Accomplished very little today and am strangely at peace with that in a very apathetic sort of way.
Lunch with a work friend = awesome. Introduced her to Better Bean! She's a vegetarian and I thought she ought to try their awesome veg sandwiches!
Getting to after care and finding out someone had just stormed out in high dudgeon and quit? = Pretty lively afternoon. Gossip, chatter, scandal at an afterschool elementary babysitting gig? Priceless.
Grilled cheese dinner at mum & dads = better than I expected! It was pleasant, we got a free meal, PLUS we got all tons of wacky wednesday items from Trucchi's supermarket that Mum had picked up for us! Today's wacky wednesday was breakfast themed, so I got english muffins, OJ, oranges, raisin bread and bananas! My mother has always had this distrubingly hilarious knack for selecting the longest, straightest, most phallic bananas. It makes me giggle every time! And my dozen or so bananas do not disappoint! this is a studly looking gorup, I gotta say ladies! And I'm not above fucking a banana. been there, done that. Just sayin.
Eggs were on sale too, but I asked her to refrain from picking us up eggs; I only like to buy and consume the organic free range ones. Obviously I have no contreol over this at restaurants... but I'm making little steps, and if I can be proactive about the ones in my refrigerator i feel better.
We also stayed for jeopardy! Oh man! We love jeopardy, but because we don't have tv and because jeopardy isn't on hulu, we never get to see it anymore! It was fun to play a game of it once again.
BORING! but that's a wednesday. It got even better when I got home! instead of having the hot, steamy sex i wanted, I had to change the litter box and clean! wooooooohoooooooooo. And the hubs is too beat for sexcapades. I fucking used his body this morning, I was all hot an bothered and pretty much fallated him until he was properly primed and then climbed up there. I felt kinda guilty after, but I gotta say, I fel alot more relaxed and happy. Sorry for quasi-raping you... I mean, he got off too, don't worry, but still... I felt kinda dirty...
Tomorrow is thursday, which means ISS with Fucktard McTaintface. God, I hate thursdays. Then drama. till 8. Christ. when is April vaca?
now i have to pay some online bills. Shall I throw darts at a list to choose which ones to pay? Cus I can't pay them all....
I applied for 5 muthafuckin jobs today. electronically. yups.
PLUS I peddaled my resume and credentials around the HS too! woot. HIRE ME.
I also started writing a scene today for Cedar Falls which is challenging me to go ahead and make some big decisions that I may not be ready to make.
Hmmmm.
My husband and I had a date tonight! an impromptu one! We felt like kids again and had a fun time!
Sadly we came home to a very messy house, but who gives a shit? lol. We need to clean and all, but meh. meh meh meh meh meh.
meh.
*******************************
Hey, ever worried about whether or not your genitals were good-looking enough? I have looked at alot of porn in my time, i mean ALOT, and there sure as hell are penises that do NOT meet my idea of attractive cocks. Dicks can vary widely from fella to fella. But I guess I hadn't realized what a wide range of vulvas there are out there! practically as unique as fingerprints for fuck's sake.
of course I'd realized that breasts have a wide range of styles, but in the end most breasts are pretty fucking awesome, big or small, right? I guess I've seen some pairs that are like "nah, no thanks, i'll pass..." but mostly? Give 'em here, I'll gladly put those things in my mouth, thanks!
But until I saw this ad for fleshlite synthetic vaginias, I hadn't realized how wildly varied the female genetalia could be. Maybe because most of my preffered porn involves a woman getting mightily stuffed, at which point the finer details of the lady's vulva are not exactly dispayed to their best advantage, right?
Anyway, look at this wide assortment of feminine flowers!
Wowza! some don't even look like the same species! how marvelous and intriguing, right? I mean I guess I knew on some level that every vagina was different, but until it was so clearly innustrated to me in this wonderful pale pinkish sampling, i guess it wasn't a reality, wasn't a thing I could really visualize!
Which is your fave?
Why?
And now check this out:
Same vajayjays, but now with whole people and faces connected--
what's up with the 4th one in from left? Did she have a labial-ectomy?
Does it change how you feel about your favorite? It did for me. I was picturing this luscious goddess of a woman, maybe an indian woman or middle eastern of some kind, and then.... some silly slut who had a mold made of her lady bits.
anyway. For a girl who had been craving a trip to the delta, this realization suddenly made traveling to parts unknown and unexplored even more compelling! I am pretty jazzed, and yes, a little intimidated by the myriad of vulva countenances out there for me to meet and worship.
And, naturally, I wouldn't be a woman if i didn't eventually get around to wondering if my pussy is just as pretty as everyone else's! Ay ay ay. As if we needed another body issue to wrestle with. I mean, really. I've read and even stage managed The Vagina Monologues, for heaven's sake. I know better than tho go fretting about my womanhood's aesthetics. I am a modern, liberated woman, and one who is very sexual, very open, and very confident in most areas relating to sexual expression. AND YET?!?!? You bet I sidled up to the hubs and inquired about the relative attractiveness of my family jewels.
He reports that they measure up favorably. But what the fuck else is he gunna say? Oh, god, yeah, your labia are gross! Let's get you a labial lift or something...
Lol. Of course he loves my vulva, what the hell choice does he have?
ok, one of these legitimately looks like a flower.
Or comission a nice, comfy couch for him to replicate the splendor that is my 'special purpose':
Aww. Just like in real life, he'd be way too big for that little thing... ;)
I am going to resolve not to give a flying fuck how my lady parts look compared to other women. As long as it's all clean and healthy and functioning down there, we're in business!
Talk about no voice! Look at this powerful ad:
I am breathless and moved. And impressed by the photoshopping.
Manic children, shrieks and tears and splitting temples.
Gray succubus Monday.
Fuck You.
lol.
how was your monday? i have no fucking idea where all this lame ass awful fucking poetry is coming from, and I promise to see someone about it if the problem persists. lol.
The husband is making dinner (amen), and he is wisely making comfort food. Macaroni n cheese from scritchity scratch! He was a rockstar in the bedroom last evening too, heeeheeehee.
The lady sat upon the king's beardly pate! The king, moste famished, gladly ate! The lady did sigh Whilst the king et his pie And they both got dessert in the end!
I should write children's books! Off-color and illicit Nursery rhymes illustrated by the talented Mr. Waite. We'd sell more copies that the kama sutra! woot woot! Mother Goosed or some shit. Didn't Andrew Dice Clay have one or two nuggets like that? I seem to remember a version of Old Mother Hubbard that devolved into bestial rape for laughs.... gave her a bone of his own? something charming like that.
All I was trying to say, before the attack of the naughty nursury rhyme, was that I love and appreciate my husband. who is amazing and good and the passionate love of my life! YAY!
