Springtime is a better time for resolutions!

A head cold makes me a whiny baby.  A sad, pathetic mess.  I wish I were more in tune with the natural things of this world.  Some friends of mine are so spiritual and in touch with those mystical, feminine goddess powers.  I want that.  Have I ever mentioned my burning desire to become an apothecary?  A friend posted on their facebook about Mars in retrograde fucking with her or something and I thought: What the fuck does that mean?  It sounds so nifty.  And instinctually I feel like some retrograde has been fucking things up for me, too!  I want to know more!  I want to know more about planetary alignments and tarot, and the moon's pull on my balance, and the impact of my dietary choices on my mood, well-being, and equilibrium.  I want to know when I'm fertile (if I'm fertile at all), and all sorts of other pagan wonders.

And I have no time for any of that deep, wonderful world of womanly wisdom.

Nay.  I have a headcold and am pumping my body full of chemicals, rather than seeking the natural remedies that I know I ought!

I want an herb garden!  And time to make herbal teas!

And aromatics!

I want natural, organic, true blue food and drink!

Basically: I want an entirely new and fresh start and lifestyle!

I resolve this:  I will make an appointment with a nutritionist this week (make the appointment, not see them.  I probably won't get an appointment until months from now, but I have GOT to take that first step!)!  I want to be on the road to health and well being not only in my mind (which is being treated with care and concern.. and a fair amount of chemicals...)  but my body as well!

And I resolve to go for a walk at least twice this week!

Yay for resolutions!

Fade away

ELA MCAS is this week.

So...

Stress to the max.

Also.

They're slipping away.  At last.  I never thought I'd see the day, but as all imaginary friends go, so do, at last, the folks from Cedar Falls.  Maybe its the meds.  Maybe I've just out grown them.  Maybe I've so much on my plate that they just can't get enough oxygen or sustenance to subsist.

It is a little lonesome.  And a little bit of a relief.  I used to be able to conjure them into my head at any given moment--just try to keep them out!  They would spring to mind and scenes would play out, dialogue would unravel, new plot twists would bubble up and play out and I'd either write or be frustrated by the inability to capture the vitality with my clumsy prose.

Now they're fading.  Ghosts, sometimes walking the same haunts, sometimes repeating fragments of dialogue that they'd once said.  But they aren't alive anymore.  They aren't dynamic, they aren't growing.  They are dying.

On one hand I am breathing easier.  It wasn't easy existing as a subpar writer, one craving more time to write her schlock whislt resenting her dayjob.

But it is also a sort of grief.  How many years now have I been stoking these embers, hoping to ignite something great?  How long have I breathed my own soul into these characters, poured my own blood into them, given my heart so that they might live?

Every day--and I am not exaggerating--every day I would read and reread scenes.  Edit, add, or simply just absorb the writing--or, rather, absorb the characters despite the writing.

I guess I loved them, in some way.  And when someone you love leaves there must always be a grieving for the loss.  That's what my therapist told me.  Not about these fictional characters, of course, do you think I want my therapist to see how crazy I am?  But, I think the message applies nevertheless.

Farewell folks.  It has been ... a pleasant diversion, a source of comfort, a place to meddle creatively, and I think two full years of my life.  Thanks for being there.  We'll have to see what new obsession comes in your wake.  Those won't be easy shoes to fill! 

Metaphorically speaking

Overwhelmed.
Took the day today to get fucking grading done.  I seriously lack the time and organizational skills required to do this job properly.  Or the attention span.  My therapist thinks I may have ADD.  Also, mood disorders tend to manifest in an inability to focus, hence the ADD symptoms.  We'll see when we get my meds right if I can miraculously get my life together or what.

In a fluke of fate, Aaron also took the day off.  He'd been having some disturbing chest pains.  He opted not to go to the MD, so let's hope all is well with that.  It was nice having him home, though I wish it hadn't been for a reason that was causing him distress and pain.

Liking therapy, but wishing, as I'm sure everyone does, that there were a simple solution and a quick fix.  Looking, I guess, for a miracle.

Looking to enjoy the things I once loved.  Looking to stop being so cripplingly self-critical.  Looking to find alot more silverlinings than storm clouds.  Looking, ultimately, to find a way to make peace with mediocrity--the nemesis I have been fighting and loathing and slowly becoming for years and years.

