Grateful to be here.

...

Merry Christmas, you wonderful ole reason to live!

Christamas Carol Roundup-as in round them up and shoot them dead...

I thought today would never come!

Now just counting down the hours till I am FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Would that it were for good, and not just a week.

Sigh.

So I thought I'd mention that while I ADORE Christmas songs and am one of those sickos that eagerly awaits the radio stations that begin pumping out the carols WELL before it is at all appropriate to do so, yes, there are, nevertheless, certain Christmas songs that I absolutely abhor! 

They are as follows:

Elvis Presley singing Blue Christmas.  Holy hell.  I want to punch him right in his pretty lips and his bedroom eyes when I hear that hillbilly/bluesy shlock.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band in their rendition of Santa Claus is Coming' to Town.  Seriously fills me with enough rage to strangle a puppy.  Can't say precisely what it is, but good grief it makes me postal.  The fact that it is live SHOULD go a long way toward humanizing the man, but he just sounds so fucking smug and full of himself.  Every time I hear him chuckle I have a visceral reaction akin to blinding rage...

Travellin Strawberries-- Long Time Ago in Bethlehem.  Ok.  Maybe it is because I cherish Bing Crosby-esque Christmas with an It's a Wonderful Life sort of aesthetic, but something about this hip, saccarine, happy happy yet religiously saturated Christmas song makes me want to vomit sugar and sparkles.  On certain days I will actually catch myself boppin around to the infectious beat when it comes on the radio-- those are the days where I worry about my mental stability.  Because, apart from some lovely harmony in the opening section of the song, this song is a disgusting overly sentimental chipperly christian anthem that makes my skin crawl and my teeth grind together in an instinctive distrust for the falsely bright carolers who are forcing their christian joy down my throat with glee.  And their vaguely ethnic accents are supposed to-what?--make me feel guilty about my priveleged white american lifestyle?  No thank you.  i reject the premise entirely.
but dammit if that ain't a catchy beat...

Speaking of shoving sentimentality down my throat:  I DESPISE all those modern super-sad and supposedly poignant Christmas songs that are intended to evoke in my a feeling of bittersweet sympathy.  They miss the mark utterly.  What they evoke in me is rage and scorn.  I'm talking about things like 'the Christmas shoes' and "Merry Christmas Darlin'"and shit like that.  I can't even tell you all of them because i stoutly refuse to give them a listen when the radio station peppers them in among the REAL Christmas songs.  Gross gross grossy grosserson mcgrosspants.  if i want to ACTUALLY tear up, if I want to REALLY experience a nostalgic, bittersweet longing for the days when Christmas was simple and pure i will listen to Ms. Garland singing 'Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas" or perhaps a nice simple version of "I'll be home for Christmas", or a very traditional version of "The Little Drummer Boy" (makes me weep like a bitch!)

It's Christmas (baby please come home).  Sung by various artists with little variation and no improvement.  The parenthetical should be a good indication that this song will suck big time.  Theres even a version of Bono (not even sure if it is all members of U2.  I think Larry Mullen may have taken one look at this shitcake and declared: 'bloodyfuck, no.") but not even my favorite living artist could imbue this travesty with any semblance of redeeming qualities.  It think it is supposed to be pop/Blues?  I don't know about that.  It sounds like drivel to me.  And is it Mariah Carey who sings the most popular one?  Gag me.  I don't need your vocal olympics and your masturbatory runs for christmas, thanks.


Speaking of masturbatory.  ANYTHING BY JOSH GROBIN AND MICHAEL BUBLE.  And a fair chunk of sinatra too.  Good Christ.  "But they have such great voices!"  you will exclaim.  And I cannot argue on that point.  yes.  they do.  they have very lovely voices.  And I feel absolutley NOTHING when they commence to singing, because itis almost as if I can hear their inner monologue:  "Yeah...I asound sooo good.  Listen to how incredibly talented I am with my golden voice.  I am so incredibly talented..."  ets.  I also imagine that Sinatra's internal monologue goes on to mention how much pussy he'll be getting later and occasionally wondering when his assistant will be popping itno the studio to refill his scotch.  As a musical theatre performer and lover, I really can't abide talented singers who have no connection to what they're singing.  With these gentlemen I get the impression that they'd sound exactly the same and give the same dead-hearted performance if someone switched the words of 'oh holy night' to 'oh moley flight'.  They are robots programmed to sound melifluous (or croonery-cool), and look good while doing it.  i say to thee:  Meh.  I'd rather listen to those perky fucking strawberries.

Any 'cute' or 'clever' version of the twelve days of chritsmas.  ESPECIALLY the one with the lady who gets sloshed while singing about all the booze.  One hearing only.  Seriously.  These have ZERO replay value.  NONE.  One time through and you might have earned a mild chuckle, a nod of vague appreciation for your effort, and that's about all you can expect for one of those gems.  PLEASE, i'm really begging for my sanity here, and for the lives of others around me, PLEASE don't replay these abominations over and over and over.  Especially the ones that get so wrapped up in their cleverness that they aren't even tuneful anymore.  I don't need to listen to the man and his damned christmas lights over and over and over!  

 
And, last, but absolutely not in any way least, the song that I hated so much that I have actually begun to love in a bizarre way; the song that I never ever ever fail to hear whenever I am (and I mean absolutely WHENEVER) out driving between thanksgiving and Christmas:  DO THEY KNOW IT'S CHRITMAS - Band Aid.
I mean sweet bleeding jesus.  Really?!  Like, which of these artists sat down and said:  Oh, I have a great idea for a christmas song!  and then preceeded to include lyrics like:  The only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears??  Oh, and let's not forget my personal fave:  And the christmas bells that ring there are the clanging chimes of doom.  The clanging chimes of doom?!?!?!

Well tonight thank god it's them instead of you! (oh Bono.  I love you.  I really do... sigh...)

Talk about hitting us over the noggin with white guilt, eh?  It is so, so, so awful.  And it isn't even a good song!  All that talent in one room and it really just isn't a particularly well done piece of music!  i blame sting.  Mostly because I'd like to blame Sting for most things.  But really, as a fundraising tool?  I think they might have, as my mother always tells me, they might have caught more flies with honey than with that awful vinegar of righteous indignation, finger-pointing, and guilt tripping so extreme it even made jewish mothers crings and avert their eyes.  i mean sweet mary!  instead of inspiring a generation, you really just made us roll our collective eyes and groan.  The greatest gift they'll get this year is life?  Ok, well, good.  No need for me to send anything then, right?  Give it up, Sting!  i know it giot record numbers and all, but...really?!?  really.

But the funny thing that's happened with that song, is that it is so spectaculary awful, that it is now kitschy!  And is a pretty ridiculously fun time if you sing along at full volume with a friend as though you were singing something perky and whimsical like jingle bells or the most wonderful time of the year!  I urge you to try this.  It makes you feel a lot less homicidal!



So that's my big list.  I'm also not a fan of anyone who slows a christmas song down to a crawl for no apparent reason.  I mean, if it was already a sort of slow song like "oh holy night' or 'silent night' or whatever, do we really need to do it even slower?  And then, if it was a peppy song, was there a aprticular statement you intended to make by pulling it back like that?  I just don't see any deep or resonant message in a slow-dance version of 'rockin around the christmas tree' or 'rudolph the red nosed reindeer'.  I just feel a pressing impatience for you to pick up the tempo already!

