Ms. Reardon Has a meltdown

They say there's no one busier than a first time mother.  As I've never been a mother, I can't speak to that.  But I'd like to put a word in here for first time teachers.

Holy Hell, is this hard.

I feel like I can't get caught up with all the things I'm supposed to do, never mind get ahead!  There's always something that needs doing, always something that needs seeing to, always something i've forgotten about or failed to do or neglected to complete.  And on top of all the paperwork, there are actual living human beings who need my help, my guidance, my instruction, my support, my attention, my positive or negative reinforcement, my everything.

I am so exhausted at the end of every day that it is all I can do to eat a dinner (usually some form of takeout which is awful, but I'm way too beat to even think about cooking, let alone DO it!) cuddle with the hubs and try try try to get work done before my head crashes to the pillow.

This week has felt brutal.  Right now I'm sitting here in my classroom, waiting for an OPEN HOUSE, and moments ago I was bawling my eyes out on the phone to Aaron, my number one cheerleader/coach/mentor/pillar-of-strength.

I feel unequal to the job.

I love the kids.  I love them.  I like them.  I like being their teacher.  But I am so goddamned worried that I am failing them, letting them down, sabotaging their education because I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M DOING!  and I CAN'T DO THIS JOB!!!!!

There's a possibility, also, that perhaps my meds need some adjustment.  But these are real concerns.  I feel like I fuck up hardcore everyday.  Like I'm not able to organize my thoughts well enough to help all my students.

I can't finish this right now.  I have already splashed cold water on my face and turned off the Damien Rice.  I need to get my shit together and get into the right headspace to meet parents.To smile and be pert, and try to shrug off the fact that I didn't get to shower this morning because my fucking alarm didn't go off, and try to be at peace with the fact that I'm all broken out and didn't have time to do make-up (see: Alarm issue), and try to breath and quell my raging neuroses for the evening, because I have a fucking SHOW to do.

Today we had some professional development and at one point I mentioned that my perspective was that of the arts... later the facilitator asked me about it.  Asked what my discipline was.  I told him theatre and he asked if I was in anything right now.  As if a teacher has time to also be an actor.  I smiled and told him regretfully 'no, not right now', and mentioned that i'll be teaching a drama elective here soon.  This is when a colleague joked that of course I was in a show, I have four performances a day!  How true it is.  And four shows a day folks, of improv?  It's fucking exhausting.

And if i could get some applause at the end of every class, would that kill anyone?

So i don't know about first time mothers, and maybe my bestie can speak to that, as she is both a first time mother AND a first time teacher (yipes!), but this feels alot like having 90 children all at once.  Ninety-uplets.  Thank heavens they're potty trained.  And thank Christ I don't have to make room in my apartment for them!

Wish me luck at open house.

Ms. Reardon, Room 205

So!

I have officially survived a week and a half.  Survived, but not quite thrived.  Not a total disaster, which is, in itself, a victory.

I love these kids.  honestly.  Love them to pieces.  Love their teen angst and their urban toughness, their glorious ignorance and their unabashed enthusiasm for life hidden behind requisite teenaged disinterest! 

I am happy to be in my job.  A week ago at this time I was trying to figure out what I would do when I quit.  I suppose I'll have many such highs and lows.  Later today I will correct their first writing assignment and likely blanch with grief and woe. 

But I am surviving.

Keep you posted on the thriving.

In other news, I just had Peapod deliver my groceries!  More expensive than the bucket, but well worth the fact that I didn't have to take time out of my day to go to the fucking supermarket!

Only downside I've noticed so far is the four cartons of white mushrooms that found their way into my order, unasked for and unappreciated.  I am going to give them to my sisterinlaw, as she eats mushrooms and I do not. 

Ms. Reardon's Big Debut

Today was long and rather overwhelming.  And that was with no kids!  Tomorrow they all come back to school and it is sink or swim for Ms. Reardon, first year english teacher.

Jesus Christ.

I am feeling like I don't have a fucking clue.  Or, well, more accurately, like I have several assorted scraps of clues, but that the mystery is still very puzzling and no clear picture is emerging.  I feel like I'm being pulled in a hundred different direction, I feel underinformed, underprepared, underqualified, and under a hugely crushing amount of pressure.

Boy will I have a lot to talk about with my therapist tomorrow afternoon!

My loved ones are assuring me that I CAN do this, that I will succeed, that I will learn as I go and that I will not only survive, but thrive.

I wish, I really really really wish I had their confidence in me.  God, I feel like I'm stumbling blind.  I just don't feel ready.  I tried to prepare, I really did, but as the day approaches, I just don't think I prepared adequately!!

