How is it that I never watched "Family Guy" until just recently? I can't imagine that this show has been on - how many effin' seasons? - and I missed it. Even my students this past year gasped in horror when I told them I'd never seen it. We had been talking about Titus Andronicus and several episodes of FG came up. The first clip I saw was the "prom night dumpster baby" song and I thought I would pee myself in front of my students. I had to excuse myself.
In a word, I am vexed.
Yesterday my mood was glum. I got up today feeling better and motivated to get some things done and then. THEN. I got a visit at my door from a man who served me court papers. Apparently, the person with whom I was in a car accident THREE FUCKING YEARS AGO is suing me. I have to vent. Read on at your own discretion. For the record, I really don't want to talk about this. I'm just going to dump it all here and try to move on.
September, 2005: I was teaching five (yes, FIVE) classes and attending my first term at DU and in the Professica's class and under the knowledge that I needed cervical surgery. Yay for me. I dropped Jamison off at work and was getting onto 36 from Sheridan. A stupid bitch in a minivan was driving like a crazy person, arguing with her husband in the passenger seat, and when we proceeded from the stop light to the on-ramp, she bolted like a bat out of hell in front of me. Because it's an on-ramp and it's short, I sped up out of the light and was watching around me because three lanes merge into one, etc. Meanwhile, this unbelievably stupid person had "dropped her cell phone" and decided to SLOW AND STOP in the middle of the fucking on-ramp. I slammed into her, totaled my car, deployed airbags, blah blah blah. She got out of the car and was quite fine. This was of course the last thing I needed and I'm certain that to some degree it happened because I was stressed out, but who anticipates a person who bolted from a light to be stopped only fifty feet later while getting onto a highway? Of course I got the ticket because I did the hitting, but come ON. She was fine and drove away from the accident - didn't even get checked out by paramedics as I recall. I did feel bad but mostly for myself, thankyouverymuch because the bitch did STOP on an on-ramp - not because she was suffering a seizure or anything, but to PICK UP HER CELL PHONE for Christ's sake, and now this is all my fault? I hadn't heard a word about this until today.
Today, I get papers that she's suing me because my insurance company didn't pay (apparently), and she claims she has over $100,000 in medical bills. MY ASS she does. I'm a good person, and had she been hurt, I would be supportive and take the responsibility. I'm guessing the insurance company didn't pay her because she was a FUCKING IDIOT and should be at least equally responsible for what happened to her. But this paperwork - my God - makes me sound like I didn't have any insurance (not true - I'm covered to the fucking hilt), that I recklessly rear-ended her when she was some sad little victim who was tragically injured. Fuck. I don't need this right now. This is not good for my rage. It's not good for my anxiety and insomnia. There is nothing I can do about it today, either, because it's Saturday. I don't know who to ask. I know I need to call my insurance company and find out what the fuck is happening. Call my lawyer. But now I have to wait until Monday and just stew about it. There is no way I can not think about it. I'm so angry I can't even focus.
Fuck.
25 July 2008
24 July 2008
We all have something that digs in us, but at least we dig each other
Laura came back from a five-week visit to Texas and I couldn't be more relieved. The first time I saw her after her return, I felt embarrassed because I'd gained a few pounds (even though she commented that she had too), but I realized that even at Starbucks, where at least a contact high is visited upon you, we were pretty calm people and having a normal conversation. Nothing about this is odd, of course, except that despite our dessert-eating, non-gym going, and admittedly heavier appearances, Laura looked good and I think I did too, relatively speaking. Also not odd, but what was odd is that I think for the first time since I've been friends with her, a particular fog had been lifted. A fog named DU, that permeates us so completely that it changes us physically. Laura mentioned that her blood pressure was an all-time low in Texas, and it occurred to me that mine had been lately as well, even in the face of lousy eating and too much caffeine.
How can a place - and one in which we are both achieving something great, something be we wanted - be so soul-sucking? I love school, I love teaching, I love learning, I love intellectual stimulation and challenge, I love order and structure - this list goes on and on. So does Laura, I think. But two days ago, I got an email from the department requesting we fill out forms for the coming school year and I felt my blood vessels contract. By the time several people in our class weighed in on their degree of annoyance (and thus christening a new year of graduate school hell), I was in a full-blown depressive state. As I drove down there yesterday morning for my various errands, the stress began.
It's like Harry Potter's Dementors - when you get near one, the space around you ices over and it feels as though all the happiness has been sucked from the world. Dementor University = DU. I'll be glad to be finished, if it ever happens, but now that I feel aware of their presence, I feel the need to cast a spell against it. Isn't it a Patronus Charm I need? I'm guessing the form my patronus would take is a Pug. She can be pretty fierce when it means protecting the one with the snacks and the warm bed and the walking leash. It occurs to me that the nature of so much of my conversation with Laura and my other DU friends is centered around DU and my metaphoric Patronus Charm is going to be to NOT talk DU with them whenever possible in the future. To make my world safe from the icy chill and bottomless unhappiness that the whole of my experience there has created - it cannot defeat me.
