the blessings

my family is a small family. there just aren't many of us. my parents only had two children. i only had two children. my brother only had two children and now one lives east and the other lives west. i am divorced. my father is deceased.

so around our Thanksgiving table this year there were only 5 of us. my son, his wife, my mother, my grandson. and me. and then there was our sixth person at the table- my daughter via skype. she lives a world away. her husband was at work. but we caught her before she started work for the day. and she joined us in carving the turkey and saying grace at the table.

and that is how we gathered this year. and it was nice. my mother and i had stuffed and cooked the turkey while my son and his family went to his wife's family gathering. and all went well, even with the turkey taking much longer than expected to reach the 180 degrees of not poisoning us, temperature. and so, a little late, we all sat down at the table.

and as i said, we said our blessings together. very traditional. first we blessed our food. then, my son led us in saying what we were thankful for. he was thankful for his family. ditto my mother. my daughter was thankful for the technology that brought us together. i was thankful for my grandson and for my new son in law. my sweet daughter in law was also thankful for family. my grandson, he was thankful for football. (-: and i was silently thankful that he is so secure in and of the love of his family that he really doesn't even know how thankful he is for what the rest of us were all thankful for. that- being each other.

so i spent the night at my son's house. and hung out today with the grandson while his mother worked and went to see her grandmother in the hospital, and my son went to do a bit of shopping. we goofed off and he showed off his championship rocket math skills. i am amazed at them, having none myself. then during one of the most enjoyable parts of the day, the 8 year old and i went to get our hair cut. we decided that we both looked pretty good, and then i suggested we get some ice cream on the way home. but he really thought he'd rather go to subway and get a pizza sub. and cookies.

and he was so amusedly delighted with his sandwich and his 2 cookies for the price of 1 and he thanked me so profusely that i gave thanks again. for this nice life. with this nice family.

blessings galore.

days of anan

i'm reminded this morning (or hey, i guess it's afternoon) of the good old days of the internet. ok, i'm saying that facetiously. it really wasn't the good old days. it was the time of wanting to put your head through a wall.

do you remember back when you waited anxiously to dial up, praying that that screely noise would turn into success. and it sometimes taking all dang day literally to get a connection? do you remember when you'd finally achieve that success only to be booted off for some aggravating, unknown reason?

do you remember being tethered to a chair and position at your computer desk that likely was not comfortable and convenient or conducive to using the bathroom or getting a blanket or getting ready for work or getting a snack or looking up something in a book? do you remember all that? you were stuck right there. right where you were. unless you were a fast typist and a fast runner.

well, i'm reminded of it all this morning because apparently, i forgot to leave my ipad plugged in last night, and the battery was depleted this morning. and i sit now, tethered to this chair. and it's annoying as all get out to me. it brought back the not so good old days.

it's amazing how spoiled one can get in just a few short years. things we take for granted now, seem almost unbearable. i get the same feeling when i forget my smart phone now. i used to not even want a cell phone. it felt so intrusive. but now, if i'm without it, i feel unconnected to everything. i can't look up directions or ingredients for a recipe when i'm at the store. i can't text a friend to make sure of the place or time that we are meeting or just to share something funny that i see or think of. it's hell.

and vividly, all this reminds me of that time when i was in love. when most of my communication with that love was through internet chat. and i remember, although i don't believe he ever knew it, that it would usually take me hours to get that precious connection to him. i never wanted him to know that to talk to him for 30 minutes or so, it would take me on average about 3 hours of effort to get through. i never wanted him to know that i tried that hard.

i did try that hard.

and then, often times this entity named anan would break in and cut off our conversations. cursed anan. often, i wanted to kill old anan, whoever that was. i did not know who anan was. but oh, how i despised anan. (ironically, i now think i know who anan was. cursed anan.)

anyway, it is amazing to me how easy it is, most days to hop right on the old interwebs and make a connection with people. these days, however, i no longer talk to strangers. and i no longer am plagued by the likes of anan. i'm only plagued by my own silly mistakes of not seeing that i didn't plug in the charger. or something as silly as that. and my discomfort is relatively short-lived. these crazy devices charge up at almost lightening speed. already i am now able to move about the room freely after charging a few short minutes.

