Two Bottles of Sangria Later...

Yes.  You read that correctly.  I said two BOTTLES of Sangria later.  And I don't mean shared bottles.  oh no.  Those were all me.  Aaron had two bottles of assorted red, I had tha sangria.  Jeff had a goddamn BOTTLE of sherry (gross) and most of a bottle of white, and we all shared a cheap bobbly moscatos chambagne thing.

So I'm having a rough day, lol, but had a very fun last night welcoming my friend home to the north, where he belongs.    When my husband loudly exclaimed, over a photo of some hot movie actor or other:  "Why is his penis not in my mouth?!?!"  My friend Jeff stopped what he was doing, washed over all sentimental and declared:  "OH, it so so good to be back in the north!  When a grown, staight, married man says something like that, it is CLEAR i'm not in florida anymore!!"

It will be so good to have Jeff back!  Gardening, gossiping, grand planning.  He is one of my dearest kindred spirits, and I am eager to start dreaming big again and feeling inspired... and then subsequently fucking off and shirking responsibility for the sake of 'nourishing our souls' or 'living our lives'.  This is our usual pattern.

Last night was a great fucking start.  "Just a warning:"  He prefaced, having a good gulp of the putresence they demurely call 'sherry', "I get wicked sentimental when I drink this stuff."  And boy did he. 

While Aaron was being horribly ill in the bathroom around 3:30 in the AM  (at which point I had officially been up for 24 hours, thanks to my giddy excitement over the royal nuptials!), Jeff and I comitted to having a 'truth session'.  He was very good at this; I, apparently, am a novice and was 'wayy too fucking nice.'

So now I have some complimentary things about myself on my mind, balanced by some 'i'm gunna level with you...' things, and some very strong opinions about who I am, what I am, and what I should be doing.

This is one person in my life who is completely disinterested in my claims of being a writer.  "No you're not."  He told me frankly.  But he's biased.  He wants me to be an actor, and he is a self confessed 'Not a reader'.  Nevertheless, he has known me forever and ever, he made some solid, some very perceptive and illuminating points, and one must consider all points of view.

However, as I mull things over, I can tell you this about me:  I am a fantastic fucking actress.  Honestly.  I am really fucking good.  I have the potential to be one of the finest actresses in generations.I am confident in this, and I am (despite the way it sounds) quite humble in this and humbled by it.

I would never have the confidence or the courage to speak the same way about my writing.  I am an infinitely better actress than I am a writer.  Not even in the same league, really. 

But I am not acting.  I am writing.  These are facts. 

I enjoy acting, I enjoy delving into a play and rehearsing and performing and bringing a story to life. 

But i LOVE writing.  I LOVE creating a story, crafting it, and sharing it.  I love it.

Hmphf.  Now what?

Because here are the two biggest roadblocks, as far as I can tell: I loathe auditioning and am pretty awful at it, which stands as a huge impediment to the acting.  And!  No one (with one blessed, cherished, appreciated exception) reads my writing, so that's a pretty sizeable obstacle to being a writer.  I mean if a writer writes in a vacuum and no one's around to read it...  right?  I can be a writer, but it's only a pretty meaningless self-inflicted label, right?  Kinda the way I call myself an actor, though I am not doing any acting (because writing can exist with no readers, but an actor is just a person playing pretend and talking to themselves unless they're doing it for an audience, you know?).

So I'm stuck in this limbo where I'm writing but no one cares, and could be a great actor but can't get cast.

And then there's the elephant in the room:  The teaching.  and the directing.

I am a good teacher.  I am a serviceable director.

I am proud of how far I've come and am still growing as both.

But LOVE is not a word I'd apply here.  Nor is the confidence and the fantastic.  I neither feel passionately about these things, nor do I feel like i could ever be the best or even exceptional in these fields.

So.

What to do?

jeff would have me lose some weight and get back on the audition circuit.  Aaron believes it's pretty hard to deny that I'm a writer when I write every single day and clearly have a passion for it (even though no one reads it and the quality is not really spectacular).  My advanced degree and all my money is sunk into the teaching\directing.  So tell me, where does this woman go with all that?  With her compass spinning frantically and her clock ticking down and the ground shaking beneath her feet?

Yeah.

She has another glass of fruit-juice wine and she says goodnight, and she decides she'll make decisions when they need to be made and trust in the universe to reveal it's plan for her in some obvious fucking way.  if it's too subtle, universe, I might miss it, because I'm tangled up to my eyeballs with possibilities and responsibilities, so if we could make it a Times-Square sized blinking, flashing, multi-media style sign, that'd be much appreciated.  Cannon fire and sturm and drang, please, if you could manage.  Thanks.

Quickie

Wedding was lovely.  Made me feel all romantic and hopeful and excited!  Made me want to write a big Cedar Falls wedding!  I have one 'scheduled', but have been totally avoiding it.  But Avalon and BEn pretty much ARE Wills and Kate without the titles and royalty, so... better get to writing!

I am sitting at Logan Airport right now, waiting to pick up my dear friend Jeff.  He is one of my oldest friends~ A high school friend (and sometime freneemy) that I have actually kept in touch with and kept a part of eachother's lives.  A rare and wonderful thing.

More later.

Happy friday everyone!!

Even the sequels where the original actors have been re-cast with d-listers...

I am getting up at 3:45 to watch the spectacle.  I know.  But you know what?  I actually have quite a girly girl streak in me.  I would be addicted to Lifetime and ABC family had I cable anymore.  I have seen every fucking princess movie ever made.  I am a total romantic sap.  Combine that with my inner history geek?  (i know the kings of england and I quote the fights historical... the latter is a lie, but the former is TRUE.  Can you name the british monarchs in succession?Yeah.) 

yeah.  Those two aspects of my personality pretty much guaranteed that I was gunna go ahead and get up in the wee hours, find a live-stream, and get all giddy and gushy.

Plus, didn't eash of us girls of this generation entertain the notion at least once or twice that we might just oneday run into prince william in some coffee shop somewhere and... well, you know.  Prince & me it up? 

Nowadays I am wayyy more attracted to Miss Middleton than to Princey Pants, but still.  They're young, they're attractive, they're wealthy and posh and british and in love (one hopes)!!

So I'm off to bed.

For a quick siesta before the event.

I will have you know how glad I am that I have NOT had cable tv for the last few months and especially in the last few days, as I am given to understand that the media circus around this event has become quite nauseating.  i am blissfully nausea free as I enter this spectacle tomorrow, and will be like a starved kid in a fabulous candy shop! I am not sick of anything, I have few expectations, just unadulterated glee!

Hope no one gets cold feet.  That would be a pretty epic fucking fail, right?!?

Isn't That Special

Favorite Aaron quote of the day.

Re:  A 5th grader at our after school job.

