Goodbyes: I'm Not Such a Fan

People at my Day Job are being Really Nice and throwing me a bon voyage party. And...and...it makes me all, "Oh, maybe I should stay!" But no. No, I shouldn't: I'm simply in that awkward transition of saying "goodbyes" but not yet any "hellos" and it's messing with my head.

This same thing happened before I left for college. I was ready to go. It clearly was TIME to go. That summer, one by one, all my high school friends left before me. I'm not sure why it turned out that way. Perhaps some orientations began earlier, perhaps some friends joined college sports teams, perhaps some colleges were further away than mine. As my friends left, one by one, I became sadder and sadder. Then there was just me. I wanted to hang onto something that was clearly past, but it was just because the next part hadn't yet begun for me. When I arrived at my own orientation, things began looking up.

Or maybe I should just work at Day Job until I retire.

PS Clever (I think) tip: I ordered free business cards from Vista Print with my contact info. I'll hand them out at my party. Clever, si?

Anxiety Dreams

So, yes, OK, it is understandable that I would be having some difficulty with my threefold major transition, ie: 1. leave the company that has given me a steady paycheck & benefits (but little joy) for 7 years; 2. close (or put "on hiatus") my shiatsu practice; and 3. begin substitute teaching for less/unsteady income and no benefits.

OMG, I just saw it for the first time: shiatsu hiatus. OMG!

Anyway, my anxieties are lurking at night, waiting to infuse my dreams. To wit:

1. I am working in Chef's kitchen with Lucinda, the sous chef from season 1. Things are not going well. Orders are piled up and we can't cover them. Everyone else is gone and not helping. At any time, Chef Garreth Blackstock will return and begin ranting at us. And, unlike on the show, it won't be funny.

2. My dad is insisting that we go to a health center as a family. I don't want to. They try to make me drink grapefruit juice and put me on a raw foods diet. I run but can't escape the massive building. I finally get out and discover that my sandals are missing and my feet are bare. I have to dodge back in without anyone finding me to retrieve my beloved sandals.

3. I'm starring in a high school production of a musical. I can't get there. I am lost driving on highways. I stop at a green grocer for directions, but I park in the wrong place and get hemmed in, and the delivery man yells at me because it's his drop off area. Inside the green grocer building is a craft shop with lots of cheesy stained glass leaves. I really need to pee, but I can't find a toilet. Someone gives me directions, but when I get in my car, I can't follow them. The show began at 6 PM and now it is 6:12 and I am still 40 minutes away.

Warts and All

My friends, it is time we talk about a serious issue. That issue, my fellow Americans, is bacne.

Now, I am not a zitty person. (Senator McCain--he is zitty. His record is clear on this. His complexion was not.*) I am a veteran of puberty, I have served my hormones, but I was fortunate enough, with God's blessing, to escape acne. From a young age, my face was dry. While the other children in our blue-collar small town were learning to apply benzoyl peroxide and endure salicylic acid, I was exfoliating and slathering on cream. To this day, my face remains blemish-free, except for one monthly whitehead on the side of my chin.

Imagine my surprise, then, my friends, my fellow Americans, my favorite Joe Sixpacks, when I began experiencing body acne, or what Washington insiders call "bacne". My dry back riddled with painfully deep, bacteria-filled eruptions. My pores cry out for a liberator.

Senators Obama, McCain, and I are looking for a solution. We are exploring many possible avenues. Our current plan is to work with a store-brand (imitation Neutrogena) body wash and scrub containing salicylic acid. The online experts call for more expensive solutions that will spend taxpayer money hand-over-fist.

My fellow Americans, our committee needs your solutions. If you have bacne, do what you can for your country and tell me what has helped your skin.

Thank you.

My fellow Americans.

*Just kidding. No idea about McCain's dermatologic history. It was for effect. EFFECT, PEOPLE.

Today in the Life

In the oven: rising dough for classic baguettes and experimental rosemary-sage-olive oil baguettes*

On the radio: American Boy by Estelle

Still in bed: my spouse

On the meditation cushion: in a moment, me

*Most likely I am violating the definition of baguette, but I suspect that deliciousness awaits anyway.

My hospice patients...

...Keep getting better and going off of hospice! Isn't that crazy?

Aw, HELL

The Red Sox are in the pennant race. G*d-F^ck1ng D@mmit! Do you know what this means? DO YOU!

It means that for the next month--or however long baseball goes on, see what a fan am I--everyone will be tired. They will be tired, and think that they are somehow Warriors of Fandom for their team. And the next day at work they will say, like a warrior fresh from battle, "I'm exhausted." And I will say, "Me, too. Why are you tired?" And they will give me incredulous/pitying/angry looks, and, although almost too fatigued, they will find the strength, somehow, to explain to me through their exasperation that The Game went late last night. And I will avoid asking which game, and restrain myself from explaining that I am tired from going to grad school while working and running a shiatsu practice, you know, having a real life in which I do things other than cheering.

I will speak to people who live elsewhere and follow baseball. They will assume I am thrilled, or desperately sad, depending on how the Sox are faring. I will try to be polite. It will be a strain.

From Boston right through the 495 belt, everyone will go stark raving mad. In the epicenter, The Hub itself, cars may be turned over. Once a girl was shot in the face. Riots? Riots, people??

Worst of all, my husband's office is in Kenmore Square. Kenmore Square, I now explain for those fortunate enough to be uninitiated, is the home of Fenway Park. Fenway Park is--you got it!--home of the Sox. This means traffic, no parking, mooing out-of-towners shuffling along in herds, taking up the sidewalk, unable to decode the subway. My husband's commute quadrupled, all the lunch spots near his office overrun.

Pray for us.

Ranting for Homework

My assignment became a rant.

The prompt asked me to write 1 page about a problem I see facing the educational field today.

I emailed my advisor, saying essentially--

Dear L________:

I am not a yet a teacher. I feel presumptuous telling the field of education what it needs to fix. Please advise.

She wrote back, saying essentially:

Give it a try.

I thought a bit. And here's what I ended up thinking. I ended up thinking that education is becoming more and more corporatized, with the large-scale assessments (aka standardized or "bubble" tests) intended to improve Accountability and Integrity, and with the charter schools being all "charter" with their fancy CEOs, high salaries, and quickness to fire your teachin' ass in the name of Accountability.

And then I thought: Who the hell is holding Wall Street accountable? And what credibility does the corporate world have preaching to education about accountability?

So I wrote a page and a half just like *that*, essentially a rant. I attempted to be scholarly and conclude with a couple paragraphs about how We Need to Examine the Relationship Between Business and Education and Analyzing the Goals of Education, to wit:

1. producing worker bees?
2. allowing students to have a wider intellectual life than their future monotonous jobs?
3. producing people who can analyze and imagine new approaches to business, home, education, the state? (I like this one)
3a. or at least having the skills to grapple with the ethics of daily life? (like this, too)

What do you think?

Rantaciously yours,
'Style