all is well again. but for the thought of cursed anan.

silly me

so, i planned my day around company coming this evening. some friends from back home had asked if they could come stay here overnight so that they could catch an early plane in the morning. and we were going to go out to a favorite place for dinner.

and so, i picked up, i cleaned a little. i put fresh sheets on the bed. found the sheets for the hide-a-bed. got out extra towels. since i was on a roll, i cleaned out a closet. ate lightly, so that i could fully enjoy the anticipated meal. read a bit, watched a lousy football game. watched some more tv. poured myself a glass of wine and sat down to wait.

and i waited. a half hour. an hour. an hour and a half.

and at first, i wasn't concerned. there really was no schedule. then i was mildly hungry. then i was thinking i really didn't want to have another glass of wine before i had dinner but good grief. then i was downright concerned. maybe they'd had an accident.

and so then i texted my friends. said "hey, i'm hungry, when you gonna be here?"

and that's when it hit me. that it wasn't today they were coming. it was tomorrow.

oh duh.

so i texted my friends back and said "duh. see ya tomorrow."

ha ha. silly me.

so now i have a clean apt. another glass of wine. and a sandwich. and i have the week off. and something to look forward to tomorrow. yeah.

or as the kids say now- "yay"

Never neverland

They say, "Never say, "never." They never say who they is.

all the same, there are some nevers that i'd like to propose.

"never spend an evening drinking kaluha and coffee with friends." it guarantees that you can't go to sleep until close to 4 in the morning. and that you won't get up until at least noon.

"never put off cleaning out your car or your shed until it's cold out." it guarantees that you will be doubly miserable when cleaning out your car or your shed.

"never believe anything a man tells you when you don't really believe it in the first place." it guarantees that you will be played for a fool.

"never ever try to talk to someone who has made up their mind." it guarantees that you will not be listened to and that you'll just want to put your head through a wall later.

"never ever try to enlist help talking to someone who has made up their mind." it guarantees that the person who has made up their mind will double resent you.

"never ever put your faith in anything or anyone other than yourself. in fact, never really put your faith in yourself." you'll just wind up being frustrated beyond your wildest nightmare.

"never pick up that first cigarette." a sizable percentage of you will never again not want one. a smaller percentage of you will become insufferable non-smokers, depending on your biology.

"never think you're better than anyone else." for obvious reasons.

what's in a name?

i was at work tonight. filling in for someone whose mother is dying. and i've got a little extra time, so i start looking for a file that i can't find.

and i'm digging in this "graveyard" box of old files. actually, it's a limbo file. where files go before they are disposed of. and i'm thinking maybe it got buried there by mistake. so i'm looking through this box. and i come across a file marked last name, first name. and of course i can't give the last name out, but it doesn't matter anyway. what struck me was the first name. Latrina. as in Latrine-uh.

so seriously. who the heck names their child Latrina?

names are funny things, i think. you know how people say that person either looks like their name. or maybe they'll say "well, he looks like a Robert," or a Bob, or whatever name they think he looks like.

not once in my life has anyone ever told me that i look like my name. i guess they've never told me i don't either.

but on the other hand, i've met or know lots of people who i do think look like their names. a couple of months ago, i met the boyfriend of one of the women who i work with. and of course she introduced us. later, during the afternoon, by mistake, i called him Jeff. Well Jeff was not his name. I was embarrassed and said "duh, i'm sorry." and he said "you know? the odd thing is that i actually get called Jeff a lot. people must think i look like a Jeff or something." i guess he did.

So, do you know anyone who looks like a Latrina? i'm hoping people don't think i look like one.

is the woman who is short happy?

was reading today about a film about Noam Chomsky entitled "Is the Man Who is Tall Happy?" If you don't know, Noam Chomsky is a renowned linguist and professor at MIT. Linguistics is the scientific study of language.

and i'm reading this in light of my post yesterday where i declared all the things i might do if i were rich. and one of them was that i'd take classes in things that interest me. and one of the things that interests me is the field of linguistics. The study of the forms, meanings, and contexts of language.

