8.08.2015

fairy sex doesn't pay bills.

I'll be honest: I'm not okay. I'm back at work now. I did start the week strong and fresh. Thursday was great - I met some of the cutest babies you'll ever meet. I can't wait to hang out with some of those kids all day! Oh my god. Freaking cute. I'm serious. I don't want to jinx it or anything, but of the 23 kids on my class list, the eleven I met Thursday were all ridiculously cute, and their families seemed sweet, too. I really feel like someone was trying to be nice to me. 

But Friday was nuts. Everything fell apart on Friday. Stupid, stupid Friday. Here's the thing about people who don't work classrooms or haven't worked classrooms in a really long time: they don't know. They don't know how stressful it is to finish a classroom set up AND do lesson plans AND get all materials ready for Monday. Because Monday morning, they're coming. And it's so much better to walk in the door ready to go, with everything you need ready to go. Otherwise, it's just one day of effed up crazy, let me tell you. And that's on top of all the things that will already be effed up crazy.

Then again, I don't know. Maybe it's just me. I watched one girl just casually cut out things in her classroom all day Friday. Her classroom has been set up, ready to go, oh, about mid-June. Some teachers come in and work on their rooms all summer. For free. Off contract. Then, come Pre-Planning week, they just sit all calm and casual in the 10 million meetings, not even worried. I'm not even kidding you guys: they actually come to school dressed up like it's a regular work day. I show up in jeans or work out clothes; they stroll in wearing cute sundresses, business pumps, and teacher cardigans. Hair in place, make up fresh. All day long. 

Those people are of the devil. And also I really think they're hiding something horrific in their garage freezers or something. I bet you. I bet you. 

Me? Hell no. I work my ass off Monday-Friday, August-May. Which means June through July you can find me laying by the pool or in the pool, and there will be a cool adult beverage at my side and if that bothers you and you want to mouth off to me about lazy teachers and overpaid teachers and crap? You can just take a flying leap into a large sea of horse excrement. 

You don't know me. You don't know anything about me, or what I do.

I'm a tad on edge; I don't know if you can tell or not. I had a stress headache on Friday the size of Mt. Everest, and there was nausea to accompany it. I have Miss M back with me, and I'm not doing the Momming stuff very well. I wish I was the kind of mom who baked healthy granola bar snacks and read books every single night and did M's physical therapy exercises (Miss M needs to correct her walking gait) every single night exactly like the sheet says to. I wish I was the kind of mom who made sure she always leaves the house looking magnificent: hair in place, fashionably appropriate clothes, well-mannered and quiet. 

But I am not. My child watches UNCLE GRANDPA on Netflix, grazes on cereal and juice boxes all day, reads books now and then usually without me, and just half-asses it through her physical therapy exercises...kind of like how I half-ass it through my treadmill workouts. Her hair isn't always in place, she wears mismatched and bizarre outfits (the other day, she tried to leave the apartment in Daisy Duke shorts, a Frozen shirt, and a faux fox fur winter vest. With plaid boat shoes). 

I just don't care. I mean, honestly. Does she HAVE to wear underwear? I don't always wear underwear. And socks. Who the hell really needs those. Or shoes, for that matter. It's summer and our cave people ancestors never wore them. And who cares if the shirt doesn't match the shoes. Or her hair is a bit frizzy. And there are actually some really sweet messages behind the bizarreness of UNCLE GRANDPA. Also, I let her watch old episodes of THE BERNIE MAC show. And they use the word "ass" and say things like "Aw, HELL no!" She knows not to say those words in public. We talk about things like that. 

Oh and by the way, she's starting 1st grade reading on a 3rd grade level. So sue me. (Yet I still feel completely incompetent.)

Anyway. Where was I? Oh, right. Me. So I'm in a weird place right now. My stress levels are absolutely through the roof. I am not ready for Monday. I am not ready to deal with what is coming. I loved the peace and quiet of working in my classroom, setting it up. But now it's going to be loud and busy, and I don't really love loud and busy. And there's a lot on my plate at work this year; I am a grade level leader, and people are coming to me with questions. And right now, I can't deal with questions. My answer, when these people come to me with their questions, their so many effing questions, is: "My brain is dead. I really don't know. Maybe go ask so-and-so." I'm the type of leader who totally foists issues off onto other people. A total duty shirker. And I don't care. My brain is about to explode from stress. 

And I miss my friends. A lot of my friends are gone, having fled education or been moved elsewhere not by choice. And now my work is lonely. There is no more laughter. No one else to vent to. No one who's got my back so I can have theirs. I'm a lone soldier now, a mercenary. My troop's been ambushed, and I am all that is left. And the government - as governments are wont to do during acts of war - did this to me. On purpose. I am wandering the foreign landscape, trying to find my way home, lost in the desert. Wounded, and bleeding.

Okay, that's done. Let's move on! 

The other thing I'm dealing with right now is a need to prioritize. I am accomplishing very little, because I refuse to prioritize. No self-discipline. No willpower. Just...hedonism. All. Damn. Day. But I'm going to have to, in order to survive. I haven't written much of anything beyond navel gazing, self-serving tweets lately. That is not writing. That is...I don't know what that is, but I sense it's slightly pathetic. And I'm a person who needs to write, or I am not okay. I suspect this is about 56% of the reason I am really, really off lately. 

So I started a story about a woman who travels between worlds every three years (I think I wrote about this before), and I am now determined to finish it. There are fairies involved, and I think I may throw in a sex scene. Can you do that in short stories? I don't care, I'm going to. 

The thing about my inner mind workings (as well as some of my outer mind workings) is that, now that school's back in session, I'm having a slightly hard time reconciling teaching sweet little babies and being a moral upright pillar of example in the community, versus being what I feel myself being drawn to nowadays. Which, apparently, is fairy sex. 

But fairy sex isn't all that lucrative, money-wise, and I've got bills to pay. And I really love where I'm living...I'd hate to have to go live in a hovel or, god forbid, my mom's basement. (Don't get offended, Mom! You know you don't want me living down there either.) 

It's a real issue for me right now. I bet if I could prioritize AND compartmentalize better it would be less of an issue. Does anyone know how to compartmentalize? A friend told me the other day that it involves just knowing how to really, really focus. Which makes me want to laugh my ridiculous head off. Focus. Me. Really. That's hilarious.

Okay. I'm done here. Thanks for letting me vent my spleen to you. If you don't hear back from me in about two weeks, check my mom's basement.

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