a new kind

It is only a month until I will be going to New York.  Travelling alone always makes me somewhat morose and turns what could otherwise be interpreted as adventures into missions.  Missions that require incredible resources of energy I feel certain I do not possess.  Every airport pat down leaves me feeling assaulted and small.  But New York.  Of course I am taking this trip.

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Last night I did not sleep.  Instead I decided to spend the night worrying about who will be hired to teach in my space next semester during the time I am counselling.  My administrators are not trustworthy where it comes to hiring my roommate and I am nervous about who I will be living with.  It would be difficult to find someone as horrible as Crazy Sue, but it could happen.  It could and it might. I will sleep when I have more information.  Perhaps on my desk.

This week classes are suspended for exams, a strange thing since the province is doing away with provincial exams leaving us with five open days and very very few exams being written.  We won't get away with this for long, but for now it is a sweet restful week of catching up with colleagues I have not seen in a long time, tidying my desk (ha), and making personal phone calls to manage my life - all things I should have taken care of long ago.  (It is possible that I am actually still nineteen years old.)

Although I remain employed at the current job, my mind has already begun moving me into the second job.  I have mentally moved my messy desk into the counselling office, and I have been spending a lot of (union) money on workshops and conferences in preparation.  They might be helpful.  If nothing else, they give me back the student feeling that makes me so happy when I can recapture it.  Perhaps this is why I work in a school.  The illusion of being a perpetual student.  The move to counselling could potentially force me into adulthood and that is worrisome.  People expect Drama teachers to be flaky which makes me look extra amazing when I ocassionally remember to do something.

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BB is trying to get pregnant, the way some women do.  It is a complicated process, and expensive.  Our health plan covers only some of it.  I want her to be successful because it is important to her.  I want her to be happy because she is my friend.  This is interesting to me, the fact that I have friends again.  I have what I call a coven, three other women with whom I spend time at work, and even, sometimes, on weekends.  This is a new development, not really, but it seems that way.  Friendship feels foreign because I moved around a lot for a number of years and left friends behind until I forgot that friends mattered much.  I blame Shawn for being too comfortable and easy a friend, thus eliminating my need to seek outside friends. I did not put much effort into making friends, but I have made some, nonetheless, and I am sure Shawn is relieved that he is no longer entirely responsible for this aspect of my care.  My new friends are lovely.


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fate and faith

I am reading Avenue of Mysteries; John Irving again.  Sometimes I think John Irving is done but he is not.  His books are ever longer, ever denser, and my early allegiance with Irving based upon A Prayer for Owen Meany means I keep reading without knowing whether I am enjoying it or simply experiencing it, the way one experiences daily life.  Brushing one's teeth and driving to work and boiling water for another cup of tea.  When you look back you cannot remember if you did these things or not, although you surely must have.  But there are brightly coloured moments I remember, the odd brightly coloured sentence.  Like this one:  Religion is somewhere between fear and sex.  (This sentence popped up from the page and poked me in the eye.)  I keep hold of them when I can remember to, if I can keep hold of them long enough to put them somewhere safe before they dissolve.


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The world is watching Celine Dion grieve the loss of her husband and I find myself riveted by it because she is living my greatest fear.  I remember thinking, decades ago, about the fact she would outlive her husband by far too many years because of their age difference, and being afraid for her.  Though her music hurts my teeth, her heartbreak is now hurting my heart.  I wish the news would not follow her so closely that I can see her chin trembling.  Does it make her feel comforted imagining that the world mourns with her?  Or does she feel as though her blood is being drained?


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So it shines when you finally come home

Grey pewter skies and drizzle have given way to an unexpected real winter.  Winter with treacherous icy driveways and feathers of frost growing from the green grass and leaves beneath.  Misty cold skies.  It wakes me up.  It makes me slightly breathless.  It prickles my lungs.

Jennifer died.  It doesn't matter, I want to say, because I do not really know her very well.  But it matters because she was not thirty yet, and people that young are supposed to be safe from mortality a bit longer.  She died of a pulmonary embolism.  Lungs again.

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I used the cookbook LM got me for Christmas, which is uncharacteristic behaviour on my part.  Cooking, that is.  I made a Thai green curry which was actually quite good.  It made a nice change from shortbread, which is all I have eaten for the last fourteen days.


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