of course, i didn't always know that linguistics interested me. and in fact, for a good portion of my adult life, i really didn't even know what linguistics was. up and until, i was sharing an office with one of our speech therapists, who had been "promoted" to an administrator.

this woman was very very bright. and i loved sharing the office with her because our conversations were always interesting and always lively and always thought-provoking. i'd often start a conversation with her saying "tell me where i'm wrong....." and then i'd propose whatever i was thinking about at the time and my thoughts on it. i learned much from this woman. and i liked her immensely, even while a lot of people did not. people thought she was too critical and not very nice because she was so bluntly and firmly honest. but i liked her, i suppose largely because a great many times, she'd tell me "well, you're not at all wrong and here's why...." but also she was never afraid to tell me "well, yeah, you are wrong, and here's why and here's where...."

i really don't mind being told i'm wrong if you can show me how or why and it makes sense to me. and i don't think it's a weakness to admit you've been wrong and to reverse or change course. in fact, i think it's a strength and it shows strength. so i didn't mind being told i was wrong from time to time by her because she was very good at pointing out exactly where my own thoughts or information had steered me wrong.

anyway, a small part of my job was to provide assistive technology to students who had deficits in communicating. it wasn't really my job, but because no one else in our system was doing it, i just started doing it and continued doing it informally until the administrators finally realized the value in what i was doing and they officially made it part of my job. and so anyway because her expertise, speech and language, promotes communication, and i did not have a speech therapy background, i'd also often run "solutions" past her to see if they made sense or not. and i think that together, both formally and informally, we helped a great many students.

anyway, one day i was telling her that i was really fascinated by speech and language therapy and in fact wished i could go back to school to become a speech and language therapist, but i bemoaned the fact that my hearing is not up to snuff and that it would be very difficult for me to ever deal with the "speech articulation" part of such a job. my hearing is such that i get understanding partly from what i can hear and partly from what i can see and partly from the context of any given situation. oh, and i say "what?" a lot. a lot of people are not even aware that i have problems hearing and have for years. i'm careful to watch expressions and to read a lot and prepare. i'm careful to place myself in position to people so that i can hear better. (interestingly, i can hear you better if i'm beside you rather than across from you.)

so back to my story, i asked my office/mate/friend that day, what could i be along these lines since i can't hear well? and she said, "what you want to study is linguistics, in fact, I think what you're really more interested in, in the first place, is linguistics. you should be a linguist."

and that is when i learned what a linguist was. and what they did. and i guess i always thought that perhaps one day if i were rich, i might study linguistics. and maybe that would make me happy.

a little aside to this story is that after a few years, my office mate and i got separated. Not because there was suddenly more office space available, but because the administration in place at the time, deemed the two of us too dangerous to be together. (i'm not making this up, one of the admins at the time told me directly later.) My office mate and i were vehemently opposed to some administrative decisions, and they found that when we were given time to talk together, we could develop arguments, and they simply could not defend their decisions in terms of what was best for children. in short, we made them look bad. sad for them, however, is that we continued to talk. only we now had to do our talking outside of work time and away from the office. it wasn't all to their detriment though. some years later, and shortly before i retired, she and i collaborated on a project that won one of our systems a great deal of competitive grant money. i know that made me happy.

if i were a rich man....

you might find this hard to believe, but i've really never given much thought as to what i'd do if for some reason one day i woke up rich.

sure, a few times some friends and i bought lottery tickets, and we fantasized a bit. but i can't say that i ever really took it seriously. it was too "out there."

but today i was reading about bill gates and then a hedge funder who wants to play at being called a philanthropist. and since i was disgusted by what all i was reading about how they are either wasting their money or using it to try to control others.

so, what would i do? if i were super mega rich?

ok, first i'd set aside oodles of money for my grandson to go to college or use to get started in a career.
then i'd pay off my son's house and buy he and his wife new cars.
then i'd spend an equal amount on my daughter and her husband.
then i'd make sure that my mother was taken care of for the rest of her life.
then i'd set up a retirement plan (a real one) for myself. and set up a will so everyone would know what they were getting when i up and croaked.

then i'd move. to an even bigger city. and get a really swanky apt. and i'd fly my friends in and out to visit.

then i'd make a list of all the vacations that i'd want to take and set aside enough money for all those.

