Dear Friends and Family: A Christmas Letter

Apparently, the thing to do when you're of a certain age, is to send out a form letter to friends and family, letting them all know what's up in your life.  Here comes mine:

Dear Friends and Family:

I'm fairly certain that you know what's going on in my life, because you were either present with me during these events, or you heard about things from "friends and family" (or by trolling social media), but I'm going to subject people to my life anyway.  (You're welcome.)

Let's begin:

I bought a house this year!  Unfortunately, I already bought the same house 23 years ago, but between my enabling and someone else's addiction and stupidity, I did it again!  Hooray!  Debt forever!

I got divorced this year!  Don't recommend it.  I got fucked.  Turns out I should have stayed married and saved a fuck-ton of money.  (#JamesAdams - the choice for MEN seeking money.)

My children are amazing!  (That's just objectively true.)

I thought I had a boyfriend!  I was wrong there - my bad.  I have a friend, who is a boy - that part is true.  Here's the thing:  other people's narcissism is poison.

My job is fulfilling!  (Sometimes.)

Also ... I didn't have a child.  My children didn't have children.  I didn't get a new pet.  I gained a bunch of weight.  I watched The Office far too many times.  I realized how much I love my parents, and how much they sacrificed to raise their children. I was told how to parent my children by people who have no idea how what they're talking about.  I learned to ignore haters more effectively.  I looked in the mirror (and then promptly felt ill).  I did 200 jumping jacks today.  I ate brown rice and quinoa for breakfast.

... is that enough personal information?  Did I reach out, in a personal way, to every person who might give a flying fuck?

Nah.  But the passive-aggressive vibe is out of my head now, so we're good.  (Insert heart emoji here)

Happy Holidays!

MISSION STATEMENT

MISSION STATEMENT

27 NOVEMBER 2019

Not to get all “Tom-Cruise-in- Jerry-McGuire”, but the time has come to identify those things which are fundamentally important in life and to proceed from there.

I have been a teacher for 22 years.  I have been a parent for 29 years.  I was a wife for 22 years.  I have supported other people my whole adult life.  My children may not be perfect, but I love them unconditionally.  I have given love and empathy to students who need it, because my profession has always been a missionary goal.  I listen to the happiness and sadness and anxiety and depression and epiphanies of others, all the time.  I was a good wife for a very long time.  I helped a man through drug addiction and depression and criminal behavior and negligent parenting.  I saved his life.  I secured the lives of my children.  I built a career and used that position to help other people navigate through life, when no one else was else was there to listen.  And in the process, I lost my self.  My soul has grown so thin that I feel like I am rotting from the inside out.  I feel the word “hate” every day.  Most days that hate is directed at myself, because I truly believe in the basic goodness of humanity, but somehow I don’t see that goodness in myself anymore.  I am a shell.  I used to be full of hope.  Now I am full of existential angst.  When Albert Camus said, “happiness is the absence of hope”, I latched onto that statement, because I understand it.  To hope for things which may or not happen, and then to watch most of those things not happen is a crushing blow to my psyche.  I’m not trying to say that all hoping is bad, but I cannot live my life waiting for other people.  I have lost who I am.  I don’t remember the last time I felt pure, unadulterated joy.  I self-medicate in order to breathe, but breathing is becoming a struggle.  If I don’t stop what’s happening in my life, I will never recover.  I will die, and I will die empty.  I do not want to die empty.

I want to help other people, but I have to help myself first.  How?  There is no magic 8 Ball to tell me what to do.  Because I focused so much on being a parent and a teacher and a wife, I have isolated myself into a room with no windows and no fresh air and no contact with people who might be able to help me be better.  My friends are superficial at best, and they are mostly people I only speak to periodically.  My days are filled with bells which dictate when I wake up and when the next group of people want something from me and when I go to bed.  So when I’m not dictated by those bells, I find myself crawling into a mental time-out zone and doing nothing.  I don’t write anymore.  I don’t make music anymore.  I don’t read books anymore.  I try to do those things, but I get distracted and weird, and then I just stop trying. 

I recently thought I was in love, but it turns out that I was just confused.  Having that hope in love just caused me more pain.  I don’t like the part of my personality that likes pain.  Counter-intuitive, counterproductive, and a bit sadistic.  I serve my heart on a platter to people I care about, and very often they send it back, because it’s not “right”.  When I give my love, I only expect acknowledgement, not judgement.  From here on, I will try to refuse to accept other people’s baggage as being my fault.  What happens to people in life is reality.  How we all choose to deal with reality should be ours alone, not a superimposition of what has happened out of the scope of “we”.  Honesty is the crucial element of health.  I am honest, and I need others to respond with honesty about themselves.  I am not other people’s medicine.    

(Sometimes I feel like I’m tied to the whipping post. Oh lord, I feel like I’m dying.)

But starting today, I am going to do my best to acknowledge when my life choices are negatively affecting me and to do something positive to stop making unconstructive decisions.  I will do my job, but I will look for something else.  I will keep trying to love.  I will try much harder to love myself.  I can’t change the fact that the education system is antiquated and falling apart, except in my own space at my job.  I can’t change the fact that I was totally upended personally and financially by lawyers and a man who is a professional victim.  I can’t change the fact that health insurance providers and pharmaceutical companies are robbing me blind, and not providing the very thing they promise (affordable health, both mental and physical).  I can’t change the toxic political environment which is blooming both in America and (seemingly) around the rest of the world.  All I can do is look within myself and try to be a better person.  Maybe.

Peace and love,

Yours truly,

Sincerely,

Et cetera.

