i have been feeling vaguely guilty for blogging in complete despair and then vanishing for weeks & weeks, leaving you with only a bin laden tape and a kiddie poncho to keep you company. (well, who'm I kidding, with such long breaks in between writing, i'll be extra-super-duper lucky if i have any "you" left to address! :-) )
i wrote on Loopy's blog about our trip to Chicago, so I'll skip that here, except to say that it finished delightfully and we're now back in Madison.
meanwhile, after hitting the depths of despair in that last post on Nov. 4, I spent a few weeks getting myself together. I realized that I wasn't lonely, I was getting depressed. Getting depressed just feels lonely because I lose interest in other people and become obssessed with why other people aren't paying more attention to me, me, me and my problems. All that blah-blah-blah about social justice etc (well, those are my visions and commitments, but) is just rationalization for why I was sinking down, down....
Well, I'm determined NEVER EVER to go back down that road, so...
I went to five different kinds of shrink and an accupuncturist, and now 23 days later, I have two relaxation tapes that I listen to, a weird little tapping routine to reduce anxiety; I'm on a new anti-anxiety medication; I have a backup plan (and a backup backup plan) regarding all the thigns I have to do to become a teacher; and things have really turned around. I feel really happy and actually finish up each day at school thinking, "wow, that was fun; I can't wait to try it again tomorrow!" even though I'm still screwing up constantly.
So that's the update. Gotta run now, I'm keeping Loopy waiting, but just wanted to say that things are better.
xoxo
V
Saturday, November 27, 2004
Thursday, November 04, 2004
two utterly unrelated things...
This is the poncho Loopy is knitting for our little girl cousins. She is also knitting sweaters for our little boy cousins (there are three of each sex, six in all). Isn't it adorable?
Did you actually read what bin Laden's latest videotape said? It's worth looking at.
Here's a transcript (partial one anyway), and here are Rahul Mahajan's comments thereon... (I don't agree 100% with Mahajan's interpretation of some of it, but I'm more likely to be wrong than he is, I guess...)
It's just interesting.
a hill of beans (in this crazy world)
lately I have felt really lonely.
I'm lucky and grateful to have friends a lovely Loopy wife who love me. But what I wish for, just at this moment, which there's really nothing to be done about and maybe it doesn't exist, is someone who is engaged in the same work as I am, who's chewing on the same questions or even similar... I feel like most people I talk with, either are socialists but not public-school-teachers, or teachers but not socialists, or else they are both but are so far advanced that they just look on my struggles and confusion with tolerance and indulgence.
I realize that it is no small thing for my friends to listen; that their indulgence and kind-hearted tolerance of my babbling is a very great gift of the heart, and that sometimes they really are interested, and I don't mean to minimize or disrespect any of this. I do feel loved and I feel that my friends and family wish me well. But I am so lonely!
I am lonely for exchange of ideas, for the process of figuring things out together, where I pass on what I've learned this week and then hear from that person what they're figuring out this week, where shared "war stories" and pondering help us both grow and develop. I tried to start a radical teachers' group but whaddya know, everyone who's both a radical and a teacher is very very busy (many are also parents).
I think there are other things making me cry a lot this week: the election of course, and both my parents seem to be deteriorating more than usual (or rather picking up speed in their deteriorating process--Dad's had another smallish stroke and Mom's spinal cord is in trouble and she might need surgery that might be paralyzing). Today I had a big long meeting with an old friend and political comrade to try to resolve some long-standing differences but we didn't really get anywhere--I don't think he can even understand what I'm trying to say (feeling even more alone). I am supposed to start teaching nearly full-time next week, I have to have a lesson plan for tomorrow, and my old demons just will not go away--it's that "deer in the headlights" feeling--I am just crying and crying and dreading tomorrow when I don't have a lesson plan, and yet I just can't even think straight. I cut class tonight. My back hurts. I am trying to help a couple of students in particular but their behavior is getting worse and I think it's something I'm doing. Teachers are mean and students are broken-hearted--yesterday I witnessed meanness that could hardly have been worse if there had been physical abuse involved. I'm letting someone down whom I promised to help with something. The worse it gets the more socially awkward and weird I get, and people look at me with that look, which just increases the loneliness.
