bad air day

 We're getting a one-two punch of wildfire smoke from out west and dust blowing in from the Sahara. It's also dreadfully hot and there's a high pressure dome trapping all the pollutants.

I had to stop my workout at the 20 minute mark this morning because I started coughing. Yes, in my house. Yes, with a newly-changed air conditioner filter. I decided after I got done at work to do something I'd been thinking of doing - getting a new, true-HEPA air filter (I have an old one, but I don't think it's as good at the fine particulates as this one). It's expensive, but....sometimes you need that stuff to be comfortable, and I expect wildfire smoke is going to be increasingly common here. 

I did get all four of my syllabi written today - heavily updating the ones from previous years (taking out the information on COVID, hopefully even though it's still circulating, it's to the point enough people are vaccinated that it's not going to be the deadly threat it was. And yeah, yeah, if a lot of people on campus seem to be down with it I'll drag out the masks again, even though (a) I am generally pretty far from everyone, am fully vaccinated, and tend to be careful otherwise and (b) teaching in a mask does set off my asthma a little, especially when it's hot

I also added in basically a "don't use LLMs to prepare writing for my class" statement. Maybe I'm a fogey on this, I don't care. I know there are faculty places who seem to be fine with it (at least in some disciplines) because "everyone does it" but I've seen enough really BAD and wrong and potentially dangerous machine-generated biological material (there was an infamous paper with an AI generated image of a .... shall we say, well-endowed male rat?). And actually I can't quite believe those papers sneak through; I have a hard enough time getting published with the stuff I have 100% written myself (always have to do revisions) and I do wonder if some of those wind up in the dodgy "pay to publish" journals. 

But anyway. I don't want it and I'm gonna get annoyed if I hear "but my other professors...." ("If your other professors let students jump of bridges....."). I feel like I should be able to draw a line on this without having to explain excessively. 

But anyway: they're done, and next week I guess I set up my Canvas pages and put things like that on there.

I also enrolled one of my new advisees in classes. I was pleased that even though he's new here, he had attended a junior college where a lot of the classes transfer so a lot of his "distribution" classes are done, which makes it easier. 

So a little bit before 5, I left campus to head to the one place I know has the air filters (Lowe's, which I don't love, but this is a small town and I don't want to have to drive to Sherman for it, I needed it today). 

Getting out there isn't fun. There's an east and a west side of town; I'm on the east side (I mean: my house and the university are.. Pruett's is, which is why I most often shop there for food). The "big box" stores (such as we have) are on the west side. There are two east-west roadways to get between the two sides, because the town is bisected by an interstate. There's Main, and there's University. University is closest to Lowe's but it gets busy.....well, it's basically busy between 8 am and 10 am, and again between maybe 3 and 6 pm). Main has an underpass under the interstate; University has an overpass. I don't love the overpass, you get stuck on it because there are stoplights and you can feel it VIBRATE as traffic goes by on the interstate and you really begin to wonder how well it's maintained...

But I thought I'd chance it. Got through the first light, which put me on the overpass, wound up in a long line of traffic waiting on the second light.

It's a two lane bridge, right? one lane westbound (which I was in) and one lane eastbound. At the very end - towards that second stoplight - the road widens and gains a left-turn lane on the west end of the overpass. 

So I'm sitting in my lane, well before the turn lane would start, waiting on the light so I can continue west, when I hear someone LAY on their horn. And I glance over, and a big, dark-colored pickup truck blows by my driver's side. He literally cleared my side mirror by 4". It was terrifying. For one thing - if someone had been going eastbound fast, he'd have been in a headon collision and I'd have been right in the debris zone. For another - if I had twitched and swerved a little (though I was sitting with my foot on the brake, because RED LIGHT), he'd have hit me. 

All so he could get in the turn lane a few seconds earlier. (The way I would have done it, if I were doing it? Wait in the westbound lane until I was close to the turn lane, then signal, check to be sure no one was coming up behind me to get in the turn lane, and pull in WHEN IT WAS WIDE ENOUGH.

I will say I was pretty shaken. I'm glad I got through it safely but more and more I see instances of this - someone just being selfish, deciding they're the one who matters, and who throws road safety out the window. Or they're aggressive and do things like lay on the horn if you aren't going quite fast enough for them. I've never met someone who either tried to ram me or tried to get out and rage on my car, but I will not be surprised if it happens some time. 

And getting up to Lowe's, I felt very sad again: yes, I don't matter. I'm just an obstacle to everyone. And also, bitterly: I wish I felt as special as that guy felt. Oh no, I'd never pull a stunt like he pulled, because it's wildly unsafe and foolish and makes other drivers uncomfortable. But I'd LIKE to feel special, instead of feeling like I did this afternoon. I wish people were kinder but we seem to be getting worse; I may eventually - once I retire - become a hermit and very rarely go out, because it's hard to deal with all the meanness out there. 

At any rate: I got my air purifier without further incident, and bought myself a sweet peach tea from the tea place to try to soothe my feelings a little, and made some chicken and noodles for dinner, and knit a bit on the current socks. 

But it's just HOT here and I don't like the heat and it adds to every and any discomfort I have.

The quilt show opened here today and maybe I'll go tomorrow, but I don't love going out in the heat (my air conditioner is having a hard time keeping up right now, it's warm in my living room)