pills

after crying ridiculously to a friend, i worked out and my pills kicked in and now i feel good. great even. the pill thing is weird. very weird. that my whole life - the goodness, the sweetness, the sunshine and pleasure in my life - all comes out of these little bottles. maybe i should stockpile them in case of apocalypse. but seriously: isn't it weird? i feel like i am truly myself with all these pills, that the "real me" is upbeat, positive, energetic, and capable. so if this is the "real me," who was that all those years of hopelessness and bungling failures?

it's so strange to think of the brain and how it works...

got re-hired for fall!

It's a really bad job market in Chicago - they're cutting 18% of teachers district-wide - so I feel extremely lucky to finally get re-hired. Third time's the charm, I guess! It's funny too when I think back, I gave a really terrible interview here. I think I was pretty far down on their list of choices, for various reasons. But things have worked out well.

In other news, check out my kick-ass Black Panthers bulletin board!


The life-size Fred Hampton is courtesy of this site called Block Posters, where you upload an image and get it back as a pdf of 8.5x11 sheets (I think you can pick European sizes as well) at the giant size you specify. I found it via StumbleUpon, just at the right time. Talk about serendipity.

Despite this good news, I'm melancholy this morning. Not sure why. Oh well. Surf the feelings, let them pass. That's how it goes...

May in the garden

I spent all afternoon yesterday sketching in the garden of one of the members of our meetup.com sketching & painting group. here's a lovely photo of where we were, and here are my two sketches:



It's gotten hot in Chicago all of a sudden... today at school I felt like I was wearing a plastic bag, in my customary polyester tunic and slacks. I need some cooler clothes! Some of the women were wearing dresses, which I've always been taught was unprofessional, but it's not like we wear suits every day otherwise, so maybe dresses are ok. Well, they looked much more comfortable than I was, so I guess dresses will have to be ok! haha

In other news, the scale dipped below 200 lbs today for the first time in a long time. I've lost around 20 lbs so far. Yay me! :)

In still other news, that elm tree in the park? Definitely dying. Sigh.

here's what's on my mind today...

at this job so much more than the last two, i am getting a sense of how completely the students' lives are overshadowed by gang violence. every one of them has lost someone close to them. every week someone knows someone who is killed. already this year more people have died in Chicago than in our armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan combined, and every one of them is known to some of our students - it's a small world they live in and all the violence is in that world. then this past week a police officer was killed, which is always a huge, huge deal in chicago - more so than other towns, chicago worships its police officers. the whole newspaper front page is always dedicated to the fallen hero (he's always a hero of course) and pics of the man and the funeral etc. are everywhere. so of course, on thursday, the police came to our school around 10 in the morning and arrested one of the students in connection with the murder. great. his life is over, whether he is set free or not - the police do not forgive in these cases and they'll torture him. :( i think of him just being his carefree self and now he'll be in some way erased. later that same Thursday i gave a major test and two of the students had a complete meltdown during the test - screaming and yelling, had to be removed from the test and have their scores invalidated. all the students get so completely agitated and wacky every time someone dies or - in this case - is arrested right out of school. a few weeks ago one of my students had a party where a guy was killed. the hostess of the party was blamed and she was receiving death threats. somehow she kept coming to school - extremely brave of her under the circumstances - but her work took a nosedive. she's a senior expecting to graduate but she is not going to at this rate. their lives are so disrupted, disturbed, distorted, dismembered by all this violence. when i showed some paintings from the 20's and 30's, one of the paintings depicted a large group of people enjoying a nightclub and another group at a barbecue - and several students independently wrote on their papers that these were great images of "a time when African-Americans could get together without fights breaking out." they are so sure it's because of their race and that it's inevitable - that "there will always be violence" as they say whenever i raise the idea of a solution to violence. it's incomprehensible to them that 90% of the world does not live in a situation like theirs - or that this is not because of some inevitable fact of birth. to them violence is such an all-pervasive and permanent fixture of their lives.

today's side effect - went back up half a step on the meds, and today at the end of the day i am exceedingly crabby and impatient, to the point where i am childishly pouty during a meeting (embarrassed to be called on it, in a sort of passive-aggressive way, by two different people). going back up to full dose tomorrow - will try ramping down again in the summer. :P

shadows

So for a long time now I've had this major problem with sleepiness - falling asleep as soon as I sit down, to the point where I've had to stop driving. It started last year when I raised the dose of one of my medications. Since then I've been tested for and treated for sleep apnea - I'm not sure why really, considering that it's obviously one of my medications - I guess I just really really did not want to mess with the meds so I imagined away what I knew.

Finally in desperation this past weekend, since I was going to a meditation retreat with Miri, I tried cutting back my meds just for those two days to try to cut down on the sleepiness issue. Well, it didn't help as much as I'd have hoped during the retreat itself - I still slept through large parts of the meditation - but at school today I noticed a huge difference. I literally had been going into the teachers' lounge at lunch and going to sleep on the lunch table (which isn't great because there's not much space in there to begin with). I had been falling asleep while teaching in my afternoon classes, if I was dumb enough to sit down.

But today I felt awake and alert even though I was (am) tired. It was great.