"Everybody has to do it.  You're not special!  I know your parents tell you that you're special, but you're not."  (Exasperated that a kid wanted special treatment)  "Now your sister, on the other hand... She is a little bit 'special'..."  (referring to her apparent subnormal intelligence...)

*None of this was actually said to the child, but to me in retelling his feelings on the situation.

I love Mr. Waite

Indebted

Called out of both jobs today with the intent of getting several things accomplished:

get on a debt management plan
consolidate my federal loans
consolidate my private loans
tidy apartment & make dinner for the man who went to work
make doctor's appt.
go to Costco, get a card, and get some fucking groceries already

Now, on the fragile and wavery edge of tears, /i have accomplished the following:

Begun the process for a debt management plan
Begun the process for federal loan consolidation
Paid many, many creditors the absolute minimum amounts to keep my accounts from going into a lovely thing they call 'charge off', which is a dreadful hell for everyone.

It is 5:30.  I've been at this since 8 am.  Please note what I have not accomplished. 

I am petrified of this debt, of these bills.  I work and work and can't make ends meet.  I am so scared I want to crawl into a hole and sleep for eternity.

And I did not manage to make dinner, and won't be able to for several reasons:

A) I have not gone to costco for groceries, so we haven't much in the house
b) I was unable to tidy the fucking kitchen
C) I still have to go out to fucking staples to fax a 27 page document to complete the loan consolidation proceedings.
D) I want to cry

Oh, excuse me, that last one wasn't a reason for not making dinner.  Not a real one anyway.

Guess what I want to do?  Order food.  Guess what I now know I have absolutely no money in the budget for after my 2 and a half hour fucking debt-counseling telephone call with a non-profit organization?  You guessed it, Take-out!!  woo hoo.

I might just fucking do it anyfuckingway.  Betterbean.

The it's right back to NO TAKE OUT.  No take-out May we'll call it.  Or Make your own fun May.  Or, Don't forget you're flat broke May!  Or, Don't even think about it May!

The lady asked me how much I spend on my clothes budget per month, on average.  I told her that I haven't purchased any new clothing for myself in over a year.  And this was TRUE.  Last thing I purchased for me to wear was a dress and shrug for Katie McGarry's wedding last year.  Guess what?  I wore it again to andrea's wedding the FOLLOWING APRIL.  no lie.  So besides a thing or two from Saver's thrift store in there somewhere, that is it.  I am a WOMAN who hasn't been clothes or shoe shopping in a fucking year. 

She asked how much I spent on nails and hair.  I felt like asking her what kind of people usually call in.  It's like, look lady, I obviously recognize that I am in serious financial trouble--what then fuck kind of asshole woul I be if I went for hair and nails when I'm clearly oeprating at a pretty alarming deficit?  don't get me wrong, I have been sorely tempted... I went so far as to ask danielle where and how much, but I didn't go through with it.  BECAUSE I A BUH_ROKE!!!!!

She congratulated me on my restraint. 

Thanks.

cheers to me.

ay ay ay.

So I won't go get my hair did, but I will spend whatver I need to spend at fucking staples to fax this happy horseshit, and then I think I'll go get a coupla veggie sandwiches.  And eat some goddamn icecream for desert.

thank goodness I made that promise to my husband not to take a bath with the toaster, because today would totally be a good day for it!!!

Know what though?  Last night we had the most amazing sex.  I swear to christ.  It was fucking awesome.  I mean, we generally seem to be pretty dynamite in the sack; we enjoy eachother, we're adventurous, we're passioante, we're fun, and we love and trust eachother completely.  Sex is elemental to us, foundational, crucial to the healthy functioning of our relationship.  so it's always good.  hell, orgasming fells good, right?  No two ways around that.  But last night was just one of those times that melts your toes and curls your hair.  And this was on the heels of the previous night, where i awoke in the middle of the night to some seriously spectacualr pleasuring from an amorous spouse.  he made me come again and again, and it came out of nowhere!  I was asleep, and then I was getting fingerblasted.  so.  YAY!  So i guess i was feeling pretty grateful for that all day, so in the evening after dinner I repaid the favor in all kinds of awesome ways.

Actually, come to think of it, each night this week since the wedding we have been having some pretty snazzy sexcapades.  Obviously the drunk sex after the open wine bar at the wedding was great.  Sloppy, dirty, animalistic, permissive and kinky.

then sunday was a long goodbye to vacation sort of thing.  I spent so much time downtown that i should paid rent!  The husband was overfuckingjoyed.  And he rewarded me handsomely.  Then I think he kept rewarding me with that middle of the night pleasure sesh.  Then last night was mutually wonderful.  Maybe tonight I'll have him go down to the delta for a good long while.  I could certainly use some mega stress relief after the day I've had.

Ok.  I guess I needed a few minutes to unwind and write about shit other than financial matters.  thanks for tolerating the sexlogue, lol.

Keep your fingers crossed for me about all this debt bullshit!!

Pink Champagne on Ice

The Phenomenon.

Whenever I am driving in my car for a journey lasting 15minutes (or so) or more, the following will ALWAYS occur:

I will hear one of two songs on the radio as I flip thorugh the stations:  Maggie May by Rod Stewart and\or Hotel California by the Eagles.

This is not a once-in-a-while thing, this is real.  An I don't have any real preset stations to speak of besides NPR and WERS (the emerson college radio station).  So this is random and cannot be attributed to any one particular radio station with a penchant for these songs.  It can also occur at any time of the day or night, so it isn't one particular DJ with a habit for Rod Stewart or The Eagles.

I have noticed that for the most part I am more likely to hear Maggie May in the Daytime hours (probably because of the line about the Sun really showing her age.  Also the music is bright and open and feels like sunshine.)  And Hotel California is more likely to be played during the evening hours (has a more cool and mysterious vibe and refers to nighttime.)  This is just a general predictor and sometimes it matters not a whit what hour it t, what the weather is doing or anything of the sort. 

Most often I hear one OR the other, but on several occasions I have heard both in one car journey~ and I'm not talking mega long road trips, I'm talking errands around town or drive to work or to the mall or to the movies or such.

I would also like to add that the likelihood of hearing "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey has increased at least tenfold since its resurgence in popularity attributed to its loving revival on the pilot episode of the hit show Glee.  Now I am likely to hear Don't Stop Believin' at least once every third car ride (of about 10-15 minutes or more). 

This is a theory that has been tried and tested and proven for the last several YEARS of my life people.  YEARS.  I thought I'd share it with the world (ahem) and see if anyone else has noticed this bizarre occurence, or if it is just me.  I had thought my luck might change if another is in the car, but Aaron has been witness to it.  It is less likely to come to fruition if he is in control of the radio dial, however, because he lingers over long on rap stations, which are never ever going to play either of those popular hits of a bygone day.

