I’ve been a little reluctant to post a new post after that sweet, sweet letter that D wrote me. I just kept coming back to my blog and re-reading it. I know that I am loved. I will be fine. We’ll get through, it, whatever it may be.

Yet life and its insecurities rage on. I don’t know if it’s safe to write about using illegal drugs on one’s blog, no matter how anonymous it is (and this one’s not all that successful at anonymity!) So I am only going to say this: that if I were to be the sort of gal who enjoys a puff or two of a relaxing kind of smoke from time to time when the kiddos are safely put away on their shelves, then now would be a pretty good time to seek such relaxation.

In fact, D and I are both pretty anxious right now. I hadn’t mentioned this before (probably because of denial, shame, or whatever) but we’re being sued by the lovely city of brotherly love. It’s because apparently our accountant made a mistake on our 2001, or maybe it was our 2002, tax returns. It seems that our city taxes were not filed, or not filed properly.

Since I’m someone whose eyes glaze over and ears seemed stuffed with fluff whenever taxes are discussed, I honestly don’t fully get what happened, or when, or why. I just know that our tax situation requires that a (new) professional accountant deal with it. In order to avoid the $5000 fine and being required to appear at a hearing, the city requires that we file (or re-file, if it was filed) no later than three days before the hearing. If we do, the hearing’s cancelled, the $5000 fine is avoided.

The hearing is August 11. When we’re in upstate NY on vacation. Talking to the accountant’s office today, he said they’d get right to it and work on our taxes. Um… please hurry the fuck up, ok? I mentioned to the clerk I spoke with that there’s this little $5000 fine we’re trying to avoid, and the little lawsuit we’re trying to have dropped… and the best he could say is that they’re going to get started on it right away.

Anxiety much? Now you can understand why I might just be interested in something that might take the edge off. Ease the freak-out a little.

I am also anxious about packing for our vacation (remember my little problem with packing for a ONE NIGHT STAY recently? Well how’s about a two week trip to the middle of nowhere NY where you have to drive 30 miles to get anywhere civilized?) I am perhaps equally anxious about preparing for next year and working as the after school teacher at this wonderful little school. It’s like being pregnant in a way. You get to this point where you suddenly remember OH SHIT! I’M GOING TO GIVE BIRTH! AM I READY FOR THIS?

The fact is I am NOT ready. I am far from ready. I also am not feeling ready for the simple daily life functions of getting my kids up daily, dressed, fed and out the door to go to school on time each day. I am not ready to pay my business bills, either. I really need to do much more, or else face serious consequences.

It’s also 11:52 AM and I am not ready to feed my kids their lunch today. I didn’t get them an adequate breakfast, yet, either, though they both ate something.

And here I am just lolling in anxiety to the point where I wonder if it would be a good idea to take part in some kind of relaxing herbal refreshment (what my pals and I sometimes called it when we were teens).

I need to get my shit together. Perhaps the first thing to do is get dressed and go buy some food. I’ll need some snacks later on if I go with the whole herbal refreshment plan, anyway.

The whole middle of my body, from somewhere near my ribs down to my belly button feels like its filled with some kind of heavy, dangerous substance. I have to hold myself steady to keep it from tipping out of my in some way. My hair is screwed onto my head. My arms are clenched and ready. My eyes are weary but wary. My heart feels like it is doing a loop-dee-lou, racing around, while I wonder if I should sit or stand, walk or lay down, write this blog post or make a list of things to do.

Anxiety.

I am anxious about the camp I’m supposed to teach in just a few short days. I am not prepared at all. I don’t have the materials for it yet. I don’t have the snacks. I don’t even have all the activities planned. In fact, a lot of people who’d expressed interest in going to camp are now saying their kid won’t come. So I don’t even know if this is going to work for the school, as in financially. Which was a condition of offering the damn camp in the first place.

I have to confess I really don’t think I want to do this. I am really afraid of failing. I’m afraid it will go badly, and then I could really not get the job for next year.

The Personnel Committee has still not met with me to discuss anything about next year; the staff didn’t say peep, either. So day to day (and this is the last week of school: TWO days left of me teaching after school), I am unsure about my future. Will I have this job in the fall? Are they waiting to see if I do well in the camp program before considering me for the job?