But in the evening yesterday and today I've struggled with waves of fear and anxiety - jumping out of my skin, thinking I see people in the shadows when I'm the last one to leave school at night. These dark forebodings feel familiar and I worry that I'm again confronting the enemy who has defeated me so many years of my life... I know that's an exaggeration but is, itself, a byproduct of the fear.

Of course, these feelings could also be due to the large amounts of caffeine I've been consuming to try to stay awake, especially as I've been getting up extra-early to try to work out or meditate every morning.

So ... the tradeoff question is obvious. The second question of course (or maybe the first) is, why am I doing this by myself instead of going through my doctor? But the doctor would just cut the meds and tell me to call her in two weeks... but no... how do I know what she would do?

Sigh.

I think I should just go to bed and sleep. Maybe even sleep in a little. WOrkout and meditation can wait one day. Or is that bad too - giving up my self-care first when I get tired instead of prioritizing self-care and giving up responsibilities at work that have grown too heavy?

(otoh I did accomplish something on the extra-responsibilities front - thank you to those who encouraged me behind the scenes :) )

turning of the seasons

thinking about graduation as colleges around us have theirs... the elm tree in the park is producing millions of those fluttery papery seeds that always remind me of the end of the year at harvard... every year moving out of a room that had seen so many ups and downs but overall another good year of friendship and scholarship... i think i DID appreciate those things at the time tho i allowed myself to get very strung out on highs and lows... was always hard for me to pack up because i hated the endings associated with the packing-up. hollis, then E-11, E-31, G-31... remember? at graduation my head nearly imploded from being unable to handle all the good-byes. "i'm sure i'll see you again before we leave," i told each person, to avoid having to say it. i don't know what i said to Amy... it's a complete blank... but i don't suppose i can possibly have avoided that goodbye. i don't remember saying goodbye to nadine but i remember after she left ("a cloud shifts, the plane lifts, she moves on..." - not that that whole song applies, but phrases of it ran through my head for a year thereafter) going down to sit by the river and feel... whatever one feels in that situation at 21.

i wonder if the elm tree is dying, i suppose they all are. it looks like it has nothing but an enormous sheaf of seeds for about the top 2/3 of the tree. is that how they normally look? or is it some kind of last-ditch survival effort by a dying tree? i wonder how all our old courtyards are looking these days; how many of the old trees have died, and with what have they been replaced? that evergreen by the administration building where john harvard's statue was always looked out of place and weird. i hope they didn't continue in that vein.

that all sounds very mournful and morbid but that's not how i'm feeling at all. just - things bring back memories, is all.

so, well, anyway. graduation. just have to hang in there til the end of the school year now. gotta get through that Black Panthers project... a little stressed because i've fallen behind in the extra responsibilities i took on. i'm afraid i'm going to be "found out" as someone who doesn't follow through. i spent the whole weekend on a meditation retreat so i didn't get anything done this weekend - despite having played hooky on friday. *sigh* looks like i'll be staying late all week again.

but, that's life. life is good, overall. life is good.

beautiful

What a gorgeous day it is in Chicago. A beautiful day for being right here, right now, not for worrying about the future or mooning about the past. Right here, right now. Beauty and light... such beauty and light.

nostalgia...

Busy week at work... took on a project that unexpectedly took more time and energy, and had less help, than I had expected. I think it's finished now... or at least one phase of it is finished... enough that I can bow out of the rest of it I think without seeming to drop it in the middle.

We are supposed to be finishing up the year with our service learning projects. I don't think I can manage the two that I had planned - just one, maybe. I feel tired and the end is in sight and I just want to coast on the wind and slip sweetly into the hangar... but I've promised to create children's books about immigrant children's experiences, and a museum-quality display about the Black Panthers; I need to follow through on at least one of them.

I think the students I'd selected to do the books are not mature enough for the interviews or careful enough for piecing together the finished products, so I won't follow through on that. I'm nervous about holding the older students' attention for the Black Panther piece, but hopefully that will happen of its own accord because the material is really very compelling.

The translator I mentioned in the previous blog entry seems to be becoming a friend and has touched off other things for me... or re-awakened I should say... perhaps due to hearing him quote Persian poetry, I uploaded a new stack of my Iran photos (that's me with the flying lions at left... aka the Gate of All Nations, where all the subject nations' representatives brought their gifts to Darius on New Year's Day...) And definitely due to hearing him quote Chinese poetry, I've been thinking about all my Chinese and Japanese studies, my poetry... I've looked up my favorite poems online, of which I could only remember a few words - found them in their entirety and enjoyed that I can still read them and delight in them. I found my dear old Genji Monogatari online, with multiple modern Japanese translations side-by-side so that you can compare them, no less (you can even check which ones you want, and what commentary, and the page will reload exactly to your specifications - heh). I have thought about my thesis, and marveled that you were actually willing to read it for me, Amy n Nadine! What great friends I had and not sure I barely appreciated it at the time! Only as time passes do I realize how rare and precious those friendships are, and how little I deserved them, young and stupid as I was... I remember our trip to Cape Cod, Nadine, where I did a good chunk of proof-reading; I remember happy things from that trip (when for so long I've only thought about one negative event) - snow on the beach and stars at night, and sitting by the fire marking up my draft... I wonder where my thesis is... my Japanese books are still packed away in boxes and I sprang out of bed this morning fully intending to disinter them, but other things distracted me (such as uploading Iran pix to Flickr). I wrote Sylvia and it amused me to note the difference between this note and my previous epistle to her - it's like the Harvard student in me has been re-awakened and I used words like "epistle"... that oh-so-ironic language, with perfect grammar and elaborate vocabulary... self-mocking and showing off at the same time.

