Two Magpies, A Blue Jay and An Owl...

 

    Day 3 of Blogging With One Eye. I did drive to the store yesterday, it is much better. I can now type with one eye partially closed and one open, the glare is not nearly as bad.

    We have discovered a mama robin who has built her nest inside of a plant placed directly outside of our garage. It hangs between the two doors, and is one of the nosier, more active locations in our yard. We thought we would help her out and move it a few feet to the left, away from the doors, yet where she could still clearly find it, only to discover that there were three tiny blue eggs already nestled inside. Moving it would have given the cats a better shot at reaching, so we moved it back . We now open the garage door only once a day and park the cars in the driveway to avoid disturbing her.

    Yesterday, I came out to hear a raucous argument in the tree about twenty feet from her nest. The magpies are a favorite of mine, I've always loved their call, it's like a small children's whistle. But what I heard instead was a full throated squawk, and a screech I've never encountered. I knew it was the magpies, because that whistle was still present between the shrieks. When I looked up, I looked into the eyes of the first owl I've ever seen up close. I see them on roofs and light posts, but never this close. He looked like Robert De Niro in every movie he's in; unflinching, solid, not taking any of your crap. He was wedged between two massive branches, staring straight ahead, completely ignoring the hysterics that surrounded him. At first I only saw his feet, as his orange and brown feathers blended into the bark. They were huge talons with what appeared to be dungeon death spikes of yellow on his legs. Once I saw his face, he looked right at me and I thought "Well damn, that's an owl," like some sort of elementary birder. I grabbed my phone and began to record the melee, finding the frame with one eye and hitting the red button. Two magpies were above him to his left and right, screaming their heads off at him like Joe Pesci whaling on everyone in Casino.A little behind them in another branch was a massive blue jay, who was lending his own voice to the fray, but was not beating his wings about like the other two. As long as we're in mob world, he would be like Steven Van Zandt in Sopranos. De Niro sat, unscathed. I stared at him again and realized he had feathers in his beak.

     I immediately panicked and looked at the tiny robin's nest, a useless gesture as she would clearly have vacated with all of this hubub surrounding her. I returned my attention to the ousting and the owl had not budged or blinked, but the other three were still determined to scream him out of their tree and off of their property. After what felt like a few minutes, the owl simply spread his feathers and slowly drifted down to the next tree, like that's what he intended all along, these hysterical ninnies had nothing to do with his choice to move. His swoop emboldened the others, who immediately took wing to scream louder and escort him from his perch.

   I pushed the red button on my phone to stop recording, looked up at the birds as they left, and back down at my phone. I pushed the red button again, realizing that I had only recorded five seconds of me turning the recording on and off. I would love to blame my ONE EYE on the mistake, but alas, I do it pretty consistently. I am not the best at tech even when both eyes are working.

   A half hour later when I came to check the robin's next, mom had returned. She is a teeny tiny thing, hiding in the green and red plant, looking through the leaves at me with one cautious eye. I smiled at her.

   

Doing The Things:Check.

 

           As I continue my one eyed blogging ( I just finished "Lying", part of a serious series this week), and listen to whatever deck or front yard construction has begun up the street, I tick off the Things I Did Today That I Said I Would Do.

        It's only 9.23 am and I've fed all of the animals, cleaned the cat boxes, walked the dogs, wrote a blog (see above), stood in my dining room trying to either remember what else I need to do, or the ending of Loverboy. Did she really forgive him for all of that? WTF was the 80's feeding us? 

       My right eye is sobbing all over me, I couldn't find my sunglasses for the dog walk (THAT'S what I was looking for when I got sidetracked by the evil Patrick Dempsey) so my eye is not so much worse but it isn't better. I suspect it'd be much better if there was not a cat seated right here, slamming her head into my hand as I try to type. I have no direct proof, but I believe she contributed to the scratched cornea.

       In an effort to stave off the Fart in a Mitten state that is threatening to run my day, I am searching for things to do. I get many people will say "You had 14 months on lock down to do things, like lose weight or write, loser", to which I reply kindly "Fuck off". I openly admitted to succumbing to depression, and to be fair, I spent last summer in Google Suite classes, faculty and department meetings, scrambling to create at least three different plans for what was completely unpredictable.  I then spent the entire school year until March completely online, shifting everything to the fourth scenario nobody had warned me about, and I made up on the spot. I'm tired.

