psychic

Week home at my parents dog sitting.

The principal feeling I have lately is that I have become mush - like no original ideas, no nothing.

As I contemplate if I am in the right relationship, this fear that I will not find a suitable partner because I'm not interesting is paralysing.

I am left to fantasize possible outcomes of my life.
If I go through a break up, I know that I will freak out and need to jump into something else and fast. Maybe all my dreaming of living in Quebec will happen then. Like I will throw myself to the wolves.
The thought of any of that happening seems so out there. Like my apartment is so fixed, pots and pans and papers everywhere held in one place. The though of packing all of it up? But breaking up and having him leave is equally weird. Like it's like the whole valley will remind me of us.

Or

Maybe I should just shut the fuck up?

A week ago, I got too drunk with strangers at a bar, drove home and fell into bed and was half crying saying to remy "c'est toi que je veux". being out there in the jungle made me remember that.

But is that reticence to join the jungle a reason for staying?

Anyway.
Lately I am thinking that anything needs to come out of you. Like what you receive from the world you need to digest and produce some response to it. That is uniquely you. And then, it's not wrong or right, and then you can't be accused of being uninteresting. Because something is coming out of you. The juices seem frozen for me, like I just absorb and absorb. And when I sit down to produce I just draw the same outline of a cat and nothing else comes. Remember when I made myself laugh so much? When I had Matt c. as my muse even though he ignored me I was the funniest gal. And it was all right, it was all me. Now part of this crisis is how remy just makes dick and fart jokes. Like, he makes a parody of someone making dick and fart jokes. But really the person making the joke is him.

Well that is something.

little distracted

cuz I’m listening to Nancy huston talk about her latest novel on radio canada.

looking for a good time to write here, when I’m not numbly parousing facebook for signs of life.

I should recognize that life is here for me if I want it.

I”ll try to give you a run down of news and hopes and thoughts.

Today had to say “no” after much thought to a summer camp job - overnight and french-only. for 5 weeks. for $2000. I had to think about how badly I needed the money. and I thought not that badly.

A part of me wondered though what would single-tami do? Probably yes? probably. But still, there I would be teaching teenagers how to play badminton in french. oh lala. so I made a hard phone call to my restaurant from last summer. even though serving would be much more lucrative. Maybe I should go talk to Albert at Chez Albert.

I wonder when I will stop with this whole whole-applying-for-jobs-I-don’t-want era will end. Please assure me that the live-in thing would drive me crazy. Going from one miserable time-sucking job to another, with not even one day of gap! Non merci.

This constant bricks-in-the-fire feeling, as stressed as I feel sometimes, I must recognize that that is where LIFE is. the constant every day flow of should I? shouldn’t I? That is life, and I can say that probably because I know what the opposite is. Well, the whole watching-the-wire for weeks straight without talking to anyone. That doesn’t quite get me anywhere, even though it’s alluring in its own way.

The most wonderful feeling of today and yesterday = when I first go under the covers and for a sec I put the covers over my head. That feeling of “I don’t exist” I find so freeing. Like, no one will find me under here. Time stands still and obligations are so adult. Especially when my obligations are like putting grades into a computer and making sure no one is cheating on a verb quiz.

bringing us to my next topic. Teaching. The wild world of public education. Now is the time of year where I am at once appreciating them (they all have good hearts underneath the teenage angst/attitude/jockiness) and at the same time getting depressed seeing how little of French 3 they have retained. I feel that so many words spoken by a teacher are a complete waste of words, speech, breath. Students just want to know what to cram into their minds 5 minutes before the test. It is so sad. But such a huge task to rectify that attitude towards learning. They are taught “you can do anything, be anything you want to be, just get an education” and what happens is students want to work the least amount possible to achieve this. Or, the concept of “grading” is so ingrained in them that they can’t see the point of learning in itself, without the concept of grades/competition. I have a student who says he wants to go to medical school who I have caught writing verb conjugations on his desk before the test. Yeah. Pretty pathetic. He like leans down as if he is slouching. I say “Walter, sit up straight” and you can see the terror/defensiveness in his face so clearly. Yet our world says to him “Reach for the stars”.