First, check out Stage-Camp.Org! it is up and launched and fabulous!
also, check out the two latest posts on the Cedar Falls blog! These two are about an underdog character that hasn't gotten too much attention so far, but whom i persoanlly adore and have TONS of backstory for: Caleb Delaney, the youngest Delaney brother.
Every now and then I like to do a photo heavy post. I wonder if I should make this a weekly tradition; a phot installment. my voice through visual representation.
Meh.
maybe I'll just do it whenever I please.
Like today!
This week I've been collecting images as I research and poke around for my cedar falls writing. As you know, everyone in Cedar Falls has secrets, and many of those secrets are of a sexual nature. Affairs, infidelity, deviances, fetishes, illegal acts, immoral acts, betrayals, deception--- ahh, all the scintillating. scandalous, salcious things about the sex act.
Well, i got to thinking how very universal this is. We all tend to feel like, in the moment, that we are the only ones experienceing it. Like it is new, or special, or unique; but if we are to be perfectly frank and utterly post-modern about it: It's all been done before.
It is timeless. It is universal. It happens. It has happened before, it is happening now, it will happen again ad infinitum.
Sometimes I get so wrapped up in writing that I can't remember why my characters are making these awful choices. Or I get so detached from reality that I have to, like, remind myself of the pain and shock and betrayal one would feel to discover a partner's infidelity. Or the guilt one partner may feel over 'fucking up' and sleeping with someone else (i won't say 'by mistake', but by lapse of judgment? or in a moment of weakness?).
I puzzle out, on an almost daily basis, whether or not people can love more than one person truly. If someone who is having an affair can also be committed to their spouse and marriage. If kinky fetishes that are extra-marital are compulsions or fundamental needs or just for funsies.
now, I don't have answers, oh hell no! Lol. I have opinions, many of them, and I have history and human nature to look to for inspiration and motivation and interpretation, but no answers.
So, from time to time I do provocative google image searches to serve as writing prompts or to refresh the page of my imagination, if you will.
For your enjoyment, and maybe a sneak preview of some themes\storylines that will be wandering into Cedar Falls before the end, please to enjoy-- the photo blog!
This was a post secret I grabbed ages ago because it so completely summed up my Velvet character in a nutshell. I am also enamored of the mis-spellings on post secret cards. Halfs instead of halves. Plus I am a sucker for a redhead...
I love every fucking thing about this image. The color, the tone, the questions! It reminds me of Jonah velvet and Viola, but it also makes me want to write a hundred other stories too! LOVE LOVE LOVE!
Heeeheehee. Kids are a-DOR-able!
Decisions, decisions, right?
yup. So fun.
whaaaaaaaaaat???? so weird I couldn't NOT love this.
Would you want to fuck a guy who hides under a rug? Just sayin...
Twix. WTF? Is the wife frigid? Is that what I'm to gather? Or am I overthinking a fun twix ad?
I dig these old pulp fiction novella covers! Look at the tagline above the title! Brills.
Fucking Brilliant.
The Romantic Infidelity. I'd bet there's fog and a train station and a solitary tear down a dewy cheek.
I guess we're meant to understand that they're having an affair by the level of enjoyment they are experiencing?
God, I am so fucking blessed to have such amazing, inspirational, soul-enriching friends in my life. I certainly don't feel worthy of this blessing, but I sure as hell feel grateful. Thank you. Thank you to all the incredible friends in my life.
When you're around those quasi-friends alot, like the work friends or the like, you begin to believe the worst of people, you know? Like you expect your personal business to become common knowledge, or you expect your ideas to be taken and not given the credit or recognition they are due, or you expect that every other word out of someone's mouth is a front. or an embellishment, or a nicety, or an outright lie.
And good jesus, the negativity!
It is so thoroughly refreshing to be around real, genuine, honest people who love and care about you in a real and tangible way. A lasting way.
also? Good senses of humor doesn't hurt one fucking bit! I had a really great time last night! laughs, love, luscious little things called oreo balls (or, as I like to cll them: bestfuckingthingever!). Sound advice, positive reinforcement, patience (I didn't deserve), understanding, and just tons of cathartic hilarity.
I get tangled up sometimes, and turned around. I can't see the forest through the trees, my mum is always saying. There's something about my personality that sets me on wild flights of fancy and then leaves me sourly disappointed with the reality around me.
Danielle poses the question to me: "Well, why does reality have to be so shitty?" and what she means by this is not what you'd think; she's actually asking me why i have to percieve reality in such a negative way. Why is MY reality so shitty? maybe it isn't as bad as i'm always making it out to be. Sure, it certainly isn't the choir-of-angels rainbows-and-sparkle-cannons dream world /i constantly construct for myself, the perfection in my anticipation. Almost anything would fall short of my dreams and hopes and idealizations.
So what? So what if things aren't the paragon I was shooting for? That doesn't necessarily make them soooo shitty and miserable.
Once again it comes down to an attitude readjustment. A positive outlook thing. But I have been given cause of late to wonder if people can really change on a fundamental level.
And i've been doing this build-it-up-in-my-head-only-to-be-hugely-disappointed thing since I was a little girl. My imagination has always been wildly robust and reality has almost never stood a chance of comparing. (Aaron and our relationship is one of the few exceptions to this rule. The man still has the power to impress me, to surprise me, and to go above and beyond what I dreamed possible. He's phenomenal, and our romance, our mad passionate love, our head-over-heels still leaves me breathless after all these years, still humbles me, still makes me feel like the luckiest girl in the universe.)
So can a prescription for an attitude change really do the trick? Because besides the prescription, there's the daily business of actually swallowing those pills, you know? And I stopped taking vitamins months ago. I'm not actually super on following through with healthy endeavors. So far the vegetarianism seems to have stuck, and looks like it will be permanent. But vitamins? nope. Working out? nope. Eating healthy... meh. I can't claim there was anything remotely healthy about those delicious motherfucking oreo balls that I consumed with gusto last night. Or the latenight run for BK fries (after I SWORE that I wouldn't touch fast food ever again...)
So can I really change? Can I cease my disappointed-by-life outlook? God knows i am prone to manic bursts of optimism and verve and hope--but really? What's the real me? And maybe, just maybe, I am actually both. maybe that maddening duality is contained within me, and I'll just have to constantly work at maintaining a balance betwixt the extremes.
I don't want to be miserable, but I don't want to be a pretender, either. Of course, in the theatre, we are awfully fond of the phrase: Fake it till you make it! Maybe I need to smile real big and put on the old razzle dazzle for a while.
Of course my favorite prescription for radical personality change has always been and ever shall be:
Take a vacation from your problems.
Thank you Dr. Leo Marvin, and thank you Bob Wylie, for never failing to elicit a grin of pure, undiluted enjoyment from me.
And a real, heartfelt thank you to my dearest friends, who truly make this life worth living, worth slogging through, worth putting up with. Thanks for helping me have things to look forward to and things i can rely on, and things that i can trust-- even when I'm doubting myself, feeling like a total jackass, and can't tell my ass from my elbow (another one of my mum's favorite little gems!).
