Category Archives: Uncategorized

Working… of course

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As I sit here lesson planning on my couch on this beautiful Sunday afternoon I have to stop and think about how very different my life will be soon. I feel like I am killing myself for a job that is counting down until it isn’t mine any more. I am trying my best to cram the most important work of the year into a smaller period of time. I’m trying to figure out how I can give these kids a more full year of English than they have gotten in other years despite the fact that I won’t be there for the last 1/6 or more of it. I care about this work, but it drains my energy and saps my will to live. Many people keep telling me that I will be dying to come back to work after staying home for the summer with a baby… I can’t say yet that they are wrong, but I really doubt that I am going to be eager to get back to this. Why would I want to come back to a job that barely allows me to have a relationship with Noah, let alone cleaning my house (no one is welcome in my bathroom right now), let alone going to the grocery store and making food sometimes instead of eating out, let alone have enough time to properly enjoy my growing child? I’m sure I will miss things about teaching but I don’t think I will miss it enough to want to teach. As I sit here designing lessons for the next nine weeks that will keep me up late at night making tests and quizzes and figuring out how to hook kids into giving me a decent introduction… No. I can’t believe that I would rather do this than be with my child.

Window Shopping

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More to come…

Mommy

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I’ve been having a really hard time emotionally lately for a variety of oh-my-fucking-god hormone reasons. After the comment from my ‘friend’ I really haven’t felt safe talking to anyone about what is going on with me. I’m not real big on being judged. There have also been some points of friction with Noah that are totally exacerbated by the fact that I am seriously hormonal. I’ve been feeling more and more isolated and lonely and scared as I am shutting down any “real” conversation with people. So I did something crazy. I called my mommy.

The conversation went really well. We talked about a number of things that are going poorly for me (Oh wait–her easy pregnancys involved HUGE amounts of nausea so maybe I’m not breaking the pattern yet.) and ways I’m having a hard time emotionally. We talked about a few of the more hot buttony things from the past and nothing blew up. It was really good. I needed that. She’s nervous about some of the choices I am making (home birth, home schooling) but she is actually listening to my reasons for wanting them and has said that she has a lot of reservations but she can understand why I am making the choices I am making. That is literally the best I could hope for from her. That was supportive and friendly and everything. Especially because a lot of her reservations are from ignorance and her fear that I will get stuck at home with my children and give up my identity the way she did. That’s really not a horrible thing for her to want to spare me from. She did make the suggestion that given how tired and how sick I am that I should probably try to take days off more often. Her comment that my students are better off having subs occasionally than having me just leave work mid-pregnancy because I can’t work anymore is actually a pretty reasonable one. Even if I run out of sick days I can afford it.

Calling her was good. I’m pretty sure that it should continue to be a rare occurance but the calls have picked up in freqency (twice in a month? Holy shit) and it’s still ok.

We talked a little bit about her mother and how a week didn’t go by without her talking to her mother. We very briefly talked about how hard my grandmother’s death was on my mom but she had a hard time talking about it. Then we talked about why she has such a hard time talking about it–if she showed weakness in front of my father he would be nasty and hurtful. He would use it against her for years to come. I’m doing better at seeing how when I am reacting to my baggage she is reacting to hers. My father has been dead for nine years and twelve days (but who’s counting?) and he is still influencing so much of her life. He influenced her from the time she was 19 years old until she was 49. 30 years of hurting her. No wonder she is so fucked up. I’ve never stopped and thought about that before. I’ve always thought about it in terms of “well, she was an adult…” but now that I’ve been an adult for a few years I’m seeing how little that mitigates trauma. For all the things my mother didn’t shield me from she actually kept my father basically out of my life. That was the biggest kindness she could give me. The fact that when he did pop up he hurt me is just a sign that she did a great job of keeping me from even more and worse hurt by keeping him away most of the time.

Maybe I am ready to forgive.

Wussing out

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I’m going home at lunch today. I feel like shit that got hit by a car. (Flattened) I need to rest so badly. My plan is to not come in tomorrow either. But, this way I am only missing three periods. I’m going to try hard not to feel too guilty.

Finished

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I finally got around to reading Harry Potter. All seven books in eight days. That was way better than reading earlier and having to wait around for sequels. 🙂

I have read more new-to-me books and more rereads for fun in the past six months than I have in the previous five years total. I’m not really sure what is up with needing to escape from my life more. But I have read some nifty books. (I think I’m up to 15 books in the last six months?)

The Riot Act.

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That’s what I am reading the kids today. Their grades suck. 🙁 I want to be more patient. Maybe I could be if I ever had a damn break. (I took one day off this weekend. I worked the whole other day.)

I want a whole weekend off. It needs to happen soon.