They assure me that self actualization will come, in time.

I'm tired.  So fucking tired.

Off to make a lackluster powerpoint about figurative language!  Ciao!

Roar...

In like a lion, eh?

I could've used a bit more heart behind this roar of a storm.  Boy, oh boy, was I ever yearning for a snow day.  It was pretty while it was snowing, but didn't amount to much trouble after all was said and done.  And my body is having a devil of a time adjusting to being back to work.  In the beginning of the year they ease us into it, you know?  the first 'week' of school is only like two days.  Then the next week is probably four.  Then, when we've finally adjusted they begin with the real work weeks.

I could've used a little of that toe-in-the-water approach this week.  A snow day would've been a great little reprieve from what has proven to be a rather punishing week.

But here I am.

And this week we're working on personal narratives.  The kids are flailing.  Their schooling thus far has been so singularly focused on standardized tesing that they've forgotten their imaginations.  They don't know how to just WRITE.  These are personal stories; non-fiction, but in story form.  And the kids are asking me:  What should go in my first paragraph.  And: how many paragraphs is this supposed to be?

Sigh.

It's been tricky trying to undo this slavish adherence to formulaic, strictly-constructed writing.  And it feels so rushed and half-assed, too, because right after we get done with this is when we move on to strict MCAS prep, as they take the exam on March 21st and 22nd.

But this week has actually been somewhat enjoyable.  Talking about descriptive writing.  Imagery.  Dialogue.  Making the story come alive!

Makes me want to sit and write, myself. ;)

One of the kids said to me, as I was giving an extemporaneous example of descriptive writing--describing in graphic, juicy detail a scene from a horror film--: You got a big imagination.

She said it almost as if it were an insult, or as if it were something for geeks, or as if it were a weird trait.  I thanked her.  I do have quite the imagination.

I only wish theirs hadn't been drilled out of them.

Well, keeping the old fingers crossed for a snow day.

D.F.R.

Is there anything more cathartic than really, really cleaning the bathroom?  I mean a down dirty, every-nook-and-cranny kind of clean?

Oh, but there is.  Taking down the Christmas tree that's been up since Christmas 2010! 

I did both today, and laundry, and made bread, and cleaned the living room, and I'm still going!

No writing still.

No school work still.

But godammit if I didn't finally match all the socks in the giant laundry basket o'socks!  You would just fall over to see me so adorably domestic!  I mean, guys, I hung curtains!  I mean, I did it with thumbtacks (reminded me of being like 9 years old and deciding I wanted a canopied bed with curtains come hell or high water), but they look adorably bohemian!

Ind the good news is that the living room is now clean and tidy and after some sweeping and wipe downs with the clorox wipes, it'll be ready for me to grade all the papers!  Woohoo!

XOXO donna fucking reed

Maybe

The old excuse isn't cutting it.  See, I've caught myself saying: "If I had more time..."  Well, jeeze louise, but I've had nothing BUT time this week and nary a word has been written.

So you wanna be a writer?  Write.

And I haven't.  It would seem I'm broken.  Or at least temporarily out of service. 

I've been reading and reading my stuff, trying to find a place to jump in and continue, pick up some thread and run with it.  But I'm getting editor's disease.  Now that I'm learning more and more about grammar rules and comma functions and bullshit like that, all I can see are my glaring errors.  And if I'm not noticing those then I'm fretting about the mundanity (mundaneness?) of my pitifully pedestrian storylines, characters, word choice and what the fuck ever.

Just not fun.  Not a great headspace for a writer.

And I have been avoiding, like the fucking plague, all the papers I have to grade this week.  And the lesson planning for unit three!  And yadda yadda yadda.

AND been tossing the old idea ball around.  The idea ball of :  What should I be when I grow up?  Scratch writer off the list, as I can't seem to do that.

Aaron tells me: "Of course you can write!  You're a very competent writer.  You're just as good as plenty of people who get published."

Thanks for the ringing endorsement, I tell him wryly.  D'you think that's what Dan Brown's family told him?

Aaron:  That's about the best he could hope for.  Dan, you're very capable of stringing sentences together.  Good job.

