Spanglemonkey

Energetic and Unfocused

Pdoc decided to lecture a bit today, on the subject of enjoyment of life. That I should think of my classes as something interesting that imparts knowledge, rather than something to be endured. I see what he means but at the present time everything just seems to be closing in in terms of my time and energy.

I told him just that, that my time and energy are problems right now, and he sort of perked up. "Energy is a problem?" This, of course, being something that has to do with medication or bipolar at times. "Yeah," I said. "I don't know how to apply my energy at any given moment. But excess energy, now that's another story. I exercise for that."

He seemed to accept that answer. I told him it was difficult to focus right now because of all that is going on. Focus, it seems, is another warning bell word. I reassured him, however. I'm not pathologically unfocused, just uptight and having difficulty figuring out how to schedule my time.

We Should All Just Stay Home

Ugh, I'm all uptight. I don't know how today's schedule is going to work out. It almost certainly involves me driving hither and yon in heavy traffic. Right now we're waiting for Jules to come over, while Sophie is with Ep and Merlin. I have to go to pdoc's office, and I should leave in five minutes and still no sign of Jules.

I hate being all uptight!

Schedule Knotted Tightly

Today's going to be HOT. H. o. t. We're going to have to figure out how to beat the heat somehow. A movie perhaps? Late in the afternoon? Or do we hole up in our house with the air conditioning on?

After my coffee I think I'll wander over to the Y and get some exercise. I can't believe it's Thursday of the last week of summer. Soon we'll have homework hanging over our heads all the time and no more enjoyment will be pulled out of life in the afternoons.

Eliz has a particularly complicated schedule coming up in the fall, and Sophie isn't too far behind. I'd really like to quit some stuff but it's all stuff they want to do and I want them to do. Soccer, the school play, art class, etc. Somehow we'll do all of it. And homework too. We'll just learn to be more efficient.

I hope Manny finds a place to live soon. It's time to sell the house.

Nothing But a Bird's Bathroom

The beach was lots of fun. It turns out it was a really hot day down here on the flats, so it was the perfect day to be at the beach. Sun and surf. A bird nearly shat on Eliz's head. It was close!

It was the same beach where I spread my mother's ashes a year or so ago, and I kept thinking of her, but it wasn't horrible or anything, more like I was visiting and it didn't hurt. So that's good.

We're going to have the other half of the Chinese food for dinner. Yum. Possibly I'll make some corn on the cob as well.

Electronic Dolls

Well, I did all the reading over again for my computer class, and it seems like it's just a lot of hypertexted information that could go on infinitely, but I think I get the gist of it. I think. Anyway I'm feeling a little better about the whole thing. I still don't understand the brief foray into UNIX we made, but I'll go over it again. I think it'll be like my database class; really difficult at first, and never pleasant, but nevertheless ultimately doable.

I'm a bundle of nerves. But I don't want to take drugs for it, so I have to find another way to mellow the f out.

The girls are making outfits for avatars on the computer. The modern day paper doll. With soundtrack!

At 11:30 we'll go over to Ep's house and sweep onward toward Burger King and the ocean.

The Shock

Slept for 10 hours. I seem to need it, somehow. Or else I'm just being lazy, I don't know. Anyway now I"m up and worrying about that computer class again. I'm going to stick it out for at least another week. The dropping deadline is next week, Friday. But then I won't have another class to take its place. I really should decide today. Damn it! I don't know. I don't know! Stress me out!

It's true that it's the initial shock that's the worst, but so far I'm understanding very little of what's going by on the screen. I'll have to slow it down and then search out the information elsewhere. Like there's a lecture on "client" vs "server" and I can't open it. I need to know that information to go on to the next part. If the link is still broken today I'll contact the teacher.

I think it's a matter of the teacher knowing the stuff so well that he isn't teaching it from the beginning, but starting in the middle. So I have to catch up somehow.

Anyway, there are other things going on in life. It's great having the kids back. Things feel normal somehow, despite my panic over this class. Today Ep and the kids and I are going to a beach somewhere, despite all the complaints from the 12-year-old set. She would stay home all day every day if I didn't force her to get out. It's irritating!

Over My Head

I tried adding a different course instead, but I have to get the permission of the instructor. Seriously I don't know if I can take the course I'm in. I just don't understand anything about it and this is only week one. Day one. It's a complete muddle. OMG. What am I going to do? I'm panicking. What will happen? I guess I could take it and try to get a C, but I don't know the first thing about UNIX and I'm supposed to. OMG OMG OMG

Scuttle the Whole "Librarian" Thing?