EEEEEEEK!!

And don't even get me started on how this job\career HAS to work out.  Goodness.  Talk about pressure.  I don't really have the luxury of deciding this isn't for me and starting some other career.  I quite literally can't afford to suck at this and get fired. 

So it's time to suck it up, learn mighty fast, and fake it till I make it.  God help me and god help those kids.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


I start my CAREER in just a few days!  AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

I am so, so, so, so, so, soooooo nervous! and Excited.  But mostly freaking out!

AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I feel like I'm cramming before a huge test.  Wading through site after site of how-to guides to teaching, sifting through online lesson plans, grappling with the curriculum required by the nation, the state, and the system.  I am trying, struggling, to incorporate what feels like a thousand different strands, and somehow form a cohesive unit plan, and then ALSO try to figure out a way to teach it that is engaging, exciting, alive, and effective.

I just may be grasping at something well beyond my reach. 

Oh heavens.  I have this image of me floundering before a sea of skeptical, disinterested, unenthusiastic or openly hostile eighth graders.  Of every lesson bombing.  Tanking.  Of standing in front of them and not knowing what the fuck to do with them.

I really need this job...

And they really need an English teacher capapble of guiding them to success!

Christ almighty.

What have I gotten myself into?

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

Through a Glass Darkly

We lost power for more than 24 hours due to IRENE.  We are fine, thank the fates, no major damge or anything, but it was a strange interlude.

It made me grateful tenfold that I married the man I did.  That I married my best friend.  A resourceful man, a clever man, a kind man, a patient man, a man that makes me laugh, that makes me feel beautiful, that can cook and can continue to surprise me, amaze me, delight me, and inspire me.

It was difficult adjusting to the power outage at first.  Especially when night fell.  It was somewhat adventurous, but largely frustrating because Aaron was supposed to be starting work the next day.  His last day of freedom and we were technologically crippled.

Crippled, but not paralyzed.  He went right on doing what he had wanted to do, slowed, but not deterred.  Her built things without powertools.  It was amazing to behold his patience and his determination.  I kept rather quiet, having grown up with a man who could be irascible and unreasonable while building things, especially when tools did not work the way they ought, or when some problem presented itself in the form of a setback.

But Aaron?  He remained pleasant.  Even tempered.  It was... nice. 

We hung these amazing new bookshelves, which are not really bookshelves, but simply books seeming to float on the wall.

Like This!

It looks great, and it looks even better because it is flanking the new BRIGHT YELLOW bookcase aaron has just completed!  It is a bookcase on wheels, behind which is my entire IKEA wardrobe unit, and the door to the laundry!  It is a secret bookcase!  Well, not so much a secret, but a multi-purpose, awesomesauce bookcase dreamt up and executed by my favorite person.

I'll have to take pics sometime. 

It is wonderful, and all is perfect with it, excepting that I almost crushed the cat's head between it and the wall.  Curiosity would have literally killed my cat, had he not pulled his furry little face back at the last second. Phew!  I shall have to endeavor to watch out for sneaky little kittens near my incredibly heavy, solid, secret bookcase door unit!

"Put...The Candle...BACK!"

Anyway, whilst I was reorganizing books and reshelving them and generally finding new homes for everything, I came accross a big ole book I had purchased at one of those library sales where everything must go!
I purchased this novel based on title alone.  "Through A Glass Darkly".  Great title, right?  I have been meaning to open it and peruse it, see if it'd catch my attention.  So I open it, begin reading, expecting literature, and what do I find?  Why this enormous, well titled, behemoth of a book posing as literature on my shelves for years is actually no more than an historical fiction romance!  Aha!  With the power out and boredom setting in, I am hooked by the scandal rocking the first pages.  The eavesdropping, the broken engagements, England in the 1700s!  An within a few more pages I am even more intrigued by the prospect of a fifteen year old girl marrying a 42 year old man--who may or may not have secret homosexual secrets!  YUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!

I tell yyou, I read this 743 page tome cover to cover, stopping only to eat, fret about how I ought to be lesson planning, make love, and go the bathroom!  It absorbed me.  And this is saying something, too, because it was AGES into the book before there was any actual sex.  Usually the holding-out of a romance novel frustrates me, angers me, and makes me petulant.  But nope, I was hooked.  I was actually hooked on the story, on the characters, on what might happen.  It was WELL WRITTEN.  Honestly.  I mean, obviously I can tell the difference between literature and, well, this.  But nonetheless.  It was good.  Really well written.

