With so much going on it's easy to blame things on not having enough time. Things like the fact that I don't write enough, that I don't keep in touch with people in my life who aren't right in front of my face enough, that I don't put enough effort toward nourishing certain parts of myself. I don't feel like I do enough for other people, I don't make enough earth-sustaining lifestyle choices, and I never did get around to painting that giant spool we got out of an industrial dumpster when we first moved in. It's easy to use lack of time as an excuse for all of those things, but it's just that - an excuse. And to that end, I find myself questioning why I'm even making an excuse in the first place. And who am I making it for?

There are other things I make excuses for - my body, that I have yet to accomplish a bachelor's degree, my moods. But why? Who is keeping score, exactly?

It might be interesting to examine the things I am making excuses for a little closer, to probe a little into what it is precisely that I am avoiding. Oops, no time! Just kidding, but seriously. My life is full and I have so much to be happy about, both big-picture things and also smaller daily gifts from the universe that remind me to smile. I get to be around kids eleven hours a day, and I get to spend the rest of those days in a city that [overall] I absolutely adore. Even as I keep telling myself to engage in the present, to be here now, there are things I'm looking forward to. And there are also a lot of things that I need to figure out. Some I'm sure I'll make sense of on my own, while others I know will require, uh, outside help. And that's okay.

Blogging is a lot like talking to yourself, right? Maybe that's why I keep coming back to it. I'm trying not to be overwhelmed by the fact that it is COMPLETELY FUCKING DIFFERENT now. You know what else might be interesting, if I examined why I am so turned off by any kind of social networking. Which this kind of is but not really because I don't have to interact with whoever reads this if I don't want to. I go off a lot about Facebook and smartphones and sadness leprechauns robbing us of organic human experience and how the need ability to share where we are and what we're doing at all times is... I don't know what that is but I seriously doubt that you're able to process and appreciate whatever experience you're having if you're busy checking in or thinking of a cute caption. Could just be me, though; I already get the feeling sometimes that I'm doing some things because other people enjoy them, ergo, I should too. Like, my day will have been well spent if I can show or tell about something I have done that other people like to do. The older I get the less I give a fuck, though, so here's to gray hair. (Which family tree research shows I will not get until I get myself knocked up. Neat huh?)

So here's where I could stop rambling and share specific things I've done recently, like how I visited the Hetrick-Martin Institute and toured the Harvey Milk High School. Or I could tell you about when I met Wyclef Jean and his daughter during team fun at Dave and Buster's. And that one time I shook Chelsea Clinton's hand at what I was told would be a "Women's Breakfast" but what was actually a fundraiser, sneak-attack style. (Shameless, these nonprofits.) I could, but it's been so long that that would make this even longer and more boring than it already is. Plus I forgot a lot. Plus I'm really tired and I have to go to bed because I might go to the beach tomorrow but it might thunderstorm and/or be too hot for me to want to celebrate soldiers by sitting on sand and so in that case I'm going to go to my friend's apartment in Queens to make customized pencil cases as goodbye presents for my kindergarteners because there are only eight of them in my after-school class and the third-grade class I support during the day has like twenty-eight kids and who has money for twenty-eight pencil cases plus sparkly things to put inside of them so I think I'll just bake something for those rugrats and I just remembered I promised my fourth-grade lunch club boys we could eat McDonald's for lunch on Tuesday and I really hope it isn't hot which it will be because anything above thirty degrees is hot when you are wearing high-waisted khaki pants and Timberlands. Pluuuuus, what you really want to see is a picture of my new red hair and then a bunch of random pictures from my computer! which isn't really my computer it's my mom's old netbook that she so generously bequeathed unto me so that I could continue borrowing wireless from my neighbors to pay ConEdison and watch Arrested Development while I clean my bathroom when I had to retire my haggard laptop to a closet in her house because I don't think the old gal has much juice left (the computer, not my mom) and there are documents and pictures on her hard drive that I definitely kind of need and so I'll eventually have to persuade her to boot up one more time in order to get them. So okay, you talked me into it:

My locks are much, much more Ariel-like than this picture would lead you to believe. 

Also, observe my giant bedroom. Lap of luxury, people.

 

 

 

 

(Getting a little fast and loose with the whole posting-pictures-of-kids thing here but the important thing to take from this is that usually there are at least six more tiny people piled on top of me and or flying toward me from all directions. Also how flattering that uniform is on women of all sizes and shapes. YOU ARE JEALOUS.)

fin.

"Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two."

Louis de Bernières

I just found this and wanted to share it somewhere, and since this is the only internet outlet I have left... well. Here. Right now I am digesting the biggest veggie burrito on the face of ever, with my beautiful friend/fellow traveler who I haven't seen in two years! We're giving into the itis for a bit while we wait for three other lovely ladies to drive in, and then tomorrow yet another friend arrives. It's cozy in my (clean!! so clean) apartment right now, even though my roommates and I refuse to turn the heat on until February/our extremities turn black and fall off, and I'm looking forward to spending the next few days catching up with friends I haven't been geographically close to in far too long, filling up on good food and cheap wine and love. I love run-on sentences. LOVE them. Inspired by the link I just shared, I might also [re?]start a conversation of the romantic variety. So that's what's happening this very minute, I bet you were wondering. There's so much going on and I think of fifty different things to write about every day, I just don't have the time. I'll try harder, maybe. Oh and my school won the Glee contest. They couldn't have done it without us, blogger. Now to test the quality of my 99-cent store bottle opener... RIP mustache.

October, are you  not getting enough attention at home?

As you were, Autumn.

This whole posting every day thing is a mean trick I am playing. Don't let those walls down just yet, devoted readers, because I will leave you emotionally devastated and gasping for metaphorical breath. It's not you, it's me. And you, a little.

Anyway, this isn't a real post at all, only a shameless plug for my school. (I don't have a real Facebook, so enjoy the spam, Blogger!) I have never seen an episode of Glee and probably never will (for a plethora of reasons, one of which being that if I am going to endure young people being all shiny-faced and covering songs then that young person is going to be me and I am going to endure it via my bedroom/bathroom mirror) BUT they are giving a million dollars to fund school music programs. The music teacher at my school worked really hard to make this video, and I only wish I'd had time to submit all the footage I have of kids being completely amazing and legitimately talented dancers/performers. I'm dying to share some right now but I can't post media of the young 'uns! You'll just have to take my word for it. I promise you there is something in the water in Hunt's Point, because these kids are incredible. And they have literally nothing. So come on, you have two clicks in you. I know you can do it. I believe in you, too.

Vote! (You can vote once a day every day until November 7th. So do it. I'm watching you.)

I got to sleep until six this morning!
And then I got to plant trees all day! In Flushing, where Fran lived!
And then I got home before dark*!

So I ended my day smelling like sweat and dirt,
you know, the same way I smell at the end of a school day.
I love my whole entire life.
I miss my kids though, and I am quite sure they wished they were at school with me yesterday
instead of having a day off.
That's Columbus for you, ruining everyone's lives.

*Lie. A dirty, stinking lie.

Oh so, you may have noticed that there are about three years' worth of posts missing.
Good job at noticing things, is all I have to say about that.