You thought I was all dead and stuff, but you were wrong. Har.
I just finished me last class as a graduate student. Woo.
I finish my internship hours Thursday at 4pm. Hoo.
I graduate on Saturday. There is no expression of joy joyful enough to cap that sentence.
I have my cap and gown and wow it’s cool when you get your Masters. The gown has drapey things on the arms and there’s a hood, too, although there is little hood-like but much mysterious about it. My daughter is scared of my tassle, which I have decided is her problem to work out. I’m rocking the tassle, baby. Rocking it.
I am considering going naked under the gown, but since graduate school has had its way with my body — and not in a good way — I’ve decided to be clothed under all those clothes. Do robes count as clothes? Anyway…
Um, what else have you missed? Mother’s Day – spent wiping puke out of my daughter’s hair. It kind of makes sense. The garden is way better than I deserve it to be, and I already have 3 kinds of lettuce, spinach, mache, carrots, and basil coming up. Take that, don’t plant anything until Memorial Day peoples. And two kinds of peppers are all seedling-like and almost ready to be planted. Holla!
I will be linky and photography and etc. the next time I’m here, promise. And it won’t be another month and a half. Pinky swear.
New theme! New picture! Are the cars coming at you or going away? Ah, it is a mystery. See how interesting and enigmatic I am?
And Twitter down the side, on the seemingly rare occasions it decides to work. Technology FTW! I am also 13directions over there, if you are dying to see what I’m doing and it’s not cooperating over here.
And the husband has had his hours cut at work, which is FAIL. Or, as Mike Doughty tweeted some time last week, THWART. I am a little sick. I will either get over it, or we will all be a lot sicker. It’s so major that getting rid of cable or even selling a car will not do the trick if we don’t get more money coming in. Erblergh. Please join me in wishing for a new job in under six weeks? Quit your laughing and wish. Do it. 1-2-3. Do it now.
Fuck it all. I’m doing NaPoWriMo – details here. I would have the cool badge but cannot get it to work with this new theme. Again, THWART. In any case, assuming I actually do this, you may see a poem a day here for the next month. To be fair, life is full of all sorts of up in the air uncertainties, but I will try. At least a haiku. Or a pithy observation with line breaks. And by the time I’m done Husband will have a new job, right? Riiiight. 1-2 …
The first job in my field for the next academic year has been posted on the state-wide profession-specific board. Wow, that took more words than needed. What I’m trying to say is that schools are now hiring people like me, and that I am now a “people like me”, e.g. a person with (or shortly with) cerfications and credentials and etc. And I’m – ick – I’m all over the place. I’ve been planning this for about four years now, studying for about three, actually practicing – at the student level – for one. It’s been a long time, is what I’m trying to say, in planning. And now it’s here – I have to get my resume together, my cover letter. I have one reference and have to get the others. The jobs in my area will start getting posted next month, probably, and I have to get on it. Am I ready? Yes, probably overly so. Am I ready? I don’t know…
While I have not been here often I still feel my online presence is too robust somehow. I ignore the blog for Facebook, Facebook for Twitter, and please tell me gods of teh internets, when will it all end?
AIG is just – it’s like – inconceiveable but then I’ve been saying “inconceiveable” so much lately I expect Mandy Patinkin to step out and tell me that it doesn’t mean what I think it means. There is no one on earth I’d like in office more than Obama but, good lord, can anyone fix this mess, especially since it’s clearly coming from such a bottomless sink hole of greed and complete vacuum of morality?
Sink hole. Sinkhole. One word or two?
That’s right – let’s distract ourselves from the world’s finacial mess, shall we? Someone in my grad school life is driving me nuts (a pirate walks into a bar…) but I can’t confront her or else it might get around our very small community and affect my chances at getting a job this spring and – d’oh! See? It all comes back to the $ lately.
Or how about this? A little live Mike Doughty for you? Listen then rejoin me for more pleasant topics.
My internship supervisor just added me on Facebook. At least you cannot people-please with a diverse group of friends on FB. There is NO WAY you can impress/amuse/render unconscious by your dazzling wit your high school crush AND the girl you lost touch with when she moved in 5th grade AND the fantastic combination of people you slept with in college AND your graduate level internship supervisor. It’s just not possible – someone is bound to like The Bachelor or be a Republican or something and you’ll offend them with your filthy resopnse to Who’s the Sexiest Bachelor? or the Please Join My Cause to Offend All Republicans or something and then it’s all gone to hell.
