In the Far Away…

Yeah. Um. Day’s over. I survived all the bits and pieces of it. Survived yesterday too. There was lots of salt water wasted over the two-day period, but hey…that’s what I do now. You should invite me to your big event. You wouldn’t even have to pay me to cry there…I just do it anyway. I could have my own reality TV show…I could do Laura Dern…I could follow happy people around malls and try to bring them down.

Anyway, senior awards ceremony last night. Boychild is an honor graduate (no shock), but also got a commendation from the National Merit Whosy-whaty…he didn’t get beyond the top 5% in the nation because we didn’t have him take the SAT in the right month. Why? Because we’re stupid obviously. No, because their rules are confusing and we messed up. Whatever. He looks thrilled. Actually, as his dad says, he looks like the reincarnation of Meatloaf in Bat out of Hell. Except less angry.

He’s thrilled to be there. There was a dress code. Otherwise he would be in his standard uniform of jeans and black Tshirt with random holes in it.

We handled dinner afterwards and the girlchild only gave me a ton of shit, instead of two tons. I’m sure I deserve it. I did give birth to her without drugs, by the way. Back labor. Oblique lie. She owes me. She’ll figure it out. It’s OK. But yeah, she made me cry at the awards ceremony and my ex had to separate us. I was willing to just leave, but apparently that wasn’t an option. I had to come back and sit with the family.

Seriously…being a divorced mom of teens isn’t for the weak at heart…although I suspect if we were still married, I would still be the target. I just wish I could hack it better than I do at the moment. I recognize that she needs to separate from me so she can leave and go to college. I just wish she didn’t have to be so nasty about it.

So after dinner, I came home and cut stuff out, and I made the mistake of watching Parenthood, which consistently makes me cry. Stupid, eh? When I was much younger, it was China Beach and 30-Something…and something else I can’t remember the name of…this is why I try to stick to murder mysteries and sci fi these days. They are much less emotionally draining.

See progress? I do. Tiny progress. Tiny bubbles. Boychild asked me today, “What’s a Don Ho?” I explained. I used YouTube as a support. I’d like to say I’m tech savvy, but me and my computer are currently doing some sort of battle that I think will only end in some sort of Fatal Error, not in my court, but in the home of Shit You Don’t Have Money to Spend on a New Computer Right Now (at least not for yourself…probably for that kid who is going off to college). How am I going to survive next year without the calm words of my boy…”What’s she freaking out about now?” Hell, I don’t know. There’s the kid that cooks and the kid that follows instructions, even when he doesn’t want to. There’s the uber-needy child and the otherly needy child. One talks, the other clings and then screams. My counselor talked me through some of this today, because I’m at the end of my rope. I’m dangling off the edge of an emotional cliff. You know it’s bad when your ex has to talk you back into the chair, off the floor. Seriously bad.

I’m going to be OK. Someday. Not any time soon. Maybe in two years. Or five. Maybe. I’m aiming for age 50. It’s a nice round number. It’s far enough out that I have a good chance of being sort of OK by then. Two years, nine months. Then I can be a crone and life will be oh so easy. Whatever.

Here’s one of my frogs during dissection. If you object, sorry…this is a huge learning experience for my ignorant little kids…

Just seeing the variation and how everything fits together is a good thing for them. It’s going to suck in two years when I don’t have body systems any more…sigh. Science teaching is changing too.

Anyway. I did about 5 hours of grading tonight, and it was just the tip of the iceberg. I’ve been doing this all year, sacrificing work to some version of my sanity by doing art instead, and I just can’t keep doing that this week. I have to hunker down and just grade. For hours. With loud music blasting. And yeah, I will probably cry for part of it. Damn tear ducts. Do you think frogs cry?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36JOnLzYjHw

Patti Smith? Yeah. Well. It’s not that I don’t like Prince, it’s that I like Smith better. Dark deep woman.

My plan…to get the grading out of the way so I can draw and make art and try to be a human that doesn’t depress me. Don’t know if it’s possible, but it’s a goal. Goals don’t have to be attainable in the moment…it can be in the far away.

Nothing is so fucked up that it can’t be fixed by a Peter Gabriel song…

I think I believe that…oh yeah. And pie.

Crappy video, great song.