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate.  And may I say that the few hannuak songs I know (aside from the dreidel song) are enchantingly and hauntingly beautiful, and I'd love to hear more.

BTW, my Dunk donuts crush was wearing a little headband with mistletoe.  Oh you perky, sweet little tease, how I love thee!

The Bright Side...

O.......
M.......
G......

!   !   !   !   !   !   !   !   !   !   !

It is getting so close I can taste it.

And it is gunna taste sooooooooooooooooooo sweet.

Speaking of sweet-- the hubs promised me an orgasm a night for this entire week.  He's turning out to be a little more like that 12 days of christmas song though:  One the first night, missed a night so then FIVE golden rings of shuddering pleasure on the third night, then already this morning I was treated to two more delightful little deaths...

Sigh.  Happy girl.  Looking forward to more pleasure this eve!

One more english class today and a drama class and then I'm off and then ONE MORE MUTHAFUCKING DAY!

Jimminy Christmas am I getting amped!

Also, have i mentioned that I swoon over anything Bing Crosby?  My standard pandora station is "Bing Crosby Radio".  The more popular pandora radio station is "Bing Crosby Holiday", which is waht I've been tuning into each morning here.  Bing, Louis, Ella, Frank, Deano, Sammy, Fred, The Great Durante, Judy,  ahhhhhh, how I love them all!

   The only thing I'm not super psyched about is having to do last minute shopping when my paycheck comes in on friday.  Eeeeek.  I'm no good with crowded shoppping places, but a friday paycheck means no way to avoid it.  Hopefully I don't go postal with consumer rage.

The wisdom of the husband

"I told you so" might as well be on Aaron's official coat of arms.

Not that he ever says it like that, precisely.  Usually it is more of a: "See?!  I knew it!"

Yes, folks, I married a perfect genius.  I mean that in all sincerity, not being facetious.  He is pretty fucking brilliant.  He has this knack with people; this uncanny ability to understand people and situations and motivations and... he's fucking perfect.

What I'm getting at is that he was right;  He was right-on-the-money that I should speak directly to my boss in a completely open and honest way.

I really think it cleared the air.  I left feeling practically fucking bouyant (especially compared to how leaden and doomed I felt before the meeting!).

And three more days till break?  no problem.

Well, excepting this fucking sore throat that cropped up out of fucking nowhere!  I chugged airborne when I first felt the tickle of it yeaterday, but to no avail.  Fiery, sore, scratcing, raw agony.

I am a bit over-dramatic about sore throats.  Have I ever mentioned that before?  Total baby.  Complete drama queen.  I wandered around the apartment this morning whimpering pitifully, like a two-year-old who needs a cuddle and a nap.  Aaron was about as sympathetic and kind as a half-asleep man can be when his adult wife is behaving like a whine-bag.  I adore him.  And tonight he will be roped into making me teas and soups :)

Meanwhile, to get through the day I have taken Tylenol Sore Throat Liquid (no better product on the market--take it from this drama queen), as well as a dose of the ALEVE D for all the other issues (leaking, running, pressure, etc.,)  ALEVE D is so fucking powerful for an OTC that you actually have to ask for it by name at the pharmacy counter and produce an ID. 

I debated the wisdom of mixing my meds, but ALEVE doesn't have acetaminiphin (sp?) and Tyleno doesn't have NSAIDs (whatever the fuck those are)-- so hopefully I'll be free of stomach bleeding and whatnot.

If not, well, that's a legit excuse to miss work, right?  Sorry, can't come in today, got the old stomach bleeding---yeah, it's going around this time of year...

So anyway.  Not all of my problems are solved, not by a long shot, but I at least feel secure in the knowledge that they do not want to fire me!

Now forward march to the holiday break!

The pinky promise.

So Aaron convinced me to talk to my principal.  "keep the lines of communication open" he said.  "be honest."  he said.

He was really convincing, and had brought me 'round to his way of thinking after a good long talk, and subsequently made me pinky promise.

So i sent her an e-mail.  As i pinky-swore I would do.

And we have a meeting this afternoon.

No I am freaking the fuck out about it.

Why had i ever imagines it would be a good idea??  She is a tough, no-nonsense type of person, and I can imagine me putting my foot in my mouth a hundred different catastrophic ways. 

She is going to hate me.

This was the worst idea ever.  I really don't think I can do it.  I'm going to look like a whiny pussy who can't handle her job.  I'll look like that because that is pretty much what I am.

Somehow, when Aaron framed it, it all seemed so smart, so pro-active, so professional.

but I have this forboding feeling that when I go down there it will come off as me making excuses, me looking like a fucking moron, me being pathetic and gross.

Not to mention that I caused a big to-do this morning by asking to have my kids skip specialists to complete their unit exams.  Jesus.  I followed the advice of my co-teachers and it landed me in some pretty hot water, and I am not the principal's favorite individual right now.  So this won't be stressful, akward, or awful at all.

Kill me.

My heart is clenching and choking in my chest right now.  I honestly don't know what I'm going to do, or say.  holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck.

I hate this so much.

Please let my heart burst in my chest!

Fragility Personified.

Phoning. It. The fuck. In.

Kids are finishing an exam today so I was allowed to sort of zombie through the day.  Tomorrow will be a different story. and after that.  This is going to be a hell of a long week.

Nearly left my husband last night.

Among other things.

Still here.

And morover, still HERE.  at this job.  In this skin. 

Ok.  Enough.  Or I will start crying in front of eighth graders. 

TLDR

So I'm having major problems, and the worst, the stupidest thing in the world is to whine and cry about them on a blog, I realize this; but I honestly don't like the alternatives right now.

Yes-- I am actually paying for therapy once a week, but no I don't feel like airing my issues there right now.

Yes-- I have an incredibly supportive and wonderful husband who listens, offers wisdom, and a shoulder to cry on; and NO I definitely don't feel like airing my issues with him at present.

Yes--I have a mother and dear friends who would likely be willing to listen, to give advice, to be there as comfort and support.

But I am so so so so so very very sick of airing my burdens to friends, loved ones, and even the fucking therapist, that I think I just need to try some of it out here. 

In solitude.

In the white-blue hum and glow of the internet.

I am crippled with depression.  Ok?  I said it.  It is beginning to look like going off those chemicals was maybe not the smartest.  It seemed like a good idea at the time, and I think I made a prudent decision, but look;  it isn't working.  I am not well.

Do other people, normal people I mean, do other people think about suicide hourly?  I doubt it.  And yet it feels so completely second nature that it is hard to believe other people don't live like this...

You have no idea how much I despise myself for the thoughts.  For the feelings, the impulses.  I don't like weakness in others and have trouble tolerating any in myself.  And yet.

So it looks like I may be trying to schedule something to get on birth control, because I really don't think that will be happening in my life.  "Not any time soon" Aaron is in the habit of saying.  Well, if not soon then when?  Likely never.  So fine.  Pump my body full of hormones.  Then add on top of that all the chemicals to fool my brain into thinking everything is ok.

Just to get through the days.  Of the career I chose and hate.  Of the bills I racked up and now am indentured to.  Of the hole I dug myself into from which there is no staircase, no rope, no ladder, and no tunnel out from.  Look at all the prepositions ending those sentences unabashedly.

