That's My Bix!

When I’m stressed, my lizard brain decides to cry. The problem is that it doesn’t inform the rest of my brain that it’s time to cry — my eyes just start leaking, big rollers falling down my cheeks like a soap opera star facing her thought-dead long lost lover.

I can be thinking about something totally benign, and I mean, really thinking about something else — playing a computer game, shopping for moving boxes, trying to figure out which agent to query next for my novel, my cerebral cortex fully engaged in doing whatever that thing is — and my face will be slowly leaking tears the entire time.

To be clear, I am not actively upset while this is going on. I’m often not even aware that I have tears rolling down my face, so it’s not like one of those throat goes tight, you’re trying not to think of it, voice trembling kind of things. It’s exactly like someone has grabbed your hand and said “why are you hitting yourself?” when you’re not, in fact, hitting yourself. This happened while Esteban was in the hospital exactly seven years ago this month. It’s almost like I can fool myself 99% of the way into not reacting to the ongoing horror around me, but that 1%? It’s in charge of the wet works and it is going to work overtime.

Last night, we ordered pizza take out. It’s one of my perennial comfort foods — thin crust mushroom and extra cheese — and I’ve been requesting it probably more than usual. We took a drive to pick it up and also as an excuse to get out of the house and break from the monotony of constant inside-ness. Then we watched a bit of Last Chance Kitchen for Top Chef and then Esteban went off to play his game and I sat on the couch and watched Outlander until I realized that I had two loads of laundry sitting on the bed and I could watch it in there while I folded laundry. Then I just gave up and went to bed, which was, to be honest, the right idea, because I’ve been struggling with the line of demarcation for bedtime. When you never go anywhere or do anything, how do you know when you’re tired? If you’re tired all the time because everything is traumatic, how do you decide when you’re tired enough for bed? It’s a riddle wrapped in an enigma, soaking in a pandemic marinade.

This morning, we woke up early and got a jump on our plans before the heat of the day set in — a quick run to Costco to get gas in the truck, and then headed to campus to clean out my office there.

Being back on campus after two months felt wrong and apocalyptic — set into effect already by crossing the Las Vegas strip which is barren and all of the neon signs are black with white lettering reminding us Stay Strong and Be Safe and also, a tribute to Roy Horn, who passed away yesterday from COVID. I had been through the Strip a few times since the Shelter in Place was in effect, but today many restrictions were lifted commercially, so I expected to see more people out and about. Nope — not really, and campus itself was as empty as it ever has been. We drove the truck onto the pedestrian paths and parked it right outside the door to the literature building to make everything easier, and then realized that I also had to clear all of my electronic baggage from my computer there too, so the entire thing was a longer process than I expected. We took my rolling suitcase, since I had a ton of books and files in there — and I had also forgotten about the ton of other stuff too, snacks and gifts from students, and two dog beds from Ole’s visits to campus, and also a forgotten unopened bottle of Diet Coke in the fridge (score!)

I was surprised to see that no one had taken a small clear bag of basic medical masks that has been sitting on my desk since the first week in March. While I share the office with only one student, tons of people have a key to it and I absolutely expected something as valuable as a medical mask to be gone, but there it was. Faith restored in my fellow academics, I guess.

The building has been locked down since early March, but as a Fellow, I have a key that opens the outer doors. Aside from the emptiness, it felt like nothing had changed — the same video scrolls were still rolling on the flatscreens, the same “leave the lights on” lights were still on inside the Institute department where my main office resides. But there is evidence that time has moved on — Esteban pointed out the way that there is now a rust trail off the wheels on the golf carts that are usually parked and chained outside the back door to the building. And inside the back hallway, dead bugs by the dozens, moths, grasshoppers, things I tried not to look too closely at. This illusion that time is passing so slowly disappears and you understand how quickly things are moving while we bunker and hunker and shiver away from the spectacle of All This.

It didn’t feel final. None of this feels right. It felt like there should have been some kind of victory lap, some kind of parade, ticker tape or otherwise, and instead it felt a bit like a rescue mission, like we were thieves in the night. I took my mask off in my office while we packed, assuming no one had been in there exhaling recently, but of course, that’s how virus spread happens. You feel safe. You feel normal. You can’t see the tiny particles that hope to impregnate you into becoming their own movable spore delivery system. The greatest heist movie ever has such a plot twist — they never saw it coming.