then, i'd take language lessons and hire someone to push me to exercise and eat right daily.

then i'd set up every other day 2 hour massages.

then i'd buy paints and paint a little bit every day. just for the heck of it, because it's fun.

oh and yeah. i'd quit work. i mean, it's not like i have any real talents or abilities that the world would miss, so i'd quit work, and i'd start taking classes on whatever interested me.

i'd hire myself a math tutor. until i wasn't stupid anymore.

oh and i'd give all my closest friends a wish. and i'd make each of those wishes come true. remember, i'm mega rich and i would cover any wish up to 100,000 dollars.

i'd hire someone to clean for me. and to take care of a dog that i want, when i travel. and i'd maybe even hire a cook. who would not only cook, but let me cook with him or her if i wanted.

i have one friend that is already hired to be my personal assistant. and one of her duties would be that- she would go shopping with me, because she understands that i can only deal with shopping for so long, and then i just want to go have dinner and a glass of wine.

so i'd do all that, and of course i'd have already hired a financial advisor, who i'd have advise me about all the investments i should make so that my money grows, and so that i'd be able to promote the causes that i care about.

those causes would be: public education, libraries, homeless shelters, hunger programs, scholarships for scientists and doctors and engineers of useful things and writers. i'd choose just so many a year. but i wouldn't make the potential recipients of those scholarships write grants or proposals or essays. i'd just ask them to come and meet me. and i'd decide whether or not i'd fund them based on whether i liked them or not.

and do believe that i'd study politics. and i'd start in my own state and fund little guys that are fighting for the underdogs and those who can't fight for themselves.

and i'd pay my taxes. and i wouldn't bitch about it.

oh and you know what? i might buy myself a new car. but not much of one. just a modest one, that isn't red and has a stick shift.

judge not

so i really really really try to not be judgmental. i know you may not believe that, but i really do. i know "there, but for the grace of a diety, goes me." i also know that when you judge and it turns out you are wrong, your credibility is suspect. i know that oft times it's the things that you hate about yourself that you judge other for, so it points out your own flaws. and i know that it's just plain mean to be judgmental. i know,"judge not, lest you be judged."

i know all this. and i do try, when i think something judgmental, to keep it to myself. but sometimes, i just gotta say something. i just can't help myself. and so it is, today.

here it is, here's what i'm judging- when middle aged or semi-old people exhibit public displays of affection. and most especially when they post it on facebook or other social media. i'm sorry, but you look stupid. you look immature. you look ridiculous.

as ridiculous as the middle-aged man with a shiny little sports car. you look like a viagra commercial. and who the hell wants to look like that? and who the hell wants to look at you looking like that?

now, i'm not saying a hug after a long separation is bad. and i'm not saying posting a wedding picture is bad. or even a really flattering picture that someone takes of the two of you together, side by side smiling. and i'm not saying even that a quick handhold or a look across a crowded room is bad or that an arm around a shoulder occasionally, is all that bad. i'm a fan of these things, actually. but other than that, really, you're not 16 or in your 20's or even like 80 or 90 when i think it's ok again. i'm just saying "show some decorum, ok?" "don't leave me with the disturbing imagination of you going at it like rabbits as soon as the camera's off you, ok?"

it's just creepy ok? and it looks like you have no sense of class. and it looks like you are bragging about how you still "got it" after all these years. really. you just look stupid, ok?

so maybe i'm jealous. maybe it's just that i'm sad that i have no one to canoodle in front of a camera with or brag to my friends about. maybe. but you know? i don't think it's that. i really think it's that you just look stupid. because i don't find myself envying you, i find myself wondering, "what the hell is wrong with you?" or "what's wrong with your relationship that you can't give it a rest or that you think you have to show people how much in love you are."

so i'm judging you. and i know. judge not. but really. get a room. and shut the camera off, k?

time warp

i mentioned yesterday that i didn't feel very well. today, i am feeling ever so much better. that's what happens when you sleep for 15 hours. actually, i have slept much more than that. i do know that i fell asleep on the sofa around 4 in the afternoon when it was light out and woke up at 6 when it was only barely light out. in my confusion- for about an hour, i thought it was 6 in the morning. turns out it was 6 in the evening. i found i had a whole evening and night ahead of me. i won the time lottery.

