summertime

It's here. Summertime.

This time last year I was getting ready for our big vacation to California, and then I had the major surgery, and then I watched my father whither and die before my very eyes. It as a horrible summer... and sadly not the only horrible summer of my life... There was that summer when Jay got sick and almost died on us.

Life has been one wave of stress after the other lately, and I realize I am no different than anyone else, so what keeps me here? I'm like an imbecile that keeps sticking her finger in the light socket. Duh.

I don't know. Hope, I guess? The promise of better things to come? Tequila? Yes, maybe the tequila. I don't know. My kids certainly keep me here. Their hope. To them at this moment, all things are possible. I'm not ready to burst that bubble yet, or ever.

It's the summertime, and no matter how old I get I will always get that rush of hopeful anticipation as the season takes hold, and it always does...

xo

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Don't want to be a richer man
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Just gonna have to be a different man
Time may change me
But I can't trace time
~D. Bowie

I need to make some changes in my life. I always seem to find myself at this strange place and I just can't get seem to get a grip. I need a grip.

50 ways to say FUCK OFF!

Tomorrow is the last day I have to ever work with that toxic evil woman!

So in celebration I'm collecting 50 ways to tell someone to FUCK OFF!

Someone who has been bullying me for two years.

Someone who has sent me countless condescending emails about how she thinks I'm useless as a professional and constantly accuses me of lying.

Someone who has verbally viciously attacked me in meetings (which ultimately got her fired).

Someone I've tried to help, and work with and who has in return tried to sabotage my programs and hurt my students.

Someone who has paranoid delusions and has written pages and pages of slanderous lies about me and my coworker in an attempt to wreak havoc in our lives.

I have learned it is better to take the high road, and protect yourself with grace and dignity. Smile and be as pleasant as possible, and people like her will always self-destruct... and she did.... and yes.. she is trying to take me (and some others) down with her, but luckily her crazy is showing in purple neon and we ain't going nowhere.

So... back to the fucking off... I only have 7 so far:

1. You know what you can get? You can get going..
2. I wish I could say it's been a slice of heaven, but it's been more like a steaming pile of hell.
3. Why don't you make like a tree and leave?
4. Make like a shepherd and get the flock out of here!
5. Go shit in your hat (Anonymous)
6. Go pound sand up your ass (Anonymous) ---this one sounds quite uncomfortable!
7. - 50.
........................./´¯/)
......................,/¯..//
...................../..../ /
............./´¯/'...'/´¯¯`·¸
........../'/.../..../......./¨¯\
........('(...´(..´......,~/'...')
.........\.................\/..../
..........''...\.......... _.·´
............\..............(
..............\.............\

P.S.

I didn't say or gesture any of these when the time came. I just gave her a little smile and walked out the door. I actually felt a little sad about the whole thing, and I felt very sorry for her.

I'm glad it's over for now, although I don't know what will become of her charges at this point.. *sigh*

My administrator has assured me that they were completely unfounded and not to worry about anything coming from them at work, however, I wonder how deep her psychosis runs. We shall see.

xo

miss you

Dad...

Did ya ever....

Spend two years working with a toxic, insane "teammate",

while trying to keep the peace in your department and hold a very large staff together by de-alienating all she continued to alienate and

while working with over 100 special education students (adolescents) and their parents and

while completing very large volumes of work

only to have them finally fire her after days and weeks and months of her vicious personal and professional attacks,

and then a week before school is out and you think you will be finally be free of her insanity,

get notified that she is filing a harassment suit against you, your co-workers, and director in an effort to save her job and destroy yours,

and told you should get an attorney because things can get really complicated????

Yea???

me too... ugh...

i have to go throw up....

dragonflies...

A friend once told me a story about dragonflies.

He said they were mystical creatures that traveled freely between heaven and earth carrying messages upon their wings, and if you are lucky enough to have one land near you, to quiet your mind so you can hear what they need to tell you. How is this possible? I asked him. How can dragonflies bend space and time?

"Perhaps," he said,"their wings are framed by a Mobius Strip, and the reason they seem to dart from one place to another so quickly is their coming and going from one plane to another."

Mmmmm.... Perhaps, indeed.. I thought.

Well, I found out today, that my friend was wrong. Dragonfly wings may be framed by a Mobius Strip, and they may indeed carry messages, but I know how they travel... They hitchhike.

On my way to work this morning, one flew right through my window and into my car. I remembered the story, so I quieted my mind and listened.

Nothing.

I opened the other window thinking he would just fly right through, but he perched right on the dash and stayed. I was a little concerned that this rather large bug might fly in may face as I drove, but it didn't. It was quite well-behaved. When I arrived and opened the door, the dragonfly promptly flew out the door and away. Maybe it had an urgent message for someone who lived in the town I worked...


.

I hope they got it.....

Unrequited Poster Child.

That is what someone called me once... I think in response to reading my more happier poetry. I thought it was funny at the time, to be considered the poster child for anything seemed somewhat comical to me because I always feel so scattered about everything in my life. But I guess that is how he saw me. The hopeless romantic, looking for love in all the wrong places. The restless spirit that will never rest... Unrequited. *sigh* (sighing.. such an unrequited response) *sigh*

I guess I just can't accept that maybe that za za zoom part of life is over. In fact, I know I can't... I just can't! I want the butterflies in my stomach, and that flash of heat burning through my body. Life just can't be a series of chores and tasks, now can it?

Another friend.. not the one who called me the unrequited poster child... sent me a quote today:

Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are.

Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two.

~ Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernières

I think it's a lovely quote, truly I do. But will I have to wait until I actually take root in the ground to make sense of all this love crap???

Oh, how I yearn for some temporary madness....



*sigh*

(sorry, can't help it)