My timeline (the first decade):

Age 1: I narrowly avoid being in a car accident with my mother due to my father staying home sick for the day and keeping me with him. My poor mother skids on black ice, hits a tree, and knocks out her front teeth. If I were religious I would talk about God's plan and whatnot right here.

Age 2: My first memory- I made my grandfather a mud pie, which he actually took home with him later that evening. I packed it into one of those bright yellow I Can't Believe It's Not Butter containers. Also, I started preschool that year and every day I would stand at the "crying window" and wave goodbye to my father or grandfather as they drove off. Most of the time I was crying, as do most children who insist on waving goodbye to their parents every day.

Age 3: In preschool, my best friend was named Krista. I followed her around like a little puppy dog because she was five and very worldly, and in exchange for my consistent adoration, she once bit me on the knee (remember, biting is a very big part of preschool culture.) I don't think it's a coincidence that I have had rocky relationships with every Krista/Christa I have known since.
P.S. I don't remember, but I like to think I swiftly ended our friendship after the biting incident. Knowing me, that may not be the case.
P.P.S. Looking back, Krista was obviously a little slow as she was six before she graduated preschool. And I followed HER around? Sigh.

Age 4: My sister is born. She does not come out wearing a pink party dress as I had envisioned when my parents told me it was a girl.

Age 5: I begin kindergarten and make best friends with a Brazilian girl named Jennifer and Brock, the boy at my bus stop. Jennifer's dad and my dad become friends, while Brock's grandmother has weird boundary issues (dropping off her grandson unannounced so she could do some shopping on a Saturday morning, for instance.)

Age 6: Jennifer's mom and dad divorce and her mom takes her home to Brazil. I make friends with Nikki G., abusive friend number 2, who calls our house "quaint" and whose mom repeatedly tries coerce my dad into doing free labor for her. My grandfather dies. My first-grade teacher is a troll who insists on seating me next to the worst students in hopes that I will rub off on them (I always HATED this practice as a kid and am now ashamed to say I've structured my seating charts in the exact same way from time to time.)

Age 7: I meet one of my best friends, Donna, in Mr. Rhorke's class when I hold a coloring contest and award the prize ribbons that my very patient mother had stayed up hot-gluing for me the night before. Donna won second place. I also am recommended for the second-grade spelling bee team. We place second. I spell "apostrophe" wrong, but that's not why we didn't win. It's because Brandon A. was a sucky-ass speller and effed things up for the rest of us.

Age 8: El Nino floods our garage. I stop being friends with Ryan R. because he acted like a girl. It took me ten years to realize that I had been a little homophobe, and fourteen years later, I pay my penance by making No on 8 phone calls to undecided voters in Stockton.

Age 9: My sister is hospitalized for bladder and kidney problems and has extensive surgery. Relatives bring gifts for my sister, and give me the Little House on the Prairie boxed set for being such a good big sister. I thank them graciously and keep to myself the fact that I had plowed through the series two years earlier. I am rejected by GATE (for the first time.) Vinnie E. asks me out in a note and gives me a sample bottle of his mother's perfume. Three girls in our class form a hate club in honor of me and Donna because they are jealous of our grades and male suitors. Now that I am in my twenties, I am able to understand how flattering that is.

Age 10: I am named to the fifth-grade spelling bee team. We do not place. Brandon A. is on the team again, along with Nikki G., who mocks me for hesitantly spelling out my words (years later, my wonderful Donna beats her out for valedictorian for both our 8th and 12th grade graduations. Karma, bitch.) I meet my dear friend Wayne and immediately develop a crush. My beloved 5th grade teacher, Mr. Sayon, is diagnosed with cancer and takes a leave of absence. He's followed by a revolving door of long-term subs, including a rude old curmudgeon who would lock me out of the classroom when my bus was late and a Deidre Fitzpatrick lookalike who dropped us as soon as she was offered a real job (looking back, I don't blame her.) We meet Ms. Francisco, a fresh-out-of-college basketball-playing spunky blonde with no prior experience who whipped our class into shape and rewarded us with trips to Taco Bell in her old Volvo. I like to think I was one of her favorites. The seedling of an interest in a career in education that had been planted by Mr. Rhorke was nurtured by Ms. Francisco and her WNBA-loving awesomeness, and I decide to become a teacher. No, really.

I don't want to get caught up in any of that
Funky shit going down in the city

You probably know that I think Jerry Falwell was the second coming of Satan. But I didn't know he was responsible for the Lambda center right here in Sacramento!


