Its the feakin weekin

And blah blah blah.

I haven't done much with mine other than get groceries and a little cleaning. It was a long, and yet rapid week. Maybe long isn't the right word. Maybe intense is better.

Labor is intense. While you are in the middle of it it seems like this excruciating, exhausting, all consuming inescapable thing.

My work weeks are no where near as intense as labor, but they share some similar characteristics.

i had planned on getting some work done from home today, but my shopping trip and my brother's need for sleep, and to be very honest, my lack of motivation, interfered with actual productivity. I have this talent for getting obsessive about small things that don't matter when I am overwhelmed by stuff that does.

Cleaning is good, cleaning instead of researching the two papers I have to write, emailing the class mate the information I promised her, and writing IEPs that are due, is not such a good thing. I have an amazing talent for avoidance.

Had to buy some work shoes. I've been wearing shoes that were more or less designed to be worn in a professional setting. They leave in serious foot pain by the end of the day. I spend lots of time moving from one place to another, on my feet dealing with students, very little time sitting. So why do professional shoes only last a few hours before serious discomfort sets in? And I bought the kind that are supposed to be good for you.

Well, now I have brownish running shoes that I hope I can pass off and work appropriate. Truth is, my work attire is very generic and not "me" at all. Its just a collection of button down shirts and kaki pants that seem like they wouldn't be too offensive to the sensibilities of the private school crowd. I honestly have no idea how a scifi loving, punk rock listening, marches to her own beat teacher would dress if she could dress any way she wanted. And all my pants are too big and look sloppy.

I need that show that gives you money and tells you how to dress.

Speaking of shows, not having cable has made me one of those people who has no idea what "Jersey shore" is - some one at work has viewing parties, or what's going on on "talent" - something about a little girl? They sit and talk about it at lunch and I have to ask for clarification.

I guess no one watches Fringe or Eureka or The Gates or Haven or Covert Affairs, those I catch on hulu and love. I'm such a nerd.

Feeling lonely today. I've been on a couple of mini dates that went no where. I've emailed with people who were just not right. But I feel like I'm always going to be alone. I'm too weird and too unwilling to compromise on what I want. I have too much baggage. Aside from loving my boys, and my job, what do I have?

No one. Its a lonely feeling and it scares me sometimes. Makes me feel like a mutant. All these truly flawed, warped people around me have love in their lives. I have routines.

Blah, whining. I'm going to bed so I can get up for church and get some shit done afterwards.

I really DO know what I'm talking about

I know that you may think I don't being that I am young and pretty and like to spend my time working with teens who would rather go get high or cut class than be at school learning, but I really do know.

I know that if you give a room full of kids less than 48 hours warning that they have a test coming, they will panic. I know if you present my SPED kids with 40 questions, crammed together on one sheet and 40 blanks on another, they will get lost in the words and numbers and give up. I know that if you teach an archaic method for solving problems, then offer too few drills for practice, no one will learn it.

And most of all I know if the person in queston had given me a copy of the test like I'd asked and allowed me to shorten it, modify it, and test my kids in another room, they would have passed.

I will stick up and go to the wall for any of my students if they are at least trying, why do so many others seem dead set on setting them up to fail?

Ugh, ok, rant over, for the moment. I was about to go into brain function and learning theory. I'll save it for another day.

Today is The first day this week I haven't so busy or so exhausted that I couldn't see straight. I didn't have to drive to Pitt to go to class, I didn't have to sit in on three hours worth of "at risk" meetings which seemed to boil down to a lot of ignorant gossip. Apparently there really are teachers who think that just because a kids' family isn't "normal" that kid is destined to drop out of high school. Ditto for if the kid had an idiot who did drop out for an older sibling or parent. Don't get me started on what they think of kids with special needs (asperger's is not a risk for dropping out of high school, especially not high functioning, positive about school aspergers) or kids who've had a kid. (ok, that one not a good thing, but really hate the attitude that their fate is sealed).

My regional administrator came to my room today and chatted a bit. He's a nice man, seemed to just be checking in with me. I sometimes feel like there's more I should do, or can do, to help my kids. He says I'm a keeper. The coop I work for is pretty dedicated to hiring quality people, keeping them around, and training them right. I work hard and feel unsure a lot of the time, but I think they all have my back. ITs a good, if humbling feeling.

I hope I continue to prove valuable, because I got paid this week, and its nice to be able to go pay rent, and utilities and phones, and insurance, and still be comfortable about what you have on hand. Is that bad of me? That I like my job and really want to do well because I like the money that comes with it? Am I warped?

Dear God

Please let me be better at my job than I feel like I am.

Please let me be as patient as I want others to think I am.

