June, oh June

I liked the Sex and the City movie a lot - as one friend put it, it was good to see "old friends" - characters that we knew well and really missed. I was blissful sitting in the theater and seeing them all again.

My trip to SC was fine - not very eventful. Had a good fight with my dad about Bush, and did some retirement stuff for/with my mom.

Back in Nashville for the week, and it's a doozy. I'm just not used to summer being so packed with obligations. I got home from my trip Sunday night, and the last two days I have left home early in the morning and not returned home til dinner. Just not my summer speed, people. It's not easing up again until Monday. This is just not fun - well, not in my current state.

I've seen a counselor two times now, the second yesterday, and it was not good. And I'm really really disappointed by that. I think when you get to the point of going to a counselor, you're actually pretty far past the point of needing a counselor because of the great effort it takes to pursue it and the level of exasperation/desperation one must reach before taking the step. To take the step and not feel rewarded for it - it sucks. And I'm out a good chunk of change. And I have another appointment set up for Monday, but the more I think about it, the more I know I don't want to go back to him, and I hate the thought of now having to call him to cancel. Of course I wonder about what to say - to be honest? It wasn't a good fit for me? I don't think he was reading me very well, and the fact that I had to say, more than once, "I don't understand what you're asking" - well, that's really hard for me. I think my strengths, all two of them, are being intuitive and being relational - I can connect with people fairly easily, and usually rather quickly. But not this time. If I weren't paying so much money for this experiment, I might be willing to give it some more time to develop and see what I could learn from him - I'm sure there are things I could learn from him.

But. After a good 7 or 8-minute story he told me about some client's sex problems and how he tried to resolve them with his wife - he was giving new meaning to the idea of TOO MUCH INFORMATION, seriously - I'm not a prude, but I'm a single woman, not working on sexual issues, and frankly kind of feeling harassed by his graphic word choices as he tries (poorly) to connect this guy's issues to something about me. It was AWKward. Not good.

Isn't this a fun entry? It's frustrating to make very difficult steps towards change, only to feel shut down. But I'm not giving up. It kind of feels like I have, but on a literal level, I'm still in this.

SC and SATC

Tomorrow I FINALLY get on the road, three days later than originally planned. After taking my car to Jiffy Lube to get my fluids topped off, I found out I had serious gunk around my oil cap (saw it - GROSS) and after going to my mechanic Thursday, learned I had coolant mixing with my oil - a bad idea, in case you didn't know. A $700 problem, it is. So I get my car fixed in the morning, and I'll be sitting in Franklin waiting on it for 3-4 hours (oh please let them work quickly) and then I'll leave for Edgefield, SC to visit my Nana for an evening (near 7 hours from here, 2 hours from Greenville.)

I am not looking forward to this trip. I have not worked out with my counselor yet how I'm supposed to interact with my family appropriately, so this trip is coming TOO SOON for my liking. Plus I missed out on the drunkfest that Charleston would have been to warm me up to this trip... twas not meant to be, it seems.

I spent the last three days "hiding out" in Nashville, since I wasn't really supposed to be here. It was kinda good as far as getting a little taste of summer - true, unhurried and uncommitted summer - before the madness begins. I know, you think - teachers have it MADE - she's got two months off - but I'm already committed in one way or another for the next 13 days SOLID (I don't even commit my weekends during school) then have two days before I travel to Austin for six days. WHY does time off feel so - not "off?" I'm going to plan this better next year.

For now - send me traveling mercies... back next week with news of SC. At least I have the Lost season finale to look forward to Thursday. OH - and Sex and the City comes out this weekend, so - I feel better already.

Long time...

...no see. That feels like my message to - me. It's been a long time like I felt like myself, much less an apropo message for my blog posts. Can I even call it a blog if it's been 3 weeks since I posted? Barely, I guess.

I'm in my last week of school. Funny how the end of school comes at JUST the right time. I really don't think I can take much more. It's just freaking exhausting. And you know me - you know that I love teaching 90% of the time. There is a REASON we get two months in the summer to recuperate from the year and to plan for the next one. I already have five days (that's a work week!) committed to school obligations this "summer", so with my three trips out of town already, well, pool time is already severely cut. It will be a very different summer than last.

I have had three very frustrating situations in the last two days. Very. And all of them "I lost." I was justified in my frustration, I put forth my best effort, and it didn't matter. I lost. My friend J said tonight among other wise and comforting things, that my frustrations were very warranted and realistic, and things just suck, but encouraged me not to give in to letting that decide how I'm going to feel: about life, about self.

But here's what I realize from that (and what my prayer was last night and today): my sinfulness comes in - my shitty, damaged, woefully inadequate heart comes in and goes from hurt, to anger, to self-righteousness, to self-hatred because of my self-righteousness (I think that last one is, what they say in the biz, "the problem.") I can't stand feeling so "right" but then not having the victory that comes from being "right."

For example (this would be #3), being "right" about knowing that I told the Great Clips girl to trim my bangs between eyebrows and middle of the eye, hearing her repeat that, and then looking at my bangs 1/2 inch ABOVE my eyebrows. Being "right" does not help my hair grow back. I do not "win" anything by being "right" in that situation, do I? I just suffer with hating my FACE for a month or so while my hair slowly grows back. I look like a 5-year-old. In 1965.

Haha. OH we chuckle at the woes of a "bad haircut." SO why does it feel like another kick in the teeth? From - who? I don't know. I'm not gonna say God, because He doesn't give a rat's ass about my bangs. That's silly. But I'm pissed because it feels like I fucked up (again) when all I did was try to check something off my un-ending to-do list, and now it's derailed me even further from where I was earlier today (in a not-so-great, but livable place.)