I don't think I'm depressed yet but I am worried about going that way. Right now I feel pretty sad but it's not continuous. Just today has been bad. I wonder if I should go back on my anti-depressants, but i wonder if they hide something that I need to figure out.
A favorite book reminds me that no one else can give me what I need, that what I need is unconditional acceptance, that only I can give it to myself, and I just have to start right now.
I just wish it were possible for someone else to help.
I also wish I had my freakin' lesson plan done for tomorrow, but now I've worked myself up into such a state, not to mention wasted two hours and given myself a splitting headache, that I should probably just go to bed. I can't stop crying. Now I'm angry with myself for wasting all this time, but I'm not supposed to be angry with myself, I'm supposed to be giving myself unconditional acceptance; how the heck do I expect to feel better if I can't be nicer to myself? Maybe I subconsciously wanted to cry for two hours instead of doing the lesson plan, boy that would be insane. It's the hamster wheel in my head... Am I incompetent, crazy or just self-sabotaging? The choices are all so attractive.
Sorry for going on and on. But that's the beauty of a blog. You don't have to read it or respond to it. So I can go on and on, and on, without feeling that I'm imposing on anyone.
maybe I'm getting a cold or something. drinking and staying up til 3 am on Tuesday (election day, remember?) sure didn't help. note to self... no more drinking and staying up til 3 am on a school night. Right, got it.
I'm lucky and grateful to have friends a lovely Loopy wife who love me. But what I wish for, just at this moment, which there's really nothing to be done about and maybe it doesn't exist, is someone who is engaged in the same work as I am, who's chewing on the same questions or even similar... I feel like most people I talk with, either are socialists but not public-school-teachers, or teachers but not socialists, or else they are both but are so far advanced that they just look on my struggles and confusion with tolerance and indulgence.
I realize that it is no small thing for my friends to listen; that their indulgence and kind-hearted tolerance of my babbling is a very great gift of the heart, and that sometimes they really are interested, and I don't mean to minimize or disrespect any of this. I do feel loved and I feel that my friends and family wish me well. But I am so lonely!
I am lonely for exchange of ideas, for the process of figuring things out together, where I pass on what I've learned this week and then hear from that person what they're figuring out this week, where shared "war stories" and pondering help us both grow and develop. I tried to start a radical teachers' group but whaddya know, everyone who's both a radical and a teacher is very very busy (many are also parents).
I think there are other things making me cry a lot this week: the election of course, and both my parents seem to be deteriorating more than usual (or rather picking up speed in their deteriorating process--Dad's had another smallish stroke and Mom's spinal cord is in trouble and she might need surgery that might be paralyzing). Today I had a big long meeting with an old friend and political comrade to try to resolve some long-standing differences but we didn't really get anywhere--I don't think he can even understand what I'm trying to say (feeling even more alone). I am supposed to start teaching nearly full-time next week, I have to have a lesson plan for tomorrow, and my old demons just will not go away--it's that "deer in the headlights" feeling--I am just crying and crying and dreading tomorrow when I don't have a lesson plan, and yet I just can't even think straight. I cut class tonight. My back hurts. I am trying to help a couple of students in particular but their behavior is getting worse and I think it's something I'm doing. Teachers are mean and students are broken-hearted--yesterday I witnessed meanness that could hardly have been worse if there had been physical abuse involved. I'm letting someone down whom I promised to help with something. The worse it gets the more socially awkward and weird I get, and people look at me with that look, which just increases the loneliness.
I don't think I'm depressed yet but I am worried about going that way. Right now I feel pretty sad but it's not continuous. Just today has been bad. I wonder if I should go back on my anti-depressants, but i wonder if they hide something that I need to figure out.
A favorite book reminds me that no one else can give me what I need, that what I need is unconditional acceptance, that only I can give it to myself, and I just have to start right now.
I just wish it were possible for someone else to help.
I also wish I had my freakin' lesson plan done for tomorrow, but now I've worked myself up into such a state, not to mention wasted two hours and given myself a splitting headache, that I should probably just go to bed. I can't stop crying. Now I'm angry with myself for wasting all this time, but I'm not supposed to be angry with myself, I'm supposed to be giving myself unconditional acceptance; how the heck do I expect to feel better if I can't be nicer to myself? Maybe I subconsciously wanted to cry for two hours instead of doing the lesson plan, boy that would be insane. It's the hamster wheel in my head... Am I incompetent, crazy or just self-sabotaging? The choices are all so attractive.
