i did the thing i should not do when making/saving money is the goal (which it is, naturally, and especially since i have a very special someone to visit as much as i can as soon as i can): i have skipped work today. ricardo's little warrior mother is going to have my scalp tomorrow. alas i care not. i have actually used my time wisely today and done many, many job applications because you know what, faceless internet? i am awesome. and i deserve a better job.
i mean, i hate to be my own cheerleader, but really! i am too awesome to sit around being an over-frustrated glorified babysitter. i have too much to offer the world to spend my days catering to the whims of a child who is more spoiled than autistic and for whom large doses of ritalin would help far more than i, in my infinite power, ever could.
so yeah. i've sent out about ten thousand resumes, at least a few of which should result in calls-back, and they are all or most for positions offering more hours and more relevant experience than what i am doing now. zut alors! i have high hopes.
i mean, maybe it is stupid to give in to discontent and search for or accept a new job when i'm just getting settled at the one i've got (which took forever to find, and feels like i've been there all my bloody life), especially when one considers that in the space of six months or so i plan to move my entire life three hundred miles to the north, in order to be nearer to not only my best friend and the larger quantity of my actual friends, but also nearer to the sweetest man i've ever met, whom i want to cover in kisses pretty much constantly, which desire is thwarted by the entire length of the state of california that lies between us currently. maybe it's stupid, but it's also so necessary if i am to avoid becoming the living dead.
speaking of friends, ahaha, wow, do i have a knack for befriending selfish and stupid people who like my ears and like validation but don't actually like being good friends or even interesting people! ah life. this is a recurring theme with me, starting up or staying in friendships that do not actual provide me any pleasure or benefit or actual... friendship. what would my therapist say about this? hahah yeah right. therapists are for idiots, and only occasionally for people with real problems.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Sunday, September 20, 2009
see my heart, i decorate it like a grave
i have hit, officially, definitively, with a skull-crunching thud, the wall. The Wall, that is. the wall against which all is sound and fury, every motion a study in the futility of existence, every sigh and convulsively clenching fist a tragedy on a grand and minor scale simultaneously.
my life, my twenty four year old life, is like a hobo in tatters on the street corner, begging with tears in his eyes for change. while i have never been one to deny a hobo change, in fact being the sort of person who, if ever a hobo directed his tear-filled eyes at me, would give him every penny i had on me and maybe some jewelry too, despite the fact that costume jewelry and sterling silver probably wouldn't be too much help to a hobo, it is much, much harder to provide change for my own sad annoying little life.
in many ways, it has been like this ever since graduation. life after college is like hitting pause during a movie just as it was getting good- if you're anything like me, anyway. i studied history, i wrote a lot of papers, i enjoyed the hell out of learning stuff, and only occasionally, in moments of existential panic, worried about finding a career, much less a job, when the inevitable end came. history! no wonder my parents glower accusingly at me whenever talk of my college days come up. if it were up to them, i'd be in law school, having done pre-law, or med school, having done pre-med, or engineering, or computer science, or something ANYTHING useful and applicable to the real world. bastards. instead, here i am, 24, a smart kid, no doubt about it, lacking any useful knowledge or experience, incapable of imagining a day when going to work doesn't feel like a march towards the gallows, living at home again, suffocating.
i'm pretty sure that i'm actually chock-full of useful skills that have just never really had cause to see the light of day. i'm a good writer, this whiny, depressive blog aside, i am a terribly quick learner. being a virgo, i am in possession of an attention to detail that is almost a medical illness, it's so intense. being a hideously impatient person (except for when it counts, natch), i am efficient in whatever task i am assigned. i have customer service skills oozing out of every orifice, practically, i worked so long in retail (customer service skills being the ability to grin and bear it, and to say "have a nice day" in such a way that the recipient of this cheerful phrase understands it only subconsciously as "die in a thousand flaming fires"). i can talk to almost anyone, and be jovial, and make friends, to which my unlikely friendship with the jehova's witness girl at work can attest. i like to be busy, do well in high-stress situations, can speak three different languages, type reasonably fast, am ridiculously well-read for my age group, anyway, have opinions about almost everything, and a brain like a rusty steel trap, that gleans and synthesizes information from every angle. so what exactly is the problem here??
shitty economy aside, that is. useless degree aside also, that is. i should be working at something that involves brainpower and creativity. i should spend my days if not improving the human condition then at least feeling useful, like i contribute something good to the world, something amusing or informative or inspiring in some way. i should be surrounded by people with whom i have things in common! god, the idea of a job where i get to talk to adults all day long seems so far-off and unreachable. where would i like to work? i don't even know. yes, that is a lie. for started anyway, to get experience and contribute to something i enjoy fiercely, i would like to write. like for an independent newspaper, something like the l.a. weekly or something. i'd kill- KILL- to work at pixar. because, ok, they make children's movies. but they are children's movies that i LOVE love love love with a love that is more than love. pixar studios makes art, beautiful, accessible, art that makes me- and lots of other people- happy. if it meant i spent the day sharpening pencils for john lasseter, i would work at pixar and be happy as a clam in delicious delicious chowder. i would love to work in a library, the whole no library-science degree having aspect of myself aside, because i love libraries, love books, love people who read, and can spend a day happily wandering around organizing books, ordering books, recommending books, pointing a shotgun at conservatives who want to burn books, etc. etc. hmmm. that's starters, anyway.
i could spend the day running around some shitty paper's offices, the daily breeze, say, writing copy for local cake bakers, and still feel more fulfilled than i do now. i am too young for this shit. and too old, really. it's like julie powell wrote in 'julie/julia', about how for someone like her, and me, the options were either to spend her twenties working ridiculous hours at some soulless bigshot corporation, snorting coke and explosively fucking a variety of rich men, or living in a loft somewhere, making self-centered bullshit, calling it art, making lots of money, getting high, and explosively fucking a variety of slightly smellier rich men, but somehow she ended up married at 24, working as a temp til she was thirty, waiting for her ship to come the fuck in. jesus. i get no big-shot or artistic job and no explosive fucking. i may not be a temp, yet, but by golly do i relate to that girl.
why, life, do we only get answers once we no longer have need of them? what good is it going to do me to look back at my life in ten years and go, duhhhh, clearly that's what i needed to do (and hopefully i'll have done the right thing)? le sigh. it's back to craigslist for me, looking for a new job when what i need is a goddamned clue.