I want out.  Reasons to stay are dwindling.

I feel guilty every single minute.  The guilt and the shame is heavy.  Crushing.  Paralyzing.

I don't deserve the man that has been infinitely patient and kind--not just these past two days, but always.  He tells me he loves me and all I feel is guilt.  He asks how he can help and all I feel is grief.

I woke up hating today.  Sundays are forfeit for me lately because they are harbingers of mondays.  I waste the day in a funk because all I can think about is the pending workweek.

Dread.

Misery.

And then I feel guilty about complaining about having a job that is (almost) paying the bills.  A job I fought for tooth and nail.  A job I can't give up and AT WHICH I need to get better (grammar fairy is pleased).

Guilt guilt guilt, shame shame shame, and then apathy.  Because feeling this much pain cannot be endured for long without going insane or giving up.  I wish I could go insane.  Instead I shrug,  And tend toward cold, miserable apathy.  Self destructive, relationship-killing, job-forfeiting apathy.

God, this is bleak.

My therapist will tell me to get a new job.  She is sweet, and I suppose from the outside it looks that simple.  But in the real world of debt and responsibility we all know that it isn't that easy-- is it?

I don't want to let Aaron down.  He would never let me down.

But I wonder if the band-aid ripping suddenness, the fast & quick, would, in the long-run, be the better option that the slow, painful, drawn-out miser and descent into this awful pit that I am putting him through now.

And has anyone seen that show Once upon a time on like ABC?  Christ.  And I'm not a writer for a living?  seriously?  My fault, I know.  My choices, my lot in life.  My insec urities, my failures.

But really?

Whatever.

(apathy)

A few words about family.

Aaron's observation:

"I've never met anyone more awkward around their own family..."

Family party today.

Waste of fucking time.

I don't think I actually believe too much in family; not in the way we're taught to do.  I believe in choosing those dear to you.  I choose my sisters (but only barely), I choose my brother and sister-in-law; I still choose my parents-- but beyond that?  No thanks.  I see you all once a year and I'm expected to feel something?

I choose my dear friends and consider them family.  I consider Aaron's grandmother family--but none of the rest of them (well, I suppose Eric, despite how all that ridiculous shit went down when he lived here with us...)

Forget the rest of them.  I wish them no ill will, but I feel nothing for them; no stirrings of kinship; no well of emotion or bond.

Best. Morning. In a while.

Sick Day ;)

Tired.  Bone tired.  Weary.  Drained.  Tapped.  Over it.

Helping a sweet, sweet kid prepare for some audition she has on staurday in boston.

She is a doll.  I am being helpful.

But it only serves to reinforce how completely over that industry I am.

And I have this drama class that I teach in the afternoons, last period.  I am sooo over it.

The things a middle school teacher can do...

Whoops!

Been a few days since my last post.  My pornographic one :)

I am practically counting the minutes till vacation.

Boy oh boy oh boy oh.

Tomorrow is wednesday.  Insightful, I know.  But that's what teaching does to a person.  My brain is mushifying daily.

Next week I may or may not be able to name the days of the week.  But I certainly COULD remind you to walk in the halls, not run; remind you to please take the pass if you are leaving the room; Remind you that there's no food or drink except in the cafeteria; and tell you in forty different ways to be quiet, stop talking, turn around, focus on your work, stop tipping in your chair, stay on task, and wake up.


So.  I've got that going for me.

PORN!

The internet is for porn.  Or so says one of my favorite broadway songs of the last two decades.

Yes.  It is.  It is for porn, porn, porn!

So you may have gathered that it has been a long, long, looooonnnnng miserable awful no good terrible horrible no good very bad week for me.

Earlier in the week I came home and rewarded myself for surviving the day by givining myself many orgasms.

Yesterday I came home and rewarded myself by indulging in several good hours of video gaming.

Today I came home and the whim to troll tumblr sites gripped me.  I have rewarded myself with some intriguing pornographic imagery.

It varies, depending on the day, what will get my motor humming.   Many days it is threesomes or moresomes.  I love the idea of multiple people all engaged in giving and receiving pleasure.  Some days I can't get enough of fellatio.  Suck it, bitch!  Yeah, suck that big hard cock!  Still other days I am tantalized by the oh-so-innocent but clearly not-so-innocent school girl thing.  And I have a real weak-in-the-knees thing for men dressed in full business attire roughly handling nude submissive women.  Whoa.  Makes me hotter than hell.

But today?  today the thing that's been ringing my chimes?  Cunnilingus and knowledge. I LOVE viewing images of women getting eaten out. Worshipped.  Paid tribute.  Today I can't get enough of it.  Men, women, doesn't matter.  There is someething so very alluring and seductive about watching a woman taking pleasure in someone kissing and licking and pleasuring her between her legs.

I won't share all the images that have caught my image this evening, but I will share a few...

Um... Not work safe--did I have to mention that when I'd entitled the blog "Porn!"?

bon apetit!


Ok, so lets first look at images that are absolutely not explicitly pornographic--in that they don't actually show anything!  But they imply EVERYTHING.  I adore images like this.  A woman's imagination, they say, is her biggest and most powerful erogenous zone...

I fucking ADORE this one.

Tantalizing

Women dressed in full male business attire is NOT one of my turnons, as it reminds me of Dianne Keaton, but I rather enjoy the gentleman burying his nose in her femininity...

 Ok.  Now, for fun, let's look at illustrated carpet munching!

What a lithe and obedient houseboy!

Isn't the discarded lollipop in the foreground just a delicious touch?

Old-timey girl-on-girl!  I heart this!  Stay classy, turn of the century lesbians!

This one cracks me right the fuck up!  She was going to commit suicide, and was literally saved by oral sex! 

Heyyyy, how's this ode to cock get in here?  It earned its way to honorable mention for being ridiculously amusing, that's how!  I feel like some guy was sitting arund doodling one day and his pen birthed this insanity..,

Ok.  Lets take a look at some slightly more exposed stuff.  I'm opting NOT to show some full-on graphic shots of pussy here or the more intense cunnelingus because I don't need to nbe an oversharer (lol) but anyway... YUM.....

And lastly, I'm on this 'knowledge' is sexy thing.  Sounds lame, I know.  I don't entirely get it either, but ours is not to reason why.  Check out these adorable images and maybe you'll get me....

"We're reading a book...together...in a state of semi-undress...isn't that scrumptious of us?"

You nknow I love me some pin-up lookin girls.  And this one's got a brain! maybe...

And of course.  The apple.  From the tree of knowledge.  Sigh.  Note how this one doesn't even show anything explicit!!And yet so fucking erotic.

And my sentimental fave.  Geeks beware:  she's curvy, she's pale, she's a starwars nerd and an old-school gamer.  If I were a guy, I'd have come in my pants.

And are those boyshorts?!?! A-fucking-dorable!

Holy hell.  I thought this day would never come.  Really truly.  Holy god. 

holy moly.

ho.

phew.

When i think about you I...

So...

yesterday, inspired by my early-morning nocturnal emission, i decided to leave work earlier than usual (I trypically stay until 6pm), head home and specnd a little time racking up some O's.

What a lovely way to spend an afternoon.

