Category Archives: Uncategorized

44 answers to 44 nosy questions (stolen from malixe)

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Cause I have nothing better to do.

1.Height?
5′ 5 1/2″ and it’s an important 1/2.

2.Have you ever smoked heroin?
No

3.Do you own a gun?
No and I feel somewhat conflicted about this. I am so rabidly pro-gun rights yet I’m nearly phobic about them. It’s weird being me.

4.What is your favorite car?
Honda Element. I want one a lot, but due to a few practicality reasons we bought a hybrid first and now it looks like I am not going to get one. I guess that is just how life goes–right? You can’t get everything you want.

5.Do you get nervous before doctor appointments?
Yes. Panic attack central.

6.What do you think of hot dogs?
I’ve never been a big fan and yet, every so often I want one. Usually covered with chili.

7.What’s your favorite Christmas song?
I’m strangely traditional on this one–Silent Night. It is just so beautiful to me.

8.What do you prefer to drink in the morning?
OJ

9.Can you do push ups?
Sorta, not really.

10.Is your bathroom clean?
*sigh* Not really and it won’t be during the school year.

11.What’s your favorite piece of jewelry?
I like my rings a great deal. I have always worn rings more than any other jewelry despite the fact that I don’t want to draw attention to my hands because I think I have ugly fingernails.

12.Do you like painkillers?
I loves me my vitamin I.

13.What is your secret weapon to lure in the opposite sex?
If you can make someone feel important and interesting, they are generally up for most things you want them to do. I’m very good at making people feel that way.

14. Do you have A.D.D.?
Not even close.

15.Middle Name?
Lenora

16.Name 3 thoughts at this exact moment?
Don’t wanna go to work, don’t wanna see anyone but Noah, don’t wanna be so tired.

17. Name the last 3 things you have bought:
Food has been the last three things but for the sake of playing along–gas, an hour of my therapist’s time, can’t think of anything other than food. I’m very food focused.

18. Name 3 drinks you regularly drink:
Water, juice-I rotate between apple, orange, grape, pineapple, and cranberry, .

19. Current worry?
Is having a housemate a good plan?

20. Current hate?
Uhhh dinno. Probably this kid in 2nd period. I hate him.

21. Favorite place to be?
Wherever Noah is.

22. Where would you like to go?
I’m going to Portland this summer (hopefully Seattle to because I think at least one or two people there want to see me) and that’s the extent of where I want to go for a while.

23. Do you own slippers?
Blue and white fuzzy ones.

24. What shirt are you wearing?
A really neat button up that looks like a pinstripe version of a tux shirt with vertical ruffles. I like it.

25. Do you burn or tan?
Burn baby burn.

26. Favorite color(s)?
Pink and black.

27. Would you be a pirate?
Probably not. I’m too devoted to “doing what’s right” for that kind of thing.

28. What songs do you sing in the shower?
“Oh! I wish I was a little bar of soap!” and “No One Needs to Know” by Shania Twain both make frequent appearances, lately “Stand” by Rascal Flatts.

29. What did you fear was going to get you at night as a child?
Tommy

30. Last thing that made you laugh?
One of my kids. I spend a lot of time laughing at/with them. 🙂

31. Best bed sheets as a child?
No clue–this is a weird question.

32. Worst injury you’ve ever had?
I think I would have to say having half of my face ripped off by a pit bull. Yeah…. that takes the cake for me.

33. How many TVs do you have in your house?
One, and its days are numbered.

34. Who is your loudest friend?
Anna. Holy crap does that girl project.

What happened to 35?
I think I misplaced that one, but 36 was pretty great! (As copied from malixe cause I am too lazy to change it.)

36. Who is your most silent friend?
Most of my friends do the wall flower thing at least occasionally. I’m having trouble picking one, but maybe my coworker Josh. He talks so softly I usually can’t hear him and he doesn’t say that much. Amusingly, what he does say is generally totally freakin random.

37. Does someone have a crush on you?
Given the Valentine’s Day board messages I would say yes. But I don’t think that anyone who really knows me much has a crush so I would say “not that affects me”.

38.Do you wish on shooting stars?
Yes

39. What is your favorite book?
I have three favorites: Paint the Wind, Fortune is a Woman, and Walk in My Soul.

40. What is your favorite candy?
Milka

41. What song do/did you want played at your wedding?
Apparently I didn’t want one played at my wedding. 🙂

42. What song do you want played at your funeral?
I don’t know how people will want to remember me. I hope at least somewhat fondly.

43. What were you doing 12 AM last night?
Sleeping

44. What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up?
I wonder if Noah is awake. We tend to wake up together every day.

Not the best day ever.