Rural America, In Effect

I'm out here in Nebraska country.  Rural America.  My friend has got every possible vehicle I can imagine, and then some more of them.  Trucks, semis, four-wheelers, motorcycles, excavators ... A new combine that cost a half a million dollars.  Fucking A.  That's a lot of money.  I rode in it yesterday, and it's very cool, but I would do something very different with half a million dollars, that's for sure.

And then I walked outside and was being attacked by bugs of all kinds.  (Shouldn't they all be pretty dead in November??) So I decided to take the hose and spray the shit off the side of the house, and all I really did was open up all the various nests and piss off all the bugs.  (Also, don't ever think you can put on cocoa butter lotion on a farm and then go outside.  You just became a meal.)

And then, some dudes pulled up and started shooting their guns.  "Sighting" their guns, is I believe the correct verbiage.  Whatever it's called, it's fucking loud.  I guess they need to get their guns in shape so they can go murder deer (or whatever they're eventually going to shoot at).

The best part of the farm is the night sky.  I can see all the stars.  And the Milky Way.  And the moon is like a character in the "farm story".  Just hanging out up there in the sky making shit happen.

As lovely as some parts of rural life are, I have watched a man doing more manual labor than I've ever seen before in life.  I wouldn't want this life.  Farming takes a certain type of personality, which is not mine.  I like my five minute commute to work.  I like having restaurants and stores right down the street.  I would give away my nosy neighbors, but I'm sure the neighbors here are just as nosy, even though they're further away.

Best wishes to the farmers.  A noble calling.  Just not mine.

(P.S. (a few hours later) More dudes with guns, "sighting".  This time, I wandered over there and learned what they were doing.  How to get your gun ready.  So fucking loud, but I get it.  So I amend my statement about rural America to include hunters.  Interesting stuff.)

(P.S.S. (when I got home) I saw more roadkill than I've ever seen in a span of 75 miles:  three eviscerated deer, two coyotes which were literally smashed across the whole road, two ripped apart dogs, and countless other creatures.  Repulsive.)

The Nine Steps

"Nobody's heard of you.  Nobody cares," said Bryan Cranston in Little Miss Sunshine.

Then Greg Kinnear says something stupid about his NINE STEP PROGRAM for success, which basically sounds like Matt Dillon from Singles, which is: "THIS NEGATIVE ENERGY JUST MAKES ME STRONGER!"

Probably, you don't know what I'm talking about, and that's okay.  (Movies.)  My point here lies in Richard's NINE STEPS FOR SUCCESS.  What are they, you ask?  I don't know (in regard to the movie), but I'll give you nine steps for success right now:

1.  Don't care what other people think.  (Live your life, and fuck the haters.  If you know who you are, and you can look at yourself in the mirror every day with confidence that you aren't a dick, then do your thing.)

2.  Don't apologize.  (This is actually one of Richard's steps.  He says apologizing is what losers do, but I think that people should only apologize for the things which harm other people.  There's no need to apologize for being a person who exists, even if other people don't like your approach to life.)

3.  Don't be a dick.   (So very easy, and yet most people are assholes - preemptively - just because they can be.  Bullies are everywhere, both physically and emotionally.  Random acts of kindness are a beautiful thing.)

4.  Be honest.  (That doesn't mean "be rude".  Honesty is refreshing, and most people are so interested in being liked, that they forget to speak their truth, when truth can set them free from the cacophony of social noise.)

5.  Judge sparingly.  (While judgement is powerful and important, judging other people all the time does nothing but create a situation wherein everyone is gloves-up for the next verbal assault from someone who disagrees with them.  That's when conflict rears its ugly form.)

6.  Reach out.  (We are not alone in this gigantic, sometimes-vapid world.  Ask for help when you need it, and offer help to those who are drowning.)

7.  Read a book.  (Maybe not Mein Kempf - even though I've read it - but just take the time to read something which increases your attention span, or else I'm afraid all of society will succumb to Ray Bradbury's dystopia of screens in their faces rather than actual thought processing.)

8.  Listen to music.  (As Nietzsche so aptly stated, "life without music is a mistake".)

9.  Breathe.  (Deeply and fully.  Live like today is the last day you have to make positive-sum impact on yourself.  Inhale.  Exhale.  Be calm.  Enjoy what you can of the days you have on this planet.)

Education, Inservices, and Other BS

I heard a few things today.
None of them were great.
Welcome to teacher inservice days.


How can students care about learning where a comma goes or why Algebra 3 is relevant to their lives, if they're tired or hungry or sad or distracted and already don't care about school?

High school students face hundreds of problems, every day:  Parents, siblings, substance abuse, domestic abuse, mental health issues, racism, sexism, homophobia, ignorance, bullying, entitlement, apathy. 

The structure of high school boils down to this:  bells, every 50 minutes.  So incredibly annoying.  Students and teachers treated like cattle.  Teachers encouraged to treat students like little idiots.  They can't go to the bathroom without permission and require a pass to be in the hallway, but they are expected to act like adults.  It's all double-speak.  High school is very much about control, both bodily and intellectually. 

Even being a teacher is often a pain in the ass, even though I know it was my calling,  Teaching is a TRAP.  I can't quit, because I can't afford to.  I will have nothing, and I will lose what I already have.  I'm exhausted and tapped.  There are three AP English teachers at my school, and I have literally NO idea what they teach, because the school 'assumes' the 'upper level' teachers and students don't need help or a supportive community.  They are WRONG.

The education system needs to be fundamentally changed.  Get students out sooner.  Have more independent studies and online courses of substance for upperclassmen, so they know how to manage their time in college or in the work force.  High school - in the 'old-fashioned' way - is a joke.

