in which diva bread pulls a real diva move

You know what’s funny? So much about my life is finally going well, but all it takes is one moment of fucking work bullshit to throw me into disarray.

Today, June 18, was supposed to be my last day of work. I say supposed to be, because instead of sleeping in a little bit and then going to the DMV tomorrow to get the registration on my new car transferred to my name (oh yeah! I bought a car. Details another time), then packing up the rest of our apartment and getting ready to finish moving, I’ll be spending an hour each way on public transit to go BACK to Durmstrang for an hour to meet with Diva Bread.

Why?

Because she couldn’t be bothered to A. talk to me all week that I’ve been there or B. attempt to schedule a meeting with me instead of assuming that I can cater to her frazzled and unkempt schedule or C. tell me what time she’s fucking leaving work.

To backtrack a little bit – last Wednesday was the last day of school for the kiddies, and last Friday was the last day for teachers. Mabel, Diva Bread, myself, and a few others are contracted to stay longer than that. I was contracted to stay til today. So this week has been mostly light – some teachers have been in and out, but it’s been noticeably quieter and I’ve spent a good chunk of time cleaning out my desk, organizing my files, and tying up loose ends. Diva Bread has been in every day as well, at least for part of the day, so she’s seen me at my desk all week.

Today, I got in late because I had a doctor’s appointment that I couldn’t push off, so I arrived at about 11:00am. Diva Bread comes rolling in at about 11:30, after Mabel had already gone to lunch. At around 12:15, Diva Bread comes over to me and tells me that when Mabel gets back from lunch, she’d like to meet with me and talk about where things are. Okay.

Mabel doesn’t get back until about 12:45, then promptly heads into the back room for some meeting. Diva Bread has holed herself up in her office and I can see that her phone line is busy, so I wonder if I have time to go to lunch before this meeting. One of the teachers had approached me earlier to invite me out to lunch with her, so I definitely wanted to have lunch at a decent hour. And I’d be there until 4:00 anyway, like any other day.

So we went to lunch around 1:00. It was a long lunch, which always makes me panic, because we’re ’supposed’ to have 45 minute lunches, but it was my last day, and there were no kids, and barely anyone coming in and out of the office. And did I mention it was my last day? Anyway, we didn’t get back to school until around 2:30, and as soon as I walked in, Mabel said, ‘[Diva Bread] has been waiting to talk to you.’

LIKE SHE’S SOME KIND OF QUEEN.

‘I’m sorry!’ I said, then quickly grabbed a notebook, planning to head into Diva Bread’s office. The door was shut. Apparently she was in there with the PTA president. About five minutes later, the door opens and Diva Bread steps out, looks and points right at me. ‘I need to talk to you,’ she says firmly.

I head in there and she says, ‘I needed to meet with you.’

‘I know,’ I said, ‘but you were on the phone and I didn’t know when you’d be available.’ By now I had an icky, panicky feeling in my throat. I’d also had it up to HERE with her shit and was just trying to swallow all of my exasperation.

‘Well, I have to leave now to pick up my daughter,’ she said, ‘and you can’t just walk out without letting me know where things stand.’

‘Okay,’ I said.

‘I’m going to need you to come back in. When are you available?’

Okay, are you still with me? Who the fuck does this bitch think she is? She gives me less than 2 hours’ notice for a meeting in which I’m supposed to update her on EVERYTHING I’VE DONE THIS YEAR, except I don’t even KNOW it’s 2 hours’ notice because she didn’t tell me she was leaving early? What the fuck am I supposed to do, just wait around for her to become available? Not to mention the fact that she’s known that today would be my last day, and it was just too much to ask for her to, I don’t know, SCHEDULE A MEETING so that I would know it was happening? And now that she has to go, I have to come back to meet with her disorganized, scatterbrained ass the day after my supposed last day?

Did I mention that it takes about an hour to get to school, one way?

