There will be feasting and dancing

Next year, I'm going to...

1. Get a car. And a driver's license, I suppose.

2. Send my promo stuff to that one company that Dys kept going on about, and that other one in New York. Maybe nothing will come of it, but they're pretty much guaranteed not to give me anything if I don't get in touch with them, so what have I got to lose? It'd be nice to side-step those d-bags at Hometown Heroes. They are my primary revenge-motivation. I plan on being so rampantly successful that when H.H finally come to their senses and try to book me for shit, I can be all like, sorry, I'm unavailable because I'm too busy kicking ass and taking names and being Better Than You. Yes, I am that petty. Fucking shut up.

3. Do a little researchin' and see what else I can come up with. I know people in places other than here. Perhaps I could be doing things in those places.

4. Be more informed. TED talks, people! Scanning news sites for a couple of minutes every day, reading the paper, finding websites that tell me about books written about things that actually matter. I suppose it's time to finally become a citizen of the world, or at least something less of an ignoramus.

5. Travel. I'm going to go to at least one place that I haven't been before, that I'm not getting paid to go to.

6. Keep up with the improvement with The Problem. I think it's been about nine weeks. Someone should give me a poker chip or something.

7. Talk to the folks more. A small part of me may hate them with the fire of a thousand suns, but a much larger part knows they're not going to be around forever, and it's not worth wasting time holding grudges.

8. Try to be a little nicer. People are never going to get smarter or less annoying, so I suppose it's up to me to make sure I either deal with their irritating bullshit with as much grace as I can, or find ways to not be around them. I will be the best-natured hermit you only sort of met.

Blah blah blah

Home For the Holidays

It’s amazing how insistent you are that I come back for Christmas. When was Christmas ever a big deal for us? You were usually working, and you were usually drunk. ­You were always stressed out and cranky, and someone always ended up yelling at someone else. You did nothing to help. Did you ever pick out a present for either of us? We knew we’d never get anything we wanted and no one would look forward to the day itself. The rest of the respective clans were on the other side of the country. Family didn’t mean anything to us. Why do you even want to spend time with me, anyway? When did that become a thing?

What even makes you think that I want to lose out on three weeks of work and spend thirty fucking hours in transit to see you? I don’t want to get all Cat’s in the Cradle here, but you had your chance. You had me for eighteen years, the eighteen years that actually counted, and you blew it. You couldn’t get it together to love me then, so you don’t get to love me now. And you sure as shit don’t get me loving you.

I know a lot of it is my fault, the issues that I’m dealing with. I don’t deny that. I’ve grown up enough to have mastered the art of admitting it when I’m in the wrong. I can recognize that a significant portion of my problems are either in my own head or stem from my own actions. I’ve made peace with that, and I’m working on it. I put in my time at therapy, I take my meds, I talk to friends, I pray, and I try every damn day to be a better person. I won’t let my past actions shape my future.

“Mary have mercy, now look what I've done
But don't blame me, because I can't help where I come from…”

 - Amanda Palmer

I didn’t spring fully-formed from some kind of magical pod, however. If I’m fucked up, you’re at least a little bit to blame. Some of this shit is your fault. I know you apologized for not knowing what to do to help me and I appreciate that, really, I do. I appreciate all the good things you did. I can honestly say there were more good elements than bad in my childhood. Right now, though, all I can see is the miserable, cold, lonely, unhappy parts. I’d like to take this opportunity to do a little finger-pointing and name-calling, just so you can see them, too.

I’m tired of being a good sport. I’m over looking at the bigger picture and being even-handed and fair. I am an angry, whiney little brat and this time you are going to sit there and listen to me and you don’t get to interrupt or rebut. You aren’t allowed a defensive address. You just have to sit there and listen and feel fucking terrible about yourselves as I point out everything you did wrong.

“All day I've been wondering what is inside of me?
Who can I blame for it? I say it runs in the family…”

You said you didn’t know what to do to help me, but you didn’t even try to figure it out. One visit to a therapist because of the cutting, and then we never spoke of it again. Huffing in frustration any time I’d mention the absolute hell I was going through at school that one year. Pretending not to notice the losers and creeps I’d take to my bedroom, pretending I wasn’t out opening my legs for half the goddamn town every weekend. Looking the other way when I went out and got blackout drunk, or stayed home and did the same damn thing by myself. Never mentioning the night of the Year 12 formal when I landed in the hospital because of drugs. Never bothering to notice or ask or try and get me to tell you what was going on. It was all too much trouble, wasn’t it? You weren’t willing to put in the effort, and you weren’t there for me. You let me down, and now I go through life waiting for everyone else I care about to inevitably let me down. Because of you, I can’t trust anyone, not really. If someone leaves, or isn’t there when I need them, it’s not that big of a deal. It’s no more than I should have expected.

“It runs in the family
This famine that carries me to such great lengths,
To open my legs up to anyone who'll have me
It runs in the family
I come by it honestly, do what you want
'Cause, who knows, it might fill me up…”

Because you hit me, I forged a twisted connection between love and pain. I have a secret desire to be with someone who hits me, did you know that? Did you know I’ve always thought what I really deserved was a partner who would show they loved me by giving me bruises? You said you didn’t understand when I used to cut myself. What is there to understand? I was bad, so you hit me and then we never talked about the bad parts and then things were better. I grew a little older and I did things that made me feel bad, so I hurt myself and never talked about it, and then things were better. It was so simple, and yet you never made the connection.

