brain reduction

fun with eli

2008-11-12T08:55:00.006-07:00

when eli was around a month old, i brought my SLR in for a cleaning, thinking i'd have it back in a few weeks, tops. 8 weeks later, i realized they still had it, so i called them. there had been a mix-up and my camera had been sent to their corporate headquarters instead of their service building and was just sitting there. in the meantime, i lost the lens cap, polarized filter, strap, and battery charger i had removed so just the bare camera could be sent. i suspect they were thrown away, but i guess i'll never know. so when i finally got back my bare camera (luckily i had stashed the cf and the battery in my car for some reason, so those weren't lost) i still couldn't take pictures because i had no way to charge my battery and no cover to protect the lens. it was all a mess. so this past weekend up until yesterday, i finally got a temporary fix-- bought a new charger and lens cap, and it was a go. i've been so excited that we've been taking lots of pics. here are some of my favorites of eli.

Visit

2008-11-05T15:38:00.007-07:00

Eli had some visitors in town this past weekend. Well, kind of Sam did. The idea started with the Broncos Dolphins game, and blew up to a five day visit with some fun folks.

The best part, however, was seeing Eli's big cousin, Justin, who loved his little baby cousin.

Their carseats were right next to each other, and Justy loved to hold Eli's hand. It was more than adorable.

Justy was extra smooshy in his Elmo costume, and ran around yelling "Elmo Elmo" which sounded kind of like "Ehmo Ehmo" all weekend. Very cute.

Finally, here's a picture of Eli with his mommy and daddy. He was a sock monkey, Sam was the UPS man and I was Avril Lavigne (recycled costume from 4 years ago when she was popular)

Okay, one more. Justy and Eli took a bath together, and it was really fun. I'll include one picture of it because I can't help it.

so much has happened!

2008-10-20T17:55:00.003-06:00

the last almost four months have been such an amazing ride. Eli went from a scrawny little thing that looked like a raw chicken to a big, round, smiley baby.

I wish I could put the experience into words, but I think anyone with a little one knows that it's kind of impossible. I have everything I never even knew I wanted, and a new kind of love. It's all very good and happy. :)

Baby Eli!!

2008-07-17T22:53:00.003-06:00

Little punk rocker
steals my heart

a finished product

2008-01-06T22:00:00.000-07:00

the condo is finally finished (sans furniture)

i can't believe it. it actually came out as well as we'd hoped. furniture shopping was discouraging, to say the least. the man at the store told us it would only be 200 a month if we financed it interest free. well that doesn't sound too bad until we hear that we'll be paying until 2011. that's a long ass time.

anyway, here are some pics.

first is the kitchen. kind of our pride and joy...

then there's our cute little bathroom which came out nice even though we didn't specifically order anything in it. long story

and finally the winter view out our (new) sliding door in the living room. very different than summer, for sure.

coming june 2008!

2008-01-01T22:28:00.000-07:00

it's a baby gompers

Condo update

2007-12-02T16:40:00.000-07:00

i'm very excited. things are progressing much more rapidly now that we've hired someone to do the work for us. :)
instead of posting all these pics, here's a link to where you can see all of them if you have interest.
http://picasaweb.google.com/sam.gompers/Gtown12207
i'm smiling huge!!

After a month

2007-10-29T09:21:00.000-06:00

So it's been a month of steady work. We've actually got a lot done. However, it seems the more we do, the less the place looks done. it's kind of painful, really. Probably the most impressive thing we've done is pour concrete in the rooms we'll put wood in. This is what it looks like when you pour buckets of concrete. It makes giant puddles that all meld together. It was messy work... heavy, too. Poor guy had to carry it all up himself.

This on the right is the "before" picture. It's a lot different, if you see them side by side. :)

We also got some recess lighting put in. That helps a LOT.

We're also working in the kitchen. The doors are off and we're um... degreasing 35 years worth of , well, I'm pretty sure it's spaghetti sauce off of them. Then they'll be painted a lovely creamy off white with an interesting granite. Pretty hard to picture, huh. Yeah, I'm having a tough time, too.

The wood arrives tomorrow, so I'll have some pics of it starting to look good soon!!!! Wish us luck.

after the first weekend

2007-10-03T23:03:00.000-06:00

lots of progress over at casa gompers dos. :)

what was once comfortably dingy is now, well, stripped. it was a LOT of hard work (thankfully we had the right protective gear) but was really worth it. the first pic was after we scraped the popcorn from the ceiling in the living room. it wasn't nearly as hard as i had expected it to be. once you wet it, it kinda came off like cream cheese. mmmmmmmmm. didn't taste at all like it, though. hehe.