but that nap didn't stop me from falling asleep again and sleeping until 9:30 in the morning.

when i felt well enough to go out and score some aspirin that i wanted yesterday. i came home, took it, and have felt pretty dandy after that.

but i've not been overly productive either. just done some light cleaning and chatted with a few people. i wrote for awhile. played some words with friends. and it never ceases to amaze me how time can just slip away from me, while i'm doing next to nothing. it especially amazes me when i think how jam packed my days used to be.

time is both so warped and so relative.

you'd think

that i had the flu. and maybe i do. it takes two weeks for a flu shot to be effective. and it's not been two weeks yet.

but if it's the flu, it's a mild flu. just great fatigue, a mild headache, some chills, an on and off fever. just enough to feel a bit crappy but not enough to keep someone home from work. i am, however, glad it's the weekend- and that i'm not forced to go anywhere. and glad to have a somewhat decent movie to watch, some green tea to drink, some warm sweats, sweaters, and socks and slippers to wear, and a soft afghan to cover up with.

my only wishes would be to have a new good book to start, some lo mien noodles to eat, and someone to pat me on the head and say "aw, poor baby" once in awhile.

i guess i can order a new book for the kindle and quickly get some take-out.

not sure i can entice anyone to come over here and pat me on the head though. it'd be nice if someone would start up such a business though. i'd probably pay 10 or so bucks for each pat. you'd think other alone people would pay a reasonable amount for this at times too.

except for the lump

just so you know. i feel much better than i did yesterday. and i thank those of you who seemed concerned. yes, it was a depressing day. and a depressing weekend. and yes, i was not exactly in the best of spirits.

but i just wanted to let you know that today i do feel better. my lovely daughter called me last night. then, it felt good to be at work this morning, where people seem to like me and appreciate me. and in the afternoon, i was able to get a few things done, that i'd been putting off. and it's always good to check things like that off a list. especially getting some flights booked. it's good to know i will be getting away. from. it. all. soon. oh, and the drugstore gave me bunches of free samples today (of shampoo, soap, and lotion, and stuff) free stuff, always good. then, i heard from another friend who I made plans with for the upcoming weekend. all good.

and so i feel better. except. for one thing i checked off my list today was getting my flu shot. and now, i have this weird lump on my arm. now this is not my first rodeo. i've had flu shots before. and i even had a reaction last year where a circle developed around the flu shot site that turned red and was warm and sore to the touch. for weeks.

but this year, in addition to that, i seem to have a lump. so just so you know- i feel pretty good and much better today. except for the lump.

and quite honestly, i'm not really even bothered all that much by that.

recipe for a depressing weekend

First spend Friday afternoon, listening to a bunch of assholes in suits and pantsuits behave arrogantly, and out and out lie and twist the facts and the truths about the profession you care the most about. While you are there, hear that a judge has blocked a challenge to their buffoonery with a technicality.

Next, spend your Saturday afternoon viewing the poetry and the artwork of someone who depicts great social injustices with heart-rendering clarity that makes you gulp down that lump in your throat. Next sift in your friend who tells you how upset her daughter was when one of her students died which creates a whole thickening mixture of remembered faces. sprinkle in just a dash of tears on their behalf.

Fold in a glass of wine and an evening at home alone, while friends are texting you "wish you were here" messages from sunny and warm places like florida. Don't forget to take a look at your meager bank account online.

Get up the next day and while trying to concentrate on researching the facts for your letter to the editor regarding the aforementioned assholes, which you know won't do any good- you watch your favorite football team lose, not by a little but by a horrible lot, to the team of a city that you can't even stand to think about right now. make sure the research you're doing is filled with the most horrific of facts that the assholes ignore flagrantly and blatantly for ignoble purposes.

Following that, flip the tv channel to watch perhaps one of the most depressing movies you've ever seen about a guy who seems to be living your life. It should be like looking in the mirror, except with all the exact details changed so that no one recognizes you but yourself.