How can a place - and one in which we are both achieving something great, something be we wanted - be so soul-sucking? I love school, I love teaching, I love learning, I love intellectual stimulation and challenge, I love order and structure - this list goes on and on. So does Laura, I think. But two days ago, I got an email from the department requesting we fill out forms for the coming school year and I felt my blood vessels contract. By the time several people in our class weighed in on their degree of annoyance (and thus christening a new year of graduate school hell), I was in a full-blown depressive state. As I drove down there yesterday morning for my various errands, the stress began.
It's like Harry Potter's Dementors - when you get near one, the space around you ices over and it feels as though all the happiness has been sucked from the world. Dementor University = DU. I'll be glad to be finished, if it ever happens, but now that I feel aware of their presence, I feel the need to cast a spell against it. Isn't it a Patronus Charm I need? I'm guessing the form my patronus would take is a Pug. She can be pretty fierce when it means protecting the one with the snacks and the warm bed and the walking leash. It occurs to me that the nature of so much of my conversation with Laura and my other DU friends is centered around DU and my metaphoric Patronus Charm is going to be to NOT talk DU with them whenever possible in the future. To make my world safe from the icy chill and bottomless unhappiness that the whole of my experience there has created - it cannot defeat me.
19 July 2008
For some reason I can't explain, I know St. Peter will call my name
Saturday morning and I know it's been a long time since I've written in this space. I can feel it. When I don't write often my brain gets bogged down, heavy, and sluggish. I feel depressed and overwhelmed. I have to sit down and tell myself again all of the things I know to be true. Adulthood often sucks this way, and if I think too hard about it, I'm spiraling into a full-blown existential crisis.
Time for a Come-to-Jesus talk with myself. But first, the whining.
From the outside, my work and school lives seem pretty simple: I'm fortunate to have the opportunities of going to an expensive private school to get a doctorate degree, and as well to have the kind of work skills to make enough money to permit comfort for the rest of my life. I work most of my hours on my own time and I get convenient blocks of time off from my job throughout the year. Having said all of that, the down side is that I never leave it. I don't punch a time clock, go home, and live a separate live until I clock back in. I'm in a constant process of thinking about or planning for my job. There are always papers to grade, things to read, emails to answer, and plans to be made for forthcoming terms. I'm always scrambling for the next semester or quarter and it wears me thin sometimes. It's wearing me thin now because even though it means little or no money, I usually have summers basically off - lots of downtime and recovery from the hectic school year. I guess I always thought the trade-off for working my ass off to the point of near breakdown was fine as long as it was temporary - I can do just about anything for sixteen weeks as long as there's time off at the end of the tunnel.
Now, however, I've hit a wall and it's understandable. I'm at that point where I'm just not quite there with student life but I'm mentally ready to be and want to move on. I'm trying to get jobs lined up for myself, get my foot in a few doors to give me options, and I know this is the right thing to do. What bothers me, however, is that my fall schedule is looking pretty grim and I won't have so much as a week off before it all starts because of my insane teaching load this summer. Alas, I have made this bed and now I must lie in it.
And lie in it is exactly what I've done of late. I feel unmotivated and lazy, slightly depressed, but only because I'm not going to the gym or eating well, I've gained a few pounds, and I can't seem to snap out of it. But I must. I will. Today.
There has to be some way of making life work comfortably. Once upon a time, I was a young single mother with no place to live, no job, and no education. I should be a statistic right now - I should be on welfare and food stamps, smoking cigarettes for breakfast, living in an unsavory neighborhood in a trailer, and weighing 300 pounds and working at Taco Bell. On paper, at any rate, that should have been my life because of how I started adulthood. It was for this very reason - because no one expected me to do anything of note - that I put my heart and soul into school and became the person I am now. I wanted my daughter to have a female role model who didn't settle for anything less than what she was capable of, who pushed her way through to reach the pinnacle of personal and professional education, and most importantly, who was smart and capable and confident. That's how we raise capable and confident children. When I look at my daughter or listen to her views I am often shocked at how self-assured and well adjusted she is, especially for 14. I was a mess at that age - uncertain, insecure, brimmed over with self-loathing - but not her. She's gutsy and doesn't let anyone tell her what to do or think, and she knows she is smart and funny and pretty, but not in a self-centered way. How could I not be proud of this?