Now, I thoroughly enjoyed what few sex scenes the author gave me.  And I loved that most of them weren't between the main heroine and her hero.  I loved that the ones she did include were often kinky, dark, and salacious.  I especially loved and appreciated the one between our Hero and his handsome friend from the war... yum yum yum yum yum.  If only she had been more graphic... but don't fret, my imagination works very well, thanks.

Oooh, a detail of a renaissance style painting, like Girl with the Pearl Earring!  It must be goooooood.... Since mine was a hardcover long ago separated from whatever dust jacket it may have been born with, I had no such itriguing luxury as this damsel in the oh-so-popular-these-days Tracy Chevalier novel style....and yes, I have read each of Ms. Chevalier's dissapointments after Pearl Earring....

Anywho.  It ended up being something less predictable than I imagined, and I have this unsettled feeling now that it is over.  It was headed right to classic romance novel resolution, when it took some really interesting and point-of-no-return corners.  And.  Well.  Incase you want to read it (you probably won't) I won't spoil it, but... I just feel unsettled.  All morning I've been rushing to finish it so that I can get on with my life, do the things I need to do, do the things I want to do, and instead I feel all weird and my mind keeps wandering. 

I'm writing this in the hopes of exorcising some of my unnameable frustration.  It was good.  It was a good book.  It didn't end happily ever after, and yet in a way, it kinda did.  It ended on a hopeful note, at any rate.  But. 

And of course this makes me think of my writing.  So many similar elements, familiar themes.  Some main characters even had violet eyes.  And then of course there was the whole 15year old with a 42 year old who'd known her since she was a little girl, who felt particularly paternal toward her... yeah. 

But I haven't time to write much anymore, and when I do I struggle with how to end it, how to make strings come together, how to resolve situations that seem like they cannot possibly resolve.

And I have more important things to worry about. to occupy my mind.  My mind, which seems too dense and slow and clumsy to manage all that I will have to manage in the coming days, weeks, month, year. 

At the root of all my procrastination is this gripping fear.  That I don't know what I'm doing.  That I will fail.  Fail the kids, fail the people that hired me, the people who put their neck on the line to get me hired, fail my husband and my family, fail fail fail.

I sit down to plan and nothing comes but flittering ideas and vague concepts.  I keep thinking: If this were a drama class, I would not have this problem.  And others keep assuring me that I'll be great!  Not to worry.  THat I can do it.

But in my hear of hearts, I tell you, I am scared shitless, and feel like I am up against the hardest thing I'll ever have to do in my life.

Become a real teacher.  Without the proper training.  Without a clue as to what I ought to be doing.  Or how I should go about doing it.

I need to survive, survive until I can get more training, but in the meantime?  How well can I tread water?  Can I do it well enough to convince on-lookers that I know how to swim?  And can I keep these kids, these kids who are already struggling, who need someone strong and capable and confident, can I keep these kids from sinking along with me?

The historical romance novel is done.  The power is back on.  Sure, there are dishes to be done, cleaning to be seen to, laundry piling up.  But my first priority is sitting down and really, really truly, planning some fucking lessons.

Holy good god.

Prayers.

Another day spent in my classroom.  Simultaneously excited and terrified.


Holy God.

This needs to work out.  It really, really does.


Please.


Please?


Please!

The Doctor Is In...

We went to my classroom yesterday!  And rearranged and tidies a bit, and looked at all the possibilities.

Boy, am I daunted.

I've moved out of excited and am really starting to freak the fuck out!

I'm worried about discipline nightmares.  I'm worried that I won't be a good enough teacher to help these kids succeed.  I'm very concerned that I didn't go to school for this, and am thus going to prove very incompetent very quickly.  I am stressed that I seem to have a mental block for lesson planning right now.  I am stressed that I've let so much time elapse and have very little to show for it.

Also, I'm feeling a ton of economic pressure here, at the end of August, when my paychecks have all dried up and my new ones won't start coming for weeks and weeks.  I need things for the classroom, I need to buy things, and I just flat-out CAN'T do it.  Nevermind a new wardrobe! that is right out the window.

My mother, god bless her, is trying to help by buying me 'teachery' outfits, but oh-my-gawd!  You should see them.  They're what a teacher might have worn in 1982.  An 82 year old teacher in 1982.  Ay, ay, ay. 

And my husband has decided to build the bookcase instead of the desk he promised me--I helped him come to this decision because it is an easier all-around project, and a cheaper one too, but I'll admit I'm a shade crestfallen at not getting the new teacher desk.

So tonight the plan is to clear off the coffee table and make a serious effort to lesson plan.  For real.  Honestly.  I mean it.  Good god. 