It was as if my body was primed and ready to go after that episode in the AM, because achieving the first one took no time at all, and the subsequent ones were just as simple.  It felt good to indulge!

and boy am I glad I took matters into my own hands rather than waiting for Aaron to get home, because as it turns out the monthly visitor arrived just as he was getting home, so Id've been thwarted had i waited for his expertise.


so.  Sigh of ease.  Brought myself to orgasm a good five or six times before deciding I was plenty pleasured and took a much-needed nap.

So now I don't mind the period so much.

Oh, well, plus I woke aaron up in the middle of the night last night for some serious Anal fucking.  So, came again there.  yay all around to that aspect of my life.

The work front?  Sheesh.  let's just say I realllllllly fucking needed those orgasms.  Orgasms or suicide.  Like Eddie Izzard's cake-or-death.  Ummmm cake please.

Also, on the financial front I am pretty well fucked.  i am broke till friday and bills to pay.  jesus.  How can I be making practically double what I was making last year and still be so financially strapped?  Mo' mone mo' problems, right?

And christmas looming.  I just don't know.

there is really no concievable way for me to juggle another job, not at the rate I'm going.  I'll burn out before june.  Nope.  What I need is some way to reduce the debt.

run away to india and disappear?

we'll see.

hitting students when they misbehave doesn't sound a bad as it once did... j/k...or am I?

Talk about the power of positive thinking!

I decided to sleep in a little this morning. 

I usually wake up pretty early, crawl out of bed, stagger around with a glower, take my pills (if I can remember) and trundle off to work-- aiming to arrive just as the janitor unlocks the building at 6:30 am.

This morning, instead of getting up super early, I cuddled up next to my husband and stole some extra warm, languid sleep.

I was rewarded for this decision with what can only be described as the female equivalent of a male's wet dream.

The dream was highly realistic, borrowing from my present circumstances (feeling my husband's warmth and ... well... you get the idea... pressed to my back), and in the dream instead of lying there I mounted it and rode it to bliss.

And I actually came.  From IMAGINING a cock inside me.  From dreaming about clitoral + g-spot stimulation.  I fucking orgasmed in my state of half-sleep/half-waking.  Moaning, whimpering, breathless. 
It woke Aaron up and subsequently woke me up, the wonderment of feeling my femininity snapping and pulsing.

It was wonderful.

Not a bad way to start a morning.

I then cuddled with the hubby a while more and wished we didn't have to go anywhere, or do anything more than relish the soft, tenuous early morning gift I'd been given.

But here I am at work. 

Far, far away from orgasmville.

And only tuesday-- so far from the blessed and cherished weekend.

but i give myself a ghost of a smile when I think about that strange and wonderful little happening this moring, beneath the sheets, between layers of consciousness.

Subsistance, Sorrow, and Sensibility

 If Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolfe had written about Miss Bennett and Mr. Darcy?

Survived another week.  By the skin of my teeth. 

Three more till christmas break.

Tick tock tick tock tick

They tell me that if a new teacher makes it to Christmas break that she'll make it the whole year.

Meanwhile I'm looking into pie-in-the-sky ideas.  Googling the hell out of jobs in other industries, researching online degree programs, yearning for a life spent doing what I want to do when I want to do it and how I want to do it and getting paid handsomely for it.

Aaron, a pragmatist, tells me as gently as possible that there is no such thing.  Fantasy.  Myth.  Fiction.  He isn't saying it in a soul-crushing way.  He's being really kind, and very careful about it, but essentially he's helping me step out of my little-girl dreams and into the reality of adulthood.

But he is ever supportive.  Steadfastly supportive.  And encouraging.

And he is also trying to help me work through the trauma of working for a living.  He's been working jobs since high school.  And he's great at working.  He's really good at wading through the bullshit, at being agreeable, at not taking things personally, and getting through the day.

His advice is to "find all the things you DO like about your job; focus on them."  He maintains that if I continue to get worked up about the other stuff, continue to stress and focus on the negative, that I will go insane.

And I can't quit this job.

And I can't check-out.

So I'd better find some way to manage.  To get by. 

And actually get good enough at my job so that they don't fire me before I can make arrangements for my next (to be failed) career venture.

The problem with wanting out of this job?  It pretty much seals the deal on the whole kids debate.  If I don't have a steady job and steady income there will be NO CHILDREN.  That's just the way it is. 

Sigh.

It is shaping up to be another season of everyone-around-me-is-having-a-baby.  Cousins, sisters, co-workers. 

New baby a week a month ago, another a week or so ago, another baby due this week, and then both my sister and sister in law are due in the spring/early summer.

Happy for them all around.

And I love watching my baby nieces getting older.  Zoe, Natalie, Maggie, Sophia.  And my grown up neices and nephews too! 

But there's something inexpressibly melancholy about being an aunt.  I didnt want to think so.  I didn't want to believe that. But there it is.  A separate, spare quality. 


It is sunday.  And sundays hurt because monday is coming. 

But waking up this sunday morning warm and cozy, loved and languid; having my dearest wish come true never gets old, never grows stale, never disappoints.  I love falling asleep in his arms every night, and waking up beside him every morning.  It was what I prayed for, wished for, and worked for  for YEARS.  And having it, it becomes more dear, never less so.

I'm a lucky, lucky woman.

Despite all my bitching and moaning.

what the fuck was I thinking?

Is there another word for bittersweet?

Ever miss the sound of someone's voice?  I mean really miss it?

I'm not sure why, but I have been trapped in memory lane lately.  The bittersweet pull of nostalgia.  Confronting those haunting but useless questions... the 'what if's and the 'why's.

I'm honestly not sure why I've been strolling that lane as of late.  Wandering wistfully, ruminating ad remembering.

My head knows better.  I remind myself that everything unfolds just as it was destined to unfold, and that I would be better served forgetting this nonsense.  Locking it up in the deeper recesses of the hall of records.  Kiss it goodbye and never go looking for it again.  It is the arc of the covenant in that military warehouse.  File it and forget it.  And fuck it!

Yet still my thoughts seem to wander.

And still I sigh, every now an again. 

And look those 'what if's square in the face.

And stare down those 'why's, unable to blink, unable to back away.

Reminds me of music.  Reminds me of song.  These feelings too deep, and broad, and full for the written, for the spoken.  This mysterious pull that lures me with the reminiscences of that voice.  Always surprising--never exactly as I thought it was, or remembered it... 

And so I muddle through, through the motions, through the routine.  I continue on as if it is healed, pretending i don't know it is infected. 

Last time I got like this I picked the scab.

 just to feel the slightest ghost of what was.  To hear that voice.

Not this time.

What would be the point?

And naturally I torture myself with the tantalizing question:  do they ever feel this way?  Do they ever pause and remember and long and sigh?  Do the what ifs and the whys tug at their hem?  Pull at their heartstrings, pervade their consciousness fromn time to time?

Oh, vanity.  Oh, pride.

Reminds me of an exchange from one of my favorite plays.

"You never write"


"Because I thought you'd never answer."


"...I've spent every night walking every street in hell."


"That's odd; I never saw you there."

A plea to no one in particular. Ignore it.

Ok.

I don't think I've ever really had a panic attack.

I've seen aaron have one or two in our time, and I don't think I'm experiencing that...