Thoughts on having kids

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I talked to someone I have known for a long time last night about me having kids. Ironically, said person is not on this filter by her own request. I’m not really trying to talk about her behind her back but including her seems somehow disrespectful when she stated that she doesn’t want to hear it. First she doesn’t think me having kids is ok because the planet is overpopulated. Fair enough. But she said she also thinks that someone with my history of mental health issues shouldn’t be having children. To say the least this was hard to hear. I managed to keep myself from bursting into tears with effort.

My mental health stuff is something that I have agonized about for years. I have also felt paranoid that people felt this way and weren’t telling me. I guess now it no longer counts as paranoia. I feel somewhat hurt that she said it, but it isn’t as if we have ever been particularly close friends anyway. Given how little she is in my life I doubt this will affect our relationship much at all. But that’s not the point.

I have a pretty serious history of mental health issues. I have been diagnosed with a wide array of disorders (sometimes contradictory) throughout my life. I don’t try to hide this or down play it. I just deal with it. I deal with feeling depressed. I deal with the excessive responses (mania). I deal with my compulsions. I deal with my mood swings. I’m not the easiest person to live with but I believe I am far from the hardest. I feel like telling me that I shouldn’t have children because of my mental health issues is tantamount to telling someone who has a physical disability that they shouldn’t have children. And if you are going to go down that path, where does the line get drawn? Should someone with diabetes have children? Should remarkably ugly people have children? (Ok, that part is being sarcastic.) Where is the line drawn? Who gets to decide who is appropriate for breeding. Because as soon as you start talking about how people with defects shouldn’t have children you are talking about breeding.

Yes, my children are potentially at risk of being severely depressed during their lifetimes. My children are also very likely to be incredibly intelligent (such traits are strongly genetically linked). My children are also very likely to be creative and interesting. If you go through history many of the most brilliant and influential people have had various mental health issues. Does depression make life harder? Yes. I think it is worth dealing with anyway. If I didn’t I would have off-ed myself years ago. I also believe that my kids are going to have the fairly unusual situation of living with someone who actively deals with their shit rather than blaming or denying or hiding from life. I have survived some pretty intense things and I believe that I can help my kids be strong and independent people as well or I wouldn’t have them.

I know I know… I don’t need to justify my decision. But I do need to think about it.

Dying.

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My job is always extremely demanding. Teaching an honors class has made that worse.
I’m also the technology “mentor” at this point because my coworkers are fucking morons and can’t figure out how to work basic websites. This means a bunch of people pestering me constantly.
Academic detention is driving me batty. I’m feeling quite tempted to just ignore the Fs for the rest of the year. If you come in and want to make up your grade, fine. But I can’t keep pushing people to do the work. It makes my life suck.
I can’t be the repository of all the problems of all the kids right now. I’m too tired and worn out. I have nothing left to give them.
I’m dropping all involvement with clubs. I need to spend my lunches staring off into space, not going to meetings.
I am going to drop some of the essays I had planned to give the honors class. I simply cannot spend 10 hours grading essays every three weeks. I can’t do it. Not on top of all the rest of the grading and prep.
I am not helping much with the TNG con. I feel horrible for dumping it on Jon, but I can’t do more than I am doing. 🙁
I’m supposed to be doing research on getting the house remodeled. Right now I am kicking myself for not getting this done last summer.
I’m not seeing my friends much. I’m doing a little bit of it because I feel like I *should* but I find myself feeling resentful of the energy output even as I am glad to see people. I am tired of having to leave by 8:30 because I feel like shit. It’s not like I can say, “Hey–let’s hang out during the weekend day” either because I’m always fucking working.
Hormones are kicking in and I want to cry a lot of the time. I feel so overwhelmed that I want to just give up. Why am I doing all this shit again?
I can’t have sex like I want to because I feel shitty all the time and I know that must be having a negative effect on my overall attitude and emotional state.

I don’t know what is going to give, but something has to.

Further proof that my life does not suck.

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Today, one of my kids went off campus during lunch and bought me a Jamba Juice. (The kid finishes school at 5th period–that’s the only reason he is allowed to leave.) This was after I bitched him out during 2nd period because he still hasn’t got his book and he was generally being a bit whiney. I think that apologizing after yelling at him probably helped. I told him I had no right to be such a bitch to him and he laughed. 🙂

Last night I jumped my hot honey. It was quite good. Sex is much less frequent these days, but oh so awesome when it happens.

My darling husband came to work with me this weekend and kept me company while I suffered through craptastic work. Have I mentioned that I am incredibly lucky?

We got to be social in three different venues this weekend–none of them for even 2 hours, but that is all the energy we have. It was good to see people. (This is the way to see me these days. Book a slot early in the day for 1-2 hours. That’s all the energy I have.)

And I finally got around to starting Harry Potter. Books 1 and 2 down. 🙂

Kids are strange.

