I would say the school week ended well, but as it always seems to be, it was a mixed bag. My classes all made it through their second week's prompt--tell me about a time and place you were terrified, in order to get them used to the basic notion of coming up with ideas--and most kids turned their stuff in Friday, so I could fill them in on next week's task (district diagnostic benchmark testing), and have the weekly candy raffle.
In short, a theoretically easier day, and one that capped off a mostly successful week, both in school and personally. But, it being a Friday, they were much antsier, and I had to do a lot of disciplining. Plus one student assaulted me, so I had a whirlwind lunch with dealing with that, and then jumping out of class later to speak to the police. Getting someone suspended, and pressing charges: Not the sort of thing I enjoy doing/dealing with.
I've realized that the fact of how little I enjoy disciplining kids, and therefore how ineffectively I'd been doing it, was the reason behind a lot of my classroom management problems. Well, that one won't be around for a while, which sucks for him, and for me, as much as it would benefit the classroom.
When I gave my statement to the police, I said I wouldn't press charges. I didn't know how to respond, how one ought to act in that sort of situation; I just felt lost. I got advice from several people, though, and I let it stew in the back of my mind; I have to remember to call the hotline later and have them put the paperwork in to start the process of pressing charges.
That kid aside, like I said, the week went well. I left work each day tired, but happy. That, in and of itself, is a massive triumph over the first three weeks. I connected with more kids, learned more names, and felt more in control of the classroom. I participated in the staff meeting (and accidentally skipped the professional development I was supposed to attend on Thursday), hung out with kids at lunch, made dozens of good phone calls home, and had another workshop Thursday after school (which was why I forgot about the professional development), where a lot of the kids who've been rocking zeroes showed up to get missed work and help with their essays.
My own window of non-school life expanded, too. Wednesday I hit the Fair Trade Cafe, to find that the slam had been cancelled, so I just worked, bullshit with Melanie and Brad, and went home to write a bit and pass out. Thursday I didn't hit Club Blunt, because I had a cohort meeting I'd forgotten about--a.k.a, sangria and homemade burritos with a dozen other teachers, to tell jokes and stories (rather than bitch) about our jobs, and in the last five minutes of hanging out, get a bunch of usable resources for our jobs. Last night, I hit the Agua Fria high school football game with a bunch of fellow teachers who'd been there for Institute, saw one of my students, and got to watch a ridiculously good game; it was a grudge match between AF and Desert Edge, and the teams kept exchanging drives, and it wasn't decided until the last minute. AF won the game on the most absurd desperate pass play--the cornerback faltered on the five yard line, giving the receiver the extra two steps he needed, and the QB just lofted it forty yards into the receiver's hands, getting it there just as the corner caught up and rolled the kid over. Grabbed grub, gas, and 40s on the way back, and decided to hit Shelley's for a pool party with no swimsuit--just strip to boxers and jump in with malt liquor in each hand.
Today, I'm torn--I could go chaperone a dance at Bidali's school with a bunch of other people, and meet some new people to go drinking with tonight. On the other hand, my stomach is still not happy with me, and it's already 1, so I won't get much done if I head out to chaperone at 5. I could go see Inglourious Basterds with Carey and spend my night rhyming instead, which sounds like a pretty excellent experience right now. I'll decide later.
One other thing--expressions of anger aside, I'm still an idiot. Wednesday morning, my phone rang on the way to work, and I caught myself grabbing at it. I know why, and I realize I've done the same happy grab for my phone, when it buzzes with a text or rings, a couple of times in these past few days. Thursday, Emily actually called during my cohort dinner. I spent the drive home, and my trip through Safeway, debating whether to call back, how to act, how to speak, what to say. I'd almost settled on calling, and hoping that she wouldn't pick up, so I could just be "Yeah, I called, your turn," in the non-existent game that we're not playing that I keep in my mind.
I called, and we talked for a half hour or so. It was nice, it was happy. She told me about her past couple days, I filled her in on mine for a few, and then she had to go, because Matty and his girlfriend (I assume) came back. She said that she would call back later, and I told her not to worry about it. I guess because I didn't want her to feel obliged to speak with me, to have to keep in touch, because that's not what she wants. Just me making sure she's okay, stupid sappy me.
Thing was, I didn't necessarily want her to call back, because I didn't know what else to say. "I still love you?" "I jump at the phone in the hopes that it's you?" "I hate you because I love you and you don't want me?" I'm sure it would have devolved into something shitty, so it's probably for the best. She's coming through town tomorrow, and I'm not sure if we should hang out. I realize I'm setting myself up to be available, but I'm guaranteed to be let down--she'll want to hang out with her family, and still won't want me.
I think the phone call was cheery and happy for me for two reasons. One, I got to talk to her, which I guess I ultimately wanted to, and it didn't involve bitching or angst, as it easily could have. Two, it showed me what could be--a very easy relationship, one where we don't have to talk all the time, busy as we both would be, but keeping in touch, and trying to see each other when we could. After all, I'm sitting here with Audrey and Danny in Hob Nobs, and that's the sort of thing Audrey's doing.
But such thoughts are stupid, wasteful, childish, grasping, pointless. I'm going to push them away, buy a coffee, refill my cranberry cocktail, and crank through some grades. :-)
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Flip It
Today was a blast for 7/8 of my classes. I just pushed ahead, and moved them onto a details-for-setting brainstorming game, and one of my two problem classes just moved like clockwork. D calmed down in my before-lunch period, and by the time I got to lunch, I was practically dancing. Not only was it the first day where I hadn't thought about jumping off of a large building by lunch, but it was actually going swimmingly.
It was a fucking blast. Ultimately, Sunday went well; I got to go swing dancing. Monday, I made it through five and half hours of grad school, then went home and updated behavior anecdotal records and things until 1 am, while watching the rest of season 3 of Weeds, related special features, and downing a variety six-pack. And it wasn't I'm-stressed-and-drinking, but relaxed, enjoyable, watching TV and enjoying some microbrews and working through some papers and things. It was excellent; what I've hoped to do for awhile now.
Today, I got through all those classes. 10th period rolled around, though, and that was a shitshow. Still, nothing happened. It's infuriating. I cannot reach them. I've been holding off on the advice I've been getting from veteran teachers, but it's time. I spent an hour and half after school dealing with a staff meeting, and then calling 20-odd parents whose kids had behaved appropriately during 3rd period (usually a problem period). In between I dealt with the idea that certain kids ought to remain in my class, because their motivation is to be able to be in general ed, and not special ed.
Fuck that. If that's your motivation, you shoulf have to work towards it, not simply receive what you desire irrespective of effort and behavior. So, tomorrow, I take the advice I've been getting. The classroom will be rearranged according to grades and efforts. Those kids who have turned something in, displayed effort, etc., will sit in the front of the room. Those kids who do not respond to zeroes, calls home, disciplinary action, etc., will sit in the back. On the board will be written "Sink or Swim," and I will not repeat directions. It's as easy as that. I felt like tearing out my hair at these kids, and the continued chances offered. If you're thirteen and haven't turned anything in for a month, you're capable of understanding there may be some kind of consequences.
Anyway, that drove me nuts. And so did pondering Emily for a second. I thought about her text for a second, realized she'd texted me to let me know she'd been traveling at literally half-pace for a few days, and my wonderful, obliging mind filled in the sordid "truth": that she'd traveled like she normally did, but had a run-in with a sexy gargantuan-dicked long haired blond Californian and spent a day or two fucking him senseless. (Perhapse he reminded her of a Humboldt County horticulturalist.)