But I am teetering on the edge of something pretty perilous here.

I am sitting here seriously wondering how I'll make it through the day, and how I'll make it through the next day, and the day after that.


What the fuck am I going to do?

Aaron says happiness is something you choose. 

I really don't know.

Is it acceptable to hide under my desk?

Jesus christ.

I don't want to be here.  I'm such an asshole, I know, I know.  I'm a ridiculous, awful person.  I know.

and I know I can't quit.  I know.

There are so many things I know--so why do I feel so fucking lost and clueless?


whatthefuckamigoingtodo????????????????????????????????????????????????????????


oh my godohmygodohmygod.  I need to go home.  I really do.  Holy shit.  What the fuck? 


This is bananas.

It is almost comic.  Sitting here typing my internal monologue in the hopes that it will exorcise some of it.  Ha. 

Oh my god.  I can't teach a class while on the verge of tears.  helphelphelphelphelp.

Ok.  time to buck up.  Time to pull my shit together.

8th graders, like predators, can smell fear.

They thrive on exploiting vulnerabilities.

brbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbbrbrbrbr.


!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

not just anybody...

the last day of my vaca was sacrificed to teacher-stuff.  And I resented it.  Today I went to work.  And I resented it.
Right now i am supposed to be doing more in the way of work obligations, and I resent it and abhor it so thoroughly that I am not doing a single bit of it.

just stressing about it and resenting it.

is there any way out?

you work so hard for something, only to find out it isn't at all what you want.

and I really haven't got another 'start over' left.

i hate worrying about sucking at a job i don't even like... worrying about losing a job I don't really want.

help.

A day late...

So, in what must surely be typical Aaron & Beth style, we could not seem to get our act together in time to cook our first Thanksgiving on Thursday.

Instead we took the pressure off it.  We popped in to say the requisite 'hello' to our families, came home and did some minor cleaning, then took the rest of the day off.  I napped.  He played Skyrim.  I was a little disappointed.  But Not so worked up that I had it in me to get up and do more cleaning, or prepare a huge meal!

So this morning we woke up, had some great sex, then proceeded to do some cleaning.  Then I played Skyrim (It was SO my turn), and he cleaned the entire kitchen, every dish and pot and pan, and it was wonderful. 

So finally, finally, it was time to make our Thanksgiving! 

We'd gone to a farmer's market for some of our harvest veggies, and to Trucchi's for the rest (Just like the pilgrims did it...)  for instance, canned cranberry sauce (just like the pilgrims...)


I was on my feet preparing a veritable vegetarian feast for hours!  And it was so much fun!  We had the harvest bake, I made a pot pie, I made a green bean casserole (first time, not sure how I felt about it ultimately.  I used fresh green-beans, contrary to the directions, and suffered because of it.  Needed alot more time in the oven...), I sauteed up some brussels sprouts with garlic and brown sugar (yum!), Had baked confetti squash stuffed with stuffing to which I added edamame for protein (just like the... yeah, joke gets old, right?).  We had pillsbury crescent rolls because they make Aaron happy, and corn and mashed potatoes (aaron made the mashed potatoes and the were rock-your-socks-off delish!); little cornbreads, apple cider (local farms), and I think... I think that's it.    We had so much food we didn't even cut into the pie.  No we'll have that as leftovers!

Plus I even threw in an almond poundcake for desert and it is perfection!  Even better with a touch of strawberry rhubarb jam!  But we decided we were much too full for much desert, so we've sampled it, loved it, and will enjoy it over the coming week.

You know what?  It was the best thanksgiving either of us have had in years.  And even though it was vegetarian?  It FELT like Thanksgiving.  We did not miss the turkey one bit!  We had a MEAL, not a collection of side dishes.  And we were happy.  And we were together, in our home, no pressure, no stress, just warmth and fun and love.  And the Reardon China, and the Wedding crystal :)  And papertowels, lol.  And most things served in the same vessel in which they were prepared.  Nobody to impress!

Now I'm slow cooking leftover veggies in veggie broth and heavy cream to make a delicious autumn bisque.  It smells like gastronomical divinity.

I may add some rosemary on top and let it sloooooooowwwwww cook overnight.

And, when we were digested a little bit, we celebrated our private thanksgiving with a sound fucking all around.  Fucking fabulous.  I was rewarded very generously for my domesticity today.  Positive orgasmic reinforcement!

So.  Happy Thanksgiving.  While many spent today in the thrall of consumer madness, standing in lines and shopping for the best bargain, I was at home, relaxed, happy, healthy, harmonious. 

Hope you all found joy and happiness in your holidays as well!

:)

Wonderful Wednesday

Woke up early with the intention  of playing the new videogame before Aaron could get to it, but as I sat down in the gaming chair I had a powerful urge to write some scenes I'd been thinking about before bed. I got one done.  One started.  Not sure if they have any sizzle or value, but at least they are written!  SO much of my stuff lately has been theoretical.  Ideas bouncing around in my head and dying out beore they ever get recorded.

I miss being able to write whenever.

I still have a love\hate relationship with my writing, and sorta wish I would 'piss or get off the pot' as my mother would say...  but what can I do?  This is the longest any one idea has captivated me this long.  And imagine if I branched out and wrote about other families and problems?  It could be infinite.  Like my addiction to the sims used to be... heyyyyyy...

Aaron and I have committed to having our very own thanksgiving tomorrow.  This will be the first one we've had together alone as a couple.  I am excited.  But the fist thing we have to do is tackle this incredibly daunting amount of cleaning!

We now have more than a passing investment, though.  We went to the farmer's market (it is fucking freezing out for a farmer's market, incidentally)  and picket up a good amount of harvest-y vegetable for a heftier sum than I'd been anticipating.  But the clerk was so friendly and thoroughly vegetarian and helpful that there just couldn't be that moment of: "Howthefuck much?  Um, no.  We're putting half this shit back!" 

Nope.  Instead I swallowed by blank surprise, commented on how many wonderful vegetarian cookbooks she had, and then she OFFERED TO LET US BORROW SOME.  Wild.  I fucking adore local business.

So.  On the menu?

Still tentative.  But here are the officially-decided-upon items:

~Harvest Bake~

Butternut squash, turnip, parsnip, carrot, red potato, and sweet potato baked with rosemary. (and shallots if you have 'em.  I fogot about them and Aaron doesn't care for them, so whatever.) It is my absolute fave, and the leftovers can be stewed in vegetable broth, pureed, and mixed with some heavy cream to make the BEST autumn bisque!

~Stuffed Confetti Squash~

We usually do acorn squash, but this confetti squash is roughly the same shape and size, and was at the farmer's market!  We'll stuff it with, well, stuffing (pepperidge farms makes a stuffing that blessedly contains no amount of chicken stock, chicken fat, chicken bones, or chicken powder.  Chicken powder?  True story.  Try reading the back of your stuffing bags/boxes.  Thanks for powdering the chicken--I really hate it when it's chicken lumps...) that has been fortified with either a bean or maybe edamame... something to give it protein.

Other than that I'm a little up in the air.  I could do a veggie pot-pie, which is yummy.  I also purchased spinach and green beans, for the, well, the green-ness.  But no clue on what I'm going to do with them.  I might go mid-western and try a greenbean casserole!   Oh, and we bought a can of corn and some pillsbury crescent rolls to sate Aaron's pining for his grandmother's.

