Feeling Small

The third load of laundry is rattling away in the washer downstairs as The Simpsons prattle away on the television. I have no lesson plans set up for tomorrow. I've corrected nothing over the weekend. And I cried, for absolutely no reason, while eating a giant Caesar salad about an hour ago.

I feel depressed and I can't quite put my finger on it. I know that some of it is stress and some because of the time of year. My job is becoming less engaging as policies change drastically and I don't feel like I'm making a difference anymore.

And to top off the week, was the unbelievably horrific news about the deranged shooter in Connecticut. It just makes me sick. Especially the idiotic comments from people on Facebook who want to politicize this tragedy. Children, and the adults protecting those children, have died. Their families are in agony right now and people want to point fingers in all directions.

Jeff, my fiance, shared a thought, a quote, yesterday and I wish I could remember who originally said it. But it explains how I feel. Here it is, as best as I recall him saying it:
"An adult who loses a spouse is called a widow or a widower. A child who loses his or her parents is called an orphan. There is no name, no term to call a parent who loses his or her child."

I gave him an answer, a term. The term is destroyed.

With this in mind, I need to start practicing being more thankful. My concerns are trivial and I have no right to be depressed. I've never been asked to suffer like this and I pray that I never will.

Trapped by food

All my life, I've been trapped by food. I like to eat and for the most part, it has shown. I've never been skinny and clothes can sometimes be a hassle. Especially if I'm at the tipping point on the scales. Currently, I've been working my way back down in an attempt to look decent for my upcoming wedding. Today, however, was not a good day. At least as far as the scale is concerned. My brain, stomach, and taste buds, however, thought today ROCKED! Real food was coming in and they were having a blast. Because we all knew that it was quickly coming to an end. That I'd be back on the wagon first thing Monday morning and processed protein products were coming back. So, imagine my surprise, when I literally became trapped by food this evening. On top of the marriage, the house is getting a redo and the construction crew is planning on demolishing the existing kitchen tomorrow morning. I cleaned everything out, except the refrigerator, and made the profoundly stupid move of trying to "slide" it out of my galley kitchen. It didn't work. And I got stuck behind the damned thing in the tiny space behind it. Yes, I panicked. And yes, I did call upon my inner David Banner-Hulk strength to get the thing finally out of the way. I also smashed off the knob to my dishwasher in the process. So, once again, food has attempted to block my path in life. And once again, I've mustered up the power to get past it. That is, until the sneaky bastard tries his next move...

What will the neighbors think?!

So, if you were standing around and felt a disturbance in the force, a Cameron-scream-heard-round-the-world a la Ferris Bueller's Day Off, that would've been me. I don't normally characterize myself as "girlie", but today definitely fit that description. I found a mouse. A dead one. In MY house. And I freaked.
Now, this disgusting bit of vermin rubbish was not in my actual living space, but STILL, it was in my home. I feel like I need to scrub every part of it down with bleach and rat poison. And even though I'm posting this where the whole world can read it, my mind still reels with the hideous thought, "What will the neighbors think?!"

Proper Ladies Don't Make Waves

Why do I feel guilty about insisting I get what I paid for in the first place? We were supposed to have vinyl siding on the front of the house. It's in the contract. And they put shingles up. So, I complained. And I feel like I'm being an annoying bitch. Why? No guy I know would even hesitate to demand things be built the way it was defined in a contract. And I feel like I'm the one doing something wrong.
I guess the cigarette ads were wrong, we have not come a long way, baby.

America's Next Top Model

Okay. I'll admit it. My tasteless choice for a television show was, at one time, America's Next Top Model. Why? Schadenfreuder. Loosely translated as "shameful pleasure", it's a wonderful German term about deriving pleasure from others' misfortunes. Nothing made me laugh harder than to watch the human stick insects on this show fall down or have a hissy fit over bad pictures, lighting, or nasty behavior from the other contestants. Having always been one of the faceless, plump, brunettes that society shuns, I got a sick, twisted pleasure in watching "the beautiful girls" cry. Plus, the vast majority of these young ladies had an IQ of about 70 and couldn't find their way out of a paper bag with a flashlight and a GPS.
So, why bring up a show that I've finally managed to ween myself off of viewing?
Engagement pictures. Yes, you read that correctly, engagement pictures. My fiance and I dressed up and went to the site where we're going to get hitched to have a series of photos taken and hopefully used in a wedding sign in album. [Sidebar...very cool idea where the guest sign in book actually has photos of us on each page!]
Anyway, the only photos I've ever had taken "professionally" of me have been seated on a stool in the school gym. Even my senior class pictures for the yearbook were taken at school, in an office above the auditorium. I still hate that picture...but I digress. I have never been on the other end of a camera with a lens the size of a cannon and a photographer running around me trying to get "natural" shots. And the constant noise of the camera going sounded like an extended version of "Girls On Film" by Duran Duran. [Yeah, I'm totally aware of how much that comment just dated me. I don't care!]
Basically, after an hour of giggling my ass off, feeling stupid, and trying to act natural, all the while feeling like a bug under a giant microscope, I started to understand why some of those girls cracked under the pressure. I was stressing out just trying to get some nice engagement pictures. I wasn't some inexperienced twenty-year old who'd pinned all my hopes and dreams on winning a contest, only to be mocked and ridiculed on national television by the show's judges and the world. That part had never really occurred to me before.
My experience with the camera is over, at least until April, when we go through all of this again for the wedding. Until then, I can go on my merry way and only hope that a couple of my photos capture the moment and not the mediocre.