Colleges are essentially just like corporate medicine or big pharma.  They only care about profit, and high schools are feeding their students to these greedy, corporate institutions.  (Embarrassing.)

We HAVE to find a better way for our country. 

Medica: A Middle Finger to Americans

I have some mafia-negotiated insurance though my union job.  I have 80/20 for most things, plus a co-pay, and then (of course) any "specialty" doctor costs more.  (And god help me if I accidentally go out of network.) So I guess I'm doing pretty good, except for the fact that I can't afford to actually go to the doctor, because nothing is free, even though I pay $600/month. 

So, Medica is a new concept to me.  I don't have it, but my boyfriend and my daughter both do.  And they both get fucked.  A lot.  In the not-fun way.

My daughter had surgery on both of her feet, under MY insurance, and it didn't work.  She still can't walk.  Now that she has Medica, her next, necessary surgery is absolutely unaffordable.  No way in hell will she get that surgery.  I can't help her pay, and she exists far below the poverty line.

My boyfriend had to buy market-place Medica.  He has Type 1 diabetes.  Medica doesn't pay for his insulin.  Let me just repeat that one more time:  MEDICA DOESN'T PAY FOR HIS INSULIN!!  Insulin is the one, fucking thing that keeps him alive, and this piece of shit company refuses to pay for ANY of it.  Of course, they'll pay a portion of his Percocet prescription, because pharmaceutical companies need to make bank, but not for essential, life-saving medication. 

(Oh, and they dropped him RIGHT AFTER HE HAD HIS FOOT AMPUTATED, without any previous warning that his insurance didn't go through.  So he got up, pulled his own IV out, and hopped to his truck and drove home.  Fucking predatory corporate medicine and insurance companies.)

I'm not saying that all Americans should have free health insurance, but all Americans should have affordable access to health care.  Rich people should NOT get better care than people who have a regular job.  Most people don't have a savings account balance, let alone a pile of money to shell out for medical procedures.  And on a fundamental level, a large percentage of Americans can't afford physical therapy and mental health services.  My own children don't want to go to the doctor when they're ill, because they can't afford the leftover 20% and the cost of medication, even after insurance.  I am a a single parent, so I can't pay the after-bills for three people.  I can barely afford my own.

Bottom line:  American health care sucks right now.  People are suffering everywhere.  No wonder there's an opioid epidemic - the numbness from the drugs takes away the real-time pain of life.  Maybe if the government would control insurance companies, big pharma, and corporate medicine, Americans could afford to take care of themselves.  Until then, American's are just going to get worse, all because of the mighty dollar. 

You Can Love It or You Can Leave It

My friend is dying.

I know we are all dying.

His death is more imminent, physically.  Mine is more of a slow, mental roll.

He lost part of his foot yesterday, not because of his Type 1 Diabetes, but because he got bitten by a brown recluse ... staph infection ... bone marrow infection ... bone death.  On the "good" foot.  The one which hasn't had several stints and an M-POP.  Fucking irony, for sure. 

Here is a truth about that man.  He has been a Christ-figure since the day I met him.  I remember the day I met him.  My high school boyfriend was being a lying whore (again), and he broke up with me in a driveway.  I cried.  A car pulled up with two boys I'd never seen before.  One was this guy.  He was a fucking champion that night.  A super nice guy (a phrase which would piss him off, if he read any of my writing).  But once you meet your brother-in-arms, you know who he or she is.  They will do almost anything for you.  Sneak you into concerts, talk down security guards, run from the police by your side, break you out of jail when you get caught.  This man is part of my karass, just ask Kurt Vonnegut. 

One of us is going to die.  Actually, both of us are going to die, but it's a matter of who first.  His problems are on the level - on the outside; my problems are in my head, spreading to the rest of me.  Malignant .

"Somehow we gotta find a way, no matter how many miles it takes, I know it feels so good right now, but it all comes fallin' down, when the night meet the light, turn to day.  I wouldn't wait forever, just shoot your shot.  We don't need no more more extras.  We all we got."  

 ... said Mac Miller.  And then he died. 

Sunday, I Suppose

Sometimes I want all the m&ms to be the right color and for the lights not to flicker and to have no fear and to watch the audience perform for me. 

Just for a day.  Just for a little while.  To see from a different perspective.  To get out of my own brain.  To get fired up about something that enacts change or benefits me on an elevated plane. 

I don't know who and what I'm loyal to anymore.  I have like four things in my head right now.  And at least one of them is compromised, at any given time.  I forgot how to be loyal to myself. 

It's raining.  All weekend.  Two nights ago, half of my vision was clear starry skies, then a line, then lightning like I haven't seen here in years. 
                                                             That meteorological line is my life right now.
Look right.  Consider left. 
Be humble.  Sit down.
Or be brave.  And stand up. 

Thoughts About Thoughts

Margaret Atwood The Testaments so far incredibly good.  I was afraid it was going to be disappointing, and then Margaret starting talking, and I shut and sat down and listened.  Can't wait to see where this story goes. 

Also, teaching high school ought to be hazard-pay and social-services pay.  I think I make more of an impact as a "social worker" than I do imparting "English" on students in an "English" class.  (Most high school seniors do not care.)

Next, personal relationships are nebulous, which is a new concept to me.  I always understood interaction in terms of my friends (like, in high school), but I never understood how accurately that reflects and defines the hazy, vague, and/or ill-fined "dating" relationships I have always found myself in.  I seem to want to define things in a certain way, and then I end up fucking things up, or being disappointed. 