I've been hoping to make an East Coast trip this summer, though it looks relatively unlikely; that was one reason for contacting Sylvia. I have friends and/or relatives in DC, NY, Boston... and I miss the East Coast... I am trying and trying to find Chicago homelike, particularly as it's so much cheaper than back East, but if I could wave a magic wand and transport us to NYC or even Boston - job and housing of course being equal or better - I would do it, I would do it, I would do it in a nanosecond.

So I'm being nostalgic for a former life. I need to shake it off and get on with my day. But it's interesting to remember who I once was, what once engaged me and took all my time... and how I used to be, as I bragged to impress my translating friend, one of the best translators of Heian period Japanese prose in the country (maybe the world). I didn't even think of it like that at the time but it must have been true, thanks in large part to the fact that there are so few of us and that I was trained by the best. What happened to that life? I know what happened to it but... life's twists and turns are so strange, and one throws away or disregards pearls when one is young... I should have just at least finished up my Master's at Columbia... at the time I thought I just couldn't, but... I think back over all the turning points and wonder what would have happened if I'd gone another way... I don't wish that I were an academic, not at all, that life is painfully circumscribed, particularly in the field to which I would have devoted myself... but I wish I had finished my Master's and that I had finished more of the projects I had going at the time, whose fragments are also packed away in boxes that I've not opened since our 2007 move.

Well, maybe when I retire...

happy spring...

happy again... my new meds (well, new a year ago now) have really turned me into a different person... mostly i'm happy, most days - almost all days - i'm glad to be alive. Pema Chödrön says,

“I’m glad to be alive to agreeable, I’m glad to be alive to disagreeable. And I’m glad to be alive to sour and sweet and tingly and itchy, and refreshing and cold and hot and the whole thing. And it doesn’t matter that there is this voice that says I don’t like this, or I do like this, that’s fine, you know, that’s also fine, but somehow open and at home, with your body, your mind, and your world, and meditation is actually the means or, the tools that we need… It actually is that the present moment is the doorway to liberation, vastness, unobstructed quality of our mind. And we could experience the world that way.”

and just because of the meds i do begin to feel glad to be alive to different experiences, interested in what's around the corner... i know my world is still small and cramped compared to the "liberation, vastness, unobstructed quality of our mind" that i experience when i do meditate regularly (haven't been, due to the falling-asleep issue)............but i open my arms to the wind and the sunlight and i tip my head back to blue sky or rainy.... and laugh or smile and just feel glad. i love the trees blooming right now - i've taken photos - wait let me upload them...




and i love the blossoms falling so sweet and fluttery, flowing and eddying like powdery snow in the wake of cars... i love the tulips so red and the tulips falling apart... this morning i walked out in the park and i loved the birdsong and the sound of wind in the trees, the sweet smell and feel of dewy grass... spring is in full swing and summer's coming... i have so much to cover in my classes and so much joy to be able to have so much to teach.

looking ahead to the summer, i'm gonna quote (with some editing) from an email i sent to Nadine... i'm laughing as i note somewhat more anxiety and somewhat less 'glad to be alive' than what i'm expressing now... that's ok... glad to be alive to anxious and glad to be alive to peace.

"have a trip planned to Montana and Wyoming (wild beautiful country like in Brokeback Mountain) to see a bunch of cousins - but it's me and mom in the car for 10 days - what was i thinking? ? panic setting in. wondering how to fix that - but her whole trip depends on me chauffeuring. well, i'm gonna ask her how i can shorten it - there may be some days at the beginning and end where the cousins can drive her places.

i mean... i know the scenery is beautiful but... TEN DAYS???? damn...

on top of that i just accepted a job from the boss's boss's boss, writing curriculum in the summer... which wouldn't be so bad if I hadn't already accepted another job writing curriculum for my own boss (the principal) and a third (well that was foisted upon me) working with an outside program to design and provide select services to specific students.