So I told her that I was available Friday morning, and Monday morning. She asked me to come in Friday morning, which is tomorrow. I said fine. And then she rushed out of there in a flurry.

Now, I’ve been turning this over in my head since it happened – because I could have knocked on her door and interrupted her call to ask her if I could go to lunch. I could have not gone to lunch, or at least told the teacher I was with to keep it short. Except… I didn’t know that I only had until 2:30 to meet with her. Had I known, I sure as hell wouldn’t have just skipped out on her. Am I supposed to be clairvoyant? Am I supposed to know ahead of time to ask her what her entire schedule is like? Why was I made to feel like it was my fault that this meeting didn’t happen?

The only way that this could be any worse is if I show up tomorrow at 9:00am like she asked and she’s not there yet, or has forgotten about some important offsite meeting she needs to be at, or gets pulled into a more important meeting and can’t meet with me. And if that happens, I swear to God I will just walk out and never return. It would just be the last straw of her unending disrespect for me, my intelligence, and my time.

I was really hoping that I could just walk away from this today, feeling settled… but now I’m not even sure if I’ll be able to do that tomorrow. There is just too much disarray, and too much power in the hands of someone who is clearly lacking in competency and basic consideration for others.

the non-train wreck (yay!) responds

Wow, thank you for all of the heartfelt comments on my last post. You all make great points and ask great questions… let me see if I can answer them all in my Sunday night sleepless internet binge.

I’ve known for quite some time that Country Mouse did not envision marriage and children as part of his future. But he’s also known for the same amount of time that I did, and one of the reasons he knew that he felt something special for me right at the start was that he found himself imagining the possibility of such a future – married and with a family – with me. His reasons for not being super excited about marriage are, I think, largely because of the stigma that marriage carries in his family and community. Of all of his friends, family, and acquaintances, only one person is happily in his first marriage. His mother is ‘trapped’ in a loveless marriage to an alcoholic, and she can’t get out because she can’t risk losing all of their shared assets.

When Country Mouse admitted to me that he did not think that marriage was necessary, he accompanied that with the statement that he desired to spend the rest of his life with me. I honestly don’t think that his opposition to marriage as an institution has anything to do with me, or our relationship – especially because since that initial conversation, he’s said several times that he does plan to marry me because he wants to be with me and he knows it’s important to me. He even gave me a timeframe (three years, though whether or not we’ll be financially ready at that point… who knows). I’m happy with that, because I think I’d be hard pressed to find him bursting with excitement over wedding colors and favors and all that. And it’s still several years away.

The children issue is quite weightier. We are making progress on this front. And again, it’s not that he doesn’t want children with me… he’s said that if he was going to have children in his life, it would be with me. His hesitation is more along the lines of not being certain if he wants or can handle the responsibility of parenthood. Again, I think that this has a lot to do with his childhood. We’re in counseling to help resolve this, and he’s been quite open to spending time with children of varying ages to help expose him to the experience. (He came babysitting with me last night for a 2 1/2 year old and 10 month old… and even said he’d do it again!) He really wants to make me happy… and I think his greatest fear in all of this is letting me down – whether it’s by deciding he doesn’t want them, or by deciding that he does, and then failing at fatherhood. We are working together to help him sort through and overcome this fear.

I guess my last post was a bit vague, because the thing is, I’m NOT under the impression that I’m train wrecky, or that the relationship is headed down a bad road. We hit a few rough spots in the past year or so, but things have been so much better in the past few months – and I can tell it’s through both of our efforts. We’re learning to respond to each other’s needs in a way that works for both of us, and our communication is much smoother. We take more time to nurture the relationship, instead of just going through the daily grind. FormerSkirt, what you wrote so totally echoes what our relationship is like as well – and it took me returning to Pumpkin Forest a few weeks ago to realize how much I’VE changed since we’ve gotten here… how wrapped up I’ve become in my own stressed out mind that I didn’t even see what Country Mouse has been contributing to us. He works hard on the relationship – he just doesn’t vocalize it the way that I do. We wouldn’t be where we are today if he hadn’t been listening and adapting and learning. As soon as I realized this – as it smacked me in the face in a rude awakening – I’ve felt myself loosening up about a lot of things. It has helped tremendously.