In addition, (yes, I am purposefully using terrible transitions, because those are what I see when I read high school writing), gardening is mis-labeled.  It should simply be called "manual labor."  Especially when it's 90 degrees outside.  I painted my shed yesterday, and was in a Joba Chamberlain-style cloud of gnats, which made me want to die.  (Don't know Joba?  - google"Joba Chamberlain pitcher gnats" and watch a Zen master).

Also, why do I have so many plants??

Additionally, I am watching my neighbor's cats, which is fine, but god-damn does having a pet impede a person's ability to do what they want, when they want, without finding a babysitter.  So many specific steps to follow, just to appease animals.  And I'm 99% certain I'm being recorded in that house, so ... yeah.

P.S. That's it.  Just checking in.

Overheard, About Me

My former students are more than happy to share things which other students say about me.  Sometimes those things are nice or supportive or funny, and other times they tell me the really shitty things students say behind my back.

Here's a request:  if you have something to say to or about me, have the courage to say it to my face instead of being a whiny bitch (male or female).

Here are a few things I heard today, about myself:

• Apparently, some of the more advanced classes have group chats which only include members of the class.  This is where I read a thread about me which certain people were sharing while in class last year, which said (among other things) that I am a bitch, I don't know what I'm talking about, I'm annoying, I don't care, I'm a terrible teacher, and so on.  I know most of this hatred stemmed from only a couple of people in the room, but their poisonous attitude made that class unbearable.  By the end of the year, I DIDN'T like them, because they were actively fake bitches every day.
• Another kid keeps telling everyone that he despises me, because of my personality.  (Funny, he seemed just fine until he was failing, and his parents took away his privileges, and then he dropped.)
• Next, I (apparently) like female students better than males, because the males "all get worse grades" on their assignments.  Simply not true, but if the boys are in a mouth-breathing cluster in the corner of the room, not listening to me, and hitting on girls, then their grades might not be great.  
• Another:  my grading system is "arbitrary".  I don't know where that's coming from, because they're told what is expected of them.  They get feedback (which some refuse to read).  I have rubrics.  They get directions.  (I think they're just bitching to bitch.)
• Oh, and apparently I hate Mormons.  Either that, or I teach in direct contradiction to the Mormon belief system.  Or something.  I have no idea on this one either, because while I do think religions are mostly made-up rule books, I don't say things like that in school - ever.  

So, thanks, kids, more making me want to quit this job more than ever.  What started out as a missionary, life-goal 20+ years ago has turned into a daily grind because of the growing groups of self-entitled narcissists, who think they deserve an A simply because they show up to school most of the time.  

I Don't Ask Why No More

Interstellar.

In Between.

In the spaces in between the spaces. 

Lost in a semicolon.

I'm not asking why no more.

It's not the past no more.

I was digging a hole.

     (I had a shovel the whole time, but I still don't no quite how to use it to dig out of my own self.)

Overheard, At A High School

One half of one week of school has passed, and here are some of the most "interesting" things I've heard so far:

• "You can only skeet in a girl in Walmart."
• "If abortion becomes illegal, the women who do it under the radar deserve to die."
• "Just call me diabetes boy.  Or, if I like you, I can be your diabetes buddy.  Here's the thing:  I wear cool shoes, because I'm gonna die early."
• "Liberals are the anti-Christ."
• "Conservatives embody the ideology of Hitler."
• "Donald Trump is worse than Hitler, because he (Hitler) was more effective at getting rid of people who shouldn't be alive."
• "White people suck - all the white cops are racists."
• "Huck Finn fucking sucked.  I hate Mark Twain."
• "Life would be worthless without Instagram."
• "I just met this girl, and I can tell she's a slut."
• "If the projector explodes, I will just turn my wrists toward the shrapnel, because being at school makes me want to die."
• "Holden Caulfield is a whiny bitch.  I don't need to hear that shit."
• "Why does the black guy in Huck Finn keep talking like a n****r?"
• "History is bullshit, because people suck.  They won't ever not suck."
• "If growing up means feeling like shit all the time, I'd rather go out on a meth binge."
• "Educated people are better at manipulating people and getting what they want.  Doesn't matter if it's good or bad."
• "Nobody is ever satisfied.  It's the human condition."
• "All immigrants do is have babies.  It's like they don't know what birth control is."
• "Gatsby was so fucking delusional that he ended up dead in the bottom of his own pool."
• "School is, like the worst part of the year.  All I want to do is go to bed.  Or get high."

I'm just sayin' ... high school is a strange place, full of daydreams and angst. 

Teaching

If you're interested in what the life of a high school teacher is like, you should check out Teaching 1080 (Hours).

teaching1080.blogspot.com

What's Important to Me

Being able to sleep through the night. 
Not being in pain.
Being surrounded by people I love. 
Being happy more often than being sad.
Having enough money.
Living a life with purpose.
Finding a purpose.
Being done.

Independence Day

I don't even know what the word "independence" means.  I am, in reality, independent of nothing and no one.

This holiday, the 4th of July, like so many others, doesn't appeal to me.  Blowing shit up, and paying a bunch of money to do it.  Listening to other people lighting off Jerry-rigged bombs all day and all night.  Good stuff.  Probably great for the environment.

Other holidays:
My birthday:  don't care.
Other people's birthdays:  see above.
Christmas:  Christians stealing pagan rituals and pretending a star was born.
Easter:  Pretending the star rose from the dead.
Halloween:  Pretty cool, but also a chore, with children.
St. Patrick's Day:  Fuck pseudo-Irish people and drunken idiots.
Labor Day:  I'm on board.
Veteran's Day:  On Board.
Mother's/Father's Day:  Shouldn't have to be a holiday to love your parents.
Thanksgiving:  Celebration of destroying a culture, with gluttony.
New Years Eve:  Yep.  Have to buy another calendar.  Cool.