Me:  I feel great.  Thanks for the pep talk.

Anywho.  So writing is out.  So what else?

I've been racking the noodle all week, trying to devise a plan for the future that doesn't involve me killing myself trying to be something I'm just not: a teacher.

Another mediocre performance review is making me very nervous about my job prospects.  How wrtched to need a job you don't really want and aren't especially suited for! (for which you are no especially suited...)

But I've been taking my meds.  I've been trying to be optimistic.

And tossing out ideas to see if anything sticks.

Open my own starbucks
Open my own Marylous franchise
Open an artisan, independent coffee shop
Open a liquor store!
Open a vegetarian restaurant
Open a kitchen store--where I sell kitchens
Operate a high-end salvage business
Real estate
Tutor (bleck.)
Voice over work
Sound design for tv videogames and movies
bakery/confections shop
Florist
Something like a funeral parlor that isn't a traditional funeral parlor.
A book nook that actually specializes in digital readers instead of actual books?  
Wine shop



The problem with opening a shop is that I can't secure a loan.  Well, that is one of the many, many problems with opening my own business.  But of the shops I could open, I think a liquor one is the most recession proof, don't you? 

So then there's real estate.  Except I'm terrible at being a salesman.  But I love houses.  But I hate math.  And business.  And paperwork.  But I love houses and trying to figure out what would be a good fit for people... but I think I'd hate the rest of it.

Voice over work is a side job at best.  Its something that I really should have done already and have been dragging my feet for no good reason.  I've comitted to get a reel together and out there by summer.  But it isn't a game changer.  I'm hoping it may lead to a game changer--I'd like to produce voice work, be the one in the control booth.  But I'v gotta start somewhere.

Holy god get me out of my life!

Ok, sorry.  Moment of panic.

Kids, house, dreams?  Maybe someday, right?

Do your middle schoolers need another excuse to be over-dramatic, moody, sexually over-charged, and ridiculous: VALENTINE'S DAY!!!

Sheesh.

Luck?

I survived another week.  I survived another parent-teacher conferences night.  I survived another surprise evaluation--this time from the Principal herself.

I started an anti depressant yesterday.

And our streak of rotten luck continues.  With ne car down for the count and an expensive repair just done this week on White Thunder (our Buick), she up and dies on Aaron in the middle of an incredibly busy intersection at 6:45 pm last evening.

He was coming to pick me up at work. 

So naturally I had to call my mother.  To go get gas in one of those gas cans, bring it to aaron (who thought the car ran out of gas.  Our gas guage is super broken, so it was the logical conclusion.)

Aaron spends like, at least a half hour with his hazards on in the middle of a ridiculous intersection, with assholes beeping and swerving and ...ugh.  He has to call the police to help because, as I mentioned, it is a pretty major intersection.  The police come, help him coast the car out of the road; my mum comes and they put the gas in.  No luck.  Won't start.

So this AM, borrowing my Mom's car,  we are headed out in the light of day to see if we can't get her started.  If not?  We are pretty fucking screwed.

~Beth

Rah!

I am a New England Girl, raised in an Irish Catholic Household--so naturally I'm rooting for the Patriots.

But I am not actually watching the Superbowl or partaking in any of the overblown festivities. 

My husband is more of a Madonna fan than I am (his Bi side reard its head in such peculiar ways.  Like, I like Madonna, but he pretty much knows her discography.  Its pretty adorable to watch him singing along in the car.  He knows all the lyrics and I just stare at his bearded majesty sing 'pappa don't preach' in hearty falsetto, and shake my head in wonder.)  so we aren't even really bothering with the half-time show.  We don't have TV, so we'd have to find a live stream, and hell, we didn't even bother with that for the State of the Union this year (we have in years previous), so I'd feel pretty guilty...

I babysat today whilst my brother and my SIL went looking at houses.  Had fun with the neices.  Maggie told me: "I like you Auntie Bess."  (She can't form the 'th' sound, she isn't comparing me to the radiant Queen Elizabeth the First.)  She said it like it was a discovery, like she'd just decided this and needed to share.  I thanked her and told her I loved her to pieces.

