PORN!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

bon apetit!


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

I fucking ADORE this one.

Tantalizing

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

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

What a lithe and obedient houseboy!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

holy moly.

ho.

phew.

When i think about you I...

So...

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

What a lovely way to spend an afternoon.

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

And christmas looming.  I just don't know.

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

run away to india and disappear?

we'll see.

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

Talk about the power of positive thinking!

I decided to sleep in a little this morning. 

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

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

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

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

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

It was wonderful.

Not a bad way to start a morning.

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

But here I am at work. 

Far, far away from orgasmville.

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

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

Subsistance, Sorrow, and Sensibility

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

Survived another week.  By the skin of my teeth. 

Three more till christmas break.

Tick tock tick tock tick

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

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

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

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

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

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

And I can't quit this job.

And I can't check-out.

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

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

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

Sigh.

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

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

Happy for them all around.

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

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


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

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

I'm a lucky, lucky woman.

Despite all my bitching and moaning.

what the fuck was I thinking?

Is there another word for bittersweet?

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

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

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

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

Yet still my thoughts seem to wander.

And still I sigh, every now an again. 

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

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

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

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

Last time I got like this I picked the scab.

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

Not this time.

What would be the point?

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

Oh, vanity.  Oh, pride.

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

"You never write"


"Because I thought you'd never answer."


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


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

A plea to no one in particular. Ignore it.

Ok.

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

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

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

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


What the fuck am I going to do?

Aaron says happiness is something you choose. 

I really don't know.

Is it acceptable to hide under my desk?

Jesus christ.

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

and I know I can't quit.  I know.

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


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


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


This is bananas.

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

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

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

8th graders, like predators, can smell fear.

They thrive on exploiting vulnerabilities.

brbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbbrbrbrbr.


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

not just anybody...

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

just stressing about it and resenting it.

is there any way out?

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

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

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

help.

A day late...

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

:)

Wonderful Wednesday

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

I miss being able to write whenever.

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

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

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

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

So.  On the menu?

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

~Harvest Bake~

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

~Stuffed Confetti Squash~

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

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

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

Tu-Friday...

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

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

Amen Amen Amen.

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

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

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

I sigh and shrug and smile. 

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

Ms. Reardon gets hate grafitti...

Yes indeed.

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

It reads as follows:

Mrs. Reardon

sucks

Big dicks

and is a

fat ass

Bitch

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

I was shocked and amused when first I beheld it.

Then I thought about it.

And.

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

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

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

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

I'm a sentimental gal ;)

Miss Reardon pines...

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

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

Professional development.

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

My heart wants OUT!

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

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

We'll see.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But this is all moot.

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

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

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

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

Sigh.

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

FML

Have A Magical Day!

I have a crush on the dunkin donuts girl.

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

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

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

And the best part? 

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

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

sighhhhhhhhhhhhh. 

Oh sweet Dunkin Donuts girl.  I adore you. 

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

Miss Reardon calls home...

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

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

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh.

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

Amen.

Faith and begorrah!

Ohmygod, shoes.

Things I want to say 'thank you' for!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shimmering Zebra Shoes!  Yay!

Sequined Flats! Sassafrass!

Fuckin Fire-Engine Red Penny Loafers, Bitch!

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

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

Goddamned Glorious.

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

Thank You Savers!

Pleasant Polly?

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

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

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

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

As if I didn't already want to quit!

Christ.

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

I will never never never never get another cat.

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

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

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


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

i am not a pleasant polly right now!

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

Oh, and CVS on the way.

Absolutely.

Indubitably.

Creative Writing, Doctor!

Ok.

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

I am not OK.

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

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

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

I have a fundamental defect.

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

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

So.

What to do?

Aaron thinks he might study to be a paleontologist. 

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

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

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

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

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

For as long as he needs.

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

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

I wish it hadn't happened like this.

I really wish it had all been different.

Sometimes I wish we'd never met.

That's how much I love him.

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

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

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

He really is ridiculously talented.

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

I know he sees it differently. 

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

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

She doesn't exist now.

She hasn't for some time.

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

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

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

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

A Gamer-iffic holiday!

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So!

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

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

But!  Off to the laundromat!

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

Federal Holiday

I needed this day.

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

What I did today/what I am doing

Let's see: 

I forgot to vote today.

I want to quit my job.

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

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

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

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

I am now awaiting fresh-baked cookies.