Still in a funk, although finding a better way to frame it, I guess. I am highly pleased with the fact that I have little appetite – not the usual response to this kind of thing. Whether physical or mental, I am not complaining. Trust me, I won’t need to worry for another [insert multiple of 10] pounds.
Wrote a poem and stared a story. Writing again? Must be fucking miserable. (Six word memoir alert!)
Just went to rewrite a paragraph and typed “such” as “duck”. ???
Since I am now all about sentence fragments and water fowl, I’ll go not eat the brownies I never made and try to keep the computer at arm’s length.
I am gin, boys and girls. Gin and emotionally swampy music on a Friday night.
I will come clean and say I am a mess. Not a hot mess – that would be kind of fun. Just a mess. Some of it due to external stuff, some of it purely internal/chemical/hormonal, and some of it at that place where those things meet. It’s about kids being abandoned, or nearly, and young adults dying, and who am I to help with this, and what is it I really need? And who the hell am I, while we’re asking questions.
You know, the fun stuff.
But I’m handling it well. In the sense, I mean, of Getting Stuff Done and Taking Care of Business. I get to work (the internship), I do well, I pick up the kids and while I wish I were more patient, I am a loving and caring mom. I cook. I console. I do the dishes. The house, otherwise, is pretty messy, but not more than normal. It’s just the other stuff, my own stuff, that’s messier than normal.
I am, luckily, not required to do much this semester aside from the internship. I say luckily because I actually don’t do much aside from that and dealing with life at home. I haven’t been here, obviously, and I haven’t been much of anywhere else, mentally. And maybe it’s supposed to happen like this, as I finish my Masters. Maybe raising two young kids with a husband who works full time and no real health insurance in a tanking (tanked) economy is supposed to be pretty draining, on a mental/physical/emotional level. I did, in fact, choose a cushy course for my final elective, with the thought that I’d be pretty burnt at this point. And burnt I am.
What’s that you say? Therapy? Drugs? Ah, you clever reader. I could use the former, if I could find time for it. Seriously, I have just enough money to pay for just enough time to have the kids in day care for just as long as it takes me to drive to the internship, do it, then drive home three days a week. But you can’t afford not to, you say? Well, you might be right. I might have to try to work that one out, eventually. And drugs? Well, no thanks. I think they are great and can do wonders, but I think what I’ve got going here is situational. If I’m still like this by Sept., maybe. But before then, I’ll pass. We all get depressed or go into existential funks sometimes. I think we’re supposed to. I think we learn from it and get stronger. I think it’s okay. And, yeah, I think it’s nice that there’s better living through chemistry, too, if we need it. Just not right now.
Oh, is it all doom and gloom? Do I spend each day with the back of my wrist to my forehead? Am I constantly weeping and beating my tiny (har har) fists against the wall. No. I do/am not. I am doing well at the internship (as I mentioned, yeah?) and I didn’t think that would happen. I have a hard time with the little kids, it’s true, but I’ve found talents I didn’t know I had, and instincts I’d never known about. My main problem now – aside from the mental crap I bring home w/r/t their horrible home lives – is that I hate having to do any of the settle-down-and-listen shit. They’re kids, right? Six, seven, eight. They are supposed to jump around and make loud noises and pick their noses. So I hate telling them, essentially, to sit down and shut the fuck up, even when I want to say it, even when they need to hear it because they’ve got to learn something at school. Or at least be quiet enough to let someone else learn something. That’s the essential tension for me, professionally. How do we keep them in check enough to help them and everyone else learn, while not making them feel shitty about doing what comes naturally to them? These are early, naive, and probably ignornant mental fumblings, you understand. I have a long way to go, and a lot to learn. But what little mental space I have available for things other than, say, keeping my car between the little white lines and responding when people talk to me goes to this issue.
On the plus side, some company has started using Jacking the Ball by The Sea and Cake in a commercial. I loved them, and that song, so much. How can you not? Listen:
And Maira Kalman has stared to blog again on the NYT site, albeit once a month. She is delightful, and I will never look at hats or tassles the same way again, on top of it all. Read her on the last Friday of each month here.
And I’m still feeding the FaceBook silliness. It is nice, though, to see old faces, even though it is disconcerting to see someone I knew in 5th grade next to someone I knew in high school, next to someone I went to college with, next to someone I know from grad school. Disconcerting and somehow reassuring. I’ve found that there are people I could easily be intimate friends with again on a daily basis, were they not hundreds or thousands of miles away, and there are people I lost contact with for the best of all reasons.