Cue some bitter-jaded arts school alumni thoughts. You know, the classic Bard graduate now teaching in a miserable blue-collar school system, still bragging about her glory college days where I went to parties with child actress Gaby Hoffman, Woody Allen’s son, and got Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s autograph. and now drinking water out of a “Bard” nalgene bottle. But it’s not all about bitterness. It’s just a complex world. Like think of how different my life could be if I had majored in biology, for example. Not saying I wanted to. But it’s just a funny thing. I guess what I’m saying is like, I have the awareness of the contradiction of so many things. And the naivete and preconceptions of youth confronting me every day. It is impossible to imagine what life is really like at age 16. And that, we must embrace as part of the cycle of life, even if it hurts.

Like my students must look at me, and wonder why the hell I am not married and pregnant yet. God I am so fucking old, ‘can you even imagine her having sex???’ OMG Ew. Like any witty comment I make is just totally unappreciated in this company, and all my students are concerned with is how they can cheat without me catching them.

It is seriously miserable. I can outright acknowledge this because it is so almost over.

I find myself looking at jobs I am unqualified for, and wanting so badly to apply. Well, people do it. I guess a part of me wants to have a REAL JOB once and for fricking all. You know, one where I can communicate with adults. How do I dress for that? How do I do my hair + speak? I seriously need guidance. I found one awesome thing in … Boston… well it is like managing the education department at the French cultural center. Basically coordinating lots of outreach programs in schools and after school stuff. I have never, um, managed before though. Well unless you count managing a group of hormoney giggling rude teens and if you want to count their parents as clients. I don’t know, I think that might be fun. But I have to blow myself up in the cover letter.

But I took a miserable trip to Cambridge this weekend. That driving, that crudeness of the city streets, scares me so much. I came back with a renewed love for my home in Western Mass. Like, sometimes I say how it’s so boring and cold. but it is also great. Like nightlife in summer in northampton is the absolute best. Dirty truth - though beers are expensive - makes it worth it by a sweet red ambiance and cute hipster guys (caution, some massholes still). Like it can get repetitive. But there is of course something cool about seeing the same people over + over again. And ducking if one is an enemy/frenemy.

and again, I wonder if I have found Mr. Good Enough. Big questions about the nature of finding that life-long partner. I mostly know that remy will be a great dad. but boy, we can really get on each others nerves. Including a tense pull-over on Rt. 2 on the way back from Boston arguing over how I want him to drive just when my co-pilot is deciding to take a nap. Our fights are so full of pride from both of us. He treats it all like a deposition. “Did you did you not say that…” “Admit it, you were pissed when…” so much attributing traits and qualities to me. Above all he wants me to say that he is right. Is this folllowing a typical couple manual?

Me I can be brutal. But he brings me there. I even throw out the “Well fuck you”s. I get going on my high horse and I am not coming off so he can fuck off. No quotations are coming to mind. Just his constant level of stress and high-strungedness. He cannot just relax. he shoulders get so tense he is so full of negativity. He says he uses negativity constructively, in a way to change his life. I am not so sure.

But I can’t really imagine not having problems in a relationship. like, I don’t know if this is par for the course. I am trying to focus on the happy moments… mostly around cuddling our cats and walking around arm-in-arm, him giving a dirty look to any guy who checks me out. I kind of like those primal showdowns.

callous bitch entry

Well well well.

I'm afraid this entry might reveal me to be a selfish crabby bitch who can't stand other people.

i think I make more typos on my mac. Just sayin.

Ooh, i'm torrenting alot of muzik recently. good stuff for FREE bitchez. (but am I screwing over the artist?)