I don't know what all these jobs entail and how much of my time they'll take up, but I'm starting to worry that I won't get any summer break, and come fall I'll feel like I was at school all during my break. I'm told curriculum writing involves taking all the materials away and coming back later, not being at school all the time, but i'm suspicious. anyway i took the jobs for the sake of the serious banking of brownie points... so i think i should just focus on that and consider this summer an investment... frontload the brownie points... hopefully the investment will pay off in the long term and not just be a stupid move in a game i was bound to lose.

so i have this wyoming-montana trip lined up at the end of june/beginning of july, and a week-long queer buddhist retreat in august (same one i went to last year) and id like to get something else in, a trip to new york maybe - i'd like to see the cousins in Boston and Colin and Joel in NYC... and just be in NYC for a day or two... i miss it and i love being there when i get the chance... i've also thought about going overseas somewhere but i don't think i really have time for that... and i'd like to go somewhere with R (she is not interested in the NY-Boston trip). She can't really get any time off work for various reasons... so a quick trip to England to see our friends there is out. A quick trip to Minneapolis is more appealing to her... but that's frustrating cuz it's in driving distance but we'd have to fly because R doesn't have any time. So all this adds up in terms of time and money. I'd have to choose between my east-coast trip and our couple trip to MN, and R doesn't seem to care but I don't know if she does or not, or if I do or not ("I can spend time with you at home," she says). So anyway. Lots to think about. Lots of balancing acts... between what i want to do if i could do anything, and what's in the realm of the possible, and commitments i've made that i am reconsidering too late...

(end of email to Nadine)

so that's my news, my life, my state of mind. long post... my 800th, incidentally. yay me, yay blog. blog is 6 years old, born on May 18, 2004. Weird. May 3 is another anniversary, a good one - first contact with a friend. Recently met a new potential friend - translator of classical poetry in Persian, Latin, Chinese, etc etc... speaks every language, it seems... he knows more than i do about a lot of things, which makes it fun to learn from him but also makes me feel stupid, so i can't take too many hours of conversation with him... he also talks a lot... so you know, like any friend, good and bad mixed together. trying to make more friends here in Chicago... settle in and make it home. still doesn't feel like home and when i think about it i'd still rather be in NYC, but Chicago is so much cheaper and really has many charms, so i need to reconcile myself to being here.

babbling now.

love to all.

loss

a year ago today i said goodbye to someone very important to me. some of you know that story - some don't - no matter - now it's a year later. i am a numbers girl - i remember numbers and dates forever - and anniversaries are in my subconscious, in my bones and blood, and they bubble up and burst. often, i am confused by a wash of inexplicable emotion until i recall that it's an anniversary - sometimes of something i haven't thought of in a long time.

the first time i noticed that was on the anniversary of the death of a dear friend - those of you who knew me in college will remember that in the spring of my/our junior year, a dear friend and my grandmother both died almost within a month of each other. it kicked off a very confusing time for me, because i'd always been able to control my emotions prior to that, and suddenly, my emotions were out of control and i couldn't even parse, couldn't even understand the experience. i think at the time i formed some new counter-productive habits for reacting to feelings and for dealing with my reactions (as opposed to the old counter-productive habit of not dealing with my feelings at all), but i didn't know any better, and my one counseling session that i went to at the time was helpful but definitely insufficient.

anyway, exactly a year later i was hit with floods of grief and tears before i recalled that Jessie had died on April 13. I still remember the date though the echoes have faded with time.

9/11 was another anniversary that hit me - that first year later, i felt nameless terror as though something else horrifying was going to happen the next year on that date (most of you know that i did have close personal connections to the events of that day).

and tonight i felt a knot of things that i unraveled to find an anniversary again.

.... so much loss last year...

last spring, our dear white husky died, sometime around this time (oddly, that's a date i've forgotten). not too long afterward i took our remaining dog, the sweet collie, for a long walk along the lakeshore, admiring the beauty of the willows that were just budding out in their long golden-green swaying strands. two months later that dog had died too. bittersweet. bittersweet. good memories remain precious, no matter what, but tinged with loss, they do become bittersweet.

last weekend we took our new dog for that same walk, to enjoy the willows budding out, and the next morning he woke up lame. he is a little better today because we went back to the vet yesterday and amped up the painkillers quite a bit. but he has been disabled and whimpering all week, and until yesterday he seemed to be continually degenerating. we have been terrified of what might happen next.

so much loss. so much loss. yet my life has been blessed with so much abundance, too, for which i am grateful. and you can't have one without the other, i guess....

spring break trip to Milwaukee :)

Went Milwaukee with Miriam for a day... Just a quick dash through some of the photos...
First, we went to an amazing photography exhibit at the Milwaukee Art Museum... for those of you unfamiliar the museum was designed by the amazing architect Santiago Calatrava (here's a photo of the whole museum... and get this... the "wings" close at night!!!!!)

The exhibit we saw was called Street Seen: The Psychological Gesture in American Photography, 1940–1959 (that link is very much worth a click)... some mid-century photographers just beginning to break the boundaries of what had until then been primarily a medium for portraits and journalism. The grainy battlefield pix from WWII inspired them to capture the movement and moments of urban life... it was really quite amazing exhibit, I wish I could transport each of you there (especially Goblinbox, I think you'd really get into it!)

Here are some pix of Miri and I playing around with the architecture and objets d'art...










Of course, even the parking garage is spectacular...




Miriam had booked massages for us for later in the day which was a brilliant idea... mine was a birthday present, thank you dearie!!! so much!!!!