my life, my twenty four year old life, is like a hobo in tatters on the street corner, begging with tears in his eyes for change. while i have never been one to deny a hobo change, in fact being the sort of person who, if ever a hobo directed his tear-filled eyes at me, would give him every penny i had on me and maybe some jewelry too, despite the fact that costume jewelry and sterling silver probably wouldn't be too much help to a hobo, it is much, much harder to provide change for my own sad annoying little life.
in many ways, it has been like this ever since graduation. life after college is like hitting pause during a movie just as it was getting good- if you're anything like me, anyway. i studied history, i wrote a lot of papers, i enjoyed the hell out of learning stuff, and only occasionally, in moments of existential panic, worried about finding a career, much less a job, when the inevitable end came. history! no wonder my parents glower accusingly at me whenever talk of my college days come up. if it were up to them, i'd be in law school, having done pre-law, or med school, having done pre-med, or engineering, or computer science, or something ANYTHING useful and applicable to the real world. bastards. instead, here i am, 24, a smart kid, no doubt about it, lacking any useful knowledge or experience, incapable of imagining a day when going to work doesn't feel like a march towards the gallows, living at home again, suffocating.
i'm pretty sure that i'm actually chock-full of useful skills that have just never really had cause to see the light of day. i'm a good writer, this whiny, depressive blog aside, i am a terribly quick learner. being a virgo, i am in possession of an attention to detail that is almost a medical illness, it's so intense. being a hideously impatient person (except for when it counts, natch), i am efficient in whatever task i am assigned. i have customer service skills oozing out of every orifice, practically, i worked so long in retail (customer service skills being the ability to grin and bear it, and to say "have a nice day" in such a way that the recipient of this cheerful phrase understands it only subconsciously as "die in a thousand flaming fires"). i can talk to almost anyone, and be jovial, and make friends, to which my unlikely friendship with the jehova's witness girl at work can attest. i like to be busy, do well in high-stress situations, can speak three different languages, type reasonably fast, am ridiculously well-read for my age group, anyway, have opinions about almost everything, and a brain like a rusty steel trap, that gleans and synthesizes information from every angle. so what exactly is the problem here??
shitty economy aside, that is. useless degree aside also, that is. i should be working at something that involves brainpower and creativity. i should spend my days if not improving the human condition then at least feeling useful, like i contribute something good to the world, something amusing or informative or inspiring in some way. i should be surrounded by people with whom i have things in common! god, the idea of a job where i get to talk to adults all day long seems so far-off and unreachable. where would i like to work? i don't even know. yes, that is a lie. for started anyway, to get experience and contribute to something i enjoy fiercely, i would like to write. like for an independent newspaper, something like the l.a. weekly or something. i'd kill- KILL- to work at pixar. because, ok, they make children's movies. but they are children's movies that i LOVE love love love with a love that is more than love. pixar studios makes art, beautiful, accessible, art that makes me- and lots of other people- happy. if it meant i spent the day sharpening pencils for john lasseter, i would work at pixar and be happy as a clam in delicious delicious chowder. i would love to work in a library, the whole no library-science degree having aspect of myself aside, because i love libraries, love books, love people who read, and can spend a day happily wandering around organizing books, ordering books, recommending books, pointing a shotgun at conservatives who want to burn books, etc. etc. hmmm. that's starters, anyway.
i could spend the day running around some shitty paper's offices, the daily breeze, say, writing copy for local cake bakers, and still feel more fulfilled than i do now. i am too young for this shit. and too old, really. it's like julie powell wrote in 'julie/julia', about how for someone like her, and me, the options were either to spend her twenties working ridiculous hours at some soulless bigshot corporation, snorting coke and explosively fucking a variety of rich men, or living in a loft somewhere, making self-centered bullshit, calling it art, making lots of money, getting high, and explosively fucking a variety of slightly smellier rich men, but somehow she ended up married at 24, working as a temp til she was thirty, waiting for her ship to come the fuck in. jesus. i get no big-shot or artistic job and no explosive fucking. i may not be a temp, yet, but by golly do i relate to that girl.
why, life, do we only get answers once we no longer have need of them? what good is it going to do me to look back at my life in ten years and go, duhhhh, clearly that's what i needed to do (and hopefully i'll have done the right thing)? le sigh. it's back to craigslist for me, looking for a new job when what i need is a goddamned clue.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
little expressionless animals
we were not meant to be. you and i, man and woman. i'm beginning to think that we don't even qualify as the same species, boys, except for the fact that we can reproduce with each other and in fact, must reproduce with each other if we are to reproduce at all- a cruel joke, that kind of dependency. it's truly a tragedy that men will never know what it feels like to be women, but i am certain that the reverse is not true: for a woman to step into a man's shoes is like a whale reverting back to its land form, a devolution of sorts. it would be like having gone from having human vision, in full color with cones and rods, to seeing the world in only sepia or gray tones, like some lesser creature than a dog or a pig. a millipede, maybe, some ugly, earth-tunneling, poisonous thing driven entirely by instinct and without capacity for higher things.
does it sound like i hate men? i only wish i did. mostly i am boggled by them, these hairy beasts that consume so much of my time and energy and sanity. i am boggled that i am expected by nature to associate with them, to spend time with them, have babies with them, depend on them, when i can't for the life of me begin to understand them or connect with them on any meaningful level. we are nothing alike, men and women. the basic facts of us can be the same, biologically and otherwise, meaning that on paper we might be a lot alike, but when you get down into it and can see this thing eye to eye, it is a totally fucked situation. i feel things. my actions are driven as much by my feelings as by my rational mind. men, sweet and lovely though they may pretend to be, do not feel things, and if they do feel things at all, it is negligible compared to the depth and breadth of my feelings, the feelings that all of my sex are more than capable of.
how is it that men have written the vastly larger part of our human cannon of love poetry and love stories and love songs? men, i am convinced, do not know what it is to love. when i love, when i care, like all the women i know, i do it wholeheartedly. lover, i think about you all the time, i think about how to make you happy, how you've made me happy, all those things which are specific to you that i enjoy and delight in. it's not obsession, this, it's just what it is for a woman to be in love: her lover is present to her even when he is not physically present. man, on the other hand, does not remember that woman exists unless she is in front of him, preferably naked, preferably prostrate- and if a thought of her flickers in his mind while she is not present, it is this tableau that it features, and is caused only because he is physically desirous of her physical presence and the opportunities it would present.