Oh, and have you ever had to tell three separate people in one week about how you are severely depressed, have suicidal urges, and once tried to kill yourself?  This week has been my first week as a new patient at my new psychiatrist, and there's alot of initial interviewing happening.  The first one was akward enough, but the following two?  Good grief.  I almost just told the woman: "You know what, nevermind, I think we're making a mountain out of a mole-hill here.  Have a nice day!"

Ug.  It especially makes you feel like a looney bin when they give you a card, with their personal cell number scrawled across the back, and instructions to call: "Anytime at all, twenty-four-seven, if you feel like hurting yourself."  Yikes.  And of course I thank them politely, and nod, and promise to do so, but in my head I'm thinking:  Yeah, RIGHT!!!

Today the woman asked if I had ready access to firearms.  Jeez. 

I don't, incidentally, so don't stress.

Anyway, point is: it's been a draining sort of week and time is fucking flying away from me.  At least languishing in the waiting rooms this week has given me time to finish the novel we'll be reading in my 8th grade class 1st semester!

Hope.

I know alot of the times I'm a cynnic.  Alot of the time the glass is most definitely half full.  Of fuck it, the glass is empty, the glass is craked and there's no water to be had anywhere!

I know.  I think, on some level, I'll always have a bit of that.  I'll always have a healthy skepticism, a snarky undertone, a bitchy streak, a certain something dark.

But there's the other side of me.  The romantic.  The imaginative. The idealist.  That side of me that gets swept up in love, or sits down to watch a princess movie marathon, or believes she can make a difference, one student at a time.  The one who falls in love without regret, the one who is committed to friends and family.  The one who creates, the one who dreams, the one whose cup is not just half-full, but brimming, overflowing, filling up other people's cups with enthusiam and contagious verve for life.  The passionate one.

I have existed with this duality for sometime.  Only now, with a little hard work, determination, and really good medical insurance, I'm working to shift the balance a little bit more to the sunny side of my equation. 

So hope.  And the power of positive thinking (which I trashed a month or so back, in one of my particularly nasty bouts of negativity, and which, to be fair, hasn't helped me lesson plan a single lesson so far.... I think I can, I think I can, I... oh, some inane way to procrastinate?? Sure!!!), and love.  And support. 

I may have lost a friend or two or more recently.  I retreated into myself, I buried my head in the sand and only kept ties with a precious few.  And I regret this, but, well, I'm not sure it could have been helped.  I've been going through a really awful time.  I have barely remained human, it feels like.  And I wish there were some way to apologize, but fear it could very well be too late in more than one instance.

Part of me is willing to trust the universe, or the fates, or chance, or whathaveyou.  Part of me is too damn irish for that mystical nonsense, and wants to go knocking on their door, or alternately to turn an equally cold shoulder and say: To hell with them! 

I'm not sure how things'll play out.

But I'm starting a new journey, turning a new page, and moving forward.  I would love my dear friends to remain with me on the journey, would love to remain with them as they travel their roads.  We shall see.

Also, guess what I'm no doing right now?  Lesson Planning!  GAH!!

Any efficient and clever lesson planners out there wanna give me a hand?!?!?

CEDAR FALLS!

YAY!

New Cedar Falls!  Woohoo!

Please to enjoy The First Date; parts one and two!

Part One is from Nolan's perspective  (I might or might not have a crush on this guy.)

and Part Two is from Zahra's.  (I have a HUGE crush on Zahra....yumm....)

Since I was having so much trouble with what came next chronologically, I decided: FUCK IT!  and am posting flashbacks!  :) 

These are both sort of lengthy pieces, so I'll leave it at this for a little while.  Hopefully I'll post a bunch before I go back to work!!

I've been writing some scenes, and am happy to be writing again, but they are useless scenes for now.  There's so much story to get to before these are even relevant!

So enjoy the lovebirds.  Hearts.

Yikes!  A week apart!  I am super blog lazy in the summer!

Also, due to a recent conversation with a friend, I have become self conscious of what I post, second guessing everything, examining it for motive and trying to see it from all angles, and let me tell you, that's one way to cripple the flow, right?!? 

I'm a gal who is always going to have her foot in or around her mouth.  I had better just get used to it, make my peace with it, and do my best to speak from the heart, and do some suitable damage control when necessary!

Also, I realized that I never posted any fiction in July!  And Now August is halfway through and no fiction so far.  I have sooooo much fiction, yet unfortunately there are some inconvenient time gaps... ah well.

stay tuned.

Sabbaticals...

Where have I been?

Ay ay ay.

