He probably hates me. He thinks I am miserable and lazy and a horrific slob. Oh well. I don't really care what he thinks right now. He doesn't even know who I am. Am I supposed to take a blow like that and pretend I don't feel it. Come on now. I am still human, right. Oh there is so much that is wrong with my life. I don't even know where to begin. He thinks I will quit my job and never amount to anything right. Yeah. I'll just spit in the face of all that I have achieved, walk away, move on, open a new chapter, for what, no one will care, nothing will change, time will keep going in it's mindless way. It is such a pity that life is not more mailable. I could have been somebody. I think once upon a time I could have had a shot. Now it's over. I'm getting older. My dreams have to die, because they never came true. There is nothing ahead for me. Nothing to look forward to. I am never to find my way. I am not good at what I do. I take no pride in my work and each day is more miserable than the last. I should tell Sarah to start a blog. Then she could share her misery with the world too. Maybe it would make her feel better to let it all out.
When I look at her I try not to see myself in five years, but we are more the same than I am likely to admit. Accept, she has a spine, a backbone, a voice, she has a presence and makes a difference in our school. I am a ghost passing through. I am not real to them and they are not real to me. What about the performance review. Will it be better just to skip it. Will I be in for a rude awakening when Rachel tells me, "I know you've been dreaming of something better but what you will actually get is something much, much worse". That would be unfortunate. I would be left with out an alternative. I would be completely dependent on Sam. I would have nothing. Losing a teaching job is hard to do, but I've done it before. I was much younger then. Time was on my side. Maybe the world was my oyster but I didn't know it. Didn't grasp at it. Let it slip away. I'll never get their because I don't like to play by the rules and that isn't as glamorous as it sounds. It just means that I'm always cutting corners and never quite ending up where I want to be. I don't think I'm very well regarded among the Hillside school sect, and I'm sure their are rumors about me swirling around the place. Maybe I will get the axe, maybe I should, maybe not, better to wait, make nice, hope everything stays the course.

why me. today I had a young girl humiliate me and now I have taken harsh criticism from Sam. Oh what will I do. I am unable to move out of this misery. It is all consuming. Over the years many people's lives have moved forward and yet mine stays still why? I wish Dr. Gordon were still alive so he could explain this all to me and help me find a way out. I don't know where I will go from here. Sam is right. My fantasy of getting out, of doing something better is just that, a fantasy. I will never get there. I will never have a successful career or have the respect of anyone because it is not in me. If Jennifer saw me now. She would laugh. She would laugh so hard at me, because I am still here, still on the periphery of life. On the outside looking in. No matter how much I try. Does he realize how he has destroyed me. There is nothing that I can do to improve my situation. If he wanted to hurt me so bad he has succeeded. There was a time when I thought I was moving forward but in all these years nothing has changed. I have made momentously bad decisions and life has passed me by. Before I know it I will be 31 years old. I have nothing to show for it. What is he talking about does he even know, because it makes no sense to me. This must be some kind of a joke.