I won’t end this on an up note, though. It’s a cold time and in many ways a dark one. It will all work out but the here, the now, the immediate moment is not a lovely one. You’ve had a hard time, yes? We all have. I’ll try to be by much more as I find my way out of this one.
Hmm, well, because I know you’re wondering… I am fighting something that is or is not pneumonia (ah, modern medicine), thus the quietness lately. And for the past few weeks, actually – in retrospect I’ve probably been fighting it for a while.
And still, feeling as shitty as I do today, I cannot resist a quick note about Top Chef. Yes, I am happy with the outcome. Yes, although I would ideally substitute Jaime for Hosea, I think the right people are pretty much there. And I enjoyed the “last supper” aspect (inspired by this book?). But what got me, what had me quite literally doubled over and laughing like a crazy person, was Fabio. Ah, Fabio. Upon being asked if he’d like to go to the hospital after breaking his finger during the final challenge he responded, “Hospital? I’ll chop it off and sear it on the flat-top so it doesn’t bleed anymore, and tomorrow, I will deal with nine finger.” Fabio, you can cook my last meal, or any other meal for that matter, any day. Just keep those comments coming, okay? You make up for mopey Leah and trash talking Hosea combined.
Final three: Stephan, Fabio, and Carla. Carla is a late delight. I am rooting for her, but am happy if any of the three win.
Although, if my lungs had anything to say about it I’m quite sure I wouldn’t be. What happens when an asthmatic gets bronchitis? Much hacking and etc. I am bed-bound, more or less, and not in a fun, kinky way.
Not to go on (oh, she does go on), but it’s particularly vexing because I’d just started exercising again – getting reacquainted with my beloved Billy Blanks – and really enjoying it. And now I’m just too wiped, too wheezy, to keep it going. Hopefully, with luck and Western medicine (it’s come to that), I’ll be up and kicking by this time next week.
Otherwise – just handling the internship, which is far more challenging than I’d anticipated. I think people that work with kids naturally gravitate toward an age group. I’ve learned – powerfully – that 1st & 2nd grade is not my age group. I like my messed-up, attitude riddled, emo driven teens. I am not terribly annoyed by them and I make it past their bullshit detectors unscathed. I really like them. The 6-8 year old crowd, on the other hand, push every button I have. My own 7 year old, I love. A group of other people’s? Gah. That’s work. And not the kind I’m best at. But… it’s good to get the experience, and I’m actually getting more comfortable, and with the job market in public schools the way it is I’ll be damn lucky to get a job in my field at all, so I guess I’d better be prepared to work with the animals – I mean – dear little ones…
Top Chef is BREAKING MY HEART. I missed this week’s episode because of the aforementioned lack of lung power then inadvertently spoiled myself on who got sent home before I could see the episode. Jaime? Jaime? I had her to win! She was absolutely my favorite. How, on a just and verdant earth, is Jaime sent home when Leah still has a knife in hand? Argh. Jaime’s cooking was always interesting and creative and something I’d really love to try. She wasn’t perfect, of course, nobody is, but she was absolutely top on my list of chefs who I’d go out of my way to try and get a reservation at whatever and wherever they were cooking in the future (Richard being #2, Hung #3). Anyway, no sobby fan girl bullshit here. Just sad to see her off the show. Here: look at her very gracious and lovely exit interview.
This morning, by the way, I sat in bed and ate leftover Indian food for breakfast while watching St. Elmo’s Fire. Srsly. I would have done it even if I could have gotten out of bed.
Much as I enjoyed it, I have to admit that the trailer is about 10 times better than the actual movie. Ally Sheedy acts the pants off everyone else. Who knew High Art was in her future. And Rob Lowe actually acting, too? Again, West Wing was years away and yet… and yet… I kinda wish I could find the poster of him with the sax I had up on my wall.
January is uphill. January is living inside an overturned bowl speckled grey on the inside. January is cold so sharp it cuts your throat on the way down and leaves you without breath. January is empty and still. January is middle with no beginning or end.
February is no better. It is dashed hope. It is acknowledging the reality that February is just January with a different name, fewer days, and maybe a degree or two more by the end of the month. February is shrugging off the amnesia that made you forget this after last year. February is unkept promises.
Hmm, let’s see – I have been neglecting my blog for a while, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear to me. I supposed it’s partly what I’ve come to see as my natural ebb and flow between introvert and extrovert – sometimes I want to share and process externally and talk and sometimes I just want to sit with things and think.
