For the Love of Zanax!! May 24, 2018

Hello, all! I’m reaching out via The Journals tonight because I just need a place to vent. I took my “Happy Medicine” late today, might possibly have missed a day earlier this week, and now I just want to grab the entire world by the shoulders and shake it until its collective teeth rattle.

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Let’s see. Where to start? Primarily I think the problem arises because I spend too much time on Facebook. It’s my nemesis, my downfall, my electronic drug of choice. It’s the place where I share most of what I’m doing but comparatively fewer of my actual thoughts, lest I get into an argument with a stranger, or worse, a friend, or possibly get a free diagnosis of what I call FDD: Facebook Disclosure Disorder. FDD is the tendency to share one’s EVERY thought, mood, opinion, struggle, triumph, meal, baby, pet, funny meme, or religious conviction. I have a mild case of it, and I have many friends who are suffering from TERMINAL FDD.

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So I edit myself. I don’t say what I think the vast majority of the time, especially not on days like today.  I wouldn’t have any friends left. Seriously. Unflattering selfies, political GARBAGE, whiny life problems (I deleted two of mine in that particular category today for fear I was coming across as a big ol’ baby), you name it. I was in Super B^*% Verbal Slap Down mode today. I would have given anything to just let go on some people.

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Politics is driving me crazy. I can’t stand either side, but I think I have become more liberal-leaning at this phase of my life, and I am absolutely sick to death of the posts I see every day. “They want you to die in a school shooting so they can take away our guns”?!? Seriously? Nobody in politics WANTS children to die in school shootings!! I saw that meme today and I nearly lost it.

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On the other hand I have a friend who shares no fewer than 50 anti-Trump memes a day. Every last one of them just makes me want to gag, not because I like the guy, but because “OK, WE GET IT! You are a liberal and you hate Trump!! Why don’t you post about what you had for lunch or something, like everyone else!” I can’t stand him, I’ll admit it. I cringe and retch every time I see his face, hear his voice, or read something he supposedly said. But for crying out loud, find something else to talk about once in a  while!

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Anyway. I’ve got a million other things to whine, complain, and worry about, but I am beginning to get to that point in my rant where I fully realize I just sound like a cranky douche-canoe and I should just shut up. I just have so much work to do in and around my house, so many things I need to be doing, and so little desire and energy to do them! And I need help with about half of them and help is taking its sweet time coming.

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Even Alaska has become a source of stress. I can’t make up my mind on my itinerary, what days I want to do what tours, and whether or not I want to cut my stay short in one town and add a day in another. I have several options, I guess, but I just don’t know how we’re going to feel or what kind of mood we (read: The Boy) are going to be in, so I don’t know what I should plan for. I know I’m trying to cram a whole summer’s worth of recreated memories into a week-ish  vacation. I just want The Boy to enjoy Alaska and love it as much as I do. Mostly I am super aggravated at myself for not making it longer to start with, because now it is much too expensive to change my flights, so I am stuck trying to prioritize what experiences I most want him to have, and it’s hard.

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Anyway. I just hope and pray we have a good time. I’m sure we will, but it will help if I learn to relax and go with the flow. I’m definitely going to try.

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Until next time,

D.

Do You Hear the People Sing? May 17, 2018

Hello all!!  Wow, am I all over the map today.  I have the whole “Do You Hear the People Sing” thing stuck in my head because… it’s the last day of school AND Les Mis auditions at Ardmore Little Theatre were five years ago tomorrow.  OBVIOUSLY I’m an emotional wreck. But totally in a good way.