Sorry for going on and on. But that's the beauty of a blog. You don't have to read it or respond to it. So I can go on and on, and on, without feeling that I'm imposing on anyone.
maybe I'm getting a cold or something. drinking and staying up til 3 am on Tuesday (election day, remember?) sure didn't help. note to self... no more drinking and staying up til 3 am on a school night. Right, got it.
from an unlikely source
thomas friedman is an idiot whom I loathe. but he has some good quotes in his latest piece...he talks about how he just woke up to the fact (as did I and a lot of other people) that it's not actually true that people across the U.S. "share the same core values" (Barack Obama's words on election night, which made me cry because that's when I realized we don't). A few days before election, someone explained to me for the first time (well, via the radio) that there is a sizeable group of people who do not feel that the Bill of Rights is our finest and most fundamental document--rather, they feel it's a terrible mistake, that the Puritans had the right idea and that veering away from theocracy was where the U.S. went wrong.
So Friedman writes, "We don't just disagree on what America should be doing; we disagree on what America is," and, "people were not voting on his performance. It seemed as if they were voting for what team they were on.This was not an election. This was station identification."
And best of all, "I felt as if I registered to vote, but when I showed up the Constitutional Convention broke out."
Of course, he loses me completely in his last paragraph where he talks about how Bush will prove his greatness only if he can handle "our entitlements crisis...., upgrade America's competitiveness, [and] prevent Iran from going nuclear." (The only person I've recently heard point out that Iran, like anyone else, has the right to defend itself, is, of all people, a survivor of the Iranian hostage crisis, which began 25 years ago today.) Oh, and additional @#$*&#$ to Joe Klein for saying we should overturn Roe v Wade. Jesus h christ. Yeah, exactly.
So Friedman writes, "We don't just disagree on what America should be doing; we disagree on what America is," and, "people were not voting on his performance. It seemed as if they were voting for what team they were on.This was not an election. This was station identification."
And best of all, "I felt as if I registered to vote, but when I showed up the Constitutional Convention broke out."
Of course, he loses me completely in his last paragraph where he talks about how Bush will prove his greatness only if he can handle "our entitlements crisis...., upgrade America's competitiveness, [and] prevent Iran from going nuclear." (The only person I've recently heard point out that Iran, like anyone else, has the right to defend itself, is, of all people, a survivor of the Iranian hostage crisis, which began 25 years ago today.) Oh, and additional @#$*&#$ to Joe Klein for saying we should overturn Roe v Wade. Jesus h christ. Yeah, exactly.
Wednesday, November 03, 2004
the vision thing...
as Loopy reminds us, don't mourn, organize!
subjugation and oppression always eventually produce resistance, and empires always fall.
historically speaking, when things get worse economically, people either turn on each other in a frenzy of blame or they join together to create transformation. Which will it be?
bin Laden, Buchanan and David Duke are all early harbingers of this storm. It's up to us to create a genuinely compelling alternative vision, to counteract the hatred and fanaticism that is growing the more people suffer.
We can still be excited about the unusually large groundswell of participation. even if it's still not as large or as radical as we'd like, maybe it's the beginning of a beginning.
We can do it! -- Si se puede!!!!
subjugation and oppression always eventually produce resistance, and empires always fall.
historically speaking, when things get worse economically, people either turn on each other in a frenzy of blame or they join together to create transformation. Which will it be?
bin Laden, Buchanan and David Duke are all early harbingers of this storm. It's up to us to create a genuinely compelling alternative vision, to counteract the hatred and fanaticism that is growing the more people suffer.
We can still be excited about the unusually large groundswell of participation. even if it's still not as large or as radical as we'd like, maybe it's the beginning of a beginning.
We can do it! -- Si se puede!!!!
screaming meanies....
I hear you CP (aka xe).....I pretty much figured Bush would win the whole time (although the last few days I made the mistake of getting my hopes up a bit). but I figured it would be because people were massively deluded about Iraq, terrorism, etc.
What really has me bummed out today is that Bush apparently won not just on the strength of his sleight-of-hand, but on a wave of sheer meanness. I said something to Mom (in AZ)(an all-red, all-the-time kind of place) about anti-gay sentiment propelling him to victory and she didn't even try to deny it, which is unusual for her--usually she's all about denial of anything uncomfortable.
