the wrong side of the bed

i was making copies for my class up in the office the other day when i ran into a faculty member that i know well. i was in the middle of a large job, so while he waited for his turn, we chatted a bit. he asked me what i am doing this semester and i told him that i am "teaching" the intro race and ethnicity class. he said, "oh? are you teaching it?" and i replied, "no, no. i am TAing it." and we continued on with our conversation. the thing is, though, i was really irritated. this has come up before. why can't i say that i am teaching a class? according to my conceptualization of the word "teacher", what i do is so much closer to teaching than what many professors do. i mean, i am engaging the students with the material in one on one interactions (often). professors and lectures present information, but i am the one who makes sure that they understand. it isn't as if animatronic bears could do what professors do, that's not what i am saying. obviously, preparing lectures is really difficult. i have guest lectured a couple of times, and i spent days preparing for something that took 50 minutes, so obviously it is hard work. and selecting the material to be covered in class is also a skill that most TAs don't have to bother with. however, i really think i should be able to claim that i am a teacher. afterall, i am the one who knows if the students are learning or not and i am the one they come to for help.

all i am saying here is that i am a little off-kilter today, but isn't that always the case?

an email i got from the dean of students:

Dear UW-Madison student,


Halloween is now only days away! As you've been dreaming up and designing that knock-'em-off-their-feet costume, the city of Madison has spent months planning for a safe, fun and problem-free All Hallow's Eve celebration on Saturday, Oct. 30.


But we need your help. You can help ensure that this year's Halloween
yields both wonderful memories and safe revelry for everyone by keeping in mind the following:


--Ensure that your friends do not overconsume alcohol or other drugs


--Always obtain clear consent from potential sex partners before romancing them


--Refrain from participating in or escalating any potential ruckus or fray


--Look out for your friends and help them stay out of trouble


--Choose a creative costume that does not denigrate the racial, ethnic or cultural heritage of others


--Cooperate with law enforcement officials or members of the Dean of
Students staff who will be patrolling State Street and the adjacent blocks

okay, i think it is great that they sent out this notice to students. i mean, i typically go on a pre-halloween rant in my sections. i find halloween in madison to be pretty fricking scary. i have seen people on state street walking around bloodied on normal weekends. holidays just send these kids over the edge. and one year a student of mine was violently gang raped at a halloween party. which freaks me out. i don't like to think about my students being hurt by one another. i just don't know how useful this message is going to be with phrases like "Refrain from participating in or escalating any potential ruckus or fray" and "Always obtain clear consent from potential sex partners before romancing them." romancing them? what? as if people were going to be coercing each other into lobster dinners at two in the morning on october 31st.

fill up my time! just fill it up!

it is funny to think about having a plan for one's life. are there particular things i should accomplish? are there any things that i want to accomplish? i'm not sure. i know there are some things that scare the shit out of me and/or don't interest me at all. like having children. what do you do with the little buggers? they need so much. plus, it is hard to guess what they need when they can't yet speak. i prefer things that can talk. i try to have plants, but even that scares me a bit. when do i water them? why can't they just tell me? of course, being able to speak doesn't mean that you can actually say anything. take me, for example. not only do i never know what is coming out of my mouth, i am terrified by the things that do, and i still don't say what i want to. or else everything i mean is mixed in with the things i don't.

i sleep with a stuffed animal. i know, juvenille, right? but i am barely 13! besides, he is someone to talk to. when i was a kid, i had a care bear that i loved dearly. Grumpy, of course. my mother used to tell me to talk to Grumpy about my problems when i couldn't sleep. i think my problems when i was a child pretty much boiled down to Nobody Likes Me. are my problems worse now? i was just talking to sir eddie p about whether or not my strengths were being put to their best use in grad school. sometimes i want to run the hell away from here. sir eddie summed up the problem this way, "i think madison is a big downer."

i spent a lot of time in bed this morning with my stuffed beetle, cecil. cecil is awesome. he has beautiful orange wings, a green body, and purple limbs. plus, his eyes are tiny, squinty things, much like my own. i think we are just enough alike, because of this, that cecil and i can really relate. yet, i didn't really talk to him this morning. what should i say? where should i start? can you handle it, cecil?