This next pic is what the bedroom now looks like without carpet, baseboards, tackboards (those were wicked to get out of the concrete with crowbars, i'll tell ya what) fixtures or textured ceilings.

i'll end on a funny note. when sam contacted the property manager to find out if she had the key to the place, she said there had been all sorts of problems over the weekend. someone had dumped all sorts of carpet in the dumpster and she had to call the police and have it carted away. hmmm... who could that have been?

more updates to come next week

second home

2007-09-26T21:47:00.001-06:00

we bought a second home. well, a condo actually. it's in georgetown, colorado, and it's going to be awesome. when i say going to be, i mean that it's kind of a craphole now, but the view is amazing. that actually works for us, because we couldn't afford to buy a remodeled place in the mountains only 12 minutes from the nearest ski mountain. well, not without changing our lifestyles a LOT. but we can afford to buy a craphole. so we did. :)

here's a picture of the living room. notice the super sweet cork tile above the fireplace. that could come in really handy if, say, you wanted to post notices in your living room. or if your tv was so tiny that you could pin it up. ours, however, is not that tiny. plus, we really don't have any bulletins to post. so the cork's coming down on "D" day (demolition day) this saturday. the coolest thing, however, is that the creek is right there outside the window. it's shallow enough for wading, but leads to a lake maybe 100 yds away where there's kayaking in summer, ice fishing in winter, plus it's swarming with trout for those that like to fly fish.

here's another view of the creek, taken from the deck

you may be wondering why i don't post pictures of the inside. here's why

she needs a little work for sure

updated pics to come after "d" day! wish us luck

what a week

2007-05-22T08:29:00.000-06:00

last thursday my grandmother passed away. the hubby and i were on the next flight to nj and just got back last night. it was kind of an overwhelming time. it kind of still is.
i helped my brother write something to say at her funeral because i don't speak in front of people. it was difficult, not only emotionally, but to accurately put into words of only a page or so the life of this wonderful woman who lived just one day shy of 91 years.
the night before her funeral my family gathered and looked at the bar and bat mitzvah videos to see clips of her. we also looked through the old photo albums she and my grandfather had kept so meticulously and so very very clearly labeled. we even got to see pictures of my grandmother when she was just 6 weeks old. the style then was to take a picture of the baby without clothes, laying on a bearskin rug. my grandfather had the identical posed photo of himself, too. there were pictures detailing her life at every age. in one picture of her at age 15, everyone says it could easily have been a picture of me i resemble her so. we saw pictures upon pictures of my grandmother, taken by grandpa, by herself sometimes posing, sometimes candid. sometimes she was even flirting with him behind the camera. those were my favorite shots of her. they truly showed how vivacious she was as a young woman. she was a beautiful and elegant woman and lived a long and up until the last few years, very full life. i've missed her the last few years, and will continue to, but i know she is at peace now. i hope that everyone who knew her learned from her and will carry her life on through the way they choose to live.

update on the nephew

2007-04-11T09:46:00.000-06:00

here's a cute shot. clearly he's fitting right in with my brother and sister-in-law!

written in frustration for a laugh

2007-04-11T09:23:00.000-06:00

melting

it's almost funny, melting.
hair coasting along
currents and waves
of gooey skin
eyeballs slipping down
like pickle slices
hurled against a storefront window

they ripple into a fleshy pool
gummy beneath my pumas
spinning and twirling about
like they can still see

it's almost funny to melt
organs dripping like crayons
off an almost bare skeleton
and if my tongue hadn't fallen
beside some wriggling intestine
i might just have to scream
because it's just almost that funny

a little less wisdom...

2007-03-29T19:02:00.000-06:00

got my wisdom teeth out tuesday. all four impacted.

i look like the godfather. on dope.

chubby bunny. happy vicodin

in recent months

2007-02-21T20:54:00.000-07:00

in VERY exciting new news, my brother and his wife just had a baby over the weekend. He's a beautiful little boy, just shy of 7 lbs.

I made him something for his birthday, but he won't be able to use it for a few years :) I can't figure out how to rotate the picture, either. not too tech savvy, i guess

there is a duplex in breckenridge that we have rented twice now. the first time was with 7 of our family members and we were exiled to the pull-out couch and shared a room with a brother in law or two. it was so much fun to all pile into the hot-tub and toast to family, fun, and a wonderful visit. most recently we went alone, the beautiful house all ours to enjoy. the master bed felt fluffy and amazing, and the hot-tub not at all empty with just two. we didn't even go snowboarding the second day, instead preferring to sleep in all snuggly and warm and then take some photos off the deck. sometimes when the day has been too long, i think about our weekend there: about reconnecting, relaxing... about the quiet night together talking, laughing, and sitting peacefully just enjoying.