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I woke up at 4:30 this morning. I think I woke up so god-awful-early because I was anxious about Noah leaving. My beloved is on his way to Texas. There he will have a less than fun conversation with his parents about the level of involvement (none) they will be allowed to have with our kids. Given that everytime they call his father asks three or four times, “So! Any big news?” I think they anticipate kidlets about as soon as we do. And uhhh yeah. Unfortunately they won’t be involved and we think it is best that they know that before they find out I am pregnant. Because telling them over the phone, “Yeah–we’re pregnant! Oh, and by the way, my mother is abusive and she isn’t allowed to meet my children” would really suck. I don’t envy him this trip. My mother has already been told that she is not likely to be allowed any contact and if there is any at all it will always be supervised heavily.

This stuff is depressing to think about.

I had to sit in the sun for an hour at a teachers appreciation rally. I now have a nasty headache. Ick.

I am home teaching today from 4:30-7. It’s not exactly my idea of a good time though I guess it could be worse. The kid is ok and I’m enjoying what we are doing for history and English. I even feel smart cause I understand the geometry! 🙂

So it’s not the best day ever. It’s also nowhere near the worst day ever so I’m not *really* complaining. 🙂 As much as I already miss Noah, he is coming back on Monday. He loves me and is doing something that is about us building a life together. I’m a big girl. I can handle it.

AND my Julia is going to be here this weekend. I get to spend time with her. It’s always so wonderful to see her. Maybe this time I can manage to not be a freakin spazz. Sometimes it is hard loving someone when things aren’t equal.

Assignment

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We are reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in the junior class. I’m trying to get them to understand the general cruelty of the nurses and the orderlies so I went searching on the internet for something that would be applicable. I discovered the Milgram Experiment (google it if you like, I’m not cool enough to imbed URLs from the web client) and thought A Ha! So I found many websites with interesting information and I tried to figure out how to present the data to the kids.

What I had them do was fill out a questionnaire on how much cruelty they believe they would be willing to mete out, then how much they believe other people would mete out. Does it matter if an authority tells you to? Why would someone do as they were told? And a few other questions I can’t remember.

Then I handed them the reports about the Milgram Experiment, but see…. I was sneaky. Before I printed the information I formatted it to have big gaps between paragraphs. Then when I printed it I cut them out into strips. Then I mixed the strips up. The kids have to put the paragraphs together in order so that they can read the reports. So not only are they getting nifty information but they have to do problem solving and work in a group for collaborative learning. Then once they have it all together they have to respond to the information and we are discussing it. Sweet.

The kids are doing fabulously well. Of course they are whining about working–but they are working. 🙂

Just so it’s been said.

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May 26th we’ll be grading the writers workshop papers. Grading them is easy and actually kind of fun because we mock the children. Last batch we came up with: “But why Ryoko, why?” I mean… what could be better than that? To sweeten the deal: I will supply food and booze. 🙂 It’s actually kind of fun doing it with people and it goes relatively quickly. And just think, you will be saving me a significant amount of time. 😉 You don’t have to be an English major to grade these you just need to follow a rubric and be able to spot gross grammar mistakes.

Edited to reflect the Saturday date. Oops.

Student poem

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Procrastination

Well it is 1:00 Monday morning and here I am writing my
poems why must I always procrastinate
it only leads to bad things I can’t stand it
and yet time and time again I always am here
doing my stuff last minute
I guess you can compare procrastination
to masturbation
it is awesome until you realize you
screwed yourself.

I busted out laughing in class. It’s awesome.

State of the bedside table

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I realized the other day that I was reading quite a variety of books… simultaneously.
(* indicates a re-read)

Undefended Love – still slowly working my way through it. It’s a very hard read for me and I can only sometimes handle the intensity.
The Courage to Heal – also slowly working through it. I’m still trying to make progress, but it is interesting how I notice that I have only so much emotional energy on a given day so I can deal with my job or my personal shit. I think this will come to the front of the pile again when school is over.
*Walk in My Soul – I’m reading Noah one of my favorite books. It’s a neat experience because this book was one of my favorite x’s40 books growing up and I have never shared it with anyone before. I’ve also never really read to anyone before. It’s really good.
*One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – have to read along with the kidlets and make reading quizzes and study questions cause the ones I made last year were only so-so.
*I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – technically a reread, but it has been more than a decade. I’m doing this book with the kid I’m home teaching partially because he is a serious racist and I’m trying to get him to look at some of his opinions.
The Hobbit – I’ve never read this book. I’ve never wanted to. Comp and Lit picked it over Go Ask Alice. *sigh*
Freakonomics – I am really loving this book. It is awesome and amazing. I’m devouring chapters whenever I get a chance. Thank you Kevin!!
Radical Ecstasy – also slowly working my way through this one. It’s really interesting and it is inspiring me to feel like I want to be playing more even though I don’t have much time or energy. This summer, I am going to be wearing Noah out. Yay! Thank you Janet. I think you two did a marvelous job with this one. 🙂
I have also picked up and finished several Anne Rice books* in the past 3-4 weeks. 🙂

I forgot what it was like to love to read and to do it all the time. I am so happy that I got it back. Getting a degree in English killed my love of books for several years and I was worried that it would stay killed.

