That's My Bix!

Saturday was the day I was supposed to get hooded.

(That’s a weird verb, right? Hooded? It sounds very violent or maybe racist, but really it’s the thing they do for PhDs — I guess it’s very Merlin-y? )

Our original plans were to have family in from out of town — a thing that I have been planning and plotting with my sister for literally years now. The entire thing was overwrought — I didn’t want a million people staying with us and also my family — as does everyone’s family — generally brings a lot of nonphysical baggage. I am still carrying some bitterness that my mother couldn’t be arsed to come to my graduation ceremony when I got my masters, and that was only two hours away, so I was flummoxed by a series of vertical emotional peaks and valleys about the new parameters of what excuses or requirements she would maintain for my graduation when it was 1800 miles away.

When I got into the program originally — a pretty big deal to get a full ride scholarship and job in a PhD program — she blew it off and purposefully kept saying “moving to Arizona or wherever” and then when we put the house on the market, she announced that I was not really serious, and then when we gave away our living room furniture a week before we left, she said “So you’re still going to move?” and then the night before the moving truck arrived she said with a straight face “I thought you were just making this all up to get attention.” Dear Reader, you may remember that this was also the line when I got accepted and funding to go to college in the first place as an 18-year-old, except that time my entire family believed her.

When I passed my comps, I gritted my teeth and called her — she already knew about it because my sister had told her, so she primed me to tell her what she called “your news” and when I said “Oh, I successfully defended my comp exams.” She was silent, so I continued, “So I’m a doctor now.” And she said “Oh. (a beat) Well. (a sigh) I always thought you should have been a lawyer.”

I challenged her on it, without seeming to react, by saying “Oh? Why did you think that?” but inside I was thinking “Oh here we fucking go.” And that has been a good mantra for dealing with a family member with a serious personality disorder — oh here we fucking go. The flipside to the negging is that somehow she seemed to think that we would be flying her out for my graduation — apparently if I had wanted an audience with her for my last graduation, I should have booked a limo to make it interesting for her. Or maybe she thinks that “fully funded” means that I have been granted an AmEx black card for the interim. She kept talking about how she “gets” to go to Las Vegas now, but of course, nothing about how that was going to happen. And for normal people, the assumption is that she would pull out her savings and book a ticket, but that’s not how she works — and my sister began managing her (my sister performs the lion’s share of Mother Maintenance, because she is the Golden Child, whereas I am the Scapegoat or Competition in recovery parlance) and making plans, reminding her that she needed to save money for tickets for her, her partner and maybe my brother if he planned on going. Then she agreed to pay for our mom’s hotel room — because it wouldn’t matter if her partner and my brother went along, they could all share a hotel room. Then when it got closer, she was going to pay for her flight too, but not the partner and our brother’s flights, and then apparently our mother started in on how it wasn’t fair to them that she “got to go” and they didn’t and how she wanted to “find a way” for them to go along too, and the entire thing was handled off stage expertly by my sister because honestly, I was so stressed in the first part of the year for my comps and my dissertation that I just couldn’t take part in the drama and the exasperation, other than to occasionally offer my sister pre-packed retorts and arguments to pop our mother’s various dependencies about how and why and when our mother would allow herself to be hosted, with the inclusion of her flying monkeys other family members.

(Heh. Lawyered.)

On my side, I was securing a hotel that was reasonably priced but not too far from the ceremonies but also not too close to the ceremonies because that’s basically the Strip and resort fee-land, and figuring out details for what to do with them, how to entertain, etc. The hotel groups were readied, the loose plan was set in motion (Neon Museum and a local restaurant meal as a group one day, reserve chairs at the MGM Grand pool another day) and everything was more or less settled, but when it came time for my sister to buy the tickets in late February, I told her to hold off. I was already getting the heebies about the pandemic numbers I was seeing and was prepared to just have them watch via streaming. And then, as we know, all plans for spring 2020 came shattering down.

So instead, on Saturday, Esteban and I hung out at home (because that’s what everyone has to do to stay safe now, nothing new to see, move along move along.) Since we wanted to do something a little special, we smoked a brisket in the backyard, and Esteban also opened the day with homemade biscuits and turkey sausage gravy (which is one of my favorite things — his biscuits are ridonk delicious). He continued the feast day with flourless brownies, two loaves of bread, and the mother of all big deals, Colicchio’s Parker House rolls, which are one of my favorite indulgent baked items. Esteban is loathe to make them because they don’t have a satisfying rise, make an incredibly stingy amount and are super fussy, taking a terribly long time to come together, but they are weirdly sour, ultra fine crumb and perfection both out of the oven and the next day slathered with some peanut butter and I love them to bits.

We spent the day tending the grill and then finally ate around 8 pm because the brisket took a month of Sundays to cook. I had offered my friend Amanda some brisket but warned her that it would be late, but she dutifully drove across town to do a cover-of-darkness social distancing pickup of a huge pile of brisket, a fresh loaf of bread and some homemade sauerkraut to boot. She reported that she and her husband ate far more brisket than they should have before bed and regretted nothing. Girl, same.

On Sunday, Esteban and I continued our habit of doing the NYTimes Sunday Crossword Puzzle together on the sofa while drinking coffee, although I think my anxiety started ramping up and I needed to get away from it for a while. He had his distance D&D and I started packing a few things to burn off some nervous energy. It was exceptionally hot on Sunday, so I couldn’t take the dogs outside from long stretches, which is usually my favorite thing to do when I’m feeling overwhelmed, so instead, I glowered and did a series of mounting doom scenarios, which as it turns out doesn’t work great as a stress management technique.

The other element of Sunday is that an agent sent a response to my full manuscript. While she did not yet extend an offer of representation, the feedback was exhaustive and thoughtful and she said she enjoyed it but also that a novel about a pandemic is going to be a tough proposition right now for obvious reasons. Ugh. A bit disheartening on top of a dismal offering of houses on the market in Wisconsin and the bait and switch of what should have been a huge celebration weekend coming to a wet fizzle and plop.

Monday was somewhat better — the heat had broken significantly, so I got to spend some time outside on the back patio in my outside work area (a rolling laptop cart, one of those bag chairs, and an outdoor ottoman paired with a cold drink and a few yard lizards will do amazing things to your optimism). I had an hour long talk with one of my (now former) students about her work and her goals and all in all felt really like it was a positive, productive day.

This week Esteban was supposed to be in China but of course, that didn’t happen, so the Chinese company hosting the event decided to have an online affair instead. Great! Except all the events are happening in the wee dark hours of the morning — and apparently the company spends a lot of time barely hiding its anger at the U.S. government (to be fair, there are more than just Americans on these calls, but still, read the room) so Esteban has been managing his artificial jet lag while also dealing with his normal job demands that don’t stop just because he has an event. All in all, he can’t really complain because, as he said, he’d do this every time if it meant that he didn’t have to fly to China and back.

Today, I had a WebEx call with the few TAs who have been invited to teach sections this summer. I’m glad I asked for a section since my Big Tech Giant project seems to have ghosted and this is the only guaranteed income I have lined up for the time being. It was nice to see the faces of people from school.

It was even nice to see the annoying ones.

#Bixquestions: Who was the most annoying coworker you’ve had to deal with? What made them so annoying?