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

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

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

I remember it now.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'll remember the truth beneath the jest--

With a wry twist in my smile.

Gah!

So how's my promise to write something everyday?

Not so hot, huh?

I'll try harder.

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

I can't even form cogent thoughts.

see you soon?

Does anyone really imagine angels spend their days sitting around on pinheads?

I had a breakdown.

Like a broken fucking record.

I'm tired of saying it, and those around me are tired of hearing it.

And I'm just plain fucking tired.Tired all the time.

Drained.  And Weary.  And Weak. 

And I don't think I can do it.

Aaron wants me to have faith.  Says its as easy as deciding.  I've never had faith.  He says its time to start.  I don't think I can do it.  He tells me I can.  I've never believed in myself.  He tells me its time.

All I know for certain is that I'm scared.  Everyday.  And Cornered.  All the time.  And there's no way out of this, short of a miracle or a mortal sin.

I bet I'll be the life of the party come parent-teacher conferences :)

Another Installment of Meritricious Poetry!

I am a potato.

Of the couch variety.

I am a bones.

Of the lazy sort.

An ass.

Of the lard classification.

Inert.

At Rest.

Unmotivated.

Scratch That--

Motivated by sloth. 

By ease.

And whim.

I'm taking the path of least resistance.

I'm bending to the compulsion for total hedonism.

And reveling in my inaction.

If you'll excuse me, there's a hot bath and a glass of red waiting for me. 

And an orgasm after that.




You become a public school teacher...
and try to tell me you wouldn't do the same.


Happy wednesday, working folks.  Almost halfway through.

Home sick

Not homesick

In my home, having a sick day.

;)

Poem

Another sunday night.

Another bleak sunday night

no end in sight.

Only grim frustration

and overwhelming pressure

and this writer's block that grips like icy iron and steel.

Firm and unshakable.

Crushing me.

Cornering me.

Killing me.

Cursing me.

I've got nothing.

And a very real deadline of live bodies looming.

I've

got

nothing
...

Masturbatory Excercises!

It is early for a saturday.  I'm up because I'm waiting for the Peapod delivery.  I'm pretty much doe with regular shopping, and think I'll only do it out of necessity or as a fun little whim.  Today I decided to have it delivered early so that Aaron could help bring the groceries in!  And since he has to work later...  yeah... you get me. 

Leave me aone, I'm not even awake yet.

Do you like getting fucked?  Like, Really hard?  I love it to pieces. 

Sorry. 

Just on my mind, cuz, well... you know. 

I just did a couple hours ago.

Like, I love to have all kinds of sex, I do, I love so many different ways and styles and moods.  But sometimes a girl just wants to get shoved down (or against a wall, or over a counter or whatever) and fucked like an animal.

Ok, I'm prolly gunna wrap this up, as there is no rhyme or reason to my ramblings right now.  Just writing to write.  My boss tells me that "Writing with no purpose is bad writing." 

Fuck that, lady.  I think that's like saying "Sex with no purpose is bad sex".  Listen, just cuz I'm not doing it to produce a final product, doesn't mean I'm not having some awesome sex, lady!  Practice makes perfect! lolz.

I'm having fun.  Ok, ok, ok, todays little entry might better be considered diddling myself.  Not even full-out masturbation; just sorta idly playing with your lady parts while daydreaming or watching tv or something. 

So, apologies for the display.  But I just woke up and am waiting for groceries.

Deal with it.  :)

Life looks better this side of wednesday...

GAH!  (sound of me coming up for air)

So I know I made the pledge to write each day, but jesus if my day wasn't a big ball of miserable yesterday. 

I was feeling down, and blue, and fragile, and all sorts of negative.  Which is probably the best time to do some creative writing, to let some of that pent-up creativity out.  But I honestly couldn't keep my mind on anything other than worry and stress long enough to form cogent thoughts.

Today I was feeling much more pleasant and even-keel.

And aaron is bringing home Indian for dinner!  Yay!

And I will see my bestie this weekend, YAY!

And I will breathe and get through yet another week!

And I will do alot of correcting and grading over the weekend, but I will do it in the comfort of my own home and I will do it blissfully nude!  Haha! 

Happy friday everyone.  We've just about made it another week!  Ha-chaaaaaa!

~Beth

Me & Arnie, like twins!

Is this supposed to get easier?

Because it isn't getting any easier.

I'm not trying to be negative.  In fact, I'm trying to be as positive as sanely possible. 

