Bookish (and not so Bookish) Thoughts

[womp womp womp]

1. This past Saturday I came down with severe vertigo that was really shit-icing on a shit-cake that has been my life lately (I’m going to start off negative and whiney, but it will get better, I promise... you can always just skip to number two if you're in no mood for this kind of nonsense, which I TOTALLY get). I have never had vertigo before, so I have no basis for judging my experience, but even the emergency room doctor said it was an intense episode and seemed to feel genuinely bad for me (as he watched me retch for what seemed like eternity). I woke up at 4am to the worst dizziness I’ve ever felt and alternated between that and throwing up for nearly four hours. Even moving my head enough to take a sip of water caused the room to whirl, and attempting to brush my hair made me literally sick. I called the advice nurse, and my mom (duh), and both advised me to get medical treatment to help take the edge off, so I went in (my first ER visit ever). They pumped me full of fluids, gave me anti-nausea medicine, some drugs for the spinning and tried to perform the Epley maneuver on me (I had the type of vertigo that happens when the crystals in your inner ear become dislodged and mess with the nerves that send messages about stability to your brain), but it made me so violently ill we had to quit in the middle. Luckily, by the time I went home I had finally quit getting sick and was able to sleep for the rest of the day. I felt better and everything went back to normal on Sunday after I was able to do an alternative to the Epley that a friend sent me. Nonetheless, it was a horrible weekend and now I am slightly terrified the vertigo will strike again (let’s just say giving birth was better than those initial hours with it). October was a horrible month and NOVEMBER WAS SUPPOSED TO BE BETTER. There was no scientific proof for this or promise from a higher being, but it was what I decided and I’m pretty upset that I haven’t had the improvement my entitled-ass DEMANDED from the universe. I know it could be worse, I do, but I am finding it harder and harder to roll with the punches. I also know that it will pass- that’s the most important thing.

2. Something better? The midterm elections! Sure, it wasn’t the crushing blue wave that some idealists were hoping for, but for jaded realists like myself it was positive. I love that things just got more difficult for the GOP and that a lot of women and people of color were elected. And the turn out! Polls were crowded. I definitely see the good.

3. I'm listening to Busy Phillips new memoir, This Will Only Hurt a Little and it was a tiny bit mediocre at the start, but it has definitely picked up and I'm officially into it. I remember her most from Dawson's Creek, but I know she's huge on Instagram.

4. I am reading the graphic novel The Best We Could Do, a memoir by Thi Bui, and it's really beautiful. The story, about a Vietnamese family who cam to the US in the early eighties (or maybe late seventies) is fascinating. I'm also rereading Athol Fugard's play, "Master Harold"... and the boys, since it's what I teach next. My students are blown away that we're spending the rest of the period on a book that's less than sixty pages, but they'll see how much is packed into that sucker. 

5. I finally finished the gallery wall for the cross stitching projects I have completed and kept three months after painting it (it's in the guest bedroom that hasn't been used in awhile, in my defense). I want to start an ambitious project of making little Stitch People of the book characters of the books I teach... eventually (in my dreams I could do a whole line of these and sell them on Etsy. "Sell them on Etsy..." WHO AM I? I can barely pick up my dry cleaning and there's been a prescription sitting at the vet for almost a week). 

6. This weekend I hope to redeem my ability to be fun (after last weekend, that is). My friends and I are going to drive up to see the Notorious RBG exhibit at the Skirball Center in LA and then scoot on over to UCLA to watch a women's volleyball game. We'll probably get dinner in Westwood at a place full of college kids, where we'll either pretend to be young or just feel really old. And then I will force them fifteen minutes down the road to The Milk Bar, since I'm driving and they will have no choice. My new rule in life is that if I am within fifteen miles of the mothership I will stop for no less than $25 of deliciousness. 

7. I saw A Star is Born last week and I loved it so much. I have been obsessed with the soundtrack since it came out and it was even better than I thought it would be.

8. I make a huge year-in-review book every December of the past twelve months and like to do it in snippets so that it's not a huge rush to take advantage of the half-off coupon that Mixbook always gives out. So far I have done absolutely nothing on it and we've had quite the busy year- I have got to get on it (I think last year it was almost 200 pages?).