My relationships woes are currently on hold as we've discovered the healthy relationship tactic of getting drunk together. Solves many problems, actually. I go to the bar w/ him or his friends and feel like i have a little bit of a life drinking + peeing behind trees. Anyway, on to the thing on my mind.

Let me preface by saying that I have few friends here in the valley, so maybe alot is riding on each of them. With becky leaving soon, we've been hanging out more it seems. Just for coff or I will make her go with me to pilates and we'll analyze every situation for hours. She's a reliable friend because she too has no other friends. she is a very "level-headed" person. she follows a normal sleep schedule, has no boyfriends whatsoever (?), eats well after losing 60 lbs. on Weight watchers, and she always has a talking point from the NY Times. and she takes medication for bi-polar, which I don't know, may explain how fucking boring and normal her life is.

Just before I was to meet her mom, sister, and her for lunch yesterday I started encountering the nagging feeling that some things Becky does "annoy me". One of the primary things was that she kept referring to her mom as simply "Mom" as in, "Mom and I are going to cook dinner". I cn't precisely say why this annoyed me so, I'm sure something to do with an instinctual ownership of my own mom, like I would never call "my mom" "Mom" to someone other than my sister or dad. So, this has been growing on me for a while, and seeing her mom again yesterday brought the issue forward again. It would be awkward to say something about it, I think.

I'll illustrate the main points for anyone interested:

Becky's energy = not a "leader" in the friendship, instead she always looks for cues from me and how to proceed.

i.e. on the telephone, if we talk at the same time: "Oh, what were you going to say? Oh no, you go ahead". She will always truncate her speech often if she thinks I'm about to say something.

Like, fucking say what you want to say.

Her mom: a mousy , passive energy woman just like Becky. At lunch, catastrophic indecision about who would sit where. Again, not a leader.

Um, is this essential? I paid for my own lunch. Becky and Heather also paid their own way. Keep in mind this is Becky's graduation. I just have never encountered this type of parent. Remember that awesome weekend in NY, Nicci's parents paid for dinner for EVERYONE:

ean, molly, tami, nicci at like a fancy resturant in manhattan. 2 bottles of wine, dessert, the whole shabang. i mean, my parents do the same, so I have never experienced this before. I guess parents take on a certain "role" of parent to all of their kids friends, and I can't wait one day to hopefully have the means to pay for my own kids lunch, and their friends if they are lucky enough to have them.

I noticed Becky's mom kind of staring at me. Like in the same way that Becky does. Like, waiting for me to set the mood, to say something witty, to make sense of the world for them. Really freaking weird.

Also I was sensing a general repressed vibe with the family. Like Heather is pregnant with a 1-night stand but they're trying to work it out, I was just happy for her and I was sensing everything no one was saying. Repression kills.

I guess I get crabby when I see parents like not acting in a parent role (or what I perceive as a parental role). My dad always whips out his wallet when I am leaving to come back to MA, and I've just come to accept this gesture of love and support from 1 generation to the next. I've seen Remy's dad do it too, it's like an awkward standoff where his dad asks him if he has enough money, and then regardless of the answer he forces a 50 euro bill on remy. So cute. I mean, I think in way these dads like give in money what they can't give in love or by showing affection.

anyhow, thats a tangent.

But this mentality has gotten me in trouble. Remember Erin struggling to pay for her SUNY school at age 20, and I tactlessly asked her why her dad doesn't help her with money.

I guess we can only speak from our own experience, and hope our ignorance doesn't distance us from others.

I guess I just have higher dreams for myself than to go to my child's graduation and not have a car to drive myself back to the hotel, and have to ask your kid's 28-yr old friend for a ride. And not pay for her lunch. That may be really yuppie of me, but I hope that I have a good job + security in my life when I am 60.

Am I just like super sensitive? Am I such a judgmental bitch I don't even deserve to have friends? Probably yes to both.