We will no miss sitting through our family's dinners.  Quoth Aaron:  "I can't tell you how psyched I am about this opting out of thanksgiving thing."  He told me a yesterday.  "I wish we could opt out of more!"  You should have seen the honest glee in his expression.  Priceless.

Tu-Friday...

Oh, Tu-Friday, how I love thee.  I love that you mean my weekend is already at hand! I also kinda love that you sound vaguely vegetarian.  And sassy, like tutti-fruitti gum!

I love love love love love that my work day is almost over!

Amen Amen Amen.

Someone told me at the beginning of the year that if I made it to thanksgiving that I'd make it through the year.  We shall see.  Another person held the carrot a little further out--at Christmas break.

The kids today were fascinated puzzled and appalled that I wouldn't be partaking in turkey this Thanksgiving.  They find the choice to be vegetarian so bizarre!

"Don't you miss chicken?!"  The exclaim, disbelieving that anyone could willingly give up the delicious bird.  "It tastes sooooo good!"

I sigh and shrug and smile. 

And tell them that I LOVE mashed potatoes.  We all agree on that.

Ms. Reardon gets hate grafitti...

Yes indeed.

On the inside cover of one of the copies of the novel we're reading.  I discovered it today while instructing students on where to turn for their book numbers, as today was finally sign out day for the novels.

It reads as follows:

Mrs. Reardon

sucks

Big dicks

and is a

fat ass

Bitch

I have written it out as it appears in scrawled pencil.  And doesn't it almost read like poetry?

I was shocked and amused when first I beheld it.

Then I thought about it.

And.

I think no truer hate grafitti has yet been written about me!

I do indeed suck big dick (yum); I have a beautifully large curvaceous posterior (love!), and who among us has not been know to be a bitch?

So, overall, I think I'm not too terribly upset at the little gesture of rebellion.  I have my suspicions on who is responsible.  But nothing will come of it.

Except... except I may frame this for posterity.

I'm a sentimental gal ;)

Miss Reardon pines...

The hours after I posted weren't as bad as that first one.  I learned about a few things that seem like they might be really valuable!  And fun.

But in the end, I have mixed feelings.  I got 6 PDPs, which, I dunno, are something a teacher is tasked with aquiring for some reason or another.  Anyhow, I got some of those-for free-- which I gather is a boon. 

Professional development.

For a profession about which I am luke-warm right now.  Tepid at best.

My heart wants OUT!

My head knows I need to stay and keep chipping away at it.

Aaron says I've never had any job very long and that this is my normal pattern.  He tells me that I hate working.  ANY job, and always try to find a way out, always begin to look at alternatives.  He thinks I generally end up liking my jobs after this phase of push-back and wanderlust.

We'll see.

I have found myself resenting how much time and energy and creativity goes into this bullshit career.  I think to myself:  If only this placeholder career didn't take up so much of my fucking time, perhaps I'd have time to train/prepare for my next one! 

See, I've pretty much decided that I don't want to be a teacher forever.  At least not this kind of teacher.  Maybe if I were a drama teacher, or maybe if I were a college professor (where at least I could curse like a sailor and not be afraid of mentioning anything at all remotely sexual...again, I'd be a theatre professor, so it'd be impossible not to discuss the most basic human motivation after hunger...).

But not this.  Not this bizarre in-between of elementary school teacher and high-school teacher.  Not this job that simultaneously requires that I be a molly-coddler and a whip-cracker.

And btw, my biggest fear when I was in high-school (besides unwanted pregnancy) was becoming a teacher... especially a fucking english teacher.  Weren't all your english teachers bananas?  Mine were.  Crazy, unhinged, fruitloops, and very very often bitches royale!

Aaron affectionately tells me that I'm the perfect kind of crazy to be a middle school english teacher.  He thinks its great and that the kids must love me.  I'm not so sure.  And it freaks me out that I might have been 'destined' or whatever, to be this...

I want to work in the entertainment industry.  I don't want to be an actor--I left that for a whole host of reasons.  It wasn't just:  have something to fall back on.  There was something about being an actor that felt so... haphazard.  So much of that career is out of your hands.  Up to the fates.  The whims and arbitrary decisions of strangers.  I didn not like the powerlessness I felt, even at my most empowered.

I left acting for many reasons and it is a door I've pretty well shut forever.  In fact, I'm a little tired of teaching middle school drama too.  Drama alltogether!  (not altogether, because that would be an exciting way to teach drama!  eww, but not to middleschoolers, yuck.  How about them college kids, though?? yeahhhhhh..... anyway....)

I want to be someone more in the director's realm.  But I'm not ready to spearhead anything.  Or be in charge of too many other people.  But I want a job in the creative arts industry.  And I'd like to not be responsible for anyon'es learning for a while.

I mean.  I was looking at the NEA and other arts + education organizations and wondering if maybe I'd be best talking about arts education, rather than actually doing it.  But I'd feel like a fraud.  You know?  Designing lessons I'd never have to implement personally?  What an asshole!

And I'm really intrigued with the idea of educational gaming.  Well.  Not entirely true.  I'm intrigued with the idea of gaming, and getting into the gaming industry, and I guess I figure since I have all this educational background, that's how I might be able to find an 'in'.

But this is all moot.

Because I have a job.  And It's the one I need to be doing.  For a long, long, long, long, time.

The way I'm losing precious hours of my life...

I am sitting at a technology conference, bored out of my mind. 

This particular presentation is basically telling me how to do a google search.  In excrutiating detail.  Exceptionally slowly and with no charisma whatsoever...

Sigh.

At least it was free.....................................................................................................

FML

Have A Magical Day!

I have a crush on the dunkin donuts girl.

She isn't there every single day, which makes her all the more precious to me.  She is by far the most adorable and also the most effective take-out window clerk i have ever experience.

She had dark reddish\brown curls that are always a bit on the frizzy side.  She's got a dusting of light freckles over perpetually rosy cheeks--the kid you just know a grandmother pinched vigorously and often.

She's perky, but not in a disingenuous way; her spunkiness is infectious!  her smile is contagious!  Her warmth is enveloping!  Her laughter is uplifting!

And the best part? 

Where most people would tell me to have a good one, or have a nice day?  This girl says, and I tell you with all sincerity that it is neither facetious nor is it too saccharine; she tells me:  "Have a magical day!"

I can hear her genuine, light-hearted upward inflection now as I write this. 

sighhhhhhhhhhhhh. 

Oh sweet Dunkin Donuts girl.  I adore you. 

Thanks for making those mornings so fabulously splendid.  Dare I say: Magical?

Miss Reardon calls home...

Making phone calls home to tell parents that their kids are fuckholes is one of the more stressful and less enjoyable parts of my new career.

And this is why I am sitting here with Bailey's in my cocoa.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Self-medicating and taking the edge off; how the Irish have rolled since the invention of spirits...

Amen.

Faith and begorrah!

Ohmygod, shoes.

Things I want to say 'thank you' for!

Every now and then, like a flower blooming in a barren field, like a treasure glinting in the muck, there come things into my life for which I am grateful.  Little silly things that make me unreasonably happy.