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I feel like crap and I’m being very frank about this with the kids. I’m not being my normal walking-around self. So when kids are talking out of turn or sleeping I don’t feel like getting up to smack their desks how I normally do. So instead, I brought in a squirt bottle. It has fantastic range. I have proven that I can get basically every desk in the room.

The kids love it. They laugh when they get hit, but then they knock off their crap. A threat is often enough to get them to stop. I think this is so funny.

Bits and pieces

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My coworkers are shocked and dismayed that I want to leave off teaching public school to homeschool my children. They believe that my actions are why the system is failing. Uhm, maybe I am acting the way I am because the system is failing–I hardly believe I carry the weight of all the blame.

Academic detention still sucks. But at least 15 students have already pulled up their grades to passing. Only 26 to go… (Passing meaning a C or better.)

It’s amazing that I can cry all the way to school and then turn it off and be fine in front of the kids. Then fall to pieces again when they leave.

Got to tell the kids today that everything smells way more strongly so I need them to take showers more often cause they are making me sick. That was an awkward conversation.

Feeling better than normal for lately. Maybe it’s the cheese. Mmmm cheese. Still exhausted.

I need a sick and barfy icon

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I feel terrible. Today isn’t the worst nausea I have felt, but I do feel overall really really awful. My stomach hurts. My back hurts. My head hurts. And today is one of those disgusting days when I am reminded that Gilroy isn’t far from my school. The whole campus reeks of garlic; I want to gag. The toilets in the staff bathroom back up at the drop of a hat and today one of them did while full of uhm something unpleasantly odorous. Walking into that room is enough to make me want to throw up. And that is not currently a room where I want to kneel and throw up. 🙁

And the morning started out so pleasantly…

I have decided that whining about being sick doesn’t count as “baby” posting so this isn’t filtered. I have also decided that if I get around to talking about pregnant sex (holy shit it’s awesome) that will go on the tmi filter and not the baby filter. If you don’t like it, don’t read it.

Wonder drug

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My stomach has been hurting pretty much non-stop for over a week. I get brief respites, but they are normally very very brief. This morning I woke up to the worst stomach upset so far. On the way to work I bought Altoids Rasberry Sours because I was told that sour hard candy might help. Dude. It’s a fucking miracle. I feel so much better. I can even get up and wander around! Sweet.

It’s worth pointing out that despite feeling nauseous and exhausted constantly I am overall in very good spirits. I’m grateful for anything that looks like confirmation of pregnancy. 🙂 There is also at least some link between major morning sickness and a lower chance of miscarriage. I’ll take it.

Not so exciting.

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This weekend is Folsom. This big, fabulous, wonderfully pervy event right in my back yard. What am I doing this weekend? Grading papers. I’m behind and I am too tired during the week to catch up at night.

Ah well. Maybe I will get enough done on Saturday to hit the fair for a little while on Sunday. It’s not like I am up for dressing up anyway. 🙂 Right now I am wearing stretch pants because wearing anything with a waist makes me want to vomit.

That was hard.

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I have a coworker who has hated me almost since I got this job. I never really understood why exactly. I knew about one or two stupid jokes she hadn’t appreciated, but it seemed to be bigger than that. She actually started at the same time I did so it’s been an interesting two years of working with her. Today I sucked up my courage after school and asked her about the situation. At first she kind of tried to brush me off by claiming the past is the past so she could avoid talking about it. I persisted and pushed her to talk to me about why she hates me so much. When she finally told me I could tell that they were things she has held close to her heart and nourished as damn fine reasons to hate me. I don’t blame her, I did some shitty things in her direction. It seriously deflated her anger when I explained my behavior and apologized. She looked flat shocked that I wasn’t defensive or pissy about her accusing me of all manner of bitchy awful things. It was really good and I’m glad I did it. By the end she told me that she has actually had a hard time staying mad at me because overall she likes my personality–it was just too hard to let go of being mad.

That was a hard thing. I’m glad I did it.

And I’m on track for early completion of my BTSA hellishness. I’m still behind on grading, but not too bad at this point. This weekend is probably going to be spent working. Oh. Joy. 🙂 Actually… I’m not too upset. I’ve had very me-centered weekends for a few in a row and I’ll be quite cheerful about going back to being focused on my job when I have more energy. It’s hard to work after school for as long as I need to. And it’s getting harder as my energy is going down.

Filter update and psa sorts of stuff.

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It seems as though baby stuff is likely to obsess me for a while to come. In addition to all of my current filters: http://rightkindofme.livejournal.com/330553.html#cutid1 (comment if you change anything) it seems like a good idea to give people the chance to opt-in rather than telling them they have to opt out of hearing about baby-babble.

Oh, I’m pregnant. 🙂 According to how such things are measured I am about five weeks pregnant. My estimated due date is Friday, May 23, 2008.

I can’t keep a secret to save my life.