Much yay

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Today I get to go in three hours late without having to bend the rules because I am an honest and straightforward person. So screw you to all of my dishonest colleagues. (Rant maybe forthcoming on that one.)

This morning I got all of the prep work done for the next few days that has been making me nervous. Sweet.

Today, I checked the bank account and saw what would have been once upon a time a staggering amount of money. At this point it isn’t staggering, but it is certainly plenty so that my darling husband could be out of work for months before I would worry even one iota about him finding a job. My salary is enough to keep us afloat and we have a beautiful cushion for just about any “just in case.” Oh, and the only debt we have left is the mortgage and my student loans due to me masterfully managing our money and paying off a rather large amount of debt in the past six months. Go me.

Yesterday I got to see my lovely Sarah, though only briefly, and she presented me with the baby clothes she has acquired so far. The fact that I am not the only one joyfully anticipating me getting pregnant lets me feel a sense of family and attachment I wouldn’t have believed I would get. Thank you Sarah; thank you for being my family. Eight more weeks until I stop taking birth control. The days are flying by…

Including today I have 31 more days of educational opportunity remaining with my kidlets. But that includes finals and weird schedules and I don’t see any of the individual classes that many times. Really I only have 22 more days with each individual class. Eeeek! Must get through this book! But I have a good solid unit plan in front of me and I am confident that I will get through it and my babies will do well.

Life is really good.

Cue panic attack

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I have been working on cleaning my desk. This is an eternal process. But today I start home teaching a kid who is at home for medical reasons. And uhhhh I have to have some paperwork for this.

Paperwork? You mean like the kind that sits on my desk randomly in piles? Like the kind that I was industrious and I cleaned up? ….

Oh.

My.

God.

It took about 15 minutes of freaking out and making a big mess but I finally found it stuck in the middle of some random binder where I take attendence. What in the motherfuck is it doing in there?!

Thank you God for not hating me today. This was almost bad. Mostly because I don’t have any other access to the kid’s address…

Torture? Or making smart usage of my resources?

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I am making my really neato on-top-of-everything 2nd period aide read The Hobbit with us so that she can grade the reading quizzes. 🙂 I’m making the test and we are talking about acceptable answers to the questions, but it really streamlines everything if she actually knows the book.

Did I mention that she now updates my gradebook and the school websites for parents to see? I worship this girl. I do check her work, but it takes me about 1/20th of the time to briefly check over that it would take to do the work myself.

Thrive on adversity

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Noah and I have been seeing a therapist for a few weeks and I honestly have some mixed feelings about how it is going. I think that what we are looking for is some new tricks in how to handle things and I’m not sure we are getting our money’s worth. Last night turned into a big argument in fact. It’s awesome when someone says something and then says, “I didn’t say that” in a patronizing voice. That’s a good way to have me be instantly furious. I was fairly seething. Noah could tell how angry I was. I’m pretty sure that anyone with half a brain could tell. Her reaction was… interesting. She is big on somatic work so she tried to abruptly change the tone and way things were going by breaking the flow and telling me to make physical motions so that I could “establish boundaries.” Well, I told her no, that I was going to establish my boundaries by not doing what she told me to do. That seemed to throw her. She gave the plattitudes about how conflict is good, but I don’t think she really believes it…

But what really rocked for me was that Noah totally defended me. That rocked.

Stupid kid.

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Ok, I had a kid plagiarise hard core. The whole first page of his paper is blatantly not his work. I spent a while freaking out because I *hate* dealing with this kind of thing.

I asked the kid to stay in during break and said, “So… what is your favorite work by D.H. Lawrence? Kate Millett?” because he had referenced them in the first page. He said he didn’t know who they were. I asked him where he did his research then and he said, “Oh! Wikipedia! I wanted to make sure I wrote a good background on the literary criticism before I got into this book.” *face palm* I explained to him that large scale quoting of other work is plagiarism and illegal and that he has to fail this assignment. He nodded and just said ok.

I can’t give him a zero. He’s an idiot, but it doesn’t look like he meant to be doing something bad. I’ll give him a 50% and call his mother to explain.

Called mom. She understands and is being very supportive. Yay!