I laugh at the thought that strangers (people I've never met) read this through links to other friends' blogs, as they must think "WHO THE FUCK is this head case that ____ is friends with?" I swear, my blog is usually bitchy-ly fun and a type of disgruntled commentary on "life as we know it." Sorry, Casual Visitor. Just going through a rough patch here, and I'm going to get it all OUT. I hope to be back to some sort of normal programming come June-ish.

This is what I mean about "Long time no see" - I miss me. I know I am in here somewhere. Really.

Please.

Finished

Actually, I finished my screenplay Monday night. Two days earlier than the deadline - certainly surprising myself considering that April 22, I was still on p. 24. It is the definition of a first draft - riddled with plot holes and in major need of a rewrite. I wouldn't dream of letting anyone read it. But I printed it out today, all 101 pages, and it was hefty and substantial, and I showed it to one of my classes (because they asked if I had finished), and it was good. The weight of it in my hand, something I created: that was good.

After I finished it, I cried. What a funky little response. I screamed a little first, just a short one, but then I cried. And then I took yesterday off and slept. All. Day.

With that, I bid sayonara to my first Script Frenzy (oh yes - I will do it again,) and say hello to my new life as an aspiring writer. Because now I know that I can do it. All it took was some silly little internet contest to make me take that step.

As you can tell, all eloquence is out the window. I used it all up in my moving, poignant dialogue. (um, no.) As one of my co-Frenzies wrote, the last 30 pages of his story are some of the worst, fluffiest dialogue ever written.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Peace out.

Checking In

I just finished page 80 of my screenplay draft. I can't believe I'm really doing it. Twenty more pages and I've met my goal. To let you know how attainable that is, I completed 16 pages TODAY. And I was on p. 24 on Tuesday. Since I finished grading research papers and rewrites, my commitment to writing (and my ability TO commit to it) increased exponentially. Of course, it's total crap - it's a draft, but it's something to work with. Something that came out of MY imagination. Cool.

The Script Frenzy challenge ends Wednesday, and I really cannot believe that completing it is actually within my reach. I'm pretty darn impressed with myself. I really am. I've gone to bed the last few nights, especially after meeting 10-page-a-day goals on weekdays, with such a feeling of thankfulness, just because I actually accomplished a (difficult) goal that I set for myself.

So no, you won't be seeing my screenplay as a movie any time soon. It's my FIRST SCREENPLAY EVER. Hell, it's the first thing longer than a sonnet that I've actually written. All these years enjoying writing but never completing anything I've started. Well, this isn't complete yet, but 80 pages sure feels like victory, I gotta tell ya.

School is winding down, and I am thankful for that. It's been a good year, but the last month or so has been tough, really tough, and I need to be done with it. I need to have a break from the emotional stress of interacting with teenagers more than I do anyone else, day in and day out. I've had some trying moments with them, and with friends recently, that frankly have worn me out emotionally. I think this writing thing turned out to be a nice outlet from that.

I'll let you know when I finish. In the meantime, let's talk about movies! May 2 brings Iron Man with Robert Downey, Jr., and May 9 Speed Racer with co-star Christina Ricci, who looks like anime anyway, and May 16 brings Prince Caspian, followed by the new Indiana Jones May 22 (that's a Thursday), and finally (for May) the Sex and the City movie May 30 - wa-HOO! New Batman movie July 18, and have you read about this Will Smith movie Hancock coming out July 2? It's gonna be AMAZING. Of course, there are other movies, but I just had to mention my excitement at the landscape. And yes, I just quoted all those dates from memory - I'm a little excited...

BTW - speaking of excited - Nordstrom is coming to Nashville in fall, 2010. They have the best - shoe department - ever.

The future's so bright...

Lonely

Yeah, so I'm procrastinating. I got an email re: my last blog entry, as per usual, so I would just like to reinforce to self, and anyone else reading, that people DO read here who don't make formal comments. (There. I feel better.)

I took today off - sub day - OHH yeah. It was good. I was up at 6:45 (an extra hour's sleep!!) and I was RUNNING. Major housework, laundry, grading done, then lunch with good, good friend C., then Target for semi-major purchases (including Juno, 2-disc set - excited!) and then to Starbucks (satellite home office) for two more hours of grading - FINISHED! Well, finished all that I had to grade -still about 25 "rewrites" to grade - curses to kids who don't follow directions and/or do shitty jobs on research papers (yeah, I'll take that NC-17 rating - might as well "language up.")

So today I did things like I should be doing on a normal Saturday. But why don't I, you may ask? Because of this little thing I like to call "depression." It zaps you of any inspired/motivated thought, makes you sleep entire days away after nights of sleeplessness, makes you turn off your phone so that daylight sleeping might be uninterrupted by "caring friends" - how annoying. But then maybe nobody calls anyway, eh? And THERE'S the cynic I mentioned earlier.

Yeah, I've realized lately that the bugger of it all for me right now is that my "everyday" friends that I talk to on a regular basis are ALL in... wait for it... Colorado. That place I moved away from nearly four years ago. I mean, yeah, I have J. and C. here - and I LOVE them mucho. But I do not talk to them on a regular basis like I do L. and K. and even M. in CO., as well as frequent emails with J. - there's a reason I'm spending a week and 1/2 in Denver this summer. Why is it that I have not connected with people in Nashville since I moved here? Well, actually, I forget my good friend S. who has been invaluable to me since moving here, but he's a GUY. Where are my girlfriends? I click with, like, 90% of the people I meet - and I'm just realizing that I haven't formed significant attachments here. My small group has, frankly, infinite possibility. But I have yet to spend time with people, even just on the PHONE, that makes me feel like... I don't know. Like, I'm KNOWN here. I do feel cared for, here. I REALLY do. Like, my small group would kick your small group's ass ANY time. Seriously. I'm just needing some one-on-one, what was your day like comraderie.

