I Remember Now

I'm up late, but it's all good. Once a month we have deadline nights for newspaper, where we work from after school to around 10 PM. It's alternatively a blast and a nightmare. Sometimes teenage hormones over ride the ability to concentrate on journalism. Sometimes we turn the music up loud and dance. Sometimes we cry together over censorship and boyfriends.

Tonight was, as a friend of ours says, a "smooth shift." I took several breaks throughout the night because things were going so swell. Nobody was AWOL, nobody had drama, and nobody really needed me. Since we're now living a few blocks from the school in our rental property, this was no big deal. It's one thing that I actually like about living in the big city, as opposed to our little berg 20 minutes up the road.

So, when things go well, I remember why I chose education. I remember why I decided to take a pay cut to hang out with pubescent teens all day. I know the feeling of a well-oiled classroom machine -- one where students are trained well and socialize well and learn whilst having fun.

Ah, yes, I remember now.

Sandee Dunk

My bestest friend in the world is Sandee Dunk. We have known each other since my freshman year of college in 1981, where we bonded one drunken night at a fraternity house. She is responsible for creating the monster that I still am: introduced me to lots of vices and fetishes.

All of which, I am eternally grateful for.

Like smoking cigarettes, drinking beer, eating delivery pizza late at night, and making love unconditionally. These were the values of my youth. And Sandee Dunk helped form them on the beaches of Florida and the dorms of State City.

Now, as adults, we have reconnected. We had seen each other every other year or so until about 10 years ago. We had a kinda bad visit back then: she's now allergic to cigarette smoke and was very judgmental about our smoking, so she spent a lot of time simply trying to breathe. She has a body type that produces a lot of phlegm, so she is sensitive to it. But we were smokers, and smokers have to smoke.

This time, Sandee and her son stayed at a hotel in town, so no smoke! We actually had quit for years too, in the time we didn't visit, but we started again last summer when we were under all the stress of the law and the man. (See "Thresholds: and other ruminations.")

We had a luffly visit this past Easter weekend. She came up to play our "personal shopper" because we didn't want to go shopping. She made us go out, and in two hours we spent $10,000 on brand-spanking new furniture at two local marts. We will have a matching house with matching furniture -- what a fucking concept. Never in my life have all my things coordinated with such Martha Stewart-like aplomb.

Wheeeeeeee. So, Sandee helped us usher in a new era. An era of hope and Spring...an era where we look forward rather than backward, where we don't cry about things we lost -- instead we jump for joy about things we are gaining.

Seeds

Hubby is talking putting in grass seed in our new house. It's nice to be thinking about that on this fine, Sunday morning. As usual, we started off the morning with Elvis gospel, and have now moved on to dreaming a bit.

(time warp)

That was last Sunday. Found this started in the drafts -- wonder where I was going with it?

But this Sunday, we are still listening to Elvis gospel, and are still dreaming. The house should be delivered middle of the week, and finished by weeks' end. This is soon, but not damn soon enough! I'm anxious and excited and all these mixed emotions.

See, we bought $10,000 worth of brand-spanking new furniture for the house on Friday. Now I can picture the beautiful stuff in the awesome house, and I can't freakin' wait for it to all come together. We have virtually no "STUFF" for this house, aside from the furniture to be delivered. We've been waiting to make most purchases until the house arrives, mainly because hubby is afraid to spend the insurance money, or any money, ever, period.

But it's gonna be like this grandly furnished stately ranch home -- when before we had this fixer-upper with hardly any usable living space. Now we'll have nearly 3,500 square feet to ramble around in between the house and the basement. And I repeat, we have no STUFF. So it's gonna be neat and clean and so damn cool.

We never expected to be doing this, though, is where the mixed feelings come in. We miss our stuff, and we miss our old hellish house. But soon the new stuff will feel like ours, and we will survive.

The seeds are planted, is where I guess I was going with this.

IRL

That's geek speak for "in real life."

I live a wonderful, full life IRL. My house may have burned to the ground, but I'm still happy inside.

'Nuff said for a mildly bi-polar SAD manic-depressive person in the middle of winter.

Leader Nao...

So, what does this all mean? It means that I'm in the second most bad-ass group on MHA, and they picked me to be a leader this morning! It means my peers approve of me! Wheeeeeee. It's always nice to be recognized for leadership qualities. Now if I could only get off my ass and make money being a leader...now THERE's a thought!

Maybe tomorrow?

Chateau Elan

That's the name of our new home. And our castle it will be -- over 1700 square feet of brand new modular house. Sometime within the next two weeks, our castle will be driven down the highway and parked on the new basement dug up on the old lot. All traces of the old house are gone, and with them, most of our sadness over all the things we lost. We are now moving forward with plans for the future, and it feels damn good.

But it will be weird, because for 7 years we have been fixing up the old, 1920's victorian-style abode, and we had many many more plans for the future. Now we suddenly own a brand new home, that is virtually maintenance free. What will we do with our new-found time?

HAHAHAHAHA. Perhaps sleep more, cook more, make love more, and of course, play with the boys more.

So, when all is said and done, we may be better off. We don't have much to move, and we will have a nice amount of equity in the new home. I have successfully de-cluttered my life.

Gotta look at the positives when Mr. Fire eats all your worldly possessions.

Term 4 = Wild Things

Throughout the fire saga, my Term 3 students were awesome. They were supportive and empathic and attentive....almost compliant little creatures who thirsted for my knowledge.

Then the term ended and my Term 4 classes entered.

On the first day of class, I had to pause many times to get their attention. I do not speak while students are speaking, and I usually don't have troubles with that. But these kids are chatty. I also have quite a few special education students in class, and that's no big deal, but when you have 20 kids and 6 are needy it tips the scale against the teacher a bit.

Plus, I do an activity where I assess the students' personality styles on the second day of class and 3/4 of the classes are extroverts this term. I love my extroverts -- hell I'M an extrovert, but wow, these kids have ENERGY! It takes all my years of experience to keep myself calm, and try to focus the kids on the lesson at hand. I just flail my arms and speak animatedly and PAUSE when I don't have their attention. Then, if that doesn't work, I take the offenders into the hallway for a little folksy chat -- always giving them a choice of settling down or removing themselves from class. I don't kick kids out, they kick themselves out, as my hubby always says.

So, I will end the school year by working my ass off, it appears. What happened to my little sponges who hung on my every word? Oh well, this too shall pass...and I love them all anyway, so I'm sure it'll be fine.

Oh one other side-note: I went to the local middle school today to visit their student council, who held a can deposit drive for us. The little shits raised over $1,200 for our family -- and as I told them the story of the fire and accepted the donation, I almost cried for the first time.

Almost....I'm sure the floodgates will open eventually, but for now, I'm just concentrating on moving forward. And moving forward we are.