I should also like to add, for the record, that in the 9 o'clock hour on saturdays you will certainly be able to cath Billy Joel's Piano man on some station or other.  And on sunny days you will be very likely to hear Elton John's Crocodile Rock.

If you have satellite radio or listen to CDs or MP3s in the car, I am sorry, but you will not have experienced this magical, mystical phenomenon!

Give it a try sometime.

Oh, I abstain from commenting on the period of weeks between mid november and new year's day, where I become obsessed with christmas tunes and flip only between those stations comitted to bringing me all the sounds of the season.  I'm willing to bet the liklihood of hearing Maggie May and Hotel California decreases, but I have no empirical evidence to back it up.  Maybe someone who despises christmas tunes as much as I adore them can run the experiment for me this winter?

Freshman English Writing Assignment

Freshman English

Create a love story using our 15 most recent vocabulary words.  Make sure to create context-rich sentences and to underline each vocabulary word used.

**You should try!  Just grab the underlined vocab words and go to town!  It would be fun!  My story reminds me a little of Lorca's Blood Wedding, among other things, but it was fun to write despite the tired and well-word plot scenario.**

The sun rose watery and bleak behind a shroud of morning mist on her nuptial day.

She awoke not to a lover’s caress, not the lilting refrain of a lark on the verge, but to the grating voice of her obdurate mother-in-law-to-be below stairs barking orders for the big event.  The woman was both pugnacious and combative, and Rose closed her eyes, wishing that in doing so she might be able to blink the woman, the wedding, and the whole dreaded day away.

Reconciling herself to her fate, with a sigh, Rose slipped from the lamentably pristine bed linens and steeled herself for an event that was both inconceivable to her and unavoidable. 

She’d said yes when he’d asked.  She’d pledged her hand and given her word and today her sentencing would be carried out; at last, after months of meticulous planning and grandiose arrangements, today, at last, her fate would be sealed, her left ring finger shackled, her identity tied up and bound forever with the man who had proposed to her.

If only she could expunge the memories of another from her mind.  If only she could banish that smile from her heart as effectively as she’d banished him from her presence.

There had been no ambiguity in how coldly she’d dismissed him from her life, no mistaking her meaning.  She’d impugned his character, she’d been cruel, she’d been vile, and insult of insults, she’d chosen for her betrothed his rival, his blood adversary, the one man she knew he would never forgive her for.

Now Rose sat at the elegantly carved vanity with a heavy sigh.  She’d done what she’d felt she must.  To save his life and preserve her heart, she’d taken up the role of cruel mistress and she’d acted it to perfection.  But, as Rose arranged her tresses with a dexterity borne of years of practice, she perused her melancholy aspect in the glass and recognized that the actress behind the hardened mask was not impervious to heartbreak, even though she had been the one to turn him away.  It had been too late, his hooks too deeply embedded within the too-tender flesh and sinew of her heart and her soul for her to come out of it unscathed.

And she wondered, almost idly, rather detached and disinterested, how the wedding night would unfold.

With her affable but tepid fiancé she played the prude, feigning virginal modesty while he worshipped her with chaste idolatry from a safely comfortable distance.  Her sheets were pristine, and, as far as he knew, so was she.

With trembling fingers she fastened a fresh rosebud into her perfectly arranged chignon.  How it would stagger her mild-mannered betrothed to know the depth and ferocity of her wild passions.  How it would scandalize her blue-blooded bull-dog of a soon-to-be mother-in-law.

Rose allowed herself a bittersweet smile in the mirror as her cheeks washed over with high color.  Over her shoulder in the mirror stood the bed.  The bed where she’d fallen into his arms and fallen from grace and fallen in love.  The only man who she’d ever truly love, the one man she’d pushed away and would never know again.

Now that she was to descend into the too-cool spring garden and become another man’s wife.

Monday Miscellany!

Holy first day back batman!  I was thrown back into the fire after my vacation!  My boss is back from maternity leave and she is not content to have her MTA work as an office assistant, no no.  She likes me subbing subbing subbing.  And so I was back in the classroom after like 9 weeks pretty much classroom free. yipes.

Thank the fates that the classes were largely well behaved.  I think they were all a little stunned and dismayed to be back at school and didn't really have it in them to act up.

Anyway, two of the 4 english classes I subbed today had this writing assignment, and I decided to tackle it along with the students.  I'm not sure I met the content objective precisely, but it is a fun piece of creative writing, and I definitely met the vocabulary quotient!  I will share in a follow-up post.

After all my works I had to keep on truckin and go over my parents for some chores there.  I got a free (subpar, but free) meal out of the deal, as well as some assorted grocery items and a new spring coat, so I'm thrilled.  Tired, but psyched.

I come home to find my incomparable husband hard at work in our kitchen concocting our latest foray into greener living: All Natural Laundry Detergent.  He's been reading up on laundry stuff because of these mysterious grease spots we've been plagued with on all our clothing.  At first we blamed the loust neighbors, as this is a communal washer\dryer unit.  Once I blamed it on the fact that I left my burt's bees in a pocket and it melted.  But it turns out that these ghost spots on our clothes could very likely be caused by animal fat deposits which can be found in most regular laundry products and are very hard to break down in the wash and so leave these greasy marks.  (Check out the recipe he used HERE)

Um, yeah, so we were grossed out and dismayed that there was very likely animal fats in our cleaning products, as we are vegetarian.  So now, thanks to my husband and some common and natural components, we have vegan laundry stuff, which is a phrase I never even imagined I'd have to construct.  Ay ay ay.  And it is greener, too, which makes me feel better.  I've been wanting to move away from harch chemicals and into greener, natural living for some time now, but have been dragging my feet because of the initial investment, the leap of faith, and the labor-intensive nature of it.  And also?  there is nothing in this world that feels cleaner than bleach.  No lie, right?  I mean, if you had any doubts about bacteria and germs?: BLEACH that shit.

So, laundry first step.  Next we are moving into using ONLY castile soap for our bodies and whatnot, as that is about the only soap you can be SURE contains no animal products.  And I'm already doing the Oil Cleanse Method (though I gotta say that I feel a little bit like a lunatic rubbing cooking oils on my face.  It feels so fucking counter-intuitive...) which uses all natural stuff like olive oil, jojoba oil, and castor oil.  I use recycled toilet paper (that sounds icky...), paper towels, and even a toothbrush made from recycled materials.  We are trying.  We do the greener lightbulbs and all sorts of things.  I'm still a far way off from the standards that my friend ECOMILF sets, but I'm taking baby steps. And I'll let you know how my laundry comes out next weekend when I use Aaron's concoction!  He even put lavender scented castille soap for yummy smelling freshness!