You know what? I'm done for now. As the name of my blog indicates, quite explicitly, sometimes I just need to vent. I hope your week is going well, dear readers. Sorry to bitch and moan. I will persevere.

Revelation(s)

So many directions I'm pulled to go with this post. Just saw a trailer for Iron Man with Robert Downey, Jr. that tempts me to write my "Spring Movie Recommendations" post - but I'll wait on that one. Also could write about how fickle my excitement for my screenplay is - 22 pages now. Just need to imprint on my forehead IT'S ONLY A DRAFT. I get so frustrated.

But no, I'm going to go a different way. A friend on Facebook mentioned a blog in her status line audreycaroline.blogspot.com. This is a friend of a friend - I've met her and seen her a couple of times, ever, and I'm not sure why she befriended me on Facebook, but I get status updates of all friends who make updates, and hers piqued my interest. I spent two hours reading every word of this blog, started in January. And I learned many, many things. (Warning: do not go to this blog unless you are ready to have a good cry. And anyone who has struggled with fertility or the death of a child - tread carefully.)

I don't even know where to start. But I'm not going to really write about the pain of this family's loss and how that impacted me. (It did.) The young woman sharing this story is a beautiful writer, and she has a beautiful faith. Incredible, even. I'm teaching the novel Animal Farm right now, and one of the vocabulary words this week was "cynical," and we defined the word as "distrusting of others' motives/disbelief in the sincerity of humanity." And I added my two cents about how I'm not a cynic, but that I can be cynical, and gave an example of how if a student comes in the room and says, "Miss Groce, I just LOVE this class," that I pretty much instantly suspect his/her motives and don't believe what he/she has said.

After reading the other blog tonight, I realize that I am, indeed, a cynic. And I don't think I always was, but I have let the last few years carry me into that place of, dread the word, but bitterness. But reading her blog, full of unfathomable pain and in the midst, faith, I did not feel cynical at all. Not once. This mom, Angie, in the midst of her loss, reached out to people reading her story, the majority of whom were strangers, and made it her purpose at many times to make sure that her readers understood God's goodness, and most importantly, his love for them. Individually. At one point she even focuses on the vast worth of each of us in God's eyes, particularly evident in his son's sacrifice on the Cross - that each of us were known to him as he suffered, for us, willingly. And I wept.

And more. I realized that I am so dramatic - that subtlety is NOT my nature, or my gift, though it is often my preference. I'm incapable of expressing my thoughts or feelings artistically - I don't know if it's more journalistic-ly - frankly, I don't think it is worth identifying right now. I abhor it. (See - that's a dramatic feeling, isn't it?) I wish I had more faith, and that that faith would seep through my words like hers do for me.

So what do I have? I have a blog that I'm (semi) committed to. Writing that excites me on occasion. Faith that changes me on occasion. Doubt that strangles me most days. But I also have hope that glimmers, dimly, but it's there.

Why am I writing? I don't know - ruminating on what I do, who I am, why I do what I do and I am the way I am. Not pleasant. But if I can cling to the truth of who God says I am, worth the trouble.

Update

I've written 18 pages of my screenplay. It's a draft. I'm supposed to do 100 this month. Monday I was on track for 3 1/2 pages a day (today, not so much.) But STILL. It's 17 pages more than I've ever written, and I'm excited about it.

Unfortunately, I have the dual task this month of grading 110 research papers, approx. 1/3 of which are utter CRAP. So I'm struggling through that. I've been at my neighborhood Starbucks the last three days from 3:30 til 7-7:30 (until my hunger pains can't take anymore.)

The good news is that I'm WRITING. Creatively, not just "ventingly." As I so love to do here. Here's a little blurb from a song I love by Imogen Heap, which kind of mirrors what I'm hearing/trying to say to myself right now:

Afraid to start, got your heart in a headlock,
I don't believe any of it.
You say too late to start, with your heart in a headlock,
You know you're better than this.

Been walking, you've been hiding,
And you look half dead half the time.
Monitoring you, like machines do,
You've still got it, I'm just keeping an eye

I've been walking, you've been hiding,
And you look half dead half the time.
Monitoring you, like machines do,
You've still got it, I'm just keeping an eye
So what, don't care, will not, the end

You know you're better than this

If I get my shite together, this screenplay is actually commercial, and could be worth pitching to whoever listens to pitches. (It's a viable movie idea, is what I am saying here.) For whatever it is worth, my crappy first draft has the seeds of something worth making. And seeing.

So for that reason, dear friends, I must get back to my writing. Adieu.

Love - me

Just Do It

Back at school after the best Spring Break I think I've had. It was hard to get back, especially with the difficulty of the material we're doing right now, and with all the essays I had to grade my last two days of break. Today was a professional development day, and there was more grading, this time of TCAP Writing assessments of all the 9th and 10th graders. I graded two classes from two other teachers, and since I felt sorry for our department chair (overworked, and her car broke down in Florida over break, and it's STILL THERE), I volunteered and took one of the extra classes to grade that was left over at the end. What was I THINKING? I don't know - I'm just a giver. Ha - that's hardly true - I've felt very selfish and self-absorbed and self-self-self the last few days (I know! Surprising for a blogger.)

I'm excited about starting the script-writing challenge - several of my favorite peeps from Act One are doing it, too, so that will be good for encouragement and GUIDANCE for my inexperienced self. I'm not totally committed to my idea yet, so I've got 5 days to come up with something I'm really psyched to do. (If you have a pitch for me, I'll be glad to hear it!) The great thing I keep going back to on this challenge as it gets closer and closer is that the goal is to have 100 pages of a draft - it doesn't have to be anywhere near perfect - and the admonition is to "just write." I love to "just write," as is evidenced by, well, right this moment, and it will be cool, I hope, to have that self-accountability to write. I really need the inner-critic/perfectionist to take a very long hike off a short pier. Like, pronto.