"In 1984, Falwell was ordered to pay gay rights activist and former Baptist Bible College classmate Jerry Sloan $5,000 after losing a court battle. In July, 1984 during a TV debate in Sacramento, California, Falwell denied calling the homosexual-friendly Metropolitan Community Churches "brute beasts" and "a vile and Satanic system" that will "one day be utterly annihilated and there will be a celebration in heaven".^[28] When Sloan insisted he had a tape, Falwell promised $5,000 if he could produce it. Sloan did, Falwell refused to pay, and Sloan successfully sued. The money was donated to build Sacramento's first homosexual community center, the Lambda Community Center, serving "lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex" communities.^[29] Falwell appealed the decision with his attorney charging that the judge in the case was prejudiced. He lost again and was made to pay an additional $2,875 in sanctions and court fees."

I'm ALWAYS worried that I've done something wrong.

Ooh-oo child, things are gonna get easier
Ooh-oo child, things'll get brighter
Ooh-oo child, things are gonna get easier
Ooh-oo child, things'll be brighter

Some day, yeah
We'll put it together and we'll get it all done
Some day
When your head is much lighter
Some day, yeah
We'll walk in the rays of a beautiful sun
Some day
When the world is much brighter

Ooh-oo child, things are gonna be easier
Ooh-oo child, things'll be brighter
Ooh-oo child, things are gonna be easier
Ooh-oo child, things'll be brighter

Some day, yeah
We'll put it together and we'll get it all done
Some day
When your head is much lighter
Some day, yeah
We'll walk in the rays of a beautiful sun
Some day
When the world is much brighter

Some day, some day, some day
We'll get it together and we'll get it all done
Some day
When your head is much lighter
Some day, some day, some day
We'll walk in the rays of a beautiful sun
Some day
When the world is much brighter

Ooh-oo child, things are gonna get easier
Ooh-oo child, things'll be brighter
Ooh-oo child, things are gonna get easier
Ooh-oo child, things'll be brighter

Right now
You just wait and see how things are gonna be
Right now...

But someday we'll all be old
And I'll be so damn beautiful

I need to stop bragging about how I never get sick, especially when sick people are around.
God smites me for being such an asshole.

I should have known.
Last week I had one of the best days of my teaching career thus far.
Today was easily one of the worst.

And that's the thing with teenagers- you never know when they're going to hit you. Which I guess I should find comforting, as their complete and utter disregard for other people can't possibly be personal if they just walk into the classroom ready to fight every few days.

But instead, it just leaves me disappointed.
I have never talked to anyone the way some of these kids talk to me on a regular basis. Nor has anyone talked this way to me, prior to taking this job. And I know it comes with the territory, but really, SHOULD it? No. It's unacceptable, and it's bullshit that I'm expected to be a punching bag for seven and a half hours every day. Attitudes are one thing. Being cursed out for simply doing my job is really quite another and I've actually lost track of how many times that's happened.

And the scary thing is, they just plain don't realize how wrong it is to talk to people like that. That's obviously standard for them, and being reprimanded is a non-issue to them. Guilt doesn't work, I've finally realized. How do you shame a person whose moral compass is already severely screwed up? These kids don't need to be told to have manners and patience and common sense and human decency. They need to SEE it. They don't need lectures; they need unconditional support and consistency. They need an adult role model who can show them how to handle conflict maturely and rationally, without letting their emotions get the better of them. Who can punish the behavior while still nurturing the child.

But some days, it's REALLY hard to be that person.

I really want to rant about bureaucracy and stuff.
But not now.
Instead, let's look at pictures of the delicious red velvet desserts of the week:


It may not look like much, but the owner of my hair salon made red velvet pops today and they were just giving them away!


Red Velvet Ben&Jerry's! Are you kidding me?
By the way, I've been really good with this pint. I only had a bit on Tuesday, and I stuck to serving size and everything! Of course, I probably would have dug into it tonight had it not been for the wonderfully unexpected red velvet pop.

Anyway, figured I'd post these here since I've come to realize that my mobile uploads album on Facebook is basically nothing more than the red velvet treats I've snuffed out over the past year or two and people are probably starting to judge.

More various fragmented thoughts that I don't really have the patience to polish, this time brought about by the passing of Geraldine Ferraro: 

It took me until grad school to fully realize that the first feminists I knew were my parents. My semi-conservative, blue-collar, rural parents.