And thanks for oreoballs, disgusting salmon anecdotes, leveling with me, sympathizing with me, bottomless vodka (for the hubs), and forgiving me even when I prolly don't deserve it.
The job is really wearing on me. Well. The three jobs are really wearing on me. Especially because between the three of them I can't seem to make ends meet, and I kinda don't have any more hours to get yet another job; not if I also want to devote any time to things like sleeping, my husband, eating, decompressing, or even more importantly: the ongoing job search to obtain a real ass job.
I drank alot last night, so please fogive this brevity. My head hurts, my eyes ache, and I don't feel especially witty, clever, or insightful. Which is not to say that my un-hungover blogs promise to be especially witty, clever, or insightful; only that on normal days I can convince myself into believing that I am witty, clever or insightful.
I shoulda tried CoolMike's hangover remedy hours ago. Now I'm just rundown, achey and uninspired, lol.
Ugh. My fucking TEETH hurt.
Other parts of me are pleasantly sore too, but no complaints there, only gratitude. I needed to be fucked like a cheap whore and was obliged. More times than I have clear recollection of.... Contented sighs and tender tenderbits.
I will put a healthy, wholesome veg sandwich in my body later, and maybe some best coffee in town, and in my soul I will deposit friendship and fun times, as we will be visiting the pigeon coop laters. My bestie and I have sooooooo much to catch up on! I always look forward to her sound advice, her unique perspective and her unconditional support. I love her to pieces and it has been far too long since we got to hang.
Plus! I get to see the Bean and Mr. Pigeon as well, so it will be a fun time had by all.
I'm a teacher without a classroom
A director without a cast*
I'm a writer without a book deal
A mother without a child
I'm a dreamer without a vision
an actor without a role
and I'm waiting.
And I'm resenting.
And I'm scurrying and scratching and selling myself.
And I'm going round in circles and I'm drowning in demands.
I'm a woman without definition
a girl without a spine
I'm a traveler without a ticket
a leader without a flock
I'm an observer without a subject
and a scribe without a thought
I'm a speaker without a voice
a singer without a song
and I'm lost.
And I'm losing.
And I'm desolate and desperate and dead in places.
And I'm wrestling with weariness and I'm looking for an exit,
And I'm giving in to pressures and I'm wasting my potential
And I'm choking on maturity and dying of malaise
I am a soul without redemtion
a heart without a beat.
Oooh. Hungover poetry. how terribly cliched! how abysmally mediocre. Don't know where the FUCK that shit sprang from. Please, enjoy!
*(only partly true, actually~ I am directing three shows presently, but none of them truly feel like MINE)
Kids love April Fool's Day. But Kids are really really bad at April Fool's Day.
They come up with outrageous claims, they deliver these whoppers with wide sparkling grins, and barely let a breath pass before shouting: APRIL FOOLS!!
My favorite kndergartener today:
Hi Miss Donadlson-AprilFools!
Me: Hi Kate. April Fools. You Got Me.
Kate: GuessWhat? Our classroom is covered in pee----APRIL FOOLS!
Me: Gross.
Kate: There's a monster in the clasroom too. And Pee. APRIL FOOLS.
Me: Yikes. April Fools. See Ya Kate.
High Schoolers are way better. This adorable little girl was bent double on the stairs and nearly in tears as I walked by her.
"Hey Hun, you ok?"
Girl: "My stomach." She says. "It hurts so much!"
Followed by WILD but very REALISTIC sounding flatulence. Ok. Oh god. I don't really handle this sort of thing well, but I kept cool. She seemed really embarrassed as she tried to walk quickly down the stairs in apparent agony. "Oh my god, my stomach, it hurts, I just need to get to the nurse."
"Ok hun." I tell her in a soothing voice, all while she's breaking wind like a fucking 90 year old after the senior citizen's buffet. "The bathroom's closer-- do you think you'd rather do that or try to make it to the nurse?"
I decide to stick by her and sort of sheild her from any would-be teasing. She's obviously mortified and desperate. So these awful noises keep coming from her and she looks like she's melting in embarrassment, and just before we get to te nurse she straightens up and declares "April Fools Miss!"
Several stink bombs, many lame jokes, many silly pranks and finally I am home.
* My friend Adam pointed out that putting the word UPDATE on things makes them seem wayyyy more interesting and imperative, so I went and did that!*
It has been a while, what with building a website and a summer theatre camp and directing three plays and working three jobs, but I have finally updated the Cedar Falls blog.
I figure most of any new readers should have had time to catch up, right?
These vignettes wrap up the flshback sequence where, um, velvet meets grace. Or, well, more importantly, i suppose, we meet the character of Grace and establish her backstory with Jonah.
My instinct is to flash forward to the present again with something Jonah & Viola, but, alas, I don't have anything like that written just now, and am in no place to be writing new shit, so I think it'll be back to Maggie & Grey, who are about to go a-honeymooning.
As Cedar Falls is a constant work in progress, I think I'm going to relax a little about the 'order' things need to go in. It was a suggestion, and not bad one at all, but, see, if I'm not done there is just no way to have a solid 'order', so why kill myself trying to figure it out? Maybe one day, when\if I ever write all the vignettes I need\want to write, maybe when that dy comes I'll sit down and organize these bad boys into the most effective line-up, but for now? I'll do my best to group things by theme or event and whatnot, but just embrace the skipping around in time. Just fancy yourself a Scott Bakula, look in the mirror and say 'Oh Boy' and then jump in with both feet. And if you have any questions or concersn or confusion? PLEASE please please don't hesitate to ask!! I'm your stogie smoking hologram with the brooklyn accent and the crazy little bee-boop handheld device that seems to constantly be on the fritz.
Ok. Went a lil nuts with the quantum leap references there for a hot second. Apologies. Man I loved that show. Anyway, seriously, any questions\confusion, ask me. A writer LOVES to tlk about their writing. Alot. For Real. So.... yeah.
Ever had that right on the tip of your tongue and been unable to let it loose? There are so many occasions where such a statement would just not be socially acceptable. Very few situations, really, where this dilectable pair of wordlets would be OK, or would be forgiveable.
FUCK YOU
sometimes you just want to scream it, right?
FUCK YOU!!!!!!
Sometimes you need to get it off your chest somehow, else it will fester and collect upon itself, it will brim and swell and boil, and then god knows when or where it will erupt.
One of my students last time started singing Ceelo's 'Fuck You' but obviously the radio disney safe version, as seen on GLEE.
Another student goes: "You know, those aren't the ACTUAL lyrics..."
Thought I'd greet you like Paula Deen. Hey Y'all. Now I kinda want some cookies. Dammit.
Anywho, How ya been? I only missed one day of posting, and it isn't even a biggie because I often miss weekend days, but it feels like forever because so many eventful things have happened!