But this is exhausting, exhausting and draining on so many levels. 

I'm invested up to the roots of my hair, invested and dedicated and drowning in it. 

I'm taxed emotionally, I'm tapped intellectually, I'm stretched-thin creatively, and physically?  Forget it.

In the immortal words of former president Bush:  "It's hard work!"

I realize I'm not running a country, I'm not performing open heart surgery, I'm not reinventing the wheel or curing cancer.  I realize that this is a small little battle in the scope of things.  But jeez.  I'm so completely consumed with becoming a teacher that I don't know which end is up anymore.





A very special thanks to the ones who love me through it all; who keep trying to get together despite the litany of 'sorry, but I cants...' that I keep giving them.  Really, really and trully, Its not you, its me. For serious.


And a very very extra special thanks to my amazing god-like husband for the earth-shattering he gives me on a regular basis.  For the transcendence, the bliss, the ticket to paradise he delivers with panache and aplomb on the regular.

I am a lucky, lucky, lucky young woman.

Oh, and thanks to him for all the emotional support and continued patience and enduring understanding.  That's nice too. lol.

Meanwhiles, this is me:
  YUP

Ridonk

So I got paid an unreasonable sum of dollah bills to play theatre games with grown ups today.  What kind of life is this?  Also, I am getting paid cash monies to babysit a yardsale tomorrow. 

Amen to all the income, as I was pretty broke.

Siriusly.  Paid to play theatre games.  Wild.

Also, I won a mullet in the faculty lottery on friday!  Woohoo!  Like, a full-on mullet wig.  It is pretty special.  I intend to wear it at school from time to time.  Go Eagles!

Aaron performed some very funny improv with it on today.  Funny-slash-terrifying because he was so good at the white trash impersonation.  He finally had to take it off, as he felt that it might have an adverse effect on him, like the symbiote suit from spiderman!  He then proceeded to do some fancy ballet moves to counteract the over-macho meat-head character personae.

I love him.

Fall is upon us and I adore the Autumn, but I feel like I am way, way too busy to enjoy it!!  I'm still trying to keep my head above water here with the teaching, and very worried about surviving the year.  I have so much to do and never enough time to do it all! 

Gunna chill with the hubs.  Have some zucchini pizza, watch some mysterysciencetheatre3000, and keep the rest of the worry at bay for a few hours more!

Love!

Keep Talkin' Happy Talk...

After much deliberation (ok, I freaked-the-fuck-out), I have made the decision to scale back the medications that I am taking, to include only the ones that would not deform potential fetuses.  That seemed like the holistic, organic, naturalistic approach.  "Oh, this deforms babies?  No thanks you, then.  I'll pass."

I spoke to my therapist and to the RN who is in charge of prescribing, and they were very supportive, which i honestly wasn't expecting.  I was all geared up for a battle!  I was ready to defend my rights, make my case, and it kinda took the wind outta my sails when they were like:  Yeah, if I were you i would make the same decision.

So I'm going back to basics.  Back to just the thyroid medicine, and we're gunna see how that goes.  But I'm also going to look into the age-old treatment for mood disorder:  Diet & Excersize!  What a concept! lol.  But now instead of looking at it as "I should..."  I will have to look at it as "I HAVE to..."

Of course last night I had a bowl of stuffing for dinner.  Not a stellar choice.  But a very, very, very delicious and comforting one!

Work is getting more challenging every day.  And I didn't think that was possible.  I'm there now, as I type this, and I'm wishing I were curled up in bed with a tea and a good book.

Instead I've gotta shlepp downstairs to wait my turn at the copy machine.  Eck. 

And I have a super-dee-duper busy weekend ahead of me!  I am doing two seminars at a conference about teaching drama!  Imagine that?1  Me, teaching other teachers.  Yikes. 

And on Sunday there's this big town wide yard sale that Aaron's running, so that's where I'll be.  Meanwhile I'm drowning under piles of papers that need to be corrected, grading that needs to get done, and lesson plans yet unplanned!

All this while going OFF the drugs.  Wish me luck folks.  At this point happy thoughts are about as likely to work as vitamins and st. john's wort!

So i'm 28!

I feel good.

I am crazy busy. 

I overslept this morning.  Like for real.  It was wild.  We woke up at 7:30 and it was pandemonium when we realized how late it was!  Aaron goes:  "Is it daylight savings?!?!?"  Lol.  nope.  We're just assholes.