And sometimes when I feel like I'm betraying my gender ed learnings by being a teacher, by not trying to run for office or be some ball-busting businesswoman or at least go for my Ph.D (which I guess MAY happen someday, but is so very unappealing at the moment), I remember what it actually means to advocate egalitarianism. Feminism doesn't just belong to the women who go to the best schools and hold the fanciest job titles. Maybe I am in a “woman's” line of work, but how many do I influence every day? Children need to know feminist teachers, feminist mothers (and fathers!), feminist doctors, feminist plumbers. They need to understand what it means to be an equal on every level of society. Girls still need to know that they are valued  regardless of whether they are bringing home six figures or no figures. And the women who are making the real difference need not be those inaccessible (to many of us) lawyers and politicians and CEOs. Yes, we need them out there, OBVIOUSLY, but we also need them here at home, and in the classroom, and the grocery store, and the dentist's office, every bit as much as in the courtroom. Don't women move the world wherever they are? You're not giving up your F-card by not becoming the first female president, not if that isn't where your passion happens to be. What about my mother, who worked two jobs at various junctures of her life and taught herself how to use the Internet at 45 so that she could help her daughters apply for financial aid? Didn't she inject me with as much “you go, girl!” as Hillary Clinton? YES! People like my mother, and most of our mothers, move our world far more than the Hillary Clintons out there, God love her. My mother wasn't out there waving signs and lobbying officials. I'm not trying to downplay the importance of those who did, by the way, but my mother taught me to earn my own way simply by doing what she had to do. It wasn't a political thing. It was a survival thing, and it was my reality that women were responsible for paying the bills as much as men. She was working nine to five and then often from eleven to seven, and she had a husband who was a partner and whom she had to support as much as he supported her. And the movement belongs to her every bit as much if not more. 

Things get broken 
at home 
like they were pushed 
by an invisible, deliberate smasher. 
It's not my hands 
or yours 
It wasn't the girls 
with their hard fingernails 
or the motion of the planet. 
It wasn't anything or anybody 
It wasn't the wind 
It wasn't the orange-colored noontime 
Or night over the earth 
It wasn't even the nose or the elbow 
Or the hips getting bigger 
or the ankle 
or the air. 
The plate broke, the lamp fell 
All the flower pots tumbled over 
one by one. That pot 
which overflowed with scarlet 
in the middle of October, 
it got tired from all the violets 
and another empty one 
rolled round and round and round 
all through winter 
until it was only the powder 
of a flowerpot, 
a broken memory, shining dust. 

And that clock 
whose sound 
was 
the voice of our lives, 
the secret 
thread of our weeks, 
which released 
one by one, so many hours 
for honey and silence 
for so many births and jobs, 
that clock also 
fell 
and its delicate blue guts 
vibrated 
among the broken glass 
its wide heart 
unsprung. 

Life goes on grinding up 
glass, wearing out clothes 
making fragments 
breaking down 
forms 
and what lasts through time 
is like an island on a ship in the sea, 
perishable 
surrounded by dangerous fragility 
by merciless waters and threats. 

Let's put all our treasures together 
-- the clocks, plates, cups cracked by the cold -- 
into a sack and carry them 
to the sea 
and let our possessions sink 
into one alarming breaker 
that sounds like a river. 
May whatever breaks 
be reconstructed by the sea 
with the long labor of its tides. 
So many useless things 
which nobody broke 
but which got broken anyway. 

~Ode to Broken Things by Pablo Neruda 

My classroom windows were smashed today. Again. This is the second time this year that this has happened to my room, and the fourth time this year it's happened to the school overall.
It kills me. As a kid, I never would have dreamed of ruining someone else's property, in fact, the idea of it still horrifies me. And I'm sad more than I am angry, because this just reflects the values that these kids have grown up learning. Maybe no one has ever treated their things with respect. So I'm actually angry at their parents, but how can I be angry at them without being angry at their parents? And so on and so forth. I'm angry at the society that makes some people feel so isolated and excluded that they have no qualms about tearing it down? So really, I'm angry at myself, because I and the people before me have created this divide, this inequality that at some point left us forever separate and wary of one another. The only ones who have pride in their community are those who feel it belongs to them, so somewhere we went wrong. I believe (I have to believe) that we are all just doing what we can do to survive and hopefully be happy. For some people, this means fighting and hurting and taking others down. That has to be the product of something. No one wakes up and consciously decides to be an asshole, and if they do, that is still some marker of a screwed up childhood or someone dropping the ball somewhere along the way. And I realize we can't, and wouldn't want to, live in a perfect world. I also can't imagine being those people on the other side, the ones who work so hard to dismantle everything the rest of us try to create. Why? So they don't have to participate? Because they can't have it, or feel no connection with it?
And you have to invest in children in order to make them feel valued. You also can't bring nice things into a classroom that is continuously vandalized, right? Regardless of the purpose it may serve in the interim, it's really really hard to just throw money out the window. It's simple self-preservation. I'm trying to preserve what I have, without turning it into something that would devastate me if wrecked. And that, I think, is the biggest problem behind public education in this country. No one wants to hop on a sinking ship.

