About the Bat …

I’m writing again. Mostly because office hours (my last for the school year) are very quiet. My day, on the other hand …

Last night, I was sitting on the couch when I heard a chittering. I thought, “No big deal; my cat is hunting.” I looked over at her and she had a very angry bat in her mouth. I love bats; I think they’re the most darling creatures on earth. But I’m terrified of rabies. Chloe (the cat; I didn’t name the bat) dropped the tsking creature on the carpet and looks at me expectantly. The bat flies away, and flies a few laps of the upstairs and downstairs. Chloe streaked after it.

I found the trusty pair of leather bat-handling gloves and trudged upstairs. I found Chloe in the bathroom with the bat in her mouth, and the bat was once again screeching. She once again dropped it on the floor and before the bat could take off again, I inverted a shoebox-sized tub over it. (If you’re wondering why we conveniently placed a shoebox-sized tub by the bathroom, we’ve been meaning to put it away.)

I was now in possession of one mad bat who was not long for this world. Given that this bat had been in the mouth of my unvaccinated kitty, I wanted to get the bat checked for rabies. However, the County Health Department has advised me not to bring them any more dead bats because of the sheer number of bats that have come from our house. We apparently have a colony in our chimney and occasionally one breaks into the inside of the house. So I grab our standard bat-keeping gear, an empty tub of Coffeemate creamer, and shove the bat inside it, closing the lid tightly. The bat should suffocate by morning.

This morning, I call the vet to find out if my cat Chloe has current rabies vaccination and find out that hers expired in 2022. I tell them County Health doesn’t want to test our bat. They say we need to quarantine the fur critter (Chloe, not the bat) for two weeks. My husband calls County Health and they say to bring the dead bat (not Chloe) in.

I open the canister where the bat is located, and — the bat is not dead. The bat is, however, very mad, injured from the cat’s rough treatment, and again, very mad. I dump it out on the sidewalk, trying to figure out how to put it out of its misery, and I can’t come up with anything. So I get my bat-handling gloves out, slide them on, and go outside to put the non-dead bat back into the creamer container. It attacks my glove and — well, it has white stuff on its head and around its mouth which is either saliva or creamer, but to this hydrophobicphobic, it’s not a good tiding.

Then, when I got back to the car, I realized my keys were in the house, and the house was locked. So there I was, in the car with the not-dead bat in a bucket and no way to drive it to whatever vet would be free to euthanize it. (That I didn’t fall over crying is a testimony to my psychiatric meds.) I instead texted my husband, who declared it a work from home day and drove to save me from my stupidity.

That being accomplished, I commandeered Richard to go on my extermination errand, followed by my “take the dead bat to County Health” errand. The following developments stymied us: 1) Vet #1 said she wasn’t our (by which I mean our cats’) provider, so she wouldn’t euthanize the bat. 2) Vet #2 was not equipped to euthanize bat; 3) Vet #3 never called back. So we called County Health, who prevailed upon Vet #1, and now our not-dead bat would find itself in the hereafter soon.

After that, Richard and I went for ice cream. We will pick up the deceased bat tomorrow and take it to County Health to find out its status Thursday or Friday. In the meantime, I will struggle with my hydrophobiaphobia, arguing with myself: “What if it DID manage to bite through those leather gloves?”

“… surreal, but not very impressionistic …”

I wish I was better at poetry, lacking the impressionistic bent I need to write the type of poetry that is in fashion right now. I am too involved in telling stories in a more straightforward fashion, even when I am writing dreams:

Last night, I dreamed I was walking after dark, late at night, armed with a pair of scissors. Someone approached me and put his hands on me, and I flipped him over my shoulder and then held my scissors at his jugular^*. He apologized and ran away. I walked and walked till daylight, and I found myself at my old alma mater^** wearing a white blazer and a skirt too tight for me. I ran into a couple of colleagues from my current job as a professor, who were going to a lecture together at a conference. I didn’t get the impression that they wanted me there, and I felt self-conscious because of the clothing and my weight anyhow. I walked out of the conference, which was held in the student union where I went to college. I walked to where my office used to be when I was in graduate school, which ended up being the mailboxes in my former department here where I currently teach. The mailboxes were no longer there, but I walked down the hall to find where they were located back at my alma mater.