But I'm another year older. 

See you soon!

The Amazing Spider-Baby

Ok,

So I'm on this regimen of pills that I swear, you'd look at and think I was on chemo or an HIV cycle, fro chrissakes.  I mean, something SERIOUS.  I'm just a little blue now and then and I've got fucking 5 or six different prescriptions and all the various rules and regulations that go along with that many goddam pills.
This pill has to be taken in the AM before breakfast.
This pill needs to be taken in the AM with breakfast.
Take ONE of these pills in the AM with breakfast, and the other one and a half before bed.
Take this pill with food, but not breakfast.
Take this pill and that pill at night.  And the latter nonly id you feel like you might have trouble sleeping.

Jesus H, right?

And if you don't know, I was on kind of an all-natural kick before this all went down.  I wanted chemicals as far away from my body as possible.  I was a burt's bees consumer, a free-range egg buyer, an organic milk drinker.  I'd be that asshole in the supermarket checking the back of any and all products to make sure I wasn't buying partially-hydrogenated crap and high-fructose corn syrup.  Seriously.  Geave up meat largely because of the insane chemicals, bought unbleached flour, buy as natural as possible as allowed by the fucking fda.

And her I am dependent on a slew of chemical concoctions to make me balanced and well and less-than-suicidal.

Well.

At first I told myself: Suck it up.  Mental illness is a real illness.  You take your thyroid pill and don't blink, because the medical doctor told you you need it.  So take these pills the therapists are telling you you need.

However.

The other day, sitting in the Nurse's office at my Therapy place (the nurse is the one who prescribes the drugs), I decide to get all 'educated consumer' on her, and say:

"This isn't an immediate concern, I simply want to be informed;  Out of curiosity, what would happen with taking all these pills should I get pregnant?  Again, it isn't an immediate concern, but in the next few--"

"If you're thinking about getting pregnant you have to stop taking these pills immediately." she says, her face grim.

"Oh... really?"  I ask, trying to look perfectly blase about it.  Trying to look only mildly curious.

"Yes."  She replies firmly.  "Mood stabilizers are not safe for fetuses."  She tells me.  and further elaborates:  "In fact, if you were to get pregnant while on these pills you would have to get an abortion."

Ho.Ly.Fuck.

"Holy God."  I say, before I can act cool.

"Yes."  She agress.  "It's incredibly important that oyu not get pregnant while on these drugs."  She thinks for a moment.  "What we recommend is that whatever birthcontrol you use now, that you double up.  So if you're on the pill, you should also use condoms..."

Eeek.  So if we practice the pull-out method?

I follow up with some practical questions about coming off the medication in anticipation of trying to conceive, with questions about how people are medicated while pregnant if mood stabilizers are off the table, and then I take the prescription for more thalidamide, thank her, and depart cool as a cucumber.

But all the way home all I can imagine (of course, have we met?) are worst-case scenarios. 

I am not pro-life, politically, but I am awfully romantic, and the thought of aborting a child concieved with the man I love makes me sick, guilty, and miserable.  I've wanted a child (chilren) with him for more than a decade, and it is touch-and-go already with whether we will even be able to have any (i mean, nearly 15 years of the pull out method and nary a pregnancy? ummmm...).  So to think that I might conceive and then have to abort because of some mood stabilizers that would turn my fetus into a monster? 

Yeah.  that visit did a number on me. 

So aaron comes home to find me on the couch, all numb and comatose-like, and asks what's going on.

I tell him.

He isn't as perturbed.

Which, of course, vexes me.

"Look,"  He says, "You're getting all worked up about a hypothetical situation that is incredibly unlikely to happen."  He reminds me that we've never concieved, so why do I all of a sudden think that we will now?

"Because that's how life works!" I tell him, doom-and-gloom.

"No."  He tell me.  "That's the way people who don't understand odds THINK that life works."

He is certain in his law of averages, and I am certain in my superstition.

I know, I KNOW, it would kill me to have to get an abortion at this point in my life. 

An then, oh god forbid, what if something should go wrong and we can't ever have children and that was my one chance????  (yeah, this is how my brain works.  I'm my very own soap opera plot line)  How could I live with myself?

I couldn't.

So now I'm thinking very seriously about going in to my appointment this week and letting them know that I'm not comfortable with this approach to my treatment.  That I'm interested in trying a less toxic approach to leveling me out.  Maybe just therapy with the thyroid pills and see what happens.