I don't know if I can do this course, the web course. Already I can't download the software necessary for the simple turning in of assignments. I am in way over my head. Fuck. I'm looking to see what other courses I could take but they're all dependent on this one. I don't know what to do. I'm completely frustrated.

Two Girls!

OMG, it's so nice to see the girls. I saw Eliz's little face first and she ran up the concourse to me, and then Sophie not far behind. Yay! And I get them on Labor Day too, since I missed out on a couple of days. So hooray, all is well.

Now the big dilemma; can Eliz make it to soccer practice? She is jetlagging, for sure. I suppose it's better to wait.

What should I do with myself? They've turned on the TV and are glazed over already. I guess I'll go upstairs and read.

Putting the Funk in Functional

I went and exercised at the Y and wow, I feel so much better. Capable of being in this world effectively. Possibly a person who can function. Yay.

Also went to run a bunch of errands, and now I finally have coffee filter (yay!) and soon I'll have new reading glasses, sort of a must for going to school. It's kind of expensive but necessary. At least I already had the frames.

Two more hours until I leave for the airport. Counting down! I can't wait to see the girls.

The World Opens Up Again

Ah, the light of morning, everything becomes so much more clear. I had my traditional 11 hours of sleep I've been netting this week, on those nights I"m not out carousing. I think I became too busy and then tried to slow down and woah! The brakes weren't working. I watched the second half of Manhattan and fell asleep trying to figure out what was going on. Missing seeing the olympics, though I never got to watch much.

The kids come back today! I get them upon their arrival! I'm so excited at the prospect of being around them again. We can go off and play for the rest of the week, so long as I get a lot of work done today on my classes.

Also the Y is open after being closed all weekend. That sucked, not being able to work out. I went for that long hike but it's not the same somehow. This morning I'll wander over and get sweaty. Through my neighborhood that has me more uptight than ever, rather than less. I'm not exactly getting used to it. Someone got stabbed over there! Too weird.

I need to find my old glasses so I can get them made into reading glasses. I can't see with the store bought variety, I think because I have an astigmatism so it's blurry no matter what.

Overwhelmed

It's just become too much and I took an Ativan. It'll be interesting to see if I start to crave it again or if I can just take it sometimes like this.

What's bugging me? Why do I need drugs? I think it's school starting, and dating, and my kids being away, and and and and and.

Looking Forward

A great deal of anxiety this afternoon. I'd take an Ativan but I'm afraid I'll become addicted again somehow. Also I'm going out to dinner with the church ladies and I'd like to be available for that.

Tomorrow at this time I'll have my kids back! Hooray! I miss them tremendously. Life without them has been busy, for sure, but I like having my time with them each day. School starts next week so we'll quickly get back to normal.

I'm looking forward to this year. I think they're better each year they get older. They get more interesting all the time. Soon they'll be even more self-sufficient and I can engage with them as mature people. I think I'll be able to work within the near future without taking away from my relationship with them. If that makes sense.

Teaching, Yikes

I will start my classes in earnest tomorrow. I've seen now that I just have to read a bunch of stuff for the first week and produce introductory essays on my teaching experience and issues in teaching. I'll write a bit on it this afternoon. I have a few hours before I meet with my church group. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone. I don't think I had known about my date before. Lots to tell! Though truthfully I'm not sure I'll hear from him again. We had a couple of emails but it petered out.

I went to have the car smogged, a mysterious process that is totally scammy, and then went to Target and only bought nail polish remover. I must not be manic in the slightest if I got out of there for $1.16.

This week's assignment with Doc Alphabet was to explore teaching possibilities, find out what it pays and what's available and what I would need for that, as well as looking into the anxiety provoked by the whole teaching-as-employment idea. I don't quite know what else to say about my anxiety. I have thought long and hard about it and I know that it comes from feeling underprepared even when I'm not, from standing in front of people in charge, and etc. What else is there to say? I was hoping never to do it again, but I think if I'm going to be an academic librarian I'll have to teach the occasional class each semester and I'd better be prepared to talk. Also I'll give tours to students.

In many ways I think I'm incredibly anxious over the possibility of any kind of work. I'd plunge in except for the fact that I need to take care of my kids after school, which limits the choices for what job I can get. Also I want to be open to internships that I'll qualify for after this semester's classes.

