Feet of clay

I lost respect for someone today.

It was a really difficult moment for me, because I thought this person was above the petty unprofessional bullshit that I've witnessed in leadership positions over the years.

 I felt very much like a child again when I began to realize that everything my mom said was not true.

 I felt like that the first time I realized a coworker I trusted had systematically betrayed me...for years.

I almost felt like I was falling for a second- and then it passed and I realized that there is really no one I can trust at work.  There is no one who would not hesitate to throw me under the bus if it meant saving themselves.

This is why I don't socialize much with coworkers outside of the very rare happy hour.  The moment I forget that these people are not my friends, just coworkers is the moment that could come back to haunt me later.

I really wish I didn't feel like this.  I wish my faith in my professional counterparts could be restored.  However, when the last person in the world that I would think to play favorites and behave unprofessionally does so in a way I never imagined, I'm forced to re-examine my judgement of character.

Fall is coming

The last day of August is tomorrow.  I had a relaxing summer but I am more than ready to bid it farewell.  Soon my favorite month of the year is coming.  Soon it will be October.  In that month, I savor each day as I watch the tree near my building turn into a stunning yellow.  I inhale the rich smell of falling leaves.  I decorate my apartment for Halloween and plan my costume.  I rely on the memories of fall to last me the whole year. 

Soon I will brew tea when I come home from work.  Soon I will wear flannel pajamas and fluffy socks.  Soon I will curl up on my sofa in the evenings with the screen door letting in the cool air. 

Soon.

Bullet- I think you dodged one

Yesterday, I stopped by the classroom of a coworker/friend and found out that she and her boyfriend had ended their relationship via text message. 

Although she was upset and a bit teary, it was hard for me to not feel like he had done her a favor.  He was going to Kuwait for a year, he had not done anything for her on Mother's Day, and instead of spending his last few days with her and her toddler, he had spent it working on his car.  He had expected her to take a day off of work so they could hang out.  When a spat ensued, he had taken off and was MIA for three days after drinking with the boys.

Oh yes, and he's a racist homophobe who thinks his lesbian sister is going to hell for choosing to be gay, and he calls black people who piss him off niggers.  (BTW, as teachers, we agree to teach and treat everyone with respect, so that kind of talk doesn't fly with most of us in the public school system.  Maybe at Greater Grace Academy, but not where I am).

Yes, he has a nice body.  His arms alone are dreamy.  But early on, some of the things he did/said, raised little red flags in my head.  Since I have lost friends over voicing concerns about assholes they were in love with, I kept my big mouth shut.  I figured it was only a matter of time before this loving, caring, exuberant and wonderful woman figured out that she had allowed the biggest twat to live with her.

Luckily, he will ship out in a few days and she can give herself some time to heal and move on.  After seeing the tall frosty ones she was pounding down at Happy Hour last night, I do believe that process has begun.

In the meantime, I think this guy has given her the best going away present he could have possibly given. 

Her breakup got me thinking again about all the warning signs I blissfully and willfully ignored when I first began to date my ex husband.  Some of them were later voiced by friends and family who kept it to themselves until long after my separation and divorce.  While I would like to think I would not have ended a relationship with these people due to something like this, I still wonder what my reaction could have been.  Would I have been more tuned into his drinking if someone had pointed out that he was drunk in the morning when he came over to help with cable?  I don't know. 

What I do know is that there was some part of me yesterday that envied the short time she had to find out her mistake.  It took me 11 years.

Arguing with idiots

I don't know why I bother posting comments under those stupid yahoo articles that show up on my homepage.  From what I can see, most of them are from right wing nutbars.  I put something up in support of gay couples being parents, knowing all the while that the bigots would go on the attack. 

What amuses me is how many of the haters commenting were logged in under male names. 

"Lesbians are unnatural." 

I'm sure they are muttering that when they are wanking off to a girl on girl scene in porn.  "Oh, this is unnatural and against god's teachings!"  (fapfapfapfapfap).

I have tried to weed out such asshats from my FB friend which has meant deleting people I knew in high school.  My first boyfriend is one of those guys who is still a staunch Republican.  And a racist, misogynistic bigot.  He used to say how sick it was that two guys had sex, yet when two women did it, he found it "cute."

Granted, he was 16 when he said it, but my guess is, he probably still feels this way.  If his FB posts are any indication, he never really grew out of the narrow mindedness he had in 1986. 

I'm glad I did.

Back then I was a Good Catholic Girl.  I believe premarital sex could send you to hell,  Jeebus, had come to earth to save us all, and ...well, you get the picture.

I know people think atheists and secularists are the undoing of America.  That women who identify as such are out having abortions for the fun of it, that we are sluts for using birth control (according to Rush), etc.etc.

Well, who do you think these godless women are having sex with in order to need contraception or an abortion?  If we were having sex with women (oh, how unnatural) we wouldn't need those things.  Yet if we have sex with men, we are whores. 