This is surreal, but not very impressionistic. I could make it impressionistic, but it would aggravate me. What is happening? What happens next? I love poetry, but I can’t make it happen. My poetry is too concrete.

^* By jugular, I meant where I think the jugular is. I’m really not sure where it is.

^** for non-English speakers, “alma mater” is a Latin phrase that we use to describe the school we graduated from, usually college.

Easing into Summer Professor/Writer Version

An end-of-semester status report:

All I have left to grade is final essay exams for my Personal Adjustment students.
I’ve successfully weaned myself off the lithium with apparently no difficulties. We shall see.
I am done with Kringle Through the Snow (Kringle Christmas romance); struggling with Carrying Light (Hidden in Plain Sight series; a novel about Barn Swallows’ Dance and societal collapse)
My summer will be spent supervising 10 interns (a smaller amount), putting together two new classes for fall, and writing. I foresee lots of Starbucks time. Starbucks will have to learn to love me.
Summer trips: A conference in San Francisco end of May, New York Hope (disaster training exercise for which I am moulage coordinator) at beginning of August, and hopefully a writing retreat here and there.
My writing/publishing goal list for summer: Finish Carrying Light; prepare Kringle Through the Snow for Oct. 1 release; prepare Reclaiming the Balance (Hidden in Plain Sight series) for Jan. 1st release; Set up my social media posts through December on Loomly.
My wish list: That amazing bit of happenstance that will propel my writing into notice, continued health for my family (one husband, four cats, extended folks), and inspired writing.

A Reminder of COVID

In my office today, I found a yellow mailing envelope. Inside I found two masks, cloth with clear plastic windows in the front so people could read my lips. This was a reminder of COVID from almost four years ago, when we spent the semester sending our live lectures over the Internet, disinfecting surfaces, wearing masks, and spacing our students six feet apart in a classroom. All challenges we survived as faculty, although I’m not sure to this day if anyone learned anything.

I wanted these masks because I figured that if I couldn’t hear (I have a noticeable hearing loss and need hearing aids), my students couldn’t. I ended up not liking the masks because they weren’t flexible enough and I couldn’t wear lipstick with them. It took me a while to not wear lipstick while wearing masks, because the habit was so ingrained and I wanted to feel normal.

There was nothing normal about that time. I forget about it for months at a time, and then something reminds me, like a news article, or an old blog, or a mask, or the test kits we still keep around in case the cold feels more severe than others. I remember crying frantically in the kitchen because there was too much to deal with, or becoming obsessed with sourdough bread and catching my own starter, and not going anywhere for a long time. It never completely goes away, and when I sit at Starbucks writing, sometimes I remember when I couldn’t.

Writing Close to Home

In my romances, I sometimes write about ordinary people who perceive that something about them will get in the way of a happily ever after (or at least a happily for now). Secrets, personal failings, longings, parental disapproval. The couple overcome these and find room for love.

This latest book I wrote (it’s in the editing stage), Kringle through the Snow, has one character whose flaw is that she has bipolar 2, which is something I manage in my own life. She is scared that another hypomanic or depressive state is just around the corner and nobody else should be exposed to it.

This is one of the hazards of being bipolar — the stigma. Someone with complications like bipolar is certainly more daunting than people without, and some potential partners want uncomplicated situations. Some are just scared. It is possible to have bipolar disorder and go years before another attack because of diligent management; how is this different than having diabetes or another chronic disease?

I write to ask these questions. In my writing, I want people to confront their preconceived notions, because I think we are our own worst enemies. I think love, when it’s truly there, finds a way.

What I Learned

Describe something you learned in high school.

In high school I learned that sometimes your crush will pay attention to you and that’s enough.

Back then, 44 years ago, I had a crush on Mark. This was painfully (and I mean painfully) obvious to Mark, his girlfriend, and everyone else in high school. He took it well, however. And sometimes he would open up a little sunshine into my life.

Once we were caroling: me, him, his girlfriend, and the rest of the chamber singers. I dropped behind, mostly because the two lovebirds were lovebirding but also because I was cold and tired and depressed. He walked back to find me and ask if everything was okay. He held my unmittened hand briefly and told me it was cold and scolded me for going without mittens.