So I guess my question was more – at what point is it enough? I mean – our relationship isn’t perfect, but the desire and intent to improve it are there. And sometimes I feel like there’s this strange pressure to only be in a relationship that’s perfect. But isn’t it perfect enough? How can one possibly strive to achieve a life with another complex human being that’s pristine? I trust Country Mouse’s heart, and his actions, and he trusts mine, even as we totally confuse each other sometimes. But… isn’t that part of any relationship, no matter how young or old?

I fear that because I don’t write in here daily, and because my closest friends are all long distance now, and have either never met Country Mouse or only spent a few minutes or hours with him, that I haven’t presented an accurate view of what our relationship is like, or how it’s changed since we left for Ashen. Also, I guess it’s easier to write more freely when something is bugging me, and not when things are smooth sailing. I just fear being that girl, who’s blind to the destructive nature of her relationship and stays in it because she doesn’t want to be alone. I don’t think I’m that girl… but she never does. So anyway. That’s why I asked those questions… and I hope that this post clarifies the situation some.

The bottom line at this moment, though, is that I’m happy. We’re happy. We talk about how happy we are, and how happy we are that we’re happier. It’s cheesy. I so missed being happy with him, and I just want to relish in its reality without fearing that I’m turning a blind eye to any imperfections. You know what I mean?

am i a train wreck?

So, honestly, does anyone think that I’m just totally fooling myself by staying in this relationship? That all of the rationalizations and analysis is just me not accepting the fact that because Country Mouse is hesitant to have children and isn’t jumping out of his skin to marry me, it’s not the right relationship for me?

Because I had always thought that relationships required work. Not that ONE person should be doing all the work while the other person just goes on with their daily life however they want… but that the mutual desire should be there to learn to adapt to each other and make a life together that they can share.

country mouse vs. city girl… SHOWDOWN

I know, I know. My name is Lonely Idealist, but for the purposes of this post, I am also City Girl. Because I am! Despite my suburban upbringing… I also have a kinship with the fast pace of urban metropolises.

Anyway, long story short, we currently have two applications out to apartments, because we didn’t know if we were going to be able to get one of them but the people ahead of us didn’t check out so we basically have our pick (provided everything checks out, which it should. Apparently I have A-1 credit, and we’ve never been evicted or anything. Actually, if I think about our histories, Country Mouse drags me down a bit. His credit score is lower than mine, and he was actually late on rent one month when we lived in our house) between two places that are equally nice in their own way… and what do you know, he LOVES one and while I don’t dislike it, I can’t quite let go of the other…

Apartment #1: Naturey Goodness

$870/mo., includes W/S/G – 6-month lease
Move-in fees: refundable deposit of around $670
Onsite laundry
It literally is a block from a HUGE, HUGE park/nature area… one of the biggest urban parks in the world or something.
Pros:
- 750 sq ft, hw flooring, a closet in every room + two in the hallway w/ built-in shelving
- mud room with back entrance (good for bikes and other storage)
- 1 off-street parking space in lot, plus street parking all around
- gas heat (apparently cheaper than electric?)
- dining area between living room and kitchen
- overhead fan in bathroom
Cons:
- living room is smaller
- not as immediately close to businesses, coffee shops, etc
- i actually don’t really remember the kitchen very well…
- i don’t remember if there were overhead lights in the living room – we don’t have one right now and it’s quite irritating.