After we brought all of my stuff home and stowed it in my office, we went back out and grabbed the dry cleaning from the no-contact dry cleaner, and then picked up our grocery order from a lady wearing a mask who was so sweet and chatty. Kroger has been paying all of its employees a $2 an hour “hero pay” but it announced that it will cease doing so next week, despite the fact that at least four Kroger employees have died from COVID, contracting it while working in the stores, despite the fact that they are putting themselves in harm’s way as essential workforce this entire time, so that people who are high risk like me can benefit from their services. Then we came home, unloaded our groceries, and then I wrote an email to Kroger asking them to pay their staff a living wage with full benefits and no medical co-pays to compensate them for this incredible service they provide at the risk of their own bodies and lives. How is two dollars an hour too much for this? How was it only two dollars in the first place? How are they no longer “heroes” because some other people decided that we’re not going to be afraid of a virus anymore?

My hair stylist texted me while I was writing the email — during the shut down, she lost her studio because she couldn’t cover the rent. Now that the governor has lifted restrictions for hair stylists, she was wondering if she could come to my house and perform services there. When all of this started, I had texted her and asked if I could prepay for services — she turned me down, and now I want to scream at her for being noble when she clearly had needed the money back then. Granted, my monthly hair services alone probably weren’t even a dent in her rent payment, but maybe it would have helped? She offered to wear a mask and a shield and I would also wear a mask, and she would do my hair in the house with a portable sink.

I asked her for another option — it really comes down to risking our health for vanity, which I have a problem with personally. If we’re not willing to go into a grocery store right now, which is a lower risk, it seems illogical to then bring someone into the house for several hours who shares very close personal space with a series of people who might be asymptomatic or even recovering from and still contagious with the virus, just because I don’t like seeing my natural hair color coming forward. Vanity is considered a deadly sin for a reason, no?

She’s going to whip up a DIY color option for me and leave it at the door — I asked her to charge at least what she normally would plus a delivery fee, which is only fair considering how much of an additional service it would be. She seems open to this, but I can tell from her tone that she is worried that other customers may have the same concerns but just have moved to drugstore box color instead.

March seemed to move so slowly and then April flew by at record speed. I was talking with Esteban a few days ago about how it feels so much like the time “we” were in the hospital, the way that you start to acclimate to the new normal, figure out a routine, tell yourself little stories to keep yourself distracted. There was a cold shock when we finally got released from the hospital after 44 days and the physical residue took months and years to unravel, maybe still unraveling now.

So tears appear for no reason, seemingly no reason, for every reason, tears again. That tiny part of my brain is watching. That tiny part of my brain refuses to be institutionalized by this sameness. It constantly is pushing me to pay better attention, count these days and hours and minutes as they slip past, unnoticed. Unconsolable. Unceremonious. Understood.

I had a wonderful chat with my LV bestie Lindsay today. We turned over various plottings for Life After All This, and came up with a way to revolutionize the literary community and galvanize it in a way that solves the problem of both publishers and the adrift independent writers. The problem is that I absolutely could put my brain toward fixing that problem — the issue is that turning the million dials and levers to fix the problem will take all of my brain resources and I have begun to feel selfish about my remaining days left on this planet. I’m not entirely passionate about fixing the ills of the literary community, to be frank. I’m more passionate about working with individual writers and readers.

There’s an interesting analogy about how sailboats get where they’re going — they can’t really go in a direct line because the wind is rarely going in the same direction they are, so instead, you have to zigzag. Catch the wind one way, and then course correct and catch the wind slightly differently. I feel a bit like I’m doing that now, particularly in light of my pessimism about finding a university teaching job with benefits and seniority.

A four-year university in Northeastern Wisconsin announced this week that this semester is its last. They let both faculty and the students know during finals week — some students received the email as they were seated to take their final exams. Faculty found out that they don’t have a job in a few short weeks, some a little longer, but everyone will be done by August. Students found out that they suddenly need to find a new school to attend in three months, and oh yeah, most places only accept transfer students in fall, so get moving on those applications.