While waiting for the massage time we shopped around some vintage stores in the Bayview neighborhood, Milwaukee's answer to what Williamsburg used to be like when we lived in NYC. I bought a bunch of LP's (yes, actual vinyl) for Loopy for her birthday - vinyl is apparently making a comeback among music aficionados (aficionadi?) and she's getting a turntable from Mom for her birthday (I can say all this cuz she never reads my blog, haha!)(not that it would be a very big surprise... I have to ask her what kind of turntable to get :P ) So I picked some classic records either because I know she loves them or, for most of them, because they had great cover art or an enclosed booklet that's still there, or whatever. that was a blast...

Dinner was delicious, rare tuna in a yummy salad and "Asian slaw," peanutty noodley cabbagey goodness. All this at a very down-home feeling place called Lulu Cafe.

The-e-e-e-e-n, as if it could get any better, Miriam had booked an amazing art deco hotel via Priceline... deliciously cushy beds and a DEEP WATER TUB which alone would almost have made the trip worthwhile.........

AND of course I had to indulge in my passion for ROOM SERVICE...



Room service chocolate cake = $13
Room service delight = priceless :)




The next morning after the above room-service breakfast (fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice in its own little carafe!) Miriam brought out the art supplies and I made a collage while she looked through the exhibition book she'd bought at the museum. Miriam commented that she's like my drug dealer, except for with art.




The finished piece is called "The Gaze, aka doing this project made me want to visit Cuba." (the frame for all the faces is an old Cuban building with arcades around a courtyard...)

Checked out an hour late because of the collage, happy happy happy as a clam. Drove home with my "Drive to Milwaukee Mix" on my iPod. All's right with the world.

Have some work to finish up today and Sunday, hope to enjoy Saturday THOROUGHLY with my lovey. This spring break has been delightful and restorative. The weather has gotten extremely mild and delicious... after I take the dog for a walk I'm gonna open all the windows. Welcome spring!

(added a new tag... I had tags for depression, fear, and death... now I have a tag for "happy" :) :) :) )

Happy Ostara!

A day late, just noticed it on the calendar. I remember how cool it was to find out that the root of "Easter" is "Ostara," the goddess of spring or something. Those old old things persist. Like there is a river in Iran whose name sounds sort of like "Cyrus" (in Persian), and they think maybe it was named for him but got corrupted during the centuries when people forgot that Cyrus the Great's palace and tomb are along the river... they made up mythical stories to explain the ruins...

For those of you who don't facebook (Amy! C'mon already!) here's a recent pic I took of myself with my iPhone (now my profile pic on FB). The fisheye did something good for my face somehow. Anyway. This is me now. In my classroom actually, though I don't think you can see that.

Spring is coming fitfully to Chicago, sunny 60-degree days alternating with snow and sleet... my students call it "pneumonia weather," cuz you get fooled by the midday warmth and don't wear enough clothes to be warm enough in the late afternoon and evening.

I seem to be past that depression that I discussed in the "tide in, tide out" post. I enjoy my job (although I've been a bit frazzled lately, but generally positive - and we only have a week left til spring break!). I have some added responsibilities right now (I have to do some observations and schedule peer observations for the other teachers) but so far I'm not too far behind. I don't know about observing my colleagues... how do I give them feedback without offending them... ?

Talking to Nadine pretty regularly has helped me a lot. She always reminds me to care for myself, and I always seem to need reminding. I feel lonely and needy and then she reminds me that I have what I need... it's like I think I've run out of something important and I'm panicking and then I open a cupboard door and there it is, a big box of it. Love in a box. Love I can give myself.

I got my sleep apnea machine but am still trying to catch up on my sleep - they say it can take several weeks. I'm still sleepy all the time. It's funny that Loopy and I both have one - we're like the twin Darth Vaders.

Right now we're dogsitting a little poodle who is completely adorable; Mr. Pickles (our bad dog from the pound) tries to eat it periodically, but it can stick up for itself pretty well :)

Loopy is getting tired of walking dogs and starts to feel she's wasting her life. So she is thinking about teaching at a community college or some such. She's a little depressed to be in this spot - developing a goal but not yet making any move to take a step toward it - but maybe she'll start taking steps soon and start feeling better. I had become reconciled to her doing her music blog and walking dogs - for a while I resented that I was working and she was playing with the blog, but I know she works hard with the dogs and fundamentally I just want her to be happy.

Otoh she needs health insurance and our COBRA is going to run out in the fall. So either she needs a job with health insurance or we need to buy some - at least for a few years even if the healthcare bill takes effect... which reminds me... (flipping TV on to check on the progress... big vote on the healthcare bill is today, supposedly...)