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First, the last day of school is a major milestone.  It feels like barely a few days ago I was working in my classroom, getting ready for school to start, being scared, nervous, intimidated, and completely unsure if I were supposed to be here.  I made it through the year though, survived all the moments when I felt like I should run away and become a sheep herder in Tibet, and kept plowing despite a somewhat critical bout with depression.  I think I’ve come to the conclusion that the first year of teaching is about like the first year of college:  I’ve probably gained at least fifteen pounds since I was hired.  Still, it’s been a good year.  I’ve tried to operate in a mode of loving these kids and remembering that they ARE just KIDS.  They are not fully formed humans yet, and they can be jerks on occasion.  Sadly, many adults can be jerks too, but that’s another post.  The point is… IT’S THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL!! WOOOO!

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Second, the anniversary of the auditions for Les Miserables (I don’t know how to type it with all the correct little accent marks) is tomorrow.  FIVE years ago tomorrow, I got on a stage and sang in front of strangers, and opened the door to a world I couldn’t have imagined.  It has brought me some of the greatest joy and the worst pain I’ve experienced in the last few years.  Between great new friends, disappointing audition results, crushes that were not meant to be, sharing the worst pain of those new friends,  celebrating victories and learning new things I never knew I could do… theatre has been a blessing in my life.  Note: the featured image of this post is my best friend who I met at auditions and who played Madame Thenardier.  She was and is nine kinds of awesome!

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I haven’t been actually ON stage in a long time, because I allowed myself to feel like I was too fat and ugly to be up there, (and also that I wasn’t really a good enough actor) but I’m hoping to conquer that this season.  There are a couple of shows I wouldn’t mind auditioning for, directors I would love to work with, and of course, the chance to reprise a role and play the same character I played when I first started, when we produce a new entry in the Buttermilk series: A Dark and Stormy Night at the Buttermilk Hotel, written partly by one of those new theatre friends.  I’ll have hopefully had my weight loss surgery a few months before the Buttermilk play is ready to audition, and I’ll be feeling a lot better about my weight. I’m also probably going to start working with a practitioner of FDN, functional diagnostic nutrition, and getting some health issues solved even before I have surgery.  We’ll see how it works.

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So back to the last day of school.  I just feel like I want to try to remember everything.  So far it’s been a good day, but it’s only 2nd hour!  I’m going to finish this post and grade the tests from 1st hour.  Let the day only go up from here!  And in only three weeks, I’ll be on my way to ALASKA!!! Yessss!

Until next time,

D.

 

And the Award Goes To… May 8, 2018

Hello all!  Today an event took place that I was not looking forward to, but which I survived, although not without my embarrassing moment.  That’s right, folks, it’s Awards Assembly Day!

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In case I haven’t mentioned it at least 10 or 20 dozen times, I’m a teacher.  A high school teacher.  A high school English teacher.  I teach in a small rural high school with about four hundred students and today… was the end of the year awards assembly.  This thing runs about three hours and includes every award known to mankind.  The class awards were about 2/3 of the way through it, and I had been waiting anxiously and with great dread for my turn at the microphone.

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Okay, so maybe I wasn’t dreading it THAT badly, but I was hoping I could get through it without looking like a complete dork.  Pretty unlikely, in the grand scheme of things.  I only had five awards to give out- two in regular English, two in Honors English, and one for most AR points.  AR is Accelerated Reading, a program which requires them to read books and take little quizzes over them, and accumulating so many points per nine weeks.

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So we sat and sat until the English department was next.  We stood at the end of the stage entrance.  We stood at the front of the stage entrance.  Finally, we took the stage and I was third in line in the department. I teach sophomores and the senior teacher was the first at the mic, partly because she is also the yearbook sponsor and she needed to get back down to the floor and continue taking pictures.  (UGH! Pictures of me. Why?!)

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Finally it was my turn and I proceeded to lean down to the microphone and say “Good morning!” Nothing too horrible there, except thanks to the mic I was much too loud.  I jumped, I’m sure everyone else jumped, and I felt like a complete goof ball. Then I repeated it, much more softly, and introduced myself.  Crickets.  I should point out here that a number of the other teachers received a few cheers, a bit of applause, and the occasional “Wooo!!” just for stating their names.  I did not.  Given that it’s my first year here and they don’t really know me all that well, that’s not surprising, but it did hurt just a tiny bit.