(Just another positive PSA for no one.  You're welcome.)

Paying Attention

Socio-economic strife.
Immigration.
Education.
Health (both mental and physical).

(This shit is everywhere, all the time.)

Interpersonal relationships.
Global Warming.
Addiction.
Dependence.

(But ...)

Sometimes, you just have to look over, and there's a butterfly, resting on a flower.  THAT is the moment to give your full attention.  Especially, when I am in crisis, I need to appreciate the pastoral in life.  Simple things are so comforting.  The story of a butterfly is anything but simple, but it's still beautiful.

Breathe in moments.

The Real Question is WHY

I have no idea why I keep posting on a blog which no one reads.  My name is a lie on this blog, because THE MAN told me I have to keep up a certain persona.  Keeping up a persona is pretty much what I do all the time.  I have become so entrenched in being there for other people that I have forgotten who I am and what I want. 

To be honest, I don't really want anything except love and respect, but those things seem hard to come by in life.  I keep thinking about George Harrison singing, "here comes the sun", and while I can see the sun outside of my window right now, (it's blazing, unbearably hot), I just want the sunshine of positivity in life.  I want to love and be loved.  I want to show respect and be respected.  I just want to share my life with someone who cares about me about a human being.

I'm going to go ahead and give up, because looking for these things in my life has proven fruitless.  Happiness will find me or not, but I can't go on waiting for other people to do the right thing.  In my experience, they don't.

The obvious answer is to love myself and have that be enough.  But I don't love myself very often.  Less each day, actually. Every single thing I do is like an exercise in futility.  The more I try, the less other people try.  Better to just be a recluse and go gently into that good night. 

Nobody knows me.

Lawyers, and Other Parasites

Amongst the dangers of being alive are parasitic creatures.  As I sit here today, I can't help but think about all the people who leech things from me:

1.  My ex-husband.  Stealing my retirement, because he couldn't manage to put one fucking dollar aside during his entire life as a human being.
2.  My divorce lawyer, who extorted roughly $8000 from me, just because the county court wouldn't accept my signed paperwork (obviously, in order to keep lawyers fed with them charging $60 fucking dollars every time they read an email).  #JamesAdams
3.  Telemarketers.  Isn't there some sort of a fucking law that prevents companies from systematically harassing people on a daily basis??
4.  Courts:  Fuck everyone who says the state of Nebraska sides with women.  No one sided with me, nor was I able to have my day in court.
5. 

Yes, I just typed the number five and then stopped, because I don't want to be angry any more.  I have a "boyfriend" who is too wrapped up in his own shit to be a proper partner; I have children with mental health needs, which I can't pay for, because the government makes health care totally unaffordable; I have a child who broke up with her abusive boyfriend only to lose most of what she had and another child who literally got robbed the other day and another child who is going to be robbed by the predatory university system and the federal government; I now have a mortgage payment which I cannot afford, because my children's father thinks I'm going to sell my house and profit (on a house which is literally falling apart), so he bartered away my retirement - via lawyers - so I can keep my house and have a place for my three children to live.  (What in the actual fuck?)

I'm just tired of the bullshit, you know?  Tired of having other people tell me what I can and cannot do, based on random, non-universal standards. 

I have done my best to be a good person and to live a good life, but there will be a time in the immediate future where I can't afford to live in a house which I bought 23 years ago, but still owe $95000 on, because of a certain other person's stupidity, addiction, and selfishness. 

Good times.
Life is exhausting.

Robbery

Get used to it.  You're going to be robbed, either intellectually, emotionally, financially, or sexually.  If you are reading this and you haven't been robbed already, consider yourself lucky.  (and perhaps delusional)

I don't want to sound like an alarmist, because not everyone is bad.  There are some really good people in the world, but at some point, we all intersect with someone who wants something which is ours:  time, material goods, love, attention, money ...  Sometimes we are able to protect ourselves, but (often when our guard is down) sometimes people just take what they want and leave.

Rude.

Have I done it?  Probably.  I have never robbed someone by breaking into their home or sticking a weapon in their face, but I'm sure I've wanted more than someone wanted to give to me.  We're all human.

But here's the thing:  empathy is crucial to the survival of a civilized society.

Don't be a dick.

Daughters

(for my girls)

If I could write the words which are the notes to the song Daughters by John Mayer I would do it (the sound is peaceful and a charming).  And then he says, "I know a girl; she puts the color inside of my world.  She's just like a maze, where all of the walls continually change". 

John pretty much sums up how I feel about my daughters.  I don't know what or who I'd be without them.  They reinforce me and inspire me and challenge me and make me a better person.  I honestly can't imagine what my life would be like without my girls.  They have caused me grief and pain, but - on balance - their good hearts keep me alive.  They are fierce, both of them.  In totally different ways. 

I wonder if I parented them right.  If what I see on a daily means anything, I'd say they are two of the best people I've ever met.  One's on a bender and one's on a mission.  (Currently.) 

I want nothing but good for them, and when I hear that they have to encounter the trials and tribulations of being alive, I want to go into mama-bear mode.  But we have to let the people we created be the people they are.  I can't be with them all the time physically, but I have their back on a soul-level every single day. 

"Fathers be good to your daughters, because they will turn into lovers who turn into mothers."

Papillion Days

Papillion Days, am I right?