It's Been a While

Sorry I have not written in so long. I have been very busy and on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I wish my therapist Dr Gordon were still alive but he died in 2007. A week or 2 before my niece was born and a month or 2 before I was married. He helped me so much, in so many ways. One thing in particular that he did was give my life the direction that I so desperately needed. I was a bit of a delinquent in high school and a bit of a slacker through college and beyond. When I was 25 years old I gave up smoking pot, alcohol and cigarettes which was all that remained from my adolescent indiscretions. There was a time in high school, Sophomore year when I was doing pot a few times a week, drinking once or twice a week and doing acid or mescalin about once a month. The following year I gave up acid for mushroom and an abusive relationship for no relationship. I hit the harder stuff in college or after which culminated in the end of it all circa memorial day weekend 2003.
At that time I was hopelessly enamored with a white rapper who shall remain nameless. He was absolutely uninteresting but for some reason I neglected to see this. Except for a couple brief encounters we shared very little. Nearly 2 years later I had not been able to get over my feelings for him. I had at that point written numerous unrequited love songs for him which had yet to have seen the light of day. He was there the evening I decided to go straight. He had begun a relationship with a friend of mine and their love affair had given me a catalyst with which to continue torturing myself. I used every opportunity I could to see him and every dysfunctional turn their relationship took I relished. He would give me just enough to keep me hanging on as some men are so good at doing. It was a rough time. I was so starved for his touch or the touch of anyone for that matter that on this particular night the situation came to a head as they say. I had learned of his relationship with my friend in the spring of 2002. Less than a year after our encounter and when the hope of a reunion was still painfully real in my mind and yet I took the news quite well. I was in some ways thrilled by the coincidence of yet another love triangle emerging in my life. I was also aroused by the possibility that the object of my affection all the sudden been restored to a real position in my life-boyfriend of friend. Every interaction between us after the news was vague, ambiguous, hard to pin down. The alcohol and marijuana did not help to clarify things in the least. I was very confused and still very much in love with him and my friend and I lost a lot of our intimacy in the process and that's why I decided to quit dope so I could see clearly again .
My friend left for Korea in August of 2003 and that was the last time I saw her. Six months later I orchestrated a couple meeting with the rapper fella. I eventually built up the courage to confess my feelings to him which culminated in the inevitable rejection, but ultimately allowed me to have some peace and closure regarding the situation. 4 1/2 months later I met my husband. I had begun playing shows in small venues in lower Manhattan and Brooklyn with a friend. She was a friend of my future husband's who was also a musician. We met one night playing a show together at the CB's Gallery and a few weeks later he came to see me perform there. All the songs that I had written about my unrequited love had finally come to fruition.
Now I am happily married but the obsession that drives me is my career or lack there of. As you can imagine during my years of inebriation I was not exactly making the most of my potential. I had always been good with kids and had a lot of experience working with children so an obvious choice was to go into teaching and I credit teaching with in part getting me clean. I was responsible for little children and I had to act that way in order to keep my job but more importantly in order to earn the trust and respect of the little one's in my care. Now I am 8 years in to my profession as early childhood educator. I am receiving my master's degree at Columbia University. You could say I am a success story and that I have turned my life around and that would all be true, the only trouble is I have no interest in continuing in this field per Se. I enjoy children but I have realized that spending my days with toddlers has become increasingly unpleasant and I am ready for a change. I have spent the past couple years grappling with this issue and have yet to take the plunge in to the unknown. There are practicalities holding me back. I want to finish my degree and my job is currently paying my tuition. I plan to take the plunge at the end of this school year if the economic crisis does not interfere. I think it will be an exciting chapter in my life and I can't wait to begin it. I hope I can achieve my goals in time to start a family. Thanks for listening.

my husband and I are not getting along. I am not always easy to deal with. Neither is he. If things don't work out between us I need to have a plan. I don't want to end up homeless. My name is not on the lease. This is his apartment. Technically he could throw me out and then what would I do. It isn't easy, being a woman. I need love and attention so often. It is the life force and it is one of the most important things there is. Many people do not seem to understand this. I am so miserable right now. My life is a terrible strain on me. It seems that everyone else is enjoying themselves, while I am stuck in a trap from which I can not escape. It's much easier to move down than up as we all know. Our life together is a challenge. The solace that I got through work is gone. It is a difficult industry, the childcare industry that I work in. I am a mule, but when a mule no longer has work what does the mule do. That is the decision I am currently faced with.

My brother was on a kayaking trip yesterday with a group of young real estate brokers. He was in a kayak on the East River under the Brooklyn Bridge. He and an acquaintance of his were riding in the Kayak together. As they passed by the waterfalls art exhibit their boat capsized. It's been all over the papers. My brother was interviewed on the channel 11 news last night. It was a really scary experience for him. He easily could have drowned. Luckily he is a very strong swimmer. He is fine. Two different newspapers carried the story. One was The Daily News, and the other was The New York Times. The Daily News reporter actually spoke with my brother and interviewed him, but the reporter who wrote the article for The New York Times never actually spoke with my brother and a lot of the information written in the article was incorrect. My brother did not have a camera with him and neither he nor the other man who was in the boat with him were taking pictures or horsing around. It is clear that the writer from The New York Times was writing what the tour guide told him and did not take the time to speak to anyone else. It seems to me that this tour guide was concerned mainly with ridding himself of any blame for the accident and the writer did not care enough to check his facts. I spoke with a friend of mine who is an experienced kayaker and she told me that the currents under the east river are extremely dangerous and anyone who knows anything about kayaking would never take beginner kayakers there. Even if the guide gave them instructions about how to get out of a kayak he should not have expected beginners to be able to perform this move. It seems to me that the writer and the tour guide both have a lot of explaining and apologizing to do.