i just watched "Say Anything" for what must by now be the millionth time. does it ever get old? sometimes. sometimes i can't handle watching ione skye. she can be a bit much. today i was cleaning my apartment with lloyd for company and all went well. despite being in a foul mindset, i actually found myself enjoying the film. i laughed at the guys down at the gas-n-sip. i enjoyed corey and d.c. encouraging lloyd to be a man rather than a guy. i even cringed for mr. court when his credit card was rejected by the pretty sales person at the baggage shop. i don't know. i mean, i could have been sad or bored but i wasn't.

i did, however, go out and buy a stellar juke box as a result of the movie. set me back a few thousand dollars because the buyer didn't want to part with it.

i am starting my day in a mood. here are things that i am doing to exacerbate this:

1. i have decided not to shower. i mostly do this for the benefit of those around me, but fuck 'em. i'm not doing it.

2. i am listening to Catpower. i have been doing this every morning for a week. i think by tomorrow i won't want to leave my bed. thank goodness it will be saturday.

3. i am eating ice cream for breakfast. my fridge is full of beer, rotting produce, cheese, and ice cream. i think i have made the best decision. starting my day this decadently makes me sad, though. do i deserve ice cream for breakfast? unlikely.

add to this that i have to write a short paper by noon. add to this that a friend is annoyed with me. add to this that i have been remiss in my responsibilities to my girl scout troop and the other leaders have been doing all of the work. add to this that i seem incapable of taking out my garbage.

dorotha, why is it that you are late in everything that you do?

hmm... according to the class offered through my mental health provider, "Attacking Anxiety and Depression", i am just afraid of failing and being judged harshly for it. rather than do anything that might go wrong, i just opt out.

do you have something you should be doing right now?

yes, of course. would i be blogging if i had free time? i'm trying to finish something up for my union. it is my last obligation to them this year. i feel like, because i am the one who initiated the project, i need to do the best job on it.

so, get started.

whatever.

yesterday (!) afternoon some friends and i went with careyoke to help her find a wedding dress. if you know me, you know that this isn't my scene, but for careyoke i would do anything asked of me. and so i went. it was actually quite fun. lisa lisa and abigail van buren would tease me when i would coo over careyoke's dress. don't tell anyone, but it was sort of fun to watch her trying different things on. it was like having my own, life-size, wedding cake barbie. a moment that i never thought would happen in my life was when i said, "i like the one with the corset top and the veil." a corset top and a veil! ick! when i commented that those were words i thought i would never say, van buren suggested that i probably also wanted careyoke to bind her feet. perhaps she needs a chastity belt, too?

as awkward as i felt making these anti-feminist declarations, i don't think that was the hardest blow my self concept took. the store itself was quite humiliating in effect. every wall was mirrored and ever where you looked were big flouncy dresses and pretty women trying them on. i have never felt more like the 13 year-old boy my friends seem to think that i am. i looked so out of place in my checkerboard vans, baggy pants, orange thermal top, and navy hoodie. finish the image off with crooked plastic glasses and a mop of unstyled hair and you have it. the world's most un-girlie girl. i couldn't escape my own awkwardness. avoiding mirrors and staring at the floor didn't help either. the carpet was littered with glitter and beads. i am most always unadorned. plain and silly and without baubles and trappings of femininity.

tomorrow i will overcompensate. just watch me.

i think i will paint my nails now.

my friend henry has this fabulous link on his site. jeremy wants me to post the link on my site. if he wants the link up, why doesn't he put it on his site? this is what he said:

Because you're the one with hormones, not me.

is it a fun game for you to guess what song my title comes from? probably not. anyway, i don't have one for this. i just wanted to express my embarrassment over an incident that just happened. i was up in the main office confessing a terrible crime to patrick when a fellow grad student walked in looking for someone to help him. i guess i hadn't seen this kid in a while because i kind of assumed, since he looked familiar, he must be a former student of mine. i said, "hey, how ya doin'? can i find someone to help you?" in my "nice dorotha" voice. creepy.

i wish i could interact with other living things without feeling so horribly uncomfortable.