I'm looking down the barrel of an all-nighter.  So much work to do.  I swear, I look at my paycheck every two weeks and despair.  There is no WAY I'm getting paid NEARLY enough.

This week we need to somehow pull together persuasive essays.  Plus there's a fucking half day this week so that I can endure the ridiculousness of Parent Teacher conferences. 

But guess what?  Then there's onbly one more week to FEBRUARY VACATION!  What?!?  I can hardly believe it!

And much of that week will be spent on the Unit exam, so... YAY!

Well, yay for me.  Not so much for the kiddies.  heeheehee.

We're down to one car and the one car has to go to the mechanic tomorrow.  Gross.  Aaron's carpooling with a friend, which will be nice, but we don't want to make a habit.

And I have to depend on my mother again.  She tricked me this weekend.  TRICKED me.  And used my lack of car against me.  Tricked me to come over and clean the bird cage, when I THOUGHT I was going over for a quick 20 minute task.  THREE HOURS LATER, and pissed the fuck off, I was driven home.  And too furious and disgruntled to do anything at all productive.

So tonight will be a marathon of getting shit the fuck done.  And a cheers season 5 marathon!  woot.  I love the little things-- the way they almost always dress Sam and Dianne in reds and blues (or pinks and blues).  So classic.  Coach is dead now, which is sad, but Woody is fanfuckingtastic.

Anyway... off to work...grumblegrumble...


Go Pats!

Ms. Reardon writes a little.

So!

I took monday off.  called out sick. 

The intention was to get grading and plannning done.

The actuality?  Far more exhilarating!  I wrote and wrote and wrote like I haven't been able to write in ages!  Now please understand that I'm not mistaking quantity for quality here, but at this point writing fluently and cogently for more than a sentence or two is a HUGE victory for me!

It felt good.  Understatement.  It felt amazing.  The scenes were more action-packed and visceral because they were from two very climactic sections of the tale.  The climax of present day and a climax from back in the day that sort of sets everything else in motion.  I think it was important that the two were pouring out of me simultaneously, because they really have to work in tandem for the balance of the story.  The one depends on the other, it is reciprocal. 

I like the echoes.  I like the repeated language and imagery.

I also wrote the same events from different character perspectives, which is a thing I enjoy doing.  It feels like real synthesis is going on.

It was frustrating, at first, trying to write.  My fingers were clumsy, my prose sluggish and stiff.  I felt dull and moronic and uninspired.  But you have to understand that I live with these characters 24/7.  When my mind is not completely occupied with pressing and immediate matters, it wanders to one of only a few places.
1st: Sex.  Sex with Aaron, sex with women, other pepeople having sex.  Sex.  The character of my stories having sex...
2nd: Regrets.  I spend far too many minutes ruminating and mulling over my various and sundry regrets.  Loves lost.  Friends gone.  Mistakes made in my career.  These thoughts are legion.  They are, however, blessedly less compelling than the other two cetegories, and so while I frequently default to thinking about regrets & 'should haves' I do not spend long periods at a time at this hobby.  Recurring but brief.
3rd:  The book.  Is it a book?  The narrative.  The fiction. The story.  The project on which I am working at present.  In this case (and the case of the last, what, year?  two years?  who can recall) it is Cedar Falls.  Before Cedar Falls it was Henry & Eleanor, before that the lesbian fairytale.  There is always a 'before that there was' and I am coming to expect that when I tire of or move on from CF, there will ever be an 'and then there was'.  But I spend the majority of my thinking on whatever my current creative project is.  

I live with these characters.  I breakfast with them, I bathe with them, I dine with them I drive with them I walk and talk and think with them.  I cook dinner with them, I daydream with them,  I fuck them I fall asleep with them.  They are always there, always waiting to be picked up again, toyed with again, tinkered with and tweaked and experimented upon.  Not always with the computer!  Most of the time just in the old noodle.  Or spoken aloud; a scene performed by one actor improvising all the roles.  Trying out dialogue.  Workshopping the plot, the characterization, the feel, the jokes. 

So they are all around; withing without, saturating my brain, sometimes so clamorous and suffocating that I can ahrdly concentrate on anything else.

Monday I was able to finally take some of those theories, those swirling scenes and get them captured, get them down in prose.  And I glowed with the release.  I was so excited.  and happy.  And proud.