Anyway... I guess that's it for me for now... I will try to be more regular about blogging. Now that I don't do therapy, it's good to have a chance now and then to just kinda take stock of my life and what's going on... step back and see the big picture.........

tide in, tide out

depression seems to be coming back - last 10+ days. i fought it, then panicked about it ... didn't get work done, started to feel like i'm going under at school.

now remembered to accept it and just put one foot in front of the other, not make a big deal out of it, not do the headless chicken routine (either internally or externally) nor the deer in the headlights... just do my job... ok so briefly i was enthusiastic, even ecstatic, about doing my job... it's ok not to be enthusiastic, it's ok not to love it every minute, just keep doing it.

i feel insecure toward my friends, my wife. i feel anxious and harried. Saturday i collapsed into a shaking, weeping mess over an insult from a relative stranger whose opinion i don't value.

but after some deep breaths and mindfulness in a warm tub, i found my feet again and reminded myself how to get through this. just do the next doable thing. every minute take stock of where i am and what i can reasonably do. reasonably being the key word. don't try to work miracles if i only have 15 minutes. don't try to make every lesson a superstar production. there are those in administration who decided i'm wonderful; they could just as capriciously decide that i'm terrible. i have no control over that. i have control over showing up every day with some degree of preparation and doing what i am supposed to do, trying to teach my students, loving them and being constant and stable in their lives. that's all i can do and that's all i need to do. just my job.

the headless chicken and the deer in headlights are both manifestations of the desire to be rescued - the hope that being helpless will result in help - from somewhere, somehow. renouncing these two animals means taking responsibility, not looking outside myself. being mindful. and that has its own hopefulness in it... or if not hope, a sense of trust. trust in myself... that i keep going, that i survive.

winter blahs

so another year older... last week or two i've been going downhill pretty steadily... so tired... think the winter's getting to me... have felt over my head at school - have three classes instead of two - and a lot of new students, few of whom are at all pleasant; meanwhile most of my old favorite students are gone to other teachers. or so it seems atm. and i just got a raft of additional responsibilities which, at the time i volunteered for them, seemed exciting and an honor, but now seem overwhelming and heavy.

i did promise myself on my birthday, to try to take care of myself this year and not look for other people to cheer me...

i probably just need some sleep. did i write before that i got diagnosed with sleep apnea? but i'm still waiting for the treatment, for various reasons. i'm sleepy all the time, and every time i sit down i fall asleep. it's embarrassing in meetings and really not good in the classroom - hafta stay on my feet all day. i even wrecked my car falling asleep while driving, so i don't really drive anymore.

on the plus side, my psychiatrist is also a doctor of sleep medicine and she said i'd probably lose a lot of weight once i get my treatment (a cpap machine - Loopy already has one) and need less medication. we'll see. it would be nice to have my waist back lol. most of all it would be nice to want to stay awake past 8:30.

so... you know... that's how it is sometimes...

on the plus side, Loopy bought me 4 dozen roses, a chocolate cake, and a wireless printer for my birthday. we went out to eat at a Japanese home cooking restaurant, one of my faves. yay!

hip pappy bithuthday! the celebrations begin

I always make a big thing out of my birthday, as I mentioned in 2006 (part 1 and part 2), 2007, and 2009. In 2008 I was in bad-job hell and apparently either had no fun for my birthday or failed to comment upon it. In 2005 I posted on my birthday with no mention thereof. Go figure.


Anyway, my celebration began on Saturday at the Art Institute, where I met some fun people (through my Meetup.com group that I created, Lakeshore Sketching & Painting). We went to the Asian gallery that's basically the first thing inside the entrance, and went to work - I sketched an 11th-century statue of Vishnu (in the guise of a man-lion) tearing a demon apart. Kinda gruesome, but hey, there was a bench in front of it.

I developed affection for the statue as I sketched it. Particularly for the very, very subtle curve of arms and legs that made them appear so graceful yet strong. At left, my little effort, which reflects the fact that I couldn't resist a pack of colored pencils in the gift shop.

Then, yesterday, we went shopping at Macy's (celebrating Valentine's Day by spending the day together, but I'm considering it a dual-purpose celebration, also counting as part of my birthday :) ). I bought a new coat so now I look like a grownup with a job instead of a homeless person. I love my new coat - it's brown suede lined with plush faux mink that's sooooo soft and yummy. Super-warm too. Then to go with it I needed a new hat, gloves and scarf. I spent $80 on the coat (between a sale and a $50 gift card) so is it unreasonable that I spent $180 on a sheepskin hat? I think yes, but it's brown, matches the coat, and I think both appropriate for Chicago yet not unattractive.

I stopped myself from also buying a new briefcase and shoes. Well, I didn't really stop myself; we ran out of time.

Also hit Lane Bryant and got new jeans (finally) and new pants for work, which necessitated new underwear. If you don't know what I mean, don't ask.

So we went a lil nuts. It was great. We topped it off with dinner at our fave sushi restaurant where I had the chef's special for $40 - and it was special indeed!!! Worth every penny! (of course I could have had the chef's very special for $80, so it's not like I didn't practice some restraint!)

Today the plan is to get some work done and also get my hair cut and colored. I will look like a new woman at work tomorrow. (Yes, we had a four-day weekend! Yay!)

This coming weekend, Rie and her significant other are visiting, so that will be a blast - and it's specifically designated as a birthday celebration, since she and I have almost the same b'day, yay!

The following weekend is when I'll have my birthday party, where I'll gather a bunch of people from two previous jobs, the current job, and one from the meditation center - it's kind of a motley crew, we'll see how it works out. We're going to dim sum at the Phoenix, which we have greatly enjoyed in the past.

On my actual birthday we have to do something, because in the past, if we don't, I have gotten kind of depressed. So we'll probably have dinner out somewhere.