Also, if I haven't before, let me give a shout-out to the highly incomparable Peaceful Meadows ice cream stand and dairy.  Yum city.  I have had rival ice cream from similar institutions (ahem ahem, I'm talking to you Crescent ridge Dairy), and honestly?  Peaceful Meadows has got it all over the competition. Located on a bucolic stretch of rt 18 in whitman, it is a great place to stop for some delicious frozen treats, and to say hello to some very happy, healthy looking cows.  Ahh, nothing like the the rancid smell of fresh cow shit whilst you suck down your choclatey frappe!  We went there for easter milkshakes and they were Zombie-Jesus good!

Happy Monday.  I am sure this is going to be one hell of a long week.

Much Love! 

That's a Wrap!

So much has happened!

And unfortunately I still have much, much more to do!  so I can't sit here blogging all the live-long day :(

Let me start by wishing Andrea and Jonny a future of wedded bliss!  The two wed yesterday in beautiful Plymouth, and it was lovely, lovely, lovely! congratulations to the new Mr. & Mrs.!  AND let's wish them all a spectacularly fun honeymoon in DISNEY!

April 23 2011

Goodbye Ms. Norville!


Now I would also like to say amen and hallelujah for my dear friend, the talented, the spectacular, the inspirational Julia Snider, of J Snider photography, who came into our lives friday morning like a kinesthetic goddess of energy and genius, and gave us one hell of an incredible photo shoot for our newest and dearest endeavor, S.T.A.G.E. Camp!

Design by the INCOMPARABLE Aaron Waite

She wowed the socks off everyone (i mean, I already knew she was fabulous, but it was AMAZING to see what a dynamo she is in a photo shoot! If I had a modicum of her talent, tenacity, and passion.... it was inspiring to behold!)

And the results!  we've only had teasers so far, just what she'd posted on her photo blog, and Holey Moley!  I am PSYCHED!

WHAAAAT?!?!?!?  Incomparable!

A huge shout out of gratitude and love to the INCOMPARABLE Ms. Snider!!

also, book her.  She's dynamite.  For reals.


And it is the close of April Vacation for me folks.  And Easter, for those of you who celebrate.  Aaron calls it Zombie Jesus day, and it might be the most excited he gets about christianity when he entertains the notion of a Zombie Jesus.  He has drawings, I'm not kidding.

We're not celebrating.  Or, if you prefer, we're celebrating by doing laundry (me), looking into debt solutions (me), and building a velociraptor puppet (Aaron...obviously...). 

My to-do list is still unreasonably long, with very few things checked off of it, but I have had a very rich and rewarding vacation.  I wish it were another whole week longer, but hey!  Never look a gift horse in the mouth, as my mother always told me.  It was amazing that I got to reconnect with friends, decorate easter eggs with my two-year-old neice, 'help with yardwork' at my bestie's, visit our boss' pizza shop (great fucking pizza, too, no lie!) consume beautiful and delicious gourmet cupcakes, get all dolled up in a dress (and shaved legs) for a wedding, take the time necessary for fabulous foreplay, core play and post play.... play my VIDEO GAME, clean the house from top to bottom (and mess it up again, lol), attend big family get togethers, drive into the city with a dear friend while discussing everyhting from love and sex to dreams and pies, visits to wholesale warehouses, chillaxin with tv shows, trying new foods, loving and living and liking.

I am grateful for the time away from the daily routine.

I may need to work on better time management, as I get the feeling I should have made better\more effective use of the time, but I am happy.

Maybe not quite as rested as I should be, but, especially after this morning's fun, I am sated.  And content.  And smiling.  hell, if i were a cat I'd be purring!

YAY!  Look, Tyra!  I'm SMEYEZING!  Thanks Julia, for these amazing pics!

Thanks to everyone who was a part of this amazing April Vacation!

how many weeks till summer????

To Do:

Laundry
Debt Solution
Complete Dangling applications
Complete props\costume lists
GROCERY SHOPPING
Type up the oodles and oodles of hand-written Cedar Falls scenes....(unfuckinglikely...)



also, look at the handsome devil I'm lucky enough to be married to!!!:

This is the man who just showed me where a Raptor's Cloaca would be, and then simulated 'raptor cunnilingus'.  I am the luckiest woman in the world, no joke.  He's the best.  He make me laugh every day and i adore him!  Plus, I have a thing for a man in glasses... :)

Wait...

Hi.

Sometimes i forget what I'm supposed to be doing.

I woke up this morning, full of determination to get everything done before work (yeah, I have to work today--LAME!), and here I sit, my husband asleep and cozy next to me, the sun shining cheerily through the fabulous skylights, the fresh, crisp spring beeze filtering in thorugh an open window, and I simply can't remember why I was in such a state of high anxiety.

Laundry?  it'll wait.

Cleaning my car?  I'll get to it.

Job applications?  Meh. 

Debt?  It isn't going anywhere (except maybe to collections....)

Shopping?  We'll get by.

Props lists?  Whatever.

Photocopies?  Yeah... hust sometime before 3, and I'm all set.


Right now all I'm gunna do is cozy back up to the Mister, listen to the rythem of his breathing and his heartbeat, breathe in the refreshing spring air, and stay safe and warm and loved up in our perfect loft.

until the need to pee supercedes all else and I am forced to climb down the ladder or make a puddle up her in our perfect loft!

Happy thursday to all!

Sicker than Fiction.

Sometimes I feel like I might be desensitized.  I write these weirdly twisted stories about secrets, many of which are sexual in nature and awfully deviant, and I wonder if I am sick in the head and I wonder if society has made me disturbed and if there is any cure for me.

And then I spend a few minutes reading the provocative news articles that go along with the attention-grabbing headlines on my news feed updater thing.

And I inevitably come accross something that shocks me.  Sickens me.  Scandalizes me.  Saddens me.  Scares me to tears.  Literally.

And it really happened.  It wasn't someone's imagination, but the nightmarish reality for some poor little girl somewhere, some young woman who made some poor choices and paid for it with the worst kind of humiliation and dehumanization imaginable. 

And I want to be wrapped up and I want to have never read the news article, and I want to pretend that these things, they only happen in tv shows and movies.  Violence for art's sake, shocking twists for a good show.  Moral transgressions that are layered with symbolism and tragic outcomes for the purpose of spiritual catharsis and higher-thinking.

Not random acts of violence, pointless, preventable, petty, and utterly devastating. 

And when I'm picturing myself in the shoes of these young women, I close my eyes and shiver.  When I feel the wave of panic that is only a shadow of what it would feel like to live the hell they lived before their murders or rapes or violent beating, I feel tears in my eyes, terror in my heart and grief so eep, so real, so helpless that I know I am not and probably never will be desensitized.  I feel it with an empathy that is raw and all too receptive.