No grading done.  heeheehee.

I am a terrible teacher.  But the glow of the writing is making the sting of that truth fairly insignificant :)

SMASH!

Absolutely my new favorite thing.  Doubtlessly, without a doubt.  If you haven't already, watch the hell out of the preview episode. 

I have watched it twice.

Official NBC SMASH page.

The list of brilliance attached to this project is stunning.  I think we're in really good hands here.

Unlucky.

We can't seem to catch a break.

First his car breaks.  No way in the world to get another.

Today his computer breaks. 

Next Peter will evict us.

But I went to the doctor's today--healthy--in body anyway.

I was supposed to go get me some birth control.  Chickened out.  Gunna stick with the old method my health teacher swore would fail me for sure.

Based on the novels...

Procrasturbating again.

I babysat my nieces today so that my brother ans sister-in-law could go look at some houses.  I would do anything for them, as I adore them and as they've been so generous to me in the past. 

But it threw off my sunday something fierce.

No laundry done.  No work done.  Then I was all tired from playing with the girls so I took a nap when I got home.

Now I'm up and looking down the barrel of toooooooo much work!

Drama teachers hardly ever have any correcting to do.  We hardly ever have essays to read.  And when we do?  Ffun stuff like scenes or monologues.

I have to read MCAS style drivel.

And it is super frustrating.  And disheartening.

It used to be kinda funny, how awful they are at writing.

Now I'm starting to feel saddened by it as they don't improve...

and worried for their futures.

And I wish, I wish, I wish that I could give them some creative writing assignments.  I have, in the past, for Halloween I challenged them with a scary story contest.  But the powers that be have come down hard on me and sternly reminded me that I have certain writing requiremnts to meet before the end of the year, and 'creative' is not among them.

Sigh.

And my creative writing?

I find it so difficult to see it objectively.  I like reading it.  I love the characters and the stories and the soap-opera happenings.  But I don't trust how much I like it.

See, I'm usually my toughest critic.  On anything.  I'm hardest on myself.

With this Cedar Falls stuff?  I'm... I can't explain quite... I'm too smitten with it to see its faults.  Oh, sure, I see they thousands of typos that I make in my haste (and sometimes in my grammatical ignorance.  Being an English teacher is really educating me on some grammar rules I either never knew or had thoroughly forgotten!)  I see those, and tinker with them as I re-read (and still many, many escape my notice...sigh...I need an editor like whoah.)

But I can't gauge whether or not the writing is good. 

I'm beginning to suspect that it is not... But I think my therapist would tell me that this is rooted in my neuroses.

Still...

Maybe I oughtta write in dialogue only?  Write screenplays, plays, and teleplays?

Because I sit down and read Aaron's writing and I am staggered by his prose.  I read real, published work and I sigh and think 'yup.  that's how it SHOULD be done...'

And I always believed that practice makes perfect...or at least practice makes better.  But it would seem that my writing, as I become more comfortable with my characters and more certain of my plot direction, it would seem that my writing gets more banal and flaccid and rushed and weak.  (Commas should go in a series like that.  This is a rule I have learned.  However,(comma), I prefer the impact of listing them without the interruption of commas.  This is not something that new writers have the luxury of defending,(comma) however.  Mamet and Labute and Palhianuk and those established stylists can do whatever the fuck they want.  But new writers, green writers, must go by the book their first time out...(elipses to indicate a triling off of ideas, not an omission...)

Perhaps too much practice without a coach or mentor or guiding hand is simply... masturbatory?

I seem enamored of that imagery. 

But do you see?  Just diddling myself, writing-wise, with nothing fruitful ever taking root?  No product to be birthed after all the self-pleasure?

I'll give some thought to the playwrighting thing.  Interestingly, have you ever noticed that playwright is spelled differently than the word 'write'?  It is because it isn't talking about the 'writing' like, say, a copywriter would be.  It is the old form of the word 'wright' as in boatwright ; a maker or a builder.

Isn't that lovely?  A maker or builder of plays.  Captures my imagination, tickles my fancy, and stroked the old ego.

Aaron and I often talk of ideas for hbo or showtime (or even STARZ-right Spartacus?!?!?) original series that we should be writing and shopping around.  So maybe I quit talking about it and start doing it.