The university where I taught in Wisconsin has vowed to pick up some of the gap for those impacted — but for me, that means less opportunities too. When I left for Las Vegas, the English Department chair made noises about people in the creative writing team nearing retirement. There was a serious hint that he wanted to talk once I had doctorate in hand. It would have been nice, but also, it’s a solid hour’s drive from Green Bay and the roads were pretty shitty for half of that drive.

So we zig zag once more.

Today was a rare day when I didn’t really have anything specific going on — I didn’t have to teach nor attend a class, and my dissertation edits are more or less done now that the defense is over — so I focused on writing business stuff, researching agents and finishing up the formatting questions to the graduate college for my dissertation.

It hit 100 degrees in the Valley today and it definitely felt hot. I woke up and roused myself fairly early so that I could take a shower, get dressed and take the dogs for a walk before the sun had much of a chance to heat the place up. Avi needs to lose weight — she’s gained two pounds in three months, so hence the short walks. Also today I started her on her diet food, and brought Ole outside to eat his while I finished some correspondence for the Dearest Confinement Friend project and drink my healthy cherry/spinach smoothie, which was pleasant. I spotted the yard lizard again, which is now the highlight of my mornings.

The star jasmine is blooming in our little courtyard leading into the front door, so I’ve been enjoying the heady fragrance so much. It’s particularly intense right now in the heat, which will unfortunately cause the blossoms to fade fast, so I’m like a smell junkie every time I go in or out the front door. Tonight, Esteban and I spent some time in the front yard trying to spot the StarLink satellites as they were passing over the house, while talking about our future plans as well, and whether right now is worse or better than the night and week after the 2016 election. I personally think it’s worse because people are actually dying due to the fears we all had, while he thinks it’s better because this is a known enemy and he doesn’t physically feel like he needs to vomit. Probably not the conversations that the sailors of old had while steering their courses, zig zagging across the oceans, but not much far off, I suppose.

This is me beating on, boat against the current. Zig zag zig zag.

I come from a long line of alcoholics. When I was a kid, I swore I would never drink — mostly to hold something against the adults who were constantly assuring me that drinking to excess was a fine adult hobby but also because I saw exactly how those adults had personalities that morphed. Some of them became more loving and more expressive, but some — particularly some in very immediate proximity to Little Bix — became angry and hostile, frequently violent. Both of these extremes were scary. In some book or another, I had read the phrase In Vino Veritas, with the explanation that a drunk person will say the thing that they only think sober. So many of those truths came out, so many that were terrifying and scarring.

I still have an unreasonable aversion to beer breath to this day. It was a warning sign, often the first notice that things were about to get out of control. I learned to disappear, even if I was still in the room, shrink down and go hollow and quiet, their laughs echoing inside my skull.

I can’t even begin to imagine how many parties I “escaped” from by inventing stories with my Fisher-Price Little People. It was self-contained fun — I often tucked myself somewhere visibly blocked from the people drinking, maybe behind a recliner in the corner. If their gaze rested on me, if I drew attention to myself, it was rarely positive, but if I could just weather the hours, outlast them, things would be fine. Eventually we would end up home, through some divine intervention almost always guided by a drunk driver and yet, the car accidents were never while I was in the car.

I’ve never been an extreme drinker. I enjoy wine. I appreciate a cocktail. I love Malibu and Diet Coke like I’m fifteen and sneaking drinks behind the lifeguard shack. I like that feeling of light, almost giddiness that you get, the warm flush sip of bourbon on a cold day, the quenchy tang of an ice cold sauvignon blanc under the stars on a warm evening. The fact that there are vodka ice pops now delights me.

And here’s the thing — while I enjoy all of the fun social coolness of drinking, I don’t enjoy any of the after effects. Most alcohol makes my rosacea flair up like crazy for days afterward (likely due to my insulin resistance/PCOS and the blood sugar spike that comes from drinking alcohol. My rosacea also flairs when I eat too many carbs). I also feel like I’ve been hit by a truck the next day even if I drink in moderation. I rarely drink more than two drinks in a single day anymore for that reason, and then I have to ask myself — if it’s not enough to actually get tipsy and I don’t want the calories and the carbs, why not just drink water or diet soda?

