist friend, I’m talking to a lawyer who specializes in social justice first.

I can’t sleep, and I still feel kind of sick all the time.

So if you’d like to sacrifice something to the god of your choice on my behalf, please do.

But here’s what else is happening:

The bad:

One of my mentors is dying.

One of my cousins is starting chemo, but isn’t vaccinated against Covid.

The good:

Tig has a new special on HBO, and it’s great.

I’m heading to Indy this week, to spend next week, my birthday week, with Vanessa. I’ll also be teaching two classes and finishing up grading this one, but I’ve worked very hard, and just a few minutes ago, I published the entire six weeks of my second summer session courses, all in advance.

(I’ll only be able to take next week off from course prep, though, since I have five different preps for Fall to get started on.)

I got to see two lovely friends that I hadn’t seen since before the pandemic, I had yummy salmon and drinks with two other lovely friends, I got to see a comedian’s innovative zoom stand-up puppet show, and had my car pass its smog check.

We celebrated our third year anniversary of adopting Thoth and Graymalkin.

And Karlissa finally got to go back to a museum!

The scant optimism I had at the end of last week is gone.

There was a misunderstanding–the supervisor at Mohela thought the message from Navient about putting the application through on Friday meant that the loans would be de-coupled on that day.

She was mistaken and called me to apologize.

She said her supervisor said we should hear about my application within the month.

The woman I talked to at Navient, however, said it could take up to a year. She also said they were almost never approved. Navient doesn’t get to make the decision; the DOE does.

I was also able to find out why my payments are scheduled to go up so much, from under $200 a month to over $1700. The consolidation means that I’m not eligible for the income-based plan I was on before. I can’t afford the new plan, of course.

Yesterday, I had a consultation with a student loan specialist; his full time job is getting people out of student loan jams. He said there was nothing he could do to help me. Unless the loans are de-consolidated, I’m fucked. He said that the DOE almost never de-consolidates, but that if there was ever a case that merited it, this was it. He said if they don’t, I should hire an attorney, since someone at the PSLF division told me to consolidate when I called to ask if I should actually follow that step. The PSLF person has to have known that he was telling me to do something that would ruin my chances for a PSLF.

The consultant didn’t charge me for our call; he felt too sorry for me. He also asked me to tell him what happens either way. He’s invested in the saga.

I had a stomach ache in the hours leading up to the call. A tightness in my chest and stomach remains. I keep swinging between numbness and crying.

So what now?

If I haven’t heard anything from the DOE by October, when student loan payments resume, I will have to try to explain to the system that they shouldn’t base my repayments on what I made last year.

The last few years, I’ve been killing myself by working 2+ jobs. 7 classes at Davis + 3 freshman seminars + 3 summer classes + the grad class in Forensics + 3-5 Los Rios classes a year + scoring for IB and AWPE + my books. And that’s the paid labor.

I’ve been doing this to finally pay off my medical and consumer debt, which happened a couple of months ago. I also wanted to finally have a little bit in savings, so I could handle the next pet emergency, the next car repair, without going into hock.

It’s vital, though, that I scale back, both for my health and because I fear I will become bitter about the extra classes if they become tied to this almost a quarter of a million dollars consolidation mistake.

I never want to lose the joy in teaching.

By bringing my income back down to where I’m living month to month, in fear of every high air conditioner bill, I might be able to reduce the monthly payment to 1200 a month. I would scrape by like that for 10 years before asking if whatever remained on my tab might finally be forgiven.

Again, this assumes the DOE punishes me for following their instructions.

Of course, this isn’t all that’s happening this week. I need to see my gyno about the bleeding, but won’t be able to until August 19th. I think I’m looking at some kind of procedure down there, but I don’t know what.

Our power keeps going out for a few hours at a time.

I was supposed to have a date this weekend, but I called it off. I’m dealing with too much to handle dating right now.

But I am walking everyday. I’m up to 2.5 miles.

And I’m still enjoying showing you wrap pictures.

This has been quite a week.

As you’re all aware, the Department of Education is behaving terribly. Mohela said they would help. I don’t think I’ll be able to fully release the breath I’ve been holding since Tuesday until I can *see* that my loans have been de-consolidated on all of the websites.

And then the fun of figuring out the next step will begin.

But that’s not all that’s happened this week.

A beloved colleague died.

I learned that a family member has cancer.

A student said something hyperbolic in an email about suicide, which meant many hours of talking to her and to the powers that could help her.

It’s incredibly hot. The kind of hot where you feel rather ill even in an air-conditioned room.

The highest percentage of students ever failed my untimed, open-everything library quiz. After reading a chapter on how to research and watching a screen capture video I made specific to our library, students are asked to find a nonacademic source, a book, and a peer-reviewed article on The Simpsons. The instructions specifically tell them not to find me something about OJ Simpson, Jessica Simpson, the Simpson’s paradox, etc. So when a third of my students linked to an article about the Simpson’s paradox, I cut and pasted the instructions into the comments, to explain why they got a zero on that question.

I then sent out an announcement about it.

A couple of days later, I got an email from a student who said she didn’t understand my comment or why she was marked wrong. She explained that “the Simpson’s paradox” was in the title of the article, so how was she wrong?!?

In three weeks, these students will be done with the last writing/research class most of them will ever be asked to take.

I had to see my gyno’s colleague because of more issues with bleeding (this will apparently be “Summer of Blood 2: The Bloodening”). When I was getting checked in, the receptionist asked if I wanted to pop back for the allergy shots I was supposed to get the next day, so I only had to come once. Then, the allergy nurse said I needed to meet the new allergy doc, so she could refill my prescription, and asked if I wanted to do that after I saw the gyno. And then the nurse appeared, having to wait for all the shots to go in (there are four, and they’re complicated). It took me a moment, though, in the exam room, to figure out he was trying to check me in for the allergy appointment first. So we had to find the other nurse to take me to the right room.

And the gyno said no sex for a month.

What’s been good?

I started Blindspotting on Starz; it’s beautiful. I wish I had the dance vocabulary to talk about some of the physical work they do on the show. The slam poetry they incorporate is fantastic too. Highly recommended.

Dante stopped watching Schitt’s Creek last year, after a break up, but this week I used my horrible mental health to explain why we had to go back in. And now he’s seen the whole series.

I got to take Melissa to Tapa the World to celebrate her birthday.

I got to make a Mexican feast for a couple of friends last night.

The main thing, though, that has gotten my through this week is the outpouring of support that I’ve gotten from you. So many of you offered to help. So many of you gave your sympathy, love, and prayers.

I am immensely blessed to have you all in my life.

And so, for you, another new wrap pic:

I spent a lot of time today writing and revising a letter to my representatives about what happened with the DOE.
And I never really stopped crying or feeling sick.
But I just got a call from Mohela, my loan servicer.
They said THE LOANS WILL BE DE-CONSOLIDATED!
Will I have to start the TEPSLF paperwork all over again? Not sure. Do I fear something will still go wrong? Yes. Might the TEPSLF request still be denied? Yup.
Am I still going to demand my representatives make the DOE TEPSLF page crystal clear about NOT consolidating your loans if you have made even one qualifying payment?
You bet your ass I am!