Maybe Cedar Falls works better as a show?

Maybe not...

Maybe, though...

;)

Kudos to google and wikipedia and any other sites protesting the dangerous new bill.


That was a non-starter, and now I have a non sequitur.

I'm lost.  yeah, yeah.  I'm as tired of saying it, feeling it, as you are tired of hearing it.

but it presses on my mind and body and my heart and lungs until I feel I can't breathe.  Can't move.  Can't think of anything else.  Can't feel anything else.

Last evening it got really scary.  And I should have called out today.  I really should have.

But I could not. 

But I really think, given how unstable and sensitive I am today, that it would have been the smart thing to do.

I go to therapy today.  I plan on giving in and telling them I'll take whatever the hell they want to give me.

At this point a lobotomy sounds like heaven.

I need to get well.

I must.

because the other option is no longer: live with being unwell.

The other option, I firmly believe, will be fatal.

The MLK Day Exception

We're in a spending freeze.

And I've given up all forms of junk food.

But Yesterday, as a treat, we broke both these rules in spectacular fashion.

Buy buying an enormous, a ridiculously sized SNICKERS.

This is the "Slice and Share" snickers.

Oh, America...

Intrigued by the novelty size and the joys inherent in the old adage about bigger being necessarily better, we went ahead and purchased the sucker.

We were in CVS buying necessities, which are allowed by the rules of the spending freeze after sufficient discussion and debate.

So, whilst scouring the store for enough maximum strength midol to hold the crippling menstrual aches at bay, is it really any wonder that I lost all willpower and nodded and enthusiastic and definite YES when presented with this monster of choclatey, nugaty, caramel-peanutty goodness?

And slicing a snickers, as though it were the holiday roast of a candy high holy day?  Sublime.

And aaron pointed out that snickers is one of the few candybars that seems immune to the size/ratio problem that most candy treats suffer.  Giant reece's pb cup?  nasty because too much peanut butter, not enough chocolate.  Big Kat?  (I happen to love them) not even the same thing as a regular kit kat any more!

But snickers, in classic, king, funsize or now in "Slice & Share" size-- snickers is always reliably scrumptious in any size!

Today:  back to spending freeze.  Back to swearing off junk.  But I'll always have the memory of consuming an enormous snickers with my husband-- MLK day 2012 ;)

Little known fact:  MLK dreamed about unnecessarily oversized snackfoods that could be sliced and shared among people of ALL races, nations, and creeds.

Practically a week.

No time.  Nothing new to say. 

Thinking seriously about taking the drugs afterall.

Having trouble getting rolling on the new year's resolution.

Having trouble with most things.

Except love.  I can love fiercely and powerfully and selflessly. 

No myself.  Never that.

But others.

With the only passion I have left anymore.

Coward is a strong word.

Don't you think?

I'd sooner call someone a bitch than a coward. 

What is it about corage versus cowardice that goes right down into our viscera? 

Have you ever been called a coward?

And being afraid, while certainly related, is not necessarily the same as being a coward.

That's an aspersion, that once cast, does some real pyschological cartwheels--doesn't it.

Let each of these resonate and see which sticks in your craw.

"You're crazy."

"You're a bitch"

"You're an asshole"

"You're wrong."

"You're a coward."

Whoosh.

Especially if the accusation is made in earnest.  If someone has assesed who you are and decided that this is the sum total of your existence.  "You're a coward."

Does it rankle because there's truth to it?  It must.  If someone called you a republican, say, and you weren't the least bit right-leaning, then I don't think this is an insult that carries much weight.

So perhaps you haven't a cowardly bone in your body.  Perhaps, then,. being called a coward simply doesn't resonate with you. 

But my gut tells me it does.  Humans really really really get their hackles up at accusations of cowardice.  An entire fiction and film genre seems entirely based on this concept, as well as all the major decisions of Marty McFly in the back to the Future series.

The Old West:  Watch your tongue, stranger, or find yourself out on main street at dawn defending your honor.