we've booked a big trip for this summer. hawaii. i can't wait. i find myself daydreaming about going (of course in my daydreams i look awesome in a bikini). the boy looks just as he does, though and i like him that way. interesting how that works. i'm open to suggestions for islands (i think it's maui, kauai, and the big island but we're flexible) and things to do on each.

and on the ninth day

2006-12-15T09:34:00.000-07:00

He created winter break for all the teachers of the world. and it was good. and He saw that it was good. and all the teachers napped happily after snowboarding 4 days in a row.

the end.

deep sigh

2006-11-20T15:30:00.000-07:00

do you ever have that feeling when you awake in the morning that things are not going to go as planned? i don't know why i felt it this morning when i got up and the whole ride to school. i just had a hunch, i think.
today was a meeting with the math coordinator. not a meeting for everyone. a meeting for me. i knew from the tone of his email (that i saw he sent on sunday afternoon) requesting a conversation after school that it would not be my best shining moment.
essentially, what has happened is my personal life has caught up with my work life. this is a not a good thing. the way that (to quote phoebe) i've been "all chaotic and twirly and not in a good way" is apparently reflecting in my teaching. he said he's worried about my teaching this year and doesn't feel that i'm as engaged, organized, and planned as i was last year. coming from quite possibly the nicest man in the entire world, that's a pretty huge insult.
i've always been able to separate my personal life from my work life, but it's becoming painfully clear that i'm not able to do that anymore. my students and their parents are the ones that caused him to think this way, too... i can't even blame it on his wrong perceptions.
i feel sad today that my students are the ones suffering from my inability to get my sh!t together (for lack of a better term).
today is a day where i sigh deeply.

in an effort to make this blog less serious, i'm attaching a picture of myself in a clown suit, headbanging.

golden hour

2006-11-13T16:59:00.000-07:00

today's golden hour was amazing. i took a photo of some leaves, but i felt like i had to catch the color on skin, so i took a pretty weak self-portrait, seeing as how it was just me and the dogs and they don't show much skin. it's cold out and i've got a sniffle, so don't mind the red nose

it is so amazing to me how a little end of day sunshine puts a new spin on everything

feeling a little left out

2006-11-09T08:39:00.000-07:00

perhaps it's time for me to post a picture of one of the little girls in my life, too.

this is chloe. she'll be 1 next week. the boy and i are like 5th in line to be godparents to her and her big sister. so basically, if the whole family (siblings included) kicks it except for the kids, then we get them. i guess that's kind of a morbid thing to wish for. :)

this was taken at the buddy walk in denver

when chloe smiles, her mouth becomes a giant O. it's the cutest thing

this past week

2006-11-06T15:20:00.000-07:00

this past week was pretty good overall. i'd like to share...

what i'm going through right now is a strange process. i haven't really talked about it much, because it's kind of a tough thing for me to deal with and even to describe. i guess what's happening now (and i still can't find a good way to describe it) is basically causing me to question everything and pull away from people. this has not been an easy thing for me to do. which relationships are real? who is someone that i want in my life for less selfish reasons than just my pathetic need to feel validated? i've been rethinking every friendship and otherwise that i've had for the last 15 years, basically reducing myself to a self-loathing over-analytical loner. for lack of better words, methinks. i've even cut some people out entirely.
okay so this sounds a little dark, but it's not... it's good for me. those people that i cut out were unhealthy for me, and my knowing them stemmed almost entirely from my neediness and my destructive behavior. what i want to say about the last week is that i've seen some old friends that i haven't seen in a long time and in my mind i had clouded my perception of them (along with pretty much everyone i know) so badly that i didn't know which end was up. what i rediscovered is that these people are amazing, inspirational, beautiful people. it's really nice to have all of them in my life. they're safe, and they're warm, and seeing them made me realize that they're really important to me for all the right reasons. i feel thankful and i feel loved. these are good things.

okay, enough mushiness.

so it's snowboard season NOW. breck opens this weekend. keystone, a-basin, copper... they're all already open. my drive to work is exquisite in the mornings sometimes. the reddish brown foothills nearly obscuring the view of those beautiful white caps... breathtaking. pikes peak sits at the southern end of the mountains where the foothills look so flat, you'd think the range was ending. but rising up above them, pikes peak is enormous and majestic, dwarfing everything else in sight. on clear mornings i can see the sun rising and reflecting red light on those shiny white peaks. it's one of the only reasons i enjoy being up before sunrise. :) maybe the only one.

in the interest of suggestions...
i am planning a series of things for my hubby as he approaches his 30th birthday rapidly. i'm looking for suggestions for fun things to do in NYC at night on the saturday of thanksgiving before a nice dinner out. so far i've got "go to rockafeller center". anything else for me?

