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This year continues to be a dumpster fire, but we must go on! * Ruth Bader Ginsburg died yesterday. She was a great woman who will be missed. * My writing classes are going well. I'm learning a lot and doing tons of writing, some of it pretty good and some of it terrible. I rewrite the terrible stuff and make it better, I hope. * I've had a couple of items published on Medium recently. Here are the links. Bring Them to the Feet of Jesus and Living with Chronic Fatigue. * Have

Tiny claws scrape at my shoulder and a little meow echoes in my ear. I open my eyes and reach for my phone. 7am. I’ve been in bed for 9 hours. Rhapsody meows again begging for her morning canned food but every cell in my body is begging me to stay in bed and ignore her and the entire day. My head aches and the sadness of 2020 and life in general threatens to wash over me again. I sit up anyway. Rhapsody butts up against me to get her morning cuddles that she only will take

I posted yesterday about migraine guilt and said that it was a useless emotion and that we need to get rid of it. And guess who brought me back to reality? My own kid! Here's what they emailed me this morning: I don't find it a good approach to think of any emotion as "useless". It seems to cause, ironically, more guilt. It makes it really hard to move past guilt if you're feeling guilty for feeling it in the first place? This is the child whom I tried to teach to "feel your

Another day, another migraine. With a couple of migraines a week, you think I'd be used to it. Actually, after getting a 5 day reprieve from the course of DHE, it feels like a shock to have two migraine days in a week again. I'm feeling some overwhelming migraine guilt. I must have done something wrong to have a migraine yet again, even though the barometric pressure is dropping, which is my most reliable migraine trigger. Yet the guilt is there. I couldn't empty the dishwash

Patrick and I have taken to watching a lot of television since the quarantine started. Even now that he's back at work, we still watch an episode or two at night. We have worked our way through Hanna, Umbrella Academy, The Medicis, The Politician, and the Borgias. We tried to watch Breaking Bad but couldn't get through the second season. We're currently watching Outlander. Many of these series (as do many books) build tension by having characters keep secrets or hold back inf

Someone on Twitter that I follow asked tonight, "If your writing could change one thing in the world, what would it be?" Not every piece of writing has to be world-changing. Sometimes, we just write to let off steam or make something beautiful in the world. I found her question intriguing, though, because I do want my memoir to change people's lives. At the end of the first chapter of my book, I give a disclaimer. I make sure that my reader knows that I'm not writing a self-h

Last week, I did a three day course of dihydroergotamine, a medication that has to be given as an intramuscular injection and taken with something to counter nausea. I learned to give myself the injections - it actually wasn't bad at all - and kept to an every eight hour schedule. I finished them on Thursday. Since Friday, I haven't had significant headache and I've felt pretty well for the last two days! My headache pain levels have been 1-2/10 for the most part! A migraine

When Lydia was in 10th grade, we watched Rent on Netflix. The choir at school was doing a bunch of songs from Rent and the choir director had said that if the kids wanted to watch the film, they should do so with their parents' permission. So, Lydia and I watched together. We didn't finish it. Being steeped in Evangelical culture, we found the whole gay and trans world foreign and uncomfortable for us to watch, although we recognized the beauty of the songs. (Note: I watched

We've made it through another week, the first week of the Covid-19 school year! * Patrick started back with students on Tuesday. They have all kinds of new procedures to keep the students and staff safe. In addition, the new math curriculum is very hands-on with kids doing more discovery and less teacher lecturing. It's a challenge with the new procedures in place, but Patrick is optimistic after this first week that things are going well. Good job, Wega-Fremont!! * Friday, I

Pictured - me with my Cefaly, a transcutaneous nerve stimulation device that I use in the morning and then again when I have a migraine. Ah, 2020, the year that will live in infamy! Impeachment, Covid-19, multiple storms in the Gulf, economic collapse, schools open/closed/virtual/combination! What a crazy year! And my body has responded with its characteristic aplomb. In the spring, I had a bit of trouble with anxiety that was taken care of by three days of lorazepam. Serious