And I shut it ut, and block my heart and turn my mind to other things, because the pain is too heavy, the worry too cumbersome, the grief too real.  If I opened myself up to it all the time I would be crushed under the weight of it, strangled by the overwhelming strength of it, diminished by the size of it.

And, like many, I feel powerless to turn the tide against these sick, devastating private acts of criminal violence.  Alone, despite our numbers, useless despite our desire to help.

And so it goes largely ignored, as we read instead about some celebrity getting thrown in the slammer for public drunkeness or some other such frivolous misdemeanor.

Because it is more manageable. 

Because that's the sort of crime we can look at and laugh at and live with.

The other stuff?

I honestly wonder how we hear it, read it, learn of it and can continue on unchanged.

And I am back to wondering if maybe I'm desensitized.  If society has made me sick...

Girl Power!

Saw all my baby neices this week!  Z Monster, Magpie, Phia, and Nattlebug! 

They are all going to pretty amazing women someday, and I am inspired just to know them, humbled to see the future in their eyes!

And the women (and men) raising these girls are inspirational too!

I would like to comment that my vacation is just zooming by and I am not really accomplishing all the things I need to accomplish, which is worrisome.  But, strangely, I am HAPPY.  It is a somewhat false and insular happiness, because it is the kind that requires me to make-believe the real world doesn't exist and that it doesn't have pressing demands... but it is a warm and cozy and very calm sort of happiness.

Whenever I begin to stress Aaron pulls me close and tells me to trust that everything will work out.  To believe in us.  So I do.  And I melt into him and I am content.

The bill collectors, however, are getting pretty fucking irate.  So, between cleaning my car, doing the laundry, prepping for drama class and any other miscellany that I've sworn to do tomorrow, I MUST MUST MUST see about debt relief.

Grim.

And bleeding from the uterus doesn't make any of this more fun, believe it or not!

Cedar Falls Update

Couple new CF posts!  Hopefully there will be a wholebunchmore soooooon, but if you saw my last blog post, you know I have a whole lotta stuff to accomplish on this vacation!  Maybe if I could just never sleep...

anyways!  

they're both maggie & grey stories.  We go back in time a few months for their Meet Cute,

  and then jump back to 'present' (the regular course of events for our main story) as they head upstate for this impromptu honeymoon.  If you didn't read headed upstate pt 1, check it out!

Happy Reading!

Oh, and for some fabulous fucking reading, check out Yelling Pigeon's awesomesauce new character HERE!

Fuck you, Flo.

For the first itme in, I think, YEARS, I was totally incapacitated by menstrual cramps today.  If I have male readers, lol, sorry, but it happens now and then. 

And it fucking SUCKS.

Cramps always suck, but usually a good dose of Midol and I'm on my way.

Today?  When I had fun plans with my bestie and am on VACATION, today they decided to kick my ass and make me their bitch.

I cried.  Literally.  And several times almost vomited.  And I took TWICE the dosage of midol that is recommended.  And still couldn't get my ass out the door to the coffee shop for my planned and much anticipated visit with my best friend.

This makes me fearful for how I'd do as a pregnant lady, who have to deal with all kinds of bady pain.  And labor & delivery?  Fucking forget it.   I think this is yet another reason to recommmit to my decision NOT to procreate.  Today I begged Aaron to find a way to pull out my uterus.

He found this imagery amusing.  he puts on a gruff, viking-like voice, makes a bold stance and declares:  "Aaron!  The Womb Ripper!"

He always makes me laugh when I'm blue.  He also rubbed my back, made me tea, eventually made me sandwiches when it really became apparent that I would not be able to make it out to the Better Bean, and offered to do anything to take away the pain for me.  He was an agel times a hundred, and I kpet apologizing for being suck a pussy-- "It isn't usually like this!"  I whine, I impress, I beg him not to hate me for being so damn dramatic.

He, of course, tells me not to apologize, hugs me close, and tells me he loves me.

meanwhile, my poor bestie is out of a coffee, a lunch, and some much needed girl gossip time.  I want to punch my fucking uterus in its stupid face!  And, it seems especially cruel, as i'd decided I wouldn't really be needing it anyway.  I pretty much want to go get a uterus-ectomy right now.  Asshole uterus.

Now I'm shaking with like crazy because of all the caffeine in the midol, and a whole day is practically wasted.

Ah well.

After Aaron makes some lunch we are going to go see about a COSTCO card.  Plus I wanna hit a couple stores to loof for some fun accessories for a photoshoot i'm in on Friday! 

Things that need to get the fuck done (and soon):

Props & costume lists for 3 shows
Photocopies of all scenes and monologues for 3 shows (since my students are forgetful, mis-placeful little shits), and Prompt books for all three shows.
Job applications (online and old-school)
LOOK INTO DEBT RELIEF AND SOLVE MY DEBT PROBLEMS (this should probably top the list...)
Find time to actually get to sit down with my dear friend, since my lady parts ruined today for us.
Get stuff ready for the wedding on saturday
Dishes
LAUNDRY (holy mama, do I need to do laundry, lol)
PUBLICITY BLITZ for STAGE Camp!

See friends and family, as this is supposed to be a fucking vacation.

WISH ME LUCK!!!!!!!

It's not WHAT you know...

It's WHO you know...

I am fortunate to know some pretty fantastic people.  Very lucky.  And incredibly grateful.

It is because of the people I know that I have the jobs I have now, the incredible work I'll be a part of this summer, and some amazing resources to call on whenever I'm in need. 

The flip side of this will always be that I won't know the right people in moments when it counts, you know?  A job recently opened up for the next school year and I believe I'd be dynamite for it, but a collegue (who is awesomesauce, no complaints on that end at all) knows the right people and will have that 'in' to land the position.  On one hand this is C'est la vie, right?  She's qualified (similarly qualified, too, as we were in grad school together!), she's talented, she's great.  On the other hand, though, it can be disappointing to realize how many positions I'll be passed over for, simply because they haven't met me yet!

Aaron tells me that I have this certain something.  that people meet me and the don't forget me.  Often they even LOVE me, believe it or not, lol.  So imagine my frustration at sending out application after application and have zero interviews lined up.  I just want the chance to meet them, you know?  Maybe some of my thoughtless perfection will charm them!  Maybe some of my effortless magnetism will enchant. Not to mention my careless beauty, lol.  No, I'll be carefully groomed and very presentable in my interviews--should I ever get one!

So anyway, it is with a heavy heart that I'll complete the application, knowing that I've about a snowball's chance in hell.  But I'll submit it.  I owe myself (and my partner) that much. 

And I will wish the person who lands the job the best of luck.  It is a really great location, in a community that really values arts education, and she is pretty great!