Big sigh... I'm just very unhappy right now - but of what value is "happiness", really? I don't know. Keeping busy and intellectually-stimulated should help me with that, and it is, but there's that ongoing nagging reality that I'm not really living life to the fullest as is, and I want to do what I can to change that.

Um... you must be thinking - what a random entry. Indeed. But I wanted to put something up here while I still have time - and oh yeah - because I do love me some procrastinating when I should be working on school stuff.

Peace out.

Script Frenzy

So Spring Break is going along swimmingly - I'm at my friends' house right now, using it as an "office" of sorts just to get me away from the distraction that is - my apartment. Yesterday I had a massage, ate solo at a restaurant and read a "Domino" magazine (so as to de-emphasize my solo-ness), sat at Starbucks and cut out pictures and quotes for new handy dandy Inspiration Notebook (see post here), then went to see The Other Boleyn Girl (eh - the book was much better), and today has been more of the same fun with a mix of mild productivity.

What I am most excited about lends its name to this post: a really cool screenwriting challenge that I am challenging myself to complete. It's called Script Frenzy, and approximately 10,000 writers worldwide will be taking on the task of writing a screenplay of at least 100 pages during the month of April. You can't start til April 1, and you can't count pages past April 30. ONE HUNDRED PAGES. That's an hour-and-a-half movie, to you and me. I had the usual freak out/no way in hell moment where I thought of "all-the-things-I-have-to-do-to-be-a-good-teacher" in April, and you know, I am always going to have excuses not to try. So I'm hoping to flesh out some planning pages this week during spring break and in the week after, and then just, you know, do it. As the poster above my board in my classroom reminds me every flippin' day.

This may mean I won't post as much - it may mean I post a lot more as a form of procrastination - who really knows at this point. But won't it be fun to see what comes out at the end of April? Perhaps - dare we to believe it - an actual DRAFT of something CREATIVE from my very own BRAIN? That would be a truly remarkable thing. I really hope I can do it.

Off to more Spring Break adventures. Daylight's burning.

Schizophrenic much?

So - just reading that post about "The Plan" in the light of day makes me tired. No, it's not light of day now, but earlier. I don't know if I have it in me. My alternate plan would involve me staying in Nashville and:

1. Saving about $160 in gas money

2. Planning my Animal Farm unit, a book which I have never taught

3. Reading Prince Caspian before the movie is out May 16

4. Walking at least 30 minutes every day because a) I like walking b) I never do it and c) it's supposed to be nice weather

5. (Hoo boy here's a big one) actually WRITING SOMETHING that it not for this blog, in my journal, or for the purpose of educating high school students

I could also spend some coffee hangs and maybe get Baja Burrito with friends during the day, like I never get to do - it would just be nice to have a productively restful (you like that dichotomy?) week. My trouble is that I am so used to having no one to answer to for my time, that I would stay up crazy late, causing me to sleep late, FAR too late into the day, "burning daylight" if you will, and therefore ruining any chance at purposeful fun-seeking or apartment organization or planning-achievement that I might have experienced. Know thyself? Oh, people. I do. I really do.

Hmm. So that's The Plan B. The plan that tonight - sounds groovy. Except that I wouldn't get to see my brother's show. Just. Not. Sure. But you can tell which way I'm leaning, can't ya? Ah, I'm so transparent...

The Plan

I missed out on my Austin trip by the twist of fate that is weather and navigational mechanical malfunction. So I'm itching for travel, at this point in the week. Spring Break begins Friday after school, and I am planning a South Carolina tour to rival - no other. Here's how it's shaking down:
Sat. AM - drive to Greenville (6 hours) - P.M. time with Frank and Amie, BFF's I need to see to discuss current LOST theories IN PERSON.
Sun - Family time - veg-o-matic with the parents - or really, start the process of getting them ready to retire - my dad, April 1st, from 33 years at same college, and my mom, from TEACHING (35 years - holy smack - June 3) - how did I come from such... COMMITTED individuals???
Monday AM - drive to Charleston (almost 3 hours) - actually Folly Beach, evening with brother and his girlfriend
Tuesday - beach day with bro
Wed. - beach day with bro, bro's Improv show (more of a comedy sketch that he wrote) Wed. night, out after
Thursday - Improv. workshop with bro's company (FUN!) then drive to
LATER Thursday - Edgefield, SC (2-hour drive)- Grandmother's house (Nana), visit her sister and my great uncle...
Friday - back to Nashville (6 1/2 hours) by 3 PM. Spend entirety of weekend recuperating, doing laundry, grading and planning for 4th quarter.

Hmm. Looks like a plan, does it not?

I'd say the cons are: 1) gas prices. 2) Being in the car so long solo (where the frick is my soulmate/travelmate?) 3) Not getting my junk drawers organized. *sigh* I guess that's for summer.

I finished a big chunk of grading today by staying late, spending time at Starbucks, and yes, grading at home on the couch, so I'm feeling some hope for some free time before I leave town, so... Nashville peeps (both of you) - hopefully I'll see you. :)

Just thought everyone should know my thought process. Comments, additions, and deletions are welcome... of course, maybe you've already spotted the flaw... I will be in Edgefield with my GRANDMOTHER watching the last episode of LOST before the month break... if you've ever heard me describe her, you'll know that this is an even worse scenario for watching TV-I-care-about than watching with my parents. And that's saying... a lot.

Snow snow snow - a double post

So I just posted - I should be in Austin - but I just walked outside and there is more snow tonight than I have seen in Nashville since I've been here! Granted, SO very little compared to my Colorado days- this type of snow would in NO way make for school being out in the least - but it is so stinkin' pretty. Love love love.

Supposed to be at SXSW...

