The Vaccine (Part 1)

 The email saying I could register for the Covid vaccine hit my inbox while I was teaching 8th Grade American Government. 

But at the same time, and for the very first time, my students had meaningful questions about their assignment. 

The website kept crashing as I frantically tried to enter my information in between hearing my name called from black, faceless squares on Zoom. One attempt went through. I had an appointment for Wednesday, January 27th at 9:10am. 

The morning of my appointment, I felt elated. I had absolutely no concerns or fears. It was just pure relief. I put up independent work for my students, kissed Jaime and said, "Bye. I'm going to get a life changing vaccine now." 

I got to the hospital right on time despite the ice and snow from the night before and put two quarters in the parking meter hoping I'd bought myself enough time. Then I got lost twice. A nice man gave me directions to the building where they were administering the vaccine. "It has a big purple sign in front of it. Can't miss it." 

The sign was more of a taupey mauve, but I trusted that I was in the right place. 

By then, I was no longer on time so I too excitedly said "yes" when a women inside the entrance asked me if I had an appointment. She told me where to stand, and I got a clipboard. An employee came to collect my paperwork and check me in before skeptically asking if I had any conditions that allowed me to get the vaccine today. I said I didn't but that I'm a teacher and we'd been given the go ahead to register. 

She acted exasperated and explained that they'd realized they didn't have enough of the vaccine the previous afternoon to vaccinate teachers unless they had conditions that put them at a higher risk. 

Okay. Well, I was clearly not at that fucking meeting and quite frankly would have appreciated an email. 

She asked me...and it's very important to me that you know that she asked me...if I wanted to speak to the supervisor. 

This Karen did, so I parked my ass aside to wait for the supervisor. It was during this time that I could finally look down the line I had been standing in. Not only was I the youngest person, I was the youngest by decades, maybe centuries? I was clearly also the healthiest and among the wealthiest despite my sweatpants and serious split ends. But you can get away with those things in your youth. 

Jesus Christ, Karen. 

I got information from the supervisor detailing the list of conditions I thankfully do not have and an explanation that teachers are in Phase 1B- Tier 3: Critical Infrastructure not Phase 1B- Tier 2: High-Risk Individuals and that they only had enough for them...hopefully. 

I spoke to my HR director and sent her a photo of my hard copy, another list in history that might actually decide who lives and who dies, because I didn't want my colleagues to be surprised if they were lucky enough to be turned away, but I also didn't want to discourage them from trying if they weren't so fortunate. 

I wasn't disappointed anymore. I just wanted to get home, but I couldn't find my car. 

When I finally got back to it, I had one minute left on the meter. Fuck yes. I'd timed it perfectly. 

The Things We Don't Want Back

Disclaimer: This post has been edited to delete the name of an abuser, rapist and racist. We don't want him back. 

For the first time in our lives, Jaime and I have really started to plan for the future, and the only reason we're doing this is because 2020-2021 won't allow it. 

Q: Should we sell the house after we pay it off or rent it to traveling nurses? 

A: Well, if it weren't for this doggone virus, we could convert a church in the Basque Country into a vacation home with a paella oven and skate park.  

Q: Should we have a kid? 

A: Well, why not? The community could help us raise it to be anti-racist, and they'd be at least trilingual. We'd dress it in non-binary clothing until it teaches us who they are, but alas, Covid. 

After 10 months of this, we're annoying even ourselves, so we've switched to planning what we will not return to even when it's safe, and that's much more fun. 

Concerts are pretty high on our list.

We came to this understanding after I told Jaime about my experience at a goth rock show when I was 16 having no way of knowing then that my future spouse was simultaneously performing trash metal concerts shirtless in Spain.

Still want us to have kids? 

I'd gone with my high school boyfriend who was imposing and a pretty good creep block, but realistically, what chance does an 18-year-old boy have at a concert that catered to Incels? 

That spooky rapist put on a fucking fabulous show, and I was really into it until the first time the crowd broke the front barricade. The barrier was fixed, but the crowd broke through again. After the third time, we saw a helicopter take off from behind the stage, and assuming their abusive nymph king was in it, the concert-goers started to riot. 

Being at the level of most every one else's armpit was suffocating and scary. My boyfriend was trying to block me from the worst of it, but he was also looking for a way out of the crowd. It was really the person behind me who was protecting me from the crushing sea of goth Midwesterners. 

In a quick letup of the chaos, I glanced back to see who'd been so thoughtful. 

It was Charles Manson. 