Set the oven to turn on as the Sun goes down in the sky prematurely because an awful governor deemed it good for business over the needs of people.. Wrap it all up with a couple of broken memories.

and yes, i know- the key to turning away depression is to reframe everything positively. and i will. that will be how i occupy my evening. because i've learned to be a good cook by learning from all my kitchen disasters.

i fight authority

authority always wins.

and i have to tell that i don't even feel like i can do it anymore. how long can you care about something as it's being ripped apart.

i'm starting to believe that the good guys never ever win. apparently the universe is against the good guys winning. the universe hates the good guys.

excuses, excuses

"it's not an excuse, it's an explanation." so said an article i was reading about relationships between poor test scores and poverty.

because the counter argument, whenever one brings up that poverty is the best predictor of low test scores, is that you are making excuses. excuses for lots of things, they claim. excuses for bad teachers, excuses for failure, excuses for the horrible unions. excuses, excuses, excuses.

and so this article was seeking to anticipate that all-too-familiar cry with "no, Poverty is not an excuse for anything, rather, it's an explanation for lots of things. lots of things that contribute to children of poverty getting poor test scores.

but somehow, i don't think that those who don't get it, will discern this distinction between an excuse and an explanation. and while i could, it's not my intention at this time to debate those people about school issues, but instead, it's my intention today to discuss this inability to discern the difference between an excuse and an explanation.

because yes, this is personal to me. once upon a time in a land far away, an ugly monster, disguised as a handsome prince, hurled this at me- that i should not connect an apology (that i was trying to make) with an excuse. because the excuse rendered my apology not an apology.

ARRGGG! that's how i felt at the time, and truthfully that's how i still feel now. because i wasn't trying to excuse myself, i was TRYING to explain why i might have felt the way that i did, and how that might have caused me to act the way i did or to say what i had said. i was trying to EXPLAIN!

to me it came down to something like this: you're not supposed to scream outloud on a bus. it's rude. it scares other people, it distracts the driver. no question, you are not supposed to scream on a bus.

so one day, you're riding the bus, and you scream. really loud. and you are about to be thrown off the bus by the angry bus driver, until the passenger standing beside you notices that your hand is trapped in the door. and he makes the suggestion that perhaps the reason you are screaming is because you are in pain. so is that fellow passenger making an excuse for you? or is he perhaps explaining why you screamed.

so now, should the bus driver take that explanation as just an excuse by a couple of rowdy passengers? or perhaps should the bus driver consider that it was an explanation for the screaming and that he should seek to do something about it. like perhaps, listen to what's been said and then open the damn door to release your hand? and maybe, just maybe, even give you an apology for not understanding that your hand was caught in the door.

but no, ugly monster guy not only doesn't consider it an explanation, he calls it an excuse, that i'm making to what? to make excuses for what i said and how evil i was. and who else does that? he continues. that's right. abusers.

and that's about when i really lost it. SERIOUSLY? who the hell accuses someone of such a thing? really, who?
especially, who the hell accuses you of such a thing while you are trying your best to make an apology. if they supposedly love you? really, who does that?

ugly monster guy, that's who.

now in a fairy tale, disney-pixar movie type world, in the end, misunderstandings would have been cleared up with explanations, and love would have prevailed, and the ugly monster guy would have peeled off his ugly monster face to once again reveal, a sweet handsome one underneath those other two masks. but that's not what happened. instead he kept wearing the ugly monster face and walked away leaving me to behave as something of a banshee, myself. and this is not an excuse for my bansheeness, not because it's not an explanation, but because there is no excuse of that for myself. i sunk to new lows. and that is that. no excuses here. it is what it is. i was human. and so at times, i suck.

and the sequel to the story is that when he walked away, he slapped the handsome face back on and pretended it all never happened, and went on to live happily ever after with someone either better than me or luckier than me, or both. hakuna matata to you, darlin'.

me? well, yes, i've made improvements in my life, and i've done an awful lot (read: too much) of introspection about myself, and i've moved a bit forward. but even still, i feel that i'm the loser here. i'm the one who obsesses in a diary/blog about it all. and relates almost every experience i have or thing that i read against that now long-ago event.

and on this, i'm not making an excuse, but once again, rather an apology (to any reader)- hooked with the explanation that i've been able to come up with for myself. you'd think that i'd just be glad that my hand was no longer trapped in the door, wouldn't you? instead, i obsess. and i'm truly sorry.