I don’t care that it wasn’t all the time. If I still remember it, then it counts. I don’t care that you had it so much worse growing up. I don’t care that it used to be the standard. It should have occurred to you that there was a better way, and you should have worked to find that way. It’s fucked up to discipline a child by hitting them with a belt. It is FUCKED UP. There is nothing OK about physically harming someone, anyone, to get your point across. If I saw one single bruise on any of the kids I teach, or heard them mention that their parents hurt them, I would be calling in DCFS quicker than you could say, “judged unfit.”

“Runs in the family
We tend to bruise easily, bad in the blood…”

Nothing I do will ever be good enough. Not ever. I know you thought you were doing the right thing, raising me to be humble and not vain or full of myself. You were cutting down the tall poppy, always making sure not to be too precious. God forbid I should ever exude confidence or feel pride in my achievements. I will tell you this: a child’s parents are the only ones who have a duty to make a fuss over that child, maybe not all the time, but at least some of it. If your parents don’t tell you you’re smart and pretty and kind and good, who else is going to? If your parents don’t tell you that stuff, when will you start telling yourself?

You set the worst possible examples with food. You never bothered to fix your own disordered eating and, as a result, I inherited it along with curly hair and anger issues. Thanks a whole lot for that. I hope I’m there for your heart attack, you fat greedy fuck. I hate that you’ve made me like this. I hate that I have to consider it an achievement when it’s been a few months since I made myself throw up. I hate that I can count on my fingers the number of holiday meals I’ve actually digested.

“Me? Well, I'm well. Well, I mean I'm in hell.
Well, I still have my health (At least that's what they tell me)
If wellness is this, what in hell’s name is sickness?”

You gave me the worst possible model of how relationships should be. Are you at all surprised that I’ve been divorced twice? How could marriage seem important to someone who grew up viewing it as an insignificant, vaguely unpleasant chore? I can’t remember ever seeing either of you tell the other that you loved them. I can remember only a couple of occasions of you kissing each other. How was I supposed to know that it mattered, that it was possible to be with someone who made you happy? And that you could make them happy, too? It never occurred to me that there could be another option besides dividing your time between being furious with each other and freezing one another out? How the fuck was I supposed to know what a successful relationship looked like, much less have one of my own? Because of you, I only ever fall for people who will ignore me or treat me badly. I accept the kind of love, such as it is, that I think I deserve, and I am looking down the barrel of a life lived alone.

I hate that I still have this well of rage bubbling up inside of me. You were both so angry, always so damn angry in your own special ways. Yelling and slamming and swearing and smashing, or sulking and avoiding and shunning. You couldn’t get it together to figure out how to deal with things like civilized human beings, but you thought it was OK to have kids and bring them up in that toxic environment? Well done, people. Gold fucking stars all around. I’m almost thirty and I’m teaching myself things that you should have taught me before I was out of primary school. Thanks for that.

“I'm telling you 'cause I just want you to know me,
Know me and my family, we're wonderful folks…”

Did you ever wonder why I left? I left as soon as I could, and I’ve been getting as far away as I can ever since. I hate our family. I hate that you couldn’t get it together to love each other or interact like normal adults. I hate the examples and precedents you set.

I hate it even more now that you’re nagging me to come back. I don’t want to see you. I don’t want to spend time with you. I don’t want to be reminded of the shitty situation I came from. I’d rather pretend I didn’t have any family than actually spend time with you.

“Running is something that we've always done well
And mostly I can't even tell what I'm running from
I run from their pity, from responsibility,
Run from the country, and run from the city
I can run from the law, I can run from myself,
I can run for my life, I can run into debt
I can run from it all, I can run 'til I'm gone,
I can run for the office, and run from the cause
I can run using every last ounce of energy…”

Do you feel bad? Do you feel like failures? Do you feel guilt? Do you feel shame? I hope so. I hope you feel it deep down inside, so far down that you know you’ll never be able to wash it away.

You are the worst parts of me. You are everything I wish I weren’t.

“I cannot run from my family, they’re hiding inside me

Corpses on ice

Come in if you like, but just don’t tell my family…”

Things I want

1. To travel. I want to go to London, Paris, Botswana, Phuket, Reykjavik, Mexico City, Costa Rica, Lombok, Berlin, and about eighty-five other places. I suspect I was meant to do this in my early 20s, but whatever. Honey badger don't give a fuck.

2. To be a writer of some description. This will necessitate writing something outside of rants and sonnets to pudding and bad TV. I should get on that.

3. To have kids. I believe we've discussed this.

4. To not have The Problem any more. I am already working on that, and will be working on it to an even greater degree come this Thursday.

5. To help people. I want to shuffle off this mortal coil knowing that some people's lives sucked somewhat less due to my actions.

6. To be proficient at kickboxing.

7. To live in my own goddamn apartment. I don't want to own it (maybe one day), but Jesus tapdancing Christ, I have had it up to HERE with roommates.