Today I'm going to get my fat ass to the gym, walk the dog, and accomplish what needs to be accomplished and try to remember why I do any of it. If for no other reason, it's better than the alternatives - all of which equal giving up, and if there's one thing someone can say about me when I'm gone is that I never did that. No fucking way.
Time for a Come-to-Jesus talk with myself. But first, the whining.
From the outside, my work and school lives seem pretty simple: I'm fortunate to have the opportunities of going to an expensive private school to get a doctorate degree, and as well to have the kind of work skills to make enough money to permit comfort for the rest of my life. I work most of my hours on my own time and I get convenient blocks of time off from my job throughout the year. Having said all of that, the down side is that I never leave it. I don't punch a time clock, go home, and live a separate live until I clock back in. I'm in a constant process of thinking about or planning for my job. There are always papers to grade, things to read, emails to answer, and plans to be made for forthcoming terms. I'm always scrambling for the next semester or quarter and it wears me thin sometimes. It's wearing me thin now because even though it means little or no money, I usually have summers basically off - lots of downtime and recovery from the hectic school year. I guess I always thought the trade-off for working my ass off to the point of near breakdown was fine as long as it was temporary - I can do just about anything for sixteen weeks as long as there's time off at the end of the tunnel.
Now, however, I've hit a wall and it's understandable. I'm at that point where I'm just not quite there with student life but I'm mentally ready to be and want to move on. I'm trying to get jobs lined up for myself, get my foot in a few doors to give me options, and I know this is the right thing to do. What bothers me, however, is that my fall schedule is looking pretty grim and I won't have so much as a week off before it all starts because of my insane teaching load this summer. Alas, I have made this bed and now I must lie in it.
And lie in it is exactly what I've done of late. I feel unmotivated and lazy, slightly depressed, but only because I'm not going to the gym or eating well, I've gained a few pounds, and I can't seem to snap out of it. But I must. I will. Today.
There has to be some way of making life work comfortably. Once upon a time, I was a young single mother with no place to live, no job, and no education. I should be a statistic right now - I should be on welfare and food stamps, smoking cigarettes for breakfast, living in an unsavory neighborhood in a trailer, and weighing 300 pounds and working at Taco Bell. On paper, at any rate, that should have been my life because of how I started adulthood. It was for this very reason - because no one expected me to do anything of note - that I put my heart and soul into school and became the person I am now. I wanted my daughter to have a female role model who didn't settle for anything less than what she was capable of, who pushed her way through to reach the pinnacle of personal and professional education, and most importantly, who was smart and capable and confident. That's how we raise capable and confident children. When I look at my daughter or listen to her views I am often shocked at how self-assured and well adjusted she is, especially for 14. I was a mess at that age - uncertain, insecure, brimmed over with self-loathing - but not her. She's gutsy and doesn't let anyone tell her what to do or think, and she knows she is smart and funny and pretty, but not in a self-centered way. How could I not be proud of this?
Today I'm going to get my fat ass to the gym, walk the dog, and accomplish what needs to be accomplished and try to remember why I do any of it. If for no other reason, it's better than the alternatives - all of which equal giving up, and if there's one thing someone can say about me when I'm gone is that I never did that. No fucking way.
12 July 2008
At the Copa, Copacabana
I have had this song in my head for weeks. I even proactively downloaded it from iTunes and sand along with it in the hopes of banishing it for another decade or so, but alas, I'm stuck with Manilow. Despite my desire to appear cool and admit to only liking hip indie bands, there's something amusing about the songs of my childhood that I never felt I "should" like but do. Now that I'm all-growed-up-and-shit, I feel like I can sing along to whatever the hell I want without the sting of disapproval that used to wound me so.
"Her name was Lola..."
Oy. I've had strep throat this week, and I'm more than a little dismayed at how little it altered the course of said week, except for the fact that I ran through my days feeling like I wanted to die. I only called out one class and still managed to get work done instead of resting on that day, even after a trip to the doctor told me I was quite ill. Perhaps my need to accomplish has become pathological at this point - an OCD kind of thing that dominates my reason and otherwise good common sense. Even today, only two days after the start of antibiotics, I got up and immediately created a daunting to do list; Jamison noted "I can always tell when you're feeling better but not 100%, because you start in on obsessively cleaning and then sit down ten minutes later." Apparently this is my M.O. because he recognizes it - and let's face it, him being a man and all, if he notices patterns of my behavior that do not result directly in affecting him, it must be worth noting. I don't mean that in a snarky way, either.