Apartment #2: Laidback Urban (close to where we live now)

$845/mo., includes W/S/G – 12-month lease
Move-in fees: $75 cleaning fee, $200 refundable deposit
Onsite laundry and lockable storage unit
It is one block off of a major business avenue with restaurants, shops, and a mall.
Pros:
- at least 750 sq ft, high ceilings, hw flooring, closet in every room plus a huge built-in wardrobe/dressing area between bedroom and bathroom
- entryway is painted brown and bedroom is painted greenish-blue
- patio overlooking courtyard
- TONS of cabinet space in kitchen
- dining area next to kitchen
- overhead lights in EVERY room
cons:
- it’s on the 3rd floor of a walkup… big stairways too. is this really a con? i don’t know.
- hallways and stairs are carpeted
- severe lack of electrical outlets

Guess which one Country Mouse is totally gung ho and drooling over?

Anyway, I’m in a total dilemma. I don’t know when we’re going to hear from either place about our application status, but it’s going to be soon. And we’re going to need to choose. And I am really bad at making decisions… especially big ones.

AAAHHHHH

this might not make much sense

So, I am in Pumpkin Forest for the weekend for Granny’s birthday. Yes, it is that trip. We’ve both made it in one piece, although we did travel for roughly 12 hours from start to finish. It’s not even 8pm my time and I’m already exhausted.

I’m also sitting up in the spare room by myself while Country Mouse is downstairs with his family. He knows I’m up here and hasn’t bothered to ask me to come down, or anything. I know that I could very well just go down there myself, but I’m feeling a weird mixture of a lot of feelings and am kind of afraid to immerse myself in all that.

I think it’s because all of the other times I’ve been here, I’ve been Country Mouse’s guest and he couldn’t wait to spend time with me. And rationally I know it’s silly to expect that same level of enthusiasm from him now, considering we see each other every day… but sometimes I think back on the months we were long-distance and I almost feel like things were better then. He appreciated me more, and did more special things for me. I don’t like that feeling, because I still appreciate him and do special things for him.

That, and I’d told him a couple times before we came out here that I was nervous that he would get really excited about seeing his family and forget about me.

So I don’t know. Am I crazy to miss a time when we saw each other only once every few weeks? When our primary source of communication was a phone?

In the past few months I’ve been feeling a lot of doubt about this relationship – with just as many good, lovey feelings, which only adds to the confusion – but sometimes I wonder if any of the decisions that I’m making are the right ones. Should we continue to live together even though I feel that his behavior doesn’t indicate mature plans for the long term? Are my feelings valid, or am I being paranoid and overly anxious?

Or, more simply, should I continue to live with him if he has openly admitted that he doesn’t appreciate me as much, or miss me when we’re apart, because he sees me every day? It seems like a simple solution to that would be to remove myself from his daily, domestic interactions. But maybe that would be counterproductive.

I don’t know. Am I entering a scared phase because the relationship is progressing to some different level of serious? Or is there something really wrong here?

we’re not crazy… we’re not crazy

As if I didn’t have enough on my mind lately, what with the summer planning and school and waiting for financial aid to get back to me (seriously! I’m starting class in A MONTH. I need to know if I need to, you know, cough up $2800…), we may be looking at another move in the next few months.

… YEAH.

I may be getting ahead of myself (who, me? Ahead of myself??) which is why I’m posting this on my secret blog and not my regular blog, but lately my eyes have flared up again and I’m at the end of my rope. Honestly. I don’t even remember the last time I haven’t had to worry at all about what was coming out of my eye sockets. I’ve tried various forms of over the counter drops, prescription drops, ’suspensions,’ ointments, and always, always a warm compress before bed. And still, I wake up in the middle of night rubbing my eyes furiously, then they ooze a lovely, sticky discharge, and I go back to sleep only to wake up in the morning with my eyelids crusted over. I’ve seen the eye doctor on three separate occasions about this and every time, the treatment works just long enough that I think it’s gone away (seven days), and then it comes back.

I thought it was seasonal airborne allergens, but I’ve noticed that it’s only really bad in my apartment. At school, there’s little to no leakage… just soreness from the torture the night before. And it’s especially bad in bed – which makes sense because my eyes are closed and there’s no airflow… but it’s got to be something in my apartment or my building.

