Three things

Student loans, root canals, and Medium

Mar 13, 2026

Thing 1: You guys. I finally have reason to celebrate. Pom-poms and a megaphone celebration. I’ve been paying off my Columbia University graduate debt since 2004. My debt was old enough to fight in a war, vote, and drink. I had $64,000 left and this year my loans were forgiven.

I logged into my service provider and nearly passed out. I still don’t believe it. I’m still waiting for Mohela to email me with a big SIKE meme, but I’ll take my wins where I can.

I’ve always said I’d be paying off my graduate loans to the grave. I’m so happy to be wrong.

Thing 2: Another fucking root canal. This go-around I actually have dental insurance (praise kittens). However, everything requires approval. Odyssean-level waits, etc. My root canal with an endo is scheduled for the end of the month and I regarded my dentist with shock.

YOU DON’T EXPECT ME TO WAIT WITH THIS PAIN UNTIL THE END OF THE MONTH. YOU BETTER MAKE ME AN OXY ADDICT.

In response, my dentist performed a “baby” root canal, which is where they start the process, shove my medication in my tooth and provide a temporary filling. There was supposed to be no pain.

Well, friends. In true Felicia fashion, there was indeed pain. As soon as the numbing agent wore off, I chowed down on a chicken sandwich. I bit down on said tooth and proceeded to scream in Whole Foods. And I mean SCREAM.

I call my dentist. They are flummoxed. You’re not supposed to have pain. Would you like me to bite down on it again and re-enact said screaming? Apparently, a tooth can have up to four canals. My dentist started cleaning three because he couldn’t find the fourth on the x-ray. So, tomorrow I go in for a cat-scan to find the hidden canal.

I mean, this is crazy.

Mind you, all of this I pay out of pocket because I’m still waiting for APPROVAL from my insurance company. But they don’t cover the baby root canal because they expect me to raw dog it with 800 mg of ibuprofen, which I take if I have a headache because come on. 800 mg is nothing. But apparently no one believes women when they say they’re in pain.

Thing 3: For my Medium friends, what happened? I loved Medium. I loved publishing on Medium. I love the community. But every single time I publish, I now regret it. I get tons of AI comments (your article is a reminder of the triumph of the human spirit or some such nonsense), and on a personal essay about depression some fool pitches herself to my personal publication and gets mad when I call her out on it. The self-promotion is grating. The lack of understanding between the word “article” and “essay” continues to baffle me.

Did people not go to middle school? Dictionaries are available online.

And the pay is appalling. However, I do have enough for Felix’s food this month so there’s that.

In unrelated news, I plan on starting some Dostoyevsky next week so expect some unhinged writerly thoughts on that.

xo, Felicia