I've watched teachers be very mean to students today too. Sometimes it really rips me up. It's been a very mean day all round. Depressing.
What really has me bummed out today is that Bush apparently won not just on the strength of his sleight-of-hand, but on a wave of sheer meanness. I said something to Mom (in AZ)(an all-red, all-the-time kind of place) about anti-gay sentiment propelling him to victory and she didn't even try to deny it, which is unusual for her--usually she's all about denial of anything uncomfortable.
random thought: I wonder if future generations will construe "red" to mean "republican"? That will play havoc with their understanding of various twentieth-centurty texts and pheomena. "Better red than dead"?
I've watched teachers be very mean to students today too. Sometimes it really rips me up. It's been a very mean day all round. Depressing.
as they say in Japan, it's erection day (want some wood?)
OK, scuse the stupid pun, if it can even be called that. It's almost 2 a.m., okay? Give me a break.
From my favorite famous political blog, "Empire Notes":
Thanks much to faboo Betsy for having an election-night party at her house. It really helped stave off the creeping misery, or rather, shouting and stomping about that probably would have accompanied the proceedings otherwise. It was relatively fun to mill about with all our "old socialist" friends, eating scrumptious desserts and drinking a lot more than we should on a "school night".
Even "the usual suspect" repeating the same joke over and over ("are the capitalist imperialists still winning?") was strangely comforting. Although he got unnecessarily pissed off when I told a different version of one of my favorite jokes. I am providing it below, after a comment that people should all write to NBC and MSNBC to yell at them for calling Ohio early. and are the relevant addresses.
The joke:
A guy bought a parrot. The pet store owner warned hiim that this parrot really liked to swear, but the guy felt that he had a "firm hand" and he could surely bring it under control. Sure enough, he takes it home and it starts to swear like a mo****f*****. The guy sticks it in a broom closet for a few minutes, then pulls it out and asks, "Are you going to be good now?" "Are you kidding me?" screams tha parrot, "After how you've treated me, why you no-good dirty #*$&#($*&@#$^$)..." The guy puts the parrot in a foot locker to shut it up, then again pulls it out and asks, "So? Are you going to be good now?" The parrot is even more pissed off, and lets loose with an impressive string of profanity. The guy finally is at his wits' end and sticks it in the refrigerator for a few minutes, then takes it out and asks "Are you going to be good NOW?" "Yes sir, " the parrot replies meekly, and says not a single word for the rest of the day. The next day the parrot asks, "Sir, may I ask a question?" "Yes?" "What did the chicken do?"
Happy erection day.
From my favorite famous political blog, "Empire Notes":
Thought for Election Day: More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly. -- Woody Allen, Without Feathers.
Thanks much to faboo Betsy for having an election-night party at her house. It really helped stave off the creeping misery, or rather, shouting and stomping about that probably would have accompanied the proceedings otherwise. It was relatively fun to mill about with all our "old socialist" friends, eating scrumptious desserts and drinking a lot more than we should on a "school night".
Even "the usual suspect" repeating the same joke over and over ("are the capitalist imperialists still winning?") was strangely comforting. Although he got unnecessarily pissed off when I told a different version of one of my favorite jokes. I am providing it below, after a comment that people should all write to NBC and MSNBC to yell at them for calling Ohio early.
The joke:
A guy bought a parrot. The pet store owner warned hiim that this parrot really liked to swear, but the guy felt that he had a "firm hand" and he could surely bring it under control. Sure enough, he takes it home and it starts to swear like a mo****f*****. The guy sticks it in a broom closet for a few minutes, then pulls it out and asks, "Are you going to be good now?" "Are you kidding me?" screams tha parrot, "After how you've treated me, why you no-good dirty #*$&#($*&@#$^$)..." The guy puts the parrot in a foot locker to shut it up, then again pulls it out and asks, "So? Are you going to be good now?" The parrot is even more pissed off, and lets loose with an impressive string of profanity. The guy finally is at his wits' end and sticks it in the refrigerator for a few minutes, then takes it out and asks "Are you going to be good NOW?" "Yes sir, " the parrot replies meekly, and says not a single word for the rest of the day. The next day the parrot asks, "Sir, may I ask a question?" "Yes?" "What did the chicken do?"
Happy erection day.
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