okay, i need some help. i am trying to remember songs that have the sound of glass breaking. i had a friend who really liked a particular song with a bottle breaking, but i can't remember the friend or the song.

are you the friend? are you the song?

first - someone commented on a couple day old post of mine that i had used a word that is not a word (earnesty). yeah? so? anyway, this reminds me of two things:

i) when my friend clare and i were in high school, we had the same conversation over and over again about a word she liked to use. the problem was that it wasn't a word. i don't guess i really care anymore, but the word that is not that she chose to use is "stomple".

ii) when my friend adam was in high school, he insisted on pronouncing the "h" in honest. it was an annoying affectation.

second - on my walk home just now, i noticed that the rain had knocked many yellow leaves onto the ground. i love yellow leaves especially much and look forward to seeing them contrasting against the asphalt in the church parking lot i cut across when i walk to school in the morning.

when i was in high school, i had hair down to the small of my back. i wore it like a cloak. my hair was healthy and beautiful and it was the only thing people really knew about me. my friend clare and i polled people to see what they thought of us. i asked about clare and got answers such as pretty, creative, imaginative, and "she has eyes that can see farther than most." when clare asked about me, people mostly said things along the lines of "is she the girl with all of the hair?" in my whole childhood, the only positive feedback i ever recieved about my appearance was that i had beautiful hair. by the time i was 17, i hated my beautiful hair. i tried to get it cut, but i had the same stylist since the time i was 7 and she was rather attached to my locks and wouldn't cut it short enough for my liking. finally, when i got to college, i began mangling my hair in as many ways as i could think of. i have had every "natural" hair color except for grey. i have had red, pink, magenta, fuscia, mauve, salmon, orange, fire engine, candy apple, green apple, acid green, blue, turquoise, purple, yellow, and many combinations of these. i once had black hair with blonde roots that grew out into black hair with a blonde stripe and then my natural brown. that may have been my favorite. i have had a shaved head. i have had ridiculously asymmetrical haircuts that i gave to myself at 4 in the morning while in the pits of depression. i have done everything except have a chimp cut my hair and an elephant as the colorist. and still, my hair is the only thing about me that people ever care about. it is weird knowing that my hair is the focal point for people's attraction to me. it seems to be the case no matter how ugly i try to make it, i just can't get it to the same level of hideous as the rest of me.

my hair is currently red. i like it red. it is more natural looking than not, but i wish it were more like Run Lola Run, which it has been in the past. the last time my hair was that color, i ended up with a stalker. red hair garners the most male attention. when i would walk to work with my fire engine red hair, the homeless men at the bus stop would say, "hey red, looking good!" i didn't mind that as much as i did the stalker. i actually shook the kid pretty easily by dying my hair black. in fact, he didn't recognize me in the last face-to-face interaction we had. some commitment.

anyway, i am going to let my stoner crush cut my hair tonight. not too much. i like it long in front for hiding. but, i need a change.

god, i feel so contained today. there is nowhere for all of it to go.

i am not in the right place or living the right life. when i lived in new haven i was a temp. for an entire year i had the same temporary job. i knew that i was only going to live there for a year. it was part of a plan that has since fallen apart. but, my year in new haven i called my temporary life. it wasn't just the job, it was everything that would eventually come to pass.

i am no longer living like that. but how am i living? it isn't even temporary, it is waiting. it is an anticipatory life. what will happen next? how will i even know it is happening? in the meantime, everything is spilling out with no plan. i am lacking in wherewithal.

a friend just told me that she was worried about me because i am so sad. am i so sad? can people tell? i feel like i have been a little bit weird lately, but sad? i'm not sure i see it. maybe i just don't know. maybe you should tell me.

i don't really. i wish the weekend were over with altogether. i hate weekends. i always feel so lonely. right now it is sort of crushing me and i don't know what to do. i have tons of school work today. i have a million things to do around the home. i've only been alone for the past two and a half hours anyway. how can i get so tired of being by myself when i have been with people all day? shouldn't i relish this time or something?

i desperately want to see people, but i just know that if i leave my house i will be disappointed anyway. can't win for losing sometimes.

why, at the age of 28, do i still want to spend saturday mornings watching cartoons? seems like a reasonable thing to do, doesn't it? just tell me that it does.