Dumb ass shit; but it made me realize there's not much point in giving her headspace. At all. There's just sadness and misery there. I'd spent three mostly happy days busying myself; thinking of her just made me feel shitty. So fuck dealing with it. What it made me wonder is what that means about grief. Is that why I have trouble getting over people, because I don't just work through the pain--because I just try to move on without working through emotions?
Is that an emotional immaturity on my part that I haven't dealt with yet?
Or is that normal? I realize I'm using grief in a weird melodramatic way, but it's the end of something, and I think it's an applicable concept. So for a few moments, I thought about the difference between grieving the end of someone and the literal end of someone in your life. Maybe no one really moves on; it's just that when someone you care about is dead, they're gone, so you don't actually have awkward run-ins later. Which is why exes are scary, and dead relatives and lovers are a different matter. This isn't a profound concept; I just had wings and beer with the guys, and I'm a bit tipsy; I thought about ghosts--they show that you're not really over the dead, either, the dead just aren't there to prove your self-esteem wrong. Ghosts fuck with that. hence, Nancy in Weeds being fucked sideways by the potential that her husband is actually appearing in her house. Anyway, that's what I get for wondering if a Showtime special has life meaning.
What's cool is that I just decided "fuck it, not worth pondering," and my day improved. We found a bar with a wing special, that served Miller Lite and Alaskan Amber, and my mood
(haha--she just texted me, to tell me that it only took her "two days." Not the case. We spoke Saturday morning, and she was leaving Santa Cruz; this morning, she left San Luis Obispo. Saturday, Sunday, Monday--three days of biking. Not two. Not worth analyzing for the bullshit I'm being fed? (Or replying to?) That. Back to South Park and blogging about a good day.
(Jesus, again. I'm just realizing how much blogging for me is just stream of consciousness bitching and thinking. How much of this makes sense?)
Anyway, my mood has been good. Golfing, swinging, pleasantly grading with drinks by the boob tube. Today could have been Incubus, but I didn't want to go alone. It could have been swinging, but I was at school too long, missed the lesson, and needed food. Solution? Wing night. Fuckin' A. And tomorrow? Fair Trade Cafe, and slam poetry (and hopefully freestyling) time. Thursday, if I'm still conscious, Club Blunt for underground hip-hop, and Friday, we hit Sedona again. Hooray for starting to make myself have a grip on teaching, and for my first overall good day of teaching and life in a month.
Maybe I can do this. Hell yes.
It was a fucking blast. Ultimately, Sunday went well; I got to go swing dancing. Monday, I made it through five and half hours of grad school, then went home and updated behavior anecdotal records and things until 1 am, while watching the rest of season 3 of Weeds, related special features, and downing a variety six-pack. And it wasn't I'm-stressed-and-drinking, but relaxed, enjoyable, watching TV and enjoying some microbrews and working through some papers and things. It was excellent; what I've hoped to do for awhile now.
Today, I got through all those classes. 10th period rolled around, though, and that was a shitshow. Still, nothing happened. It's infuriating. I cannot reach them. I've been holding off on the advice I've been getting from veteran teachers, but it's time. I spent an hour and half after school dealing with a staff meeting, and then calling 20-odd parents whose kids had behaved appropriately during 3rd period (usually a problem period). In between I dealt with the idea that certain kids ought to remain in my class, because their motivation is to be able to be in general ed, and not special ed.
Fuck that. If that's your motivation, you shoulf have to work towards it, not simply receive what you desire irrespective of effort and behavior. So, tomorrow, I take the advice I've been getting. The classroom will be rearranged according to grades and efforts. Those kids who have turned something in, displayed effort, etc., will sit in the front of the room. Those kids who do not respond to zeroes, calls home, disciplinary action, etc., will sit in the back. On the board will be written "Sink or Swim," and I will not repeat directions. It's as easy as that. I felt like tearing out my hair at these kids, and the continued chances offered. If you're thirteen and haven't turned anything in for a month, you're capable of understanding there may be some kind of consequences.
Anyway, that drove me nuts. And so did pondering Emily for a second. I thought about her text for a second, realized she'd texted me to let me know she'd been traveling at literally half-pace for a few days, and my wonderful, obliging mind filled in the sordid "truth": that she'd traveled like she normally did, but had a run-in with a sexy gargantuan-dicked long haired blond Californian and spent a day or two fucking him senseless. (Perhapse he reminded her of a Humboldt County horticulturalist.)
Dumb ass shit; but it made me realize there's not much point in giving her headspace. At all. There's just sadness and misery there. I'd spent three mostly happy days busying myself; thinking of her just made me feel shitty. So fuck dealing with it. What it made me wonder is what that means about grief. Is that why I have trouble getting over people, because I don't just work through the pain--because I just try to move on without working through emotions?
Is that an emotional immaturity on my part that I haven't dealt with yet?
Or is that normal? I realize I'm using grief in a weird melodramatic way, but it's the end of something, and I think it's an applicable concept. So for a few moments, I thought about the difference between grieving the end of someone and the literal end of someone in your life. Maybe no one really moves on; it's just that when someone you care about is dead, they're gone, so you don't actually have awkward run-ins later. Which is why exes are scary, and dead relatives and lovers are a different matter. This isn't a profound concept; I just had wings and beer with the guys, and I'm a bit tipsy; I thought about ghosts--they show that you're not really over the dead, either, the dead just aren't there to prove your self-esteem wrong. Ghosts fuck with that. hence, Nancy in Weeds being fucked sideways by the potential that her husband is actually appearing in her house. Anyway, that's what I get for wondering if a Showtime special has life meaning.
What's cool is that I just decided "fuck it, not worth pondering," and my day improved. We found a bar with a wing special, that served Miller Lite and Alaskan Amber, and my mood
(haha--she just texted me, to tell me that it only took her "two days." Not the case. We spoke Saturday morning, and she was leaving Santa Cruz; this morning, she left San Luis Obispo. Saturday, Sunday, Monday--three days of biking. Not two. Not worth analyzing for the bullshit I'm being fed? (Or replying to?) That. Back to South Park and blogging about a good day.
(Jesus, again. I'm just realizing how much blogging for me is just stream of consciousness bitching and thinking. How much of this makes sense?)
Anyway, my mood has been good. Golfing, swinging, pleasantly grading with drinks by the boob tube. Today could have been Incubus, but I didn't want to go alone. It could have been swinging, but I was at school too long, missed the lesson, and needed food. Solution? Wing night. Fuckin' A. And tomorrow? Fair Trade Cafe, and slam poetry (and hopefully freestyling) time. Thursday, if I'm still conscious, Club Blunt for underground hip-hop, and Friday, we hit Sedona again. Hooray for starting to make myself have a grip on teaching, and for my first overall good day of teaching and life in a month.
Maybe I can do this. Hell yes.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Choking on the Ashes, Expanded
This motherfucker is a roller coaster ride.
I've talked to enough non-teachers in the last week to realize how much my description of my job is loathing, or at least bitching. Everyone I know is snapping. One day, I realized I was standing in my kitchen stark naked, with a handle of tequila in one hand a peanut butter-and-jelly waffle sandwich in my other. My roommates and I drink too much; last week, I drank myself to sleep three nights in a row. My head hurts all the time; I feel like I'm physically choking on the pain of missing Emily; I feel crushed by my job, and the fact that I don't see Phoenix; I feel like I'm drowning in debt. I have another rent payment coming up, a car payment, a credit card payment, and bill collectors --the hospital, the emergency room doctor, and the ambulance company--are all demanding large amounts of money for my trip to Tempe St. Luke's during Institute. And to top it off, the guy running the drive-thru at Mickey D's makes more than I do.