but just so you know, dear reader- i actually am better through this obsession. the obsession helped me gain and helps me keep perspective. i AM glad that my hand is no longer trapped in the door. No longer do i shed tears or gnash my teeth or sob uncontrollably. no longer do i seek out counselors or therapists or divine intervention or death. no longer, am i truly unhappy. in fact, most of the time now, i am quite happy. i love my new life, my new apt., my new job, many new friends. i love my family.

but i gotta tell you, i still wish the whole thing- soup to nuts, good to bad, would have never ever happened. i'm MAD that my hand is damaged, ok? yes, i can use my left hand quite well, i'm adaptable. but i miss my right hand ok? and i'm not one of those who was glad she got cancer to teach her the meaning of life or that life is good and precious. i had a pretty good grasp that life was good before i met him. i had a pretty good grasp that i should be grateful for all that i had before i knew him. i did not need a lesson or even a wake-up call. i am better yes, but i am not a better person because of it all. so, i'm not willing to make that excuse for it all. but i might make that explanation.

fractions and smoking saves a life

so there really is rarely a dull moment at the center i work at on monday and wednesday nights. it's an inner-city site. some of our staff won't work there. it's too inner city for them. but i like it there. and i get along very well with our clients who are working to get their geds there. i actually always look forward to mon and wed. nights.

and the evening started with me subbing for the regular teacher. when he called to ask if i could cover for him until he got there, i said, "sure, anything particular you want me to cover?" and to my dismay, he said "anything with math, because i'm doing language arts when i get there." i said, "ok." but as you might well know, i hate math. i'm bad at math. no, i really truly suck at math.

but i'm a trooper so i go into the classroom, and i tell the class that the teacher will be late, and that i've been asked to work with them on math, so what i want to know before i pull out materials is what they'd been working on and what was giving them trouble, so we could jumble through it together.

and right away, they all agreed on fractions. they are struggling with fractions. and i'm thinking "yeah, i can do fractions. i get them! i can handle this! yeah!" so i go back to our storage cabinet and grab some materials to use to get us started.

and i start very simply. just review. and slowly, together we worked, and it's one of those great teacher moments when you actually see lightbulbs going off above their heads.

when the teacher got there an hour in, he tells them they can go take a break, and when they come back they'll work on the language arts. well usually, all of these people are smokers. and so about half of them went outside to smoke, and the other half came over to tell me how much they had appreciated my math lesson. and they told me how no disrespect to xxxxxx, but that they really liked it better when i was teaching math, because i was both funny, and i explained things so simply and step by step, that they actually got it. according to them, xxxxxxx goes too fast.

so i laughed, and said "well, that's because i suck at math, and i know exactly where a mistake can be made, so i slow it down, and break it down how i've always needed it broken down."

so part of the reason i'm telling you this is to brag. -that while i suck at math, it appears that i'm a great math teacher. but also part of the reason is to tell you that my flatterers did not get outside to smoke during this break.

so because they didn't, about an hour later, they asked xxxxxxx, if they could have another break to go out to smoke.
and he agrees, and i'm sitting at the computer doing my work, when xxxxxxx comes up, and says, "can you call for an ambulance, there's an old man out in the parking lot who has fallen down, and he thinks he broke his hip, he can't move."

and so i go to the phone and call 911 to have the ambulance come while xxxxxxx goes out to hold an umbrella over the poor guy who is lying on the ground in the rain.

and then i hear the story of how he was found. on the second smoke break, that was called for the nicotine-deprived smokers who spent their first break inside with me, the smokers found the guy on the ground and they came in to get xxxxxxx, who told me to call 911.

and the guy was an older man, in his late 70's i guess, who had been at a meeting upstairs at the center earlier but had left the meeting early because he needed to get home because he was preparing to go in to have a defibrilator placed in the morning. and the meeting he'd left was scheduled to go on for at least another hour. our class was scheduled to meet for another hour and 1/2. so potentially, the poor guy with a heart problem would have laid in the cold rain for 2 hours in all if my smokers hadn't discovered him. i can't think it would have ended well.