Country Mouse and I have narrowed it down to two things: the down in my pillows and our comforter, or all the pets in our building. I haven’t always been allergic to down, but I could have just developed it lately – last night I used one of Country Mouse’s regular pillows, and swapped a fleece blanket for the comforter, and there was less crust in the morning. But as for the pets… there are many dogs, and possibly many cats in the building. I’m VERY allergic to cats, and mildly allergic to dogs. (I did have some reactions to Piggy when we still had her, but since we never let her in the bedroom and had all hardwood floors, it wasn’t too bad.) Think of all the hair and dander floating around in the building, getting in the vents, and being circulated over and over through the HVAC system! And I’ve never once seen anyone vacuuming the halls!

I’m going to an allergist next week and I assume going through a very torturous allergy test in which they make a little grid on my back and then scratch different allergens into each box, then wait for my skin to react. FUN FUN FUN!!! I’m hoping Country Mouse can come with me so he can let me crush his hand as I writhe in pain. Also I’m hoping they can get a sample of my eye goo and test it to see what’s going on (do they even do that? I don’t know. Some doctor once took a sample of my eye goo but I don’t know what she did with it afterward.)

Anyway, if it turns out that I am in fact reacting to pet hair and dander, then we’re going to have to break our lease (which is becoming a hobby of ours, apparently) and find a new place to live that a. doesn’t have carpeting (ideally) and b. doesn’t allow pets. The prospect of moving all of our shit out of our apartment, after the memory of how HORRIBLE it was moving in (no service elevator, and no access to the elevator from outside the building), is quite daunting, but the prospect of never wearing my contacts again and constantly battling swollen, gritty-feeling, gooey eyes, is exponentially more daunting.

And so I’ve launched directly into the fun part of all this: apartment hunting!! I’m finding all sorts of potentially sweet places and it’s taking all I’ve got not to call them up and go for a viewing, just to indulge myself… because once I go down that road, it’s a slippery slope to hasty-decision-land.

But that won’t stop me from sharing what I’ve found with you all…

This place is literally a block from us right now. Look at those gorgeous countertops in the kitchen! That elegant faucet!

Speaking of kitchens… And this has a yard! And a deck! Though it also has carpet. But that would probably be good in the winter, for my cold, cold feet.

And the other few that I found, I can’t share the URL (they’re a little wonky) but here are some pics:

One place:
   

Another place:
   

Maybe I am just completely unsettled and will not be until I find my perfect dwelling, which may not happen for another ten years… but I guess I’m always looking for something better. Sigh. Anyway, I’ll keep you all posted, of course. No matter what, I’m just hoping I can find a solution to my gooey eye problem, because it’s really ruining my livelihood.

PS East coast big-city dwellers… I apologize for the staggeringly low prices in comparison to your city. If it’s any consolation… I barely make enough to live! Yay!

that uplifting and exciting post i promised :)

Those of you who know me in real life (which is probably… all of you) and talk to me on a regular basis (probably most of you) already know that I have at least one babysitting/nannying job lined up for the summer. It’s for two little boys who I will call Apple (older, 6) and Pie (younger, 4), because they are like, the epitome of all-American, only cooler. Their mom, Elle, and I hit it off last November when she invited us to their house for Thanksgiving, and we’ve become fast friends. And I seriously think that Apple is one of the cutest Kindergarteners I’ve ever seen in my life. So anyway, I am totally excited to spend two days a week with them this summer!

On top of that, there is a little Kindergarten girl, Gapkid, with whom I have become pretty close. She is by all counts a total girly girl, and her parents have a wonderfully coordinated wardrobe for her (hence the secret blog moniker). Her mom and I have had a pretty good relationship throughout the school year, so a few weeks ago I emailed her and told her that I’ll be leaving Durmstrang but would love to babysit over the summer and/or beyond. She was ecstatic!! and is currently putting together a summer schedule for Gapkid and her 2-year-old sister, Gapbaby and will let me know (hopefully soon) when she’ll need me.