...but I'm at home in Nashville. What a silly, crazy day. I got an automated call at 5:15 A.M. telling me my 8:00 flight was canceled and I was given a Sat. AM flight as a makeup - I rejected it, and got on a 12:45 flight that would arrive in Austin at 5:30. Five hours later than planned - bummer, but I could live with it.

I get on the 12:45 flight - I had been upgraded to First Class - NICE - and I was seated in the first row with a million-frequent-flier mile metro-sexual male from Dallas. Married with two teen-aged kids. I WISH I had gotten his name because I would love to know him forever. He is the reason (thank you, God, for your odd provision) that I didn't come out of this day resentful and angry. Our flight was on time, taxi-ing out to take off, and we were chatting about life - and he was very flamboyant - I thought he was gay at first because if the way he spoke - STRAIGHT out of the stereotype handbook - but then he brought up his wife and two sons, and that fact that "all of us in Dallas are metro-sexuals" - and it all made sense. He was hilarious - he made me order a drink since it was free and we needed it since we were heading back to the gate for an undetermined amount of time waiting on maintenance specialists...

The flight was delayed so late that they weren't able to get me into Austin Friday night, so I went ahead and got the refund, since the earliest they could get me there was Sat. afternoon, leaving me with a trip of 26 hours, for the low low price of 300 bucks. Um... no thanks. I got a refund, and though I am missing SXSW, I will now get to go to Austin for a longer amount of time and not feel so crunched to spend time with my friends.

Home again, home again... jiggety jig. Where is that from, anyway? It comes to mind... Oh well - I had long talks with both C and B today, separately (my Austin friends, married to each other) about LOST, of all things. We are equally committed to it, and it is wonderful to talk to each of them about this show, with knowledgeable theory and wonder and awe. Thank God for friends with equivalent degree of pop culture obsession.

And hats off to American Airlines, for upgrading me to 1st class without me asking, and treating me with respect and giving me what I wanted in a situation that could've been much more stressful. I can't believe how well I handled the frustration and disappointment, either. I think SOMEbody around here is growing up. (Oh, aren't you cute, you little 30-something with all your dreams and ideas and hopes and...) That would be me.

March Goodness - or - a Tale of Two Penelopes and Some Tea

Sleep has returned to me! And with it came the gift - of my sanity back. Rejoice! I packed away the four boxes/bottles of sleep aids in a drawer in my bathroom, and I hope they will stay put for a good long while.

I experienced a new delight yesterday - well, two if you count the delight of hanging out with my good new friend A! We met for a two-hour power hang at Fat Straw in Edgehill Village, and bubble tea is a strange but delightful little treat that I certainly will be going back for more of. As A pointed out, it is odd that the bubbles of tapioca getting sucked up into your straw make for the odd sensation of chewing while you are drinking something. Something to get used to - I am willing to give it a try.

Also, I saw the movie Penelope yesterday, and it is a wonderful little modern day fairy tale with the EXACT MESSAGE that I needed to hear at this point in my journey, and as a bonus, I got to see James McAvoy for another 90 minutes, so yes, it was a happy venture all around for me. It's the kind of movie that is fanciful, with a Roald Dahl feel to it at times, that makes me want to go out and create something. It reminds me of the beauty and playfulness of art, and the power of the cinema to impact our emotions and thoughts - I came away wanting to be a better person! (Big, over-generalized statement, but it's true.)

The episode of LOST Thursday was at a whole new level for me, with (finally) some answers, and some Desmond and Penny connection (a brilliantly written exchange that is suspensefully set up in a way that is truly rewarding to watch.) I actually teared up at a LOST episode - I can't really remember doing that before - not for a happy reason, anyway. If you are not watching this show, well, you're missing out.

It's March now, which seems crazy fast, but exciting at the same time, because the hope of spring is upon us now, especially with the temps in the 70's today, and my trip to SXSW approaching next weekend, and Spring Break (can I get a hallelujah?) the weekend following. Maybe I have SAD (seasonal affective disorder) because I feel so much better when it's sunny - maybe I should go live somewhere where the climate is consistently sunny. (Surprisingly, Buena Vista, CO, where I lived for a year a while back, has over 300 days of sunshine a year - along with a helluva lot of snowfall - but a population of a few thousand people discourages any thought of returning.) For now, I am content to do a little living in Nashville. Happy March!

The Next Time It Is This Date...

...I will be 40 frickin' years old.

Maybe I won't even have this blog then. Maybe I won't even BE then. Nothing's promised, eh?

The last time it was this date, I was teaching 8th grade English in Castle Rock, Colorado, planning a move to Nashville.

AND... that's all I really want to think about that.

I lost my energy for writing a grand post sometime today when I became Miss Cranky-Pants. It's was a long week, a long day, a long EXTRA day, and I just want to go to bed.

That is all for now. Past and future talk are too much to handle. The present is slippery enough.

Preliminary post for Leap Day

I just want to put this out there to the universe that God is faithful. And he is working in my heart right now.

I also really want to post on Leap Day, because it only comes once every four years, and that's just really cool, to have February 29th on a post, so I'm going to write a proper post tomorrow. After my English Department Happy Hour (hoo boy...)

Until tomorrow.

Snow Day

I was about to write a post about how last night (well, morning) I went to bed with joy in my heart because the ground had an actual covering of snow, my little Beetle was white, not blue, and I knew I didn't have to get up for work. When I woke after NINE glorious hours of sleep and looked out my sliding glass doors, there was no snow and the sun was peeking through clouds. Ah, the fleeting condition of a Southern winter. But now the air is completely filled with falling snowflakes, again, and it's not too cold to sit on my porch for a bit and just revel in it - it's so pretty. Dare I dream that it keeps falling... and keeps falling, and gives us another snow day? Well, I probably shouldn't. Being greedy. But it's even thicker in the last minutes that I've written this! And I start to brainstorm my trip to Colorado this summer - the power of association.

