January

January is trying to kill me. It's making me post blogs in pure list fashion just because my mind can't wrap itself around the greater meaning of why January would have it out for me. I like January. It's my sisters' birthday. The days start getting longer. There's fun snow times. But still. It has it out for me.
Thus far, I got a really bad cold on the day after the drive home from Mountain City. Then Z got it last weekend. As she's getting it and I get worried that it's bad enough to require outside intervention instead of just the 3 hours of nebulizing a day, I find that the letter I sent to Blue Cross Blue Shield telling them we indeed have continuous coverage and that we should not be subject to a waiting period was filed but not acted upon. Apparently, I needed another letter from my old University telling them the exact same thing (which no one told me I needed. I just sent them a copy of my insurance card since that's all this HR dept. told me was required). Happily, my old university was amenable to faxing BXBS the letter and now all is well and Z's cold is moving out of her lungs and out into some other poor child's.

But the viruses don't end there. I'm typing this on Egg's computer. My computer has the worst virus I've ever heard of or seen. When I go to Google something, the search results appear but when I click on them, I'm redirected to a shopping site of some sort. It's not always the same one--sometimes it's "yellow pages," sometimes "ad direct." When the IT guy tried to fix it, the computer wouldn't let it access Ad-aware or lavasoft at all. I tried to download Microsoft's malicious adware/spyware tool and it said "that page doesn't exist." It's very creepy and now they over at IT are reimaging my computer. I'm supposed to be finishing the last 60 pages of the nonfiction book but I'm not. Plus, other writing problems on which I cannot blame the computer unless someone the virus is keeping all the good news stored in some un-openable folder. But the bad news comes through just fine.
Perhaps the computer will be better by tomorrow? Just saying that sounds jinxy.

Also. I think I now get migraines. Last night, I could only move if I put both hands on my temples and pressed really hard.

Also. The snow. It snowed like a million feet right before we left and while we were gone. But it's been 50 degrees here every day in the sun. So I tried to go running in the woods behind my house. The people who walk there every day had not been doing their job, evenly tamping down a trail for me. Instead, there were some deep sinks made from what looked someone fence-poling and then a few smaller foot holes. It was like trying to run on lava rocks. Cleo and I kept sinking and then finding an icy cover and then sinking again. So now we have to run on the road which I do not like nearly as much.

Also. School started but that's OK. Except for that my classes are overfull because I'm a weak, weak person, I'm excited to teach Intro classes. We're doing a reality TV/Top Chef/Survivor contest thing so the first weeks are fun and not just whole-class workshop after workshop or peer group after peer group workshop.

Plus, the economy still sucks and I'm always nervous about my and Erik's jobs.

Still, except for the writing bad news and the headaches, none of this is really getting me down. We're invited to Obamatini's tomorrow night, are going to Phoenix on Saturday to see A & M (and to make a test run to see if it's feasible to go see Dr. Write if she comes down) and a new computer so chock full of anti-virus software (it already had some, but obviously, I need the Fort Knox equivalent of security) that it'll take fourteen "yeses" just to get to anyone's blog. The second half of January begins today. Perhaps January can call off the hit and we can try to be friends.