       I deeply admire so many people, and the way they went through this. I got off Facebook recently, but I spent a year tracking my  beloved retired teacher, whose awe inspiring marriage and relentless love for one another kept them going. My friends who updated their houses, refurnished and started new businesses. Some threw themselves into remote learning with their children with such passion that I learned things by watching them. Some started grad school, some started new careers. Some blew apart toxic relationships and emerged confused  and friendless, but healthier. Some are still struggling to break that one last bad habit. Some cut off Facebook entirely and I like to believe they're frabjously joyful now, singing and skipping in the real world.

      I survived. I shifted into survival mode very early on and stayed the course. I created deadlines where there were none, pretended I had a schedule when there was only an empty calendar, hoped to God I could get a full remote tech class out of Hamilton on Disney Plus and flew Jazz Hands when someone turned their camera on. I felt no joy, no despair, for a year. I was in neutral in every way.  I've now watched Schitt's Creek in its entirety eleven times. That's how I know I hit rock bottom with depression; I've never been here before.

    Now that I'm coming out, I'm all over the place. Do not rely on anything that resembles a healthy emotional reaction to anything said or done. I like neutral, it's safe here. When I venture out, I lose control. So I'll stay here for the time being.

    I have never in my life considered telling another human being that I am "Emotionally Unavailable" to them. I'm saying it now.

    Doing the things does not require emotional engagement. They're just things.

    Fed animals, check.

    Cleaned litter boxes, check.

    Picked up groceries, check.

    Walked dogs, check.

     Now to call a  plumber, my next check.

     I'm good, check. 

     Thanks for checking.

      

Lying

    Do not lie to me.

    It's that simple.

    I am a teacher and parent, I spend time with every generation. I usually don't differentiate generations, but at their core, everybody's a mess. I only use the term if I am at a loss for another identifier that does not identify, which makes no sense but....I  get me.

    Recently I was accused by a possible Millennial of being too "wound up about lies". As in "What's the big deal, I lie all the time, people lie to me all the time." I was Gobsmacked. they may not have been a millennial, maybe a sublilleeal or subterranean, I give no craps about any of that. Do Not Lie To Me. This is a person who watched an entire administration lie and screamed constantly about it, so I'm struggling to understand whey it's OK for them to lie, but not Trump. So it warranted deeper investigation.

    I also do not believe that this has become a cultural norm, just a person trying to justify either their own untruthfulness, or explain away the many  falsehoods they have been subjected to. There's also the mental health aspect, none of us are firing on all cylinders, maybe this is an aspect of a cracking up. This is evident when you serve Heather a cup of Drano, and then lie about it. This will cause you to crack up and burn your journal.

    This became such a huge issue during the last administration, which was unfortunately our reality and not a fun movie, when lies were truths and truths were fake news and there was no longer any moral compass to help any one along. Now, we have the residual waves that pounded through the last semester of public education, where people without masks lied about being vaccinated, or about a negative Covid test; parents lied about their students who were clearly symptomatic and sent them to school, anyway, and exposed other people. That's not OK. If I find out you've done that, I will yell at you and call you a liar, and never speak to you again.

     Lying to your parents is par for the course for many, but when it comes to health and your future, you are truly an ass to lie about anything bigger than getting your tires rotated. What was that (every) silly college movie where the kid pretended to go to college but didn't? OR the one where he spent all summer as a Giglio to earn money to go back to college, but lied to his girlfriend and parents---his mom was Kate Jackson, he lied to one of Charlie's Angels! Your health and your future are tied to your parents, no matter what you choose to believe, just like anyone working in a school's health is tied to others. Don't Lie. This is beyond Jim Carrey screaming "The goddamn pen is blue!" I don't care how old you are, have the decency to tell the truth to the people who raised you and love you unconditionally. Did you people learn nothing from the song "Spooky Mormon Hell Dream" in Book of Mormon?  ** Can we take a moment to acknowledge how many generations I hit in one paragraph? You're welcome.**

    Being shocked when someone blows their stack all over you when you lie is also a response that confuses me. They trusted you. They believed you. They get to yell, and you need to listen because how dare you? You are married to them and then you pulled this ? (Example from Every Date Movie Ever). You lied. I get to be mad. He's Just Not That Into You is a phrase that contains a passive lie: he didn't call because he didn't have the nuts to tell you the truth. Just Say It.  Of course, that's a pretty small lie compared to a gazillion other examples that are jamming up my brain right now.

