">

Gotta Check Myself Because I'm Wrecking Myself

Who'da thunk I would start blogging again? God knows nothing is going on in my life worth witing about, and that's exactly the reason I want to get back into this. I'm only being slightly hyperbolic when I say I feel like I'm dying.
I saw where one of my old Art Institute professors works at SCAD Atlanta. I think I already knew that, but seeing it on the computer screen made it hit home. Thing is, she sucked. Not to disparage teachers, but she really did teach because she couldn't cut it as a pro. But I'm going to stop this ragging on others when it's really me I hate.
BTW, I'm swift keying this from my Nook tablet instead of a laptop or desktop. I just find that fascinating.
"Find what you love and the money will follow." Well that only works if you have a passion for something. If I could figure how to get paid for reading blogs about cell phones and cars maybe I would have a chance, but until then my future doesn't appear too promising. I don't have the confidence to go it as a photographer again, not that I would want to. The logical step would be to teach, but then I'm looking at at least a Masters. I haven't even finished my BA, and with no hope of financial aid it doesn't appear that's ever going to happen. So this is my tragic desperation. It's a vicious cycle and I'm ready to get off.

Death and a Funeral

Of all the adventures I've had since my last post (yeah, I'll stick with "adventures"), what brings me back here is a TV show. Last post I was lamenting the end of Smallville, which almost killed me, and now I'm in mourning over the end of another great show. A little history: I don't generally watch a TV series when it first airs. I have this thing about having to see every episode from the beginning in order, and that's damn near impossible. The one exception is Alias, and I saw every episode in order from the beginning. I remember way back to Allie McBeal. I was looking forward to seeing it, but I found myself driving home to Savannah from Atlanta and missed the first episode. I never watched it. 24, possibly the best show ever on television, I didn't start watching until it was in reruns on A&E. I can't imagine having to wait a week or longer to see a new episode of that awesome show. I missed the first 10 minutes of Lost and have managed to avoid any spoilers while it waits for me in my Netflix queue. I didn't have HBO and never saw Sex and the City until I was able to rent all the DVDs, and then I was able to have marathon viewings of that amazingness. And so it is with my current obsession, MI-5.
With the exception of the above mentioned shows (and I reserve judgement for Ally McBeal and Lost), I'm not a big fan of American television. All the reality-show crap has really soured me on anything home-grown. If I'm not working on Saturday night you can find me watching old Brit-coms on PBS. Netflix has afforded me the opportunity to get involved in a number of British shows like Inspector Lewis and the brilliant Sherlock, but MI-5 had me engrossed for most of 2012. Think of it as the British version of 24. Ten seasons! In order! Whenever I want! Knowing I could watch MI-5 anytime I wanted made insomnia seem not so bad.
Being able to watch an entire series in a short period of time means I get really involved with the characters. If I had to wait a week between episodes, I'm not sure I would feel the same kinship. I don't have to come down from the roller coaster ride until the following week, and can ride it as long as I want.  The thing about MI-5, and 24 for that matter, is that the writers never hesitated to kill main characters. And when they died, I died. I feel like I know these people. I spend so much time with them I feel like they are my friends, and then they are dead. It's gut-wrenching. When Adam died I was like, "Damn!" And when Ros died I was beside myself. Ros was my all-time favorite. But the episode I watched this morning during my latest bout of sleeplessness almost made me swear-off TV for good. Ruth. Ruth, of all people. Perhaps the best character of any show I've ever seen. Dead. And of course when it seems she and Harry will finally be together. Devastating. My heart is literally heavy over her death. But in a shrewd move, she was killed in the last episode. Had they tried to go on I'm not sure anyone would have continued to watch. I know I wouldn't have.
Shallow? Yes.

Just Call Me Patsy 'Cause I'm CRAZY!

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3173/2726408349_9b0fe1b142.jpg