I think about quitting--saying fuck it, and waiting tables. I could write, I could work out, I could dance, and I would have more money than I do now. I'm jealous of Emily, and Sean, who travel and see shit, and meet people. I'm jealous of the guys upstairs, who wait tables, undoubtedly make more than we do, and are happy. I'm jealous of people whose lives are even somewhat their own, who have time to meet people and do things they enjoy.
And I still owe E shit.
Part of me fucking hates her. I hate her for not wanting me anymore; I hate her for taking it back to 2007 and acting as if relationships are a burden. I hate her for her idea that being with me means being obligated to speak with me, because I text her, and want to talk to her, regardless of whether or not we're in a relationship.
She was my best friend, and she's the person I want to tell about my day, bitch to, and talk about my kids and hear about her day. For me, it doesn't matter if we're in a relationship--I don't feel obligated to tell her shit, I just want to. So it seems to me that she would want to talk to me, regardless of dating me, because I would think she felt the same way. That she doesn't--that the simple fact of being single removes any obligation, or feeling like she wants to share with me--therefore doesn't make sense to me.
Maybe it's because she wants to get with other people. I don't buy that, but maybe it's because I don't want to. Maybe it's because she just doesn't want to be with me anymore. I don't think that, perhaps for the same reason. Also, because I refuse to believe that what we had could just be tossed away. I think maybe it's because she doesn't want to deal with me anymore, with the idea of a relationship--and that makes me hate her too. I hate her because I think that her not wanting to deal with me is simply her pushing me away, in that "great Sullivan tradition," as she put it, and there's no real response for me to that. She's leaving, and she doesn't want me; I can't convince her that she should be with me by "pestering" and "obligating" her to speak with me. So if she is just walling me off, as she can do, then I have no response. And I lose anyway. Fuck.
I hate her for making me feel like she doesn't even miss me; I hate her for not seeming to care that I'm not coming to L.A. I hate her for the potential fact of that being the truth. I hate her because I need to find new music. Tool reminds me of sex, Nonpoint and Sevendust and Authority Zero of concerts with her. Alexisonfire today reminded me of Kurt Vonnegut--I realized recently that the song "Happiness by the Kilowatt" is all about "The Euphio Question," and that made me think of reading Welcome to the Monkey House to each other while we drove across the United States. The Red Hot Chili Peppers remind me of landing at Sky Harbor and seeing her; of driving around Connecticut and playing Quixoticelixer. Hip-hop songs randomly remind me of lindy bombing Tower. I hate her for being everything I want, and for just throwing me away. I hate her because Nancy on Weeds reminds me of her; and I hate her because I can scarcely have a beer without thinking of sometime we killed a glass together and held hands, or just because I let my guard down and relax and then get smacked in the face with the memory of us.
I hate her because I looked up the 5 stages of grief last night. I recognized that I had spent some time in denial, that I wanted to pretend we're still together. I hate her for disabusing me of that on a Saturday morning, while I cried outside Pinnacle; while she told me that she didn't want the obligation of a relationship, and I realized that whether she cares or not, it doesn't matter--there's no point in convincing someone to be with you. I did that for her once before, and it killed me. That phone call ended with me just being pissed that she could leave me behind; that she could toss me from partner to friend, just like that, and it somehow changed her feelings.
I've spent enough time depressed, too--just fucking laying on my couch, on the bed, on the kitchen counter, crying. Just asking Barishner for a hug, just to feel like something more than a used, nasty fucking wad of cigarette ashes and dirt.
Bargaining? About a minute, rolling through my head the idea of telling her that dating me wouldn't be an obligation. But fuck that; if being with me hasn't shown you that life can be good, there's nothing I can do. And I know how that sounds; I'm not trying to come off like King Shit, I'm just saying that if what we shared didn't show her that we should be together, then no silver-tongued shit is going to flow from me to convince her otherwise.
Acceptance? I don't know how to fucking accept it. I thought of where to propose to her. I walk past ASU's nursing school; I go dancing, and think of the times we danced, that we fought about dancing, and the times she taught me. I pick up my notebook, and its still one that she's written in; and I know that I didn't feel creative juices flow for much of college, but she helped me refind mine.
I hate the fact that I looked up those fucking stages of grief because I was hoping to see how long I would feel like shit; that I could look at them and see that I'd felt many of them multiple times, and that I don't even know how to see her and act as a friend.
I don't know how to be just that. She's E--she's what I want, she's what I need, she's a part of me. I don't know how I'm supposed to hang out with her and not kiss her; not wrap around her; not think about what I want to do with her and where I want to take her and the future I want to have with her, but just talk and catch up and know that someone else has her now, or that she's no one's, but enjoys everyone, or even just the simple fact that she doesn't want any of that with me anymore.
How do you look at someone who you know where you would propose to them and act normal when they have informed you they don't want you anymore?
I'm not going to go back and re-read this. I imagine the last ten minutes of writing come off like some angry, petulant, self-indulgent, self-pitying shit. And fuck it. I needed to write some of that down, and I don't feel like writing it in my notebook. If it's online, it's online. I want to clarify for whatever future me reads this--because it's already way too fucking long for anyone to give a fuck--that I'm sitting here writing this, and I'm not sitting here with my blood pounding, with my eyes full of tears, and that the gorge in my throat, the sensation of wanting to vomit just from missing her, is actually smaller than its been in days. I did need to get some of that shit down, and there's perhaps more to come.
But I want to talk about other shit, and I need to go to bed. In any case, if I have more violent bitching to do, I ought to actually feel violent. Maybe I don't feel angry because I let shit out, but I don't think so. I finished tomorrow's LP, and felt the misery creeping back in. And I was going to bed, but tonight when I got back from Club Red, I felt so fucking good. And I want to recapture some of that shit.
Because there's more that I hate about my life besides being without her. It's what I said before--having no time, no money, and barely knowing what the fuck I'm doing. Thinking that I won't make it to Christmas, much less through two years, or a career of this shit, if something doesn't change. Looking at the life of an adult, and wondering why the fuck anyone does it. Seriously.
I think about how I don't want to get the fuck up in the morning sometimes, and I have to anyway. I can't just skip the day. You can call in sick, but I don't even know how to do that for my fucking job, and with teaching, it doesn't really work. So I look at my future, and think that this may only be a two year gig, but what the fuck does that matter? Whether I become a doctor, a lawyer, or an Indian chief, I'm still expected to go do the same fucking thing--to look at the same office, or cubicle, or kitchen walls--for the next 20, 30, 40 years, five and six days a week.
We as people aren't meant to do the same thing over and over our whole lives. I think about people that just relax, freegan, hitch-hike, and wander around meeting people, and I get envious. That sounds amazing. Every day is a new day, new people, new experiences. Why the fuck would you rationally choose to spend your life doing the same routine, going to work, washing the dishes, and not doing what the fuck you want to do?
If any one has made it this far, then it may be rational to write this off as another section of a bitchy rant, as a manifesto of irresponsibility. Grow up, I can hear some 1950s looking flattop wearing douchebag saying, get a job. Fuck that. What kind of responsibility do you have to hating your job, to sacrificing your life and your happiness to stability, to knowing that you will never look forward to a Monday night like you do a Friday night, because you know that the latter doesn't have to end at 12 so that you can get up at 5?
I tell my kids that the tattoo on my calf is a life, that I like getting up in the morning, that what keeps me alive is not just killing time, but my job. Hahahaa.
The thing is, I don't want to just gallivant and drift around. I envy Sean and others for that, but I don't want that. I wish I could do a job where I help people, and have time to enjoy life too.