Why does it take me so long to recognize these qualities in friends? Like, yesterday becky awkwardly offered me to drive her mom + sister home. I was so uncomfortable I actually put my hand over my face. Such an animal instinct. They quickly were like "no no you don't have to" and I said "no" on body language alone. discomfort all around.

I'd love to have more friends who are sometimes-leaders, sometimes-followers, who have something to offer the relationship, say whatever the fuck is on their minds even if it is crazy.

whatever

it's me.

well I will indulge this fantasy for a little bit that someone reads my blog.

maybe that person is my secret admirer, but I doubt it because I think it's only 1 friend. I don't really care, i mean I just feel like it is a major achievement when I am able to even write a post because everything is such a scramble of weirdness in my life.

The dishes are clean, remy is at aikido, i had bigger dreams for this afternoon than what I did. after a jog I ended up on the couch watching Oprah about these three black kids who were starved and never fed and then adopted by another loving family, and then half talking to my mom tell me about how Lisa visited today etc.

Lately the doldrum of my life has been a mix of excitement for the school year to end + then anxiety about the future. I would like to have a better visualization about what it looks like. Sometimes images of owning a scooter/ moped/ vespa come to me. Other times I would love to live in a city where the anxiety of being a car-owner will not follow me. Other dreams include living in Montreal and finding a nice quebecois boy that I am happy to be with.

Ok so this blog has been basically all about my love life. I just haven't been able to discern if this relationship is the reason for my increasing anxiety (I sometimes wake up and for that first moment of awakeness my breath instantly gets so much faster) especially if I hear R. like coughing or sneezing in the next room. Or if we are actually compatible in any way.

I guess that sounds like it must suck pretty bad.

I also am contemplating people being married, it's somewhat weird. Joy Behar recommends to not get married. I mean, it's something so like, unreversible. Even though it's not. That subject has kind of obsessed me recently, like I am so drawn to the idea of a wedding. But that feeling in the back of your head? That like, what if you are attracted to someone new? Then what? And what if at your wedding you are like in a fight? I can totally picture that happening. Yet all the facebook photos tell us that people are head over heels always, they can't live without each other, they support each other and are each other's best friends. I look at Allie and I feel like bad for her. She is 22 and just got engaged. Maybe a little bit because he is French. Weeks before we were chatting about she wasn't sure, they were fighting, he's so unemotional she felt like being in France no one understand her etc. But then, voila, a facebook announcement and an outpouring of support and hysterical congratulations.

For the people it seems to work for, I have admiration + respect. I kind of have doubt. Like is there really that one person out there?

I sometimes see myself as a divorcee, but a happy one, like with good relationships with exes and kids and whoever. Divorce is lookin' pretty good, and I'm not even married.

Being single sometimes looks so nice. Like, just all the time in the world to do the things you want.

Right?

i guess an "answer" to all this stuff will come soon. If remy leaves the USA with his head in a bucket, thinking of nothing but his next meal I look forward to a new change in the fall, maybe in a new locale! But is that a thinly veiled way of saying I'm done with the relationship, regardless of what he "chooses"? I sometimes cannot stand him. I sometimes think he is so sweet.

AHLALALALALA.

dang

My world is changing a bit, and I'm quite thankful that stopping birth control has let me be more in touch with my emotions. seriously. I'm back to crying at the drop of a hat. even sitting in traffic. even while blowdrying my hair. and I'm thrilled, because this blockaded emotional state for the past two years has let me believe that my life was ok.

I guess lately it's been more obvious how unhappy I am in my relationship. How even though R is a great-dad type he doesn't inspire me the way he comes home at 8 pm hungry for food and watching the boob toob until he decides to go to bed. That said, I don't inspire me much and I don't reckon that I inspire him. But I would like to be inspired and I'm slowing sensing that I gotta be alone to do that for the time being. It's been all about the 'relationship' ever since we moved in together I've slowing let resentment grow over the fact that he isn't marrying me and in consequence I hate him a little bit, we fight over who does less dishes.