After completing what was hands-down the hardest semester I've had since going back to school, I should've relished my 2 week break before summer semester: no more dates with MSNBC at 5 a.m. to catch all my news shows before spending all day on campus; no more finishing papers at the last minute (which sometimes cut into my 5 a.m. news shows); no more reading so much Norton's Anthology that my eyes are permanently damaged (no really, I think they are! I need to make an appointment with the eye doctor), and typing so much that I have chronic neck pain (no really, I did see a doctor about that); no more Lesley Roessing, the worst professor I have ever had period (you can tell her if you know her, I already have). Besides, didn't I already do all this crap before? Like in 1990 when I started USC and... oh, yeah, flunked out 3 semesters later in 1992 because I didn't do any of those things (but I had a damn good time doing nothing). My bad. But I did make up for all my slacker ways when I moved to Atlanta and went to AIA, where my GPA was quite exemplary, thank you very much. But anyway, I worked really hard this past semester and deserved a nice, relaxing, peaceful 2 week hiatus. But that is not what I got.
You know how schizophrenics or bipolars sometimes stop taking their meds because they feel normal? Only they feel normal because they're taking medication, and as soon as they quit taking it they get all wonky again. Well let's just say I got a little wonky.
First I should probably state that I'm neither bipolar or schizophrenic, but I do take Celexa for anxiety. For years I felt I needed something to mellow me out because I was always on edge, and when I first started back to school I really knew I needed something when I started sobbing in class because I didn't understand statistics and felt so overwhelmed. Not very manly, so good thing they make medicine for it. So I saw my doctor (or quack, as Amy refers to him) and have had a happy, mellow relationship with Celexa for a couple of years. That is, until my 2 week vacation.
I'll just go ahead and admit it: I'm lazy. And I have a touch of OCD, so my routine is always the same: when the alarm goes off and I get up at 5:00, I shuffle into the kitchen to get coffee and take my happy pill right away. But it's not just that one pill, I also take a vitamin and sometimes a fish oil pill to help the ol' memory. Now I know it sounds ridiculous, but I get tired of taking pills everyday. Buddha forbid I ever have a chronic illness that requires me to take 70 pills a day, 'cause that ain't happenin'. Three pills are apparently my limit. To make a long story short, I ran out of vitamins and fish oil, and when I finished the semester I decided to take a break on the Celexa and revert to my default, unmedicated state. Damn. There's a reason those schizos who go off their meds end up killing someone: sometimes au naturel is just plain crazy.
It took about a week for the signs to appear that I was coming unhinged. I once left my meds in Atlanta during the middle of a semester, and after just a couple of days could feel myself losing it, but I guess being on break helped slow the craziness this time. Anyway, the least serious of my symptoms was anger; I could feel my temper getting shorter and shorter. But remember, I'm on break with nothing to do except watch Netflix and drink box wine and sleep, so what the hell do I have to be angry about? Yeah, I don't know either, but there it was rearing its ugly head anyway. My list of people to kill or maim grew longer and longer. I have been able to catch up on 24 on Netflix, so that's good, the only problem is trying to stay awake. My sleep is all screwed up. I'm staying up later than usual, sometimes I go to bed between 12 and 2, but I only sleep about 3 hours and then I'm up. WTH? I love to sleep, but I can't. I don't know if it's a side effect of going cold turkey with the happy pills or the untreated anxiety that's crept back in, but I don't sleep at night and can't stay awake during the day. I feel like Carrie when Big backed out of their wedding and she went to Mexico and just slept for days. That's all I want to do. Could there have been a gayer reference? Good lord. I wonder if there's an anti-anxiety/ testosterone combo pill? And you know how it is when you don't sleep, everything is just out of balance. I think that might be why I'm having eye problems, too, or maybe that's just from squinting at the keys on my BlackBerry.
But the overwhelming and uncontrollable emotions are the biggest sign that I might be going crazy. I decided to start P90X again and try to get into a shape other than fat blob, but I barely made it through the first day because I was too preoccupied with crying and telling myself what a fat, weak loser I was to concentrate on push ups. In what should have been a instance of joy, Jarrod was chosen for Honor Band and had a concert at my college last week, and I could barely hold the camcorder still because I was so overwhelmed with a mixture of pride and of regret remembering what it was like being in All-State band when I wasn't much older than he is. And while those were very real emotions for me, the finale of Smallville almost killed me.
I have loved Smallville for years. I started watching about 7 years ago, and though I'm not one of those over-the-top fanboys like Sheldon and the gang, I have grown to love Clark, Chloe, Lois, Oliver, Martha and Jonathan, Tess, Lana, and even Lex. And after 10 years it ended. I cried for 2 hours during the finale, and I mourned for 3 days afterward. This will get its own entry later.
Things that make me weepy (this week):

• "Firework" by Katy Perry

• "Be Prepared" from The Lion King soundtrack

• The Hunger Games (about kids forced to fight in a deathmatch)

• Judi Dench singing "Send in the Clowns"

An abbreviated list to be sure, and one which can grow exponentially. But for now, I've been up since before 3 a.m., I've drank much coffee and listened to the "Songs that make me cry" playlist on my iPod, and now I must go take my crazy pill and go to sleep and maybe wake up a little less fragile.