{my shit} Freakin out

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Not a good day. Not a good day at all. I’m having anxiety attacks and freaking out. I can point at specific things and say, “See–that’s why I am feeling this way” but it isn’t entirely true. Yes, I feel like this because of those things, but it is my interpretation of those things that creates the problem.

I want to be cryptic and I want to get this shit off my chest before kids get here so I can maybe calm down. I’m sorry baby, I don’t think privacy is going to win this time.

I’m still freaking out because of the scene that went so badly for me in December. I still feel edgy and scared and disturbed. I still don’t want to have sex much. I feel unsafe. But my beloved baby doesn’t feel these same things because he didn’t have the same experience. I don’t say that as a slam or negative statement about him–just as a statement of truth with no judgment. The trouble comes in because I don’t want to have sex. He does. Having ridiculous amounts of sex has been one of the big pillars of our relationship. So uhhhh now we are having a hard time because I don’t feel safe enough to do it and yet he still has the same libido he has always had. I feel pressured and like I am failing to live up to the basics of our relationship. Mostly due to the fact that I am pathetic, insecure, and stupid we aren’t doing the open relationship thing right now so he doesn’t have any other outlet either. This is a problem because I feel like I am not willing to meet his needs and I am keeping him from getting them met elsewhere. This very much feels like the whole situations becomes “all my fault.” It doesn’t help that we have this whole brutal honesty thing. I know he isn’t happy and I feel terribly guilty and awful.

Noah gets upset with me because I can take things he says and twist them just a little bit and use them to beat myself up for a long time. There is a lot right now I am doing that with. I’m having a hard time really believing that he should be with me given that I am failing to a)meet his needs b)allow him to get his needs met elsewhere. I feel like he is suffering because I am crazy and stupid and that isn’t fair to him.

I started thinking at some point this morning that I should just start completely shutting ‘me’ down and just do it. I realized years ago that I am just a hair and a bad day away from being multiple. I am very good at putting on a completely different personality in order to get through various things. I’ve done this since I was a little kid but I have always fought very hard to keep the different personas highly conscious of one another so I am not a real multiple. If I stopped fighting so hard I could easily disassociate completely though. It has certainly happened. I kind of feel like it might be better/easier if I just started doing that. I know that it would be a new and exciting kind of psychological damage and I shouldn’t be seeking new damage in the course of trying to deal with old shit but it feels right now like I am so broken that there is no point in trying to be anything else anyway.

I want to cut. I want to cut so bad I can barely breathe. I would almost like to retreat to the relative comfort/hiding place of being suicidal but I am just functional enough to know that it isn’t an option. I wish it was. Somewhere along the way of fixing my shit I realized that suicide is entirely selfish and I am just functional enough to know how much it would hurt many people for me to do it. I kind of with I didn’t realize it because sometimes I feel like I am drowning under the weight of having to suck it up for the sake of other people.

I don’t know how to be the partner Noah deserves right now. I feel so awful and pathetic and terrible. I hate that I *feel* like he would be better off if I completely disappeared so he could find someone better. I hate that intellectually I know that would destroy him and he would probably never feel safe enough to really look if I did something like that. I would give just about anything to not hurt right now.

The bell rings in three minutes. No more time for me to be stupid and self absorbed.

It’s bad.

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Some people are aware that I have back problems, but I generally try not to whine too much about the situation. Today I don’t want to whine, I want to lie on the floor and sob. It hurts. It hurts so much I keep seeing flashes of white light through my field of vision. I keep having low level spasms. My kids don’t really seem to notice and that is for the best.

But I notice. And I’m taking enough Ibuprofen to make my stomach hurt. Tonight, Vicodin even though it will make me want to throw up. That feeling is better than this pain.

Very emotional day

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And not even for me. I have had three kids come to me to pour their hearts out and ask for help/advice/wisdom. I’m being as gentle as I am capable and taking them to people with more authority when it is a good thing. It means it has been a day for lots of personal disclosure, “You don’t know what foster care is like!” “Well honey… actually, I do.” “You don’t know what it is like to be the only white kid in a neighborhood and have lots of people want to beat you up.” “Well honey…. actually, I do.” Then there is the kid where his parents have told him he is getting thrown out on his 18th birthday so he is trying to determine his options for getting out of high school early so he can get a job. I understand that situation too. *sigh*

It’s one of those days when I feel like despite how difficult my job is–I am where I am supposed to be. Not many people have had my experiences and I’m glad that I can help the kids.

Lost in my head

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Disneyland was good. Spending time with my baby is fantabulous. Tired. Busy. The next few weeks are going to be killer. I’m going to beg grading assistance on 4/29. It’s going to be frightning by then. I can do it, but I’m going to barely sleep for the next two weeks. Between grading and planning… I feel like I’m drowning. But! On the bright side, this is the last hard core push for the whole year. 🙂