In December and January, I was plagued by persistent migraines. We had chalked it up to stress since I was deep in the study for my comprehensive exams, but I had already slowed way down on my alcohol consumption at that point because I didn’t want to do anything that might tip a partial headache into a real honest debilitating one. In February, I finished my comps but I decided to just not drink, but I didn’t tell Esteban because I didn’t want him to feel like I was becoming a Carry Nation or judging his post-dinner dram of scotch. If he asked, I mentioned my concerns about my health and the headaches and it wasn’t, like, a thing.

Some friends I really respect and adore have for various reasons stopped drinking alcohol completely. Typically when I’m out with them, I try to show solidarity to their choices and opt for non-alcoholic beverages — not making it a big thing but also, it’s a relief. You start to notice a little bit of how much alcohol consumption really is so that you’re showing companionship to the person or people you’re with rather than actually desiring alcohol. (“I’ll have one if you’re having one” is a strange social contract when you think about it — why should you need someone to drink with? Is it to make it okay? Why can’t it just be okay by itself?)

I would be lying if I said that part of my reluctance to drink is the near absolute assumption that alcoholism is hereditary. I know damned well that I have an addictive personality — one look at my purse collection or even my eye shadow palette trove will confirm any doubt in that arena. But also maybe I never put a stake in the ground and declared that I wasn’t going to drink for awhile because I was afraid that I had been kidding myself about my reliance on alcohol from the start?

So I just decided to make it real and see how long I could go without any alcohol. Saturday, March 7th was the last social occasion I attended before we decided to stop leaving the house and exposing ourselves to potential viral infection. I was already thinking about reducing our wine cellar in preparation to move back to Wisconsin, so I had brought a few bottles of wine and my bestie Marycourtney — who used to be a wine rep and has exquisite taste and an amazing wine cellar — had brought a few bottles as well. I was driving both of us to the event, so I had roughly a single glass over a period of five hours, mostly just half ounce and one ounce pours when a new bottle was opened for a taste. And I reliably felt like shit the next day despite being so judicious about the amounts, which pretty much cemented my resolve to abstain going forward.

I guess I’m pleased that I haven’t really cared one way or the other, so any niggling worry that I had about a hidden alcohol reliance is absolutely gone. But also, we’re not socializing because of All This, so it was an incredibly easy thing for me to put aside. It feels a little like a cheat, like someone giving up peanut butter for Lent when they were already allergic to peanuts. I mean, I loathe the taste of beer and even the spirits that I do drink are things that I can tolerate rather than find actually delicious. I had to teach myself to appreciate wine, for instance.

But maybe in this weird time, it’s not bad to reacquaint yourself to the things you are in denial about. It’s one of the worst life hacks that no one can lie to you better than you can.

Yesterday was a unique day in this constant sameness of day after day after day, but today we’re back to the real deal, but now with nothing to prepare for.

This is where the going gets tough for me mentally. I like having a thing to work toward, a goal, a mounting and additive process. To be honest, I also like the deadlines. I will always adjust my own deadlines but if an external force sets them? Blammo — different organizational principles entirely.

This morning I slept until I woke up naturally, which happened to be 5:45 am. I took the dogs outside for their morning constitutional and the sun wasn’t even over the mountain ridge yet, so it was very pleasant. Then I crawled back in bed and rested until Esteban needed to take a shower. The odd thing is that I wasn’t craving coffee, so I just made a hulking gloppy mess of a spinach cherry almond smoothie — and because I eyeballed everything poorly, it was too green and grassy from the spinach and then I countered by adding too many frozen cherries to it, which made the entire thing really thick, so I thinned it somewhat with milk, and by then I had made almost a half gallon carafe of smoothie that was really still too thick, but I toughed through it until I couldn’t anymore (about 35 ounces).

With record temperatures in the Las Vegas valley right now, we’ve been craving cold coffee, but that’s an ordeal and we’re trying to finish the beans in the espresso machine so that it can be properly cleaned and put to bed for the summer. I can always make a few shots of espresso and then dump them over ice, but I decided to make a hot coffee since I froze myself out with the smoothie, but then I could barely finish one latte and skipped the second entirely.