Plan P Productions Meeting Cancelled, Impromptu Family Game Night, Plan P Productions meeting Redux with lots of inspirational awesomeness, my WEBSITE is finally up and running and very nearly complete! I'm a DotCom! My bedroom is RESTORED to me, and I am typing this to you right now from my amazing loftie loft. Ah, loft, I will never take your splendor for granted again. I thought we'd never go back to how we used to be, and here we are. Thank you loft, for being just as awesome as I remember you--nay, better, for absence has indeed made the heart grow fonder.
Yes. that's right folks! Eric has indeed finally removed the majority of his shit from my apartment, and he'll be leaving the state to make the next big waste-of-time-mistake of his life which has been strewn with poor decisions and completely avoidable mistakes, and so it really, honestly, finally feels like he is gone from my apartment and for most intents and purposes gone from my concern and from my life. This is a mostly great feeling.
It meant spending a sunday evening post-amazingly-inspirational-production-dinner cleaning, Febreezing, vacuuming, and purging my loft of ginger presence; it meant fresh linens and gross old crumpled linens which I pretty much refuse to touch too, but fresh ones which make my heart and soul happier than fucking a box full of puppies and a bowl full of ice cream!
And our real bed? Means really really good sex. It is a great space for lovemaking. Sweet Jesus, I could ride until the cows come home and not have to worry about making too much noise with a squeaky, rickety, wobbly old loft bed, without having to stop because I'm knocking items over below us (real fun the night I jostled a whole spine of blank CDs over in the office space below our loft bed. That crash killed my mounting orgasm but quick, lemme tell you. grrr.). So ride I have folks, and I am a happy camper. Turns Out I could ride until the cows come home, but the husband isn't superhuman and, lol, we had to stop rather, um, abrubtly. heeheehee, as it turns out he too is psyched to have this awesome fuck-space back too. It's like I forgot he was human and not actually a god placed here solely to pleasure me. "I tried to warn you, but you just kept going..." he apologized after, um, evacuating the scene. I came anyway (and it was like, my fifth orgasm anyhow, as we were having tons of fun with foreplay in our restored bedroom!), which is always hilarious and must look ridiculous, but which feels pretty fucking awesome, lol.
Me, writhing and panting and barely-conscious, Holy shitholyshitholyshitholyshit!
Him, holding me safely away from potential impregnation and cursing his inability to power through for me:Wait, what?
Me, throat hoarse, face squashed against his chest, all spent and mumbly: Yeah, that just happened.
Him, pleasantly surprised: Oh. Well. Good.
Me, tingling but still wanting so much more funtime: Yes. Very fucking good. Mores?
Him, with a jack-bauer-esque chucklething: No-way-in-hell. Night!
But that was ok. Like I said, I'd come a billion times and it was like 2AM and he was exhausted, and I always feel a little smug when I make him come like that, which blunts the disappointment of sort of rendering my favorite toy temporarily-out-of-service. It's kind of an ego boost, isn't it ladies? Making them lose their, um, control? It always makes me feel like a seductress or a sex goddess.
Incentive to get on some powerful fucking birth control, i know, but I really don't want to put all those chemicals in my body. And, despite what they sternly warn in health class, the evacuation (withdrawal) method? 14 years and counting. KNOCK ON ALL THE FUCKING WOOD. I guess that it is a gamble, I guess, but if you won the lottery every day for 14 years, wouldn't that start to feel more like certainty than risk?
Sucks for those moments where you want to come in tendem, but hey, that's what other avenues are for! lolz.
(Lol, I like this link even better than the one above. Some of the phrasing is Hi-larious.)
So when did my cheerful little monday night update become a porn blog? Ahhhhh. Welcome back to loft living!
I should probably disclaimer the hell out of the above; remember folks, don't try this at home! Or, Hey Folks, Try at your own risk! And, it probably bears reminding that the withdrawal method does NOT prevent STDs or AIDs. If you are sleeping with a stranger, wrap that shit!
Hell, who knows if it even prevents pregnancy? We might just be Sterile!
Ahhh. Won't I be a great mom someday? Not if we keep pulling out! Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk.
You're Welcome!
ANYWAY...........
I sometimes read a blog that is linked on a friend's blog, and tonight's was brills. I wanted to share with you. Check Out The Sassy Curmudgeon's take on blogging, which echoes my frequent sentiments (and why I am blogging to you at past-midnight after being startled awake by a ridiculous cat spat--my cats are real assholes sometimes, but you have them to thank for this post! I was blissfully in post-coital dreamland until those little furballs came to fisticuffs over the use of the catbed or some other trivial cat bullshit!!)
And don't forget to check out my new website, but please, please, please disassociate the professional on that site from the lunatic over-sharer who blathers on over here in the blogosphere.
Y'all come back now, hear?
Eww. Now I'm kinda picturing Paula Deen AND the pull-out method... enjoy your buttery cookies, Y'all.
Last night I had a very pleasant dream, the first in some time, and it helped me feel optimistic and cheerful when I awoke. It was about the summer theatre endeavor, and it was so warm and hopeful and positive that it filled me with verve and certainty.
I realize life is never quite like the dreams we build, but I want to believe in this so very much!
But I woke up happy for the first time in days and days. Some of this was likely due to the fact that it is fucking SATURDAY, and that a very long week is behind me. But some of it must be attributed to the magic of what I sincerely hope we're building his summer. So now it is time to put our dreams into action and build a reality that is positive, productive, and progressive.
Strangely, now that I reflect on the dream, I was noticeably not at my best in the dream. I was unprepared for the surging success of the little start-up program that we'd created. I showed up on the first day and our enrollment had swelled miraculaously to at least 40 highschoolers, and I was pleased, I was thrilled and I marveled at the magic touch our executive director has with things like this, but I wasn't actually ready to go. I held back, I allowed others to lead the warm-ups while my brain scrambled to put together an effective first-day lesson plan. I could't think of a single other NAME GAME besides "I'm going on a picnic", and I knew I didn't want to play that one with so many highschoolers (it works better in smaller groups). I wanted to WOW these kids, and I was drawing a blank. There was this awareness that if this first day wasn't completely amazing then they might not come back tomorrow.
And yet. All the kids were dream students. They were enthusiastic, they were outgoing, they were patient, they were energetic (without being asshole show-off spazzoids), they were ready to go and they were committed. I didn't get the sense that any one of them might not come back. And even though I deferred the duties that really should have been mine? It was OK. Noone was looking at me expectantly, no one was looking at me critically. I stepped back and let someone else lead some opening exersizes while I tried to throw together a plan of attack for the day, and nothing went wrong. And I didn't feel like a failure. I felt unprepared, but not panicked. I felt less than useful, but optimistic that I would step up to the plate and deliver asap.