They could just decide to tell me that they aren’t going to re-hire me for next year and that they’re doing a new job search and I need not apply. That’s how unsure I feel. That’s how anxious. Pit of Tension in stomach, lump in throat.

AND YET. And yet, tonight I went to the eighth grade graduation ceremony, which was incredibly sweet. I cried a little for each and every graduate, out of the feelings of love so evident in the comments of the parents, friends and staff. This school really is wonderful in so many ways. It feels more like a church than a school; it’s a community of people who share certain values and work together to raise their kids into beautiful people.

The graduation ceremony left NO ONE out. I even got a rose! I was SO shocked to be appreciated publicly, not just once, but twice! One of the parents took great care to acknowledge the after school teachers (3 of them, including me, who ran the program during her children’s time at the school) and to recognized each by name and to thank each of us for giving her kids a safe and comfortable home after school.

And then there was a part of the ceremony where the graduates gave a rose to each current staff member, even office staff, and spoke a sentence or two about the contributions and efforts of each member. Including me. Yes, including me. I was so touched to be included.

I’d been sitting there, in the back row, with tears streaming down my face, overwhelmed with emotion about all the love these kids are surrounded by. When suddenly I heard my name — and was so surprised. I did NOT see it coming at all. It was clear to me that even though it’s been only a few short weeks, I am making an impact on the lives of kids and their families. To be appreciated publicly? That is such an unusual feeling for me– usually I feel I am on the outside looking in, or else hidden from view. Ignored or overlooked, or generally taken for granted.

In spite of the kindness and the inclusion of today, I also sat there watching the other teachers. I sat alone. They all had each other. They are a group, and I am not really a part. They are full time, while my job is part time. They all have staff meetings together: I can’t go to the meetings most of the time, since I am watching the kids in after school. My personality doesn’t do well with feeling left out — I am just not quite secure enough for that.

Plus, apparently with all the people around, I got distracted and must have left the window open in the room where I teach, because one of the lead teachers kind of scolded me about it just before graduation. The school wasn’t empty when I left it to walk over to the other building where graduation was taking place — and this must have distracted me from doing my usual doors and windows check. Figures that the one day I forget, this particularly strong teacher would notice and take the time and energy at graduation to scold me. It left my stomach feeling, well, like it does now.

I’m filled with dread. Do I get to keep this job or not? It is so hard being left in the dark on this issue, with the ambiguity continuing and continuing. And every day that I work in the job, I’m trying to do a good job but I’m also so nervous. I feel like I’m being watched and judged. And camp is the final exam.

There’s so much going on, I want to scream. There are end-of-year potlocks to prepare for, and when will I do that? I have from 9:30 am tomorrow morning, until about 2 PM when I have to head to work to: prepare for two potlocks, buy supplies for camp, buy snacks for camp, plus take care of the usual things I have to take care of. I am overwhelmed and miserable.

And I don’t even know if I’m wanted for this job for next year!

And I’m working for two weeks from 9 am to 5:30 pm FOR NO ADDITIONAL PAY even though I have NO ACTUAL OBLIGATION TO DO SO. But I feel I was pressured into it: If I didn’t do it, they’d have even more reason to NOT re-hire me for next year. So I am trying to be good, and do it, and do it well, and cope and manage it all.

Pit of tension. Super pit.

They Love Me. They Love Me Not. They Love Me. They Love Me Not. Well, what is it?

I am fine now. TMI area below.

Meanwhile, Carla’s sick with the flu. Boy did I feel dumb when her doctor casually asked if we’d gotten “flu protection this year.” Uh, no. Not that it’s automatically recommended or required for a seven year old, but I am kind of kicking myself (it’s a hobby of mine!) She has already been through the worst of it, though.
I even don’t call the doctor quickly when my kids are sick. I follow pretty strict criteria; their illness has to reach certain levels of either high temperature or one which lasts, or the illness itself has to last a certain length of time and not respond to the first treatments that I offer. It’s not that I’m indifferent, it’s just that I don’t like to drag a sick kid out to the doctor when I think that bedrest, fluids and tylenol will likely do the trick.