I am not kidding. Between his two crazy eyes was a swastika. Thank goodness it was Halloween. 

Anyway, I repeated versions of this experience for years getting drinks spilled on me, strangers' penises pressed against my back and even crowd surfing close enough to Billie Jo Armstrong to realize it was not worth it before doing it for another decade or so. But this time I swear I'm done. 

Jaime says this shirt-on photo is from one of 

his rock concerts and not from his trash metal days. 

Teenage Emma would not have had a chance in hell.

Ketchup and Other Crimes Against Humanity

 Jaime is pretty forgiving of American culture, but like every immigrant, he has his grievances. 

"There's just a lack of an understanding of refinement," he explained as if it were news to me. 

He was talking about our flavor combinations, but he made sure to include plenty of examples outside of the culinary arts. 

I'd just dropped off some gingerbread Trumps at our neighbors', and, like always, I returned with a grocery bag full of food. This bag was heavier than usual because one of their mothers had remembered us and sent some Christmas snacks. 

It was the white chocolate peppermint popcorn that really sent him. 

"Mint's only place is in tea as far as I'm concerned. And chewing gum. Chewing gum is fine, but Americans put it in everything. The only thing that's missing is your precious ketchup!" For the past week, he'd been angrily shaking dark chocolate covered pretzels into a mug of oat milk for his afternoon snack. The bag that came with our latest Imperfect Foods order included little bits of crushed peppermint folded into the chocolate, and he was fucking livid. 

I only recently learned about his aversion to this particular combination after I bought a bag of peppermint bark at Costco. I'd bought them for our mail person, lovingly placed eight pieces in an envelope and clipped it to our box. 

I showed him the bag of the remaining 790 squares and feigned disappointment that we'd have to eat them all. "I'm not eating that. You'll have to do it yourself," was his response, and suddenly, it didn't sound fun anymore. 

Chocolate and peanut butter is another one he can't abide. Really, peanut butter and anything. This isn't unique to him. Even though they have a better name for it, peanut butter (mantequilla de cacahuete) is very hard to find in Spain, and I had to defend peanut butter and jelly to every Spaniard I met. 

It wasn't just that they thought PB&J sounded gross. It sounded so abhorrently sickening to them that they thought we made it up for television shows but didn't actually eat it. 

These and more were brought up during his surprisingly long diatribe, and I think the Colombian Exchange was mentioned at least twice. 

I let him get it out of his system because (1) it was very funny, and (2) a couple hours before, I had to coach him through spitting into a small vial for his Covid test. 

"Tilt your head forward! No, forward not back. Stop blowing bubbles! The bubbles are just air! You're filling the tube with air," are some things I had to say, and you just can't take someone like that seriously no matter how refined his tastes are. 

This is a gingerbread Trump. 

A note from Jaime: His final word on the subject is "snarf". If you don't know what snarf is, it's baked Fritos covered in peanut butter and corn syrup: a Midwestern family's delight and a Valencian's waking nightmare. 

What is Spain? Spain Is Metal.

 Jaime really liked dinner tonight. 

"It reminds me of when we had braised lamb with pepper pellets for school lunch," he said. 

After we figured out he was talking about peppercorns, my mind revisited a topic I think about often: how different our childhoods were. 

"It's not like we got a whole leg or anything. They were fillets, and a lot of kids didn't like it, which was great because they gave their fillets to me." I couldn't remember the other school lunch he loved because other kids hated it and therefore gave him their portions. 

"Fish pudding," he reminded me. 

Ah, yes. Fish pudding. 

I told him that rectangle pizza was pretty popular at my school, and he laughed appropriately. 

Jaime went to an English language school in Spain run by Opus Dei, taught by Filipino teachers and called Edelweiss.  It was his parents' second choice. 

His school day started about the same time as mine, but he wasn't released until almost 6 pm. He'd have dinner with his family at about 9:30 or 10 then go to bed around midnight. Edelweiss was his elementary school. This might sound crazy to those of us who were brought up through socialist American schools, but that schedule is still the norm for kids in Spain today. 

Schoolchildren do have a long break called patio or recreo, which is like recess, during the afternoon siesta time. 

Jaime gets offended when non-Spaniards rib him about siestas. There's almost always an underlying accusation of laziness, so it's understandable he's annoyed. I used to envision the whole country sleeping in their underwear during the hottest part of the day, too, but that was before I saw for myself what really happens during siesta. 