So even though I wasn't my ideal self, wasn't the perfect teacher or drama instructor that I strive to be, it was ok. And the over all feeling of the dream was happy, was assured, was gratitude and excitement and blessings and love. Warm and glowy.
Now I realize that this was a fucking dream, folks. The very idea that 40 high school drama kids could be in a room together and not somewhat self-conscious or show-boat-y, or obnoxious or diva-licious? I have been teaching drama long enough to know how unrealistic this is. We will encounter pains in the ass. We will have to deal with shyness. Not every student (when we get students) will be ideal, not every one of them will take their development seriously.
And the other reality nis, of course, what if we don't get enough students? Don't generate enough interest? These are nightmare scenarios, and I want to bask in the warm glow of that sigh-cuddle-sigh happy dream for a while.
It filled me with a renewed sense of purpose. I'm going to wrap this up and look up every drama director in the Taunton and surrounding areas, get their contact info and deliver a comprehensive list to my Exec Director at out big get-together dinner this evening. And I'm going to make whatever voice I have in me heard tonight. I am a valuable member of this team. And I might not always be ready at the right times, I might have to scramble and re-think on the fly, and bend my mind around new ways of thinking, but that is OK. I will be ok. I am loved and appreciated and wanted despite my many imperfections as an educator, as a team member, as a person. I have value. I have worth. I have alot to do and not alot of time in which to do it, so for now? See you soon.
Been hard at work on my new website and I am super-dee-duper proud of my accomplishments so far. I believe you would be impressed. I'm using a fancy and exciting free flash website builder and I am getting the hang of it! I almost want to show you all now, but I will wait until it is ready to publish, which I'm hoping will be sooooooooooon!
Like, this weekend soon?? Maybe! I think I want to go ahead and publish it before it is all the way done because I already love it so much more than my old digication site. I can always tweak it and add to it as necessary, but I want to start putting BethReardon.com on my resume and shit! How tech Savvy! How impressivesly progressive! This educator knows a thing or two abouts the interwebz~ we need teachers who know how to surf the nets!
Aaron is suitably impressed, btw, which feels good. He had never even hear dof this web building site, and as he watches me stumble along with eye-brow-rainingly decent results, he is thinking maybe this will be the site he uses to build the STAGE Camp website! Provided Patrick lets him build it instead of outsourcing it.
Ugh, though. I completely don't want to go to work. I am a sick puppie. lol. Bet you didn't think the word puppy could get any cuter, nd there it goes! A visual awwwwwwwwww!
One more nuther thing;
Eric, the BIL, is moving back to Florida, like, nextfuckingweek.
Yeah.
So know what that means? It means the entire agonizing time he was up here ruining my life, stressing my marriage and sanity to the breaking point? It means it was all for fucking nothing. One big fat waste of fucking time. awesome, right? Like, I realize I should just be relieved that he's out (though he isn't really gone yet--my loft bedroom is still uber gross with all his shit, and um, wouldn't you at least wash the fucking sheets if you had stayed at someone's place for months? nope. I guess I'll just have to do that. If I weren't beyond poor I'd prolly just throw those fucking sheets out!), I realize I should be doing a hitch-kick that I won't have to be awkwardly quasi-0friendly to him at family functions anymore, but really?
This latest move just makes me all the more pissed off. I wish I could turn back the clock and say "no" to his needing a place to stay. What doesn't kill us does not always make us stronger. Turns out my mother was wrong about alot of those little idioms and homespun wisdom. I'm not convinced any of the pennies I've spotted and subsequently retrieved from the ground have ever brought me any especially positive luck either. And she taught me several wron state capitals, too, and it is very difficult to un=learn trivia like state capitals.
I love her though. And I hate Eric. And I harbor resentment toward alot of folks right now. Aaron says this is a waste of energy, and in theory i agree~~~ but somethimes, i think, when you're feeling powerless, doesn't it feel good to hold a grudge and growl and gnash your teeth and stew in vitriol? Just a little bit? Maybe that's just the Irish in me?
I woke up this morning with a sore throat, which seems to me to be the psychosomatic manifestation of this 'voiceless' feeling in which I've been wallowing. Also, last night I broke out in a mild case of hives, which I can't explain with any environmental factor and so am attributing to stress and this feeling of desperate panic that I've been suffering.
The other day, I prayed to the powers that be (raised Catholic, practice open ended spirituality, but in times of desperation it's the grandfatherly Catholic deity that ends up looking down on me with those regrettably anglo blue eyes and embarrassingly caucasian complexion), to please never ever give me a child.
That was gunna be a post secret and now I've blabbed it out here in cyberspace. "Oh Well."
The decision to go ahead and try for children has been teetering for some time now. Obviously in the immediate we haven't the revenue to support any offspring, so we aren't trying to procreate or anything--in fact we're still actively practising methods to avoid such a situation. However, it had always been an eventuality for us. A fondly anticipated 'someday'.
Only in the last year or so has this expected eventuality come under scrutiny. Do we really really want kids? I mean, in reality? For Realz? Do we want diapers and bottles and giving up every bit of personal time, and working too hard and screaming and teething and doctors and the responsibility and the utter bone-weary exhaustion? Are we really cut out for that?
Recently, to my thinking, the answer has been a pretty resounding 'NO!'.
I no longer believe I was meant to, nor want to, be somebody's mother. And coming to this decision, admitting it to myself nakedly and without judgement, seemed to relieve a great deal of pressure from my too-stressed mind\heart\spirit. The guilt came from the fact that I am not a solitary entity. I have a partner in all this. A partner who happens to be pretty fucking amazing, and who would be one amazing father.
So when I sat in my car this weekend and sobbed my heart out, when I sat there blubbering and self-flagellating, when I sat there and finally gave voice to my darkest, lonliest thoughts and I asked that old Catholic God and all those Catholic saints to please, please, please NEVER give me a child-- it was with a measure of relief and a healthy dose of guilt. Because I was making that decision for two people, and that isn't fair.
It took me a day or so, but I finally confessed to my husband that I didn't want children. His reaction was alot calmer than I expected. I guess I should have expected him to be perfect, he very nearly always is perfect.
"Are you sure about this?" He asked me gently.
I couldn't speak, my throat too tight, so I nodded and didn't meet his large, concerned eyes.
He probed only delicately into the 'why' of it, but didn't press. He asked if I could live with the decison, if I wouldn't regret it. I told him the only regret I had was that he would be such a wonderful father, but that that didn't seem reason enough to bring a child into the world with me for a mother. He was sweet and gentle and told me I'd be a wonderful mother, but nothing he or anybody else can say could ever convince me of that. So he hugged me and kissed me and told me no decisions had to be made now, and that I should put it from my mind because it isn't an immediate concern, and then we went about our business.