8. To get my mother-fucking American drivers' license. Soooooon.

9. To be sedated. Bam bam bam bam bah, ba-bam bam bam bah, I wanna be sedated.

A little, not much

I am reading a book about emotional eating and the overcoming thereof. For those of you blessed with stable brainpans and no interest in things psychological, emotional eating is when you cram a bunch of food into your face instead of dealing with whatever it is that's making you upset. Eating your feelings, so to speak. Here's the part where you can roll your eyes and make some kind of "first world problems" joke, because obviously if it's an issue you've never experienced, it must be completely lacking in weight, if it exists at all. Perhaps you'd like to make fun of some people with bi-polar next?

While I'm digressing, I would like to tell everyone on the goddamn planet that telling someone with major depressive disorder to "cheer up" helps exactly no one, least of all the depressed person. The only thing that will result from sharing your little misguided ray of sunshine will be a mental line crossing out your name on a list of people the recipient knows they can count on.

I was going to write more, but now I'm tired. I believe I will lay on the couch and wait for Sunshine and Roses to come over so Roses can reclaim her boots. Dys sort of stole them and then deviously pretended to be giving them to Goodwill when she moved out. Good thing I compulsively seize people's cast-off clothes, or Roses might have cold and unstylish feet this fall.

What's new, pussycat?

Hey, hey, hey! You really have to say that in the Fat Albert voice for it to be funny. Please to comply, or run the risk of failing to appreciate my hilarity.

So what's up, non-existent readers? What's new? How y'all BEEN? I have been absent because...because fuck you, that's why. I've been in places that are not this blog for the last...three months? I don't know. However the hell long it's been, I'm here now, so let's all celebrate by going out for frosty chocolate milkshakes.

I took the fall semester off from school because I hated everything and everyone and I had a crisis of confidence and also I really, REALLY didn't want to fill out any more forms. Did you know that a lot of higher education involves filling out paperwork? Because it totally does. So now I am in an idle, sinful state of sloth, only working three different jobs and taking on one or two new exciting projects. Whatever will become of me?

There are ever so many new things to share, but because I made the executive decision to have vodka and diet Dr Pepper for dinner, I am in no mood to concisely sum up the activities of the recent past in an orderly fashion. Instead, I will tell you some things about me, sequenced according to however the hell they may choose to fall into my brain.

Thing the 1st: I am allergic to penicillin.
We found this out when I was 15 and had glandular fever. That's mono, to all you Yankee types. They gave me antibiotics to make my neck un-puff, which resulted in my feet (along with various other body parts) swelling up and itching like a motherfucker. I have an unpleasantly clear memory of kicking the walls in a vain attempt to make said itching stop. Cher maman took a look at my inflamed, glowing extremities and noted that her sister (Aunty Beth, who is rad...I will write a whole post about her sometime) had the same reaction to penicillin...right before her throat swelled up and prevented her from being able to breathe. So off we toddled to the nearby hospital, where they gave me a particularly painful injection in the derriere (heh...insert anal sex joke here...heh...insert...heh...), whereby the itching ceased, the swelling went down, and my mother started hassling me to get one of those medic alert bracelet things. Flash forward thirteen years...still no bracelet. Fuck that noise. Maybe I'll just get "allergic to penicillin" tattooed on my ass?

Thing the 2nd:
I will never not love wearing Converse all-stars. Also combat boots.

Thing the 3rd:
I just read True Grit. That shit was fucking rad. Mattie is right up there with Scout, Lizzie Bennett, Katniss, and Anne Shirley as one of my all-time favorite strong female protagonists. Of all time.

Thing the 4th:
I am not good at running. My body does not like to run. Events of the previous week have made this abundantly clear. I will not be put off, however. I'm going to see a running coach (yeah, that's a thing. I didn't know about it either, so don't feel too out of the loop) and get my gait analysed (gait is an awesome word. Just saying) and figure out how to run so it doesn't fuck my shit up. And then I will run All The 5k's! Also the half marathon! And then you will hail me as your cardiovascular god!

...but right now, I'm fucking hungry. Time for a veggie scramble, suckers.

When the hell did I write this?

There's no good way to say to someone, "I like you but I don't want to date you". When someone says "I just want to know what you think of me", there's no good way to say "I think you're a really great dude but I don't want you to be my boyfriend". There's no good way of saying "I think we should just be friends" because if that person wanted to just be your friend, they wouldn't be asking you to date them.
My room mates are watching a documentary about origami. I can't make anything except for a paper plane, but if someone had taught me geometry by getting me to fold colored bits of paper in nifty ways, I might not have developed such a deep and abiding loathing for math back in Year 5.
I am procrastinating. I need to clean the detritus of last night's party off the back deck, take out the trash, shower, go grocery shopping, run my speech, and get organized for this week. I am doing none of those things, preferring instead to just lie on my bed, contemplating the mysterious soreness of my legs.

Stop contemplating, start celebrating...

I think I might be in the process of actually making a decision. A not-questionable decision. A not-falling-into-it, actually-making-it-happen decision. I can't tell for sure, but maybe I'm actually taking charge of something for once.

I know. I'm as mystified as you are.

I don't want to spend three years studying to become a teacher when I don't even know if I want to be a teacher. I don't want to spend three years and a lot of money qualifying for something that you really have to love and be committed to if you're going to be any good at it. I don't want to make this decision without a little more background information. I don't want to start on such a shaky foundation without considering all my other options.