Wait a fucking minute. Maybe I should just spend my time drifting around to soup kitchens and relief camps, helping out. That is definitely an easy way to do both of those things--enjoy life and have new experiences, while also having a fulfilling something to do that involves helping people.
This wasn't what I thought I'd be writing right now at all. I've been sitting here thinking that if I figure teaching out, then I can have a job I love, and help tons of kids, and be a community leader, and that I can write hardcore and travel tons during summers and vacations. But why should I put off traveling and things to summers? After all, even if I get great at teaching, what are the odds that I will be able to meet people and enjoy life during the five nights a week that I teach and everything else?
I don't fucking know. Damn. Fuck this. Maybe I should just turn and run. Pack my shit, close my accounts, and go see shit.
I need a minute to just clear my brain, and get some water. fuuuuuck.
.....
Okay. I had the conversation with myself before, and a nothing argument with E about it--about why I wouldn't want to do the travel and help thing for my whole life. Then I said it was because I thought I wouldn't be nearly as effective, and it was a rather stupid position. The thoughts that I came to while I was making my bed and grabbing some water--the why, I realized, ties into what I thought about and realized this weekend.
I need friends. I need other people; I need meaningful human relationships. And I don't know that you would get that if you spent a month at this soup kitchen, a month at that relief camp. Maybe you would, but they wouldn't be long-term. You could have a meaningful, deep ass relationship with someone if you went around and did that traveling and helping and living and experiencing with someone special who you shared all that with--but clearly, fuck that. And not just because I've been dumped and denied by the person I would have been most likely to do that with. Fuck that because it means that you only have one of those relationships, and that's not healthy, suitable, or seriously livable.
I used to like to think of myself as a solitary wolf sort of individual, but that's not really the case. I am very much like a puppy, as Jazmin once put it. I run around, I'm full of energy at times, and later I'll crash for no real reason. I bound around to people, saying "hey, play with me--let's hang out!" and may get bummed if everyone's busy; I can also amuse myself by metaphorically chasing my tail around, and sit by myself and not be bothered by it. But neither of those are maintainable states for me. So, I can't just be a rock, an island; I need other people.
I hung up from that phone call at Pinnacle, walked back up to Shelley and Michelle, and we all gave up on going to the Salt River. Everyone was hung over, and didn't want to move anyway. So I just opened up to them, and talked. Not about how I hated my life, and my job. But about how we all need to fix that fact.
I told them about how I didn't just want people to commiserate, drink, and bitch with--but that I wanted to be friends with them. I told them about how I went out with people freshman year, and that I almost dropped out of Princeton because I hadn't felt like I had friends there. I still remember the day freshman spring when I suggested that we all go to dinner together, and actually get to know one another, because we didn't know shit about each other, and the plan fell apart--we just went back to ripping shots and losing each other at Cloister like normal. I told them it was amusing to bitch about our jobs, and to hit a happy hour, or to hang out and watch a movie, but that it wasn't fulfilling.
And they agreed. We talked about how we ought to not talk about, but actually get together for dinners. And play board games, or something, rather than just communally veg out in front of a television.
I said that we had to stop talking shop 24/7. As amusing as it was to bitch about my kids, it means I go to bed dreading the next day, and wake up in the same mood. Most shittily, it means I forget about the good that happens during the day. I realized that until that moment in Shelley's recliner, I had forgotten all about what happened three days earlier with Patty Mayonnaise, as I will call her.
Patty is a kid in one of my rougher classes who really wants to learn. When I assigned a one-page essay on a time she lost control, she brought me seven single-spaced pages, telling me about when her mother got cancer. She talked about her mother's pain, and her pain, and remission, and everything. She ended it by writing about how she admired her mother, about how her mother inspired her. I nearly cried reading it--but when I asked Patty what her mother thought of it, she told me her mother and her didn't get along very well. I asked her if her mother knew how she felt, and she said no. I asked her if what she had written was true, and she just looked at me and nodded yes.
When school ended, I made my phone calls. One of them was to Mama Mayo--I do like to make the good calls home, and I like when I can talk to a parent, rather than just leave a voicemail. I told Ma Mayo how her daughter was a leader in my classroom, how she worked hard, how I was glad to have her in my class (just wanted to let you know, Ms. Mayo!), and by the way, I was mainly calling because I was really impressed by the rough draft Patty had written for class.
The next day, Patty came in with the surprised expression kids wear the day after you call home just to tell their parents that they did something awesome that day--literally, kids are blown the fuck away. And Patty told me that her mother had asked about the essay, and Patty had read it to her--after which they spent a significant amoutn of time doing the mother-daughter crying and bonding thing.
That shit could have made my day, but I just smiled, enjoyed the scene for a moment, and went back to bitching at kids to sit down and get their notebooks out. And by the time I got home, I was just bitching to Barishner and others about the usual suspects, and I'd forgotten all about the potentially awesome thing I'd managed to do for Patty.
Well, fuck that. I suggested to Shelley and Michelle that we not only put a chokehold on talking shop, but that we cut out bitching in the after-school hours. A moratorium won't happen, but we should talk about shit only if we have good happy things to share. That way we can think about those things, and focus on the good, not the bad.
After a conversation with them like that, of course, I couldn't just wander home and hide behind my papers. I decided that we should all do lunch, that we should hang out and write poetry and play cards and immediately put our money where our mouths are and start making friends, and not just drinking buddies, with one another.
That didn't happen quite the way I intended, but for good reasons.
I went home, and had the same conversation with Skyler, Nick, and Adam. (Jack and Hank were away.) The night before, I had talked to Skyler and told him how I felt--that I was cut out of a group of Three Amigos, that I was not entirely unwelcome. He told me that he thought I hadn't liked him at all, and that he annoyed me. Clarifications out of the way, we went out to Scottsdale. So I had that conversation with Nick, as well as the one I had with the 'chellie's. And with Adam, I had both, and opened up about the things I realized about myself since finishing college, and the ways I felt I had matured, if only because I had recognized shitty things about myself and wanted to change them. I won't go into all that shit now, because it's 1219 and I've been typing for over an hour, and I have to go to school soon. Suffice it to say, it also tied into realizing an obstacle I'd had to forming meaningful adult relationships.
But all of us talked, about how we need to do things that are fulfilling, and not just decompressing, and about making time to be friends, and not just foxhole buddies in the shitheap that is our jobs, so that we can make those jobs and our lives something better than survival.
At that point, far more than the ten minutes to grab a change of clothes for lunch had elapsed. But all was good--Nick and I joined the ladies for lunch at Oregano's, and then we joined the rock star and T-Hawk for a round of golf, before coming home exhausted and peacefully watching Weeds.
It was good. Golf is time for reflection, which meant I spent way too much of the round missing E, rolling over scenarios in my head, pushing away dark thoughts of her and horticulturalists. But even that came to a good thing, because I realized that I ought not run to L.A.; that I ought not drive six hours and give up my weekend to see someone who views me as a burden. And I spent plenty of time bullshitting with the guys, and smacking a golf ball 20 yards at a time, while Mike gave me advice on the prolapsed anus that is my golf swing.
And that good day came about because I stood up from talking to E and realized that I need to have more people with whom I have fulfilling relationships. I said I ended that call pissed, and some of it was at myself. Granted, I'm in a new place, but shit--if I had other people who got me through my day, I wouldnt' feel so shitty, either about losing someone I loved, or about my job. And that's why I walked upstairs, filled again with resolve to remake the world around me in the way I want it to be.