Busy.  Sure.  But I've also been sort of squirrelled away, tucked out of sight, in a self-imposed retreat from the world.  I've sort of escewed anything recreation and only gone out to do the things I was OBLIGATED to do; work....doctor's....a family thing or two.  Other than that stuff?  I've been here, sequestered and secluded, and still, somehow, not one bit productive! 

But I've been sort of forcing myself to relax, to take some actual vacation days, to fuck off any which way I choose, and to not feel too terribly guilty about it or stressed that I'm not doing something productive.  Believe it or not, it hasn't been easy.  And if you saw this disgrace of an apartment, you'd understand!  We have so much to get done and on top of that I ought to be lesson planning, but instead I have made myself ignore all that, and just disappear.  Into my writing (which, at this point would be more accurately classified as 'reading'), into one video game, and then another, and then yet another, into nostalgic sitcoms--Oh, Phoebe, you crack me right up, you wacky, off-beat minx, you!-- into long talks with my husband or long sessions of fooling around (also with husband...don't get your hopes up, heeheehee...). 

But I think tonight really has to be the end of all that happy nothingness.  After we make completely undeserved chocolate chip cookies and watch Ross and Rachel dance around inevitability some more, and after we test out our brand new, just-arrived-today, memory foam mattress-- after tonight I think I need to rejoin the human race, take up the burden of adulthood once more, and really set my life on the right track.

So many new beginnings on the horizon.  So much promise.  So many opportunities to really change my life for the better and take strides toward the hopes and dreams I'd previously turned from in my hopeless ness, in my pessimism, in my stress and dread and doubt and fear.

Watch me get hit by a bus tomorrow, lol. 

Nah, I'll be ok.  It's hard to get hit by a bus whilst cleaning your bathroom, right?

Oh, did I mention that Aaron is attempting to potty-train the cats?  As in, use our toilet.  Yes.  Another reason why no one is visiting us for a while.  Until we are out of the kitty litter sandbox on the toilet seat phase, the bathroom is a goddamn nightmare.  Potty training your cats is not for the weak willed, nor the squeamish!  I would further recommend that you have, say, a guest bathroom in your home in which to do the potty training, rather than just the one bathroom for humans and animals alike to share... 

But won't it be nifty to never have to scoop again? never again pay outrageous fees for litter, to never again smell that awful ammonia stecnh or that we-just-pooped-in-the-litter-box aroma?  Fingers crossed! 

Day of Rest

Sunday is the day of rest, but yesterday, monday?  Ended up being the day of rest for me.  When we got home from work we were both BEAT!  We ended up having a light supper and crashing before the sun had even set.  We woke up somehwere in the night to enjoy some carnal relations, and promptly fell back into our trance-like slumber.

And so I begin day two of production week more rested, perhaps, yet somehow no better prepared.  Only 4 more work days until I can enjoy some summer.  Fingers crossed!

I have some more durex ads to show.  Maybe tomorrow. Right now I gotta run.

Ciao!

PHOTOBLOG!

Photo Blog!

I have been wanting to show these to you for a while now.  Have you seen them?  It's a line of print ads for Durex, and it is advertising genius!  Now, I haven't used condoms in more than a decade (gasp!), and when I did we were solidly a trojan couple (we had a close call with some other brand, and swore never to waver from the helmet ever again!), but these durex ads could really sway my thinking!

Enjoy:

I love images made of words, I love sexy silhouettes, so, BAM! 

Also, did you note how the man's words\phrases are much simpler and one-note than the woman's? Hilarious.
Um, though, I know you're a condom Ad, Durex, but no, I bet that a wrapped cock is not TASTY, no matter how much fake strawberry you slather on it. Yicky.

Yay!

And here are some bonus pics.  Aaron has always rather hated our subway map of New York, and insists that it looks like a chode and big balls.  I guess he's not alone in his thinking:

 

And finally, best advice ever, right Danielle? :)

Don't go down without this maxim in your head!

Hope you enjoyed this first photoblog friday!  It was kinda phallus heavy, but, hey, I love the cock! :)

Not a Photo Post...

Nobody had any suggestions for which day of the week might be a good photoblog day, and that was cruel, folks, because I'm a libra and have a great deal of difficulty with such decisions.  So I asked the Hubs, who is a Leo and has little to no issues with decision making.

He decided Wednesday, right smack in the middle.

I was going to start yesterday, but was busy having a very fun and then very busy wednesday.  Yesterday was our 14th anniversary.  14 years together.  Awwww.  Of course we couldn't, um, celebrate the usual way because it is that time of the month, but we had some chill fun.  We got some delish veggie sandwiches, we watched nostalgic sitcoms, played videogames, and then I had to work on work stuff, then we cuddled up in bed and reminisced until we drifted off to sleep.