but discover him they did, 911 was called, and they came and took him to the local hospital, and it appears that all will be well, afterall.

and that's how fractions and smoking saved a life.

walls of brick

so there are just going to be people you disagree with. people you can't reconcile with. and ideologies that people hold that can't be squared with your own.

i used to think people could work things out, if only reason and facts and fairness and the right words were introduced to the situation. but now i don't. i just think that there are some chasms that can't be bridged or crawled or swum or flown acorss. sometimes there is just no meeting in the middle.

sometimes it's people that refuse to hear you. sometimes it's that their side of things is plain repulsive to you. sometimes it's that a person can't be forgiving. sometimes it's that a person cannot be trusted.

and i have to tell you that i've got less and less respect these days for people that pretend they can bring sides together. mediators, therapists, psychologists, lawyers, politicians. i mostly think these days, that the only thing accomplished by employing one of these folks is some commerce is transacted.


anyway, i think that the best you can ever hope for is that people who you disagree with are decent folk, who won't try to hurt you if you disagree. and that you can agree to live on other sides of the fence. peaceably.

the problem comes in though when public resources must be shared or agreed upon. and i guess that is why there are laws. sad though that some people won't respect those laws either by out and out breaking them or by buying their way out of them or by bullying or manipulating their way out.

anyway, it makes me sad. for about 3 weeks now I've been trying to get something written. A letter to some of the lawmakers in my state who have decided to circumvent the laws of our state and play games with public money and our votes. and if we still used paper, i can't even tell you how many trees i'd have destroyed by now, writing and then crumpling up the paper. i can't find the right words. that would get them to see what i so wish they'd see.

and it occurs to me, that the reason i'm having so much trouble is that there really are no words for these people. no words that will help them to understand. they are brickwalls. they simply do not want to listen or understand. they are being paid to have an opposite opinion. and i can't fight money with my puny words. puny words are no match for brickwalls.

and i might as well save my breath because there aren't words. and apparently there are no numbers i can use either.

because now it appears, according to a Yale study, that numbers (unless they are connected to dollar signs, as in bribes) won't help you change anyone's mind either. did you read about this study? listen to this, "it turns out that highly numerate liberals and conservatives were even more—not less—susceptible to letting politics skew their reasoning than were those with less mathematical ability."

sigh. brickwalls. impervious to everything but money and sledgehammers.

the weekend!

i am so grateful that it's finally here! not that i'm doing that much besides meeting up with some friends for a bit tomorrow. but heavens to pete, what a week. and i'm SO glad to be home, sweet, apartment. with nothing more challenging than my laundry to do.

i worked every night this week. so roughly, i worked at least 8 hour days each day, even while the days are split up to a.m. and p.m. sessions.

now i know. it's beyond ridiculous for (especially) me to feel like that's a lot of work. i mean, good grief, i used to work close to 80 hours a week, all told. and i did that for years. upon years. and then each day came home and made a horrible stab at raising children and keeping a house. and wow, i even used to volunteer and chair committees on top of that!. and i realize that i would get maybe 4 weeks off in the summer. but still, i was running a sleep debt that was mounting up higher than the federal deficit. and making me next to insane, i think.

and my fatigue right now also seems crazy- because even while i worked more hours than usual this week, this job really has next to none of the mental and emotional stress that the old one did. when i look back on that stress now, i really couldn't tell you how i survived, how i was ever civil to anyone at all ever, or how i didn't either go postal or off myself. it almost seems something of a miracle, now that i look back on it. they really were NOT the good old days. at all. but even while it's nothing compared to what i used to deal with, i do have to say that last night presented a bit of a challenge, dealing with a crazy, rather intense situation. but still. that was nothing compared to the past. and it was one night of intensity. not the every night. and certainly not the "things hanging over my head all the time even while i was supposedly off work" kind of intensity.

so anyway, it seems ludicrous that i'd be so tired tonight. and so very glad to stay in doing nothing but sampling a glass of wine, watching some home & garden tv, while simmering a new recipe in the crockpot. it smells delicious, btw. not even sure i can wait the full six hours of simmmering before diving into it.

all the same- YAY! the WEEKEND!