by virtue of our being carbon-based dna-replication machines, sex is important, i get it. sex is great, sex is fun and fantastic, etc. etc. sex is why we exist, as in: we wouldn't exist without it, and we exist so that we might do it, frequently, and make babies, etc. etc. sex boggles, because why should the two halves of the species interpret the goddamned thing so differently? physical intimacy is nothing like the real thing- a thing i am beginning to doubt actually exists at all- but god doesn't it feel like it? in these sexually liberated times of ours, the womanly tendency to develop feelings out of what is ostensbily purely sexual interaction is a highly ridiculed institution, but why should it be? because i woman, feel close to you, man, because i have opened myself up for our mutual pleasure, because i have committed with you an act of supreme closeness- allowing part of you to enter me, risking pregnancy by you, risking disease from you, whatever precautions we might take- because my feelings (chemically mandated, affected also in part by society, which you, my pigman, have controlled and shaped) elevate this act of biology to something higher, consciously or not, and because to you it is a mere scratching of an itch, an urge on par with passing gas, why should my attitude be ridiculed and your baseness go unnoticed?
you, man, are not evolved highly enough to deserve a crumb of attention from even the stupidest, basest, emotional void of a woman, because even she is capable of a tenderness that you could never recognize or appreciate, much less replicate.
the crux of the matter is our lack of control. why should we think about you, why should we pine for you, why should we waste one breath cursing your name, knowing what we do- that you aren't thinking about us, that we don't exist to you the way nothing exists to a cow in the field besides the grass and the dirt, certainly not the sky or the birds or the god of love or anything that isn't grass and dirt and shit? we shouldn't, but we certainly can't help that we do. beyond you we may be, but not beyond these damnable laws of nature that wired our chemistry to respond to yours, to desire yours, to transmute basic chemical signals into ridiculously overwrought symphonic orchestras of feelings and thoughts. ridiculously out of proportion, that is, ridiculously wasted. a shame, really.
does it sound like i hate men? i only wish i did. mostly i am boggled by them, these hairy beasts that consume so much of my time and energy and sanity. i am boggled that i am expected by nature to associate with them, to spend time with them, have babies with them, depend on them, when i can't for the life of me begin to understand them or connect with them on any meaningful level. we are nothing alike, men and women. the basic facts of us can be the same, biologically and otherwise, meaning that on paper we might be a lot alike, but when you get down into it and can see this thing eye to eye, it is a totally fucked situation. i feel things. my actions are driven as much by my feelings as by my rational mind. men, sweet and lovely though they may pretend to be, do not feel things, and if they do feel things at all, it is negligible compared to the depth and breadth of my feelings, the feelings that all of my sex are more than capable of.
how is it that men have written the vastly larger part of our human cannon of love poetry and love stories and love songs? men, i am convinced, do not know what it is to love. when i love, when i care, like all the women i know, i do it wholeheartedly. lover, i think about you all the time, i think about how to make you happy, how you've made me happy, all those things which are specific to you that i enjoy and delight in. it's not obsession, this, it's just what it is for a woman to be in love: her lover is present to her even when he is not physically present. man, on the other hand, does not remember that woman exists unless she is in front of him, preferably naked, preferably prostrate- and if a thought of her flickers in his mind while she is not present, it is this tableau that it features, and is caused only because he is physically desirous of her physical presence and the opportunities it would present.
by virtue of our being carbon-based dna-replication machines, sex is important, i get it. sex is great, sex is fun and fantastic, etc. etc. sex is why we exist, as in: we wouldn't exist without it, and we exist so that we might do it, frequently, and make babies, etc. etc. sex boggles, because why should the two halves of the species interpret the goddamned thing so differently? physical intimacy is nothing like the real thing- a thing i am beginning to doubt actually exists at all- but god doesn't it feel like it? in these sexually liberated times of ours, the womanly tendency to develop feelings out of what is ostensbily purely sexual interaction is a highly ridiculed institution, but why should it be? because i woman, feel close to you, man, because i have opened myself up for our mutual pleasure, because i have committed with you an act of supreme closeness- allowing part of you to enter me, risking pregnancy by you, risking disease from you, whatever precautions we might take- because my feelings (chemically mandated, affected also in part by society, which you, my pigman, have controlled and shaped) elevate this act of biology to something higher, consciously or not, and because to you it is a mere scratching of an itch, an urge on par with passing gas, why should my attitude be ridiculed and your baseness go unnoticed?
you, man, are not evolved highly enough to deserve a crumb of attention from even the stupidest, basest, emotional void of a woman, because even she is capable of a tenderness that you could never recognize or appreciate, much less replicate.
the crux of the matter is our lack of control. why should we think about you, why should we pine for you, why should we waste one breath cursing your name, knowing what we do- that you aren't thinking about us, that we don't exist to you the way nothing exists to a cow in the field besides the grass and the dirt, certainly not the sky or the birds or the god of love or anything that isn't grass and dirt and shit? we shouldn't, but we certainly can't help that we do. beyond you we may be, but not beyond these damnable laws of nature that wired our chemistry to respond to yours, to desire yours, to transmute basic chemical signals into ridiculously overwrought symphonic orchestras of feelings and thoughts. ridiculously out of proportion, that is, ridiculously wasted. a shame, really.
Monday, March 23, 2009
he became an outlaw out of desperation
fredrick is nine years old. he loves his mom, and reading, and when he plays basketball with his friends, he's more often than not the only one who makes a basket. he gets good grades in school, is well-liked by his peers, and is generally a good kid. he's also in love with his t.a., that lucky girl being me, and he likes to show it by taking her stuff and running away, and kissing her hand after pretending he's going to bite her. this basic description, infatuation aside, works for pretty much all my kids, give or take some love of reading or mad basketball skillz.
this week we've just started parent conferences, and i must admit that it's all got me quite worried. because i think ahead, and i can't help but fast forward to three and four years from now when my kids enter their preteens and middle school... and eventually high school, and all the madness that entails. and ok, so i'm not their parents or even their actual teacher, but i do spend several hours a day with them and am involved in the primary activity of their lives right now, that being going to school. and even then, it goes beyond them and what i worry about is all kids going to school now and all the kids i went to school with and just everything, because what can i say, i'm a virgo and worrying is what i do.