And I will continue to thank and appreciate all the folks I know and love.  THANK YOU!!  Thank you, universe, for tending to put me where I need to be when I need to be there.  It isn't always easy to have faith that I am exactly where I need to be on the path of life, but you have given me enough proof to push it past mere coincidence or dumb luck.  I have confidence that if I don't get the Lexington Job it is because I was not meant to be there (no matter how awesome I would be in such an environment, lol!), and I was meant, instead, to be somewhere else.

Now just point the way?  Please?  Send me a sign?

Universe, you gave me the best husband in the world, some of the greatest friends and co-workers and mentors to ever wlk this earth, you have given me opportunities both rich and varied.

Now I need the next step.

Waiting, wishing, hoping.

Sincerely Yours,

Beth

Synchronicities

There were a few post secrets this sunday that really echo what's going on with me or to people around me!


My fave:

The Choice May Have Been Mistaken--

I Chose and My World Was Shaken; So What?!

The Choice May Have Been Mistaken,

The Choosing Was Not!

~Sondheim

Ok.  So, some decisions have been made.  Let's hope they work out better than my New Year's Resolutions, of which I have only been faithful to one.  I have given up candybars as completely as I have given up meat.  I need to work on the resolutions that require me to be PROACTIVE rather than REACTIVE.  If my new year's resolution had been to MAKE cadybars everyday, I doubt that would have been as successful.  But AVOIDING the consumption of candy bars?  No a big deal, really. Tempted a few times, but mostly no biggie.

Ok.  So.  The decisions.

Last night I had to go through quite a catharsis.  It was forced upon me really, as some of the most powerful moments of growth and learning often are; I went through it kicking and screaming, biting and scratching, but I went THROUGH it.  I didn't retreat from it, I didn't bury it, I didn't shrug it off.  The only way out is THROUGH, as they say.

And some bargains were struck.  And some plans were devised.  And some promises were made.

I promised, for instance, to never kill myself.  This seems silly, doesn't it?  And sorta sad that I'd have to make such a promise.  But it was a tough one to be asked, and believe it or not, even tougher to agree to.  I don't break promises to my husband, so it wasn't something I could just nod and smile and say 'yes' to.  I had to weigh it carefully.

With all the mounting debt, with all the broken dreams, with all the potential flaking away as the years speed by, I'll admit that in dark moments the idea that I have the power, if I really want, to make it all stop, to disappear utterly, to escape-- this notion has actually comforted me and calmed me.  Sort of like a sure-fire escape rout, an emergency 'stop' button, a definite 'I Quit'.

And to surrender that comfort, to block up that escape route, to pass forever on the opportunity of getting out of this game when the going gets too rough?  Whoosh.  It was more difficult than it should have been for sane people, I'm sure.  It took some thinking, I'll tell ya.

But it has been promised. And so it is done.

So don't fret if I'm in the tub too long folks, I probably just fell asleep.

The next thing I had to commit to was re-discovering who I am, what I'm passionate about, and what I will be.  I've lost so much of what used to make me incomparable, and I want it back.  I am timid where I used to be bold.  I am self-conscious where I used to be brazenly confident.  I second guess, I worry, I doubt, and I don't believe in myself.

I want that to be done with.  I want to throw caution to the wind and throw righteous middle fingers to all the nay-sayers.  I want to be bold and brassy and beautiful.  I want to be thoughtlessly perfect; I want to make mistakes and shrug and laugh and keep moving forward.

So I am starting a quest to re-claim the fearless, flamboyant person I must still be deep inside.  Enough cringing and crouching in public arenas.  I am who I am and I shouldn't have to apologize for it, main-stream it, tame it, or sensor it.

I allowed my grace, my grit, my confidence and my charisma to be stripped, bit by bit, from me by people Like Carol and Bob.  By people who don't possess even a fraction of my talent, my vision, or my potential.  I allowed them to get the best of me, to crush my spirit, to fatally wound my passion.  I honestly wasn't sure I'd ever recover, so changed was I by their pessimism, their constant put-downs, their unnecessary undermining, their personal grudges, their dousing of my flame, their petty jealousy, their idiocy.

I'm crippled and scarred and wary.  I may never recover my whole-hearted passion, and that terrifies me, because Who is Beth Reardon without her passion?  She's this waste-of-space shell of a person that you've been seeing for so long now. 

So I'm on a quest to re-discover it, to find it, to nurture it back to health, to build it up and give it wings again.  And like a hero in a tale, I have heard the call to action, but I have no idea how to begin, where my journey will take me, or what lies at the end of the path.  I know only that this is Life-and-Death.  EVERYTHING I am hinges on the success of this mission.  I know there will be perils on the path, I know there will be challenges left and right, obstacles and doubts and I know I will want to turn back, give up, damn the consequences.

So let's see if I have a hero in me, shall we?  Let's see if I can stick to it and muddle through and fight the dragons and escape the witches and outwit the genies and take-on whatever this quest throws at me, shall we?

And another promise\mission:  We are officially looking at India as a real possibility.  This week I will make inquiries into getting a real job halfway across the world!  

And I am making a serious, organized, ruthless attack on applying for jobs all over the area.

And I have decided to continue writing CF, and maybe, when I wrap it all up, do what I need to do to see about getting it published.  Middle fingers to all the naysayers.  Go write your own book, if you think mine is shit.  I am proud of it.  I love it.  And I don't think it is possible that I'm the only one out there that would enjoy reading it.  (Ok, I don't think it's just Me & Danielle, lol.)

So she's the only one of my immediate friends who has taken the time, that obviously makes her the fucking best, but it doesn't mean that she and I are the only ones who would dig it.  And oneday in the not-too-distant future, I believe it will find a real and engaged audience.

The catharsis was brutal.  It went deep and it was painful.  But I am grateful for it.  I obviously had to go to the edge, I had to fucking PURGE alot of toxins.  Cleanse. 

And now, with a cleaner slate, I begin to rebuild.  Revitalize.  Reclaim what was mine.

I feel a bit like I should have a sword, or something... at least a cape.

Thank You.

Another Blue Thursday

Thursdays are long for me.

I am home now, and want to curl up with the hubs and watch some picket fences.

low points:
My plaintive, whiney, maudlin email that I sent to my husband, which was so depressive it bordered on a suicide note
~the dreadful condition of my skin.  This OCM? I don't think it's gunna work out for me...

~having only ONE student out of an entire cast show up at class tonight.

High Points:

~I had some great vegetarian eats today!  I had a vegetarian version of one of the most popular soups in all of brockton, the famed and beloved greek chicken lemon soup with rice!  It has a fancy greek name, but i can't remember and don't have the energy to go look it up.  Anyway, since i used to LOVE chicken lemon soup I was JAZZED to try the veg version!  And it was yum city!

Plus fter work Aaron and I scooted over to the bean to check on our STAGE CAMP flyers and we had our veg sandwich dinner whilst we wuz there.