I am very grateful to be living out our simple dreams together.  No matter what else, we always said to eachother, we always promised, that as long as we could be together, we'd be happy.  As long as we could fall asleep in eachother's arms and wake up beside eachother, we could live anywhere, do anything, endure everything, so long as we had eachother.  Sometimes we get caught up in the silly stuff.  Sometimes we get stressed about money and babies and jobs and passions that pull us away from reality.  But our base, here, together, is solid and loving and understanding and strong, and I should be on my knees everyday in thanks for that.  (incidentally, I am on my knees almost daily, for which he is very thankful:)

So what if I never become a writer?  Or a mother?  So what if I never have  a big house or a big bank account?  So what if my dress size always stays in double digits?  I told him I'd be happy in a shack, so long as it was OUR shack and we could be there together.  And that remains true.  I love him more each day, I love living with him more every day, and look forward to years and years and years with my best friend, my soulmate, my lover, and my husband.

And if, for some reason, we ever have to live apart, the way we did for TEN YEARS of our lives, then so be it.  We lived and loved and learned whilst living apart, and we were closer apart than most couples who live together.  There is an intimacy borne from hours upon hours in quiet conversation on the phone, stretching across distance, reaching across miles.  We were one, despite inhabiting separate spaces.  And we longed for the completion, longed to merge and exist together in one space, but we endured, we even thrived.  The friendship was solid, the love was passionate, and when we did get together, the physical? Whoosh.  Mind blowing.

I'd rather not go back to living apart, ever, but I know we have the stuff to make it thorugh, should that need arise.  And while we have this precious time together, I vow to stop each day or each night, to stop, and close my eyes, and say a 'thank you', then open my eyes and look at the life we have made, and smile.  No matter the mess, no matter the stress, no matter the uncertain future, no matter any of that.

I am a lucky, lucky individual.  And I am grateful.

And I will probably do photo post on FRIDAYS instead of wednesdays! lol.  So look forward to that!

Breakdown in T-Minus...

Remind me, club me over the head and chain me down if you have to, but remind me next year that I am seriously, seriously done with this job.

Still love the kids.  I really really do.  But as Aaron said tonight: "I don't care what they're paying you; it can't be worth it."

It isn't, incidentally, worth it.

Tonight I want to die of sore thorat and summertime head cold, and all I want\need\crave is a long, drugged-up sleep for my body to heal, but I am fighting exhaustion here trying to make fucking Aesop's fables feel fresh and interesting and not so fucking lame and we-had-nothing-better-to-give-you-so...do-fables-y......


I love the kids.  I think if I didn't I might just throw my hands up and do this little childrens book exactly as she handed it to me...a children's book with middleschoolers.  Going-to-be-eighth-graders.  URBAN ones for christ's sake.

Oh, and don't give them a lot of lines, and do alot of unison, and basically sabotage any chance they have a being good or having a good time.

Aw.  I'm mostly crabby because of the cold.  I warned you.  But honestly.  Fables?

I'm so tired I think I'm just gunna cry and go to bed.

You Wouldn't like me when I'm... Sore-Throat-y!!

Wahhhh!

I have a SORE THROAT!

I thought at first that it was a touch sore from the deep throating I had performed last night (That happens sometimes...blame the endowment!  I actually kinda like that kind of soreness after... but I digress...)  But NAY!  The sreness stuck around, got worse, and as of right now ASPIRIN ain't touchin' this baby.

It SUCKS :(

Wahhhh.

Have oyu ever known me when I've been suffering an honset to goodness, and not blowjob-on-a-hung-guy kind of sore throat?  Well, let me tell you:

I AM A FUCKING BABY when it comes to sore throats.  Some people are wusses (what a silly looking word.  Also, what is the proper way to write that something was all pus-y?  Like, as in, filled with pus? Is it: Hey, my infected finger is all pussy?  heeheehee... OWWW my Throat hurts! *pout pout whine cry:(....) when it comes to things like nausea.  Not me.  I'd take nausea any day over sore throat.  I can handle vomiting.  This?  Wahhh.  Some people hate cramps.  They are lousy, but Hell, take some midol, grab a pint of ice cream and all better!  This???  Wahhhh.

I think I got it from babysitting my neices this weekend, who both had sniffles and colds.

Bitches.

No, I didn't mean that.... not their fault... just the sore throat....

I hope I didn't give Aaron's penis Step....

