Runaway

I need to create an all new blog under an all new name. No more making my online persona traceable to reality me. Like entering the witness protection program.
If you have suggestions for a pen name and/or the name of my new blog, DO NOT post them as comments because then I obviously can't use them without defeating the whole point of moving blogs. Email them to me. If you are a reality friend, you can obviously send them to my regular email, as that link sends it to my junk mail account. Email me also if you want the link to my new blog when I get it started.

Judgment

No real reason not to talk about what's happening anymore. I lost my jobs. All of them. The ones I was currently doing and the ones I was hired to do in the future. I made a judgment error in using the names of my places of employment and the name of the victim of a tragedy on my blog. People who didn't know me read what I wrote on my blog out of context. The things I wrote were interpreted as inflammatory. I never meant them to be hurtful or inflammatory. But I should have been more careful, more thoughtful. I'm so careful around the kids and parents, but not in my blog. It's an unfortunate way to learn an unfortunate lesson. All my good intentions and good works and bending over backwards and everything I've done for and with the kids couldn't save me from the consequences of a poor judgment effecting the PR of my (now former) employers. So to those who wanted me gone got their wish. I hope the kids and the community are better off, because they didn't need any more hurt or heartache. Unfortunately, neither did I.

Thank you to my friends and family who have been supportive through all of this. I love you guys.

Does this mean I'm "supposed" to be a writer not a teacher?

Thought of the night

There is no one “right” way to be. At least I think…though by thinking there isn’t necessarily a “right” means that there is necessarily the possibility of a “right.”


I need to find a good, free blog hosting site that allows password-protected access to content without the readers all having to be members of said site. Any suggestions?

bad bad bad

Big fat hairy bad thing. Call me if you want to know more, but this blog has caused me enough trouble.

Insurance, Dreams, and Movies

I can finally check off one of the items from the list of Things Keeping Me Awake At Night: I got a packet in the mail today confirming that I will be health insured the moment my COBRA expires. This is mostly important so that my migraines don't become a "preexisting condition" and not covered, because that would be bad. I had a nasty migraine today, but I felt it coming so I seem to have started medicating myself early enough that it's already almost gone. I spent the day asleep and was dreaming about tornados and pirates and OutKast and some weird thing where people had polluted the world so badly that everything was under an ocean of sludge. We all had to live in these boats that were like if the creators of the Starship Enterprise designed a cruise ship and people were mutating into these weird lizard-like creatures that lived off the sludge. The mutation happened if you fell into the sludge but it could also be passed around like a cold. Migraine-induced dreams are weird. Maybe that's why I've never felt the need to do drugs. Psycho dreams: my anti-drug. Hmm.

I watched A Streetcar Named Desire tonight. Marlon Brando was hot. He should've been the one freaking out about aging. Blanche DuBois and Norma Desmond would be appropriate roommates at the nuthouse. Now there's an idea for a truly dreadful spin-off. I'm not sure what I want next from my Netflix queue, it being 120 movies long and all.

I'm trying to resist the urge to turn on the air conditioner, but it's a sauna in here.

I can hear someone crying somewhere outside or upstairs or something. It's odd.

The current and very loud soundtrack in my head (not a great performance/recording of it, but still a great piece):

So glad it's a long weekend...

I'm not doing anything in particular this weekend and that's exactly what I need. Whoever thought up Memorial Day should be commended. It would have been nice to have my Second City class tomorrow, but oh well. Maybe I'll clean my apartment, but it's supposed to be beautiful out. Too bad my dog isn't nice to people.

Dirty

I finally pulled out my Eureka! Quick-Up Hand-Vac I got for my birthday and holy shit, it's amazing. The quantity of dog hair I got up from just my bed and the area immediately around it was disgusting. I also tried to vacuum my laptop, but the dog hair is kind of stuck under the keys, so I ended up basically taking my keyboard apart and picking out the hair and crud with a tweezers. (What? I don't have a rollerball mouse anymore, and my manic/OCD tendencies need something to keep occupied...) The resulting furball was at least the size of my fist. I also gave Freud a bath, which he hated, but he's much softer and less stanky now.My sister is hanging out with me tomorrow and I have to clean my apartment before she gets here and beats my head in for being such a pig. She doesn't appreciate my slovenly way of living, and it's a good excuse to get this place neat enough to not be embarrassed when the cleaning service gets here.

new things

I got my espadrilles. Steve Madden. $39.92 on clearance. Yes, that's my foot. I couldn't find a picture on the web, so I used my cell phone camera.

My improv class yesterday was awesome. There are about 13 people in the class, ages probably range from 19 to 40 with the bulk in the 20-somethings category. More men than women, and lots of friendly open people. One highlight of the first class came while playing a version "Kitty wants your corner" in which the middle person had to call out a non-observable trait and everyone with that trait had to stand up and switch seats while the middle person tried to take one. Andrew was in the middle and called out "if you have kinky underwear." My mind immediately went to the articles I still own from Safer Sex Nights past and my red corset and I stood up to switch seats. No one else got up. Strange mixture of pride and embarrassment as I'm sure my face turned beet red.

Friday night I went by myself to see Augusten Burroughs on his book tour at Borders. Don't really feel like talking about it anymore, though, or even the drunk kid who was passed out on my apartment's front lawn when I came home, except to say that after I called 3-1-1 (the non-emergency version of 9-1-1 in Chicago) a cop car, firetruck, and ambulance all came (I said he was breathing, but I guess it must have been a slow night) and it reaffirmed my "thing" for firemen.

The Espadrille Search

Spent almost an hour by myself in DSW this evening looking for espadrilles. They had many, many cute ones at reasonable but not fantastic prices and I couldn't decide so I left empty-handed. Hopefully my sister will go back with me tomorrow and be my second opinion, but in the meantime, these are my espadrille thoughts:
One pair (by Born) was extremely comfortable and cute in shape, but a pale lime green. Do I really want/need lime green shoes? Will I be able to wear them with any of the things I want to be pairing with my espadrilles?
Two different styles by Steve Madden were very tempting. One (in both silver and gold) was super-sparkly with fun ribbon ankle lacing things. I'm a sucker for the things that lace up your legs. The others are very similar but with shmancy beading instead of sequins and in a bone color. This pic I found (right) is similar but I'm not sure if it's actually the same shoe or not. Damn my non-visual memory.
I don't remember the brand of this one other pair I liked, but they were closed-toed and black with white stitching and black ribbon lace-up ankle things. Perhaps the most practical, though maybe not because I can think of skirts I own that wouldn't go well with the black. Really I need a white or neutral, but they tend to look creepy against my pasty-ass legs. Perhaps I need to start painting my legs a darker color with that tan-in-a-can lotion shit, because obviously, beauty and golden skin are of the utmost importance. Obviously.

Does anyone else find it extremely amusing when I'm being girly and superficial? Because I'm definitely laughing at myself with all my shopping and makeup and shit. It's still shit, but I'm pretending to be a grown-up here and grown-ups are supposed to look like they know what they're doing and that somehow includes makeup and fashion and crap like that.