I have an interview or two or three. I have about 10 resumes out there, and have started getting positive responses back. I’m so excited to be going back to work. I did enjoy using my brain and effort in the M.A.T. program–I just didn’t like the fact that there was never any breathing space. None. You never got even one moment to savor an accomplishment. Not resting on laurels mind you, but just having a moment to enjoy a job well done.

We went to Nightbird books yesterday. Love that place. I like it even better in the new Dickson location. The books are more expensive than Borders, Barnes and Noble or Amazon but the atmosphere is excellent. I try to get at least one out of three books there. There is an excellent CHEESE sandwich restaurant called Hammontrees. James had a Jack to the future and I had the Scarlet Chedder. Um…Cheese is good. And this is extra cheese.

I’ve got some pictures somewhere, why? Because it is cheese. I’ll put them up in a bit.

Ah here they are (edited the morning after)

Starting over, starting over but with some skills. Starting over but with a LOT of skills. Starting over with even more information. I am looking forward to the next thing.

I wish I had more to say today but I made the mistake of eating a milk based cheese sauce last night so I was siiiiiiiiick.

I did decide that I will spend one hour writing, just writing at least five days a week. I expect there will be a lot of drivel at first because I’m out of practice, though one good thing that came of my foray into public education was some ‘just write’ activities. I haven’t been a truly creative writer for some years beause of technical writing and the like, but it can be restarted.

Like everything, or nearly everything. I’m pushing the restart button.

We went out for Fangsgiving for the first time in um….well more than 7 years. The Bean was sad at first said it wouldn’t be “the right way,” but we convinced her that it needed to be this way this year. After snuggles and some tears it was fine.

We went to the Clarion, which I am happy to say–my food is better, so I have actually learned a thing or two about cooking after not being able to boil water in my early 20s–but it was fine. The desserts were way better than I could do, and the rest put us nicely into a coma. It wasn’t as festive as it can be at home, but everyone had other plans this year so it was the best decision.

Afterwards we all came home and put on our ‘big pants’ and chose up napping places. Except Bean, she was still pretty bouncy, so she played on her computer for a bit, J did some WoW and I looked for a costume drama on the tv. Not too long after Bean came downstairs and wanted a snuggle and so I turned on the new age musis channel and she nestled down in my arms. Pretty soon Babbage, Haru and Bartleby showed up and found places on us to curl up. And I thought as my eyes closed how grateful I was to NOT have a silly amount of homework to do and to be able to guiltlessly snuggle with my darling child and 3/5 of our cat population. It was lovely.

I just finished making a Halloween cake (white cake with orange and black sprinkles) because Em really wanted me to cook something today, which was really sweet. Eventually tonight we’ll have some, but we’re still full!

My thankful list? The Bean and J–my friends old ones and new ones. For new challenges and for eventually having no regrets. For cats all too many of them, including the purry new boy. For family in all its forms.

Sad, all the work I put into the M.A.T. program. It is good to have this though. I did this before all the yuck started.
You know what’s funny? I started doing nablopomo this year, and said offhandedly…”I just want to see how many times I want to quit.” Huh.

Bean and I had a wonderful nap together with small Babbage today. It’s been awhile since she’s taken any kind of nap during the day–we always did that together. It was lovely to snuggle up on the couch and smell her cookie smell and just love my little girl.

I know I lived here. I know I had these friends and experiences. I have them all locked in my head. I remember some very very clearly. But there are very few pictures. There are many pictures of my friends, some of them I took, but very few of me.

This makes me sad. When I moved to SF I told so many stories about my life here–the hat party, the music, the friends with whom I went through many more experiences than most kids in Arkansas had at that time,. And there aren’t any pictures of me–of Pop Culture in the Park, that poetry and music fest I put on, nearly single handed. There aren’t any pictures of me at the Icehouse, though I did help to get it going–I know I spent the time in the permits office and the Fire Department arguing to keep it open.

J pointed out that I was like the soundman–crucial but unobserved. Did I mention I ran sound for the Descendants at Lily’s? Or wrote for the Grapevine? None of those things show up either. Who photographs the soundman?

I left Fayetteville and then many things seemed to start here. It makes me wish I’d stayed another year or so, but then I might not have left and I needed to. I had a big life in San Francisco. I did many interesting and strange things. I wouldn’t trade those years for anything. I might ask for a refund on a few of them, but I’d keep most.

I don’t think there are many pictures of me there either.

And there aren’t many pictures of me now. It’s almost like I don’t exist sometimes.

Maybe it is time to take a break from the internets for awhile. All this reminiscing where I don’t seem to be makes me feel like I’ve been amputated, or …excised…maybe removed..

Edited later after a facebook discussion to add:

Sometimes in your life you can actually hear the door slam and the window open. It’s been a shattering month. Despite the pregnancy losses, mortality and the simple dividing line between living and not, was never so obvious as recently. We knew that C was dying. We’d been visiting weekly, sometimes more. We knew he was fading; indeed he’d been visibly fading in the 2 and a half years since we moved back. But the last few weeks from the hospital to the hospice to the last night–as his voice grew fainter, as he could “see” us only for minutes, then for seconds, as his breathing became more and more labored–mortality became less a concept and more a reality.