it struck me today, when i was tickling him in order to get my badge back, the way he was giggling, openly and like a child, and the way he talked to me after the tickling was done, like a playful but mature little person, which is what he is- it struck me that depending on circumstances entirely beyond his and my control, in a few years he could be a very different person with a very different attitude and on a very different track from the one he's on now. our school is a good school, fairly small and run with an orderliness and insularity that make it feel like the tiny village schools of old (or so i imagine, never having lived in a tiny village of old). when they leave our school, or even next year, when they go into fourth grade and are stuck in much larger classes, budget cuts being what they are, what effect is that going to have on these kids? i think f is lucky because his mother is very involved in his schooling, but at the same time he has another set of circumstances stacked against him, the worst one being that he doesn't live in the same district as the rest of the kids, he lives in what is colloquially known as "the jungle" or compton. and compton is bad. compton is like, gang central, where drive-bys and drug busts are as commonplace as farmer's markets and neighborhood watch in other cities.
so every year, his mom applies for a permit from compton school district so that he can keep going to ramona, because she works nearby and it's a better fit all around. and eventually, she's going to have trouble getting that permit, as compton becomes loathe to lose students from their (seriously overcrowded, seriously underfunded) public schools, the main problems being the middle and high school. and ok, stereotypes are not reality, but they do have a basis in some reality, but what i can't help imagine is this: he has to go to middle or high school in compton. he becomes aware that being a good student and loving your mom are not what make a 12 year old black boy "cool" at cms. he ceases to be a good student, or if he doesn't, he has a hard time socially. he wouldn't even necessarily have to go to school in compton to have problems: ramona is in the same district as one of the worst high schools in the south bay. do kids succeed at these schools, somehow? yeah, they can. but for the most part, and i can say this because i saw it happen to kids i went to elementary and middle school with, going to a bad school is usually bad news. ok, somehow this discussion with myself has become derailed.
our first conference of the week today was with the mother of one of our language students- she's part of a program for children who started school as non-english speakers. her mother, sweet woman, doesn't speak a damn word of english. but she's a good mom, and she does what she can within her limitations. because s is having trouble with reading comprehension, mom reads to her and with her in spanish every night, and works out questions with her on the stories they're reading. ok. so right now, s is in a small class, with kids she's known since kinder, and her class is lucky enough to have an aide, so that the ratio of teacher to student can be 2-1. she's also signed up for extra language help for next year, which she'll need just to keep up because her main class will be almost twice the size of the one she's got now. she has certain things stacked against her, and she's got other things to her favor- things mainly due to the quality of our school. when she goes to middle school, she certainly will not receive nearly as much individual attention and help, and if her mom doesn't pick up some english quick, well that won't help either. it's like a race, almost, to give her the skills she needs now, before we send her out into an indifferent and puzzling world. again, i know there's a point somewhere.
the point is: kids today have a lot of chips stacked against them. good kids, with loving parents, can still get lost in the ridiculous excess of factors influencing their survival, their success, in our school system. well, duh. but working these conferences makes it heartbreakingly apparent, and that's without my elaborate projections into the future. it makes me want to do an obama and get up in front of our class and remind them of their civic and moral imperative to succeed, as blacks and latinos and students in california, nay, LOS ANGELES, the world capital of bad schools. i see it at work with f sometimes, that peer pressure to act like a little jerk who doesn't care about the rules or civility, and it makes me crazy because he's such a smart little guy and he totally knows better, but who the hell can resist peer pressure from time to time? it's a pervasive evil, and it'll be worse when they get to a school where the teachers don't care to or can't correct that behavior. not that i'm the picture of rule-following and tractability, but my rebellions didn't get in the way of learning or even of my education, extra-curricular though the main of it might have been.
another thing that strikes me up and down every time i see it are parents who don't speak one damn word of english! and if we are to be holistic about it, i know why that happens of course: you are a recent immigrant, you and your partner, if you aren't a single parent, are working long hours at shitty jobs just to keep your family afloat. if your community offers esl classes, you either can't make them because you're working or because you're overworked and you've still got a home to order. also consider that english is a damn hard language if you're not a kid, even if you are but everyone knows it's harder for adults to learn a new language than a child, something about mental flexibility or whatnot. but still. that sucks! your kid is disadvantaged one, because she's going into school without speaking the primary language of her educators and her peers, and two, because she needs to in order to move up, get her basics down, and survive! not only will school be harder because she can't communicate as easily as she should, but she also can't really count on your help at home, with homework or language development or anything. it's absolutely, one hundred percent essential that you speak english, if you've got school-age kids- and even if you don't. period. i don't understand all the pseudo-political bullshit uproar about it, people talking about "preserving cultures" or whatever the fuck. you can take it up the ass and refuse, or you fucking do what you need to do to survive and help your kids to thrive in this new world you've found for them. s's mom wants to learn, she told me so herself today, but finds it hard and embarrassing because, well, it is hard and embarrassing. some of the other parents are perfectly content to speak spanish and watch their kids flounder in school, not understanding that the whole "a better life for my family" thing pretty much goes down the drain when the kids can't do well in school.
i worry that i'm not expressing my point as well as i could. but if that is so, it's because my worries, such as they are, are vague and undefined and all-encompassing. i want these kids to do well, and i want to work with people who want these kids to do well, and i want to live in a country where education is important, and schools get more money than prisons and bullshit, and i just want a whole lot of things that aren't going to happen in the forseeable future because it would take a massive, ridiculous paradigm shift to even set the momentous changes they would require to function, over a very long term, in motion. and now i have a headache.
this week we've just started parent conferences, and i must admit that it's all got me quite worried. because i think ahead, and i can't help but fast forward to three and four years from now when my kids enter their preteens and middle school... and eventually high school, and all the madness that entails. and ok, so i'm not their parents or even their actual teacher, but i do spend several hours a day with them and am involved in the primary activity of their lives right now, that being going to school. and even then, it goes beyond them and what i worry about is all kids going to school now and all the kids i went to school with and just everything, because what can i say, i'm a virgo and worrying is what i do.
it struck me today, when i was tickling him in order to get my badge back, the way he was giggling, openly and like a child, and the way he talked to me after the tickling was done, like a playful but mature little person, which is what he is- it struck me that depending on circumstances entirely beyond his and my control, in a few years he could be a very different person with a very different attitude and on a very different track from the one he's on now. our school is a good school, fairly small and run with an orderliness and insularity that make it feel like the tiny village schools of old (or so i imagine, never having lived in a tiny village of old). when they leave our school, or even next year, when they go into fourth grade and are stuck in much larger classes, budget cuts being what they are, what effect is that going to have on these kids? i think f is lucky because his mother is very involved in his schooling, but at the same time he has another set of circumstances stacked against him, the worst one being that he doesn't live in the same district as the rest of the kids, he lives in what is colloquially known as "the jungle" or compton. and compton is bad. compton is like, gang central, where drive-bys and drug busts are as commonplace as farmer's markets and neighborhood watch in other cities.