Today, I wavered a bit. I was in Lux and Happiness by the Kilowatt came on, and my mind shut down for a few moments. I looked at the wall, where they have poetry painted onto a glass window hung from the ceiling, and as overwrought as it is, it struck a chord in me and I felt like vomiting again:
(It was titled "Until", and it read:
looking at you looking
at me
bearing down until
I was reminded
once
thinking you were bound
to me
forever.)
It made me think how recently I'd thought, stupidly, that E was someone who would love me forever--that I had thought about our tattoos, taht I had stood cooking with her and enjoyed the concept of domesticity, that I had thought about how and where I would propose. About the fact that the week before, the poem hadn't even made me sad, because she'd sent me a happy, loving text that day.
But I didn't snap. I didn't make it to the 5 pm Intermediate East Coast swing lesson at Fatcats, like I'd wanted to, oh no. But for a good--and amazing--reason. My PD, Megan, didn't just decide to reply to my email questions; she showed up at Lux and spent two hours helping me through my job-related problems, and giving me advice.
(We've had two or three long, two hour conversations, and it boggles my mind how much better I feel after the conversations, and how useful they seem to be, compared to the amount of time I spend working and banging my head against problems, or sitting in professoinal development. Megan, if you somehow ever read this--thank you so much.)
And when it was done, I went home. I didn't keep stressing school shit--I went home, made myself dinner, collected Amanda and Michelle, and went to Club Red. I thought I would stay for the lesson and a half hour of the free dance; I was there for another hour past that, and left only because I knew I wanted to blog and still needed to plan Monday in its entirety. I had a blast--I left the club jubilant, covered in sweat, and excited. I got sad a bit, but for the moment, I have some hope that I will hit an open mic, and dance again this week. And that maybe I will hike in Sedona this weekend. And I have cleared up a lot of shit with my roommates.
This is not at all the bitchfest I thought it would be. And i'm glad. Hope it's indicative of where things are going. We'll see after tomorrow's 10 hours at school and six hours of class. :-P
I've talked to enough non-teachers in the last week to realize how much my description of my job is loathing, or at least bitching. Everyone I know is snapping. One day, I realized I was standing in my kitchen stark naked, with a handle of tequila in one hand a peanut butter-and-jelly waffle sandwich in my other. My roommates and I drink too much; last week, I drank myself to sleep three nights in a row. My head hurts all the time; I feel like I'm physically choking on the pain of missing Emily; I feel crushed by my job, and the fact that I don't see Phoenix; I feel like I'm drowning in debt. I have another rent payment coming up, a car payment, a credit card payment, and bill collectors --the hospital, the emergency room doctor, and the ambulance company--are all demanding large amounts of money for my trip to Tempe St. Luke's during Institute. And to top it off, the guy running the drive-thru at Mickey D's makes more than I do.
I think about quitting--saying fuck it, and waiting tables. I could write, I could work out, I could dance, and I would have more money than I do now. I'm jealous of Emily, and Sean, who travel and see shit, and meet people. I'm jealous of the guys upstairs, who wait tables, undoubtedly make more than we do, and are happy. I'm jealous of people whose lives are even somewhat their own, who have time to meet people and do things they enjoy.
And I still owe E shit.
Part of me fucking hates her. I hate her for not wanting me anymore; I hate her for taking it back to 2007 and acting as if relationships are a burden. I hate her for her idea that being with me means being obligated to speak with me, because I text her, and want to talk to her, regardless of whether or not we're in a relationship.
She was my best friend, and she's the person I want to tell about my day, bitch to, and talk about my kids and hear about her day. For me, it doesn't matter if we're in a relationship--I don't feel obligated to tell her shit, I just want to. So it seems to me that she would want to talk to me, regardless of dating me, because I would think she felt the same way. That she doesn't--that the simple fact of being single removes any obligation, or feeling like she wants to share with me--therefore doesn't make sense to me.
Maybe it's because she wants to get with other people. I don't buy that, but maybe it's because I don't want to. Maybe it's because she just doesn't want to be with me anymore. I don't think that, perhaps for the same reason. Also, because I refuse to believe that what we had could just be tossed away. I think maybe it's because she doesn't want to deal with me anymore, with the idea of a relationship--and that makes me hate her too. I hate her because I think that her not wanting to deal with me is simply her pushing me away, in that "great Sullivan tradition," as she put it, and there's no real response for me to that. She's leaving, and she doesn't want me; I can't convince her that she should be with me by "pestering" and "obligating" her to speak with me. So if she is just walling me off, as she can do, then I have no response. And I lose anyway. Fuck.
I hate her for making me feel like she doesn't even miss me; I hate her for not seeming to care that I'm not coming to L.A. I hate her for the potential fact of that being the truth. I hate her because I need to find new music. Tool reminds me of sex, Nonpoint and Sevendust and Authority Zero of concerts with her. Alexisonfire today reminded me of Kurt Vonnegut--I realized recently that the song "Happiness by the Kilowatt" is all about "The Euphio Question," and that made me think of reading Welcome to the Monkey House to each other while we drove across the United States. The Red Hot Chili Peppers remind me of landing at Sky Harbor and seeing her; of driving around Connecticut and playing Quixoticelixer. Hip-hop songs randomly remind me of lindy bombing Tower. I hate her for being everything I want, and for just throwing me away. I hate her because Nancy on Weeds reminds me of her; and I hate her because I can scarcely have a beer without thinking of sometime we killed a glass together and held hands, or just because I let my guard down and relax and then get smacked in the face with the memory of us.
I hate her because I looked up the 5 stages of grief last night. I recognized that I had spent some time in denial, that I wanted to pretend we're still together. I hate her for disabusing me of that on a Saturday morning, while I cried outside Pinnacle; while she told me that she didn't want the obligation of a relationship, and I realized that whether she cares or not, it doesn't matter--there's no point in convincing someone to be with you. I did that for her once before, and it killed me. That phone call ended with me just being pissed that she could leave me behind; that she could toss me from partner to friend, just like that, and it somehow changed her feelings.
I've spent enough time depressed, too--just fucking laying on my couch, on the bed, on the kitchen counter, crying. Just asking Barishner for a hug, just to feel like something more than a used, nasty fucking wad of cigarette ashes and dirt.
Bargaining? About a minute, rolling through my head the idea of telling her that dating me wouldn't be an obligation. But fuck that; if being with me hasn't shown you that life can be good, there's nothing I can do. And I know how that sounds; I'm not trying to come off like King Shit, I'm just saying that if what we shared didn't show her that we should be together, then no silver-tongued shit is going to flow from me to convince her otherwise.
Acceptance? I don't know how to fucking accept it. I thought of where to propose to her. I walk past ASU's nursing school; I go dancing, and think of the times we danced, that we fought about dancing, and the times she taught me. I pick up my notebook, and its still one that she's written in; and I know that I didn't feel creative juices flow for much of college, but she helped me refind mine.
I hate the fact that I looked up those fucking stages of grief because I was hoping to see how long I would feel like shit; that I could look at them and see that I'd felt many of them multiple times, and that I don't even know how to see her and act as a friend.
I don't know how to be just that. She's E--she's what I want, she's what I need, she's a part of me. I don't know how I'm supposed to hang out with her and not kiss her; not wrap around her; not think about what I want to do with her and where I want to take her and the future I want to have with her, but just talk and catch up and know that someone else has her now, or that she's no one's, but enjoys everyone, or even just the simple fact that she doesn't want any of that with me anymore.
How do you look at someone who you know where you would propose to them and act normal when they have informed you they don't want you anymore?