Can that happen? Heeeheeehee.  I hope not. 

Anyway. The only thing that helps, that I have found in all my years, is TYLENOL SORE THROAT **LIQUID**  The liquid part is key.  Don't even bother with pill form.  Drink some of the awful blue potion, and know some relief.  Or suffer miserably.  Those are the options.  Unfortunately for me, this time of year I find that TYLENOL SORE THROAT IQUID is kinda thin on the ground.  Let's hope I stocked up after the last sore throat.  I don't own a fire extinguisher, but I'll be damned if I let my supply of Tylenol Sore Throat run low--- that would be an emergency!!  If it has run low or os--godforbid--all gone, then we all know who to blame....

And if that's the case, then, hell, I DO hope I gave his penis Strep!!

Wahhh :(

Little Victories

Today I learned how to properly hard boil eggs, without leaving an unsightly green film on the yolk.  You should have seen how beautiful and golden those yolks were! 

(Yes, I'm 27 and just now learning how to boil eggs.  Last year I learned how to bake a potato.  Baby steps, people!)

It wouldn't have mattered either way, because my plan for these eggs was to make egg salad with whipped avocado instead of mayo!  Never the less I took great comfort in knowing how perfectly white-and-golden those babies were underneath the avocado.

I had this idea probably months and months ago, but today I finally did it!  I was thinking, one day, about the creamy smooth texture of avocado and it occurred to me that it might be a delicious replacement for mayo in egg salad.  BUT, having never actually tasted real (traditional) egg salad, I wasn't sure it would be good.  And the fact that I'd never heard of it being done before wasn't exactly a confidence booster.

But I ran the idea by the culinary whiz that is my Husband, he grew thoughtful for some moments, and decided that it would be quite good.

And so, tonight for dinner, we had avocado egg salad on adorable little buns for dinner!  And it was awesomesauce!  I kinda wonder now if I might like real egg salad.  But I am really not a mayo fan (thank christ.  Can you imagine how big I'd be if I DID?  Now if I could just stop liking chocolate, cookies, carbs, and sodium, I'd be on my way to a healthy lifestyle!) and I'm glad we did this healthy fat substitute.  Loaded with vitamin E!

Invite us to a get together and you may just get a wonderfully yummy spring-green egg salad!  Oh.  Maybe that's why folks don't do it...  Ah well.  I would eat them in a box, I would eat them with a fox!


Avocado Egg Salad

Hardboil some eggs (put them in a bowl of ice water when you remove them from heat and this will give you the perfectly golden and not icky green yolks!  Again, not so relevent for this particular dish, but a good tip for the future. Do this with asparagus too, incidentally, for bright and deliciously brilliant green asparagus!)

Mash up or whip avocado, add salt (and pepper) and paprika to taste, and add some butter (we use butter substitute smart balance) whip all together.

Add avocado mixture to chopped up eggs, mix all together until you have desired egg salady consistency.

Serev on some kind of bread product!

Enjoy :)

Gotta Get Down On Fri-daeyyy

A heat wave?!?!?

Our apartment has some fantastic central air.  But everywhere else that I go?  Sticky and yucky and gross!

To day I went for a meeting at Central Schools to collect materials necessary to being a teacher in Brockton!  I feel as though a good measure of weight has been lifted off me.  I have been so very anxious about how to approach teaching ELA, and this meeting has gone a long way in making me relax, de-stress, and begin to feel productive, rather than overwhelmed.

I was given many "bibles".  A Vocabulary bible, a poetry bible, a non-fiction writing bible, a curriculum bible, and the biggest of all: The MCAS bible.  Sad that the MCAS bible was bigger than the entire curriculum bible.  But I'm a resource whore!  Give me materials upon materials, I can't get enough!!  I'm the type to salivate over well-stocked bookshelves; and I ADORE reference materials.

So now the trouble is that I have my 'starting kit' and nowhere to start!  I mean literally.  I have no physical space, no 'office space' as it were.  I realize that I need to get organized in a major, major way, and am committed to doing it.  But getting that ball rolling?  Sheesh.

I mentioned before, I think, that Aaron has planned to design and build this fabulous workstation for me.  It really is something awesome.  It will be a desk\kitchen island.  See, I will have a desk, and file space and a good size surface area, too, just for me, and THEN when company is coming over or we need a surface for kitchen work or other such things, well, instead of being left with the unenviable task of clearing off my desk (a miserable prospect, as I know I will almost always be Mid-project and will have papers stacked in certain ways and have materials strewn about!)  Well, there is a HINGED island top that flips up and into place and conceals my desk and all it's messy glory beneath.