Please let me be as kind to others as I want them to be to me.

Please let me juggle all this shit with a smile and a wink.

Please let me handle my life with grace even if I don't feel like it.

Please let me know the difference between responsibility and desire.

Please let me do better tomorrow than I did today.

Please remind my children that I love them and miss them and wish I didn't have to drive 75 miles to class and back twice a week after a full day at work.

Please remind me that I don't have things so bad, that in fact I am blessed and loved and worthy and competent.

Because some days I still feel like a 16 year old who's gotten herself into a world of trouble. And lord knows I'm past that at this point.

Thoughts on a tragic anniversary.

So, today makes nine years since the world changed. And it did change. Nine years ago America was attacked by a band of idiots who were funded by another band of idiots who lived far away in mountain caves.

We were attacked because they didn't like us. Didn't like that we educate every one, didn't like that we had freedom to worship as we pleased, didn't like that the people here are allowed to do pretty much as they please as long as they aren't directly hurting someone else.

So, how has the country change?

Now if you really want to win an election, you can question someone's patriotism or dedication to maintaining our safety. Now if you want to fly somewhere you have to be willing to be virtually strip-searched and give up your right to privacy as far as you belongings go.

We are less free than we were. We have been at war for almost nine years and all we have to show for it is one country in ruins with no working government, another country on the verge of total anarchy, and animosity and unrest in most of the middle east, all aimed at us and our allies.

What did I do to mark the occasion? Nothing. I lived my life. I took Noah to the ER because he's got a nasty draining wound on his leg that yesterday looked like a bug bite or a zit. I went to walmart to fill his script and buy some groceries. I played with my kids, napped with Noah, made dinner, cleaned up, folded laundry.

I enjoyed life as a free citizen in a land ruled by laws. And as such a citizen, I'd like to point out that there is a VAST difference between what those misguided idiots did, and the rest of islam. The same laws that allow me to live a free life to make my own mistakes should also protect people who want to raise money and build a house of worship in a particular neighborhood. The same law that says I can marry a man should let two men or two women who love each other marry. The same law that says its wrong to torture a confession out of a murder suspect in South East Kansas should say its wrong to torture information out of a "terrorist" or "enemy combatant". Because I'm gonna say this once, and I hope someone remembers it, a person who killed someone caused terror to lots of people and can be called a terrorist. So can someone who broke into a house, or might have broken into a house, or threatened to break into a house, or maybe just made you feel funny.

Torture is wrong and no where in our constitution does it say that the law of the land applies only to people born and raised here. Its the law OF THE LAND. We should carry it with us, like a light into a dark place, not send people away in order to skirt its application.

I was thinking about today and what has happened in the past nine years. It occurred to me that I am glad my mother didn't live to see all the crap we've done since then. She would have been disappointed in a lot of it. I know I am.

Things

Some good things: I survived my very first IEP meeting. It wasn't bad, but the mom didn't come and I have a feeling I left half of what I would have needed upstairs, but she didn't come so oh well.

The weather has cooled down, probably because of two hurricanes in the area of north america, but I'll take what I can get. I spent the evening on the front stoop watching the kids play and ride their bikes back and forth. It was very nice, I wish I had a real porch that I could put a glider or something on . . . might invest in a glider anyway, they may be cheap at the ass-end of summer.

The car is driving well and despite blowing a wad of cash on vehicle related nonsense I think we will survive until pay day. My neighbor who gave me so many rides seems to be relived to see cars in my driveway. Its like living next door to your uncle or something. Fun. Good place to be.

Some bad things: I slept for crap and a half last night. I hope to sleep better tonight, but I think its a brain chemistry thing and to get things mellowed out I need to go back on the Concerta for a couple of weeks. I hate being defective, and I hate feeling like all my fire has been drugged outta me. But between stress, emotional nonsense, and plain old brain chem, a self feeding cycle of no sleep, bitchyness, and impulsivness gets started. Better to cut it off at the pass.

GOD I hope I'm not bi-polar. Evidence suggests otherwise. Don't argue with that, its my head, I live here, I know how it can get.

Gideon, took him to see his therapist today. He mostly needs assistance with school and will be attending SEKA, similar to Challenger from Pittsburg. An after school program that allows kids to work on social skills and positive behaviors. But he sees the guy every now and then until things settle down. Tonight Gideon was wound for sound. Climbing on chairs, playing hand puppets around corners, demonstrating what a dead penguin looks like on the floor of the waiting area, hiding behind chairs in the therapists office, sitting upside down and sideways in the chairs, not sitting still, covering his mouth and getting so wound he giggled himself to the floor, in other words, he was a hilarious little mess of a person. The guy looks at him, looks at me (wiped out after being at work all day) and asks "still opposed to medicating him?"