I decided last night, however, that three days of fever were plenty and I wanted to specifically rule out strep throat and ear infections and so, off we went today. If there was a way I could be trained to examine ears, and a home strep culture, I would probably be able to decrease our pediatrician visits dramatically.

Now… as for about ME and my LITTLE PROBLEM, I will let you be the decider about whether you want to…

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Weird… Herein lies one of those Too Much Information kind of posts, so I’ll leave it to your discretion as to whether you want to read more……….
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Stacie tagged me to write a 7 random facts meme about myself. Since I pretty much love writing all about me, me, me, me, me, me, and me, this me-meme is well received.

Unfortunately, today I am a CRANKY me. So my 7 things will reflect that. There are some rules or some shit like that, but I am not playing nice today.

Here it is, the 7 reasons why I am so damn cranky today.

1. Didn’t get enough sleep last night. Spent about 2 hours dealing with a surplus of cat litter boxes (a problem that I myself am responsible for creating, since I have been procrastinating this task way way way too long). I finished this task around 12:30 am, and then needed a long, long shower to feel clean again.  Asleep in bed by 2 am, up by 8:30am.

2. Ran out of anti-depressants about a week ago. Four phone calls, two missed return phone calls complete with snotty messages left by Nurse Crachett, and one cranky visit to the doctor’s office later, I *think* there should be a bottle of happy pills waiting for me at CVS. There better be, or this will need to be an 8 reasons list instead of 7.

3.  Got up early, ran around getting C ready for her circus class, and didn’t make coffee prior to leaving the house. Not a good idea, especially considering items #1 and #2.

4. Sitting through circus class, watching C poke, nudge, and otherwise flirt with the boys, making them all be irritating and annoying and disruptive to the class whilst A insists on hanging upside down on my lap, squirming around, and spilling chocolate milk on the studio floor (no food or drink in the circus studio, please). And all this with no coffee in me. Fit to be tied, I was.

5. Dear Aunt Flo, It’s so lovely having you visit this week. My, oh my, who would have know that such incredible high tides of red could be possible. Those new jeans aren’t looking all that new anymore, but hopefully nobody’s going to be examining the crotch all that closely. Still: ew.

6. One un-medicated parent is bad enough, but two? Hi honey, I guess we both need our stimulants to be functioning. And yes, I know I’m cranky and irritable. You got some kinda problem with that?

7. Ok, I know this is LAME in the EXTREME, but PACKRAT on Facebook? What’s up with the constant error messages when I spammed my “friends” to try to get a “rare edition” card?? No card, but I bet the spam went out just fine. Grrrr.

I’d tag someone else but I am too cranky to think about whom to tag.

IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER

Take out the trash, compile the recycling into bins, snuggle Annie, retrieve data from two different ailing hard drives for clients-who-are-friends, do the laundry, clear out the clutter in my bedroom, freecycle a crib, plan the after school program for next week and for today, write a newsletter, clean the kitchen, take Annie to preschool-that-started-about-an-hour-ago, do billing for my business, pay bills for the biz, buy myself some new shoes (I got paid today!), take a shower, clean the dining room, organize my classroom space, buy pet supplies, clean the cats’ boxes, clean the guinea pig cage, vacuum the kids’ rooms, play scrabulous,  eat breakfast, make coffee, update purchases for the biz bookkeeping, call my dad, call my mom, clean out the car, get my antidepressants rx refilled, take a nap.

Well, at least I got ONE thing done so far.

Drob’s grandma (85) is moving out of her one bedroom apartment and into more of a studio-sized apartment in an assisted living village. She’s lucky, if you ask me, to be able to afford such high quality living in a beautiful place. She is well, able to care for herself, and has been living independently and alone since her husband died in 1999. But her memory isn’t what it once was, and she can’t (or won’t) hear very well, and now she’s emptying out her apartment of the things that she has accumulated in the last fifty years or so.