If you're from where I'm from, you know the spectacular display of people who gather at City Park.  Every possible version of people.  (Which is why some introverts stay away from places like this, because of all those hundreds of people, they know many of them and don't want to have to put on a face to talk to those other people in a superficial, suburban, "my-kid-knows-your-kid", "I taught your kid", "apparently, you're my neighbor (oops!)" sort of way, and inter-personal drive-bys are suddenly, directly in your face.)

Music and mosquitoes.  Loud noises and off-the leash pre-teen nuisances.  Extortion-level cost to ride and exhausting pressure to pay the extortion.

All in all, good times, right Papio?

(To be fair, I did see a bunch of extraordinarily cool planes that (I think) the air force base was trying to show off.  I don't see a bunch of fighter planes in formation very often.)

Hitchhiking, In a Galaxy

I want to go for a long walk with Douglas McAdams - just him and me - with a bottle of wine and no glasses. 

When I first read Slaughterhouse Five, I got to the end and then started again at page one.  I think Douglas McAdams read Vonnegut and then got an idea to make Vonnegut's idea of life - smashing with science fiction - more specific and (definitely) weirder.  This guy is a true and proper nerd, in all the great ways.  Hyper-intellectually making up words so the reader has to pay attention differently. 

I'm reading Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy again right now, for whatever reason, and the parallels between what Vonnegut was saying and what McAdams was saying, and what is happening RIGHT NOW are just dead-on.  (Actually,  that's not a great statement about humanity in general, but whatever.)

So anyway, Douglas and I are hanging out (me reading his book), and I'm also listening to Christopher Hitchens talk about George Orwell while reading Hitchens' book Why Orwell Matters.

Here's what I'm thinking:

Since the dawn of modern civilization ... humans started fucking things up.

• people often don't know where they belong
• people often forcibly tell others that they don't belong 
• people can see things happen
• people often choose a version of what they are seeing
• People often hear words
• People very often don't listen

My favorite writers are those who tell me a story that I believe and which adds something important to the conversation about humanity and culture and social ideology.  

Vonnegut wrote about hitchhiking in a galaxy called Vietnam and PTSD ...

McAdams wrote about hitchhiking in a galaxy called Existential Angst and Peace ...

Orwell wrote about hitchhiking in a galaxy called Social Injustice and Fear ...

Hitchens wrote about hitchhiking in a galaxy called Ideology and Communication ...

If you don't think for yourself, other people will think for you.  I know that sounds easier on some level, but don't drink their Kool-Aid.  The only things that makes people semi-unique is that they can choose how to think and act.  Humanity is doomed to (accelerated) extinction if individual people stop thinking.  

As Christopher Hitchens wrote, "an old radical adage states that 'the will to command is not as corrupting as the will to obey'."  Amen, brother.  Obedience is what we should want from a dog (and even then, leave the fucking dog alone).  

Think.  Step out of your head.  Now do it again.  (simple civics advice)

lift

Directions:  to lift something, you simply pick it up.

Now, just do it .

Look in the mirror.
Don't hate what you see.
Try to remember who you are. 
Try to smile at yourself.

Don't overthink the things you have already thought about too much. 
Just breathe, and do something. 
Get lifted.  Lift yourself. 

Go for a walk. 
Read a book.
Grow something.
Listen to music.

And do something you're passionate about. 
Something you care about enough that it helps you step into the light.
Darkness is beautiful, but solitude can be a fast river to an unexpected cliff.

Find the best part of you, in any given moment, and celebrate it. 
Pay attention.
Listen to yourself; you know what to do. 

Can I Get a Witness

I feel like I am bearing witness to something important right now: culturally, socially, politically, and personally.  I'm not entirely sure what I'm looking at, but I know what signs looks like.  They look like glaciers melting and reclaiming large pieces of the earth; the systematic reversal of women's rights at the same time ED medication is being advertised on the radio with no prescription needed; the amplified, partisan, hateful political climate; the parallel rise of radical ideologies, social revolutions, and the subsequent middle-class side-stepping; the unacceptable lagging behind of the education system in relation to reality; the predatory nature of banks and universities which will lead to an inevitable economic stagnation.

"What am I supposed to do?" they said.  "I'm only one person and the whole system is corrupt!"  (Doesn't matter which "side" they are on, in terms of who's speaking.)

Well, we could all take some advice some those who came before us, and stop proving the adage that history repeats itself:

• "I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues," said the Lorax.
• “If people cannot write well, they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them,” said George Orwell.
• “Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave,” said Frederick Douglass.
• “No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body. No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother,” said Margaret Sanger
• "Do unto others as you would others do unto you," said Jesus.  

We seem to be going in the direction of Alice in Wonderland, though, because things are becoming curiouser and curiouser.  

People think I am a pessimist, but I am exactly the opposite.  I am an idealist; I want everyone to reach the potential they have as human beings, but I'm often disappointed when they don't care enough to try.

Every act of kindness changes a moment.  How hard is it to be a human being who respects the life and liberties of other people?  Obviously, pretty hard, because another fucked-up person took guns into work today and killed 11 people.  Like the absolutely worst possible episode of Parks and Rec - just astoundingly tragic.  

But just another day in America, 2019. 

Pieces

Life is in pieces.  Little segments which assemble, disassemble, reassemble. 

Sometimes the pieces are quite lovely - moments which make us pay attention to what's going on in the right now, rather than looking forward or back.  Sometimes the pieces are devastating - flying shards of metaphorical glass slashing in every direction.  Sometimes we forget to pay close attention to what's going on, and we get comfortably numb - walking around in a self-imposed trance of work or things labeled "have to".

I would rather burn with the fever of love or creativity than waste away in the void of crippling mediocrity. 