But I'll tell you something weird. After I made that request of God or the fates or the universe or whatever, after I begged never to get a child but before I confessed everything to Aaron? My husband fell into a very rare (for him) and almost unshakeable depression. He couldn't put his finger on it, but he was the bluest of blue. He doubted everything that makes him great. He was plagued by self loathing. He told me of a dream where he came home to find himself hanging from the shower curtain and he told me he felt only relief. Not revulsion, not terror, not grief. He was relieved.
(he swears up and down that he doesn't want to die, or commit suicide, btw, he is afraid of death like most normal people, but he said in the dream it was just such a load off to see that that part of him, whatever it was, had finally ended it all.)
So, guys, I think I really did something permanent by putting that request out there in the universe. I think Aaron was subconsciously grieving the loss of our potential future, and I think I did that to him.
And I've been grieving it in part too. The initial sense of calm and assurance I felt on making the decision has been replaced by doubt and a twinge of regret and by alot of snarled, tangled emotions, but nothing that screams out: "I was wrong! Forgive Me! Take it Back!!"
More like all these centuries worth of gender role bullshit that is designed to make me feel less-than or incomplete, or never fully realized until I carry and deliver and rear.
But it just isn't for everyone folks.
And if you lived in here, if you listened to what goes on up in this domepiece everyday? You'd likely agree with me. I'm not fit.
Maybe this will mean eventual separation from the only person who has ever truly been my everything, maybe I'll need to let him go because he was meant to be someone's father, but I really don't see me changing my mind on this decision. It is too big. There's too much at stake. And if the day comes where he needs to persue the biological imperitive given him by nature or the universe or the divine? Then I will have to let go. Our partnership must end. And I would send him with my blessing.
I just wish I didn't feel like such a selfish asshole about this. Because really, that's like false pretenses, isn't it?
Ah well.
And if you ever witness me getting swept up in baby fever again, please, i beg you, remind me of this resolution. It is way too important to be swept aside or dismissed or forgotten or explained away.
Richard Burton said of Ms. Taylor in his private diary: "Beautiful beyond the dreams of pornography." I tend to agree. he also spoke about her seeming inability to act while in rehearsals. He thought to himself 'My god, she's awful!" when they met and were filming Cleopatra. but he told of this magic that happened when the camera started rolling, she came alive and she became nothing less than bewitching. She was a true 'Movie Star'.
As a teen I used to love to read about their steamy affair, their tempestuous relationship, their wild attraction.
As an actor i could watch her fascinating performances in films like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf over and over and still not absorb all of what made her so captivating to watch.
And the legend of those Violet Eyes, which don't really photograph, but which her contemporaries would always go on and on about.
I realize nobody out there really gives a shit, but missing days of posting really bothers me! Obviously you can tell it's been a bit of a busy week for me. Plus, it is really impeding my ability to post when I can't seem to log on from work. I called tech support yesterday and they were supremely unhelpful.
I have a couple applications out there and aim to have at least three more out by week's end. Of course I'm also supposed to be preparing a shakespeare workshop for my thursday night teens and I just don't know where my time goes. It slips away like water through my fingers. And what little time I do manage to pool together? Well then I find myself with too little energy or ambition to do much with it.
Plus I wanted to start writing abstractly. But I don't actually think I have an abstract bone in my body, lol, except for parody. So every abstract blog post I sit down to write walks the line between goddamn awful shite and hilariously tongue-in-cheek.
Here's what's on my plate this week as far as self improvement goes:
~Try to get back into the habit of taking the vitamins. I'm thinking I'll do them after dinner, because taking them at work is a huge hassle.
~ Give. Up. Junk Food. For real. No more dicking around. I don't need that shit in my body. I need to STOP. I need to be actively healthy instead of passively unhealthy!
~Drink more Water.
~Continue with the new Oil Cleanse Method, but supplement it with washing with honey. More on this if it works out, lol.
~Say "Oh Well" alot more. Until I believe it. Until I feel it. "Oh Well."
~Continue to go balls to the wall with the whole 'Thoughtlessly Perfect' endeavor.
~Make a doctor's appointment. I'm a grown woman. I can do this. I must do this. I will do this. Soon.
~Get in touch with debt counsel.
~Avoid sharp objects, lengths of rope, electricity near water, and wining cliff roads at night.
~Practice kindness and patience with myself and others. Resist the urge to resent those super-mortals among us who posess every good quality that I lack, and refuse to take my inferiority out on my loving husband.
~Talk less shit. It isn't good for the karma. Or the reputation. Keep. Mouth. Shut. Opinions to self. Shut the fuck up. Shut it. Smile and be pleasant.
Ambitious self-improvement goals eh?
The other thing on my mind lately has been this idea of the Voice. Self Expression and the Self. I have come to notice over the years that my ideas and my opinions have the tendency to be dismissed or ignored or trivialized or diminished when given. Which would be frustrating enough, right? But here's the worst part: My opinions\advice\recommendations are ignored one minute but then when another individual gives voice to THE SAME FUCKING IDEA all of a sudden it seems that the idea is wonderful, revolutionary, innovative, and absolutely perfect! That's what we''l do! We'll do this thing that Beth said earlier but wasn't good enough when she said it! Yayyyyyyy!
I mean, really? WTF? This happened to me ad nauseum whilst student teaching. It happened to the point that it really broke my spirit and shattered my self worth. I find it happening at my job alot more than I am comfortable with. But when it happens at home? Oh my fucking lord, it makes me want to tear my hair out and screem until my throat bleeds. It makes me almost literally insane with rage.
Prolly not a healthy reaction.
But seriously? It makes me feel crazy. Like, all of a sudden one person says: 'Let's try this' and now, just because it came out of that person's mouth, NOW it's a valid suggestion? Remember when I said that two days ago? What was wrong with the idea then? Jesus. It is wildly frustrating.
So I'm forced to take a step back and examine why it is that my Ideas, which prove to be valid, useful, excellent ideas, are ignored when uttered from my lips. What is it about the way I'm presenting the ideas? Or what is it about me that makes the ideas seem less than viable options? What am I doing to misrepresent myself and my brilliance so thoroughly?
This will take some pondering.
Right now I gotta scoot, as I'mma be late for the job where no one listens to me and I go unapreciated. lol.
I have never had a professional massage. I have never been to a spa. I've never had a facial (um. the beauty regimen kind of facial. ahem hem.), I've only had one intimate wax, only a few times have I been to a salmon for my hair or a manicure (and these few times were all for events such as prom, wedding, and starring in my HS musicals). I have never had a pedicure.
It occurs to me that I might have some deep-rooted issues with certain forms of self indulgence. Particularly the ones connected to body image and beauty.
Lord knows I have little to know problem indulging with an expensive gourmet dinner, or indulging myself in some alone time with a vibrator, or indulging by shirking responsibility and diving into a movie or tv show, or indulging myself in this silly writing project I love so well.
But it would seem that I don't take the time or take the step necessary to really pampering myself every once in a while. This is incredibly difficult to reveal. Wow. I didn't expect this.