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The rest of my brief time at the podium went without incident, unless you count the fact that I didn’t give my award recipients a warm hug, like my co-worker who gave her awards right before I did.  I didn’t even shake their hands.  I just handed them their certificates, whispered a word of encouragement, smiled, and tried to stay out of the way of their pictures.  I failed to usher them to the middle of the stage for that- they just stood at the edge of the stage, to the right of the podium.  It was all quite awkward.  I felt like a newborn baby deer.

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So anyway, my hope is that next year I can give my awards (since it doesn’t appear that I can in any way avoid this torture) without incident or awkwardness, but I know that has absolutely zero chance of happening.  I was basically born to be awkward.  One wouldn’t think that someone who has been involved in community theatre for almost five years would be so nervous in front of a crowd, but here we are.

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Only one week and one day of school left now, which is amazing.  This year has flown by, and I’m so thankful for how well it has gone.  There have been many moments when I have felt that I should run away and become a sheep herder in Tibet, but I have resisted the urge.  I’ve been rehired for next year, which is a great thing.  I’m going to spend much of the summer working on improving my lesson plans and trying to fix things so that next year I have even fewer days where I want to run away.

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Speaking of running away, only one month from tomorrow, I will be on a plane back to my beloved Alaska, with my beloved boy, and I can’t wait!  It’s going to be a great adventure, and I pray he has a good time and loves it as much as I do.

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Until next time,

D.

Fly, Fly Away May 4, 2018

Hello all!  Things are finally starting to settle down here.  The show is over, school is almost out, and very soon I will be returning to my beloved Alaska!  I can’t wait to show The Boy all the places I went when I was there, the tours and other adventures.

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One thing I dread is the flights.  Both there and back, I dread flying.  I’ve gained back a lot of weight in the last few years and the prospect of flying and worrying about whether some fellow passenger is going to be hateful to me if I am crowding their space is just not pleasant.  I read an article on Fb today about some women who got into it on a short flight because they were in each other’s space, and man, the comments!! The hateful attitudes toward overweight people are absolutely incredible.  People are cruel, people are judgmental, and people have NO love.

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Now granted, I don’t feel like I encounter this in my everyday life, partly because I live in the South-ish, where most people are fat and most people don’t see the need to be hateful about it.  There is a fitness subculture in my town, with many gyms and groups of women jogging through the streets at all hours, and more power to them.  But for the most part, as far as I can tell, the average fat person around here does not encounter hatefulness about their weight from random strangers on the street.

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So what’s my problem?  Well… I won’t be in the South.  I’ll be on a plane with people from all over, with a layover in Seattle, where people are crunchy-granola, healthy hippie, tree-hugging hiking types.  However, I’ll be traveling with my son, who, while he’s not huge, is a nearly 6 ft. tall, broad-shouldered, 17 year-old boy.  I figure I can put his smaller body between me and any strangers and hopefully neither of us will infringe on anyone’s space.

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What’s really sad is that I let this fear and dread of fat-shaming strangers dampen my enthusiasm for this much anticipated, greatly longed-for trip to Alaska, my happy place of all happy places.  I even bought my own seat belt extender online so I wouldn’t be embarrassed by having to ask the flight attendant for one. I guess you could say, short of losing 100 pounds, I’ve done all I can think of to do to limit the likelihood of pain, hurt feelings, embarrassment, etc. Now I just have to go and try to enjoy the adventure. (Except I also still have to worry about river raft floats and water boots and other size-related humiliations just waiting to happen.)

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If it were this time next year that I were going, it would be a whole other story.  If all goes as planned, I will be having weight loss surgery over Christmas break.  I’m not sure yet whether I’m doing the RnY or the sleeve- that all depends on what the doctor recommends.  I can’t even start the process until September, unless I wanted to just pay for a bunch of fees and stuff out of pocket, which, why do that when I can just be patient a couple months longer and have it covered on insurance?  Regardless, I am REALLY looking forward to having a little help in that department.  Sometimes the right tool helps get the job done.