Its his brain, his beautiful, wonderful, creative, difficult to handle, refusing to comply, brain. In a lot of ways I like him just the way he is. Medicating him would make him easier to be around, but I love that biting spark in him. I don't want it to go away.

Some so-so things: Got my updated contract for this year, the old one was based on last year's numbers. I officially make over $40K/yr. That's an almost scary amount of money to me. Why? Because I've always been poor white trash. I've always been the one with envy in her soul when she watched you at the mall, or in your house . . . . now I'm the one making good money. I know it isn't retire rich money. It isn't even buy what ever I want money. But its still a hell of a lot more than I was bringing in a right after I left Shane. I almost think that was a different person who slept on her father's couch in his frigid house. Who lay awake in public housing, was that me?

I still don't have a phone and probably wont until after payday . . . . and its damned inconvenient and driving me nuts.

Most of my clothes are too big . . . sounds like a good thing, but when you already look young and work at a high school, there is an advantage to dressing up. In over sized clothes I look sloppy.

I'm outta stream. And still have lots to do. One thing about the internet, you really can work from anywhere.

I suck at some things

Like planning something to do with myself on a holiday weekend. Of course, I tend to set myself up for dissapointment. I set my eye and my desire on someone who can't, won't, or doesn't want to return the feeling. And allow myself to fall into an arrangement instead of a relationship. Arrangements are not relationships. I am not making a moral judgement on them, they certainly serve their purposes, but when one wants a relationship, an arrangement is almost cruel.

I'm being vague. I don't know why. Its not like I've ever been shy with this place. I guess because I'm a little dissapointed in myself, and my instinct is to present my own self in the most positive light. I know I wrote that I would stop seeing J, but I didn't. He invited me over a couple of times, and I went.

Its hard for me, because any time in the past I've been in a relationship or arragenment that needed to end, it was so much clearer. There was anger, jealosy, name calling, fighting, crying. With J, there's just his statement that as much as he likes me, he doesn't want to start anything until he's in a better situation in his life (I know this is an excuse). And my feeling like I don't matter a bit to him, its nice if I show up, but not an issue if I don't.

I am not a terribly picky woman. I don't have a long list of things a guy must have, income, house, car, job and such, in order to be good enough to date me. But I do want to feel like he sees me as important and special in his life. I know important and special don't happen over night, but after five or six months, something should be there.

So, this is it, I really am done. I don't know what it is in me that makes it hard for me to dump these people who are bad for my emotional and mental health. Something lacking in my own self concept I am sure. Its like I crave attention and would rather have attention from anyone, rather than waiting for a special someone.

I know that I have lots going for me. I have a job that is great and challenging and pays me worlds more than I've ever made, and puts me and this kids, finally, out of poverty.

Is my attraction to that man, in his tiny rent-subsidized apartment with is child he sees every time he can, and his unemployment and his school, an attempt to hold on to that other part of my life. That part that was so scared and so desperate for a way out. Is it him I am attracted too, or that I know where he is and its more familiar to me than where I am going?

does any of this make sense? at all?

Anyway, getting back to my original title, I saw him last week, we talked a little about doing something fun, and then I heard nothing all week from him. It hurts to be lead to believe one thing and then experience another. It makes things clearer.

So no boyfriend to have fun with this holiday weekend, and kids at their dad's house. What did I do? Nothing. Played online and watched TV and did laundry. Its nice to have my car back, but I'm broke from paying its bill and can't go anywhere. So that's it for me.

I need a new plan. I know what I want and what I don't want. I'm just sometimes mixed up on how to find that.

Busy

So, been busy lately. Not just the job, but the classes and the family and I bought myself a book the other day and all of a sudden, no blogging happening.

So . . . . If you happen to come across a book called "the Passage" and don't mind stories about poverty, single parents, grief, aging, government conspiracies, and the vampire apocalypse, you should read it. Its long, but I read it in less than a week and am running on five hour energy drinks because I was reading when I should have been sleeping.

I finally got my KIA back. It cost me 1400 dollars to fix and the part that broke, the guy showed me, was a simple rubber belt with teeth like gears. I'm definitely short on money, but I have a car in better shape than before, and then the Jeep to run around town in, mostly for Tom, but if he's going to be watching the kids for me, its fair for him to have wheels. And backup is nice to have.

Still having make angst. I think I may have been too shy (and therefore talkitive) on a getting to know you mini date last night, but the guy kept making little jokes about "fixing" me or "training" me and I really don't think its that funny. As in, not at all funny. I am just not good with guys. I either clam up or I talk too much. Its a nerve thing.

And I kinda wanted to get home and read my book some more.