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So many plates spinning I feel like I have vertigo—researching for more Who IS? posts [Christine Rossell? Michael Fullan?], reading through some research on KIPP and Leslie Jacobs testimony that touches on schools, the Cowen reports, being sick and barely getting through working part-time and home changes and and and and and.
Time for a break. If something is burning a hole in my gray matter, it’ll pop up.
See you April 2, 2010.
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In December 2005, we put up Xmas lights outside, lots of them, all along the rails and the door. All the streetlights were out then so it was important in our privileged, shamefully-lucky way. It was nice, though, to see a light at night that wasn’t the slow, blue blip of a National Guard Humvee. That was only every few hours.
This year…maybe I’m just tired. Maybe The Girl is over the giggly, kid-ish gimme lust and somewhat ambivalent herself, or just playing it very cool as she passes into the teens. Many things displease me now, too many to attend to, and I have more needs than I’d like and have to ask for more allowances and concessions than I am comfortable with so it’s time for a holiday break. Of sorts. As much as it can be. I have Eartha Kitt’s “Santa Baby” to get me in the spirit. All I need is “The 12 Drinks of Christmas,” “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch,” and “The 12 Yats of Christmas” and I’m set. Gimme me something to wrap and, depending on the surrounding relations, a drink.
So Black to a Black to the G Bitch archives:
I am ambivalent and conflicted about Christmas. I’m not about the Christ story; I have only recently learned the art and nuance of gifting and being gifted; I’m a loner; I like the compulsion to see, talk to and hang out with family, something that can be too easy to slip past; I’m grateful to be in NO and it to still be here; I like little colored lights and red and green chili peppers and stars and tinsel and the smell of a tree and wrapping presents and actually cooking instead of tossing, heating, unwrapping, microwaving. But then there I am out in the mishpocheh–vegan, atheist and from New Orleans. Ouch.
So Black to the G Bitch Archives:
It’s time to make another magical, atheist, vegan Christmas/holiday season for The Girl. I will take a break from now until about the 30th. Spare an animal–have a vegetarian/vegan holiday meal. Donate to others and smile for no reason.
A scourge for Victorian women, I could really use one—no errands, no housework, no work-work, big windows to look out of, a garden to loiter in and people to feed me and no yellow wallpaper. I didn’t think the early 40s were supposed to suck this way.
June is looking like the busiest month I’ll have all year. You may not see much here until July so breathe easy.
Much shit happening. Nothing bad.
Soon.
photo courtesy of That Other Paper, used under this Creative Commons license
I have “decided” to go back to the University. I made a big stink about never, ever, ever fucking going back to everyone I knew, met, saw, bumped into or got a contract offer from. But then I looked in the refrigerator, at the growing Girl, at the price of gas, at the 5th flat tire in __ weeks.
It will not be easy. The things that drove me nuts are still there. And it will still be hard, and largely thankless, and even with a raise nowhere near the proper compensation. Teaching can really suck. NOTSD aside, I’ve never had much in the way of reserves and need a squadron of household and spa staff to get through much of anything. Mental toughness only takes you so far.
But the best take on it I heard and that has been a great balm and sustainer for me came from Gentilly Girl—Good, you’ll go back as the cause rather than the effect.
I’ve been tempted to go back to work full time, back to teaching. It would be nice to again have a mostly-finite job that I can go home from. But as I often said when I was leaving my office, “I’m going to my other job”–meals, homework, bills, relationships, errands, recitals and more homework. And now, I am without an end to the at-home work day, no breaks or subs, no chilling out in the evening. I’m even on the job while I’m sleeping, when that happens well enough. I drink on the job because I wouldn’t have time to drink otherwise. And I’m waiting for a multitasking meltdown as I multitask my multitasking just to fit in what grows exponentially the more I multitask. The glass never overflows, just gets bigger and bigger to accommodate the waterfall.
It’s not a second shift problem. It’s a 24/7 shift problem.
I am ambivalent and conflicted about Christmas. I’m not about the Christ story; I have only recently learned the art and nuance of gifting and being gifted; I’m a loner; I like the compulsion to see, talk to and hang out with family, something that can be too easy to slip past; I’m grateful to be in NO and it to still be here; I like little colored lights and red and green chili peppers and stars and tinsel and the smell of a tree and wrapping presents and actually cooking instead of tossing, heating, unwrapping, microwaving. But then there I am out in the mishpocheh–vegan, atheist and from New Orleans. Ouch.
So Black to the G Bitch Archives:
It’s time to make another magical, atheist, vegan Christmas/holiday season for The Girl. I will take a break from now until about the 30th. Spare an animal–have a vegetarian/vegan holiday meal. Donate to others and smile for no reason.
None of the reasons I started this blog involved self-aggrandizement or profit, job hopes or publishing deals. I don’t use it for anything but what I want to say when I feel like saying it. Or can say it.
There are waves of traumatic stress and distress for everyone here, it seems–in a 2- or 3-week period, people of different socioeconomic classes, races, religions, levels of education and post-Flood conditions all complain of a similar indescribable or all-too-easily-delineated malaise. It is not a lack of personal strength or religious faith or community involvement–what is happening, and not happening, here hurts like hell. Even if I am not suffering, my people are suffering (my people = New Orleanians who are black, white and neither and who love this place and stay regardless of where they were born, who are overt or covert chauvinists of New Orleans and all its culture, quirks, needs and bullshit) and it takes a toll. The few times I have been able to read the entire Times-Pic, I forget what I’ve read before I get to the community meetings section. A clear sign of peaking NOTSD–New Orleans Traumatic Stress Disorder.
A pause. I’ll be back when. Go read something:
Naomi Klein Rocks (American Zombie) even though I am no Klein fan in general
Virginia Boulet Redux (Ashley “his real name” Morris!)
If He Could Just Learn To Control His Zipper More (Cliff at his Crib)
What the Hell Is Wrong with Senator Vitter? (N.O.–It’s Just Me) and not just because James Perry rocks.
The beans-and-rice sabbatical: I am making myself unemployed in 32 days and some hours.
Update/clarification: I’m leaving the University period. Salary be damned.
photo © Arjan Hamberg for openphoto.net CC:Attribution-ShareAlike
It’s time to make another magical, atheist, vegan Christmas/holiday season for The Girl. I will take a break from now until about the 30th. Spare an animal–have a vegetarian/vegan holiday meal. Donate to others and smile for no reason.