    You know when lying is OK? When you're Harriet Tubman and you are escaping slavery and get stuck in a small town that will murder you if they find out who you are. That's it. That's the one time you get to lie. And I just made that up, there's a possibility that woman never lied, ever, even to save her own life. But if she did, it would have been OK.  I suppose, on a technicality, me making up that little piece of fiction about a real person can be seen as a lie...

     And thus, I  can be yelled at for lying.

     Arguably, fiction is a lie. It is just another word for "not true". Maybe part of the issue is that fiction in film and television has blended the lines so completely that people believe it be be truth. This is exacerbated by "Based On A True Story": being a single parenting is easy(clearly you did not watch Pursuit of Happyness), parenting in general is a lot of work but rewarding and fun and comes with a handy dandy narrative to begin and end each twenty minute episode; dealing with death always ends on a positive note with a new relationship and maybe a zoo; angels behave as time machines and enable you to see how your life would have been if you were never born and you end up not committing suicide because you now see your worth; time machines exist and can be used to reverse any stupid stuff you did in the past.

      Lies or fiction. 

      I've lost the thread at this point. Just don't lie to me.

     Scene.

          

31 May 2021 I Am Mike Wazowski

 

     In September, I scratched my cornea.

    It took me a day or two to see the doctor, as I can be ornery about things like that, but it finally got to be too much and I went in. He gave me some antibacterial drops and put a contact lens on my eye as a 'bandage' to keep it from getting irritated. It was a pretty frustrating week, but at least my eye wasn't constantly weeping. I was so miserable I swore I would use eye drops daily, not rub my eyes and never do this again.

    Last night, the same symptoms appeared and today I am typing with one eye, like Mike Wazowski, tears streaming down my face from my ONE EYE. I felt my eyes drying out while on our anniversary weekend and knew staying hydrated was key. So I chose to drink more alcohol. Because monkeys learn faster than I do. Last night my eye was very bothersome, and instead of using eye drops I grabbed a paper towel and rubbed it. Remembering my own stupidity caused the pain to escalate and I am now typing completely blind. Thank you Mrs. Horn, Dunstan Jr. High typing teacher who painted over the keys on the typewriters so we would look UP whilst typing, in preparation for a career of typing notes for our Taskmasters. Whenever I think of that class, I'm shocked at how very 1950's the whole experience was. Mathematically, it should have been about 1979. 

    So. I have the antibacterial eye drops from September still, but it's a holiday, so no luck getting in to get a nice contact bandage put on my eyeball. Just a day of complete misery ahead. I can't drive, I can't watch TV, I am literally typing with both eyes closed because the glow is too much. I'll go back to bed because this will prove to be too exhausting, and it's 6.51 am on Memorial day, why am I up, anyway?

    Well, I had to get up to scratch through the vanity like a raccoon on the scent of a marshmallow to locate the antibacterial drops. At least I knew I had them and I wanted them and my drawer is not very well organized, to say the least. I was throwing stuff into the slink at 5 am making quite a racket that Jim pretended he didn't hear. Pro Tip: If you hear kryssi unloading a drawer at 5 am, Do Not Engage. It's unlikely you have any idea where whatever it is she is trying to locate can be found, anyway. She's the one who knows where everything is, not you. Just go back to sleep, you've done quite enough.  Just accept that at some random point in the future, she will bring up the fact that nobody helps her do anything, and how come she is the only one who knows where things are, yet nobody will let her run their life  you people are exhausting! That will End Scene, and she will take a moment to change costumes and verbs, all before you're even awake.

    Scene.