She’s giving us her dining room chairs (purchased in 1947), an old fashioned mirror, an assortment of kitchen things as well as a glass bowl from her mother’s house, and numerous other things. I should be grateful for all this, but actually I’m quite overwhelmed.

I want to purge my house of the clutter, so what am I doing getting so much more of it? Well frankly, what I am doing is helping out Grandma who needs to get rid of things. I will soon be sending out messages to Freecycle some of these things.

The dining room chairs, though, they are great. It so happens that my dining room chairs (bought circa 1979 by my parents, then passed to me) are falling apart.  They don’t make stuff to last like they once did, do they?!

All in all, I’m so overwhelmed with the status of my home that I am not even that worked up about the primary season. I have in fact, made up my mind about which democratic candidate I’d like to win the election, but I also would turn and support my second up choice in the general election.

If only the candidates would show me some love by coming to my house and helping me clear out the clutter. Do you think any of the campaigns offer that kind of service? Just a thought.

I think it’s fair to say my mind is a bit on the weird side today.

We’re regrettably late for school nearly EVERY DAY. Today I had a conference with C’s second grade teacher and was surprised to find how upsetting it is for me to be reminded of our continual failure to be on time.

I find it humiliating, arriving late for school - it is really hard to manage each morning. I have a hard time waking up, a hard time getting everything ready for the day, getting out the door, and it seems like there is always a delay of some kind. The shoes can’t be found. The homework’s not done. The lunch isn’t ready. Someone’s hat. Someone’s glasses. Someone’s keys can’t be found.

Different problems, different days.

Then today I went to this conference, thinking it may be raised as an issue, but not a HUGE issue, not a HARD TO DISCUSS issue. It was really hard. I ending up crying which made me feel like a fool, an idiot, and a nutbag.

This is especially hard when one is a new employee and one’s co-workers now have seen one crying and being a blubbering pathetic idiot who can’t even arrive to school on time each day.

I am so ashamed. Of my tardiness. Of my emotional reactions. Of my apparent inability to do what everyone else apparently does with such ease and panache. I feel like a failure- which wouldn’t be such a big deal if I hadn’t been trying so damn hard.

It’s one thing to be a screw up thanks to being a slacker, an un-caring person who just doesn’t give a damn (that’s not me). If that were the case, I’d at least be uncaring and indifferent. I wouldn’t be SUFFERING! OH THE SUFFERING!  But no, I failed over and over and over again to be on time to school when it’s been pointed out to me that it’s soooo important… and that was with actually trying very very hard to get there.  It makes feel so despondent. How can I possibly do this when I’ve failed all along.

It’s not like I haven’t been trying Every. Single. Day. Since. September.

Oh and this being late in the morning is by no means limited to this year. It’s been a nearly daily sense of shame and failure ever since C was a pre-pre-schooler and her teachers gave me a daily dose of the hairy eyeball for having arrived too late.

In fact I can trace our tardiness problem back to that time easily; it coincides quite neatly with me being the parent of not one but in fact two small children.  The addition of my darling Annie to the family caused a dramatic shift in our family’s ability to arrive anywhere on time.

AND YET. And yet, we have never missed a plane ride.

AND YET. I am almost NEVER late picking up the kids from their schools.

It’s not ME, I keep thinking, but then again, I guess it is. It’s me in the morning.

I’ve never wanted a tattoo, but if I ever WERE to consider getting one, I think I’d like it to say “NOT A MORNING PERSON.”

The real trouble is the suffering. I am ashamed of myself for being late so much. I feel absolutely horrible thinking of C’s friends who routinely expect her to “not be there” for their little morning exercises. The kids in her class each have a job in the morning, and she’s essentially “late for work.” And she’s a “dreamy kid” who “spaces out.” Yes, we are all spacey in this family. What do you expect? Our big brains are working overtime coming up with some kind of creative genius thing and how could we possibly keep track of the location of our shoes and coats and bags also??

But poor little C. Her education is suffering! (and I’m paying HOW MUCH again for that education??)  Her social life is suffering! Her transitions are slow and dreamy!

What a horrible job I am doing, I think to myself! I’m modeling tardiness! I’m failing to teach her to be organized and structured! Because I’m disorganized!