so every year, his mom applies for a permit from compton school district so that he can keep going to ramona, because she works nearby and it's a better fit all around. and eventually, she's going to have trouble getting that permit, as compton becomes loathe to lose students from their (seriously overcrowded, seriously underfunded) public schools, the main problems being the middle and high school. and ok, stereotypes are not reality, but they do have a basis in some reality, but what i can't help imagine is this: he has to go to middle or high school in compton. he becomes aware that being a good student and loving your mom are not what make a 12 year old black boy "cool" at cms. he ceases to be a good student, or if he doesn't, he has a hard time socially. he wouldn't even necessarily have to go to school in compton to have problems: ramona is in the same district as one of the worst high schools in the south bay. do kids succeed at these schools, somehow? yeah, they can. but for the most part, and i can say this because i saw it happen to kids i went to elementary and middle school with, going to a bad school is usually bad news. ok, somehow this discussion with myself has become derailed.
our first conference of the week today was with the mother of one of our language students- she's part of a program for children who started school as non-english speakers. her mother, sweet woman, doesn't speak a damn word of english. but she's a good mom, and she does what she can within her limitations. because s is having trouble with reading comprehension, mom reads to her and with her in spanish every night, and works out questions with her on the stories they're reading. ok. so right now, s is in a small class, with kids she's known since kinder, and her class is lucky enough to have an aide, so that the ratio of teacher to student can be 2-1. she's also signed up for extra language help for next year, which she'll need just to keep up because her main class will be almost twice the size of the one she's got now. she has certain things stacked against her, and she's got other things to her favor- things mainly due to the quality of our school. when she goes to middle school, she certainly will not receive nearly as much individual attention and help, and if her mom doesn't pick up some english quick, well that won't help either. it's like a race, almost, to give her the skills she needs now, before we send her out into an indifferent and puzzling world. again, i know there's a point somewhere.
the point is: kids today have a lot of chips stacked against them. good kids, with loving parents, can still get lost in the ridiculous excess of factors influencing their survival, their success, in our school system. well, duh. but working these conferences makes it heartbreakingly apparent, and that's without my elaborate projections into the future. it makes me want to do an obama and get up in front of our class and remind them of their civic and moral imperative to succeed, as blacks and latinos and students in california, nay, LOS ANGELES, the world capital of bad schools. i see it at work with f sometimes, that peer pressure to act like a little jerk who doesn't care about the rules or civility, and it makes me crazy because he's such a smart little guy and he totally knows better, but who the hell can resist peer pressure from time to time? it's a pervasive evil, and it'll be worse when they get to a school where the teachers don't care to or can't correct that behavior. not that i'm the picture of rule-following and tractability, but my rebellions didn't get in the way of learning or even of my education, extra-curricular though the main of it might have been.
another thing that strikes me up and down every time i see it are parents who don't speak one damn word of english! and if we are to be holistic about it, i know why that happens of course: you are a recent immigrant, you and your partner, if you aren't a single parent, are working long hours at shitty jobs just to keep your family afloat. if your community offers esl classes, you either can't make them because you're working or because you're overworked and you've still got a home to order. also consider that english is a damn hard language if you're not a kid, even if you are but everyone knows it's harder for adults to learn a new language than a child, something about mental flexibility or whatnot. but still. that sucks! your kid is disadvantaged one, because she's going into school without speaking the primary language of her educators and her peers, and two, because she needs to in order to move up, get her basics down, and survive! not only will school be harder because she can't communicate as easily as she should, but she also can't really count on your help at home, with homework or language development or anything. it's absolutely, one hundred percent essential that you speak english, if you've got school-age kids- and even if you don't. period. i don't understand all the pseudo-political bullshit uproar about it, people talking about "preserving cultures" or whatever the fuck. you can take it up the ass and refuse, or you fucking do what you need to do to survive and help your kids to thrive in this new world you've found for them. s's mom wants to learn, she told me so herself today, but finds it hard and embarrassing because, well, it is hard and embarrassing. some of the other parents are perfectly content to speak spanish and watch their kids flounder in school, not understanding that the whole "a better life for my family" thing pretty much goes down the drain when the kids can't do well in school.
i worry that i'm not expressing my point as well as i could. but if that is so, it's because my worries, such as they are, are vague and undefined and all-encompassing. i want these kids to do well, and i want to work with people who want these kids to do well, and i want to live in a country where education is important, and schools get more money than prisons and bullshit, and i just want a whole lot of things that aren't going to happen in the forseeable future because it would take a massive, ridiculous paradigm shift to even set the momentous changes they would require to function, over a very long term, in motion. and now i have a headache.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
deseos de cosas imposibles
jake, my sweet, my darling, jake was nothing like "didi" and i am utterly bemused as to why i was recommended that strange book "about" grieving when it is not about grieving at all. but then, nothing really is, nothing's accurate when it comes to that.
when he died, i thought i would cry forever, until the dessicated tissues of my body just scattered with a strong wind and i wouldn't have to feel so sad because i couldn't feel anything at all anymore. before he died, before i the possibility of him dying ever occured to me- back when death was a remote thing that happened to other people- it was a movie-image that came to me when i thought of mourning someone's death: you sob in a dark room for weeks, and refuse food, and sit about prettily disheveled and just deeply, deeply sad until one day a ray of sunlight pierces the fog and you begin to move on again, slowly but surely. like everything else, it has been nothing like the movies.
some days are harder than others. there is constancy, of course, i think about him every single day and miss him whenever i think about him. but in other ways, it is always surprising: i'll be driving and an image of his smile flashes into my mind and the next thing i know, i'm sobbing into the steering wheel and cursing the universe and just totally fucked for the rest of the day at work, having to pretend to be cheerful and attentive with tears waiting just below the surface to be loosed. a few days ago, i was air-guitaring in the shower when the song changed, and the next song was a sweet old love song and i crumpled to the shower floor, completely overcome with the memory of meeting him for the first time and knowing from that moment on that i was screwed when it came to him, that i was going to be damn crazy about him, that probably i already was.