I feel like I have been transported back into the 1950s.  My mother raised me on how a double standard exists, Nice Girls Don't, and that boys will call you names if you do. (And you wonder why I am in therapy).

I just cannot wrap my head around the preoccupation some people still have over what men and women do in the privacy of their own lives.  I cannot understand how gay parenting and gay sex is ripping apart the fabric of our society.  I cannot understand how straight sex is going to cause the earth to careen into the sun.

People have been doing these things for thousands of years.  The only difference is that they don't do it in secret on pain of death anymore.  If a just and righteous god didn't punish anyone before, what makes anyone think it will happen now? 

Why aren't these same people worried that their god won't punish Americans for the pain and suffering we inflict on the world through our mindless consumption?  People suffer and die so we can have our ipods, diet soda, and the tons of other crap we take for granted. 

No one is commenting on that.

I'm not a happy camper

I'm not even a camper.

Once upon a time I tried to be a camper.  I camped with my college boyfriend.  I camped with all my Pagan friends on and off for years, thinking I could become one with Mother Earth by sleeping on shitty inflatable mattresses and sitting around a campfire.

I even attended an earth based religion festival for several days with some good friends, and on another occasion I spent the night at a farm/campground dedicated to the treehugger/Goddess worship crowd.

I have never slept through the night when I have gone camping.  Even with prescription drugs to help me.

What I have managed to do is get too cold, bitten by bugs, develop horrible headaches for sleeping on an incline, struggle to function on sleep deprivation, and cry because I wanted to go the fuck home.

I used to feel bad that I wasn't tough or in touch with the earth enough to love camping.

Then I met a friend who declared that for her, roughing it meant no room service.

Although I will not concede to that just yet, I do find that a good night's sleep is a sacred thing- more sacred than sitting around a fire, listening to a drumming circle all night long, or peeing in the woods or in a cold state park toilet.


Roughing it for me has been staying in hostels in Ireland and the UK with no wifi.

Roughing it has been drinking coffee that tastes like ass, forgoing pretzels in a country that only has them at Christmas, and trying to understand why a culture than can make bread and chocolate so well that I cry cannot make a goddamn soup without pureeing all the ingredients until it is the consistency and color of baby food.


In these circumstances, the payoff has been seeing the sunlight play in and out of the clouds over Connemara, touch standing stones older than the pyramids, and finding the place where I want my ashes strewn when I die.


It has not in any way involved bugs- except for midges and they don't really do much damage. 

So when I read okc profiles that extoll the virtues of rock climbing and camping like it is the most wonderful thing on earth, I can confidently call bullshit and know I am not a lesser person for it.  I can revel in the feel of my down comforter and cozy bed knowing I am in no way less connected because I didn't suffer a squat in the leaves.

I've squatted plenty on the sides of roads winding through the Scottish and Irish countryside after drinking too much tea and finding no gas stations. 

I've managed to commune with nature and the earth in those two minute stops as I gazed upon Loch Awe, Highland cows, grazing sheep, rocky outcrops, waterfalls, and even a hedgehog. 

So happy campers, go ahead and wrap yourself in the smug satisfaction of knowing you enjoy "roughing it" in some state park five miles from the nearest Pizza Hut.

I will savor the quiet moments among the heather and along the Atlantic coast with as much fondness and joy.

...and less bug bites.

Mandatory Fun

A guy I used to date worked in IT for a big corporation and he called the stupid team building activities and other social events related to work as Mandatory Fun.

In light of the events in the football world, I'm beginning to think we are experiencing a similar situation at school.  Purple Friday is a big deal at both of my schools.  So big that if a child has the audacity to wear another team's jersey, he or she gets teased, yelled at, and verbally abused by classmates.

Recently, a letter went home to families in a city school (not my school system) that children who did not wear purple on Friday would not be allowed to attend the pep rally.  Instead, they'd be put in the library.

As a book nerd who thinks spectator sports are stupid, I could think of no other place I'd rather be than in the library during a pep rally.

But what about the kid who has parents too busy/overwhelmed/forgetful/intoxicated/high to read letters sent home and ensure their child is dressed in the approved attire?

What about the kids from out of state who have a family that (gasp) support another sports team?

And when did public school become a place where administrators can impose a certain color to wear to an assembly?

I went to Catholic school where we had a uniform and certain rules governing its wear and use.  That was understood- and as we all got older, we did everything we could to edge around the rules as much as possible- and were reined back in through demerits.

But these are children ages 4-11 in a publicly funded school.  Their primary goal in school is to learn to think a little (but not enough to start questioning the system) and do well on tests so the school looks good and their parents can brag about it with a sticker on their vehicles.  It isn't a place where kids are supposed to be ostracized, teased, bullied, insulted, and denied access to extracurricular activities based on the color of their shirt.