So I'm going to take five months and weigh up my options. I guess it'll really be more like three months, but that's two more months than I've had in the last three years to think about anything. Three months with no school, to figure out what I want to do next. I didn't look at anything, really, when I was thinking about schools before. I didn't visit any campuses, I didn't sit in on any classes. I didn't look into scholarships or programs or what credits transferred. I flew blind, for the most part. It's really fucking hard to commit yourself to figuring out the best possible academic and future career plan for yourself when you're taking a full course load and working three jobs. When you get thrown in at the deep end, with no American high school diploma, no citizenship, no SAT score, and not even a vague memory of what a guidance counselor might have said once upon a time back in the day, it's even harder. I'm not throwing up my hands and saying, poor little me, it's all too hard, I can't cope, I'm dropping out, wah wah wahhhh... I worried that if I took some time off, that's how I'd feel. I'd be one of those waffling twenty-somethings who wastes their time and potential and pisses everyone off by never committing to anything. I'm going to finish my bachelor's degree sooner or later. I'm graduating with my associate's in a month. Between August and October (the deadline for applying for Spring classes), I am not going to sit on my ass and eat bonbons and cry about my life...well, I might do that once in a while, but mostly, I'm going to use this time to figure out what to do next.


This is my plan. I have a plan. I am a person who never has a plan, and now I have one. A plan to make a plan. Knowledge of the things I'll need or where to get them. Time set aside to make this plan. Hah...I guess that whole plan, means, time set thing doesn't just apply to wanting to kill yourself. You're more likely to actually do something if you've actually got it all mapped out. 


Check back with me in a month, invisible readers. If I've actually got this shit done, you'd better send me a singing card and one of those edible bouquets, or I'm going to be pissed.

We Don't Need No Education

I just cannot bring myself to pretend to half-assedly care about convergent boundaries and plate tectonics any more. The ridiculous charade of a science class that I am taking this summer is chipping away at what little faith I have left in the absurdist theater piece known as higher education. Did I just use two similes in one sentence? I do believe I did. Good thing no-one's grading this, I might run the risk of getting a less than perfect score and have to feel terrible about myself.

Seriously, though, school fucking sucks. I am taking a science class and a music class because they are the last two things I need to get my associate's, and neither one is worth my time and energy, nor the paper I waste taking notes and drawing cartoons of people driving pencils into their eyeballs. There's just No Point to any of it.

I know enough about music to appreciate it. Six goddam years of piano lessons, three of music theory, and four of high school music class including band, choir, and percussion ensemble means I know all any average non-musician person needs to know about music. I wonder if I can test out of the class. I bet I can't. I bet that's something I would have needed to know about six months before even signing up for the stupid fucking class.

A college degree is nothing more than a glorified mix of a receipt and a certificate of attendance. It really, truly doesn't matter if you learn anything or not. It doesn't matter whether or not you retain any of the pap that you cram into your brain so that you can regurgitate it on command. All you have to do is show up, make some semblance of effort, do what you're told, and pass a predetermined selection of classes, preferably in a four year period. I have never met anyone and thought, good gracious, they're clever, I wonder what their college GPA was? Nor have I ever met anyone who struck me as dull and inept and thought, gee whillikers, I bet this one doesn't have a nice shiny degree hanging on their wall. Why the fuck do we care? At what point did we decide that people could only possess intelligence if they went tens of thousands of dollars into debt to acquire tangible proof of it?

Iphy, y u no bring the lolz?

I seem to have this magical superpower that involves putting people to sleep. I'm writing this tonight because I was supposed to hang out with Forthright but he passed out on the couch while we were watching a movie before heading to the bar. This happened the last time we hung out, also. Dys always seems to be asleep when I am in the house, and this is not just because I keep coming home in the small hours. I scampered through the front door mid-afternoon the other day and she was out cold with all the lights on and an audiobook playing. Things start going pretty far south with Beta, my ex-ex, because he would head off to the land of nod instead of talking, fucking, fighting, or doing anything with me, really. Ten Hut seems to have developed narcolepsy since he started dating me, too.
At first I worried that I might be incredibly boring. Pshaw. Clearly, this is my X-man mutant power at work. Fear me, callow humans. I have come to destroy your puny circadian rhythms!

I'm back at school for the summer semester. This college degree business is beginning to seem like a convenient excuse never to learn anything new or feign interest in subjects and issues that don't immediately grab your attention post graduation. Four years of forced reading and cramming is pretty much guaranteed to sour a person on any sort of knowledge acquisition. Once you have your degree, assuming you can find some kind of gainful employment that doesn't demand the same, you are free to spend the rest of your life watching reality TV and shopping for stylish yet affordable patio furniture. You've proved that you can consume information and regurgitate it at appropriate intervals. You have a nice little piece of paper as solid evidence of this. No one is ever going to test you anything ever again, so you may feel free to become as lazy and stupid as you like.

I have to say, I'm quite looking forward to that.