it sucks because it's always there, this misery of longing and of not understanding and of feeling, at every moment, that something very important is missing from me. it sucks that i can't talk to anyone about it, that if people knew i was here now, crying and writing about him, they'd worry for my mental health but the thing is, how else should it be, how else could it possibly be? he is the only one who could really comfort me, but the reason i need comfort is that he is dead. beyond my best friend, beyond my sisters or anyone else, he was the one i wanted whenever i was upset or angry or happy or anything- if happy, it wouldn't be complete unless he could share in it and validate it, if upset, only he could make it better, even if he didn't know what to say or what the hell i was talking about. everything was better just because i could hear his voice, or feel his arms around me, because i knew he was there and he loved me. for whatever reason, without knowing what i was doing, i chose him and now that he's gone i can't unchoose him; he is still the one i want, and he is the one thing i can't have, and what kind of bullshit is that?
the first time i got high, at his gentle but insistent pressure, i puked all over his bathroom. then i made him clean it up, and after he did that, he sat on the bathroom floor and looked at me wonderingly, trying to figure out what was going on in my mind. i couldn't talk, only sit there and trip out, wide-eyed, but we didn't need to talk to understand each other, and once i brushed my teeth- with his toothbrush?- we stumbled out to the couch where we sat under the electric blanket, holding each other, and not really talking at all but mumbling jibberish periodically and feeling very together. if i'm crazy normally, what am i when i'm drunk and high? but he was good at calming me down, about anything really, and he was good at finding just the right position to tuck my head under his chin and wrap his arms around me and make the world feel like a very peaceful place indeed.
on my way to shop for groceries today, my ipod shuffled to an old ryan adams song, "when the stars go blue," and i flashed back to the first time i played that song for him: early on a friday morning, we had gone to the big downtown theater to watch an animated movie about a monster house. i snuck up and scared him before we went in, and he jumped three feet in the air and kind of hit me accidentally-on-purpose, because while he looooved jumping out at me from behind things, he didn't like to have it done to him. we both got dizzy with the 3-d glasses and he offered to share his contraband pop-tarts with me. when the movie was done, we decided to grab a bite to eat and while burgers and fries would have done just as well, i decided we needed mediterranean food, and the only place i knew of was in ventura, about an hour away. long story short, we got there and the restaurant didn't open for another four hours and naturally, we were starved because what the hell kind of a breakfast is one pop-tart each. so we had sandwiches at this weird place where the decor was all frog-related, and then we browsed at a record store where i bought a huge poster of a flying, naked art nouveau girl with a bicycle, and then we headed home. the traffic back was wretched, and we were stuck for about two hours, moving at like, 5 mph. so i played some of my favorite songs for him, starting with "to be young (is to be sad, is to be high)," which he loved and reminded him of a "young bob dylan." when he got to pick, his first choice was naturally "political scientists", by which if i recall correctly he was unimpressed, as it is not actually a political song in the least. it was a warm day, and we were full and sleepy, and we worked our way all over r.a.'s catalog haphazardly and smoked cigarettes which we put out in a half-full bottle of sobe tea so that the situation in my car was pretty stinky and yet i recall it so clearly and so fondly. and just as we were getting into i.v., hours after we'd assumed we'd be back, i picked "when the stars go blue" and went into raptures about it, and he listened attentively, and it wasn't til we were talking later after he'd downloaded some ryan adams for himself that i learned he thought that song was dreadfully boring and unimpressive. we never did have much in common, i guess, but goddamn if that stopped us from getting along like a house on fire.
i remember a lot of things involving him with almost frightening clarity and detail. normally, this would make me feel paranoid and insane, but i know that he remembered stuff involving me in much the same way. our last night in i.v., being deliberately obtuse, i claimed not to remember a certain night he mentioned, one we spent kissing in his bedroom which was my way of comforting him over the beating his favorite team had taken in a playoff game earlier that day. he wouldn't stand for my professed amnesia, and reminded me of the details of that night until i suddenly "remembered" and only then was he satisfied. so i may be crazy, about him, but i think he was crazy about me too. and speaking of kissing, i came across one of his protest pictures yesterday where he had duct tape over his mouth, and one of his friends commented "ahaha this is ironic because nothing in the world could silence jake" but the thing is i could silence him quite easily, he was actually rather loathe to talk about anything, come george bush or high water, when he could be kissing me instead and goddamn but don't i miss those kisses.
i miss his kisses and his bird-lips and his blond stubble and his mole. i miss his arms and his neck and his chest and his legs, one of which he slung over mine whenever we watched a movie together, alone in the dark. i miss his eyes and all the different expressions they could project, and his eyebrows and the way one was always raised at me. i miss his hands and the way he would sigh whenever, at the end of a long night, he would sink down next to me and take my hand in his. i miss the way he smelled and the way he talked and the way he laughed and the way he smiled. i miss his crazy huge t-shirts with their silly slogans, and his black sweatshirt that smelled like pee when he bought it for like three dollars. i miss his goofy screen names and his random calls and the way he said my name, especially when i asked him to so he'd say it all slow and smiling. i miss the faces he made while he played his guitar and i miss watching him eat cereal and i miss the way he said "horchata." i miss being angry at him and waiting for his calls and raving about him to anyone who would listen. i miss eating in n out with him in my car at the beach and i miss smoking cigarettes with him and i miss the disgusting drink recipes he would come up with for me and i miss all his peculiar hand gestures. i miss being able to call him and ask stupid hypothetical questions, like when i was struck by the desperate need mankind has for flying cars and he smilingly suggested that i probably wouldn't get one in our lifetime unless i invented it myself. i miss taking him grocery shopping, and taking him to the doctors, and i miss going out with him for ice cream afterwards and i miss making him finish mine because ice cream is so boring to me.
i miss him. i miss him so fucking incredibly much i almost can't believe it myself. i miss him every moment of every day, and some moments i miss him so much i can't breathe because it hurts so much. i look around sometimes and am surprised that green things are still growing like they've always done, and the earth is still going around the sun, and no one else seems to feel what i feel, a sense of loss so huge that it should throw off the balance of nature and the orbit of all the planets and everything. i wonder if i'm ever going to love anyone like this again, whether anyone has loved anyone like this before, whether i'll ever love anyone at all, even a little because when i'm sixty i'll still be loving him with most of my heart. it's stupid and it's cliche and it's just the truth that sometimes, if i'm sitting still and missing him intensely, every heartbeat seems to say his name "jakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejake" and all i want to do is turn to the nearest unfortunate person and let it all out, say "i miss him i love him i miss him." but i don't, instead i sit there silently and fight back tears and hate everything and everyone for how completely it and he is not jake. my jake. when i wrote, i seem to spend my life missing you!, i did not realize the kind of violence and misery i was in for. ah life.