I watched that movie again last night, this time without wine (smart move,) and it still made me cry. So it's just what it is, I guess. A powerful little story that cuts right into my heart with little anesthesia. I have now cried three days IN A ROW. I melodramatically capitalize that phrase, because this is so very rare. It started with Sunday morning, when I went to church for the first time since December of 2006 (that's not a typo.) A guy from my small group actually looked shocked and said something along the lines of "it's different to see you in this venue", and I shamed him by replying "I don't have the mark of the beast, you know." But I digress - my friends were baptizing their son, hence my required-by-conscience attendance to church. They were actually the "sermon" of the day as the pastor interviewed them about their story as a married couple and the journey that took them to their son. There were lots of sniffles and wiping-of-eyes all around, because it really was a powerful, sweet, sad, and joyful story, and though I knew the story, I still sniffled along with the best of them. At the end of the interview, they played a slideshow of people in our small group in various stages of their journey with them, and I was in a lot of those pictures (YUCK), and the soundtrack was our friend A's song that he had written after my friends had suffered a miscarriage. It's about the small group, and he had written after the group had planted a tree to honor the lost little one, and the gist of the song is that at different times we are called to carry the light for our neighbor who is too burdened to carry it, to see the path ahead of them for them. At the point in the show when they are shown planting the willow tree - well, this was when the sobbing came for me, and thank God the lights were down in the room. It was the overwhelming sadness at their loss, but the sweetness of the rallying of community, and realizing that I, too, am a part of that same community, as little as I feel I belong (mark of the beast, remember) - I couldn't hold it all.

Well, I trust that crying on occasion is a normal, necessary thing to do. Maybe not when you call-a-friend-at-midnight-on-a-Monday-night crying - that's not so "normal," but it happens. And thank God for friends who answer, and listen, and don't judge too much. I hate trying to end my blogs. I'm ready to go, and I feel like I need clever closing, a circular motif perhaps, a joining or melding of symbols or thoughts from different strains of my blog entry... forgive me. I'm just going now.

Bottom Line

I find myself on a Monday night sobbing prettily at the movie Becoming Jane, crying at various points throughout the movie, but sobbing at the end. Shedding tears when Cassandra's fiance dies, when Jane and Tom kiss for the first time, when they decide to run away. But at the end, sobbing at the postscript, which tells us that Jane and her sister Cassandra never marry. And I think that if freaking JANE AUSTEN with all her brilliance never gets married, then what chance in hell frozen over do I have? I mean, REALLY. It's the most lovely (may I be honest? I could lick James McAvoy right off a plate) and yet painful movie I have seen. Or I guess that I could see in my present state -ah, the state of ultimate dissatisfaction with said-present-state. How depressing is it to think that I'm probably a good TEN YEARS past Jane's state of despair and lost hope.

So this is likely the wine talking. And sobbing. But I have to go to work tomorrow. And face my summative review with my principal (scary, her nickname is Darth Vader) - yeah - this movie is insanely too close to my sensitive spot right now. AND have I mentioned that I haven't slept properly in two weeks? That will tend to f- you up - I'm on my fourth sleep aid currently, and I hope that this one will work.

Where is he?

February needs to get started

This is my 1st February post. It's the 12th. This is not OK. I had been on such a roll.

What to say? December and January were pretty tough - I am glad those months are over. I have attached myself to some quality blogs lately, blogs full of insight and poetry and poignancy. These are from people who I believe are kindred spirits for me, but for some reason, I just can't be poetic and theoretical on my blog (as they are.) Mine is just... "blech!" (That's a vomiting noise.) So I come here twelve days into the month, when I had hoped to maintain a five-blog-a-month minimum, realizing that like most New year's Resolutions, this one has gone to crap already, in month 2.

And it's now the 15th. I went ahead and kept the above draft, because it's ironic that in my lamentation about procrastination, I continue to procrastinate.

I am thankful for catching my breath now, as I didn't know where I was going there towards the turn of the new year. I continue to feel that my classroom is my one haven - my place of joy and contentment and competence. I'm truly incompetent in all other areas of my life right now. But I'm feeling that this is OK. I'm making strides in the friendship area, with acceptances of invitations for outings that surely would have thwarted me two months ago. I'm making phone calls - initiating them and returning them promptly, which are both big steps for me. I just never realized how introverted I could be. Always thought I was an "ENFJ" (as I truly used to be) but finding myself more in line with an INFP. The "NF" will apparently never change (see "Meyers Brigg" for what the hell I'm talking about.)

I don't know what the purpose of blogging is - I guess for me, I mean. It's closest to a public journal, for me, though I wish I could be more general in topic and thus more relevant for the casual reader. But let's face it - as my blog is private - not listed when you Google my name - it's really not meant to be culturally relevant - just personally impactful. In whatever way that turns out. Hence my unabashed admiration for blogs that can be remote, yet personal, poignant, yet detached. I don't know - I just don't have the artistic bent right now. It's just WHATEVER and it's out there. For carefully selected friends and people who might stumble on me from their blogs (hello, random stranger who made it this far.)

I'm thankful for... how funny that those first three words just came out of my fingers with no real idea of where they were going. I am thankful for... thankfulness. Things are not perfect, and the things that still plagued me and rattled me and flattened me at the turn of the year are still present. I guess it's truly a day-by-day surrender to what is. Some kind of weird acceptance of what God is doing with my f-ed up-edness. I trust that it is not forever - that I am daily being changed in some way to be more who I am supposed to be.

Seriously, too much to articulate. It hurts, but it is what it is. I am what I am (as Popeye said.) And I need to feel, really feel, the OK-ness of that.

Surprising, actually

Take the Quiz here!