P.S. Enough self-pity for ya yet?
More chocolate is probably the solution.

I guess there's some sign on my forehead that says, "It's just Tara. Go ahead and be an asshole. It totally doesn't count."

When I'm drunk I feel like everyone hates me.

Various thoughts that have been tumbling around in my little head:

I told the woman who does my waxing about my upcoming trip and she sighed and said, "Oh, to be young and in love." And yeah, I'm both of those things. And I need to start appreciating those more instead of looking forward to the day when I can finally feel more settled. For right now, I am selfish and that's okay. I spend so much of my day looking out for the best interests of children, and yet in my personal life I'm not really responsible for anyone, nor do I answer to anyone. I do sometimes find that to be lonely, and yet this is the time that I am building my life on opportunities that my parents did not have. My life is entirely mine right now. I can work until whatever hour of the evening I feel is necessary, then go to the gym and stop by the store on the way home for a bottle of wine and something chocolate, which I consume while working on my master's thesis. When did I become middle class? Sometime between getting my education like the good girl that I am and cavorting around with friends who taught me to appreciate the difference between a merlot and a pinot noir (though they still can't convince me that it is necessary to spend more than four dollars on either.) My life is absolutely not a big deal to most people and yet it's one that no woman in my family has ever gotten to live before. Live in the city with roommates? Focus on myself and my career? Travel across the country to see my boyfriend? Do you think I grew up hearing about these sorts of things?
I was reading an article at the YMCA the other day about motherhood and the age at which it's best to have children. One woman made the argument for the early 20s. THE EARLY 20s. Are you out of your ever-loving mind, woman?! I'm all for the husband and babies, but when the hell are you supposed to have time to develop as a person? I hate hearing mothers complain about never having time to themselves or acting as though they are some sort of superhero for doing what the majority of women have been doing since the beginning of time (raising children and working, in some capacity or another) and I really think that this could be remedied by waiting until you are actually a fully-formed human being before you go trying to care for another one. Unless it's your goal in life to become some sort of breeding machine, I really don't think it would kill any of us to wait a few years (at least) before entering into a lifelong relationship with someone who will always, in one way or another if you're doing it right, depend on you.
And then here I am, getting all judgy about other women. We women are always criticizing each other's choices- when to get married (or not), when to have all the babies (or not), to pursue the career or not....I guess it's in our nature to justify our own choices since we have to face so much BS in order to get what we want, anyway. This is all very Women's Studies 101, by the by. And another lower-division general ed level observation: what a very middle-class white woman thing to do. We call each other out on our choices because we can- the operative word being CHOICE. We have it. I've joined the ranks of the white middle class women. Do I like it here? Yes. Do I realize how insulated we are from all the other crap that's going on out there, with the closest we get to it being Anderson Cooper from our wide-screen televisions? Sure. And I like to talk about how although I have definitely benefited from white privilege, and am now enjoying the advantages afforded by an education and a salary, I do not come from a cushy background, and that I've worked effing hard for what I have. Well, that's all true and good for me. However, I can't pretend I've ever had it really rough. I've always been well taken care of. People have always looked out for me, and taught me manners, and pushed me to try my hardest and do my best. I've never gone one single day without hearing "I love you" from someone, and generally from several people. And society overall is pretty nice to me as well. I'm clean-cut and friendly and non-threatening. People open doors for me and talk to me and give me free things. Even at work, which is the most challenging situation I have ever found myself in, students try to hug me and pat my shoulder and make me laugh. the world, for all of it's scary awfulness and meanness, treats me well, all things considering. And this skews my perspective. I sometimes forget that the children who are making my life hell on any given day probably did not come from a home where someone told them to have a good day that morning, or hugged them before school, or packed lunch for them. I may have a chip on my shoulder from always being the poor kid, and yet here everyone is the poor kid, and I've at least had parents who have always thought that I could walk on water.
Anyway, I suppose I'm rambling again, and on topics that I am always rambling about. So that's enough for now. Sleep.

One of my high school friends just became a mother. I knew this was going to be happening sooner or later, but I'm still weirded out.

Did I turn like 30 and not realize it or something?