The longest time he held on “really seeing” while we visited was when he looked at my daughter’s face.

And then one night: nothing.

I’ve never had an easy relationship with my family. We’ve never understood or quite possibly been comfortable with each other. But the last two years and the especially the last two months–well I discovered , I realized that at the end of your life all you have are those whose lives you have touched in some way. That whatever the estrangement, you are stripped bare. In the end we breathe, shit and cry and hope for love, just like an infant.  While I still felt apart–truly I couldn’t feel any other way–I’ve only seen his children a handful of times since 1987–I wished for his and their ease and comfort. I was sorry for all the suffering. I was glad he wasn’t alone and hoped we’d helped him know that.

I don’t know what he regretted at the end. I do know that by that point so much of my anger had fled. And I fully realized how thin the thread is that holds us all to life and to each other.

And as I scramble and claw at middle age I realize but only with the help of E’s dying grandfather and an angry 25 year old man that what has been scaring and confusing me isn’t what is actually important. It isn’t what will make the next 40 years meaningful or fill it with love and purpose. It’s so very hard to let go of how things have been and embrace how things must become. I have spent most of my life on the fringe in some way or another. Divorced parents before that was very normal, a dead parent before that was likely for most people, bookish, political, dreamy and odd. Sometimes horrendously outspoken, other times terrified. I gravitated towards others like me and reveled in the acceptance and freedom of those all dressed in black or screaming angry lyrics, or pounding poetry into the air with a vehemence most 20 year olds didn’t cultivate. And I wandered into technology, a lone female capable with a shell script or screwdriver, after being forced by money away from Chaucer’s canonical bosom. My music, the people I loved, the meaning for everything came from the fringe.

And however I might fight it, however it might terrify me–I don’t really live there anymore. We have a mortgage (now declining in value), yard work, 2 cars to take care of, pets, a nine year marriage and most importantly a young daughter. We go to PTO meetings and volunteer at her school. We’re still left of center and more Buddhist than Christian but don’t discount anyone’s beliefs, nor feel the need to chastise them. In our youth my husband and I were rebels. Now? We’re like a lot of other grown up rebels. We aren’t terribly unique. More open minded than usual perhaps, more likely to try new music or a new activity, slower to grow all the way up perhaps. Now though it becomes obvious that different isn’t so very different. Because we all grew up. And now the things that set us apart from the person next to us aren’t as important as the things that make us the same. 

Once or twice a year the last 4 years I’ve ended up back in my old types of haunts or around younger, much younger, denizens of the the fringes. I’d stay up too late, get far too intense and unfortunately….become maternal. The youth and age inside me fighting for dominance. I’d have conversations I’d had repeatedly 10, 20 years ago. But as a parent now I start trying to “hear them” and “help them.” Which isn’t the point. While far younger than me, they certainly don’t require that from me. They need to push against me–not me in particular, just older adults, just people where I am, who have had experiences (like college, a career, a child) like I have had. This isn’t a bad impulse, just badly applied. I need to find an outlet for this–someplace I can do good. Some situation, where me paying attention, caring and nurturing even, is appropriate and helpful. Like it is with my daughter and her friends. As I hope it will be if I become a teacher.

So while that young man was rude and said some horrible things obviously designed to hurt me, I’m grateful he did. He didn’t prove the point he thought to–my age and experience does qualify me to decide that. However, he did show me where I don’t belong anymore and what I don’t need to be doing. Even only once or twice a year. Having an intense, soul searching conversation with a 25 year old on their turf and an intense souls searching conversation with a fellow 40 year old on your own shared territory are two wildly different things. One is the wrong thing for me to do, the other is right. It may actually be a moral question.

So, if I need to volunteer my time at high school debate tournaments, political campaigns and my daughter’s school and work at this new career of being a teacher–that is likely where my time is best spent. It is where I am supposed to be. I’ve been afraid of giving my energy to those things whole heartedly–afraid to love it all again. Why? I’m not entirely sure — I know now though that I must and will become comfortable with my age, my position as one growing into  an elder who can both guide and withstand rebellion, and that I must leave behind those jaunts back into my 20s– that I’ll be embracing rather than refusing, rather than fighting–maybe I will stride towards the final destination, the final breath, and end surrounded by love, memories of my own and other’s children and how I hopefully loved and helped them. I’ll end with the knowledge I made a difference. An everlasting yea rather than a relentless denial of what comes to us all.

The door slammed closed the other night, but the window is open wide and the vista beyond welcoming, terrifying and necessary.

Once again I’ll thank you for the pokes and proddings to catch up, to write more. We’ve had an eventful last several weeks, both good and bad. The bad is that my stepfather has returned to the hospital then been moved back to the skilled nursing facility. He won’t be leaving there anytime soon. My mother almost never leaves. When she does he gets upset which saddens her. She needs to take more time for herself and I’ve said so and she will if she feels like she can.

