This week, Ellen Forney said to me, about our getting on well in a Zoom meeting, that she thought we would, after she googled me.

Ellen Forney, the amazing author of Marbles, googled me.

Getting to have a conversation with her was one of the best things that happened to me this year.

I haven’t been good about blogging lately. Like everyone, I’m tired and torn in a bunch of different directions.

But I still want to talk to you, so I’m going to start a weekly (hopefully) best and worst list, inspired by The Bloggess’s Weekly Wrap-Up, which will likely be about the media that’s kept me sane.

The Best I’ve Watched Lately:

• The Watch
• Wanda Vision
• Resident Alien
• Ramy (especially the Ne Me Quitte Pas episode, which can be watched on its own)
• the Calvin episode of Flack, which can also be watched on its own
• Nomadland, which finally helped me visualize Wall Drug

The Best Podcast Episodes

• All of the Parts of the “DC Sniper” debunkings on You’re Wrong About–I didn’t know what this story was about at all–I don’t think any of us did.

Best New Bands/Artists I’ve Stumbled Across:

• Danielle Durack
• Tele Novella

Best Books lately:

• The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
• A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Mass
• Mira Grant’s Parasite Trilogy
• The Witch’s Heart by Genevieve Gornichec

Best moments of the week:

• Geeking out with Ellen Forney
• Hosting the Invisible Disabilities Show for UCD
• Learning a student got the internship she wanted
• Getting my first dose of the vaccine
• Talking about mon chatte in a new stand-up routine with my students

The worst moments:

• Trying to combine a paprika lemon chicken and a garlic lemon chicken recipe–why did it turn gross?
• Learning that Paul, the best doctor I’ve ever had, is retiring.

Tomorrow, Thursday, 2/25, at 7 p.m. PST, the Invisible Disabilities Comedy Show will be performing for the UCD Campus Book Project.

The event is free and open to the public.

Register here.

On Saturday, 2/27, at 8 p.m. PST, I will be performing a brand-new set with my stand-up students.

This event is also free and open to the public.

Join us here:
ucdavis.zoom.us/j/95805414976.

Come laugh with us!

Or cry. Or come to do that weird cathartic thing when you don’t know whether you’re laughing or crying.

For the last ten years, I’ve made a Stalkers mix for my beloved friends for Valentine’s Day.

This year, I had over 20 hours of potential songs. And since we’ve just barely survived 2020 and the start of 2021, I decided this year needed two CDs.

Most of the songs I’ve chosen this last decade are available on Spotify, which means you can all listen to them here.

And now, it’s time to take down my Valentine’s tree.

This week, we’re watching the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump. The first defense move was to argue that he could not even be impeached.

NPR reported this week that one constitutional scholar has a problem with how he was cited in the Trump team’s defense brief.

His argument was that Presidents could, in fact, be impeached under these circumstances, but Trump’s team said he said the opposite.

I would never let my students get away with that.

Last year, I changed health insurance plans. I’ve been happy with my decision–my copays are lower, as is my out of pocket maximum.

In fact, I met my out of pocket maximum last June.

It took a while to figure out what to do about that–I got conflicting information when I messaged my insurance company. When I finally called them, though, they were able to start an audit to confirm that I had, in fact, met the obligation.

They did so in October. They sent a letter to my pharmacy and UCD health.

That’s what they say, anyway.

In the meantime, I was still being billed every time I showed up at a doctor’s appointment, and for every prescription I picked up.

I called again. And again.

The pharmacy finally acknowledged what happened in late December, after a bunch of calls, though I haven’t gotten any of the extra money I paid back.

UCD refuses to acknowledge anything.

January saw me calling HealthNet again, so they could contact UCD again.

I waited a month, giving UCD time to respond to the letter that had been resent again.

That didn’t happen, so I called HealthNet Monday. The agent called UCD, which claimed they’d never ever heard from HealthNet (HealthNet says they say that a lot). The letter was sent. Again.

But today, I found myself spending more time I didn’t have on the phone with a collection agency. UCD is apparently desperate for $9.66 they say I owe from an appointment last August. The collection agency said HealthNet had to fax them, so I stayed on hold while HealthNet called them and then faxed them.

I’m inclined to believe, for once, my insurance company. They give me reference numbers and actual help when I call. They were able to resolve this same issue with my physical therapist right away. UCD, on the other hand, is curt in their answers and, of course, sent me to a bill collector.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter which one of them is lying.

Either way, UCD will probably be able to keep some of the extra money I paid them. (And the interest.) Either way, I’m being squeezed. Either way, I’m lucky that I have language skills, the ability to read contracts, the self-confidence to advocate for myself, and the ability to make long calls during regular work hours. This is a major hassle for me that could end up hurting my credit score, though I’m not at fault.