But I can't help wondering if my irish catholic is rearing it's irrational, stubborn head.  Immune to therapy and all that.  I mean, if this was, say, an issue with my kidneys, would I be balking at taking medicine?  Is this really about thalidomide babies, or is it because I haven't really convinced myself that mental illness is really a medical issue and not self-indulgent bullshit?

And will my ADD medicine mutate my babies too?  Sigh.

The only bright spot about this was this discourse:

"What, so you think somehow magically we're going to have sex tonight and get pregnant??"

"No, I'm concerned that we already are!"

"We never have before!"

"Yeah, but there was cum everywhere last night!"

"There's always cum everywhere..."

"What if a sperm crawled up my leg and swam up to my egg?!?!"

"Listen, if a sperm did that, then he is super sperm, and he can withstand the toxic chemicals.  He'll be all set."

"And maybe even shoot web?!?!?"

"Yeah.  We'll have a superhero baby."

"Yeah!! . . . . . . . . . .But not if we abort him!"

"Jesus...." *Aggravated sigh**

Broke, Broke

Yeah.  How'd that happen?  I've got about $10.00 in the bank.  And that's after overdrafting and transferring money from my savings to cover the red.  It just isn't fun to get the ole "I'm sorry, it says you've been declined" speech at dunkin-fuckin-donuts at 6am.

Thank christ I had taken out cash, and was able to cover my morning caffeine fix, and didn't have to drive away in abject shame. 

But yeah.  Broke. 

It was a confluence of things; lotta automatic bill payments combined with my spending spree at the market bucket, combined with my binge spending at panera, combined with the online clearance event at Lane Bryant, combined with spending at least a hundred on gas for to and fro connecticut and holyoke to look at dinosaur footprints (yes, I'm being dead serious here), combined with this and that and the other.  In short, I wasn't careful, and now I'm broke for another week, until my next paycheck.  boy oh boy, how long a week can look when one is tired and hungry and po as shit.

In other news, lol, this is my birthday weekend.  Maybe someone who loves me will take me out to eat somewhere awesomesauce. 

And I look really good in this new shirt I got from the lanebryant clearance sale!

But the bummer is that I was sooooo looking forward to the savers columbus day sale!!  Now no 50% off sale for me :(  frowny face emoticon.

28.  incidentally.  is how old I will be.

stay tuned, folks, because my next entry will be about how any babies I conceive will be thalidomide monsters! 

Did I mention I have ADD? True Story...

My Therapist describes suicide as homicide turned inward.

This tickled me.

Because usually when I'm feeling like killing myself I'm not in an angry place, but rather a hopeless one.  But she says there's anger there.  Crime of passion.

I couldn't help the smile that stole accross my face.  Then, naturally, realizing that such behavior was grossly inappropriate, I felt compelled to explain my mirth.

"There's an old movie, from the sixties--" I say, feeling very much as though I'm a snarky character in an Aaron Sorkin show.  "--its a spoof on detective, on mystery books, Neil Simon, its a great little piece--"  I say, wondering if I've been watching too much West Wing, and wishing Mr. Sorkin would please write again after the abysmal led balloon of Studio 60.  "Anyway, there's this great line;  They go:  "This is the room where Mrs. Twain murdered herself, all those years ago..."  My therapist looks bemused, but, being a well trained and exceptionally good therapist, holds her tongue and lets me ride this thought train to the station.  "So the other guy goes:  'Don't you mean suicide?'"  I chuckle, remembering the next line:  "And he replies: 'Oh, no; it was murder alright.  Mrs. Twain hated herself very much."

To the woman's credit she took it in good humor and even continued on unruffled, as if I hadn't just poked fun at a thing she makes her living curing.  

And maybe, just maybe the next time I feel like offing myself I'll think of Neil Simon's droll tongue-in-cheek wit and Obiwan Kenobi as the blind butler from one of my childhood favorites Murder by Death.

Yeah...I was a weird kid...

And then, as Julie Fucking Andrews once sang: "Then I won't feeeeeeeeeeeeeel soooo baaaaaaaad!!!!"

Ms. Reardon Learns A Lesson in Brevity

Aaron hates Ernest Hemingway, and is fond of retelling the anecdote about Old Man and the Sea;  He asserts that Old Man and the Sea would be perfect--IF-- and its a big 'if', IF it had been a short story.  See, as Aaron tells it, Hemingway had a great short story on his hands in this man-vs-fish/man-vs-himself allegory.  But the deal is this:  Hemingway got paid by the word.  So apparently he stretched what should have been a 30 to 35 page story into one triple that length.