when he died, i thought i would cry forever, until the dessicated tissues of my body just scattered with a strong wind and i wouldn't have to feel so sad because i couldn't feel anything at all anymore. before he died, before i the possibility of him dying ever occured to me- back when death was a remote thing that happened to other people- it was a movie-image that came to me when i thought of mourning someone's death: you sob in a dark room for weeks, and refuse food, and sit about prettily disheveled and just deeply, deeply sad until one day a ray of sunlight pierces the fog and you begin to move on again, slowly but surely. like everything else, it has been nothing like the movies.
some days are harder than others. there is constancy, of course, i think about him every single day and miss him whenever i think about him. but in other ways, it is always surprising: i'll be driving and an image of his smile flashes into my mind and the next thing i know, i'm sobbing into the steering wheel and cursing the universe and just totally fucked for the rest of the day at work, having to pretend to be cheerful and attentive with tears waiting just below the surface to be loosed. a few days ago, i was air-guitaring in the shower when the song changed, and the next song was a sweet old love song and i crumpled to the shower floor, completely overcome with the memory of meeting him for the first time and knowing from that moment on that i was screwed when it came to him, that i was going to be damn crazy about him, that probably i already was.
it sucks because it's always there, this misery of longing and of not understanding and of feeling, at every moment, that something very important is missing from me. it sucks that i can't talk to anyone about it, that if people knew i was here now, crying and writing about him, they'd worry for my mental health but the thing is, how else should it be, how else could it possibly be? he is the only one who could really comfort me, but the reason i need comfort is that he is dead. beyond my best friend, beyond my sisters or anyone else, he was the one i wanted whenever i was upset or angry or happy or anything- if happy, it wouldn't be complete unless he could share in it and validate it, if upset, only he could make it better, even if he didn't know what to say or what the hell i was talking about. everything was better just because i could hear his voice, or feel his arms around me, because i knew he was there and he loved me. for whatever reason, without knowing what i was doing, i chose him and now that he's gone i can't unchoose him; he is still the one i want, and he is the one thing i can't have, and what kind of bullshit is that?
the first time i got high, at his gentle but insistent pressure, i puked all over his bathroom. then i made him clean it up, and after he did that, he sat on the bathroom floor and looked at me wonderingly, trying to figure out what was going on in my mind. i couldn't talk, only sit there and trip out, wide-eyed, but we didn't need to talk to understand each other, and once i brushed my teeth- with his toothbrush?- we stumbled out to the couch where we sat under the electric blanket, holding each other, and not really talking at all but mumbling jibberish periodically and feeling very together. if i'm crazy normally, what am i when i'm drunk and high? but he was good at calming me down, about anything really, and he was good at finding just the right position to tuck my head under his chin and wrap his arms around me and make the world feel like a very peaceful place indeed.
on my way to shop for groceries today, my ipod shuffled to an old ryan adams song, "when the stars go blue," and i flashed back to the first time i played that song for him: early on a friday morning, we had gone to the big downtown theater to watch an animated movie about a monster house. i snuck up and scared him before we went in, and he jumped three feet in the air and kind of hit me accidentally-on-purpose, because while he looooved jumping out at me from behind things, he didn't like to have it done to him. we both got dizzy with the 3-d glasses and he offered to share his contraband pop-tarts with me. when the movie was done, we decided to grab a bite to eat and while burgers and fries would have done just as well, i decided we needed mediterranean food, and the only place i knew of was in ventura, about an hour away. long story short, we got there and the restaurant didn't open for another four hours and naturally, we were starved because what the hell kind of a breakfast is one pop-tart each. so we had sandwiches at this weird place where the decor was all frog-related, and then we browsed at a record store where i bought a huge poster of a flying, naked art nouveau girl with a bicycle, and then we headed home. the traffic back was wretched, and we were stuck for about two hours, moving at like, 5 mph. so i played some of my favorite songs for him, starting with "to be young (is to be sad, is to be high)," which he loved and reminded him of a "young bob dylan." when he got to pick, his first choice was naturally "political scientists", by which if i recall correctly he was unimpressed, as it is not actually a political song in the least. it was a warm day, and we were full and sleepy, and we worked our way all over r.a.'s catalog haphazardly and smoked cigarettes which we put out in a half-full bottle of sobe tea so that the situation in my car was pretty stinky and yet i recall it so clearly and so fondly. and just as we were getting into i.v., hours after we'd assumed we'd be back, i picked "when the stars go blue" and went into raptures about it, and he listened attentively, and it wasn't til we were talking later after he'd downloaded some ryan adams for himself that i learned he thought that song was dreadfully boring and unimpressive. we never did have much in common, i guess, but goddamn if that stopped us from getting along like a house on fire.
i remember a lot of things involving him with almost frightening clarity and detail. normally, this would make me feel paranoid and insane, but i know that he remembered stuff involving me in much the same way. our last night in i.v., being deliberately obtuse, i claimed not to remember a certain night he mentioned, one we spent kissing in his bedroom which was my way of comforting him over the beating his favorite team had taken in a playoff game earlier that day. he wouldn't stand for my professed amnesia, and reminded me of the details of that night until i suddenly "remembered" and only then was he satisfied. so i may be crazy, about him, but i think he was crazy about me too. and speaking of kissing, i came across one of his protest pictures yesterday where he had duct tape over his mouth, and one of his friends commented "ahaha this is ironic because nothing in the world could silence jake" but the thing is i could silence him quite easily, he was actually rather loathe to talk about anything, come george bush or high water, when he could be kissing me instead and goddamn but don't i miss those kisses.