So that's the birthday plan for this year. I love my birthday.

discipline

No longer doing the nightly checkins here - easier via email to Nadly - too boring here!

My meditation instructor recently reminded me (and it's now a post-it on my mirror) that discipline isn't, by definition, something cruel that hurts you. It's something that helps you, that you want... something you even enjoy.

This applies most centrally to meditation, which I'm still not doing. *sigh*

But it also applies to staying late at school to get all my work done before the next school day, which I also haven't been doing - I've just been going home and falling into bed. A little discipline wouldn't hurt. I stayed late today - just a couple of hours - but it feels good to know that I'm going into the next day better prepared and less harried.

It doesn't help that I've been so tired lately. Well, I've been sick and it keeps me up coughing. But I'm always tired... for a while now, whenever I sit down I fall asleep. I have a sleep study on Monday night (the kind where you sleep in a hospital with electrodes all over your head) to try to determine the reasons and see if I need a sleep apnea machine. I'll keep you posted.

i made a commitment to write every night to assess the care and kindness that i had given to myself that day, as a reminder of my goal of giving myself what i need. i set this goal so that i won't seek what i need in another, so i don't get those frushes and crushes, the idea that someone else can make me happy - so i don't get hooked on other kinds of things either, thinking any thing will make me happy either. so i can remember that i have what i need and i can give it to me.

i've been sick most of the week and lost my voice completely. it's frustrating and boring. i've lain around the house but not really taken care of myself. i don't feel coddled, i feel like i dumped me by the side of the road. i took two days off work but felt guilty about it, punished myself by not really making myself comfortable i guess.

this whole exercise - writing this putatively daily update - feels ridiculously self-indulgent. but i remember i read somewhere, when you are actually caring for yourself is when the voice in your head says you're self-indulgent... when you are harmfully self-indulgent, the voice is silent.

so when i feel guilty, it's a good sign? i guess. i've felt guilty for two days. back to work tomorrow, a half day then the weekend. hope i get my voice back soon...

healing thinking... six things that have helped me

I felt that the previous post was depressing me so I thought I'd revisit something I learned in the intensive outpatient program over the summer... six ways to think positively, to undermine self-sabotage. It has really been a life-saver for me - stuck on a post-it on my bathroom mirror - how many mornings has one of them caught my eye and helped me start the day on the right track, or go to bed in peace?

1) What is going well right now?
School is overall going well. I got asked to be curriculum specialist. My marriage is great. Things are going well for me - they really are.

2) Stay in the present - what do I do NOW?
Now, I'll finish writing this and go to bed.

3) Remember my accomplishments
I went to Harvard and graduated summa. I lived in Japan and learned Japanese. I traveled all around the world by myself. I learned some of the language everywhere I went. I've traveled to all kinds of places since then and learned bits of more languages. I learned web design and became a (however faulty) managing director at a company. I went back to school even though it was very difficult. I stuck it out through the first two hellish years of teaching. I've gotten through a whole semester (minus two weeks) of teaching here without falling down. I can do the next thing too.

4) Replace "I can't do it" with "I can do a little of it."
Self-care doesn't have to be perfect tomorrow any more than anything else has to be perfect tomorrow. Just do a little bit every day, then try to do a little more; it's all ok.

5) I am ok on my own.
Remember that I fear abandonment and that I can relax with that fear. I am actually ok on my own and I can care for myself. The neediness that I feel is just a feeling. I am ok. Allowing that neediness to be expressed puts unbearable pressure on other people and destroys relationships. Breathe. I'm ok.

6) Remember I have a purpose in my life.
I want to help and heal.

I recommend these six to anyone who needs a more positive outlook... as I said they've helped me many times and now they are helping me end this day on a positive note.

Love you all.

spent the whole day in a state of extreme "poverty mind," feeling like i needed - really needed - something outside myself. scrambling for it, casting about in hopes of finding it. even though i saw what i was doing, i didn't stop. didn't take a shower, didn't eat.

feel drained and flat.

plans tomorrow to work all day. had planned to have long dog walk and meditation in the morning, but those have been sacrificed to starting work earlier and cleaning out the dining room so we can have a friend of R's to dinner that night. i was supposed to do the latter today but i was ... yeah.

so, not such a great day in self-care land.

i know going for a long walk will make me happier than getting on the computer. but i did the latter anyway.