Anyway I've probably written more than anyone would ever want to read about the different facets of my anxiety. And I'm really psyched to be off Ativan. I have a large stockpile and I'm going to flush most of it at Ms Jane's insistence.

Good Afternoon!

Oh boy am I disoriented. I have no idea even what day it is. I keep thinking it's Sunday, but it's not, it's the first day of my classes and I'm sort of hung over or at least flat brained from drinking too much beer with Ms Jane last night. We watched a silly version of Love's Labours Lost and bonded while doing art, went to bed and woke up to go to breakfast. It was nice. But now I have to get back into school and figure out how to get my car smogged and on and on. Lots to do.

Sitting down with the syllabi and a calendar is the first thing I need to do. Real life starts again!

I also need to pump up the tires on my car. I tried at the gas station and I think it just let more air out. It's driving really sluggishly.

Lots to write about but I can't, really.

Those Darn Classes Again

No small bit of anxiety over school starting again; rather, a lot of anxiety. I am afraid of my web design class, how technical it will be and what a steep learning curve I'll have. Yikes. It starts tomorrow and I don't know how to do it. Argh.

But Doc Alphabet points out to me more than once each time I see him that my anxiety always turns out to be far more than what is warranted for the situation. I manage to do the thing and do it pretty well. So perhaps I need to talk myself out of this particular worrying. I am used to being online, that's for sure, and this will augment my projects online quite well. I can learn to do stuff that I need to know how to do for a library job.

Oops! Time for a shower. Going to church this morning for the first time in about a month.

Poised, Sponge in Hand

Slept like crazy last night, again. I think getting used to the time change I seem to sleep on either side of both time zones, so I fall asleep at 9 for the East Coast and wake up at 8 for West Coast time. I seem to need it somehow, so there you go. Lots of sleep.

Yesterday's hike included about a million steps built into the side of the hill. My calves and shins are killing me today! I walked down my own stairs like I was 80 years old or so. Ow ow ow.

I had a great time with Ep in the bar after the movie, talking and laughing. She regaled me with stories about her trip to Canada and all the old friends she has up there. Nice.

I wonder if I have the energy to clean my house this morning? I'd like to shampoo the rug to try to get those stains out from way back at the beginning of summer with Eliz's birthday party. I tried it once but it didn't work. And then just find homes for some of the clutter.

I think I'm giving up on the Stephen King book. It's just too gross. Any suggestions for my next book? I have a book of Augusten Burroughs essays I think I'll read to clear the palate.

What Used to Be

I am looking everywhere for my old glasses, because I want to make them into reading glasses. Instead of finding the glasses I came across my old journal, in which I wrote all my feelings from the summer of 2006, a terrible time for me. OMG. I was so fucked up! It's kind of good to see because now I can compare where I am today and I come out looking pretty damn good. I'm so very functional by comparison. Like night and day. I sort of remember what it was like but not really, not like I identify with those feelings I was having.

I suppose I should destroy that journal. Wouldn't want my kids reading that stuff. But something prevents me from doing it. Really, though, I should. I wouldn't want them thinking I'm still so messed up if they snooped through my stuff someday.

I'm so glad I survived it. Wow.

Up Shuffle Up

K. and I went for a long five-mile trek over a trail that overlooked the GG Bridge. Very cool! It had a major shitload of steps, however, and now I"m really weary. I wonder if I could get a quick nap in before Ep picks me up for the movie. At least I'll lie down for a while with a book.

It's comfortable being with K. She doesn't talk all the time but the silences aren't awkward. I find my mind going all over the place and then one of us will say something and we'll converse for a little and then go back to being quiet. We ate at a hotel restaurant near where we parked and talked a bit about friends, particularly my one friend who seems to be headed for trouble at the moment. What to do about that, I don't know.

I might go see some music tonight depending on what time I get back from the movie/drink afterwards. Busy busy.

Fixed the Cycle

I have a rich full day ahead of me. I'm going hiking with K. starting at 10. We're going to venture farther (further? I've never known that rule) afield than previously and I'm hoping for some redwoods. Nice. We're sort of in training for joining the main group of hikers at the church, the ones who seem to run straight up the sides of mountains without stopping, or at least so goes the description. I'd also like to join the Sierra Club singles hiking group.

In the afternoon Ep and I will go see a movie. Perhaps "Elegy?"