One "ah ha" moment came when I was meeting my friends little baby for the first time. She has got it all, right - in 2 years she has gotten engaged, married, honeymooned, bought a house, became pregnant, took a maternity leave, had a baby. All events signifying life moving forward, I guess. and when she prodded a little this week, it was a gorgeous sunny day in northampton, and just starting to talk "well, his visa expires in december and he's not making any moves and we just fight any time I mention it" was all it took for the tears to start. I imagined that she may have felt she was in the presence of two babies at that moment. Two people to soothe and coddle. It was obvious to me that this has silently destroyed my life, and because there are few people to discuss it with, remy and my parents are off-limits, it just festers inside me while I tell myself it's all okay. So in a way I was thankful to be like hyperventilating/crying then. because emotions are our inner compass! thank you, self-help books.

Anyway. It's still not okay. As we speak we still hold addresses at the same house, no decisions have been made except in vague ultimatums, and I still need someone to go with me to see "A Prophet" today at 4 pm at amherst cinema. I was telling my friend that what I want has become so scewed, like do I want a fricking diamond ring in my champagne glass? That couldn't save us I don't think. Maybe I've become one of those girls who accuse their guy of not wanting to marry then when in reality they don't want to marry their guy? Dunno.

This week, i have school vacation and I would love to travel, visit friends and clear my soul of this. nyc? Definitely going to see my friend jen in Rosendale and laugh our pre-guys laugh from when we used to talk on the phone all night. I tell my high schoolers to not grow up too fast, because it all gets so complicated...

On another note, last night I played music in public for the first time in way too long. I was actuallly nervous, but to sum up it felt really good to do it. My trio partners are pretty "amateur" so it has been hard to deal with that! Like, not just talking about the music or notes. But just the attitudes about performing. Like when we were done playing both of them like nervously collected their music and ignored the audience clapping. I stood up and waited for them to look at me so we could all bow. Nothing. Such a basic principle that is instinctual to me now, like the audience shows its appreciation and you best appreciate their clapping. It's incredible. So we walked off stage without bowing or acknowledging them. I really miss playing with good people. You know when you are in good hands, like someone is not going to break down due to nerves. I hate that instabiliity during performance. Like people can become so weak musically. Music is reduced to mere notes. Its painful to go through when you've experienced better. (Do I sound like a snob?)

Nonetheless I am inspired to keep seeking good people to play with and invest emotionally in something that I believe in.

Voila. that is what is going on. Now I am going to listen to a radio program + clean my room. x x x x x x

sunny friday

coucou,

well a few things to share.

You know what your life looks like to a total stranger? Well maybe that is what your life is.

Any strangers in the house?

today had a little shopping orgy at holyoke mall. I had to return a shirt at macy's, so i then looked at shoes - huge sale on boots. I got a 110$ pair of boots for 27 dolla. black, cute, metropolitan, sober, functional.

Then - h + m had some cool stuff. I felt the need to get some summer staples in my wardrobe. Cute adorable cute flats w/ that ankle strap thing. Then, an adorable white knit dress 10$.

the need to shop never really hits me until i bring myself to the store. Ya know? like the mall is otherwise so depressing.

Currently really exasperated at styling my hair. I now have bangs, and I don't know how to get them straight. Preferably without investing in a straightening iron? Any ideas, come on ladies? I tried the round brush idea but it gives me 90's bangs. WTF?

Ok, on to more real things..

Yesterday I drove with remy to Hampshire college - remember the first time I visited with jess in like 2000? And I had a super experience. There was a beautiful visitor spot open for me. It didn't have the hard core parking nazi vibe like umass. At the library I saw someone with the same name as Neil young. I remember him from several years ago when i first moved here. Anyway I got my DVD (entre les murs) thanks to remy, and had an awesome class today showing it to my HSers.