At least writing these checkins is making me mindful of my poor self-care and able to see those stirrings of frama before they get going. That shit is so addictive though...

home alone tonight... chance to reflect in more spaciousness... tired tho... ... ...

sometimes i miss people i haven't seen or spoken to in a long time, as though i just saw them days ago. i don't know why i still miss them so much. nadine would probably say because i am looking to them, still, somehow, as someone who would have made, or could make me, happy. she might say that that is imaginary - even if the friendship isn't - that no one can make me happy - that i have to find that inside myself.

that's the whole point of this daily (supposedly daily) check-in. to find that inside myself.

the steps to that seem simple. meditate. exercise. walk. write. do my work. take care of myself in my job.

simple isn't easy, of course. i don't do most of those things...

this week has been a bad one for job happiness. i started a new unit and wasn't sure what to do so i kind of panicked. now that i've chosen a direction and set my feet on a path i feel more confident. or at least, i feel like the array of options has narrowed enough that i am panicking less. but it will have to be next week that i put some better plans into action, because this week was kind of a cobbled-together, done-at-the-last-minute mess. i also stayed up late monday and tuesday and... i'm not so young anymore... it made a difference. i also stayed up late specifically NOT doing work - it reminded me of last year, all the failures, so that made me panic too.

this weekend/next week i'm getting back on track, though. the habits i had established at the beginning of the year that made me happy - grading every day after school, having my lessons ready the night before and/or getting in in the morning early enough to finish them - these habits are not so long gone that i couldn't pick them up.

some good news - they asked me to take on an additional position, with a stipend, to be some kind of curriculum specialist at school. i think i will be reviewing my colleagues' lesson plans and making suggestions about how to improve their curricula. i'm not sure. anyway i think it really plays to my strengths and i'm really happy they asked me to do it, and really excited about getting started with it.

there are so many things to say... but it's time for bed... as always thank you for reading... much love to each of you.

wow, has it really been since the 5th that i haven't posted? nadly emailed me a nudge and i appreciate it...

i think Harry Reid *should* step down over his racist remarks. just sayin'.

i haven't posted because i haven't wanted to look too closely at the self-care thing. maybe because i had a bit of frush-frama again, looking to someone outside myself with whom i hoped to become friends, as someone who was going to fill up voids and vacuums in my life... but that person has vanished into the sunset, so, back to reality. and somewhat shame-facedly too.

that was the whole point of starting this checkin, to remember that nothing outside myself was going to help me feel better, feel whole, feel good, whatever - that only self-care can do that. but sometimes one can't help kinda hoping or wishing.

um. so. self care. i started another book, which - I don't know, why does it feel so much more satisfying than being on the puter?

not getting enough of my work done, which doesn't feel as good as getting my work done. but i don't berate myself anymore. what needs to get done, gets done. sooner or later.

i came home early today feeling motivated and with a stack of work. now i just want to go to bed but it's too early. there's no one around to IM with. whatever shall i do?

i'm not coming up with any specifically self-caring things i did today, am i.

Today feels more like a deficit in the self-care accounting. Self-care red ink. I hung out with aforementioned Larry, he of the frush-frama (the one who seems like he wants more from me, emotionally, than I'm able to give. Can't we just hang out and go to meditation? No, I don't want you to help me put up my shelves, write my lesson plans, or worry about me crossing the street or working with gang members. I can handle my life just fine. I don't want you insinuating yourself into every crevice. Gah! I tried to talk to him about it but it didn't go very well, because I had trouble being clear about what I wanted. So I did us both a disservice.

I wish it were easier to find and make new friends. Without frush-frama.

Remember that book I mentioned, "A Golden Age"? Well, it had a surprisingly horrifying ending that made me burst into hard tears and feel miserable. I know I shouldn't be surprised to find horror in a war book but this came at me sideways and was just awful. (Since you prolly won't ever read it, I'll spoil it - a woman hands over her true love to be tortured to death, to protect her son.... Aaagh!)

anyway. Glum now. "glum" is a great word, isn't it. Glum.

back from madison, back to school

miri's writing workshop was great as always. i reminded myself about the teaching that instead of "spending every minute as though in the dentist's chair" we can "welcome each moment as though we'd invited it." it helped me reconcile with coming back to school... i love my students and my work, but i was also loving my vacation. i also wrote about the recent improvement in my marriage - just in the last few weeks we have inexplicably gotten closer and more loving again, after what seems many many months on the rocks.

i compared the rejuvenated marriage to a hippopotamus. that's what writing class is for: bad writing. ;)

i had a great time in madison with old friends. really really great time. i miss them. i don't miss madison but i miss being surrounded by a circle of dear friends. or interlocking circles really. i've whined about that before so... anyway, i love my madison friends and was very happy to spend some time with them.

self care... well, it felt like the whole time in madison was a big ol' bath of self-care. i even got some work done by getting up early. yesterday i had two breakfasts with Miri and then came home - this time the bus was too crowded for work, so I read a book - reading actual books for pure pleasure is another thing i've tried to start doing. i'm reading "A Golden Age," about the war that divided Bangladesh from Pakistan.

today i had an ok day at work and then in the evening i finished up the rest of the work i'd wanted to do on the break. most of it anyway. felt good. then i had a bath; now i'm going to bed. :) i wish i could have eaten some vegetables; then my self-care would feel complete. but we don't have any. shopping tomorrow. :)

thank you for reading what has become a rather mundane little series of daily musings on a prosaic topic....

Yesterday i dedicated a whole day to just having fun with Loopy (and ignoring my work). We went to ikea, which was fun n useful, and then to see "Avatar" in 3D, which was spectacular. I reasoned that i had 8 hours on the bus to Madison n back (I'm going to Miri's one-day writing retreat tomorrow). But I slept and IM'd my way up to Madison... Now I'm freaking out that I have so little time left, and so much to do..... Sigh.