It will be fabulous.  It will be GREEN (painted, not especially eco-friendly, though of course we strive for that in all projects...)!  It will be a high bar-top type kitchen island and a regular height desk.  It is brills.  Like a secretary desk or a roll top in the way it conceals my chaos, but so much better because it is FUNCTIONAL while closed, not merely decorative.

Now the trouble is getting it built.  We have SO LITTLE TIME!  And we also have another few critical projects to complete; The secret wardrobe\door\bookcase.  The Craft Loft.  Then the Tetris Shelves and the Couch re-upholstery!  So much to do, so little time, so little funding.

I've said it before, and others echo my chorus: If only I could clone Aaron.  Cloning me would be less useful.  And having more than one Aaron around the house would be ideal for some fun nocturnal activities too ;)

Anyway.  Now I'm hot under the collar as well as hot everywhere else!  Stay cool, stay hydrated, stay well :)

Dinner at my parents' tonight, but good news: it's take-out!

Orange Disaster!

Orange!

Eeek.

It was a disaster!!

Oh, the poor kids.

It started out ok, and I thought they might just pull it off, I really did!  Sometimes that theatre magic just SNAP kicks in and BOOM!

But.  Not today.  Utter travesty of sketch theatre!!

One person forgot their line, and then, to overcompensate another actor skipped wayyyy ahead in the script, then they were ALL confused and suddenly it was the end and.... sheesh.  Poor kids.

Ah well.  Today I was reminded that failure does not actually equal death!  Hoorah for surviving and learning!

Everything in Moderation?

There's been alot of talk and hubbub and buzz around the power of positive thinking, about willing things into being, about putting on a happy face and being new and starting fresh and making happiness and all that jazz.

I have been one of those who goes through this cycle time and time again.  Make my own happiness, pilot my own destiny, create the self I want to be.

This time around I admit to feeling a bit cynical.  In so many ways I am completely wide-eyed and enthusiastic, and believe anything can happen.  But for whatever reason, I'm just not quite on the positive thinking = solution to everything problem just yet.

I want to believe.  I try.  But I am, apparently, a big ball of negative energy.  A friend to no one, enemy to all the rays of sunshine out there.

Believe me, I'd love to will away the bills I have to pay.  Happy thoughts my way to a better body and a healthy self-image.  Magic my apartment into the dream apartment.  Be Zen and chill about the old fertility hot-button. 

I want those things.  And on some days I can even bee merry and cheerful and adapt the sorta bouyant que sera, sera attitude that is so thoroughly en vogue among kids my age these days.

But most days the cynic within chuckles, shakes her hear, quirks an eyebrow and says:  Are you fucking kidding me?  Get the fuck over yourself and knock it the fuck off, lunatic.  This costume doesn't fir you, this isn't a role you should pretend to play.  Fake fake fake fake fake. 

The cynic in me is a sassy bitch.  But I prefer her tough-as-nails persona to the weepy depressant within.  That chick's a real downer :(

I've seen true blue friends stick by me.  I've watched fairweather friends up and evaporate.  Positive thinking only slightly improves my days, but a protein shake in the morning does wonders for my energy levels (Bolthouse Farms, delish!  but I am poor, so this cannot be a daily habit!)-- but that requires me to be motivated enough to curtail morning cuddles and get out of the house early enough to treat myself.

I thought so many positive, warm, amazing, willing thoughts about so many ventures that died in infancy, or were aborted before even taking a breath.  And then other thins spring out of the blue; some of the best things that have ever happened to me had nothing whatsoever to do with my conscious wishes or motivations.  And I know, I know, I know.  Someone will answer me with something along the lines of 'what you put out in the universe' and my mother would say 'mysterious ways' or something about doors and windows and yadda yadda yadda.

I just know that lately, with the positive thinking, it feels a bit more like willful delusion than anything healthy or productive.  I guess the old saying may hold truest:  Everything in moderation.  I will endeavor to be more positive, less of a sourpuss or a grumpy gus.  I will do my best to stop myself from outright negativity, try to examine my attitude and adjust as necessary.  But I'm going to focus my energy on living my life, experienceing my emotions as they come to me, celebrate that I'm a bit of a bitch, own that I am moody, accept that I will not always be sunny and sweet, and love the woman that I am.  Stop trying to reinvent myself; rather, embrace the person that I've been whipping and abusing, and degrading all these years.  No wonder the poor thing has anger issues and cowers at a raised hand--she's been abused!  I will try to rescue her, show her consistency and love and support.  She's not a bad dog, just misunderstood.  Just some bad habits.