In the evening I might stop by the cafe where my friend B. is playing music with her band. I'm sure to know someone so I would have a place to sit and people to sit with. Or maybe I'll call someone first and make a date.

Last night I slept from 9:00, when I fell asleep in front of the TV rather deeply, until 8:00 this morning. Wow, I really needed it. I think I didn't even move for the first 6 or 7 hours, except when I woke up and dragged my sorry ass upstairs to bed. Without sleep I was becoming increasingly paranoid. It was bad. And watching that Batman movie made it so much worse, with the prospect of such evildoing in the world. Even if it was cartoon violence, it was violence nonetheless and it got under my skin and didn't seem like fiction.

Whatever, today will be better for sure. Bipolar is an illness that responds intensely to regularity of sleep, eating, and generally caring for oneself. Particularly sleep in my case. And now I'm back on track.

Weird

Well, Batman was a bad idea. Now I"m in this weird mood wherein everything seems dangerous and horrid. I think I'll watch some olympics to try to get the bad taste out of my mouth. Yucky. I really didn't like that movie. I think it's really scary to have a villain whose only motivation is chaos.

Tomorrow I'm going hiking with K. from church. Yay! Maybe I can talk her into going to see some music on Sat. night as well.

I think what i need is to go to bed really early and sleep for 12 or so hours.

Irritating Frenchman

I keep writing things today and realizing they're more private than I want to post here. Sorry!

Saw Doc Alphabet who was as vexing as usual, in terms of his uncovering my motivation for things I would rather not look at too closely. But things were fine and we talked without me having to go into my printout of the blog at any point in the conversation. My assignment for this week is to look into a teaching job and what it would entail. How much money, and where there are openings, and to examine my anxiety surrounding teaching more closely. I have to remember to do that. Maybe doing it today would be good.

I think I'll go see Dark Knight. Nobody I know wants to see it so I think I"m safe in going and not spoiling anything from the weekend.

Art

Selena at Work

Tales

I'm tired and hung over, and I have nothing on my plate for today except a Doc Alphabet appointment at noon. Maybe I'll figure out a movie to go to that Ep won't want to see on Saturday and that Ms Jane doesn't want to see on Sunday. It's the weekend for moviegoing, that's for sure. It's what I like to do.

Somehow I expected to sit down with Craig last night and have a meal, but it never happened. We dashed around the sidewalks really fast until it seemed like the people and lights and traffic was all wrapped up coming at us at once, and we went to bars where the music was loud and played pool drinking beer. Craig introduced himself to everyone and I was pulled along in his wake, hanging really far outside my comfort zone. I'm a suburban girl who generally gets to bed around 10, as Craig noted at one point in the evening when I was suggesting another time that we sit down for a meal.

I had a good time up to about the last hour of the night. I sort of collapsed on a bench by the side of the pool table and I couldn't think of anything to say to anyone, and I was feeling endangered by the prospect of my ride home on BART all by myself. It turned out fine but there were those moments when I was walking around with my footsteps echoing back to me in the parking garage at midnight, when I thought to myself damn, I'm vulnerable. I remembered KJ Fowler telling us that she thought the only thing male writers couldn't really nail when writing female characters was the sense of personal endangerment.

Barfly

I'm home at last. It's quite late for me and I am battling a feeling of endangerment from all around. Paranoid! But I made it home and all is well. I caught one of the last trains. Went bar-hopping with Craig.

The Wide Open Future

I'm going up to the city for the afternoon. I'll bring my book to the Ferry Building where Craig will meet me later for dinner. Yay! It looks like all I have to do is get to the Embarcadero BART station and then walk for two blocks, and voila. I'll try to arrive there around 4:30 or 5. So I'll leave in an hour. Adventure!

I went to see pdoc and we discussed Life in General for an hour. It wasn't very specific because I have no specific grievances at the moment. I'm actually pretty content, so we talked about that, and a little about the frozen space inside me left from the breakup of my marriage. It's a place I don't visit that much but it's inside me, still there despite all my advances.

Tomorrow I see Doc Alphabet and I have no idea what I'll say. I'll tell him how my trip was and then sit there and stare at him for the remainder of the time. Perhaps some self-actualization talk? My Brilliant Future and all that.

I made it to coffee in time to catch Janice and Ep, so we sat chatting for quite some time. I told them about my date and about my trip. It was good. Then I got my car washed. It now has windows instead of tiny portholes through which I peer.