What is elitism? How is it determined. I will be the first to admit that my job is less than ideal, that I am often putting it down in various ways, and because of that I am constantly conflicted, but when others put it down or make comments that I perceive as negative, I immediately feel defensive. At least I have a job. I admit it isn't ideal but I am working on it and sometimes I feel that it is the people who aren't doing much with their lives who tend to criticize mine. That is par for the course I presume and I can not let it bother me too much.
I have been very tickled by the news of Madonna and A-Rod, whether it is true or not it seems very juicy and worthy of discussion. In other words, if it isn't true it should be. Madonna is a such an interesting role model for women. She is so sexually empowered and alive. I enjoy seeing that in a women. Cause even today most women are portrayed in the media as the pursued one, the passive receiver of sexual advances, not Madonna and not me. I think most women have healthy sexual appetites often more so than men but they are afraid to own up to them. Now why should this be? I was recently browsing through the website for toys in babe land. They are bringing sex toys into respectable society and I am all for it. We need to shed our puritanical sexual values. There is hypocrisy in our culture regarding sex especially when it comes to women and it has led to much unpleasantness. The female orgasm is so important. Using vibrators can help women who are sexually repressed achieve orgasm and I believe improve their lives. OK enough Dr. Ruth talk. I hope no one figures out my true identity. This kind of talk isn't appropriate for a school teacher, or is it? Ha, ha, ha.

The Internet is a strange phenomenon. Everyone is exposed. Some hope that through it they will achieve their 15 minutes. I'm searching for more. The job I have is perfectly fine, but it isn't sexy. I want to do something sexy. I had a late lunch with a friend. After lunch we went the park and then to the nail salon. It made me sad. What a waste. Getting our nails done. Isn't there more to life. My career lacks direction. My friend suggested I see a therapist. I already saw a therapist for 8 years. I'm only 30. I worked so hard during those 8 years of therapy. The thought of spending more time in therapy makes me feel like my mission was not accomplished. I'm feeling guilty because I didn't go to the gym today. The guilt never hits until it is too late, bummer. The husband isn't home from work yet. I'm waiting. I hate waiting. The exercise thing, the weight thing, the beauty thing, all these questions that women agonize over. Am I pretty enough? Am I thin enough? Do I exercise enough? Am I appealing to others? Going out socially with my husband used to terrify me because I was worried that he would see something in one of these women the we encountered and run off with them. I would be powerless to stop it. That feeling has subsided some over the years but it has not disappeared. I woke up this morning after a night's sleep that was half restful, half restless, with a feeling of discontent regarding our relationship. In my dream he was replaced by another figure as often happens in dreams, but I knew it was him. I had to chase him down to get him to pay any attention to me in this dream, and I am perceptive enough to pick up on the fact that this is an ongoing theme in our relationship, and I am self involved enough to obsess over it. He calls himself an introvert and no doubt will blame his inability to reach out on that as he often does, but I can't help but want more from him sometimes....

Indecision

Time,darkness, despair
stand there.

In shadows-darkness
falls apart.

light

you-on me.

This beast
grabs hold my hand.


my core-operates
deep-on the floor.

Callous-cold
calm.
Life
swim swan.

I am just getting started blogging. Nothing much to say. I guess today was a tough day. Work was unpleasant. I just hit 30 a few months ago and suddenly I am reevaluating my life. Nothing seems to be quite the way I hoped it would be. I got married which is wonderful. I truly love my husband. He is the greatest and we have the best time together. I know I am incredibly lucky to have such an amazing and important relationship in my life, but it begins to shine a light on how imperfect other parts of my life are. I've been doing the same job for seven years now and I can't say that I am really satisfied with it. In fact lately I have begun to really hate my job. I work in a profession which is mainly geared towards women and therefore is incredibly demeaning. Women put up with situations that men would never allow. It's hard for me to accept that in 2008 this is still the case but it is. I want out. I'm hoping that it isn't too late. Sorry to complain, but this is what is on my mind right now.