~Aaron's phone call to me that bolstered my spirits, made me feel loved, made me feel like I matter, made me feel like I'm never, ever alone, no matter how blue I get.

~coming home in the middle of the day for PB&J sndwiches and some PARENTHOOD on Hulu.  Man I love that show.

It's not you, It's me...

Yup.

Moving on!

Where would you go if you could go and live anywhere?  Where would you choose to start again, build a life, and get away from the humdrum mundanity of your current sitch?

I am pushing for India!  Aaron and I have long been enamored of the idea of moving there, giving it a whirl.

I am a little fed up to the teat with people shooting this idea down by telling us how many shots we'd have to get, how we couldn't drink the water, blah blah blah.  It isn't your life, folks!  Just smile and nod and wish us well, because it isn't your arm they'll be pricking and it isn't you who will have to stand in the interminable visa line and it isn't you who'll be risking everything on a fanciful dream, so butt-the-fuck-out!

A similar thing happens whenever we mention our long-held desire for a ferret.  Christ.  I know, ok, I know that they smell and they are mischievous and alot of work and blah blah blah.  So are kids, and people have those all the time; why you gunna hate on my little weasel?

Today I had a pineapple and MANGO pizza!  And you better believe some folks had trash to talk and shit to say about that.  Really?  Is it your pizza?  Oh, did I force you to eat a fucking slice?  Last time I checked, this is America, and I was pretty sure I can order whatever the fuck I want on my pizza, so long as the pizza establishment in question is willing to oblige, so back the fuck off!

I am guilty of pushing my beliefs on others lately.  And I regret it.  I am an idiot for ever having said anything.  It is so completely not my life, the choices are not remotely mine, they affect me in no way, and it was none of my fucking business.

Move where you want, do what you want, be who you want. 

Just don't ask me for validation, because I can only smile and nod like a stepford wife for so long before you start to see the cracks and the malfunctioning gears.

And be careful who you hurt~ do what you want, but be aware of the people involved.  That sounds fair, right?

We should all live our lives the way we want to live them (within the bounds of the law...I suppose...).  That's one of our fundamental rights as Americans, isn't it?  The pursuit of happiness?  Sometimes the pursuit will go sour, you won't be able to catch that fucking happiness, or hold onto it.

But someone told me recently to just 'Change my perspective'.  Stellar.  That's what I'll do.


Done, and done.

Thx Thx Thx!

We Really Fucked It Up This Time

**UPDATE**New Post at Secretsofcedarfalls.blogspot.com!  More soon. Check back often!

Ever hear a song over an over, and even though you listen to it and you enjoy it, you don't really HEAR it until you're really ready to hear it?  I mean, sure you liked it and all, but suddenly oneday, you're driving along and suddenly WHAM!  The lyrics make SO MUCH SENSE to you.  Like an epiphany.  And suddenly you ascribe meaning to certain lines, and color it with your own understanding and your personal perspective, and now the imagery is so much the clearer because you've cast the characters with people in your life, rather than attractive cypers in a music video or whatever?

Now when you listen to the song it resonates in a completely new and more meaningful way.  It has a weight and an impact, maybe a sentimentality or deeper wisdom than it ever had before.  Now you hear the song when you listen to it.  And you hear echoes of your own folly.  Hear the voices of your friends or lovers or coworkers.  You see imagery that anchors this song in the soundtrack of your life experience from here on out.

As an educator I have learned that people cannot learn until they're ready to learn.  Until they are open and receptive and until they can scaffold the information onto things they have already learned.  So while I may like a song and appreciate the lyrics as poetry, they will remain isolated, floating in no-man's-land, until I am ready to make connections to prior knowledge and build it a place in my understanding.

A tragically beautiful thought, isn't it?  That we can't learn until we're ready to learn?  It makes the heart ache, doesn't it?  Makes you want so badly to reach out and shake people, force them to get ready, get prepared, and save them from the travesties and poor decisions and blind, ignorant stumbling that we all do in our lives.  Life seems to be one constant and ever-arching learning curve, doesn't it?

There's a song that's sort of been existing on the fringes of my life ever since it came out, I hear it alot, I have liked it since first hearing it, but today... today the song took on a life of its own in my imagination, because the lyrics reminded me so powerfully of what I'm struggling with, what I'm working through, how I'm feeling, what I wish I could say or what I wish people could say to me.

And I know, as a director, exactly where I would work this song into the movie of my life.

I wonder what the next track will be?

Hmmm.  I like Adele's Rolling in the Deep.  Maybe I'll give it another listen and see if I can't assign some of my own meaning to it.

Also, did you know Florence of Florence in the Machine is a pretty smokin redhead?  yup.  I think I should like some more of her in my life, thank you!

You'll never be what is in your heart
You're not as brave as you were at the start
Rate yourself and rake yourself,
Take all the courage you have left
Wasted on fixing all the problems
That you made in your own head...

 

Is the theatre really dead?

Or do we just wish it were?

Maybe we should call the good doctor who helps suffering souls out of their misery....


I saw a girl tonight who reminded me of Viola.  I wondered if she'd slept with her dad.  Then I decided that, no, she probably had not. lol.  But that she was liekly a little bit of a rebel and definitely sexually precocious.

Then she was a total asshole on her iphone during then second act and I had to 'speak' to her in my teacher voice, which made me feel a hundred years old.

Tonight's show sparked two warring ambitions within me;

One:  To be the best fucking teacher\director of youth theatre that I can be!  to inspire and instruct, to coach and to guide, to make quality work with eager yound minds and budding yound talent.

and TWO:  To never, ever, ever, EVER do another theatre endeavor EVER EVER again. 

It was that kinda show.  The kind that makes me question why we (theatre artists\educators) do what we do.  Why do we bother?  Christ.  People on phones, people checked-out, kids with no energy, performers with little to no talent....

But then I think of kids like my husband, for whom that rinky-dink little theatre experience changed his life for the better in almost every way.  Kids who've gained confidence and made friendships, and learned infinitely more about themselves by being part of a production than they ever could in a classroom or twittering on their little devices, and I guess that's why.  I guess that's why we do it.

But it feels, i gotta say, like a waste of fucking time, sometimes.




I have three shows coming up this spring!  **Big smile and jazz hands**

April 8th

Today I am a thirteen year veteran in the game and art of love.

Thirteen years.

That is almost half my life.  next year.

Thirteen years of experimenting, learning, growing, trusting, playing, giving, receiving, honing, trying, practicing and discovering.  It has been a wildly fun and fulfilling thirteen years at play.

There is always alot of talk about girls having sex too young and jaws drop when I tell people that i was 14 when I started.  Scandal!  I must not have been emotionally mature! I must not have been ready!  It was wayyyy too young!  Holy Moley!

but human beings, especially those who've just gone through puberty, are designed to want to fuck.  To play.  To learn. To screw around.  To hook up.  They've got a biological imperative. 