I'm not going to go back and re-read this. I imagine the last ten minutes of writing come off like some angry, petulant, self-indulgent, self-pitying shit. And fuck it. I needed to write some of that down, and I don't feel like writing it in my notebook. If it's online, it's online. I want to clarify for whatever future me reads this--because it's already way too fucking long for anyone to give a fuck--that I'm sitting here writing this, and I'm not sitting here with my blood pounding, with my eyes full of tears, and that the gorge in my throat, the sensation of wanting to vomit just from missing her, is actually smaller than its been in days. I did need to get some of that shit down, and there's perhaps more to come.
But I want to talk about other shit, and I need to go to bed. In any case, if I have more violent bitching to do, I ought to actually feel violent. Maybe I don't feel angry because I let shit out, but I don't think so. I finished tomorrow's LP, and felt the misery creeping back in. And I was going to bed, but tonight when I got back from Club Red, I felt so fucking good. And I want to recapture some of that shit.
Because there's more that I hate about my life besides being without her. It's what I said before--having no time, no money, and barely knowing what the fuck I'm doing. Thinking that I won't make it to Christmas, much less through two years, or a career of this shit, if something doesn't change. Looking at the life of an adult, and wondering why the fuck anyone does it. Seriously.
I think about how I don't want to get the fuck up in the morning sometimes, and I have to anyway. I can't just skip the day. You can call in sick, but I don't even know how to do that for my fucking job, and with teaching, it doesn't really work. So I look at my future, and think that this may only be a two year gig, but what the fuck does that matter? Whether I become a doctor, a lawyer, or an Indian chief, I'm still expected to go do the same fucking thing--to look at the same office, or cubicle, or kitchen walls--for the next 20, 30, 40 years, five and six days a week.
We as people aren't meant to do the same thing over and over our whole lives. I think about people that just relax, freegan, hitch-hike, and wander around meeting people, and I get envious. That sounds amazing. Every day is a new day, new people, new experiences. Why the fuck would you rationally choose to spend your life doing the same routine, going to work, washing the dishes, and not doing what the fuck you want to do?
If any one has made it this far, then it may be rational to write this off as another section of a bitchy rant, as a manifesto of irresponsibility. Grow up, I can hear some 1950s looking flattop wearing douchebag saying, get a job. Fuck that. What kind of responsibility do you have to hating your job, to sacrificing your life and your happiness to stability, to knowing that you will never look forward to a Monday night like you do a Friday night, because you know that the latter doesn't have to end at 12 so that you can get up at 5?
I tell my kids that the tattoo on my calf is a life, that I like getting up in the morning, that what keeps me alive is not just killing time, but my job. Hahahaa.
The thing is, I don't want to just gallivant and drift around. I envy Sean and others for that, but I don't want that. I wish I could do a job where I help people, and have time to enjoy life too.
Wait a fucking minute. Maybe I should just spend my time drifting around to soup kitchens and relief camps, helping out. That is definitely an easy way to do both of those things--enjoy life and have new experiences, while also having a fulfilling something to do that involves helping people.
This wasn't what I thought I'd be writing right now at all. I've been sitting here thinking that if I figure teaching out, then I can have a job I love, and help tons of kids, and be a community leader, and that I can write hardcore and travel tons during summers and vacations. But why should I put off traveling and things to summers? After all, even if I get great at teaching, what are the odds that I will be able to meet people and enjoy life during the five nights a week that I teach and everything else?
I don't fucking know. Damn. Fuck this. Maybe I should just turn and run. Pack my shit, close my accounts, and go see shit.
I need a minute to just clear my brain, and get some water. fuuuuuck.
.....
Okay. I had the conversation with myself before, and a nothing argument with E about it--about why I wouldn't want to do the travel and help thing for my whole life. Then I said it was because I thought I wouldn't be nearly as effective, and it was a rather stupid position. The thoughts that I came to while I was making my bed and grabbing some water--the why, I realized, ties into what I thought about and realized this weekend.
I need friends. I need other people; I need meaningful human relationships. And I don't know that you would get that if you spent a month at this soup kitchen, a month at that relief camp. Maybe you would, but they wouldn't be long-term. You could have a meaningful, deep ass relationship with someone if you went around and did that traveling and helping and living and experiencing with someone special who you shared all that with--but clearly, fuck that. And not just because I've been dumped and denied by the person I would have been most likely to do that with. Fuck that because it means that you only have one of those relationships, and that's not healthy, suitable, or seriously livable.
I used to like to think of myself as a solitary wolf sort of individual, but that's not really the case. I am very much like a puppy, as Jazmin once put it. I run around, I'm full of energy at times, and later I'll crash for no real reason. I bound around to people, saying "hey, play with me--let's hang out!" and may get bummed if everyone's busy; I can also amuse myself by metaphorically chasing my tail around, and sit by myself and not be bothered by it. But neither of those are maintainable states for me. So, I can't just be a rock, an island; I need other people.
I hung up from that phone call at Pinnacle, walked back up to Shelley and Michelle, and we all gave up on going to the Salt River. Everyone was hung over, and didn't want to move anyway. So I just opened up to them, and talked. Not about how I hated my life, and my job. But about how we all need to fix that fact.
I told them about how I didn't just want people to commiserate, drink, and bitch with--but that I wanted to be friends with them. I told them about how I went out with people freshman year, and that I almost dropped out of Princeton because I hadn't felt like I had friends there. I still remember the day freshman spring when I suggested that we all go to dinner together, and actually get to know one another, because we didn't know shit about each other, and the plan fell apart--we just went back to ripping shots and losing each other at Cloister like normal. I told them it was amusing to bitch about our jobs, and to hit a happy hour, or to hang out and watch a movie, but that it wasn't fulfilling.
And they agreed. We talked about how we ought to not talk about, but actually get together for dinners. And play board games, or something, rather than just communally veg out in front of a television.
I said that we had to stop talking shop 24/7. As amusing as it was to bitch about my kids, it means I go to bed dreading the next day, and wake up in the same mood. Most shittily, it means I forget about the good that happens during the day. I realized that until that moment in Shelley's recliner, I had forgotten all about what happened three days earlier with Patty Mayonnaise, as I will call her.
Patty is a kid in one of my rougher classes who really wants to learn. When I assigned a one-page essay on a time she lost control, she brought me seven single-spaced pages, telling me about when her mother got cancer. She talked about her mother's pain, and her pain, and remission, and everything. She ended it by writing about how she admired her mother, about how her mother inspired her. I nearly cried reading it--but when I asked Patty what her mother thought of it, she told me her mother and her didn't get along very well. I asked her if her mother knew how she felt, and she said no. I asked her if what she had written was true, and she just looked at me and nodded yes.
When school ended, I made my phone calls. One of them was to Mama Mayo--I do like to make the good calls home, and I like when I can talk to a parent, rather than just leave a voicemail. I told Ma Mayo how her daughter was a leader in my classroom, how she worked hard, how I was glad to have her in my class (just wanted to let you know, Ms. Mayo!), and by the way, I was mainly calling because I was really impressed by the rough draft Patty had written for class.
The next day, Patty came in with the surprised expression kids wear the day after you call home just to tell their parents that they did something awesome that day--literally, kids are blown the fuck away. And Patty told me that her mother had asked about the essay, and Patty had read it to her--after which they spent a significant amoutn of time doing the mother-daughter crying and bonding thing.
That shit could have made my day, but I just smiled, enjoyed the scene for a moment, and went back to bitching at kids to sit down and get their notebooks out. And by the time I got home, I was just bitching to Barishner and others about the usual suspects, and I'd forgotten all about the potentially awesome thing I'd managed to do for Patty.