Like Ray Bradbury said, "stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you'd drop dead in 10 seconds.  See the world.  It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories."

I guess that means I need to get off this computer, stop shopping on amazon prime when I'm bored, and do something that doesn't rot my brain.  (And then later, I might do something that DOES rot my brain, just for fun.)

Peace & love.

A Happy Moment

Honestly, if you have any sense of music and vibes, listen to this song, right now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaCrQL_8eMY

Divorce Sucks

Don't get married.  

Love someone, and have that be enough.

$30 to get married, and thousands of dollars to get divorced.  

Just live together, breathe together, and be together, until that's no longer an option.

Don't buy things together.

Don't let lawyers and a court decide what's "right".

Fuck the system and do things on your own terms. 

In-Service Day: Another Assault on teachers

Today was an Inservice Day.  If you're not a teacher, you don't understand.   Let me try to assist in your understanding.

Schedule:
8am:  a meeting about cultural competency.  My basic take from this meeting is to not be a racist.  Quite specifically, don't go up and touch a black person's hair just because you think it's cool looking.  (I believe children learn this lesson in elementary school, with the personal bubble and all.)
9am:  a meeting about teacher "feeling words" and how to navigate, well, your feelings.
10am:  another meeting about LGBT+ students and how to deal with their identifying names and pronouns (to be honest, this one was probably necessary for a lot of people, specifically older people who don't think transgender people are real).
11am:  a 2 1/2 hour meeting about ... ?  I honestly don't know.  What I do know is that the person who was speaking was being paid to talk to a roomful of adults who are all teachers, but talked to us like we were painfully ignorant children who were raised by wolves or something.  And then, there was a mass herding of people to four different locations with gigantic sticky notes to write down feeling words and ideas to help students deal with their feeling words.
12pm:  I didn't go to lunch.  Instead, because I'm the head of the Staff Appreciation Committee, I typed out a note to get teachers to do something fairly simply, cut 100 pieces of paper to fit on 100 small manilla envelopes, and then taped the note to the envelopes.  Then I assembled 3000 little "apples" for students to write a nice note to a teacher.  Then I sent out emails to explain the simple thing (which teachers will inevitably mess up).  And then I put them in the mailroom.  When those are filled out, I will have to go through all 3000 and sort them by teacher, in order to redistribute those notes to the right teacher.
1:30pm:  yet another meeting about which insurance company/plan our district should go with (as if our voice really matters), plus I've already attending three of those meetings and watched several videos online.
2:00pm:  went to Sam's Club to pick up the food I ordered for Staff Appreciation, which I will have to somehow get into the school during the next week without wanting to punch someone in the face because I have to sherpa that shit in, so people can have snacks all week.

Then, I came home, and now I'm grading the papers I should have been grading WHILE I WAS AT WORK!   But no, I have to do my actual work at home, because when I'm attending a staff day, I can't get anything productive done.

Meanwhile, students have the day off.
Super-productive use of my time.

So It Ain't So

My love is a heartbreaker.

I break my own heart, all the time, by caring too much about other people.  I periodically break other people's hearts, accidentally.

 The best version of me is fairly fucking invincible.  The worst version of me is a doormat with a target painted on it - just a red X with a footprint overtop.

Unacceptable behavior for a human of my capacity is to self-medicate and lie still.  Acceptable behavior is to engage.  Best scenario behavior is to blow in, over, and around life, like the smell right before a thunderstorm.

I want to bring the rain.  I need another baptism to cleanse my soul of the pollution of humanity, and of my own vapid stupidity.

In the meantime, I going to go pound the congas and share my heartbeat with them.  I can think of nothing better to make me feel alive and powerful.  Because as it turns out, no one really cares, so we might as well roll with that.

The Anti College Recommendation

The time of year has come when people are asking me for recommendations for student council, class president, and college admission.  Let me just say that when I write a college recommendation, I knock that shit out of the park.  I can make just about anyone look good, on paper.  But sometimes, someone asks me to write a recommendation and I have to say no, because they fail every category on a recommendation form.  So ... let me give you a generic, amalgomous version of the letter I would love to send off to college for some students:

To Whom It May Concern:
      Do not let this kid into your school.  I mean, if he or she wants to pay full tuition, then go ahead, but if you want someone who is ready to take on the responsibilities of being a semi-adult, this person is not a good pick. 

     Let me give you some examples, to solidify my lack of confidence in this person.

• This person failed my class.  They couldn't manage to turn in assignments, regardless of how easy or difficult.  They waited until the last possible minute, and then tried to get me to pass them.  I didn't.  Because they didn't deserve it.
• This person is incredibly vapid.  A total airhead.  Nothing is getting in their head, except notifications from whatever social media site is on their phone.  Total inability to pay attention to anything except their own version of the world, channeled through an app.  No attention span to speak of, and no desire to be better on any level.
• OR ... he/she is so filled with manic-depressive thoughts, that it will be a fucking miracle if they get through even one semester of school before dropping out and moving back home. They should spend their parent's money on therapy, not college. 
• This person's life plan seems to be to go to college, in order to get out of their parent's control, and then systematically vomit in a series of bushes on campus, because getting drunk and/or high is more important than learning anything academic.
• This person can't read.  For real.
• This person has literally no idea what they want to do with their life, except for texting the person across the room in order to talk shit about other people in the room.  A real gem.
• I have watched this person cheat on virtually every assignment for every class - in front of me - and use the excuse that they're just "using available resources".  None of their transcript grades are accurate, except to show how good they are at navigating around the system for personal gain.
• This person's National Honor Society community service hours were ALL forged, by them.  In front of me. 
• Responsibility, you ask?  I wouldn't trust this person with a plant that I don't even care about, let alone to take care of themselves or lead others (unless they're headed toward a cliff, and weed is growing at the bottom).
• While I'm 100% certain that this person has been taught how to use punctuation and write sentences, I've seen no evidence of that.
• Quite often, this person turns in assignments four months after they are due, then acts like I'm a bitch for not telling them how special they are for actually turning in something with words written down. 
• Personality, you ask?  Honestly, this person is kind of an asshole.  I've seen them bully other people, belittle other people, and generally act like a dick on a daily basis.  (I mean, if that's the kind of person you want, then they must be applying for ASU or UC Boulder and joining the Greek system.

