having had the major freakout that usually accompanies any illness for me, as well as 43 loads of laundry still in progress. i have bathed.  i need to stay up for the rest of the day, but not wear myself out.  perhaps go to the store.  go back to school tomorrow.  take one day at a time.

alone, alone, alone.  i really had never regretted it so fundamentally before, but now i really am seeing the error in being a single woman approaching age.  i have no net at all.  not that being not-single would necessarily make it better, i would probably have had kids too and then the stakes would have been higher, but still, i really hadn’t counted on being so totally alone in life.  feared it, but not really counted on it.  it surfaces most when i become ill and am stuck here contemplating myself.  alone.  alone.  alone.  and so it causes me to freak out full years prematurely and, instead of celebrating another profferred year of work, to worry about the what then?  which is ridiculous.  reading about other people who have it so much more difficult than i do, but then remembering that they are also younger.  and not. alone. alone. alone.

this too will pass, but it doesn’t seem i ever get any nearer to fixing it.  just passing.  and not a lot of opportunity left?  i wonder.  it’s just because i’m sick, this always comes out when i’m sick.  just piddly little viri, and i’m freaked.  what am i doing with my life?  what have i done? and i regret all the things that didn’t happen, whether i really wanted them or not,  as if that led me here more than those that did.  this man, that path, the evaporated degrees, as if any of that might have mitigated my present less-than-mediocrity. might have.  didn’t.  yet.

Edit:  no, too soon.  got up.  sliced up some strawberries and pulled some bedding around in the washer.  searched online for library books thinking maybe…no.  stomach gradually feeling like it’s dropped out at the bottom.  what is this virus?  agita?  i thought i was getting a handle.

i always get doomy when i get sick, or when i am getting sick, and i don’t believe i am sick.  i always burn out like a cranky child and have had to learn to keep myself in check in order not to do or say something equally inappropriate thereby shooting myself in the nearest appendage.  then, i always worry and worry about being sick, worry that “they” will be mad at me, worry that by not fulfilling whatever obligation is oppressing me precisely because i AM sick, i am Destroying My Life and it will be All My Own Fault.  When all it is is i have the flu or something and this is how it manifests, when i am awake.  take the damned day off and be done with it.  I can miss the class.  who will care in 50 years?  i am burning myself out and worrying about burning myself out worrying.

my head hurts; if it doesn’t improve considerably, this illness, i’m taking TOMORROW off, too.  and i’ll worry about that, of course; i always do.

so here i am home with stomach flu and things are not going very well.  i just ate a bowl of lunch, trying to get up some stuff to go to class tonight, but it’s not looking good.  i slept all morning, and lay around for the early afternoon, i think it’s about time to do some more resting, try to keep in the nourishment if at all possible….my head hurts and the fever is…..

of course, the stomach flu comes back.  urg.  put in for a sub at 5 am.  yrg.  how long this time?  did it just not go away from last time but has been lingering in there?  yerg. a class tonight, too.

if my father were alive, he’d be 100 today, but no, that’s not right, it’s only 98.

or not.  i have a job for another year. she didn’t sound very happy about it, but i have been asked back.  apparently this is what they do to “untenured” (in quotes because of my long sty at the U, so it seems so odd to use in my own situation) teachers, they have to nominate them for retention rather than do anything to fire them, so all the reassurance i’d been given that it would take “years” to fire anybody was worthless (of course.)  but i don’t have to worry now about that for another year (sure,) by which next summer i am hopeful i will have earned my teaching certificate, or almost anyway. see if i can get some kind of work teaching when and if this one blows up, or i can move into another school, they keep trying to get rid of me by recommending that i move to middle or high school.  gee, thanks.  but at least i’m employed, and at almost a living wage, for another year.  then we shall see what we shall see, or at least i hope so.

a year out from working for the rec at wimauma; another year out from whatever comes next. i’m getting tired and i don’t even have the right to.