Sure, most 14 year olds might be emotional morons, and they might not have a whole ton of common sense either, and self-control?  How can anyone really hope to have self control with all those raging hormones couring through their little systems?

It will happen.  It has been happening since their were people.  It will always happen.  I swear, i think the only thing that keeps many teens from starting at 14 is the built-in awkwardness that comes with adolescence.  They feel like idiots half the time and are UBER self-conscious.  So many of them have to grow up a few years, come into themselves a little, before they muster up the courage to make a foray into partner sex (as opposed to self love, which, lets face it, teenagers EXCEL at!)

But if you have a self confident 14 year old, or, also, if you have an attention-seeking 14 year old?  Awkwardness goes out the window, and bold exploration is the name of the game.

I had sex at 14 years old.  I was in love with the young man, and he was good to me.  I realize that this is not always the case.  I realize that most young people do not stay with the person to whom they gave their virginity, that most do not marry that person.  But that does not mean there's anything wrong with youthful sexual exploration.  It is, I swear to you, normal, and healthy, and necessary.

Sure, I get it, there's alot of psychological stuff that goes along with this.  But if we started being realistic instead of moralistic about the sex act, maybe we could actually provide these people with some actual support, instead of the judgement and the pointed fingers and the scandalized whispers and the admonishments that they recieve in our society when they follow nature's guidance and strike out into the world of human sexuality--a thing for which they are designed!

We need to give our youth an honest, healthy view of sex and sexuality, of their bodies and their emotional selves.

Or else we get drinking and secrets and bad decisions.  Mistakes and screwed up psyches and confusion and hurt.

And I want to say this, and I wish it could be heard round the world.  Thank HEAVEN for proper sex education.  Thank the public schools or whatever for teaching us EXACTLY how babies are made and how to use preventative measures.

Because, guess what?  While I am firm in my belief that a 14 year old has a bilogical imperative, a scientific compulsion, to fuck like a rabbit?  I also recognize that in the scoietal structure we've established, that we, as a people, ahve cultivated a whole species of people who would not be ready emotionally, financially, or in maturity to handle having a baby.  Biologically?  Hell yes, best fucking time!  The teenage girl's body bounces back remarkably well from childbirth.  But emotionally?  No.  We've cultivated and created a useless class of person, and most every one of them would be pretty awful as parents.  at least to begin with.  The learning curve and the growing-up and the selflessness part of it would be  a pretty steep learning curve.

Ok.

I am going to be late for work.

So, thanks to my loving partner in crime (and it was quitel literally criminal alot of the time, lol) of thirteen wonderful, blissful, exhillerating, erotic, exciting, formative years.  Sex is a huge part of what makes me who I am, and I have never, never even once, regretted taking those formative steps.

And I just love the festivities that go along with a sex anniversary!!

Believe

It's the Great Blog Experiment, Charlie Brown!

And presently?  It looks like I'm a lonely believer.

But I'll sit here in my blog patch by moonlight, chilly but reverent, believing in the magic and the power.

****************************

Speaking of magic and power.  Thursdays are tough for me.  the hardest day of the week, easily.  becaus eI have In-School Suspension with Wee Willy McTaintface, followed by Thursday night drama.  It bot feels like and IS the longest day of the week for me.

And today, after some really outrageous and completely unnecessary drama at the end of the day in ISS, all stirred up for no reason that I can fathom by Taintface, I drove home for some fruity pebbles (Courtesy of Mum and her Wacky Wednesday shopping!  Thanks Mum!  I never buy cereal for us, as it is an enormous waste of money, but i sure do LOVE cereal!  Yayz!) and a little breather before heading off to Drama.  This is the only part of my thurday that I look forward to; the ability to stop home, have a sandwich, pee in my own bathroom, relax in private for about a half hour before climbing back in the car and trekking to stoughton.  I don't have this luxury on any other day of the week, so that is one good thing.  (When Eric was here I used to go straight to stoughton and it SUCKED BIG TIME!!!  Thank Christ I get this precious alone time back!)

The toughest part is making myself leave again.  And today?  Oh christ.  It almost didn't happen.  For real.  I had eaten the fruity pebbles and had settled into a comfy chair and, good lord was it ever a struggle to motivate myself out the door once more.

And I took a caffeine pill, which I am always reluctant to do (shades of Jess Spano, anyone??).  But if I didn't?  No way three drama classes were happening. 

So I get to stoughton and I sit in the car staring at the fence infront of where I parked and I just thought:  Nope. 

Not going to do it.

I can't.

I don't have it in me.

no.

just no.

I even called Aaron, who was totally in the middle of aftercare by this point, and almost cried on his voicemail.  It sounded a bit like a suicide message.  Because it kinda almost was.  I thought about just not going into my job, driving away, and just disappearing somehow forever.  The bills, the exhaustion, the misery of this half-life I'm living? 

But somehow I sucked it up, I gathered my drama teacher things from the backseat, collected my will to function, and I climbed the steps to my drama classroom. 

I didn't know how I would do it, or even if I COULD do it in the state i was in at that moment, but I let my feet carry me to my responsibility, to my obligation.

And then my girls came upstairs for class.

and they were happy and excited and full of energy and stories and enthusiasm.  And some were absent, which normally consternates and frustrtes me, but which today I shrugged off.  Did you see the weather out today?  I didn't want to be indoors, why the fuck should they?  But I worked with the ones who were there and did my best to make the class productive.  They had a good time and I praised them.

The second class was on the heels of the first.  Less productive, but no less energetic and happy and fun.

Then I discussed my ambition for an additional curtain on the stage with my boss, and she wasn't opposed, which is awesome!

Then my third class.  I had three of seven.  not a great ratio!  But i focused on monologues and smaller scenes and I felt like each girl got alot accomplished and that each girl really helped her teammates, too, which is my favorite thing about theatre, the teamwork.

And so I left feeling, brace yourselves, pretty damned good about things.

I still can't pay my bills, that's a cold hard fact.  I am still out of shape and overworked and underpaid and confused about love and friendships and who\what\where the fuck I want to be, but I left feeling like maybe life was worth living.  Like maybe I don't have to drive my car off a cliff (try finding a good suicide cliff in southern mass, btw.  sheesh.  It'll have to be a pond or a river, right Senator?).  And I was reminded, reluctantly, because I am loathe to compliment myself or see good in myself, but I was reminded of something Aaron told me after observing one of my Drama classes one thursday.

I'm a really good teacher.

I'm not the best, I know that, and I'm not even great.  But I'm actually a really good teacher.  i'm good at my job.  I did good work with those kids tonight and I love each one of them.

I believe. 

I doubt sometimes, but I believe.

And I thank the universe for helping this thursday find a way to renew my flagging faith.

Amen.