I have, however, decided to evaluate a bit of my hair-on-fire life routine today, particularly with regard to how I contracted strep in the middle of the summer and while I'm the healthiest I've ever been. I've always operated a pretty high level - that is, I'm accustomed to people asking me, "how do you do it all?" and my response is: "I dunno. I just do." But in the last year especially, I've noticed that I am not getting things done the way I used to. This must be attributed to one of two possible factors: (1) I'm trying to do too much, or (2) I'm getting older, slowing down a bit, and trying to do too much. Then there's (3), which is that I've had a rubbish year on the whole, have been in and out of hospital, and had a child who underwent major surgery. You don't need to write me and tell me that it's of course, all three of those things, complicated by a dozen other factors of which I am keenly aware.
"With yellow feathers in her hair, and a dress cut down to there....She would Merengue ...."
So what's the answer? How can I put things on hold, say no, or simply not achieve the things I've set out to do? The answer - sad as it is - is I don't know. My adult identity is somehow wrapped up in, or completely absorbed by, this need I have to "get things done." Time to re-evaluate. Will keep you posted.
"They were young and they had each other, who could ask for more?"
"Her name was Lola..."
Oy. I've had strep throat this week, and I'm more than a little dismayed at how little it altered the course of said week, except for the fact that I ran through my days feeling like I wanted to die. I only called out one class and still managed to get work done instead of resting on that day, even after a trip to the doctor told me I was quite ill. Perhaps my need to accomplish has become pathological at this point - an OCD kind of thing that dominates my reason and otherwise good common sense. Even today, only two days after the start of antibiotics, I got up and immediately created a daunting to do list; Jamison noted "I can always tell when you're feeling better but not 100%, because you start in on obsessively cleaning and then sit down ten minutes later." Apparently this is my M.O. because he recognizes it - and let's face it, him being a man and all, if he notices patterns of my behavior that do not result directly in affecting him, it must be worth noting. I don't mean that in a snarky way, either.
I have, however, decided to evaluate a bit of my hair-on-fire life routine today, particularly with regard to how I contracted strep in the middle of the summer and while I'm the healthiest I've ever been. I've always operated a pretty high level - that is, I'm accustomed to people asking me, "how do you do it all?" and my response is: "I dunno. I just do." But in the last year especially, I've noticed that I am not getting things done the way I used to. This must be attributed to one of two possible factors: (1) I'm trying to do too much, or (2) I'm getting older, slowing down a bit, and trying to do too much. Then there's (3), which is that I've had a rubbish year on the whole, have been in and out of hospital, and had a child who underwent major surgery. You don't need to write me and tell me that it's of course, all three of those things, complicated by a dozen other factors of which I am keenly aware.
"With yellow feathers in her hair, and a dress cut down to there....She would Merengue ...."
So what's the answer? How can I put things on hold, say no, or simply not achieve the things I've set out to do? The answer - sad as it is - is I don't know. My adult identity is somehow wrapped up in, or completely absorbed by, this need I have to "get things done." Time to re-evaluate. Will keep you posted.
"They were young and they had each other, who could ask for more?"
01 July 2008
Some folks just need killin'
I hate Aurora. If you're reading this and you live there, my apologies. Really. But what a fucking armpit it is. The traffic is unreasonable and I'm certain that 90% of the people I encounter in this part of town are sure they are (a) living in Southern California and (b) have the entire world spinning around their warm little centers. California attitude - you know, the one where it's normal to order a latte with a phone in one ear, to let the door slam in the face of the person directly behind you while walking out without so much as an acknowledgment of that person's existence, much less an apology, and to park wherever the hell you feel like it regardless of whether or not you're blocking people in - drives me perfectly insane. Such was the case at the Parker Road Starbucks this morning. If I'd had a gun, so help me. The woman who went in before me marched in, didn't hold the door even though I was right behind her, then proceeded to order her drink with a snail's attention to efficiency (which, by the way, was an extra chocolate, extra caramel mocha frappaccino whateverthefuckitis and a bear claw), and her ass was the size of a small nation. If she hadn't been a bitch, I might have been kinder but all I could think was, "yeah, like you really need a ton of extra sugar in your diet."
This was just following the woman on her cell phone who talked loudly and refused to even say "hold on" while she ordered, then got irritated with the timid trainee at the register when she couldn't keep the various requests in order. Then she wanted to add money to her card. Then she sauntered past the line of fifteen people that had rapidly accumulated while she blathered on oblivious to the rest of the world in her Wal-Mart outfit and bad uneducated Hispanic talk - "I seen this guy" you get the idea.
And I am in no mood. Really.
This was just following the woman on her cell phone who talked loudly and refused to even say "hold on" while she ordered, then got irritated with the timid trainee at the register when she couldn't keep the various requests in order. Then she wanted to add money to her card. Then she sauntered past the line of fifteen people that had rapidly accumulated while she blathered on oblivious to the rest of the world in her Wal-Mart outfit and bad uneducated Hispanic talk - "I seen this guy" you get the idea.
And I am in no mood. Really.
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