Lately, I've been idly toying with the idea of dying alone. I don't mean I'm going to go and live in a cave and go all Henry David Thoreau on your asses. It's just beginning to seem as if the whole marriage / lifelong partnership deal isn't ever going to come my way. At first this filled me with a sense of dread and failure, but I've been mulling it over and my perspective has shifted somewhat. Barring any unforeseen wacky hi-jinx, my life from here on out could pretty much go two ways. I could get my degree, go to grad school, and get some sort of real job. Or I could get my degree, go back to performing full time, and figure it out from there. Neither of those options are contingent on someone else being a part of my life. I can make bad decisions, miss deadlines, second-guess myself, and somehow get things more or less done with or without someone taking up more than their fair share of the bed and getting mad when I show up late to dinner.

I had some concerns regarding the breeding issue. It generally seems be a two-person sort of job, one that needs to take place before a woman reaches a certain age if she doesn't want to spend a bunch of money or have a euphemistically "special" baby. Although it pains me to admit it, I was starting to worry that I might not meet someone who wanted to go along with my crazy plan to pass on my DNA, much less someone who might like to stick around to mould and shape the drooling offspring into an actual functioning human. Quelle horreur! Fulfilling my societally-prescribed life role may be beyond my grasp! To hell with all that. I can raise a kid on my own. Judging by my track record of relationships, the poor creature will probably have a better chance that way. I believe I'll adopt a baby when I'm forty or so, if I don't get around to popping one out sometime before then. By that time I should have some sort of security hashed out, financial and otherwise, so the baby dealers will pretty much have to dig one up for me, right?

I am addicted to memebase.com. I don't know if that makes me hip and with it, or just incredibly lame.

I've also developed an incredibly disgusting habit of picking my nose when I'm by myself and no one can see me. I can say with a certain degree of confidence that this does not make me hip and with it.

I've got a sweet tooth...for licorice drops and jelly rolls...

Drinkin' by myself, ohhhh I'm drinkin' by mah-selffff...

Yeah, I'm on spring break. But I still have to go to work and do two pages worth of shit I said I'd get done sometime in the last year or so...sorry about that. This education shit is for the birds. I want to be out there being fabulous and taking over the world. I love Chicago, I love living here...but...how many more pretty years do I have left? Shouldn't I be out pursuing my amazing career being the daring young girl on the flying whatever right about now?

Today I was contemplating the whole sugar daddy thing. Right now, the Iphy coffers are empty, and mama needs a new pair of shoes. Specifically, some of those girly looking Vans that have the slim sole and tapered toe. I could let some old rich dude grope at my stuff once a week and not have to teach umpity-ump classes to make my rent. I figure, I have bad sex for free at least once in a while. What if I had it on a regular basis for a few months and got myself health insurance and a retirement fund? I know I would be Crossing A Line, but at this point, does it even fucking matter?

There are logistics to consider. How much is the standard? I don't want to undercut anyone, y'know. How often does...it...happen? Does Daddy Warbucks really want to come to the barrio and make the beast with two backs in my creaky Ikea bed? What about my room mates? Also...what about the whole serial killer factor? Would I need to tell one of my friends about my sordid little scheme and set up an elaborate system of daily texts at a specific time, with a name and address to give to the police if one of those texts doesn't show up? Would I need to buy a tazer? Pepper spray?

On some levels, I can't believe I didn't do this sooner. On others...well, would you want your daughter considering this? Your sister? Your best girlfriend? It would be degrading banging a relative stranger for a generous flat rate, but it's also degrading being in your mid-to-late twenties and buying your clothes in the children's department of Target.

So what say you, reading public? Do I throw caution and good sense to the wind and find the nearest willing moneyed codger to exploit? Or do I hold on to the remaining shreds of my dignity and keep trying to pretend that I'm really a nice girl?

My long-winded argument as to why the University of the Incredibly Common should accept me into their fold and not make me pay to be there

As I sit writing this, I am not only thinking about the stressful nature of the college application process and my future career as a fourth-grade teacher. I am also thinking about which costume to wear when I perform my hula hoops act at a corporate event this weekend, what music to use for my intermediate trapeze class’s recital piece, and how to improve my explanation of holding on with one’s feet while climbing a rope. As hackneyed as it may sound, I am not a typical college transfer student.

For the past two years, while attending Harold Washington college full time, I have been working as an aerial arts coach and professional circus artist. My life is spent climbing, stretching, balancing, performing, demonstrating, correcting and spotting -- as well as studying. Rather than becoming overwhelmed, through dedication, organization, and hard work, I have managed to maintain a 4.0 GPA while advancing both my circus and teaching careers. After earning a degree in urban education, I plan to share my drive for academic and creative success as an elementary teacher in the CPS system.

As a circus artist, I have traveled across the globe, inspiring people to smile, laugh, and be amazed at the astounding capabilities of the human form. Listening to the echo of applause while I hang by my feet thirty feet in the air or spin nine hula-hoops independently on different parts of my body provides an indescribable rush. Performing has instilled confidence in me; on-stage, you have to believe you’re the best at what you’re doing, because if you don’t, neither will the audience. Acquiring my skills with hula-hoops, silks, and trapeze has given me self-discipline; you can’t achieve something unless you are willing to work for it, and even if it hurts, keep going until you get it right.