I thought for sure I'd be Fanny Price because of the family question, and I shied away from the obviously P&P questions (ones that included the words "pride" and "prejudice" were tip-offs.) But still I got Lizzy. I've probably internalized some of her qualities/thought patterns from reading/watching/idolizing her as the greatest female in English literature. Hmm. Perhaps that could be it. I'm surprised I didn't get Jane Austen herself. Our lives seem set on a similar path, except the part where she writes really exquisite novels and I - do not.

My blog, as described by Mark Twain

"My works are like water. The works of the great masters are like wine. But everybody drinks water."
– Mark Twain

I thought this was an apt description of my blog, compared to the "wine" of some others I know (Steve, Mrs. Metaphor...) It's so true.

Drink up! Water is good for you! (She says, sipping her red wine.)

Bag Lust

Christmas present from good friend (which I'm finding more uses for than I originally imagined - love it.)



Christmas present to self (backordered at UO, but I'm patient.)

(Contented sigh.)

These are the things I am liking today

Just finished LOST yesterday, and in Prada, I die for her bangs. If you consider them as "1" through "4", number 1 is clearly as a result of the massive quantity of number 4. More of number 2 might help me not feel so bad about not looking like number 3. Hmm.


That is all.

The Obligatory, but Not Too Shabby, New Year's Post

I began my new year bright and early with a 9:00 meeting - oh, let's just call it what it felt like going in: an intervention. I had a meltdown of sorts a couple of nights ago, and emailed some friends in the wee hours of the morning in my sadly sober despair (if I had been drunk, it might have been more defensible to my mind. Anyway.) It was one of those times when you really feel like if you don't reach out for help that you might not make it out, so I reached out, granted, via email I knew wouldn't be read for hours, but "unsend" from AOL is rather worthless, I've found. Actually one friend did call me back around 2 AM, so I guess I was meant to be saved from complete immersion in it.

The five of us met this morning for coffee, and the remarkable thing is that tonight I look ahead to the new year with the first real hope that I've felt in a long time. My friends helped me see something very "simple" that has plagued me for most of my life that I'm aware of, but I hadn't really identified it as such. I went into this morning knowing that I'm not "depressed" in the way that I have known before. I have been depressed, when I felt no hope or motivation for anything, often for no apparent, outward reason. Just sadness. And I've felt anxiety (well-documented in this blog - see entries - oh, ALL of them) that has nearly always been associated with decisions - with making big, momentous decisions about big life things. Reasonable things to feel anxious about.

But this is different, and yet one friend pointed out that this is the biggest decision of all of them. This year I have to decide to let God tell me who I am. I have to open myself up to what it is to feel worth in someone's eyes, starting with His, and accept that, and believe it with every inch of my being, and live out of that, and learn what it is to live with grace for myself. These are all things I am crap at. My friend who's known me longest had this incredible analogy that the "voices" that live in my head (you know what I mean - I don't hear actual "voices...")have moved in to the "house" that is my head and built level upon level and moved in so much furniture and made themselves so very much at home, that I don't even know how to begin to kick them out. I picture these "demons", if you will bear with me in the Christian vernacular for a bit, with their feet kicked up on sturdy coffee tables as they lounge on ratty sofas and leave chips on the floor, spilling their beer everywhere and not wiping it up, smoking smelly cigars, playing their crappy classic rock music way too loud on bad speakers, ashing on the floor, and I don't know how to tell them to get the hell out. They live there. They've been there for so long (isn't the mortgage in their names?)

But today when it was snowing such GIANT snowflakes, I went out on my porch with no coat on, and just stood there, and literally laughed out loud, because it was so beautiful, and I felt happy, and beautiful, and hopeful. We talked this morning about looking back at those moments that "define" how you think and react to things the way that you do. And when my friend mentioned doing this, my honest response was "why?" Why would we do this? Why look back at those painful moments and identify them and ... I don't know. To me, it feels like giving them power again. I don't want to do that, though I understand what she meant by it. Because I am more interested in moving forward and changing what I say to myself right now. Bridget Jones says "I was just so STUPID" (imagine with British accent), and that, my friends, is self-talk "regular" #1 in my head. The real reason that movie resonates with me: not the happy ending (oh good Lord, no) but all the shit before where she is a freaking social idiot, buffoon, imbecile, and oh - she KNOWS it. That's why I have loved that movie so long. But that it what has to CHANGE. I cannot be like that anymore. I cannot internalize and read into people's reactions to me and believe what the internal critic (who SO works overtime) in my head tells me about every f-ing situation I find myself in where I feel stupid. It has defeated me, it has defeated all that is best in me. Smashed it into tiny remnants that can hopefully be gathered and pieced back together to resemble the woman that God had planned when he saved me 20 years ago this month (or probably, I don't know, before I even knew Him, crazy thought.)

I came home last night from a New Year's dinner (home by 10 - AWWW yeah) and I read my own BLOG for 2 1/2 hours. Backwards, like almost three years worth (I didn't go all the way through.) And you know what I found? Not discouragement from oh-I'm-still-struggling-with-the-same-things. Surprisingly, no. I giggled at a couple of entries because I found them FUNNY. And I loved my voice and thought to myself "I like this person - I would want to be friends with her." It was nice to reflect on reasons that I'm not such an f-ing waste of space, but also see, oh, I don't know, little things like God's incredible provision for me (that's my key word for 2006-2007: PROVISION - He did it) and also to come away from that indulgently introspective time (reading my own words for that - long - and NOT hating myself.) That is a miracle in itself.

So the New Year begins with a miracle. That's not too shabby.