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So basically, I guess one thing to be happy about is that these are the last flights that I will have these fears and worries.  I thought about putting off this trip until next summer, but we’re not guaranteed another day, so I might as well go now and try to enjoy it.  I know I will, because it’s freaking Alaska, and I love that place, AND I’ll be sharing it with my precious kiddo. I hope he loves it as much as I do.

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Until next time,

D.

Big Dreams and Near Horizons April 30, 2018

Hello all!  This has been a crazy year and I have really fallen off the habit of updating this blog.  With any luck, maybe I can improve upon that.  Let’s see.  Where to start?

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One of the biggest things that has been going on has actually just concluded.  Last night was the final performance of the final show of the season for my local community theatre, and * I * was the director!  The show was called Ripcord.  It was about two little old ladies who live in a senior center and share a room.  One of them is bitter and jaded and cranky, and the other is perpetually perky, chirpy and talkative.  The cranky one wants the room to herself (of course) and the perky one just wants the bed by the window.  They decide to make a bet.  If Cranky Abby can make Chirpy Marilyn mad, she wins.  If Marilyn can make Abby scared, she wins.  They begin to pull all kinds of pranks on each other to win the bet and achieve their ends.  It’s a wonderful script, and it was a wonderful show.

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The experience started with auditions back in mid-March and ended last night with the final performance and set strike (arguably the least enjoyable part of community theatre, or any theatre, from what I understand).  I was blessed to be able to cast a bunch of really talented people, and also had some VERY talented set designers and light designers.  They helped me out every step of the way and I couldn’t have done it without them.

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I expected to be emotional at the end.  You know, to cry during the final bows of the closing performance, but I didn’t.  The only time I cried was actually the second night, when they had had an exceptional performance and a great audience, and I cried during one pivotal scene and during the final bows that night.  Last night, all I felt was pride and relief.  People keep asking me if I’m going to do it again, and even though there were moments when I said “NEVER AGAIN!” I will probably end up doing it if the right show comes along.  I expect that to take a long time though, and I would really like to try to be back ON stage again first.  Right now, though, I feel too fat and unattractive to be onstage, and I don’t plan to audition again until I lose more than a few pounds, which leads me to one of the next big things I have hopefully coming up this year.

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Since I returned to teaching, I found out that our insurance covers weight loss surgery.  I have been contemplating doing that for a long time now.  Within the next month I am planning to start the process toward surgery and will hopefully be having the procedure done in September or sometime in the fall.  I’m not sure which procedure it will be; it all depends on what the doctor recommends.  In the meantime, I have something REALLY special to look forward to, and it is one of the biggest dreams I have had for many years.

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The Boy and I are going to Alaska!  Yes, indeedy, we have a vacation planned to Alaska in June.  I haven’t been back since I worked there in the summer of 2015 (one of my most amazing adventures EVER!) and now that I will have some free time in the summer, I’ve saved some funds and I’m taking at least ONE of my kids and showing him the most beautiful and awesome place in the world!  I’m SO looking forward to it.  I can’t wait to show him the places I went and the things I got to do.  I’m just really praying we have a great time.  I have so much planned!

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That is, of course, all depending on surviving the last few weeks of school.  I totally expect to be fine, but these final days of the school year will be challenging.  The kids get restless, the schedule gets busy and packed with interruptions, and the days get hotter.  I know I won’t have too many difficulties, and if I do, at least I have some big things to look forward to, and one big thing to look back on, and hopefully that will keep my head above water.

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With that, I need to get back to lesson planning.  So many things to anticipate, it’s hard to keep my focus, but the only way to get to where I want to go is to pass through where I am.

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Until next time,

D.