Weirdly I am always encouraging other women to do this, to take time, relax, focus inward and allow themselves time to recharge, feel worshipped, feel like a queen, feel beautiful. I applaud them when they take a spa day or go get a massage or a wax or a mani\pedi or go to the salon, even when they bemoan the cost of such indulgences. In THEORY I seem to believe in this practice, in this process, in this ritual.
But I, myself, have never put it into PRACTICE.
A pair of friends of mine wrote a delightful book, a sort of loving instruction manual called An Indulgence a Day with the subheading 365 simple ways to spoil yourself. It is a wonderful collection of great ideas and wish-list-y type things for one's ideal life. Some are, indeed, simple, like: Color. Like when you were a kid, sit down with crayons or markers and fucking color, lol. And, I have to say, this one should NOT be dismissed or underestimated-- I get to do this alot at my afterschool job with the kindergarteners and it is WILDY thereputic, satisfying and whimsical. I think it works especially best as a community activity. Chatting with the kids and other teachers whilst we all color our pages is fun, freeing, and enriching.
So some are TOTALLY doable and easy to work itno your everday life if you just take half a second and make the decision to do it. They range from going green activities to sexy bedroom stuff to spiritual endeavors to self-improvement and wellness, and to indulgence in the purest form like brownies and other baked goods, lol. They run a whole broad spectrum of ways and outlets for indulgence.
But I'll admit that when I bought it I raised an eyebrow and to most of the suggestions I said to myself: Yeah right, never gunna happen. Like 'Get a hot stone massage' or 'get an acupuncture treatment' or 'get a reiki treatment' or 'take a belly dancing class' all sound nice, but definitely not doable for me. It was like I was absolutely on board for or could see myself doing things like 'throw a sex toy party' or 'spoil your lover' or 'find shapes in clouds' or 'cook dinner naked' (and so many things in this indulgence book I already have done, do often, or do as second nature!), but I just could not see myself doing those other things.
But why not? I wonder now why I can't imagine myself ever doing those aforementioned things. And now I'm starting to see a trend in the ones I am crossing off the list with a big smelly magnum marker as "no way in hell' items.
They all seem to have to to with putting my self, my PHYSICAL self, out there in a vulnerable way. See, I can be naked and be happy, no problem. My body is wayyyyy far from perfect, but my husband loves me, finds me insanely attractive (lol, insane might be the key word, but whatever), and I don't really have a problem feeling sexy and sexually powerful with him. Indulgences with the partner are no problem. Lover Massages, new positions (sorry, but if I need a book to tell me how to or remind me to remember to spice up my sex life, I might be in serious trouble-- no offense at all to my dear friends who wrote the book, because sex indulgences should DEFINITELY be included and I understand many, many people do actually need the reminding, but that is definitely an area where I don't need any prompting to indulge, lol), making time for quickies, calling out from work for a day of sexy time and all that is no issue.
Neither are some of the self improvement things like go green or buy new shoes or whatever, (though I'd argue strenuously that 'amke a budget' is in no fucking way an indulgence, lol. I just about wanted to hang myself when I saw that one and it got summarily tossed in the 'no thanks' pile at first glance. See, i get where they're coming from because I KNOW it would make mee feel better, rest my conscience, and take all the dark, nebulous wonder out of my financial sitch, but eeeek. Make a budget? That's a chore and not an indulgence. ever.) I loved the idea to 'take a cooking class with a friend' and other fun things like that that maybe are harder to work into everyday living, but are definitely worthy goals for an 'I should do this for myself someday soon' list.
But anything having to do with me going to a professional and stripping down and asking for improvement to my physical being? Well stop the presses, shut the door, and fuck you very much.
I also could never brng myeslf to use the Free state of the art gym at any of the colleges I attended. And I avoid going to the doctors like the plague. Isn't that the silliest comparison, docs and plagues. But you get me.
Why??
And then, get this: I was reading a website on oil cleansing your skin because of my friend Meagan's recent blog post about how this new method has really helped her problem skin (ok, whatever, I went to school with this girl and she's fucking gorgeous. I basically wanted to run away and make love to her every day all day if she'd let me, and I was totally upfront about this with aaron, lol, who told me I should absolutely 'explore those options'; and anyway, problem skin? Jesus. She maybe had one or two blemishes ever in the time that I knew her, and we existed in a state of high-stress, little sleep, sweaty, gross, unhealthyness in the puppymill that was AMDA's musical theatre bootcamp program. She's insisting that she's got problem skin and all, but that girl, love her to pieces and all, doesn't even know the half of it, or she was able to hide it really fucking well.) and since I have seriously troubled skin (if my skin were a teenager she'd be an emo cutter with bulimia, a pill habit, and a compulsion for sleeping with older men in order to try to fill the daddy role or something) I wanted to check it out.
It looks good and I'll prolly try it, (I mean, jesus, I'm 27 years old and hfeel like I've tried everything and I can't seem to get my fucking skin under control, I'll try nuclear radiation at this point, thanks) but that's not the point. Here's the point: I got to this sentence and started to fucking BAWL my EYES OUT!
As you're massaging, let your mind drift off to something calming and breathe deeply. Take this time to relax and release some of the stress that your body is harboring. Sit down, breathe deeply, and take your time.
WHAAAAAAAAAT?!?!?!!?!? Why the waterworks, sister? Holy Moley! This prompted me to really examine what the fuck must be going on in my head\heart\soul.
Friends keep trying to get me to go get a massage. I avoid it like the plague. I want to get regular waxings, and yet I hem and haw and find every excuse for NOT doing it and thus have NEVER done it (save that bikini wax experience in santa monica after three hella strong margaritas!). I push and push away all these intimate beauty\wellness experiences. Why?
I think it's a tangled and snarled and complicated thing. I don't expect there's an easy answer. I think alot of it will likely have to do with my mother's example, and my sisters too. I expect some heavy chunk of it will be steeped in my devout catholic upbringing. At least some of it will be due to my crippling body issues, because outside of my little world where I exist with Aaron I am actually rather apalled by the state of my physicality, causing me to wish Aaron and I were the only people on earth sometimes. And the rest? I think I must have trust issues. I never liked participating in the massage circle at acting school. It took me until I was quite old to really let myself go enough to drink until tipsy or drunk. I don't like to be out of control with anyone other than Aaron (to whom I often like to surrender complete control. yum. ever seen Secretary? you should.).
My friend Kerry is even a massage therapist and she was giving free professional massages out for christmas at our party, and I didn't even partake in that! Partly because I was pursuing other exciting interests, but also largely because it freaked me the fuck out! Like, honestly, when I saw that she'd set up the awesome chair thing? I was like: Oh, fuck no! how am I going to make my excuses? What can I say? Do you think I'll HAVE to get one? Is there any way of getting out of it without looking as insane as I most likely am???