Mountain Climbing

It's almost 6 pm, and I was just journaling (you know, talking to God), and I realized something. I'm going to this party that I've gone to every year the last 4, a Pre-Emptive New Year's party put on by my good friends Steve, Charlie, Matt, and Dan, and it is because I went to this party last year that I LIVE HERE NOW. Why is that? Some earth-shaking encounter that made me move back here from my sojourn in Greenville? No. But if I hadn't left Greenville just to come to this particular party, I wouldn't have decided to go to the substitute teacher orientation (just as a back-up if I DID decide to come back to Nashville), and then of course, an hour after I left the orientation, I was on my way to the Brentwood interview (and the rest, as they say, is history.)

So, if last year's party was that influential, well, oh my, what kind of pressure is that on this year's party? What will it indirectly cause to happen in my life this year? And parties - oh, I don't do well. I'm a terrible small talker. I tend to break off from the crowd and have deep one-on-one's with people. Or just escape to a window where I have a one-on-cigarette. Tonight's party feels like a big mountain that I have to climb, except I don't have any of the right gear (no proper boots on, no water bottle, no Power Bars) and everyone else is sponsored by North Face. Unfortunately, the jacket I have chosen to wear is RED, which doesn't lend itself to wall-flowered-ness. So - I'm going to try really hard to rise above the dark cloud hovering above (smothering me today) and breathe some fresh, clean air. I want to ignore the gaping hole I feel in my chest and just be... normal. Silly. Dancing with no care for how bad a dancer I am. Playing well with others. The altitude will be good for me.

Possibilities

I had a vision of a notebook today - a big one that I would keep, sort of like an old-timey scrapbook that was just big... well, pages, not covered in plastic for photos, and not special acid-free blahblahblah - but just PAGES where I could paste things that I cut out of magazines, or pictures that I took with my new camera (that I bought from Amazon yesterday - waiting...) This year, I was thinking that it would be a cool "resolution" of sorts to document not only thoughts in my journal, but to have a place to put those inspiring thoughts or ideas or pictures or recipes or quotes or WHATEVER that might inspire me to write a story or a screenplay, or might inspire me to just feel better about life, or you know, whatever I might need inspiring toward. I looked for such a book today at TJMaxx, and they didn't HAVE ONE. How annoying not to have your immediate need met.

My blog could potentially become a scrapbook of sorts - as I was driving so much the last few days, there were so many song lyrics that stood out to me as poetic and poignant for my life right now, and they could certainly belong in a book of the sort I'm imagining - like, I'm picturing carrying around this book, and scissors and a glue stick, and just cutting out and documenting all these things that I read and find interesting... and maybe finding that someday, somehow, they will all make something cohesive, or feed into something interesting. I don't know if it's possible (coming from my brain) but it inspired me (for a minute) and I gotta go with that.

I have nothing to wear for New Year's - well, some cool shoes, but I think that would be indecent without something complementary. Did I mention I bought a camera? Yeah, when that gets here, you might actually SEE things instead of just reading about them. Oh, the places we'll go.

Let's just get this over with, shall we?

Today as I drove the six hours from Greenville to Nashville, I had some time to reflect. On just how much. I need. For 2007. To freakin' be OVER. Let's recap.

Homeless - 9 weeks.

Unemployed - 9 weeks (these 9 weeks did not coincide with the first 9.)

Depressed - OH - MOST of it.

Enjoying job - approx. 6 months (not same job.)

Dating someone interesting - 0 weeks/months.

OK - not feeling the utmost of "nostalgic" right now, but ironically, feeling the most hopeful I've felt in a while. Why does the flip of a page on a calendar give us such hope? What is so different about this next week and how I react and act in it, as opposed to how I acted/felt/WAS this week? I don't know. But there it is. The hope.

After being with my grandmother and mother over the last six days, I have come to the conclusion that I am, in fact, adopted, regardless of what those quaint full-belly pictures in my baby album say, and I have concluded that if I carried around a small notebook while spending time with said women of my family, I could create a dialogue for a poignant, Golden-Globe-worthy screenplay of a spoof of Steel Magnolias, as my matriarchal ancestors are unbelievably - trite - predictable - stereotypical - I seriously do not KNOW where I came from. "One of these things is not like the others..." - this does not come close... Today in my car, somewhere between Atlanta and Chattanooga, I felt that my fingernails were painted black, I was wearing smudged, kohl eyeliner, and that my hair was purple - I felt like an angsty teenager trying to get as far away from my family as I could.

And today, I would like to get as far away from 2007 as is humanly, spiritually, physically possible.

Helplessly hoping.

Sweet, sweet day

I have a student named Austin who is in my last period honors English class, and also in my second period study hall. He has a twin sister who is very smart (he's smart, but she's even smarter) and is also very athletically gifted. Austin has ADHD, and I thought at the beginning of the year when I first met him that he might just drive me a little insane. But Austin has turned out to be a very bright spot in my day - yes, he's a spaz, and if he doesn't have any work to do in study hall, he's looking for projects to do for me, making me bulletin boards, whatever.

The day we got out for Thanksgiving, his mom wrote me an email, around 10:30 that night, saying that Austin had expressed suicidal thoughts, and she was writing to me for help because she knew that I had a rapport with Austin, and might be able to help out with some of the kids who were contributing to his depression - kids that are in that last period class. I was shocked - Austin is off-the-charts funny and full of life - I never would have thought that he was not handling the banter in my class, between students and myself, any other way than well. I called his mom the day before Thanksgiving, and we talked for about an hour about his insecurities with other kids, with his sister, and his mom cried, and I felt like my eyes were opened to seeing things a bit more the way my students do - not just through my eyes.

Last Thursday Austin was lamenting my lack of Christmas decorations in the classroom, and I told him I didn't even have a tree at home, so feel free to decorate at will (he was jonesing for a project.) So he made me a construction paper Christmas tree on a spare bulletin board, and posted a menorrah on it as well, so as not to offend. :) I put it at the front of the classroom.

Today when I came to my classroom after our regular "Power Monday" morning meetings, there was a huge box on my chair, and two Target bags on my desk. T