I wrote a poem for him once. It made fun of him because that was my undying declaration of love. (It ended with the words “you stupid klutz”.) He told me he would keep it in his billfold the rest of his life. I knew he wouldn’t, but the image was enough to make me laugh.

He married his girlfriend and as far as I know they’re still together. I went on to have many more unrequited crushes and eventually married. But I learned the little gifts of moments we receive from people can last in memory forever.

So Far So Good

I have Bipolar 2. Some people call it Bipolar Light, but to be truthful, the lows are just as devastating as they are in Bipolar 1. The highs are less extreme but can still be damaging as high moods lead to irritibility, impulsivity, and dysfunction.

The idea behind treatment is to even out the moods — cut the highs and the lows. Some of the medication I take targets lows, some highs, some both. Most people with bipolar take a fine-tuned cocktail of meds to optimally target their mood swings.

About two weeks ago, the doctor had to take me off the mainstay (lithium, the gold standard) because of damage to my kidneys. They’re weaning me off it, and I honestly don’t know how stable I will remain. They’ve upped another of my meds to see if it takes care of the problem. I know that if I start having trouble with my moods, I’ll be able to call my doctor and see if my meds need more tinkering.

This is scary to me, because active bipolar makes it harder to function. Depression is horrible; hypomania is fun until I’m not getting any sleep and overwhelmed with projects.

So far, so good.

Flying By the Seat of My Pants

So I’m taking a few minutes to write on Carrying Light this morning, having gotten through some work-type work. I am writing a scene where the collective (not a commune but close) takes part in a story-telling circle. This involves passing a stick from person to person so that they further the story. My main character is going to introduce the solution of their problems as a theoretical but impossible possibility. But it could be possible if their local deity takes it on. But why would She take it on? What if the main character is an acolyte of hers and doesn’t know it? If anyone would be, she would be, as she’s been blessed by that deity. WHY DIDN’T I THINK ABOUT THAT SOONER?

Time for foreshadowing. Time to go back into the story and possibly rewrite whole sections? Time to totally wing the next two thirds of the book because I didn’t plan for this? AAAaaack!

Just kidding. It’s moments like this that remind me of why I write.

When I write, I get into a zone and the words flow out of my fingers. My characters sit over my shoulder and tell me where they are and what they’re thinking. They talk to each other while I write. Every now and then I need to take a break to set the next scene.

It’s an odd way to write, I think, because I’m not always aware of what I write until later. Thank goodness for editing, because without it, I don’t think my stuff would be coherent. Sometimes I find myself moving entire pieces of the book because I put them in the wrong place (it took me 20 minutes to do that today.)

Normally I’m a plantser, which means I’m someone who makes a rough outline and works within that. These last two books have required so much rearranging that I’m a pantser, hanging on by the seat of my pants. My characters are really coming out of nowhere: “Hey, let’s talk about the Garden and its Trees now!”

I wrote 4000 words yesterday (or was it 3500? Let me check — oops, it was 4500) so it was an immense day of pantsing. My characters had a lot to say, and I finished Kringle Through the Snow. Another day, and I’m writing Carrying Light. Let’s see where I go.

Me and My Romance

I am almost done with Kringle Through the Snow, which is the Kringle (Christmas romance) book I almost didn’t write. I thought I was done with the Kringle series (this makes six of them) until one of my Facebook friends told me I needed to write more. It took little arm-twisting, but I always wonder if the current book is the last.

I never thought I’d write romance. And, in fact, my romance is clean (only implied sex) and funny. It’s much more relationship based, although it promotes the Instalove trope, which means people getting attached quickly; I think because that’s always been my personal experience. There’s also several friends-to-lovers, enemies-to-lovers, and one age gap. (Two if you count the 100,000-year-old Su and the 6000-year-old Luke.)

Is romance realistic? It’s not supposed to be. It’s grounded in its society (whether that society be modern American, fantasy, science-fiction, etc) and fantastical in its romance elements. Some of the things that happen in romance would not or should not happen in real life (borderline stalkerish behavior, grooming, teacher-student romances) and some only happen in very defined and conscientious contexts in real life (S&M). Some things that happen in romance are just unrealistic. But romance is a type of fantasy — define the rules of the world and you can dream freely on the other parts.

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