My favorite was in BTTF2 when the girl bully says:  "What's the matter, McFly?  Ain't got no scrote?" 

and, the natural marriage:  Marty McFly as 'Clint Eastwood' in the olde tyme garb.  "Nobody calls me yellah"

And is it different for men and women?  I realize I joked, above, about the 'scrote' line in back to the future.  But from what i understand it certainly impugns a guys, well, manhood, to be termed a coward. 

But women can certainly behave as cowards.  In fact, I'd say they do it more regularly.  Choose the safe path over the adventurous one.  Make the expected or condoned choice rather than take a leap.  Nothing wrong, technically, is there?  Some argue that it's just plain smart.  But how many doors went unopened.  How many experiences passed up.  How safe, and comfortable, and predictable, and completely unchallenging their daily routine.  Is this the role of women?

Why, then, am I so very bothered by being thought of as a coward?  And why do I harbor such disdain for those I've judged to be cowards?  Frightened of their feelings, or too afraid to go after their dreams, or happy with their routine even if it is completely unfulfilling, even if they aren't growing or evolving in any way? Why am I so tortured when I evaluate my own existence and see that yellow streak a mile wide?  why am I so sickened and repulsed.

I have no balls, so I shouldn't be impugned if someone tells me I need to 'sack up', and yet my nostrils flars and I have a boiling gut reaction.

I've done both the adventurous things and the shamefully safe.  So it isn't as if I always defer the risks.

Ah.  and the language we use to qualify bravery, to contextualize cowardice.

Shame.

Risk.

Hero.

Loser.

Danger.

Selflessness.

routine.

boring.

exciting.

thrilling.

strong.

weak.

and the imagery.  hollywood, storybooks, all of it.  The coward, skulking in the shadows of great men; the coward: a timid little mouse; the follower; the one who needs to be saved; the one who gets eaten or left behind because they didn't have the courage or the wherewithal to get through.

The movie's not about the coward.

Heroes aren't cowards.

Sure they feel fear.  They grapple with self doubt.  but in the end they take action.  when it comes down to it, they 'sack-up'.  They have within them something admirable.  

And the coward sits at home and reads about it almost wistfully. 

Can people tell if they are cowards?

I can tell. 

Like Masturbation

Procrastinating.

Hours and hours have dragged on.

I'm battling my zillionth illness of the schoolyear and wishing like you wouldn't believe that I could just call in tomorrow.

But I can't.  For a whole host of reasons.

So I need to lesson plan.

And you may be familiar with my issue:  I fucking suck at lesson planning.

You don't even understand.  This weekly lesson planning BS has made me legitimately question, ALOUD:  "Hey, what was so bad about working at Big Lots! . . .?"

It occurred to me that every employment that I've had other than Big Lots! (discounts and closeouts retail) (the exclamation point is part of their name.  Just as it is a legal part of the title for the beloved musical by Rogers and Hammerstein: OKLAHOMA!) Every single other piece of work I'v had to do has demanded a great deal of creativity from me.  A serious amount of OUTPUT.  Like, I cant just show up at my job tomorrow and get to work.  Can't just go FILE or whatever.  I have to CREATE all the time. 

I'm thinking I'd like some time spent at a job wherin I fulfill tasks that require no creative exertion whatsoever.

Yes, yes, this all seems contrary to who I am.  An artist.  A writer.  A performer.  A director.  A dreamer, etc. 

And I must say: indeed.  It IS contrary to who I am!  But perhaps that's the ticket!  Maybe the next step to a healthier ME is finding a career that doesn't demand so much time creating all the time.  I need a DOING job.

But what on earth could that be?

I'll think on it and get back to you.

Right now I have a unit to develop, a week's worth of lessons to invent, materials for said unit and lessons to pull the fuck together, and how many hours left in which to accomplish this herculean feat?  Yeah. 

Plus I see my department head tomorrow.  For which I will have to prepare right after I'm done slogging thorugh all the other bullshit. Fun times ahead.

Focus on the positive:  The house smells like warm, fresh bread.  Thank you, Aaron, for the wonderful christmas gift!


Oh, about the post title.  My friend Julia once wrote on facebook or somewhere:

Procrastination is like Masturbation:  Fun for a while, but in the end, you're just fucking yourself.

Coffee with dear friends = some of the best therapy I'll ever get.  Thank you :)

Resolutions:

To get well.  Inside and out.