And so, my summer seemed to be totally set, what with classes and me working on my jewelry business and all. Except then, in the span of a week, all these crazy and awesome things happened, and I have basically now doubled my family contacts for babysitting…

Around this time last year, I found a babysitting ‘matchmaking’ site called Sittercity.com. I used it to try to find some babysitting or nannying jobs while I was still living in Stripmallville with my parents until the big move, but nothing really panned out. Actually, I met a few suburban moms who really kind of freaked me out. Anyway, when I first arrived in Ashen, I changed my profile settings to reflect my new location, but didn’t apply to any jobs or really even log in all that much. But I still got daily email updates of new job postings in my area, which I scanned from time to time for anything that caught my eye.

Well, last week I found something. It was a very simple listing, not even a photo or a name (just initials), but I saw that she lived less than a mile from me. She was just looking for an occasional babysitter for her toddler and baby so she could have some time to herself. Well, I thought, why not? I have some time on occasion, and if she lives close to me, I won’t have to worry about driving or riding the bus for a long time. So I applied to her job. She wrote back not much later, and we set up a time to meet last Friday.

I wasn’t expecting her to be anything like she was – there really wasn’t any way I could have imagined or prepared for it. But we totally hit it off, and I am so excited to be a part of her life. I’ll call her MC (Milk Chocolate. Just because.*) – she just moved here from the Midwest at the end of December with her two kids, because she was fleeing from their father and domestic violence. She’s been unemployed since then (she was a high school English teacher, specializing in African American Lit) and basically spending 24/7 with the kids and finally realized that she needs some time to do her own things, and despite being unemployed and having come out here with essentially nothing (‘the clothes on my back,’ she said), it’s important enough that she’s willing to pay for babysitting. And her kids? Wow. The most adorable little things EVER. Her two and a half year old little girl liked me so much upon meeting me that she wanted me to take her to the potty instead of her mom. She even asked me to wipe for her. Haha!!

But what really hooked me was that MC is totally in tune with the kinds of racial and cultural disconnects that I’ve been experiencing here. It’s not something that’s easily explainable – in fact, when I’ve tried to explain it to people it often comes out sounding really harsh and judgmental – but rather more subtle and implicit. Yet she totally got it, and has felt it since she’s been here as well. Not that that’s the only thing I’m looking for in a friend, but it definitely helped us break the ice. And I found her to be exceedingly easy to talk to for having just met. And did I mention that her kids are freaking adorable?

Anyway, we both agreed that we think this is a fit, and I’m actually heading over to her place, which is a half mile from mine, tonight to sit. YEAH!!

Then, as if it all weren’t exciting enough, I happened upon another listing a couple days ago, also about a mile from me, for a ‘Chinese speaking babysitter.’ This family has a 3-year-old and a 1-year-old, and their 3-year-old is in the Chinese immersion private school downtown. They’re looking for a summer sitter who can maintain her language skills, and again possibly extend into the fall. I was excited for a moment, then realized that I might already be overextended for the summer, so I held off on applying for the job.

Imagine my shock, then, when later that afternoon I found a comment on my regular blog whose author had the same unusual name as the person on Sittercity! What?! She had written a pretty long comment, too. Here are some excerpts:

You don’t know me, and I’m not the type who usually accosts strangers and asks to get to know them, but here goes. Did you know that when you google [relevant search terms], your blog is the fourth site in the list? Well, it is. That’s how I got here (yesterday).