Living Below the Dignity Line

 

    The summer of 2019, due to a drought of directing jobs, I decided to try other gigs. I drove for Lyft. I worked on the assembly line in a warehouse. I worked at King Soopers.

     The King Soopers was in my area. The manager told me that they struggle with theft, people steal single eggs from the cartons. So weird. But also,she said the homeless- a population that had recently traveled west to our suburb and was rapidly increasing- were becoming problematic within the store bathrooms. Nobody minded that they were using them, but they were not cleaning up after themselves, which was why they doubled their bathroom checks. The issue that struck me, though, was that a homeless person would lock themselves in the bathroom with a bottle they'd stolen from the liquor store. They would not answer when the door was knocked on, and some 16 year old clerk would have to break the door down and call 911.

    I have a friend who is a retired teacher, who worked last summer at the ACE Hardware in our neighborhood. She said the managers were constantly battling the homeless who were openly stealing from the store. She said there is a group of them that live in the ditch along Alameda Parkway.

   A Group of homeless, living in a ditch. Stealing single eggs.Leaving public bathrooms unusable for hours.

   All of these examples suggest human beings that are living below the dignity line. Not just poverty,not only financial. They've given up on any chance of feeling like they are human.

   I said this phrase outloud today for the first time, and I wanted to write it down. 

   That's all.

   Scene. 

Reason #28: I Am Waiting 13 May 2021

  I have used the Ferlinghetti "I Am Waiting' example in classes for years. The beauty is that you can rewrite it every few months, and it has a different tone. I wrote one in December, and this one was written in May. I performed it on the stage in front of about 15 audience members and a live feed. It is the first performance I have done live in years, and the evening was the first real 'Live' performance the high school stage has hosted in 14 months.

         I Am Waiting  with all of my love and apologies to Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Samuel Beckett.

 

12 MAY 2021

I am waiting for art and theatre and poetry to be revered

I am waiting for students to turn on their cameras

I am waiting for my pay to match my passion.

I am waiting for Broadway to open her eyes and yawn and ask what's been going on

I am waiting for the dog to self wash so he does not smell like a Frito

I am waiting for an apology

I am waiting for karma

I am waiting for a revolution of kindness

I am waiting for Christ to come down from his bare tree and end this absurdist cycle with a tip of his bowler and a magic turnip

I am waiting for Beckett and Ferlinghetti to smite me for invoking their genius in my silly poem.

I am waiting to follow Keanu and Dolly to the promised land

I am waiting to win a new coastal home from HGTV!

I am waiting for the revolution of kindness

I am waiting for my internet to reconnect

 I am waiting for Comcast to care that my internet won’t reconnect

I am waiting for the cats to get jobs and contribute to the household and I am waiting for my obsession with Schitt's Creek to cease

I am waiting for laughter.

I am waiting for Hamlet to kill Claudius already

And I am waiting for wait loss to be easy.

I am waiting for someone to care

I am waiting for the victory of decency

I am waiting to move forward, for the US to stop hovering like hurricane Harvey over Houston

I am still waiting for students to turn on their cameras

I am waiting to feel mentally stable

I am waiting for kindness

I am waiting for my hair to grow out

I am waiting for a haircut

I am waiting to be discovered or uncovered or recovered---

I am waiting to recover.

I am waiting for my groceries

I am waiting in the drive through because everybody quit will you please pay these people a living wage already, I’m Waiting.

I am waiting for the tribes to finally rise up and reclaim what is rightfully theirs and for Karen to stand down and relinquish what is not hers.

I am waiting for my favorite ancient shirt to disintegrate and fall off of my body as a metaphor

I am waiting for the brain fog to clear or the clear fog to brain and I can’t remember anybody’s name I am waiting to see clearly

And now you’re waiting for me to remember your name.

Thank you for your kindness.

Covid, Depression, Menopause or...?

 

  I have more than ten unfinished blogs. I refuse to let this be eleven, so it may not make any sense.

  There is a 14 minute video going around, probably Tik Tok, of a student walking into a classroom and greeting his teacher, who does not recognize him. Not just because of the mask, but because he is in person. The kid puts up a cardboard cutout of his google meet photo, which is just an alphabet letter, and the teacher recognizes him.