Well, fuck that. I suggested to Shelley and Michelle that we not only put a chokehold on talking shop, but that we cut out bitching in the after-school hours. A moratorium won't happen, but we should talk about shit only if we have good happy things to share. That way we can think about those things, and focus on the good, not the bad.
After a conversation with them like that, of course, I couldn't just wander home and hide behind my papers. I decided that we should all do lunch, that we should hang out and write poetry and play cards and immediately put our money where our mouths are and start making friends, and not just drinking buddies, with one another.
That didn't happen quite the way I intended, but for good reasons.
I went home, and had the same conversation with Skyler, Nick, and Adam. (Jack and Hank were away.) The night before, I had talked to Skyler and told him how I felt--that I was cut out of a group of Three Amigos, that I was not entirely unwelcome. He told me that he thought I hadn't liked him at all, and that he annoyed me. Clarifications out of the way, we went out to Scottsdale. So I had that conversation with Nick, as well as the one I had with the 'chellie's. And with Adam, I had both, and opened up about the things I realized about myself since finishing college, and the ways I felt I had matured, if only because I had recognized shitty things about myself and wanted to change them. I won't go into all that shit now, because it's 1219 and I've been typing for over an hour, and I have to go to school soon. Suffice it to say, it also tied into realizing an obstacle I'd had to forming meaningful adult relationships.
But all of us talked, about how we need to do things that are fulfilling, and not just decompressing, and about making time to be friends, and not just foxhole buddies in the shitheap that is our jobs, so that we can make those jobs and our lives something better than survival.
At that point, far more than the ten minutes to grab a change of clothes for lunch had elapsed. But all was good--Nick and I joined the ladies for lunch at Oregano's, and then we joined the rock star and T-Hawk for a round of golf, before coming home exhausted and peacefully watching Weeds.
It was good. Golf is time for reflection, which meant I spent way too much of the round missing E, rolling over scenarios in my head, pushing away dark thoughts of her and horticulturalists. But even that came to a good thing, because I realized that I ought not run to L.A.; that I ought not drive six hours and give up my weekend to see someone who views me as a burden. And I spent plenty of time bullshitting with the guys, and smacking a golf ball 20 yards at a time, while Mike gave me advice on the prolapsed anus that is my golf swing.
And that good day came about because I stood up from talking to E and realized that I need to have more people with whom I have fulfilling relationships. I said I ended that call pissed, and some of it was at myself. Granted, I'm in a new place, but shit--if I had other people who got me through my day, I wouldnt' feel so shitty, either about losing someone I loved, or about my job. And that's why I walked upstairs, filled again with resolve to remake the world around me in the way I want it to be.
Today, I wavered a bit. I was in Lux and Happiness by the Kilowatt came on, and my mind shut down for a few moments. I looked at the wall, where they have poetry painted onto a glass window hung from the ceiling, and as overwrought as it is, it struck a chord in me and I felt like vomiting again:
(It was titled "Until", and it read:
looking at you looking
at me
bearing down until
I was reminded
once
thinking you were bound
to me
forever.)
It made me think how recently I'd thought, stupidly, that E was someone who would love me forever--that I had thought about our tattoos, taht I had stood cooking with her and enjoyed the concept of domesticity, that I had thought about how and where I would propose. About the fact that the week before, the poem hadn't even made me sad, because she'd sent me a happy, loving text that day.
But I didn't snap. I didn't make it to the 5 pm Intermediate East Coast swing lesson at Fatcats, like I'd wanted to, oh no. But for a good--and amazing--reason. My PD, Megan, didn't just decide to reply to my email questions; she showed up at Lux and spent two hours helping me through my job-related problems, and giving me advice.
(We've had two or three long, two hour conversations, and it boggles my mind how much better I feel after the conversations, and how useful they seem to be, compared to the amount of time I spend working and banging my head against problems, or sitting in professoinal development. Megan, if you somehow ever read this--thank you so much.)
And when it was done, I went home. I didn't keep stressing school shit--I went home, made myself dinner, collected Amanda and Michelle, and went to Club Red. I thought I would stay for the lesson and a half hour of the free dance; I was there for another hour past that, and left only because I knew I wanted to blog and still needed to plan Monday in its entirety. I had a blast--I left the club jubilant, covered in sweat, and excited. I got sad a bit, but for the moment, I have some hope that I will hit an open mic, and dance again this week. And that maybe I will hike in Sedona this weekend. And I have cleared up a lot of shit with my roommates.
This is not at all the bitchfest I thought it would be. And i'm glad. Hope it's indicative of where things are going. We'll see after tomorrow's 10 hours at school and six hours of class. :-P
Choking on the Ashes
I need to write, I need to expunge. But it's 12:29, and I need to get some shit done, and go swing dancing, to make my world less of a claustrophobic clusterfuck. I'll make myself write in here tonight, to let some of the pus and bile out.
I've snapped a few times. I drank myself to sleep several nights last week, cry a lot, and feel like I'm gagging on regret and loss and pain. I've written a bunch--usually while drinking--and I hate this. Tonight I'll write. This is a quick rip off the top of the scab, because I've got Institute in my ears, and my throat is so full of loss that I can barely breathe. I looked up the five stages of grief this morning, and it made sense--for a few seconds.
Alright, deadbolt's on. Time to get another coffee and make this shit work.
I've snapped a few times. I drank myself to sleep several nights last week, cry a lot, and feel like I'm gagging on regret and loss and pain. I've written a bunch--usually while drinking--and I hate this. Tonight I'll write. This is a quick rip off the top of the scab, because I've got Institute in my ears, and my throat is so full of loss that I can barely breathe. I looked up the five stages of grief this morning, and it made sense--for a few seconds.
Alright, deadbolt's on. Time to get another coffee and make this shit work.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Fuck
Fuck it. I am drowning. I am pissed. I am exhausted. I do not need to be patronized with advice like "Try counting down and then administering consequences to everyone who's still talking," or my personal if-I-hear-that-one-more-time-there-will-be-entrails-on-the-ceiling line, "Just nip it in the bud and you won't have a problem."
FUCK YOU.
And I mean that in the broadest possible sense, whoever you may be, you that are telling me shit like that. I've internalized those ideas. I paid attention, and I applied them. Or you; I do not freak out and let things develop.
I do, however, have 38 minute classes. These develop into 35 or shorter, rapidly. And administering consequenes is practically inconceivable with a timeline like that. If, in the amount of time it takes the class to file in, one kid has removed the spigot from the sink, rotated it, and begun flushing water all over my papers, .... oh fuck it.
I have no time. I will not teach tomorrow. I literally need military-caliber discipline. I cannot deal with anything less. There is NO TIME FOR ANYTHING LESS. We will march. We will enter. And I need the most ridiculous management/tracking system conceivable.
FUCK YOU.
And I mean that in the broadest possible sense, whoever you may be, you that are telling me shit like that. I've internalized those ideas. I paid attention, and I applied them. Or you; I do not freak out and let things develop.
I do, however, have 38 minute classes. These develop into 35 or shorter, rapidly. And administering consequenes is practically inconceivable with a timeline like that. If, in the amount of time it takes the class to file in, one kid has removed the spigot from the sink, rotated it, and begun flushing water all over my papers, .... oh fuck it.