Also, I don't know whether or not to congratulate her. Facebook feels too impersonal, but it's not as though we've talked much during the past four years while she's been busy marrying our friend's ex-boyfriend and becoming impregnated with his offspring.

Yeah, maybe Facebook is fine.

A note to parents everywhere:

Stop buying your kid crap just because he/she keeps crying for it. You must realize that kids do stop crying eventually, right? I know that for a fact. Yeah, it's embarrassing when your kid has a meltdown in Target, but think about how embarrassing it'll in twenty years when you realize you've raised a psycho for a human being.

We are ships on an ocean,
passing on our way back home.
We collide for a minute,
then we move on, we move on.

But I got something I don't wanna lose.
I'm not ready to leave you.

We are born from each other, 
then we find our way back home.
Every road that seems familiar-
we're just remembering where to go.

But I got something I don't wanna lose.
I'm just starting to remember you.

What we lose in the fire, we gain in the flood.
What we lose in the fire, we gain in the flood.
What we lose in the fire, we gain in the flood.
What we lose in the fire is never gone.

We are lost without each other
as we make our way back home.
Though the road leads together,
still we make our way alone.

And I got something I don't wanna lose.
But I'm learning to let go of you.

What we lose in the fire, we gain in the flood.
What we lose in the fire, we gain in the flood.
What we lose in the fire, we gain in the flood.
What we lose in the fire is never gone.

More lyrics: http://www.lyricsmania.com/what_we_gained_in_the_fire_lyrics_mynabirds_the.html
All about Mynabirds The: http://www.musictory.com/music/Mynabirds+The

And progress. This is progress. My life has never been about things coming easily, or having much, or any of that. It's been about Making it Work...which I do, consistently, almost methodically at times. I always find a way and I trust in myself that I will continue to do so.
I'm being insufferable again. At least I'm aware of when I do it.
I find myself so wrapped up in my own thoughts, so self-involved, so afraid of catastrophe. I was hoping this  wouldn't follow me into the new year. I'm superstitious sometimes, and I find myself caught up in the small things, in routine and timing and tokens.
I spend so much time self-soothing and then letting myself get all worked up again.
I want to feel at peace and I want to trust that it will all work out.

Reflections

Was 2010 good to me? Eh. Was it better to me than 2009? Yes, surely. So hopefully 2011 will continue in this tradition of being better than the one before.

2010 was...

... the year my sister and I traveled to New York City for the first time, saw a Broadway play for the first time, ate all the desserts in the city, etc. Actually, it was the first year I visited the East Coast at all- New York in January and Vermont in August

...the year I moved to S Street with one of my best friends

...the year that we saw RENT in Sacramento (with two original cast members!)

...the year that I graduated a class of preschoolers

...the year that I finally had the guts to get my way out of a bad decision

...the year that the U.S. was finally nice to my boyfriend

...the year that I spent the summer frolicking about the country

...the year of Second Dessert and the amendment lesson plan created in defense of it

...the year that someone ACTUALLY decided to hire me to be a real teacher. Really, the year I began my career

...the year I became a Yelper! (a "serious" one, at least)

...the year I signed a contract for a decent, adult-sized salary for the first time- with benefits! And vacation days!

...the year I taught four different subjects...to three different grade levels...in a warehouse

...the year I sat on the floor of said warehouse and held a powwow about our feelings, threw an eraser and walked out of the classroom (it was a demonstration for writing narratives), called parents during class, sent kids outside to run, jumped on desks, baked a million cupcakes, coined puns for certain events in history, wandered the hallways with my flock, compared rap songs to Alfred Lord Tennyson, and cooked up playdough on a Wednesday morning in my kitchen to give to 9th-graders, all in the name of growing as an educator

...the year I learned to stand up to parents (not mine)

...the year I had to call 911 for the first time

... the year I decided I didn't want to be a teacher anymore...aaaaaand then remembered why I was doing this, after all...DAILY

...the year the dog days were over. But the paying of dues was not

...the year the Dems took over California (buuuuut not the rest of the country, unfortunately) and I got to go to New Mexico and celebrate

...the year I brought my boyfriend home for Christmas

...the year I co-hosted a New Years party during which no one got in a fight, threw up, or threatened to castrate her date

...the year that anxiety nearly consumed me on a few occasions

...the most personally AND professionally challenging AND rewarding year of my life thus far.

And now here I am, on the very first day of the new year, wondering what in the hell is going to become of me, my career, and my relationship in 2011. I can only count on good things from here on out. That's not wishful thinking.
 It's an affirmation.