As for the coincidences: I saw in your blog that you have lined up some families to sit for (maybe you’re not fully booked? We’re flexible! We’re only looking for a few regular hours a week!). I saw that you just moved to [our new 'hood] (that’s where we are!). There are several clues that you speak Chinese (as long as you speak well enough to converse on a very basic level with a preschooler, you will have surpassed all expectations! Cultural enlightenment would also be highly desirable!). You’re very articulate and clearly know how to hook your audience (I’m a writer!). You lived in [Winks] (me too!). I also think I may have a failed adrenal gland! LOL. The list goes on and on…

I know your blog is not your professional face, so I feel very weird approaching you like this. But that’s actually what swept me up: your personality and sense of humor shine through—and there’s nothing in what you write that I can’t completely empathize with. If I had a blog for you to read, I’d share it with you in a heartbeat. As an alternative, would you consider a phone call? And if you feel comfortable, perhaps we could meet in person and I could introduce you to the girls?

Are you KIDDING ME?! Talk about coincidences! Well, I certainly couldn’t ignore such an overture. Random, lengthy emails/blog comments are totally my style! (One day I’ll write a post about the time I randomly emailed this blogger whose mopey, melodramatic posts about getting over (or NOT getting over, as the case may have been) his ex-girlfriend were making my eyes twitch on a daily basis.) So I emailed her and told her yes, I am so interested, but I don’t know what my summer looks like because I’m waiting for this one family to get back to me, but let’s meet anyway and see what happens.

So I’m meeting her and her family on Saturday. How amazing is that?! In about a month, I went from no summer prospects to at least four. And none of them will involve sitting at a desk, folding clothes, or even filling out a damn W-4. Woohoo!!!

 

*So, lest any of you think I’m a raging racist or at the very least, racially insensitive, the name Milk Chocolate has nothing to do with race or skin color. It is a play on her nickname back at her old school, which is also the name of a candy bar. Okay?! (SASSY GIRL)

countdown… countdown

So, as of today there are exactly 4 weeks left of school. Without even looking at the calendar you can tell, because I’m suddenly getting flurries of emails from everyone I work for (Diva Bread, Absent Boss, Actual Boss, even Seeley), needing my help in scrambling to get things done before the end of the year.

One of the things I’ve been pulled in to work on is ordering textbooks. When I asked about the urgency of this (just to help with my prioritizing), I was told, ‘We would like to purchase texts K-5 by the end of the year. This is urgent. Please work closely with [curriculum specialist] to make contacts and get samples here.’ Okay, sure. I’ll do what I can.

But I couldn’t help but remember an email that I sent to Diva Bread way in the beginning, when I was Blithe Idealist just knocking tasks out left and right:

>>> [Lonely Idealist] 9/10/2008 11:04 AM >>>

Hi [Diva Bread]-
Here’s the link to the textbook series:

http://www.cheng-tsui.com/store/products/flying_chinese

I’ve also attached a spreadsheet order form for the K-6 teacher’s guides and their costs.

Let me know how I should proceed – thanks!

-[Lonely Idealist]

Please note the date: 9/10/2008. Now, if I remember correctly, she told me shortly thereafter that she would talk to the curriculum specialist about it. So I didn’t worry about it anymore.

Oh yes, did I mention that the reason I knew to do this was because my predecessor left explicit instructions in her notes to me to take care of this in the fall, because she tried to order them in the spring and they were sold out?

And it’s MAY 13TH and they’re JUST NOW GETTING ON THE BALL?!

My next post will be about more uplifting and exciting things.

seriously?

So, Actual Boss just sent me a box of headsets that I need for some of our students to take computer-based assessments next week. It’s a wonder they even got to me, since he

SPELLED BOTH OF MY NAMES WRONG.

He spelled my name the ‘normal’ way it’s spelled, and messed up my last name. My FOUR-LETTER LAST NAME.

I email this guy on a regular basis. He emails me on a regular basis. How the FUCK does he not know how to spell my name?!

Six weeks to go and I’m so out of here.

wakeup call wednesday

Here at Durmstrang, I have two women friends with whom I have lunch every day (unless I need to cover the office, or run an errand). I call them my ‘lunch crew.’ They’re older women, both classroom assistants, and both immigrated to America from other countries (Mexico, China). We often joke around that they’re my moms.