i miss his kisses and his bird-lips and his blond stubble and his mole. i miss his arms and his neck and his chest and his legs, one of which he slung over mine whenever we watched a movie together, alone in the dark. i miss his eyes and all the different expressions they could project, and his eyebrows and the way one was always raised at me. i miss his hands and the way he would sigh whenever, at the end of a long night, he would sink down next to me and take my hand in his. i miss the way he smelled and the way he talked and the way he laughed and the way he smiled. i miss his crazy huge t-shirts with their silly slogans, and his black sweatshirt that smelled like pee when he bought it for like three dollars. i miss his goofy screen names and his random calls and the way he said my name, especially when i asked him to so he'd say it all slow and smiling. i miss the faces he made while he played his guitar and i miss watching him eat cereal and i miss the way he said "horchata." i miss being angry at him and waiting for his calls and raving about him to anyone who would listen. i miss eating in n out with him in my car at the beach and i miss smoking cigarettes with him and i miss the disgusting drink recipes he would come up with for me and i miss all his peculiar hand gestures. i miss being able to call him and ask stupid hypothetical questions, like when i was struck by the desperate need mankind has for flying cars and he smilingly suggested that i probably wouldn't get one in our lifetime unless i invented it myself. i miss taking him grocery shopping, and taking him to the doctors, and i miss going out with him for ice cream afterwards and i miss making him finish mine because ice cream is so boring to me.
i miss him. i miss him so fucking incredibly much i almost can't believe it myself. i miss him every moment of every day, and some moments i miss him so much i can't breathe because it hurts so much. i look around sometimes and am surprised that green things are still growing like they've always done, and the earth is still going around the sun, and no one else seems to feel what i feel, a sense of loss so huge that it should throw off the balance of nature and the orbit of all the planets and everything. i wonder if i'm ever going to love anyone like this again, whether anyone has loved anyone like this before, whether i'll ever love anyone at all, even a little because when i'm sixty i'll still be loving him with most of my heart. it's stupid and it's cliche and it's just the truth that sometimes, if i'm sitting still and missing him intensely, every heartbeat seems to say his name "jakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejakejake" and all i want to do is turn to the nearest unfortunate person and let it all out, say "i miss him i love him i miss him." but i don't, instead i sit there silently and fight back tears and hate everything and everyone for how completely it and he is not jake. my jake. when i wrote, i seem to spend my life missing you!, i did not realize the kind of violence and misery i was in for. ah life.
Monday, March 16, 2009
my mind's such a sweet thing
i am not angry because
i refuse to be angry because
i don't have permission to be angry and
i refuse to ask for permission to be angry.
i am frustrated but
more with my self than anything else because
when will i learn to ask or assume
when will i allow myself to have certain rights- like
everyone has the right to be angry because anger doesn't have to be
logical, it doesn't need permission so i guess what i mean is
i am angry
but i'm not sure why and i will never
show it, this anger, because
you don't care.
it's all so fucking unfair and it's
bullshit and it isn't even an option
you aren't even an option and i do
know better, ultimately, but who the hell
listens to me.
and it's rather funny, in it's own way,
that i can't or won't and would never tell
you just like i never told him just like
he never knew and will never know
that despite all the things he knew and really
he knew a lot- well he didn't know
that.
so probably i'll never get it because
i'll never ask for it
from anyone, of anyone, because i do it without
being asked and that is the way
it should be.
i miss him and i love him and i can see what debbie saw as clear
as if i had been there and so in that sense i understand
something i didn't understand before but i still cry
in the shower where i do my remembering
and also when i am less sad i wonder if it's
weird to imagine or for lack of a better word
fantasize about someone you know is, well, dead- because
i do so hate the term "passed away"- and i do so hate that
there are many things we should have done that now
we can never do.
i refuse to be angry because
i don't have permission to be angry and
i refuse to ask for permission to be angry.
i am frustrated but
more with my self than anything else because
when will i learn to ask or assume
when will i allow myself to have certain rights- like
everyone has the right to be angry because anger doesn't have to be
logical, it doesn't need permission so i guess what i mean is
i am angry
but i'm not sure why and i will never
show it, this anger, because
you don't care.
it's all so fucking unfair and it's
bullshit and it isn't even an option
you aren't even an option and i do
know better, ultimately, but who the hell
listens to me.
and it's rather funny, in it's own way,
that i can't or won't and would never tell
you just like i never told him just like
he never knew and will never know
that despite all the things he knew and really
he knew a lot- well he didn't know
that.
so probably i'll never get it because
i'll never ask for it
from anyone, of anyone, because i do it without
being asked and that is the way
it should be.
i miss him and i love him and i can see what debbie saw as clear
as if i had been there and so in that sense i understand
something i didn't understand before but i still cry
in the shower where i do my remembering
and also when i am less sad i wonder if it's
weird to imagine or for lack of a better word
fantasize about someone you know is, well, dead- because
i do so hate the term "passed away"- and i do so hate that
there are many things we should have done that now
we can never do.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
unequivocally
it's a pervasive evil in our society, i think, to be afraid to be miserable. we've got so many different cures and potions and pills and bullshit that it's like sometimes we forget that if things are shitty, it's only natural and right to be downright dog miserable. misery is great. misery writes great songs, it dictates heartbreakingly amazing novels full of truth, it bleeds poetry. misery helps you appreciate a good straight whiskey, and it makes you really sit down and think about what is important to you. if you've never been miserable, if you've never wanted to slit your goddamned throat just to be done with unhappiness, how do you know what it is to be happy, to be glad to be alive? misery an extreme of emotion, and emotion is how you know you're alive.
i am not currently miserable. far from it, actually. but i've been miserable before, and i'll be miserable again. a time will come when all the world could burn in hell and it wouldn't satisfy my misery, my deep-down blood-black depression, the void that opens up for whatever reason- circumstantial or chemical or whatever. life is like, binary, man, and if you're fucking afraid of risking shit because you could fail or because it'll hurt, you'll never really be happy, or succeed, or feel pleasure either. misery, as a wise man once said, is the river of the world. deal with it or get the fuck out, right? easier blogged to no one than advised to your nearest and dearest, stupid though she may be being.
i am not currently miserable. far from it, actually. but i've been miserable before, and i'll be miserable again. a time will come when all the world could burn in hell and it wouldn't satisfy my misery, my deep-down blood-black depression, the void that opens up for whatever reason- circumstantial or chemical or whatever. life is like, binary, man, and if you're fucking afraid of risking shit because you could fail or because it'll hurt, you'll never really be happy, or succeed, or feel pleasure either. misery, as a wise man once said, is the river of the world. deal with it or get the fuck out, right? easier blogged to no one than advised to your nearest and dearest, stupid though she may be being.
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