Other than the obvious human flaws, I'm sure this person would be super great at your university.  Just let me be really clear about the fact that there is a very high chance that they won't make it past freshman year, or they will accidentally light their dorm room on fire with a hot plate they're using to heat up crack, or melt bath salts on a hot surface just to see what happens.  

Peace out, said an educator.  

Marketable Words

My notebooks, just like my head, are full of nonsense scribbling.  They're full of feelings or thoughts that I had for a moment, but by the time I go to write them down, they've mostly dissipated.  Just like when I try to turn my thoughts into actions.

I spent about four hours gardening today, which clears my head, and I'm now just sitting outside - in the sun! - trying to decide how I feel about the word "alone".  "Alone" is different than "lonely", but sometimes I can't tell the difference.  I think loneliness stems from wanting to share you life with someone who knows, understands, and appreciates me, but not having that person. 

I could outsource that need by having friends, but the sharing isn't the same.

The worst thing is thinking you've found someone, but that person doesn't feel the same way, or is wildly insufficient in satisfying either one of us.

I get that "trying too hard" is often the path to failure, and I guess I haven't figured out what it means to "try", versus what it means to "try too hard", until it's too late.

As Noah Marley says, "I'm trying to save me from myself, and I'm flying with no control straight towards hell".  ("Somebody save me.  Am I worth saving?")

He's a wordsmith, that one. 

I used to think I could be a writer, and I haven't given up on that dream yet, but I can't write with direction or purpose when I'm constantly assaulted by teaching, parenting, and trying to pretend like I'm like everyone else.  I need a hot minute to look inside, without anyone else's input, and find myself. 

I'll keep looking, because I'm pretty sure this person inside of the trappings of society has many stories to tell.

In the meantime, I'm going to get back into the soil in my backyard and dig.

Irrational Anger

Here is a list of things which make me irrationally angry:

• owning like 30 towels, but never having more than two which are clean, because my roommates (apparently) hoard the dirty ones
• people who speak "feeling" words out loud, and pronounce those words to be "fact"
• having irrational angry feelings
• people who disrespect others, because they don't care about anyone but themselves
• apathy
• being ignored 
• doing the same things over & over, which I know aren't good for me
• fringes on the side of notebook paper
• being dependent on anything or anyone
• people who are stupid, on purpose
• other people leaving only ONE of something, so they don't have to buy more of it
• people projecting their shit on other people
• people who refuse to listen
• cup and glasses and dishes left in my white room
• people who drive too slow in the fast lane
• my own, intrusive thoughts

But the upside of this anger is that I just typed it out and wrote it down, some it can't make me angry in the current moment.

Something cathartic.

Socrates & Hemlock

Here's the basic deal:  Socrates was the first journalist.  He went out in public and verbally engaged with people who held political offices, and he asked them questions until people started gathering around and listening.  His goal was to make the politicians identify their ideologies - out loud - in front of other people, so democracy could happen.

He ended up being sentenced in court to either go outside and say he was a liar or to drink poison.

He drank the poison.

While I can't say The Republic is my favorite book, or that Socrates wasn't objectively wrong, periodically, I WILL say that someone had to commit ideologies into words that other people could consider.  (And let's remember that Socrates didn't write anything down, Plato did so after his mentor drank poison rather than lie - the true definition of a good teacher.).

Is The Republic hard to read?  Yes.
Is it frustrating?  Yes.
Did I want to punch someone, or myself, the first time I read it?  Yes.

Do it anyway.  Brain candy is sometimes a Hershey's Kiss, but sometimes it's a Now & Later, hard and then easier to eat.

Think.  Critically.

Ain't No Sunshine

Here are a series of things I wonder:

• why do people pretend to be something they're not?
• why do I pretend to be someone I'm not?
• why don't the people I truly love reciprocate?
• why do I care so much about other people?
• why won't the people I want to talk to talk to me?
• why do I purposely create a situation where people think I'm a hermit?
• why don't I love myself?
• why am I my worst critic?
• why do I love a cat more than I love some people?
• why is Bill Withers narrating my life?
• why do other people seem to know how to be better at life than I am?
• is this a lovely day?

Jesus Don't Want Me For a Sunbeam

Sunbeams are not made like me.

humanity

Humanity I Love You 

By: e.e cummings 

Humanity i love you
because you would rather black the boots of
success than enquire whose soul dangles from his
watch-chain which would be embarrassing for both

parties and because you
unflinchingly applaud all
songs containing the words country home and
mother when sung at the old howard

Humanity i love you because
when you’re hard up you pawn your
intelligence to buy a drink and when
you’re flush pride keeps

you from the pawn shop and
because you are continually committing
nuisances but more
especially in your own house

Humanity i love you because you
are perpetually putting the secret of
life in your pants and forgetting
it’s there and sitting down

on it
and because you are
forever making poems in the lap
of death
Humanity

i hate you