Mrs. D is in her 60s, moved to Texas from Mexico in her youth and has been in Ashen for something like twenty years. She’s very religious, involved in her church, says things like ‘Lord have mercy!’ and is generally kind of a hip grandma. But – and I’ve known this for a while – she is very socially conservative, adheres to gender and familial roles, etc.

Mrs. Y is 50, moved here from China about 10 years ago and is raising her two kids in an Ashen suburb alone while her husband keeps his job in China. She reminds me of my parents in some ways, but in others she is a little more progressive and lax. It’s an interesting mix. She’s way more like my second mom than Mrs. D, mostly because of the Chinese thing.

Today, Mrs. Y was talking about her teenage son, who works at Abercrombie, and how he doesn’t like it because all the managers there are gay. And I don’t remember how it became relevant, but I mentioned that my brother, The Cynic, is gay. And then everything imploded.

Mrs. D started to talk about her cousin who was gay who died of AIDS, and how he wasn’t born gay. He CHOSE that life, because he was raped by men when he was young and ended up ‘liking that kind of touch.’ She asked me if my brother was born gay, and I said, yes he was. And she didn’t believe it.

I asked her why anyone would choose to live a life in which they were ostracized, oppressed, criticized, hurt, or even killed for who they were. If you had that choice, why would you choose that? I asked her if she’d ever consciously chosen to like men. She said yes, she had, that everyone chooses when they first have feelings for the opposite sex.

But that’s just it. People who are gay may not ever first have feelings for the opposite sex.

She asked me when my brother decided he was gay. I told her that he realized he was gay when he was 10. She asked me who he hung out with when he was a child – I said, mostly girls.

‘What did he act like around them?’ she asked me.

‘He acted like a person!’ I said. ‘Like a kid!’

‘Did he act like a boy or a girl?’

At this point, my head started to ache and I could feel my hands shaking. I haven’t really had to have this kind of conversation with anyone for a very long time, and I’d forgotten how much it affects me physically. I thought I might cry. And not just because someone was saying these things, but because it was Mrs. D, one of my surrogate moms. Someone who, for Administrative Professionals Day, bought me a shirt from her favorite store and wrote me a really sweet card and signed it ‘Mom.’

And she was talking about my brother like he was a vile abomination of humanity.

She talked about her cousin like he was the personification of filth and disease. She lamented her poor aunt, who watched her son die, even though he was ‘born a boy.’ ‘Gay men are still male!!’ I nearly screamed. ‘Then they should be with women,’ she answered. ‘Men go with women, not other men.’

When Mrs. Y, trying to rationalize things, compared not having the ‘choice’ to be gay to not having the choice to have a disease, Mrs. D quipped, ‘If you’re like that, you’ll get a disease’ and I felt punched in the gut. ‘You don’t have to be gay to get AIDS!’ I said. ‘Anyone can get AIDS if they’re not protected.’

But you know, stuff like that is moot when you’re talking to a conservative who touts their religious beliefs as truth.

‘God made man, and then he made woman to be his companion,’ she explained. ‘She didn’t make no other man to be with him.’

I didn’t really know how to respond. At this point I feel like I was just nodding and trying not to argue or show how upset I was – lunch was almost over and I didn’t want to end it too awkwardly (perhaps it was already too late, but I am not very good at confronting my elders anyway).

She concluded by saying that everyone raises their children and their families with different values – that maybe I would raise my kids with my values, but that in her family and her children’s families, she will teach that being gay is a choice, and it’s the wrong choice. That she would enforce it on her little two-year-old grandson so that he knew what her family values were.

I just walked away, shaking, hoping that her ‘little two-year-old grandson’ doesn’t turn out to be gay and kill himself because his whole family won’t support him. Or, I hope that he does turn out to be gay, so that she’ll realize that you can’t truly understand how biting and hurtful those words are until they’re directed at someone you love.