Imagine someone who doesn’t know this system, or who isn’t good with this language, or who can’t make calls during working hours trying to navigate all of this.

Our system is irretrievably broken.

We do a unit on trauma in my Doctor Who class. Thus, I find myself watching “Father’s Day” a lot.

It always triggers tears–I lost my own father to a car accident; I don’t remember him. When I was a teenager, I also learned awful things about him that contradicted the rosy picture my mother had tried to paint.

I watched it again, but what I’m thinking about today is how two of my students have lost their fathers to Covid this week.

Two.

This week.

Yesterday, I spent the better part of an hour doing impromptu grief therapy for one of them. I had to remind him that although his father’s dream is for him to finish college (and thus the student thinks he must push through this quarter, despite the loss), he also has to cut himself some slack–to heal and protect himself since his dad isn’t there to do it anymore.

This week, I’m torn between sadness and anger.

Trump should have been honest about how dangerous this was. We should have listened to the scientists, and we should have had a plan. Instead, he made this a partisan issue.

His party is still lying, even about the basics of wearing masks.

These students’ fathers did not have to die.

Many years ago, I tried Zoosk. It wasn’t for me, so much so that I panned it in this review.

I mention the site in our textbook on sources, when explaining how many articles on the internet are ads in disguise. An article on dating sites listed Zoosk as the best. The fine print on the source explained that they’re marketers–in other words, Zoosk probably paid for that article.

Last week, when I was reconciling my bank statement, I discovered two ~40$ charges to Zoosk on the same day–one recurred a month later.

All kinds of panic set in–someone had my debit card number, after all.

The conversation with customer support at Zoosk was irritating. The agent kept asking for the “order numbers” to find the transactions. I didn’t have those, of course, since I didn’t do the orders.

(The transaction numbers on my bank statement applied to something else.)

We finally found them, though, and the agent assured me she would reverse the charges. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“Ummmm . . . did the person just steal my card, or did they re-activate my old account and are posing as me?”

“I don’t know. I refunded the charges.”

I had class starting in just a few minutes, and I needed to report the fraud to the bank, so I had to get off the phone without any closure.

But it just reinforced all the bad feelings about Zoosk.

They weren’t interested in whether someone had a fake profile up.

Nor were they interested that someone with a profile had committed a crime.

Pretty sure that person won’t even know I found out until their month’s subscription is up.

Republicans, who lied about where Obama was born, who said he founded Isis, who spread rumors that Democrats were pedophiles who drink children’s blood, who said using a personal email server was treason, who lied about millions of illegal votes in 2016, who still regularly say we hate America, who claim we are socialists who will ban all guns, and the suburbs, and God, who say America won’t even be America anymore if Biden is the President, who lie about voter fraud, who try to get legal votes thrown out, and who “oppose” the accurate count and certification of legal votes, DO NOT GET TO SAY SHIT ABOUT DIVISIVENESS.

They do not get to talk about unity WHILE THEY ARE STILL LYING ABOUT US, STILL ENCOURAGING VIOLENT REVOLUTION.

And am I also indicting the Republicans who don’t repeat those lies?

Yes.

Because they vote for and support the Republicans who do.

It’s not just that there’s blood on all of their hands. They’re still brandishing the knife.

I keep thinking about being attacked by my mother’s boyfriend when I was visiting my mom (I was newly 18). Him saying there wasn’t room enough in my mother’s life for both of us. Me fleeing, hiding in the bushes in my underwear, since he’d appeared when I was getting ready for bed. The landlord making him leave.

The next night, he came over. He said, “I’m sorry I yelled at you, but you are a bitch.” My mother tried to force me to sit down and watch tv with them.

I was penniless, carless.

I called my aunt, who told my mother to let me read in my old room, not to force me to have happy family tv time.

I’m thinking about his, of course, because we were all attacked on Wednesday.

And now the Republicans are calling for unity.

They aren’t even faking an apology.

They aren’t sorry.

They’re still calling the terrorists heroes and patriots

Or they’re saying it was the liberals who answered Trump’s call.

They’re still saying we rigged the election.

They’re still saying we’re evil, we’re socialists, we’re anti-American.

Their idea of unity is to keep lying about us, to keep riling up their lunatic base, to keep eroding democracy, to keep praising the people who fly Nazi flags in their name.

They don’t want unity.

All they want is for us to not blame them, to not hold them accountable, to not enforce the laws, to allow them to keep dividing us more with every breath.