Interestingly, though, Hemingway actually has a reputation in literature (other than being a fall-down drunk) for his economy of words.  He examplifies the very American, very masculine, very closed-mouthed modern writing aesthetic.  He isn't flowery, he isn't (generally) long winded.  He says what he needs to say, rather bluntly, and doesn't tend to elaborate past endurance (hem-hem, Mr. Tolkein...), or fluff it up like a big name hollywood star with a tiny dick and a nude scene coming up (hem-hem, Mr. Bacon...).

I tend to be the long-winded type.  Maybe you've noticed?  I use ten words where five would've done fine.  I go off on tangents and focus on minutia and keep writing when I should just press that punctuation key...

And Aaron, the Hemingway hater, shared a really interesting little anecdote with me the other night over margaritas and bean dip (how appropriate to the man's legacy...).  It's worth mentioning that I've been with Aaron for more than half my life at this point, so I've become well aquainted with many, if not most, of his factoids, trivia, and anecdotes.  When he began this one, about Hemingway, I sorta had to resist rolling my eyes.  But it turned a corner I really didn't see coming, and made a real impact on me.

It goes like this:  Hemingway, known for his economy of language--almost to the point of farce--was challenged by a literary critic to write an entire story in no more than ten words.

Hemingway responds, with likely swagger, that he could do better; he didn't need more than six.  And here's the story, which contains in its nearly zen-like simplicity, a full story arc;, a solid beginning, middle, and end; It tell an entire story.  And a good one, at that.  It has intrigue, depth, and impact.  I'd like to share it with you, and leave it at that.

Here's what Hemingway wrote:

For Sale:

Baby Shoes.

Never worn.

Ms. Reardon takes a sick day...

Yeah.  You'd think a four day weekend would be long enough to get my shit in order.  Turns out it isn't.  So I stayed up quite literally all night sunday, trying desperately to get everything done, and at 5 AM finally decided that not only had I failed to accomplish all that I needed to accomplish, but also that I was so fucking tires that I was dizzy, nauseated, shaking, and pretty fucking bananas.  Hell of a way to start a schoolday, right?  So I took my first ever professional teacher sick day. 

I slept from about 7:30 ish (when Aaron left for work) until 11:30ish, then got right up and back to work.  I popped some excedrine, had several coffees, got myself all jittery and full of vim and completed several more tasks on the ole to-do list. 
And even took the time to make "meat"ball subs for din-din.

Did I think seriously about quitting my job?  You bet.

Do I regret taking a sick day?  Nope.

I went to school today feeling better rested, better prepared, and better equipped to handle my job.  I was even in better spirits than usual.

A co-worker asked after my health and confessed that she'd hoped I was out because of suffering MORNING SICKNESS!  Then departed the teacher's room saying "You're BLUSHING, Ms. Reardon!!"

Nay, friends, no babe on the way, no bun in the proverbial oven.  Good lord, could you imagine me trying to deal with THAT kind of bombshell in my first year of teaching?  Heavens to betsy.

Anyway, as I've stated before--I don't think I'll ever get ahead.  Right now I'm fighting the good fight to just MANAGE all the paperwork and the lesson planning and yadda yadda, just trying to make sure I don't fall too too far behind.

I only get so many sick days a term. 

Gotta make em last... I mean, what if I actually get sick?!  And I mean more than the mental/emotional sick I'm dealing with.

Speaking of, my therapist wants me to take an ADD test.  Good golly.

Alright.  I really do NOT have time for blogging, or anything pleasureable (well... I fucking MAKE time for a few certain pleasurable things.  If I didn't I'd surely go postal...).  But I don't want to stop writing!  So I'm going to try to make a comitment to some kind of writing EVERY DAY.  And I mean more than the stupid little notes I write to my students, or the 'context clue sentences' for their daily vocabulary and shit. 

A creative paragraph a day.  Does that sound fair?  I ask my students to do the same for their journals.  So, please look forward to the Ms. Reardon daily journal experiment.  Maybe I'll even respond to the prompts I give my students!

Ok, I gotta run.  This is borrowed time.

~Ms. reardon

Oh, and if anyone asks?  I had a stomach bug...