I admit that I revel in the glitter, glamour and danger of the circus world, but I also believe in circus’ potential as a mode of social justice work. Social circus, a field in which I have worked in since age seventeen, is a branch of community arts outreach that uses circus arts to foster self-esteem, confidence in learning, and social skills in children and teens. I have worked with toddlers, elementary school students, teenagers, children with special needs and at-risk youth, in both the U.S. and my native Australia. I have taught everything from aerial silks to clowning to juggling. I myself started out in an after-school community circus program created by the late Dr. Reg Bolton, a pioneer of the social circus movement. I credit him with inspiring me to become a performer, and even more so as a defining influence in my work with children.

One of Reg’s key philosophies was that there is no such word as “can’t.”  When a student says they ‘can’t’ do something, we should correct them by explaining they can’t do it yet, but if they keep trying, one day they will be able to. Nothing makes me prouder than watching my students perform. I love seeing how far they’ve come and what they’ve achieved, especially the ones who insisted they’d never be able to get off the ground, the ones who initially were too scared to try, and the ones who had only ever been told what they were failing at, now realizing that they have the capacity to succeed. 

Through social circus outreach and residency work, I have spent abundant time in schools of every caliber, here and abroad. From my experience working in the CPS system, I feel I could contribute patience, understanding, and an ability to relate to and work with children from across the social strata. Expanding upon my social circus background, I intend not only to give children the academic and structural tools they need in school, but to build their confidence and teach them how to overcome adversity in life. I can move toward achieving this goal by studying urban education at UIC.

I continue to love my career as a circus artist, but I have always known it would not be my lifelong vocation. Backstage at shows and en route to out-of-state performances, I have always been the one with my nose in a book during warm-up, trying to expand my knowledge base and critical thinking as I increased my flexibility. I love to read, learn and find new ways to connect ideas. While my rotator cuff muscles are beginning to show signs of wear, my intellect and desire for knowledge are primed for performance. An academic degree has always been part of my plan, and I expect to attain it with the same focus, perseverance, and creativity that I used to obtain my circus skills. I hope I will be able to do so in UIC’s urban education program.

Another A+ load of rambling.

I liked what Descartes had to say about the things our minds invent in dreams. We think that dreams are pure imagination, creating things that don’t exist in waking life. But because waking life (reality, if you want to think of it like that) is all we know and all we have experienced, our dreams have to take elements from waking life in order to exist. These elements might be combined in surprising ways, or be difficult to recognize, but a dream will always contain something that is familiar to us, even if it is only colors or sounds.

            When I was a little kid, I used to have this idea that anything I wasn’t directly looking at right at that moment just turned itself off and didn’t exist until I looked at it again. Maybe I was just a late bloomer in terms of figuring out object permanence because I carried on with this all the way up to pre-operational (up to age seven) when you’re supposed to get it figured out during sensorimotor (birth to two). It was hard to imagine that there could be things going on outside of what I was directly experiencing. I decided that if I couldn’t see someone or something, it / they still existed, paused somehow, waiting for me to come back. When Descartes talks about “neither earth, nor sky, nor anything extended thing, nor figure, nor magnitude, nor place, providing at the same time, however, for the persuasion that these things do not exist otherwise than as I perceive them”, I was reminded of my peculiar childhood philosophy. Maybe God plays a trick on us so that things only exist if we see them and think about them.

Descartes suggests that denying the existence and possession of their own body would classify a person as insane. There’s definitely a psychological disorder that deals with feeling like you and your body aren’t one and the same. If you feel separate from your entire body, it’s dissociative identity disorder. If it’s just a limb, (say, that pesky arm that’s been overly intrusive and in your way since childhood), then it’s known as body integrity identity disorder. Most people who suffer from the latter aren’t crazy in any other way, but they’ll go to the extent of severely damaging the offending limb so that doctors will be forced to amputate it. Abnormal psychology is rad. 

So who cares, so what?

When you least want to talk about something is probably the time that you most need to talk about it. When you most need help, you're the least likely to ask for it. This is not me asking for help. The only person who can help me is myself, so let's all hold our breath until that happens. Wait...maybe not. I don't want to be responsible for any untimely suffocations.

Everything I do is wrong. Every decision I make is the wrong one. I know logically that this can't be the case, but somehow it feels like it. Lately I've been feeling like that more and more. I know I should take steps to fix things or to make myself feel better, but seems like it isn't worth it. Nothing I've ever done to try and solve a problem has ever worked, so why keep trying?

There are new photos of me on Everyone's Favorite Time-waste and I look fat. I think it's a gyp that I got all of the depression symptoms EXCEPT the loss of appetite. Shit, it'd be worth being miserable all the time if it made me skinny.

I didn't finish my college apps. I still have to rewrite an essay and I can't muster the bare minimum of self-esteem to write positive things about my life so far.

I stopped seeing Ten Hut because he wasn't nice enough to me. I can't be nice to myself, so someone has to make up the difference. He didn't have that capacity. Probably no one does, when it comes down to it.

I'm broke. Again. I resolved to make more money this year and so far exactly the opposite has happened. Short of banging some old rich dude, or picking up even more teaching (just to make myself a little more tired and stressed), I have no idea how to increase my income.

Everything, in a word, sucks. And before you remind me, gentle reader, I'm aware that these are all first-world, middle-class, white girl problems. No one has cut off my clitoris with a rusty pair of scissors or married me off at the age of twelve. No one has forced me to become a child soldier. I didn't contract flukeworms from wading in a filthy rice paddy ten hours a day. I'm not working in a sweat shop or being sold as a sex slave. I recognize that there are a great many people with far suckier lives than mine. For some reason, this doesn't make me feel any better. It actually makes me feel worse because it highlights how selfish and pathetic I am.

