Hugging

I'm not really a touchy-feely person. I've broken my mom's heart continuously for probably about twenty years because I'm just...not. I don't remember ever kissing my parents or brother (obviously I would have as a small child). Hugs, only when decorum demands. I mean, I don't have a problem with hugs...I just don't have a huge draw to them, either. My two best L-town friends have similar inclinations. We hug if we need to. Not gratuitously. Hahaha. Now, I AM more touchy-feely with my Springfazzle friends, and also with anyone when I'm imbibing, but overall, yeah, no. And I don't do the bear hug thing, or hold on too tight.

But sometimes...every once in a while, I will admit, an embrace is the way to communicate. When you've been dying to see someone, and you don't know when you'll see him or her again, and you just need to soak up as much as that person as possible. At the point when words are useless--all you need is that person, and hopefully, all he or she needs is you. And you squeeze so tight that you convince yourself that you're still connected, that he or she won't forget about you, that your memory of him or her cannot fade.

I saw my Carly today. For the first time since, I don't know, maybe in passing some Sunday in the spring? It'd been so long. I babbled a little, but I wish I hadn't. I could've hugged her all morning.

that kind of September

try to remember that kind of September
when life was slow and oh so mellow

Things aren't yet crazy at work like I had anticipated. Haven't started working on the move yet, haven't started training yet. Which is to say, when I get home at 3:30 or so, I am bored. Not events- and activities-wise, I enjoy myself, but intellectually. I know, how many years did I spend griping about writing papers and such...but I hardly know what to do with myself without that kind of structure.

Need to contact Drury and help persuade them to open a severe special ed Master's. Kerri says they're thinking about it!! Not that I can afford any more Drury education...but I need somethin'.

Just finished rereading Icy Sparks by Gwyn Hyman Rubio. I first read it when I was fifteen. On the last page, 15-year-old Marie had drawn an arrow to some text with the note, "this is where I started bawling." 22-year-old Marie had not been moved in the slightest. hahaha. ch-ch-changes...

I've only got two days of school this week. Day off tomorrow, and then MANDT training (how to hold down a violent child so neither of you gets hurt) Thursday-Friday. I'll miss my little guys!!!!

Should I write a book?

So, my ambitions as a writer passed away years ago, but I've lately been possessed with a passion, perhaps derived from nothing more than boredom,* to write a book. Not fiction (I never learned to write fiction), but instead the height of self-centeredness: a memoir. Who cares, right? I'm a 22-year-old chick no different from bazillions of other recent liberal arts grads from a middle-class background. Well, I can write pretty well, I think, and I'm pretty funny, plus this is my working title:
DAMN: A Young Woman's Reckoning with Tourette Syndrome

I would so read that. LMAO.

the question, though, is would I WRITE it. I do not have a history of being able to motivate myself for, well, anything...but I already have a scratch outline! But it'll require a lot of research...lol. We'll see. it could be fun. even if no one but y'all ever read it. hahaha.

*A discussion with my aunt a few weeks ago helped spark this. She was telling me about a professor in Denver who has autism and has written about having autism. I was saying that I didn't think I could speak for TS because my case was so mild, but my aunt thought this was baloney. My experience is perfectly valid. Sensational cases are the exception; there are lots of people going through something mild just like me.

Another Meme

In One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez writes of Meme,

Se entregó a Mauricio Babilonia sin resistencia, sin pudor, sin formalismo, y con una vocación tan fluida y una intuición tan sabia, que un hombre más suspicaz que el suyo hubiera podido confundirlas con una acendrada experiencia.

She surrendered to Mauricio Babilonia without resistance, without shyness, without formalities...

---

I'd like to think I've gotten my most wild moments out of my system. Certainly come my big girl job (Decemberish) I can't pAArty anymore. And I don't really want to be irresponsible in the first place...

Not a personal failing?

"Racism, the argument goes, should not be thought of as a personal failing; it's a social system, with a specific history."
from the new yorker

It kind of irks me when someone says, defensively, that he or she is not racist. (Mostly because that comment is usually made as a disclaimer on making some sort of racist remark.) I like to think of myself as an idealist, but I struggle with racism. I can admit it; other than admitting it in public horrifies people, makes them think I'm slime. But I don't think I struggle with it more than other people...I'm just aware of it? Racist not in a "omg i hate people who are not white" sense, of course, but in a making-subconscious-judgments sense, a hypersensitivity sense, a I-don't-know-how-to-talk-to-you sense.

Avenue Q tells us that everyone's a little bit racist. I have to agree. Not because we WANT to be...it's just how we're raised. And not through a fault of our parents, necessarily, but because of the social system...I mean, for my own example, I'm from the suburbs. There were black people around, but I never had any interaction with anyone very different from me. There weren't ever any black people in my advanced/honors classes. Here and there in music classes, maybe, but not in calculus; not in college comp; not in physics; not in AP English; not in Spanish 5. I find this extremely troubling.

This is obviously not true of every high school. But it shouldn't be happening at all. Why were there no high-achieving minority students in my graduating class? There were 500ish of us, after all. Even with the minority population being the, well, minority, statistically speaking, there oughta be someone...

On top of the whole societal thing, it didn't help that my first experience with getting to know an African-American person well ended disastrously. I mean, that gives me a bad leg on race relations just through classical conditioning. I mean, if the first time I tried sushi I got sick, I would be wary of sushi, right? Even if it wasn't the fact that it was sushi that made me sick.

And so after that I found myself trying to overcompensate for my being a little freaked out by being hyper-aware of racial attitudes. Like, TOO much, panicking at the n-word, seeing societal racism in everything. Plus, at that same time, I was reading Wright's Native Son, which shows the plight of Bigger Thomas as being entirely the fault of society.

I don't really know where I'm going with this. But, I think society/everyone needs to acknowledge racism in order for things to get any better. But people don't like to think that they're racist, because it's sooooo politically incorrect.

dunno...

and wishes on a star just don't come true

Here we are...

I'm glad to be back to work tomorrow. I've missed my kids.

so i go, and i will not be back here again

i'm gone as the day is fading on white houses

(please realize that the title of this post is a lyric from high school musical.)

freakin' allergies. I hate August.

august ftw

What day is it? last forty minutes of the sixth. three days. I thought I was going to be fine, fine, fine, but then last night as I lay awake shivering I couldn't stop the flashbacks. I wish...I don't wish for that, that never would have worked, but I wish for the hope and optimism and puppy love and trust that I had then? Because all that was lovely.

and what it all comes down to
is that everything's gonna be fine, fine, fine

My baby girl turns nine tomorrow. She's one of my best friends...yet I've talked to her maybe three times since last summer. She knew EVERYTHING G-rated about my life, and a decent amount of the PG-rated, haha. Nine. Third grade. I remember her as the shy three-year-old; the defiant four-year-old; the lazy five-year-old; the curious six-year-old; the sassy seven-year-old...God, she's growing up. I realized that I love kids because of her; I'd never babysat prior to her, and thought I didn't like kids. I learned how to deal with kids on her (ie, boundaries, boundaries, boundaries!). I had the joy of helping someone develop a love for reading. I experienced the bewilderment of her grieving for some obscure relative she'd never known. I basically got to practice being a mother, heh. Beyond that, we had battles of wills, we cuddled and napped together, we argued over who loved Zac Efron more, we had lazy days of watching cartoons and eating junk food, we went on all sorts of adventures throughout the city, we teased each other about boys.




Happy birthday, Squirt. You growing up may make me cheesily reflective, but more importantly, it gives you that much more opportunity to kick a lot of ass. Love you forever.