With all the money and time spent on the anti-bullying rhetoric in public schools, (and believe me, it is rhetoric on my one school since the administrator is a bully) to then make such an exclusionary rule is to pretty much undo all those posters they had the kids make saying "Don't be a bully!" and

"It's okay to be different."

We all know that in the world of school, it isn't.

The Red Cross is stalking me

I am ashamed to admit that I never gave blood until a few years ago.  One of my schools had a memorial blood drive for a deceased staff member and after years of fearing I'd pass out, throw up, or flip out, I finally decided to see if my blood was fit for donation.  I was happy to know that not only could I donate blood, but I had a type that was in demand. 

Little did I realize that once I made the donor list, I'd be called as soon as my minimum number of days were up.

And called.

And called.

And called.

When I realized that the "unknown" on my phone was almost always the Red Cross, I began to ignore the call which only made them worse.  They almost never left a message until they got desperate.  Then I'd get a recorded plea.  If that didn't work, I'd start getting things in the mail.

Eventually, I expected to see the Bloodmobile slowly drive back and forth in front of my apartment- only to take off with squealing wheels when I stepped outside. 

I finally answered when they called this time to tell them that I am sick and I'm currently unable to donate blood right this minute.  I also told them to please stop calling me constantly or I would stop donating.  The caller swore up and down that no one had called since November and that several calls could possibly come in that were marked as "unknown." 

I beg to differ.

I like giving blood.  I like knowing I help someone and I plan on giving again.  However, I just don't want to be hounded every 60 days as if I've defaulted on my car payments.

Taken for granted

I forgot that the water would be shut off today when I used my bathroom.  I found that flushing my toilet was not really an option.  I attempted to fill some buckets up with the pitiful stream coming from the tap, but eventually I had to go across the street to another unit's laundry room and use the utility sink.  This was even less fun since I'm feeling under the weather (hence being home on a weekday) and the 25mph winds.

I'd probably survive about 15 minutes in a 3rd world country.

I am not a trained professional

Occasionally I get people who latch onto me in real life or online who seem to think I am a therapist. 
While I am more than willing to give support to my friends, family,  neighbors, and coworkers,  I'm not too keen on becoming someone's little helper if I really do not know the person.  I'm not saying I won't be empathetic.  I think part of my problem sometimes is that I can feel too much of what others are feeling.  However, this usually applies to someone with whom I have some kind of relationship. 

I have friends from okc that I've never met but feel like I know.  There are several that I talk to about very personal things and I'm perfectly at ease with this.  However, when someone I've only talked to online for less than a week begins to discuss his relationship problems with me and then proceeds to reveal some very personal information with me after we've met on a dating site, I get a bit wary.

I can identify with some of what this person is going through.  I can understand feeling lonely, afraid that being single will be forever, and feeling like he will never feel what he felt with a previous love- I get all that.  I really do.  But I am not here to fix that.  I can tell him that everyone feels that, I can assure him that it passes, and I can suggest some things that may help with personal issues (such as the right therapist and meds), but in the end I am not here to fix anyone.  I'm not here to make anyone feel less desperately lonely.  Quite frankly, if that is how one is feeling, then dating may not be an option at the moment.

I initially joined okc pretty much feeling just that.  My heart was broken, my self esteem was pretty awful, and I more or less felt like I was made of glass inside.  I was not girlfriend material.  I was not even fit to meet anyone for a cup of coffee.  I was a hot mess and made some pretty bad decisions as a result.

In time things got better.  I began liking myself again, I found joy and contentment in my life just as it was, and I eventually had a stable and functional relationship for almost a year.  Although it ended, I don't view it as a failure.  I learned that I am in good working order and I'm capable of something I wasn't sure I was anymore and I view that as a very good thing.

Still...

I don't have any great words of wisdom for you.  I can't make it all better.  That isn't my job, your mom's job, your friends' job, or anyone's.  It's yours.



You.
 

hall of dead guys

My one principal is really into leadership and Einstein.  Since Steve Jobs died, he's been into him too.  I think he fancies himself as some kind of visionary who is transforming education through being an insufferable tool.. and marrying his student teacher (she better watch herself because she's getting a bit long in the tooth and he likes them young). 

Anyway, he's begun to put framed pictures/quotes of Einstein, Jobs, Lincoln , MLK, and Kennedy in the hallway.  I've named it the Hall of Dead Guys. 

There are no women up on the wall. Maybe there are no women in leadership roles who are hot or thin enough for him. 

I decided to turn my cramped classroom (I share it with 2-4 other staff and 14 students throughout the week) into my own little gallery of leaders.  I cut and pasted pictures and quotes of Rosa Parks, Amelia Earhart, An San Suu Kyi, and Madam Curie into little posters and stuck them up near the door.  Of course this is the day The Walking Tool decided to come into the room.  He didn't comment.  I'm thinking of adding Frida Kohlo and Madeline Albright. 

Maybe no one will read them or bother to look them up.  But I know who they are and why I put them there, and knowing that will be a small comfort as I walk past all the dead guys every day.