Not having to get that massage was such a fucking relief, and I don't know WHY. Aaron got one and was transported. Kerry is, from all reports, amazing at her job! But something boged me out about the whole thing, and maybe especially because she is my friend.
And to think of someone other than Aaron (or a similarly trusted lover) giving me a nude back or any other body part massage? Nope. Nope nope nope. nope. no.
But WHYYYYYYYYY?
When I finally do end up seeing a therapist I'll try to remember to ask about this.
"Item 121 on today's glitch list", right Sam Jackson from Jurassic Park?
That's how I feel sometimes, hahaha. Like this great idea with all this potential, but like a dangerous accident waiting to happen. Like I have raptors up in me, and a T-rex who doesn't want to be fed, who wants to HUNT, and this little rebellious dick of a guy who isn't in it for the vision, but who's in it for the money and then totally self-sabotages the whole grand operation but in the end gets boned, or, excuse me, foisted by his own petard. Or eaten up by spitty flare-neck dinos.
Sorry I missed a couple days there. It has been increasingly difficult to log onto blogspot from work for some reason, and yesterday was the Semi Final round of Drama Festival followed by an awesomely fun gamenight that stretched into the weeeeeee tiny hours of the AM, so this is my first real opportunity to post.
And I am a busy fucking bee. I would rather be a goddamn sloth. But I'm a bee.
I'm a sloth trapped in a bee's life maybe. Because running around multitasking and go-go-go certainly do not come readily to me. And doing all this baloney at once is making me a grumpypuss.
What I want to do: Wave a magic wand and make the following things happen splendidly~~~
Dishes Done
Laundry Done
The Loft cleaned and returned to my bedroom.
Coverletters written and printed
Packets sent out gloriously (maybe with extra fucking fairy dust for lucksies)
food shopping done and paid for by a mysterious benefactor
bills disappeared forever end everafter
my new website designed and launched with spectacular aplomb and to rave reviews and folks clamboring to hire me!
The Cedar Falls Site updated and suddenly read by hundreds and thousands of avid readers!
All the cat hair and cat smell in the apartment to prestodigitonium themselves right the fuck out of my life.
My Taxes did
Plants watered
Cats fed
Me fed
Bathroom scrubbed and sparkling
And my ass parked in front of my new awesomepants videogame that I haven't been able to spare a minute for since the day after I received it.
And then me relaxing with a glass of wine and beautiful creativity pouring from my fingers into the world of cedar falls with new vignettes and shorts.
And maybe time\money\hours left in the day to see my loved ones and relax relax relax
Is that too much to ask? Will that amount of magic break the magic bank?
Perhaps.
So yes. While I've got a load of laundry in and dishes soaking, and a minute alone to myself whilst Aaron fulfills some obligatory demand on his time, I am taking a mo to blog. God damn but I seem to really get a kick out of fucking blogging. Why do you think this is folks?
I'm not sure it makes me any better or worse, really. That is to say, I'm not sure it contributes to my goal for self-improvement, but neither do I see it as a vice really. But what is it?
Ay ay ay. In this moment? Who gives a shit? It is a minute or two to myself to be thoughtlessly perfect.
lol.
SO........ A website. I want one. I kinda need one. A teaching portfolio one. I have one that I set up whilst I was a grad student, but I wanted so much more! I want it to look really professional and be everything that I need it to be, and also be totally manageable by moi, and easy to use and, well, I want a miraculaous narnia website of milk and honey apparently.
I bought a domain name, which, lol, I actually can't remember off the top of my head, heeheehee. And now I need a site! Aaron suggested some site, but those really just look like blogs! I already have a fucking blog. 2 in fact. I want a goddamn site. He assures me that this will be no problem, but the man has been pulled in so many goddamn directions lately that I feel like I can't ask him to take the time to help me. Besides, I want to be able to do this on my own. I want to be self-sufficient and strong and useful in my own right. Truth be told, I'm getting a little sick of being the nearly useless sidekick of a great man.
I'm not sick of the man, no no no. As previosuly mentioned: He's Great! He's fan-fucking-tastic actually. He's brilliant and clever, and ingenious, and capable, and wonderful, and pretty fucking perfect in every way. In fact, the only thing that could improve him would be if there were two or more of him so that he could accomplish all the tasks set before him without as much stress and pressure. He's a catch, folks. An absolute dream of an individual and I'm the luckiest person alive to get to share his life.
So where's the but? Here's the but: BUT. I'm growing weary of watching him struggle through project after project where I can be of NO ASSISTANCE to him at all. I want to share his burden, not sit by and offer moral support while he pushes through deadline after deadline. I want to be able to do what he always does for me; I want to take some of the tasks off his plate and put them onto mine, lessen his load, divide and conquer. But can I whip up a new image in photshop? Nah. Can I set up a website? Nope. Can I research online printers, maybe but not to any great effect. He's always better at any and every given task\assignment, and I am really starting to feel useless in this partnership.
The thing is, I know I'm not actually a useless individual! I recognize that I have strengths and I have value and that I am incomparable and all. BUT. But this relationship has just become so so SO unbalanced, and I worry that the strain of him constantly being the one to tun to, the one who can do things, the one who needs to be the one who does things (because I am incompetent by comparison) will keep tipping the scales untill the spill ans collapse and we're just a pile, a heap, a nothing.
So I need to figure out what to do about this website of mine, and I need to do it without asking too much help from him. I need it for myself, is that understandable? It's funny. I often tell him that if I were with someone else I'd be alot more capable. For instance, I am fully capable of hanging a shelf or constructing furniture, or fixing most household things. My Dad brought me up doing all sorts of shit like that, and I have worked as a theatre tech off and on for forever. I have the smarts and the ingenuity and the common sense and the werewithal to tackle those sorts of problems and tasks and projects. But somehow, with Aaron around? Things sort of have a way of waiting until he's around and has a minute, you know?
This is partly because he's a perfectionist, too folks. Like in our last apartment, he was pleased as punch that I'd hung that shelf, but it bothered him something fierce that it wasn't centered in the space and so eventually he moved it so that he could live with it. I'd hung the shelf perfectly well, but he needed it to be just so.
So, to avoid having to do things twice, I hold off on projects where I know he'd prefer to have control. Gosh, this makes him sound controlling, he really is not. He is just better at doing these things than most mortals, plus he has a streak of OCD about lines and spacing and arranging things.
Anyway. Any free website building advice? I'm not interested in another blog styles site. I want a real ass site. I need potential employers to look it over and be impressed enough to call me in for an interview. And if I can do it myself, this is a big bonus because then I get to tout myself as tech savvy, and wow them with how I built and manage this awesomesauce site all by my onsesey, not with the help of my perfect husband whome they should really be hiring instead of me whilst I sit at home on my slothful ass playing videogames and dreaming up a world of fiction no one reads.
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