I have no time. I will not teach tomorrow. I literally need military-caliber discipline. I cannot deal with anything less. There is NO TIME FOR ANYTHING LESS. We will march. We will enter. And I need the most ridiculous management/tracking system conceivable.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Bachelor
Nothing deep--I just burst out laughing when I came home, because I got back before 6 with a pile of papers, finally ready to sit around grading and drinking. I looked at my desk, and it already has a pile of papers, beer bottles, coffee mugs, a water bottle, a stack of pens, and a bowl with the crusted remains Cinnamon Toast Crunch that had been eaten with applesauce rather than milk. Oh yeah, I'm an adult now. A young professional. And my desk is proof of a life lived the way I want. Hehe.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
The First Days
So--I'm three days into teaching at my "real" job. Holy shit--I have, as of 8:30 p.m. today when I finally left school, 240 kids. I'm teaching every writing to every 7th and 8th grader in the school. When I step back and think, it's like an assembly line; I have 8 39 minute classes, with between 25 and 37 students in each class. In the mix, though, it's a blast. Whether it's one of my two classes of angelic 7th graders--who have dubbed themselves the Exit Crew and the Quest Crew in another, for you dance show fans out there--or one of my classes of 8th graders for whom the simple issue of taking attendance is a 35 minute process, I feel like I'm making small steps with kids. I miss the quick connection I could have with a group of 17 at Institute, but I feel good about even the short lunchtime chats I have with kids.
I also notice how weird it is when I walk out on the playground to shoot some hoops or toss a b-ball with TeenWolf (a fellow BAT) and the whole place goes silent (What the eff are the teachers doing with a basketball?). But that's a wickedly amusing transgression of social norms. So is waving my arms and just exposing my massive pit stains today, to get the giggles out of the way. The AC was busted; my class was 84 degrees, and kids were literally washing their arms in the class sink.
I don't get mad, even when I spend the entire period disciplining kids--though I do feel bad for the smart kids who are now enraged that they've spent three days doing inane drills as I try to instill discipline, and the capacity to remain silent for a full sixty seconds in some of the other children. After all, how can you get mad when the kid saying "I hate you" is three feet tall? Or is nearly six, but is incapable of facial hair, driving a car, or buying a six-pack?
I left the school yesterday at 7:30, having gotten there at 7 am. I felt absurdly chipper for having spent over 12 hours at my job, with more to do at home. But hey--I forsook the gym (kind of a silly verb, given that you have to have a gym routine, or pass, before you can forsake the place), went to an open mic in an alley in Glendale, met several random people, and proceeded to spotwrite a rhyme about the necrophilia in famous Disney movies and drop it in front of the small crowd, all at my first open mic ever. While wearing my tie, khakis, and Frist Campus Center 99 cent shades. 'cause there's nobody weird like me.
Admittedly, I was a little beaten when I walked out of my classroom today. It was almost 9 p.m. I'd been at the building for 14 hours, and just spent another hour working. But in between, I hit another open mic--four blocks from my apartment--and shared a few beers with the roomies. And while working, I'd been rocking the shit out of Pandora over the classroom speakers, so I'd been pretty good then. It was just a downer to realize how dark it was outside when I opened my door, leaving the room where I'd been for most of a day. But that only lasted a few seconds. I hope this doesn't last forever; I'm hoping that after the first two weeks, once I have my organizational, behavioral, and grading systems in place, my life will get easier. I'll still be grading hundreds of pages every week, but I'll able to do them with a gallon of tequila next to my pool.
(Again, that sounds a bit depressing. That's not exactly a social life, but when 11 p.m. is staying up late, it sounds like the shit right now. Fuck you very much, party people. :-P I laughed last week when, before I started the job itself, and had only been dealing with training, a happy hour party broke up without going barhopping, but us teachers headed home circa 9. My big Saturday plans? Pizza, beer, and Juno with some other teachers. And after texting friends, that was a hell of a night--even the third year teachers at my school had apparently passed out after dinner. Yay teacher's nightlife!)
And not despite, but because of all this, I'm enjoying the shit out of it. I'm meeting lots of awesome kids, and my main emotion when I'm being self-analytical is that I'm being too harsh, or too aloof. I'm not being personal enough. It's not an excuse to say that there's 240 of them and one of me, because then I'm ont doing what I set out to do. But in the meantime, I get to spend eight classes a day doing improv theater with a social conscience.
And when I get down, I think about Cat-Eyes, fellow TFA at my school, who had a used condom thrown at him before lunch the first day. ("I thought it was a note. Then I picked it up, and it was definitely not a note.") Or Preschool Peyote, who sent me this on her first day: "I found out today that less than half of my class is potty trained. ...I think I may have to revise my big goals."
There's shit all over, and it's a party anyway. :-) I'm going to go collapse.
I also notice how weird it is when I walk out on the playground to shoot some hoops or toss a b-ball with TeenWolf (a fellow BAT) and the whole place goes silent (What the eff are the teachers doing with a basketball?). But that's a wickedly amusing transgression of social norms. So is waving my arms and just exposing my massive pit stains today, to get the giggles out of the way. The AC was busted; my class was 84 degrees, and kids were literally washing their arms in the class sink.
I don't get mad, even when I spend the entire period disciplining kids--though I do feel bad for the smart kids who are now enraged that they've spent three days doing inane drills as I try to instill discipline, and the capacity to remain silent for a full sixty seconds in some of the other children. After all, how can you get mad when the kid saying "I hate you" is three feet tall? Or is nearly six, but is incapable of facial hair, driving a car, or buying a six-pack?
I left the school yesterday at 7:30, having gotten there at 7 am. I felt absurdly chipper for having spent over 12 hours at my job, with more to do at home. But hey--I forsook the gym (kind of a silly verb, given that you have to have a gym routine, or pass, before you can forsake the place), went to an open mic in an alley in Glendale, met several random people, and proceeded to spotwrite a rhyme about the necrophilia in famous Disney movies and drop it in front of the small crowd, all at my first open mic ever. While wearing my tie, khakis, and Frist Campus Center 99 cent shades. 'cause there's nobody weird like me.
Admittedly, I was a little beaten when I walked out of my classroom today. It was almost 9 p.m. I'd been at the building for 14 hours, and just spent another hour working. But in between, I hit another open mic--four blocks from my apartment--and shared a few beers with the roomies. And while working, I'd been rocking the shit out of Pandora over the classroom speakers, so I'd been pretty good then. It was just a downer to realize how dark it was outside when I opened my door, leaving the room where I'd been for most of a day. But that only lasted a few seconds. I hope this doesn't last forever; I'm hoping that after the first two weeks, once I have my organizational, behavioral, and grading systems in place, my life will get easier. I'll still be grading hundreds of pages every week, but I'll able to do them with a gallon of tequila next to my pool.
(Again, that sounds a bit depressing. That's not exactly a social life, but when 11 p.m. is staying up late, it sounds like the shit right now. Fuck you very much, party people. :-P I laughed last week when, before I started the job itself, and had only been dealing with training, a happy hour party broke up without going barhopping, but us teachers headed home circa 9. My big Saturday plans? Pizza, beer, and Juno with some other teachers. And after texting friends, that was a hell of a night--even the third year teachers at my school had apparently passed out after dinner. Yay teacher's nightlife!)
And not despite, but because of all this, I'm enjoying the shit out of it. I'm meeting lots of awesome kids, and my main emotion when I'm being self-analytical is that I'm being too harsh, or too aloof. I'm not being personal enough. It's not an excuse to say that there's 240 of them and one of me, because then I'm ont doing what I set out to do. But in the meantime, I get to spend eight classes a day doing improv theater with a social conscience.
And when I get down, I think about Cat-Eyes, fellow TFA at my school, who had a used condom thrown at him before lunch the first day. ("I thought it was a note. Then I picked it up, and it was definitely not a note.") Or Preschool Peyote, who sent me this on her first day: "I found out today that less than half of my class is potty trained. ...I think I may have to revise my big goals."
There's shit all over, and it's a party anyway. :-) I'm going to go collapse.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)