I have been calling it a New Year's resolution, but it's not, not really. I make resolutions all the time. Some I keep ("floss") some I break ("remember people's birthdays") some I relapse on ("never be a flake"). But I make them all year long, because the hope of building a better mo pie springs eternal.

In any case I resolved-- and it was in January sometime-- to take better care of my health. Specifically, to go and see the doctor about various things that plague me-- mostly these recurrent, persistent urinary tract infections that are so good at making my life hell. And on Monday, I finally called to make an appointment.

I haven't been to the doctor since I moved here. But one nice thing that I have taken advantage of is their 24 hour advice nurse hotline. You call them any time, and you can talk to a nurse. I remember calling them when I had my last gallbladder attack, basically wanting to know if I was going to die momentarily, because it sure felt like it. (Answer: probably not.)

When you call to make an appointment, they connect you with an advice nurse who does triage, I guess-- assesses just how urgent your situation is, and how quickly you need an appointment or if you should go to the ER. The nurse I talked to about my UTIs wasn't super concerned, but she thought I should go in ASAP. Turned out, there was an appointment in fifteen minutes. What service! I'm used to making appointments and being told there's a five month wait. I still can't get over the fact that I got an instantaneous appointment.

I brought my whole list of issues to my doctor, who is my new primary care physician, and she listened to everything. I feel nervous about bringing up things to a doctor, so I told her right off the bat that I had this list, and she briskly went through every item with me.

Regarding the gallbladder thing, she told me that if my moderate fat diet is working out, I could just stick with that and avoid surgery. If the attacks increase in frequency, I have the option of surgery. I don't want surgery, and a moderate fat diet does seem to work well, so this was good news.

Oh, she also looked rather alarmed when I mentioned I had taken five Advil. I was told once by my old doctor that I could take up to six at a time (this was when I had really bad cramps). Her eyebrows shot up and she said I could go into kidney failure if I took more than four. Um, wow, good to know. I usually take three, and only go up to four and five if I'm having excruciating gallbladder pain, but no more of that for me.

Then she sent me to the lab for bloodwork and urinalysis. I got the results back today and talked to one of their advice nurses.

Of course I have a UTI, so I'll probably get on antibiotics again. I do want to talk to my doctor when I get my next routine pap smear (on Friday-- I told you they work fast) because my big concern is that I don't want to go back to the cycle of UTI, antibiotics, yeast infection from the antibiotics, a couple of weeks of normalcy, UTI again. First of all, I don't like the idea of building up resistance to all those antibiotics. And second of all, if there's an underlying problem, I need to correct it.

Then again, a lot of women are just prone to these infections, and there's very little that can be done about their recurrence. I tried going with home remedies for a while, but they kind of stopped working. I drink tons of water and take cranberry extract and avoid caffeine, but I still get infections. I used to be able to control it better, but now I have to guzzle at three or four liters of water a day just to maintain normalcy. Sure, all that water is good for you, but I'm tired of it.

(At least I no longer have a boyfriend who thinks I'm making all this up to avoid having sex with him.)

But let's continue this fascinating chronicle of my health. My cholesterol is slightly high, but as I said to the nurse, it's right after the holidays, and my eating habits over the holidays were awful. I lived on Christmas chocolate for a week. It wasn't pretty. (The nurse agreed that these numbers can fluctuate, and said she didn't even want to look at her cholesterol right after the holidays.) I'm back to my usual fairly good eating habits and I'll get re-checked in six months or so.

Anyway, I think I am in love with northern California Kaiser. Everyone has been pleasant and helpful and supportive and just swell. And now I'm not worried about my health anymore, because everything is being taken care of. Whew.

The point I'm trying to make is that we're going to work very hard to make this a great Journalcon. So everyone should plan to attend, and come hang out with us. You won't regret it.

I registered for school today. It feels so strange to be going back. I know this may sound like sacrilege, but I haven't even thought about poetry since school ended. I went into vacation intellectual slug mode instantly, and I haven't felt inclined to break out of that.

It was (mostly) nice to see everyone. Laurie is back from her vacation, and I stopped by Joey's work (the Borders in Union Square) on my way out of the city, so I saw her too. After lots of rigmarole and running from office to office all day, I am all registered for my classes, my financial aid check should be here next week, and I may even get paid for teaching last semester.

Remarkable, really, to get this all done in a day. In semesters past they have lost my folder, or kept me waiting for weeks on a loan entrance interview. I'm so relieved that I'm getting my financial aid. I am currently using the rolls of dimes my mother gave me to purchase food.

One of my students (who received an A+ in the class) was glowing when she saw me. "I just got your evaluation-- I can't believe how nice you were to me!" And I said, "Are you kidding? You were my star!" It was so sweet. She was a brilliant student, and I filled out her evaluation with honest, enthusiastic praise.

The karmic boomerang took a very eentsy journey this time, because immediately thereafter I walked into the next room and saw Professor President, who called me over and told me that I had gotten an A+ in his class.

I started glowing just like my student had and said, "Thank you, that grade means a lot coming from you." Which is true. I worked my ass off to try and get a good grade in that class-- he doesn't just give out grades for nothing and I enjoyed rising to the challenge. But I didn't expect an A+ from him... I'm so thrilled.

I am making progress on the broken things front. I bought a bookshelf on eBay and went to pick it up yesterday from a friendly musician guy with a funky artist loft.

A sort of sideways view of my new bookshelf.

It's not a replacement for my broken bookshelf, because it's quite small, but it is this funky cast iron design, and I got it for $6.50, so what the hell. He told me he sold two others just like it for forty bucks apiece, and I can believe it-- it's quite a steal.

I put it in the corner next to my TV and all my DVDs fit on it perfectly. (I can buy maybe two more DVDs before it's full.) So my books still have no place to live, but my DVD collection sure looks pretty.

Baby steps, my friends. Baby steps.

I've been using AOL as a temporary way to get online, and can I just say that the people who Instant Message you out of the blue are kinda frightening?

Some guy just started speaking Spanish to me, and this other guy is randomly telling me a story about a peach. I mean, who are these people? I sometimes talk to them. I used up my limited knowledge of Spanish to tell the first guy that I put the mustard in the bathroom. And I countered the peach story with an anecdote about kiwi.

If you want to IM me, my handle is Flickamo. What the heck. You all can't possibly be any weirder than the people I'm already talking to.

"Did a tarot reading for myself. It is going to be a great year, especially creatively. A year of huge transformation. My greatest struggle this year will be for intellectual and creative self discipline. This has always been my issue, but this is the year to work on it and resolve it, I can feel it. I think that success will be the result. I feel confident that I can be a successful poet if I am willing to work for it."