With no Direction Home Like a Complete Unknown

It sucks coming face to face with the ramifications of having no direction in life. What sucks even more is being almost 40 and facing those facts. The hundred little connections my brain made in what started out as the realization that I don't enjoy high-brow literature turned into a search for people on Facebook, which resulted in a complete sense of personal failure. My preference for decidedly non-academic books led me to two realizations: 1. My memory has almost completely failed me, and 2. I am not where I thought I would be at this stage in my life. Worse still, I DON"T KNOW where I want to be, and that makes me depressed beyond belief.
The short version of how these seemingly unrelated events connected in such a way to make me want to drink myself into oblivion at 1:00 on a Friday afternoon goes like this: I'm debating whether to finish reading Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, a book I should read because "Hey! I want to teach college literature, right?," but which is way too over my head to comprehend without resorting to Spark Notes. Then I think of all the other literary classics I didn't finish because they bored me to tears. Then I start looking for people I went to AIA with on Facebook, but I can't remember some names so I start Googling. I find one old professor at a different school, I think about how she was a horrible professor but still has a teaching job, I think about the English position at AIA that I wasn't qualified for, I think I could teach photography, I realize I'm no longer a photographer because I don't have the confidence or thick skin to survive criticism, and "those who can't do teach" but I can't teach photography because I'm not confident enough, I'm back in school to be a teacher but I don't want to teach middle school I want to teach college but my literature class was such a struggle last semester I'm not smart enough to be a literature professor, I'm almost 40 and unemployed and I can't be a pharmacist because I can't get through the science classes. Maybe it wasn't exactly short, but it was the only way to say it. The gist is I'm a failure and not good at anything anymore.
I'm trying to deal with the end of my photography career. It's all I ever wanted to do. Then I got burned out by the stress of weddings. I couldn't hack it anymore. I was so busy for a while, then as competition increased I found myself with more and more free weekends. I was happy for 10 years, but then people started settling for lower quality from cheaper photographers, or went the opposite direction by hiring the celebrity photographer with the whole "team" at their disposal who monopolizes the whole market. Who wants to compete with that? Count me out.
But what to do? Ah, "those who can't, teach" right? But that's so unfair to those teachers who are fulfilling a calling. Like Amy. She is a born teacher. My friend Suzy will disagree and say teachers are like anyone else trained to do a specific task. But not Amy. Yes, she has the training, but she also has the DESIRE to make a difference in the lives of children. I would venture that the majority of teachers picked teaching simply because it was a paycheck. Like dental hygiene or aircraft mechanics. I don't think anyone is "called" to be a dental hygienist, it's just training for a task. But teaching, above anything else, should be reserved for those who are CALLED. Why trust our children with someone who doesn't care about improving the lives of children, but who's just there for the check? The school system is full of those kinds.
But this is just what I'm doing. I don't really want to teach children, I want to teach at the college level. But teach what? Photography? No, since I failed at it I don't feel I'm in a position to give my insight on the craft. Literature? I would love to, but since I can't stand the classics it seems I'm not sophisticated enough to teach college-level students.
Therein lies my depression. And now I'm out of wine.

So I'm on Thanksgiving break from school (rather I skipped science class this morning to start my break early), I've finished cleaning the house, I've finished off a bottle of chardonnay (it was actually a box but only a bottle's worth was left in it), and praise the Lord! Sex and the City II arrived from Netflix. I'm embarrassed to admit how happy I was to see it in the mailbox. And then Liza Minnelli sings Beyonce at Stanford and Anthony's wedding. Maybe it's only because of the nice midday buzz going on, but it was friggin' hilarious.
God I've got to find a job before I die of gayness.
(And no that was not a slur. If you've read my previous posts you know I love the gays!)

Simple Pleasures, or

Making lemonade out of lemons.
We hate our neighbors, that's no secret. As far as the eye can see, we hate every last one of 'em, with the exception of some of Jarrod and Abigail's friends' parents, and we can't really speak about the neighbors we don't know. We've only lived here almost 7 years and we're still waiting for some to acknowledge our presence. But for those immediately surrounding us, we Despise our neighbors, with a capital D.
By transfer, we also hate our house. Well, Amy hates the house because she really hates the neighbors; I don't mind the house so much except that it's located in our neighborhood. We loved the place when we first moved in. Amy busied herself planting and watering and watching things grow. I busied myself watching her busy herself with those things. It was a great arrangement. We were both excited to plant the Confederate Jasmine, 1) because it grows quickly, and 2) because it smells so damn good! In no time it took off, and this is what we have. You have to duck to get to the doors, which is not much of an inconvenience. The several real estate agents who have failed to sell our house tell us to cut it back, but we think it's charming. Perhaps if the agents ever bothered to actually show the house to potential buyers, we would entertain the idea of pruning a little.
Obviously we rarely use the front door, only on the occasion that someone who doesn't know we never use the front door rings the bell. I went out to sit in the rocking chair on the front porch to read this afternoon, and was surprised to find these lovely little vines growing through the screen door. Some would probably pull them away, but I say "What the hell?" I'll just close my eyes and pretend I live in a cottage in the French countryside.