Always, thank heavens, always there are mu\y friends and loved ones.  I do not deserve their continued support and love, but there it is; to buoy me, to anchor me, to wrap me up and keep me safe.  They mean everything to me, and I am eternally and undyingly grateful.

But this post isn't about the big things; its about the little things that make my day, or week, or month.

For instance.  THANK YOU to Savers thrift store, for giving me all my most favorite pairs of shoes!  Holy Moly!  I used to avoid buying shoes at thrift stores because my friend Jeff had all these dire supoerstitions that he got from his very traditional Italian grandmother.  One of them was about walking in a dead man's shoes, and I guess at a thrift store you never do know, right?

But times change.  Have you SEEN the price of brand new shoes?  Plus, as a vegetarian I refuse to support the leather industry, so I'm forced into buying synthetics, which is fine by me, except that synthetic materials ain't no match for leather, so they wear out at an astonishingly quick rate, but the shoes are still SUPER expensive!

At Savers I can get shoes for less than $7, not worry about whether they're leather or not (we have a rule about secon-hand stuff.  We're not supporting the industry, and we're being greeeeen!)--I still try to avoid leather, but often there's no real way to know!  Ok, so at $7 or less I can feel free to buy on a whim, you know?!  Because say they don't work out, turns out they don't quite fit right when I get them home, or that they fall apart after a couple months, or that they are actually a little too zany even for me when the sobriety of the next day hits me (this RARELY happens, I assure you, but even I, on occasion, have suffered buyer's remorse), WHO THE FUCK CARES?  Because guess what?  They cost me like $5.50.  No big loss!

So shopping for shoes at savers can be a freeing experience! 

Sure, sure, it can also be a frustrating one.  I mean, there's only ever, you know, just the ONE pair of things.  At a real store if you see a cute shoe but it isn't displayed on the shelves in your size there's always a chance they have one somewhere.  OR you could check the website and such.   At a thrift store?  No such luck.  A seven is a seven is a seven, so suck it, size nines!  I mean once in a while you'll hit thrift store gold and they will have been donated a whole LOT of some style of shoe, and it is like HEAVEN.  But this is rare.  I don't know what these shoe companies are that donate entire LOTS of shoes, but keep up the stelaar charity work, folks!

But overall I'd say the exciting finds far outweigh the frustrations.  Little risk, lots of reward.  I now have savers to thank for all my current favorites: 

The Black Wedge heels that are both stylish and comfortable like a mawfuckah!  I wear those bitches to WORK!  ALL DAY!  And they don't hurt a bit!  (another bonus for thrift store shoes: someone else has already done the hard work of breaking them in for me!  Thanks, shoe slave.  It makes me feel like a pampered princess to imagine petty servants walking up and down for the purpose of giving my tootsies a better ride!)

This is the basic idea, but mine have much cuter detailing.  But look at that height!!

The New Dark Red wedges with the gentlest red&cream herringbone trim that feel very reminiscent of the black ones, only even more adorable because of the hint of sophisticated color, and the button off to the side.  Oh, they'z so frickin cute!

Legit.  How frickin' cute are these?!?!?!?

A few other styling bitches, that I had trouble finding images for, but you know they cute.  The following pics are close analogues for some of my fave finds at savers...

Shimmering Zebra Shoes!  Yay!

Sequined Flats! Sassafrass!

Fuckin Fire-Engine Red Penny Loafers, Bitch!

TWEED Shoes?!?!  Yup. And Mine are even cuter because there's more orange tones, and theres this little flower on them... So London, So Fun!

PLUS one of my all time favorite pairs.  My Neon Yellow Flats.  Seriously.  These babies are Safety-yellow.  Simple, yet statement-making!  People never fail to notice the little flash of day-glow peeping out from 'neath my cuff hem.  They're conversation starters, they bring joy to people's faces, they are simple, comfortable, silly, and satisfying!  I have over-worn them sadly, so they are getting pretty scuffed and ragged.  I bought them, like, a year ago with my friend, who picked up a matching pair in Neon Pink!  And if she's not wearing them, she could send them my way for some LOVE! :)

Goddamned Glorious.

I Absolutely adore the whimsy, the happenstance, the absolute serendipity of finding second hand shoes you adore!   

Thank You Savers!

Pleasant Polly?

WOW.  Sinus pressure headache like a mothafucking freight train right now.  Ho-ly-SHIT.  I'm not the nasal allergy type, and my colds don't usually take this miserable form, so I am... whoa.  I pretty much wanna rip my face off right now.  I keep trying to massage the sinuses, but I need some real reflief!  looks like I'll be stopping by CVS on way home (a trek i plan on making as soon as fucking possible!  No staying until 6pm today!)

So if they could call a vote of confidence on me right now at work, I'm pretty sure i'd be ousted.  You know, people are always like: 'Oh, ask lots of questions!  People love it when you ask questions!"  But I'm beginning to suspect that my initial instinct was correct in this matter:  Asking too many questions makes your bosses doubt your competency.

I shoulda been sticking to the old stage adage: Fake it till you make it! 

Instead I have been frank about my concerns, my inadequacies, my lack of preparation for this gig, and now I'm being very very  VERY closely monitored. 

As if I didn't already want to quit!

Christ.

Oh, and anyone want any cats?  I'm about at the end of my patience with these boys.  I have NEVER given up a pet before, but I am pretty much over having them at this point.

I will never never never never get another cat.

If I had my way, we'd never get another pet.  Period.

Well.  Ok, we haven't ever had a dog.  Maybe we'll get a nice dog someday.

We're not having kids.  Unless there's some freak accident or twist of fate.  So maybe a dog.  Might be nice.


My fucking head/face!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i am not a pleasant polly right now!

I was supposed to stay late and enter all my grades into the computer portal for term one.  Nopes.  I am going the FUCK home as soon as fucking possible.

Oh, and CVS on the way.

Absolutely.

Indubitably.

Creative Writing, Doctor!

Ok.

No.  It isn't 'ok'.  I say "ok" alot.  And it couldn't be further from the truth.

I am not OK.

Something, nay, many things are really wrong with me.

And instead of wanting to get better, I would honestly rather throw in the towel.

Survival instinct is supposed to be innate.  intrinsic.  inherent.

I have a fundamental defect.

And every time I try to point this out to myself I get even more disgusted and spiral even further into self-loathing.

And I don't want to be,  nor can I really afford to be on pills for this for the rest of my natural life.

So.

What to do?

Aaron thinks he might study to be a paleontologist. 

I spent part of this evening looking at writing degrees accross the country.  It was exciting, thinking about changing my life.

And then I remembered that I've had my go.  I've paid and am struggling to make payments on those years, those semesters, those course loads of self indulgence.  I don't get to go to fucking WRITING school!  Am I insane?!?!  Yes.  I believe we've established that soemthing is seriously mal-formed in here. 

It is his turn.  and good heavens above, the man has earned it.  I don't give a fuck if he wants to go back to school for african drumming.  What he wants he will get.  And I will work myself into the ground-god willing- to give it to him.

I do not get to go back to school to pursue yet another ridiculous, self-indulgent, self-aggrandizing, self-delusional pipe-dream.

My sentence for those wasted years is doing what I'm doing.  Struggling to make my square peg fit into the round hole.  Black hole.  sink hole.