Sweet Baby J!

I just got word that one of my stories is actually going to get published! I must sadly admit to boogying around the room like a lunatic! I'll be more specific as to which story and where once it has been announced officially by the editors.

This is huge! The piece is being published by a recognized, reputable company. It is going into paper print, I get paid, the editors are quality people [heard a horror story about an editor at Anthocon], the introduction to the book is by a fabulous author, and I GET STREET CRED, BABY! First story out and I luck out on the names I'm going to be attached to in this book.

Plus....I'M GETTING PUBLISHED!!!! Yeah, let's not forget THAT minor detail......

Strange Dreams

There are zombies in my head
Cranium crammed with the undead
Help me sing my weird refrain
I have zombies on the brain!

There are ghouls beneath my bed
Another form of the undead
I hope none of my body shows
So he won’t nibble off my toes.

I also have to stay on guard
From the werewolf in the yard
So I dare not go out there
As he likes his food quite rare!

Ghosts don’t bother me at all
When there’s a vampire in the hall
So I dare not moan or cry
Or he’ll come and drain me dry.


[previously sent by text message to annoy my fiance...]

Zombie Haiku

The man at the door

not here to read the meter

requests only brains


A herd of zombies

Shambles across my backyard

Where are they going?


No one on the street

Just the lonesome moans outside

As the sun descends


I grab my shovel

Now a weapon, not a tool

To survive the night




[previously posted on Facebook, but thought it deserved a spot here...]

Brave, Brave Sir Robin...

I suppose you have to be a Python fan to get the joke behind the posting title. Let's just say that parent/teacher conferences are tomorrow and I would love to just run away. Not that this group of kids or their families are any different than previous years. I'm great with kids and freak out over adults. Which is why today was also bizarre, as I was asked to substitute as the principal! Four lunch duties and two misbehaving kids...I got off easy! The story idea keeps popping into my head, each time a little more fully defined. I need to focus on getting THAT down on paper...

A Slight Distraction

I'm standing in front of my class today, expounding on the process of converting from scientific notation to standard notation and back, when this incredibly detailed scene for a story I want to write pops into my head. We are talking all out gore, a la Quentin Tarantino, playing out like a demented film preview while I'm trying to teach 6th graders the finer points of a review lesson! I know that it showed, for a least half a beat, that something was going on in my head that didn't jive with what was coming out of my mouth. A few of them probably thought the old lady at the front of the class was stroking out right in front of them. Anyway, I waved my hand in front of my face and acknowledged that my thoughts had derailed for a second. Several heads nodded in accepted agreement that, "Sometimes that happens." And then I continued with their mental torture with numbers. It got so busy today that I never got the chance to put down in words what had flashed through my head. Here's hoping that I can catch it before it disappears into the ether.

Lament of the Unused Diary

Okay, so maybe it isn't as profound to anyone else out there, but this morning I woke up with the realization that this, this blog, this writing experience, is nothing more than keeping a diary. [Fine, journal for all you wishing to disassociate yourself from love-angst teenaged girls!] I don't do diaries and I wonder if this, like all my other attempts, will disappear into the netherworld of cyberspace, only to be dusted off occasionally and mocked. There are several, antiquated predecessors to this, in...gasp...book-form, lying in various moldering states in my basement. Long lost attempts at keeping daily tabs on the unbelievably mundane occurrences in my life. Most of which did in fact revolve around a variety of pimply-faced boys I was mad about and [insert Valley Girl accent here] "I'm so fat" diatribes! So, as the monstrously huge pile of student work screams out for me to correct it and get on with my REAL work, I leave this for now. But under it all, I hear the books in the basement sigh with regret at their incomplete status and chuckle to themselves over the notion that once again I'm bound to fail in my attempts to write something down on a daily basis.

Little Miss Road Rage

I'm home, after driving back from Anthocon through Boston. I detest city driving. Especially the morons that turn their blinkers on AFTER they have already cut you off going 80 miles per hour in a 60 zone, skidding in between your vehicle and the minivan in front of you, just missing grazing both by a whisper and a prayer. I, of course, got to flex and expand my vocabulary muscles by stringing together a slew of curse words that have not been arranged in that order or quantity for neigh on twenty years. A mushroom cloud of death and destruction still lingers in the air just above the southbound tunnel exit in the city. May it rain flat tires and moving violations on the demented drivers out there! Road rage? I think not. Although the idea of putting a cow catcher on the front of a large, fully-equipped military vehicle and blowing through traffic on a rampage does occasionally pop up in red-tinged day dreams, especially during summer traffic down here. A rocket launcher has also played a large and prominent role in some of the slightly over-the-top driving moments. Perhaps I should lay off the caffeine for a while.

Anthocon

I received a great deal of incredibly useful information about what I need to do in order to be more visible and marketable as an author. Starting a blog was one very specific idea that I decided to run with! So, I present a forum for my odd ramblings, musings, and just bizarre train of thought moments more specifically involved with my writing and creative ideas. Feel free to spread the word and I hope you enjoy what read!