The only thing that keeps me getting up and going to class and going to practice and functioning like a normal human being is that I know if I let myself fall all the way down, it would be that much harder later on. It would be more work to reapply to school if I dropped out at this point. It would be harder to find a job if I blew off the jobs I have right now. If I don't practice I'll just get fatter and feel worse about myself. It's this interesting little catch-22...keep going, feel terrible. Give up, feel worse later on. You can see why some days I think it might be easier to just gulp down a bottle of aspirin with a Grey Goose chaser. Except that's another half-assed thing. Technically, that would be a para-suicidal gesture. "Successful" suicides are a lot more likely to use a means with no grey areas, like a gun, or jumping off a height. Para-suicidal folks cut their wrists or pop a bunch of pills because they don't really mean it. They'll try over and over again but they always make a call at the last minute, always leave themselves a stop-gap. That would be me. I don't actually want to die, I just don't have much interest in living any more.

If you think about it, I don't have that much to live for. My family is on the other side of the world, they're doing OK without me. My friends would just think I moved back to the motherland or something. It'd be like sneaking out in high school. You tell your mum you're coming to my house, I'll tell my mum I'm going to your house, and we'll have an awesome time at the party with no one worrying about us. No one would even notice I was gone.

But what about work and school and performing and teaching and all those wonderful things, you ask? What about them? Gee, I've done such a stellar job with my amazing career, haven't I? I spent the weekend prancing about for the entertainment of a bunch of nicotine-riddled diabetic senior citizens at a casino in the asshole of America. Aren't you impressed and jealous? School...well, let's see. I go to an open-admission school for idiots, fuck-ups, and former addicts. I can't even get it together to apply somewhere else, much less get myself a scholarship so it doesn't bankrupt me to get a degree. Assuming that by some miracle, I did actually transfer and graduate, what would I do then? Be a teacher? Go to grad school? I wouldn't be able to make up my mind. Either way, I'd still be broke and doing a shitty job of whatever it was I fell into doing. And teaching...well, the kids would miss me until someone else came to take my place. Hopefully they'd remember some good things that I taught them, like pointing their toes and being brave enough to try things and persistent enough to keep trying until it works.

When I teach, I am the person I wish I was in the rest of my life. It's the only time when I know what the right thing to do is, and the only time I know I'm doing something good and worthwhile.

I'm sitting here, crying. I have six pages of Descartes to read, and about 25 pages of Montaigne's essays. The classes for which they were assigned won't transfer, so in the grand scheme of things, there's really no point in stressing about getting the reading done. I might as well just stop bothering and let myself have shitty grades to go with my shitty everything else.

I'm waiting for it, the thing that finally pushes me over. That one final straw to break the camel's back. I hope it comes soon. I want to be done. I want it all to be over.

My Totally Rad Poem About That One Time I Had To Take the SAT

On a Saturday morning, chilly and grey
I got up all early, 'cuz today was the day
I munched on some oatmeal, then Ten Hut and me
We zoomed off down Lake Shore to the ol' U of C

I rocked my black t-shirt with just that one word:
"Cash", and the picture of Johnny, flipping the bird
It was my own little way of vaguely protesting
the utter stupidity of standardized testing

After a solid month straight of brain-numbing revision
of probability, algebra, graphs, and division
It was SAT D-day, and I was prepared
to take that shit on with my teeth and wits bared

I had number two pencils, numbering six
one eraser, one sharpener, and an interesting mix
of grit, irritation and fear all bouncing around
just in case the right answers couldn't be found

With a gaggle of high-schoolers, pimply and small
I spent four hours trapped in a cramped lecture hall
Devoid of windows but with comfortable seats
Spaced waaaay far apart to discourage the cheats

I burned through the writing and critical reading
though those passages on politics left my brain bleeding
The math wasn't perfect, but I tried my best
Did the ones that I knew and left blank the rest

A test such as this one sums up your knowledge
and decides if you can go to the fancy-pants college
I can't rightly describe a superior system
But I bet, a lot of smart kids, this crap totally missed 'em

At one forty-five, I closed up my exam
Stretched my neck, cracked my back, and with a mumbled "goddam..."
Got the fuck out of dodge and got on with my life
boozing up at the Derby and looking for strife.

An A+ in overthinking it

I am annoyed at things happening that have happened before. They have happened before, and I didn't like it then, and I don't like it now. I am annoyed that I am allowing them to happen, and I am annoyed that they are happening in general, in equal measure.

No me gusta mi vida.

Here are things I am thinking about doing, in no particular order. That means this list is a combination, because the order of the items on the list doesn't matter. If it mattered, it would be a permutation. And if I make irrelevant references to math while blogging, it means I'm really studying, not wasting time. Genius!

What now do? I this now do:

1. Dropping the stupid women's studies roughly disguised as psychology class. I know about gender and body image and the patriarchy already. Also dropping the American Government class taught by the conspiracy theorist who offers opinions rather than facts, ends every class early, and spends more time bashing the American political system than actually explaining how it works. I stand to gain exactly nothing from these classes, except an increased amount of disgust for my school and its lax hiring policies in terms of instructors.