Daily, between 2-4 pm, everyone eats an incredible and reasonably priced lunch and drinks wine or beer before returning to work and doing the bare minimum for the rest of the day until they clock out at 8. Spain is fucking metal, and what makes it metal is that Spaniards work really hard but play harder. 

(Jaime asked me to note his offense taken by the previous paragraph.) 

A couple of weeks ago, Jaime called me into a Zoom meeting he was having with a doctor at KU. Their actual meeting was over, but the man's wife was there because they wanted to tell us about their experience living in Valencia for half a year in the 1980s. 

They had two young children at the time who were attending a Spanish school. 

"I couldn't get over putting them on a bus in the morning and not seeing them again until late in the evening. I spent a lot of time at the grocery store even though the store didn't have the things I wanted." I could imagine her loneliness. Her husband was working, and the kids made friends and picked up the language easily. 

"One day, our son came home with a big bandage on his head. I asked him what happened, and he said another boy had thrown a rock at him. A teacher took him to the hospital where THEY SUTURED HIS HEAD then put him on the bus home." The school hadn't contacted her. 

Jaime and I laughed, but it was clear she was still pretty traumatized by this event. 

"Well, at least it was all free," I said. Spain really is metal. 

We had another Zoom call with our friend Antonio from the Galicia later that day and recounted the story to him. 

"Can you believe that?" we asked. 

"Yeah, I can." He said. It happened to me three times while I was in school. Metal. 

To this day, the best shit I have ever put into my temple.

Things I Did in an Effort to Distract Myself on Election Day

These are not in order of time or importance. 

1. Used a leaf blower

2. Donated blood 

3. Bled all over the pen and my sock 

4. Talked to a man about a water softener

5. Thought about bringing my neighbor some applesauce but didn't 

6. Talked to my mother (but we talked about the election) 

7. Thanked Jaime for not being Chris Watts

8. Explained to Jaime who Chris Watts is

9. Made stuffing from a box 

10. Took two Nutter Butters and not my usual one from the blood center

11. Wrote a blog post 

12. Put a caftan on, took it off, put it on again

13. Broke a mirror

14. Took two walks 

Oh Savage Day Toilet

I asked Jaime why he smelled like a man, and what I meant by that was why did he smell like any other man but himself. 

He doesn't have a strong BO, but I still pretty regularly shove my face under his arm and take a big whiff of his pit. His smell comforts me, and I like his brand. He doesn't even own deodorant, which made this new smell even more offensive to me. 

His response was that he had a zit on his forehead, so he sprayed cologne on it to dry it out. This sounded reasonable for him, so I went to brush my hair. 

Discovering the open box of Dior Eau Sauvage Eau de Toilette confused me so much, I nearly yanked a matted patch of hair from my scalp. 

Had this stinky bourgeoisie bitch truly sprayed Dior on a pimple?

He had. 

You might be asking why I have such an expensive cologne in my house, and the answer is simple and believable. I didn't buy it. My father-in-law shoved it in our suitcase last time we were in Spain. 

What might be less believable but still true is that I've never bought a perfume much less a parfum in my life. I do have two bottles, though. Elizabeth Arden's Red Door, which my mother put in my stocking one year to remind me of my grandmother's scent and Rihanna's Crush, which my father put in my stocking another year to remind me that I'm a White, lower middle-class Midwesterner. 

Was I fourteen when I got them? Was I twenty-seven? I don't know. It doesn't matter. 

What I do know is that I've never used them because even cheap perfume makes me feel like a fraud. I like to smell like me even though, if Jaime's BO is an "agree," mine is a "strongly disagree" on a Likert scale. 

I would have preferred he'd used either of the ones Santa had given me, but I guess him smelling like Rihanna would have been more confusing. Whereas him smelling like my grandmother would have been inconceivable. 

It doesn't matter, though, because neither of us would have used it otherwise. Jaime, because he doesn't smell, is unfazed by the French and has no concept of reality. Me, because I was raised by hippies, fear the French and am maybe too real. 

Anyway, I'm trying a new skin care regimen tonight. I'll let you know if it works. 

Introducing You Can Call Me Marge

 I've been doing more reading than writing lately. 

And I've been watching more drag queen videos than reading lately because that's just where I am on my education journey. 

Meanwhile, my friend has been working on an incredible project that I will let her introduce to you here: https://youcancallmemarge.com/ .

And she asked me to contribute a story here: https://youcancallmemarge.com/stories/ .

I'm really proud of her, and it felt great to write something again. 

Thank you for it all, Kim. I'm lucky to know you. You can find her here: https://youcancallmemarge.com/about-2/ .