It all comes back to what has got to be my favorite Philip Larkin poem entitled “This be the verse”, which I’ll quote for you now.

They fuck you up, your mom and dad.

They may not mean to, but they do.

They fill you with the faults you had.

And add some extra just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn

By fools in old-style hats and coats

Who half the time were soppy stern

And half at one another’s throats.

Well it may be a bit cynical — the poem does end with an exhortation to “not have any kids yourself”. OOOPS! Too late for following that advice!

But in a funny way, this poem really calms me down. I am not perfect. I am flawed just like anyone. My only hope is that our creativity, our sense of humor, and our ability to think and express and emote in beautiful ways will more than make up for the fact that we arrive for life about ten minutes later than anyone else.

And my therapist hasn’t even called me back yet. Did I mention the suffering??!

There is absolutely nothing more boring than listening to someone go on at length about their diet, or their weight. I know, I have a friend (one who doesn’t read my blog) who has lost so much weight, blah blah blah. It’s been going on for at least six months, probably more. I am bored to tears by it, but being such a nice friend, I use the old smile and nod technique, along with a few “good for you!” interjections as needed.

So, I know from boring chatter. In spite of that, here I am subjecting you gentle readers with all my crap about my life, and my trip to florida, as if it were simply fascinating.

Nevertheless, there are few updates I need to include for the sake of accuracy, since my previous post, when I looked it over, seemed so darn bubbly. I’ll give you the choice, whether you want to Read the rest of this entry »

According to the statistics that Google Analytics offers me, I have had some international visitors, which is very exciting. The majority of visitors here are in the USA, with a few others tuning in from Canada. It’s wonderful to have visitors at all, but I especially would like to reach out today to anybody who either lives away from mainstream USA (either in their minds or otherwise) or else lives in a different part of the planet than USA.

I want to talk about BODY HAIR. Specifically, women’s body hair. I personally do not value shaving my legs or armpits. I don’t see the point in it. Why shave my legs at all? If I did, why not also my arms, indeed everywhere? Is there something inherently offensive about the fact that hair grows on the legs and underarms? Is it offensive on the arms too? Not to mention, the “bikini zone” and eyebrows and well, you get the idea.

Now, please, don’t get upset, all you happy shavers out there. If you shave just because you like how it looks and feels, that is fine with me. I am not saying you should stop. I just don’t get it myself. Why is hairlessness “normal”? I think the normal should be what happens without any particular effort.

Then again, I don’t much wear makeup either. Or do much to my hair other than brush and put it up as needed to keep it out of my face.

I guess you could call me a non-conformist. But I also get insecure about my body hair from time to time, and then if it gets to much to bear (bare?) I do in fact shave.  Then I almost always regret it, and feel annoyed at all the growing-back itchiness and bristle.

Some people I know only shave in the summer. That make some sense: some must figure that hairless legs look nice but why bother if it’s winter and you’re in pants all the time anyway.

And the issue of shaving isn’t just limited to women’s needs.  You’re sure to find plenty of marketing that tells manfolk how they can improve themselves — even make their manly parts look larger — by shaving. Some of the marketing materials on this site, for example, had Drob and I in stitches.

All this is to say, here I go to Florida, day after tomorrow. I won’t be in my winter clothes for a week.  I made it through the whole past summer in all my hairy glory.  Why should I shave now?  I have no one to impress. Drob doesn’t mind my hair one bit, in fact, it’s the scratchy part of growing it out that annoys him. My leg hair is long, sure, but it’s soft. It doesn’t bother me or him. If I shave it would bother both of us.  Plus I don’t want to model shaving to my kids. I don’t want them to think about this issue at all for at least another 5 years, when C hits puberty and has peers who are talking about it.

So… why do you shave? Do you ever wish you didn’t “have to”? Have you ever considered going against the cultural norm?  Or do you live somewhere where the cultural norm doesn’t tell you that having hairy legs is bad? If you live somewhere like that, how’s the food? Should I move there?

Oh, and my eyes are still miserable. I will be visiting the doctor tomorrow if I don’t see improvement in the morning. Bleah.