  I have had kids come in and had the same experience. A kid I knew briefly (remember I was only in the building for ten minutes before the shutdown) came in and started talking like he knew me. Not just the mask, but the fact that he was not in any of my classes contributed to me asking  if he was lost. "Are you sure I'm the one you want to talk to?" LIke he was unable to recognized me, for some reason that made sense in my head.In addition, he had grown about six inches since March of 20, so I was way off. He had to identify himself.

  This has happened enough that I don't need to recount every story. What's distressing, is that sometimes they identify themselves and I still have no idea who they are. I can't remember names.

  Jim has had projects all through the lockdowns, even though he's been able to go to work. He started with hurricane lamps in the summer and has moved onto digging out all of our closets. We now have an empty, painted closet that he told me last week I could use for whatever. I moved a few games into it from the other closet across the hall and then stopped. Until this moment, I had entirely forgotten about the empty closet. I forgot about a closet I walk past daily.

   For a week straight I was vigilant about working out for seven minutes when I arrived at school. I saw on facebook how it will transform my hideous shape if I just stick to a seven minute cardio workout every day. Then my school schedule changed and I stopped doing it. I could still find time, I just don't. I forgot about it.

   I have a grocery list that lives in the kitchen. Every week Harper orders the same groceries with some varition for pick up. If I don't write down a variation, like TIDE pods, it doesn't get ordered and I have to go to King Sooopers. Which is fine, but I get lost, I forget what I'm looking for and there is now a banner that says # BOULDER STRONG that I'm supposed to take comfort in, I guess, and feel safe shopping for whatever it is I don't know. All I know is that the sign is making whatever is wrong with me worse, and I can barely function in the store.

  My district has shattered the schedule,so instead of semesters or quarters, I am in Session number eight of eight, twenty day sessions. Each class is three hours long, two classes a day for twenty days each.  I've managed, somehow, to keep track of each class and plan daily, teaching theatre in a virtual space with a handful of kids in person sometimes or no kids in person, and yet I'm still evaluated as if this was a regular year. Showing grace to kids left and right, waiting for a bit of grace to be thrown my way. Like teaching in an empty theatre, it's absurist waiting for grace.

   I stepped in cat poop on the way out the door the other morning. The morning routine is pretty much all I'm clinging to at this juncture--today is 2 May, 2021, I've been online for over a year---and I threw the rug and my shoes and socks in the trash can by the garage,and got in the car to drive to school. I had to get back out of the car to get another pair of shoes. Once back in the car, I had to return to the house for socks.

  I carry three bags into school with me. My purse with my car key and wallet, the Door Dash insulated bag with our lunches, and my computer bag. On multiple occasions Harp has asked why I do not consolidate into one bag. I tried it one day, and we left the building ten minutes late becasue I had no idea what I had done with my car key. It was in the computer bag, in a zipper pocket. When I found it, I said outloud to Harper and the empty room "I said outloud, 'it's in the zipper pocket', now I remember." Harp just watched silently, waiting for my head to explode or my eyes to melt out of my skull.Instead I executed a quick time step. Her expression did not change.

  I park in the same place every morning. One time I parked in a different lot thinking I needed to be out of the way of food distribution, and couldn't find my car. It is bright green. It can be seen from space.

  I tried to join the staff choir, but it means altering the way I use my two hours between classes, and I can't seem to manage. All I have to do is eat lunch at 10:30  instead of 11, so I can go to choir at 11. I can't seem to make it work. Every day  at 10:30 I have to shut down the theatre, go to the bathroom, check turned in work for the am class, check planning for the pm class, open the Door Dash bag and get lunch set up for myself and Harper. I went to choir rehearsal twice and couldn't focus either time. I was not in the right place aat 11:15. I literally just left, shaking my head and when I got into the hallway I said outloud to myself "Wopner is on," and began to laugh manaically at a my own joke, hearing the sound bounce through the empty hallway back at me. 

  I was grateful to see some beloved former colleagues this Friday. We are all vaxxed and got to hug. I have no idea what I talked about, or if I made sense. All I know is that one suggested that I get therapy. So I got that going for me.

         Scene.