I’ve had a health scare myself. I don’t want to go further into it than that. It was a frightening miscommunication between the doctor and myself. When everything was sorted out the news is still not wonderful but much less bad. It was a terrifying 48 hours though. Really horrible. Life flashing before my eyes and all that. The news that is isn’t great but there are things we can do.

We’ve been very busy with the Bean. She’s been in soccer camp, Drama camp and this week swim and fitness camp. They meet a different parks for three hours a day and the folks work for the parks, the schools and are interested in becoming teachers. They are wonderful. Very patient and encouraging. It’s kept Bean from being bored out of her mind during a wet and upsetting summer.

I’ve joined a gym. I have very little idea what I’m doing. I lift weights for 30 or 40 minutes in no set order every other day. Arms,legs and abdomen. I run like a rat on the wheel for 30-50 minutes every day of the week. I wonder how long it will take to see a difference? I’m guessing about 5 weeks. That’s what it took before all those miscarriages. I’d lost 20 some odd pounds and had a nice bit o definition in my abs. And so I’m back to the drawing board and trying not to be too hard on myself. Having the Ipod and two new Abney Park CDs helps a lot. I’m just hoping if I sweat a lot that means I’m getting somewhere.

I organized an outting to the incredible Ravenwood Festival on the 12th. We had to leave a little earlier than I’d hoped (the Bean was staying with my sister ALL NIGHT~!!)and missed the after party, but it was still wonderful. Abney Park is my new passion. I liked them before but seeing them live and actually talking to them–well they are both talented and nice. And gorgeous, all of them. It was the big fun to get dressed up again. J and I spend so much time being parents and doing our life things that we don’t have much time for our preferred pasttimes (involving dressing up, random spookiness and music usually)so it was bliss to get to do this. George’s was transformed and the Bands were AMAZING. I’ve got several CDs to pick up soon. I think I’ve already worn out my Abney Park’s Lost Horizon’s

I suggested J’s outfit and helped dress the girls. J loaned G2 some old Docs with buckles he had. And I got to wear a flouncy skirt AND my paratrouper boots. Yes, that was good.

That’s me with forceps from the turn of the century by way of Lisa. I had a monocle from then as well.

That is the very handsome Captain Robert

And again.

Ms. Lisa

Gary and Laura

J and I

(the quote’s from Deadwood, only one of the most beautifully written (and yes I mean that) works on television in recent memory. )

Well, let’s see..I’ve passed the first set of tests. I had to delay taking them since I was on jury duty and couldn’t get excused. Jury duty from January until March. I was called 8! EIGHT! times. Each time requires figuring out bean wrangling, scheduling with James and being unable to schedule the test. Or study for it as effectively. So I finally finished jury duty and schedule the tests for April 7th, 14 and moved the one from April 26th (that’s too much–it’s almost 5 hours long) also The Bean’s birthday to June 14th (still in deadline).

And I got my fingerprints (that was hilarious–go to the UofA police, get in line, they ask for a fingerprint card…of course they don’t HAVE THEM THERE! Go to school admin office, oops that’s the school admin office ANNEX, so go to main school system office. Walk in wrong door, get sent to yet another building then further back. Stand at a desk panting (because you must get your fingerprints between 1:30 and 3:30 only on Tuesdays and Thursdays) wait, wait…walk to back after awhile. Interupt important lady who looks unhappy about it, get card, be flustered, say something dumb, leave with card. Go back, meter is still open, get in long line and *just* make the window of opportunity in between a huge group of law students who are…wait for it…talking about making money). And I sent it off to the state police (I can’t have a record for all those war protests can I?) notarized first of course. And put together my packet, with all my trannscripts and mail it all off.

But then…cue ominous music. They changed the website. And now if you take the test in June you are too late to get in the Non Traditional Licensure program. And so learning high school and a bit of college math in two months and these tests and all that wild fingerprint cavorting was all in vain yes?

Maybe not. I applied to graduate school. A year program for the Master of Arts in Teaching. The costs are comparable. I know I have the grades and scores to get in and I’ve already got *one* master’s degree so that should show I’m a good risk perhaps? We’ll see. They might be out of room (it’s a popular program and I’m a bit late to the party this year). I’m also working with one or maybe two technical recruiters to see if I can find a technical /office manager position for a non profit or other white knight type of job. I really want something that contributes to the community and something I’ll feel passionate about. If this were San Francisco I’d throw myself at the SPCA with the full force and fervor of an um..cat in heat. I still wish the humane society here had needed someone, but that was another bump, it’s too bad that one didn’t work out. I’ve always wanted to teach. I enjoyed teaching so much during grad school. Even doing corporate training. I wonder if I could teach in a community college or if I’ve been out of the game too long. Or in continuing ed?

And I’m going to sign up to substitute next year. Hopefully both at the high school and elementary level.

So I’ve thrown several things at the wall (and there’s one more I’m not mentioning here) and we’ll see what sticks. Any of these things would be good for me and for the family. Was I disapointed to miss the cutoff time for the NTLP? Yes, yes I was. I have read and been told by several folks that around here they hire from the NTLP last. The M.A.T. is preferred,. so blessing in disguise? That remains to be seen, but I can’t help but feel that now that I’m trying all these things something interesting is about to happen.