And partly it’s just life, too – I’ve started my 2nd (and last) internship, a new semester of classes, and then there’s the inevitable (it seems) illness for me and the kids that follows starting in a new school. There have been runny nose and rashes and the endless, hateful trips to the pharmacy. No real health care, you see, makes each script a little slip of anxiety and dread. But things this time were fairly inexpensive, and with a pretty decent tax refund on the way, the tension is not so great.
Maybe it’s Facebook, too? It’s a quick and easy way to saying how/what I’m doing in one sentence, and maybe posting a link to a story I like without having to explain much. I see it’s downside, it’s surface-only connections, but it’s been so nice finding people who I really wish I hadn’t lost touch with, and keeping up with those nearby that I may have otherwise let slip through the cracks. Like all technology, like life, it’s a mix of good and bad. A distracting mix of good and bad.
So what have I been doing, linking, thinking, avoiding? Let’s see, it was all inauguration excitement there for a while wasn’t it? All hold-your-breath, please-god-let-it-go-off-without-a-hitch, I-can’t-believe-some-real-change-is coming thrill. I watched from home with the kids on a good-excuse day off and loved it all. Clapping and saluting (??? – my oldest, spontaneously), the youngest running in circles yelling “bah-bak-ba-bama!” over and over then falling asleep in my arms as he gave the wonderful (I thought) speech. And despite the negative comments I’ve read and heard, I agree with Reb Livingston (via C. Dale Young) – the poem was good, maybe not great, but good lord, why all the anger about it from poetry corners? That there was a poem at all was a blessing. That it wasn’t a Hallmark card was a relief. Is there one, best way to write modern poetry? Undoubtedly, no. So just because she didn’t read your kind of poetry doesn’t mean she’s a hack, or a that she wasted a chance to convert America into a poetry-loving madhouse, or that poetry is doomed. Don’t like it? Fine. Play nice and go read something else you might like – two fine, radically different examples of alternatives are here/hear and here/hear.
I love Suzan-Lori Parks, by the way. She spoke in a playwriting class I took about 15 or so years ago, and I was in a weak-knee writer girl crush for months. And, bonus of all bonuses, she turned me on to Charlie Parker. Now that’s a pretty impressive class, wouldn’t you say?
I’m less upset about winter now that January is here. Yes, there is snow and yes, it is too cold to go out and play (20 degrees is my cut off), but the worst of the season is here, or at least within sight. The anticipation of January – like so many things in this world – is more powerful than January itself. The anticipation of the thing, that is, is greater than the thing itself most times. Exceptions: child birth, child rearing, making bechamel.
Although sometimes what I call “anticipation” is really better called, what?, pre-grieving? When you know that something, some place, some one is going to end – it’s written in stone – and you just have to wait and wait for it, then, I think, you can do your grieving ahead of time. I remember when I’d made my decision to move from Massachusetts – a big house with lots of musicians and artists, a home – to California, and weeping and moping and being melancholy for a couple of weeks before. I wanted to go to California; it wasn’t that I didn’t want to go, it’s that I was sad to leave. And so I did my mess and misery ahead of time and didn’t mourn much for what I’d left behind when I got there. Which made me seem cold to at least one person, for which I am sorry, but it was really just me, how my emotions go, how my mind works.
I’m not being cheeky, above. Making bechamel, for me, is really, really tough. But I always think it’ll be a quick and easy thing. Fool!
Not that I’m going to be doing that any time soon. I am resolved to be healthy. Eating better food (better = fresh, natural, local, not processed, and etc.). Exercising. The way, so far, I’ve rationalized exercising (to me an essentially non-rational task) is to remember that exercise helps the brain. Seriously. I’m bending and stretching and kicking and walking so that I can think better. Whatever works. Use your insanity to better yourself, know what I mean?
I start my next internship on Tuesday and I am partly terrified, partly disengaged, partly thrilled. The setting itself – the office, etc. – is shit and will be uncomfortable and awkward. Not to spread doom, just to be honest. But the rest of it… well, we’ll just have to see. Being 15 or 16 weeks away from being done is such a joy, but I have to make sure that I’m not so focused on the end date weeks away that the minutes tick by. Agony. Anyone who doesn’t think time is relative is so clearly fooling themselves. Another issue I’m a little worried about is that I’m working with kids who are I.’s age – and how to switch from mom to counselor? It’s the biggest thing I have to learn and practice, I guess… It won’t be so bad. Anyway, this anticipation (see what I just did there?) is bound to be different from the reality.
Reading Chris Abani’s Song for Night and wow, is it wonderful and disturbing and a mental explosion of a way to start 2009. Be brave and read it yourself to start the year out right.