We stopped at Atkins for lunch - I got a TUNA MELT with PROVOLONE FROMAGE. so good!!!

Overall I am asking myself WTF I am gonna do next year for a job. While I am surviving teaching

I am not so much loving it. regardless of the remy situation, I am feeling like a good move for me may be to a city. But how, when, what remains to be seen. I have my fingers crossed for M****** this summer. I guess I on one hand have the baby fever (really hard seeing my friend experience the miracle of birth herself) and wanting to get knocked up, and on the other hand I want to do more things to make my future kid proud of me. Besides assigning homework to asshole students. I want a "real job" where I feel comfortable, preferably in a creative environment with other young people. And I want to just experience city living for real this time. Like, moving to the valley was not a mistake. But I will admit that I did it mainly out of EASE. Like, I really was so fed up with NYC. So much competition for everything. For jobs, for apartments, and for MATES you've got to acknowledge that. I was so not into that scene. the valley is cool but it's also where people go to have babies and give birth with a midwife and enroll the kids in chinese immersion school. I would like to one day maybe be a valley mom. But I should devote the next few years to enjoying my life just for me.

Ironically I applied for an MM... Mostly because I would like insurance, dental too. Yeah, fluting again? Dunno about that.

i just invited Felix to see a concert tonight. It means I have to pay for him cuz I owe him money. UGGGHHHHH FML. Well it should be a good show, but aren't there like welfare class tickets? FIFTEEN DOLLA.

what about you? x x x

Things happening lately:

being diametrically opposed to something yet still obsessed by it. (v day schpiel)

olympics- media americanization of grief (valuing the "brave face")

night out in northampton w/ "mate".

wanting a shot of adrenaline to get myself moving:

Tattoo ideas

pilates

dream of opening skater land

Last night - after spending saturday in the usual remy ithching to "do something" besides buy groceries and sweep the floor, I put on an episode of Mad men, sat him down on the bed and made him watch it with me. He suggests we go "boire un coup" which I ask him to explain. I wonder if he is actually suggesting that we go drink a beer together. I mean, that's a hard concept for me to really get. I guess maybe i associate bars with places to you go to get drunk and get guys numbers and/ or just go to w/ your friend to be admired by lonely losers drinking alone. Plus, i've done it before and remy is a pretty hard core drag at a bar. I remember like just downing beer and it having little effect on me because I'm with someone I'm so obviously going to go home with it's like my body doesn't even register the wild/inhibiting nature of beer. So I just get full and feel fat and burp, and then we drive home to no great fanfare.

Anyway, that's what he meant. So I was like what the hell, and we go. I make him drive. As we pull out of the driveway I half-joking suggest we play the "who would you want to go home with if you weren't in a relationship" game. He says that wouldn't end well he's possibly right. I don't know how it would end, I just know that this evening out will be so boring that we may as well play something so darkly sarcastic and depressing. After checking out a few bars "too crowded", "too expensive", "too many hipsters", we settle on Hugo's. We sit opposite one another (not my choice) and c'est parti. I get cabin fever, he gets steel rail. I spend the next hour + half alternatively wanting him to marry me and wondering how I should break up with him. I start the conversation asking him which characters on Mad Men he found intruiging. "None". I said, well we have nothing else to talk about.

The mood elevated once we got a 4th beer for free (end of the keg) and we were feeling pretty buzzed, too buzzed to remember that we were possibly no longer in love or ever were. Being drunk, the conversation drifted toward how I enjoy wonderful friendships with my exes and he is entitled to the same. I told him I haven't read him email in quite a while - 6 months? a year? and that even when I did it was due to my own self-hate. We briefly referenced his ex who wouldn't stop texting him while I was visiting last summer. It was so fricking annoying and weird. He eventually told her off and she now never talks to him. In my drunkenness I told him that I was over her, while I truly am, like I know that I wouldn't want to be her friend cuz I can sense her vibe + i don't like her vibe.

[End of entry 4 now...]