this article (the link doesn’t work as it’s proquest subscription: Substantive Art Integration = Exemplary Art Education
Julia Marshall. Art Education. Reston: Nov 2006.Vol.59, Iss. 6;  pg. 17, 8 pgs) which outlines what i had in mind when i took this job.  which is nothing like what i do.  but it’s good to know i’m not totally crazy.  wrote to the author and asked her on what planet this actually takes place and can i get there from here?

also, my first certification program observation was today and he said i was fine.  which means a good deal to me as my principals had said i was not.  and i’ve been all twisted up about it.  so now i know, if i lose my job, i’m not the worst teacher ever after all.  just saying.

i don’t know what it is, really. but i’ve been that way all weekend.  spent both days inside working on fiber.  didn’t get any painting done, but did get some basic chores done.  not the ones that most needed doing, but some: cleaned the oven, got the wash (but not the putting away, of course) out of the way early.  bought gasoline and splurged on groceries, since i have been moved to eat large meals out twice in four days, which hasn’t been like me recently.  so i spent more than i should, of course.  started another fluffy jacket design, a combination of annie’s raccoon and kaffe’s vertical tshirt, which i hope will work out.  found boa and chacha on sale for $2 is why.  finished the first sleeve and started the second on fuschia.  finished reknitting the front of the soy silk.  didn’t do much else this weekend.  forgot to go out on saturday and pick up the camera cord, so i’ll have to figure that one out again sometime (tomorrow?) having trouble sending in my homework assignment, it seems.  the class was over two weeks ago and the stupid school email system is still making me nutsy; meanwhile, i have to do the assignment for this new class, too, to that will be tomorrow.  class is now on wednesdays in stead of mondays, and seems to actually have some content this time so that is good.  they got funding for summer classes, so if i can get in i will spent three weeks in june knocking out three classes, which is much more than i’d planned and will put me ahead of the game, which would be nice.  (also will be a “reason” for not working in the summer, since i don’t have any idea what work i would get anyway, other than temp work—maybe i’ll be able to allow myself to borrow some little bit on the house if it’s FOR something besides simple survival.)  if i can just get the stupid homework for the first one properly sent, that is…..grrr.

daylight savings time. it’s dark like december again in the mornings when i get up.  oh, and an evaluation on tuesday, too; joy.  sigh.  lots of work all weekend, only not the work i’d thought i’d do, and now it’s over.  next weekend will be the first weekend of spring break.  will i be able to settle down and get something done or just flap around doing everything/accomplishing nothing as usual?  stay tuned…

(cough) on?  ah.  yes. day off.  i did two errands, knit on something, painted.  bathed.  laundry.  i was so looking forward to this day off, and it makes all the difference in the world.  i also had a small meltdown over money, but then that’s always the way.  still needing an extra couple hundred a month, still haven’t pinned that down.  and then comes summer and…?

the reason i haven’t been posting flickr (either) is that i lent my camera out and when i got it back enough time had elapsed that i forgot where i put the cable to download the pix to the computer.  that was one errand i did today, to try to rustle up another one somewhere.  then there was cleaning up the warehouse ( i no longer call it a house) which didn’t happen. part of the freakout.  i have let everything slide too long, i dont know how i’ll ever dig out.  knit, i suppose.

i don’t do anything for the rest of this week as testing is altering the schedule and i must just sit there and “proctor,” and then show videos for the rest of the day, and friday is a half day, which means outside supervising, nd then getting grades in order.  then there’s one week of regular teaching and then a week of spring break, and then another week, i believe, or maybe two and then a four-day weekend for easter.  then another six or seven weeks and that’s it for the year.  i should be able to get some stuff done in those bits of time, and then daylight savings starts next week, too, and that’s some more light for painting, anyway. at least i finally began painting again.  as with everything else, it’s too soon to tell.

i wonder what i will be able to do to pull in more money.  just a couple hundred more a month, i made it in jan/feb, by selling a couple of things, but i really do need to regularize it some.  making some of those clay heads, i wonder, would that be a good idea?  damned nola still hasn’t sent my w2.  i wonder if i will owe or receive money this year?  i should receive, but who knows?  not i.  i could look it up, i suppose…..nola didn’t pay enough to make that much difference…

i got a beautiful valentine from molly and was unable, as yet, to upload a pic…