I taught my fiction workshop — this week we’re talking about how to publish fiction — and then immediately had to jump to an All Hands meeting which was notable only because a very famous poet forgot to change the public messaging on Zoom to private when they sent a very inflammatory message into the 35 person room. The bizarre thing is that everyone kind of pretended it didn’t happen, until finally someone was asked to speak about something else and said “I’m sorry, I’m still recovering from what we all just saw.” and I will forever love that person, because apparently everyone else was secretly talking about it via text and IM.

Friends, Zoom chat messages are not actually private. They’re on the chat log later after the session is done and the person who recorded the meeting gets them. It’s a shit show. Don’t do it. Not even once.

After that, I dealt with some of the administrative stuff with my dissertation — although it barely feels like I made any progress with it. Then Esteban and I watched the videos from a house walkthrough that I had asked my sister and brother-in-law to go check out this morning. Then I got depressed, which is what usually happens after thinking or talking about buying a house, because I don’t like anything that’s on the market right now, and everything just feels like making a tremendous mistake and being stuck with it.

We have agreed that we wouldn’t do anything until June because we wanted to see what the housing market would do, but I’m half ready to just say fuck it all and rent a house. Yes, it means we move twice, but I’d rather do that than end up in a house that I dislike or that is poorly suited for us. And also, is this insanity to plan a cross country move in the middle of a pandemic? All signs point to yes. I mean, I wouldn’t even want to get on a plane right now. But even though we agreed verbally not to do anything until June, we’re still looking at houses and we’re still mentally doing the fit check on each one and it’s doing a number on my well-being, to be frank.

The challenge will be to “just keep swimming” until the end of the semester, days counting down into the single digits now. Once I get my dissertation formatted, approved and submitted to the library special collections, then I can check that box and allow my brain to freely chew on this specific problem fully. Until then, I guess there’s always my Marco Polo addiction.

Yesterday was exhausting.

Partially because my chronic pain condition is flaring up and partially because it was a Monday and partially because this week is the week we had assumed that we would start packing/readying to move and partially because of my dissertation defense looming and partially because Because.

I will say this — I made a serious mistake opting to take a writing workshop in the same semester that I had comps exams, finish my dissertation and defend it. It doesn’t help that the pandemic happened, which is essentially a force majeure, but I take full responsibility in deciding to go against the PhD study plan and take a class despite People Who Know Better designing a program that did not require real classes in the last year. Because huh, turns out that it is maybe stupid to take classes when you’re doing all of this other stuff?

I don’t regret taking the gothic class last semester though — it informed many of my decisions and theories that fed into my comps exams and defense. It didn’t really inform my novel which was already well into motion at that point, but props for the comps help.

Monday nights are the meeting of that workshop, and I had zero fucks left at that point, which isn’t really fair to the people whose work was on the table. I’m grossly behind on my responses to them, although it seems like everyone has basically given up on their priorities too, judging by the responses I got for my last two goes workshopping my own work. Plus, it is three hours long — I started outside because That’s My Business (TM Tabitha Brown who is a delight) but it got too hot so I brought everything inside and did the rest from the couch, which was Ole’s signal that it was time to play and my classmates were treated to his impression of a pirate’s parrot.

I can’t even really point to anything specific inside my brain, other than the way I feel simultaneously overstimulated and also depressed. Perhaps it’s just a stasis feeling. Esteban last night said that he felt trapped in Las Vegas, and while that might be part of it, we actually are far better enabled here than we would be in Wisconsin. For instance, the weather is nice enough to sit out in the yard most of the time (although we have a massive hot streak going and it’s been too warm to last for more than an hour outside — Las Vegas expects to hit 100 for the first time in April either today or tomorrow because climate change is a real thing). We have a million places that deliver food and groceries if we wanted. We have a GIANT house to wander around in and also clean if we’re bored (turns out, we’re never that bored).

I think the trapped feeling is more one of feeling lack of progress. When I have a problem to solve, my brain chews and chews on it until it solves the problem, but this is a problem it can’t solve. I can’t magically make new houses appear on the Wisconsin market. I can’t brain a way to fix a pandemic. The only answer to solve all of these problems is time. Time has become our foe, except there’s no fighting it.

You just have to let it wash over you.

Comment #bixquestions thread: Is there a celebrity that you dislike for no real reason, you just know you dislike them? Share in the comments who, why and what’s wrong with their stupid famous selves?