2. Getting the broken capillaries on my face zapped with lasers. I waste a shit-ton of money on things that are bad for me. Why not waste a shit-ton of money on something that will put me in a slightly better mood and make me look less like a sea-hag?

3. Stopping reaching half-arsedly for the stars in terms of transferring schools. The University of the Incredibly Common is good enough for most people. It's probably good enough for me. Nancy-fancy-pants University is definitely good enough, but do I really want to spend the next two years going into debt, hating my peers and shlepping up to the burbs just so I can say I went to a Big Ten school? Well...sort of. It would be a nice fuck-you to everyone, everyone ever, to be able to say yep, that's where I went. I went to the smart people's school. I'm better than you and I have a piece of paper to prove it. Suck it, world. That's a pretty fucking slim justification, I guess. Wow, I can impress people who are impressed by stupid shit like where you went to college. That's some validation that will totally fix everything. Psssht.

4. Taking the SAT. I'm not thinking about that, I'm actually doing it. In a month. Gah. I'm not concerned about three quarters of it. I know from words. I know how to barf out a paper in half an hour. I know what you fucked up on purpose in that paragraph, and I know the words to put in the blanks. But the math...well, two different tutors and at least two hours of studying every day should hopefully stop me from completely messing it up. I hope.

5. Saying nice things to myself. In that stupid women's psych class that I hate, one of the students was talking about how her aunt would make her go to the mirror and tell herself she was beautiful every night before bed. It reminded me of Aibilene in "The Help", telling Mae Mobley she was kind and smart and important and having Mae Mobley repeat it so she'd know it and believe it all the time, forever. Every day. I spend every damn day telling myself I'm fat and stupid and lazy and ugly and old and pathetic...and I pretty much believe it. Aaaaand I am quite often abjectly miserable. I am, quite frankly, sick of hating myself. So I think I'll try saying something else to myself. I don't think I'll believe it right away, maybe I'll never believe it at all. But if I just say it, this new thing, maybe it'll stop me from saying all that other stuff. The fat-lazy-ugly-stupid-old-pathetic stuff. I want that to stop. I am done with that. I don't know about loving myself, but I sure am sick of hating myself.

6. Starting different, separately located, NEW therapy. I like Shiny Loafers Girl. I think she is good for me for quite a lot of things. I don't think she is equipped to deal with some of my specific things, however. I think I need someone who just deals with Iphy's Specifics. Hopefully I can go in and see that person for maybe a year and then have enough skills of my own to deal with those Specifics by myself. We shall see.

7. Doing less stuff that I'm supposed to do and more stuff that I want to do. Drop two classes that I hate and am annoyed by, have to step down off the moral high ground of "I'm someone with a full course load who still works full time, la la la, look at me, I'm special", but be less tired, hate everything less, have less fits of angry exhausting rage-y sobbing, and maybe have the time to do things I actually like. Wow, that was a poorly constructed sentence. Good thing it wasn't part of an SAT essay.
At the very least, if I drop those damn classes, I won't have to face-palm every five minutes over the stupidity of the professors. I'm a little concerned that if I do actually commit to dropping those classes, I will feel like THIS:

a. Buhhhh, now I have two more "dropped" classes listed on my academic history. But my academic history is not my transcript, and the schools I am applying to will never see those "dropped" classes, they will just see the courses I completed and got A's in.

b. Mrrrr, it turns out I am not a magical wonder woman who could carry a full course load and do her job really well and work full time and carry on all her favorite pursuits and be happy as well. Now no one will say "You're crazy and I admire you for being able to deal with your taxing schedule and while I pity you, I am also impressed by you." Boo, I suck.

c. Dagnabbit, now I'm not a full-time student. No U-Pass for me.

d. Mmmmmmph, now those stupid professors that I hated will think I quit their classes because they were too academically challenging for me. If I stayed and got A's in those classes, after receiving said A's, I could send those professors impolite and snotty e mails explaining exactly why they were total morons who should not be allowed to teach anyone, anything, ever. Three more months of misery is totally worth the opportunity to send snarky e mail! TOTALLY!

e. Grrrr, now I can't be on the President's List when I clock a 4.0 for the spring semester. Mind you, they haven't posted the 4.0 I had for the fall semester yet, so it's not like I'd even be around to see the stupid list anyway.

f. Quitters never win and winners never quit. I don't believe that AT ALL. I think that phrase is part of what's fundamentally wrong with America. Quitters who realize they're better at and happier doing something besides whatever it is they're quitting are totally winners. Winners who win and then step down graciously and go on to do other, different things are, in a sense, quitting, but they are still winners, are they not?  And why the fuck does it make you a winner if you continue to do something that you hate doing, that you probably shouldn't have decide to do in the first place? I feel like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes when he joins the baseball team under duress, gets hassled by the other kids because he sucks at baseball, and then gets called a quitter by the coach when he stops playing. Except I am not only Calvin, but also the other kids, and the coach, all at once. Boy, is it ever crowded in my brain.

I was going to work on this paper I have to write about Sappho, or this other paper I have to write about Hamlet...but whatevs. I needed to say this stuff and now it is said and we can all go on our merry ways, whistling jaunty tunes.