For as long as he needs.

I just worry that I won't be able to hold up my end of the bargain.

That I'll surrender to the darker things before I get the chance to fulfill my sacred obligation.  I owe him everything.

I wish it hadn't happened like this.

I really wish it had all been different.

Sometimes I wish we'd never met.

That's how much I love him.

Can oyu imagine me submitting my writing for admittance into a PHD program in creative writing?

The thought is enough to douse even the most persistent little flame of hope.

I suppose I could do what I did to pass my creative writing course in college... submit Aaron's work instead of my own and have adulation poured upon me...

He really is ridiculously talented.

If it weren't for me, for my debt, for my anchoring him here, he could go anywhere, be anything, and be a world-changer.

I know he sees it differently. 

He says my vision is warped because of this peculiar sickness of mine.

I say his vision is clouded by some shadow of a girl he fell in love with years ago.

She doesn't exist now.

She hasn't for some time.

He's fighting for her, but she's nothing more than memory.

The woman in her place is a pale comparison.  A sham.  A fraud. 

And I feel so guilty that everyone keeps looking for that girl.

Anyway.  A PhD in creative writing?  What a ridiculous thing to have a doctoral program for.

A Gamer-iffic holiday!

Things that I did in the name of sanity/self-indulgence/self-therapy yesterday:


Woke up super early and dragged the hubs to SAVERS for their Veteran's Day half-off sale!  I got some cute stuff, not as much as last time, but still.  Plus a couple pairs of shoes I like too, and Aaron got some good stuff :)

Got Mary Lou's coffee on the way!  TREAT!

Returned home from savers and tried stuff on because I was not putting myself through the bullshit of the Savers veteren's day half-off sale dressing room Nazi and her bullshit out-of-control dressing room attitude problem, rules, and restrictions.  Nope nope nope.  THere's only so much a quick-blooded Irish can take, and I was already at my absolute limit with the fucking shoppers, no way was I gunna suffer through that dripping cuntsicle.  Could I have saved money had I tried things on in store and eliminated items that did not fit or did not look as good on my body as they did on the rack?  sure thing.  But remember, we're talking a half-off sale at a deep-discount thrift store.  So, all told I probably would have saved 10-15 buckaroos.  Me not having a toatal-fucking-breakdown and ripping the dressingroom Nazi's hair out over deep-discount thrift store merch?  Priceless.

Discovered that one item of clothing turned Aaron on very, very much and had an amazing morning of fun in the bed. 

Then a nap.  a long, long, hearty, healthy, pleasant, worry-free nap.  Sated, satisfied, sexified, splendiferous nap.  We both needed it.  It has been a long few weeks.  Our bodies very much appreciated the recuperation!

Awoke in a cuddly, cozy, cherished sort of mood and basked in it.

Showered.  An as-long-as-I-feel-like-it shower, because I didn't have to rush to work, and I wasn't fall-down-tired and about to stumble into bed.

Departed for an eveing of games at my brother's, but on the way stopped at muthafucking gamestop to buy myself a new, BRAND NEW goddamned video game.  A luxury.

Had my sister-in-law's delicious cooking-- last night she went with vegetarian chili and cornbread and it was mouthwatering, filling, and comforting!  Played with my neices until it was time for their bed times.  Had a fun night of convo and games with my brother and sister-in-law.  In fact!  We played CRANIUM TURBO EDITION, which we'd picked up for 5 fucking dollars at savers, and it was mint-- never even been opened.  This game would easily retail for fifty dollars, and we got it for 5.  It was super fun.  A definite improvement on the fun of cranium.  It moves faster, it has more hilarious categories-- our favorite was the one where you have to move your partner like a marionette to get them to guess the secret word on the card (hula dancer, playing guitar, florist...)  Hilarity ensued!

Came home, immediately checked out this online starwars MMORPG that I was selected to fucking BETA TEST (WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!!!!!!); also started my new xbox video game with much enthusiasms.  After playing that for a chunk of time I went back to the MMORPG whilst aaron dozed dreamily on the couch.

Discovered when my cell alarm went off that it was 4:30 in the AM.  They warned me MMORPGs are to gamers what booze and crack are to addicts, and holy hell are they right.  Where the fuck did that time go?? 

Decided to take a two-hour nap to get powered up for a day of laundry, cleaning, grading, lesson-planning, and hopefully more gaming??!!??!!??!!

Aaron and I have decided to head to the laundromat, as we're so behind in the laundry sitch that it makes more sense to attack it on all cylinders.  The dinky double-decker apartment sized washer here at our building will not suffice.  So when I sign off we shall depart for a good chunk of time.

It is actually more fun than you'd think when you're with someone you enjoy hanging out with, and when it was your choice to go, rather than the only option you have for doing laundry (I've lived that wretched hell and will never take an in-house washer and dryer for granted ever ever again).

So!

Enjoy your saturday.  I'mma do my best to both enjoy myself AND be productive.  When laundry's done there's still dishes, and bullshit, and organization, and a bathroom that I would be ashamed to let a hobo use... it never seems to end and it never seems to get much better.

And I warned myself that I wouldn't be allowed to do a thanksgiving here if we didn't get this place in order.  It is starting to look lik that's gunna be the case, which makes me sadpants.

But!  Off to the laundromat!

Huzzah! (my new video game is all medieval-ly) and may the force be with us (the MMORPG is starwars!)

Federal Holiday

I needed this day.

And am milking it for all it is worth...

What I did today/what I am doing

Let's see: 

I forgot to vote today.

I want to quit my job.

I indulged in hours of sub-par and fantasy-based television shows

I had a peanut butter & strawberry rhubarb jelly sandwich when I got home.

I became surly and grumpy when my husband did not wish to try the new place down the street.

I became irascible (in a passive agressive waspy way) when said restaurant failed to provide an online menu and when the woman on the phone kept listing delicious chicken dishes that they had available AFTER I explained that I was a vegetarian...

I am now awaiting fresh-baked cookies.

And I shall watch the new show Suburgatory with my husband, and we shall marvel at the sexual chemistry betwixt Jeremy Sisto (yeah) and the hot little redhead that is playing his 15 year old daughter.  And I will wish that I had the balls to make my stuff into a showtime original.  And I will want to quit my job some more.  Even harder than I already do.

The Night Ms. Reardon decided she was done with therapy for a while...

I'd deluded myself into forgetting that saying about Irish Catholics being immune to psychotherapy.

I remember it now.

With a wry twist of the lips, I remember it now.

When I think about a garden hose in the exhaust, I remember the saying.

When I stay until I'm the last living person in the building, and realize that staying all night will not buy me anything but more disappointment--I remember the saying.

When, tomorrow, I cancel my weekly appointments, I'll be thinking of the saying. 

With a wry twist of my lips, I'll be thinking of that saying.

And whenever it is that I commit myself to the inevitable course of action, The one that sings a siren song too sweet to close my heart against--

When that day or evening or small hour of the pre-dawn comes?

I'll remember what they say about the Irish and psychotherapy.

I'll remember the truth beneath the jest--

With a wry twist in my smile.

Gah!

So how's my promise to write something everyday?

Not so hot, huh?

I'll try harder.

The battle to stay sane, stay on top of things, and stay ....

I can't even form cogent thoughts.

see you soon?