without any further delay i'm headed home to sulk about my observation today, which went about as badly as i could have nightmared about. maybe it's time for an early retirement. i'll keep wishin ;-)

ciao

what's been going on

2006-10-25T10:19:00.000-06:00

not much, anyway... been working on some stuff. been working on myself. been drinking a LOT. that's how it goes, i guess.
here are some pictures i've taken lately with my sweet ass new camera (well, kinda new anyway)

this one day the sky was so dark and it stormed for just a minute. then, as if on a curtain string, the sky opened just a little, letting through the brightest light. the rest of the world stayed dark. it made me gasp. i don't know if i've done it justice. i don't know if anyone could.

one day the boy and i decided to take a little drive up to the mountains. we were kind of summery (he wore shorts!) but this is what we found up there

last weekend we had kind of an early halloween party. here's me. any guesses who i was??

and finally... the gratuitous photo that i couldn't resist taking. hope you get a laugh. i sure did.

there are days

2006-05-09T20:46:00.000-06:00

there are days when i am overcome with joy. on these days i feel elated by how lucky i am in life. i am thankful for the people in my life that love me, for the people i love, for being able to live a comfortable life and have a job that i can tolerate and even enjoy sometimes. don't get me wrong, because i am truly humbled by all that i have to celebrate.
but there are days when my heart is so heavy i don't know how i carry it around. lately i've been keeping myself busy to try to avoid it, but it seems to have caught up with me tonight. tonight, i am overwhelmed by life and the feeling that there is no solution to the problems i face. i have intentionally avoided this blog lately because while usually i just ramble or complain about something small, i knew that once i sat down at this computer my heart would pour out. i don't understand how to fix things. i sometimes feel so terribly sad and yet i have nothing i can do about it.
the last time i went to visit my family was late last month. every time i go home (can i call it that anymore? when i don't have a friend to see there? when i've left all of them for a better life i haven't found yet?) i cry for at least 24 hours when i get back.
i dote on this, i know... but my grandmother is a different person each time i see her. none of them are the woman i knew. none are the woman i remember. and the old memory is fading fast.. i don't even know how to cling onto it. this time she was wide-eyed and wondering... very child-like and innocent. all the family dogs went to visit her, and she fumbled her hands over them clumsily, saying only the word "pleeeease" over and over again, drawn out like a desperate child wanting to hold a puppy. i put one on her lap and she squeezed him so hard, like babies do, not realizing she was hurting him. i don't know if i can do the moment justice, but i can't stop myself from reliving it, even each time i hear the word please, perhaps a hundred times a day.
she's a broken woman and doesn't even know it. in a week or so she turns 90. i won't be able to go see her, as i can rarely see my family anymore because of where i live.
there are so many things in my head (this is just one of them). usually, i push them aside, but tonight they overwhelm me. i am writing this because i just realized i don't have a friend in the world that i can just call up and talk to and cry with about these things. when my husband is not home (like he isn't now, and i hate to burden him with tears too often... he feels so helpless when he can't fix what's wrong) i am more alone than i can possibly explain.

sinners welcome here

2006-04-04T20:04:00.000-06:00

every day i drive past a church with this sign. this is the most massive church with a parking lot to hold 8 million cars. sinners are welcome there. that's nice to see. lets people take down their guard a little, i guess.
i must have driven by there a hundred times before it started to make me think just yesterday. it was a lightening fast thought process, but it went through a dozen things, each of them further beneath the surface.
i spend some time with friends of ours and their two little girls. not long ago, the husband of the couple, chris, told me a story about an old couple consisting of a devoted wife and a dying husband. she sat by his hospital bed, as the doctor had told her he wouldn't make it through the night. the husband awoke in the night and called out to his wife, asking "are you awake" to which she replied "of course" and he said to her "do you see those three lights?" she, of course, didn't. he said to his wife "come here and kiss me goodbye... the virgin mary, the holy ghost, and jesus are here for me" and so she kissed him and he died moments later, as the story goes.
this story gave me chills and brought tears to my eyes for some reason (might have been the bottle of wine i had to drink). but more importantly, it spawned a conversation with these friends of mine about heaven... i mean, yes, the story was touching, but as a jew, i'd be pretty freakin' surprised if any one of those three came to escort me for the long haul. so i brought up heaven, and who they think are the gatekeepers, and who gets in. well, those friends of mine are christian, and this is what they told me (neither was exactly sure, but this was the gist of it). jews are the chosen people and have a free ride into heaven no matter what. anyone else has to accept jesus christ as their savior in order to get into heaven. now, forgive me for just a minute, but WHAT???? i mean, i LOVE the idea that i can live whatever kind of life i damn well please and still be looked on favorably in the big guy's eyes. however, i don't know if i think that's the case.
millions of people of so many different faiths are willing to die for what they believe. so why would i have a gate-pass just because of who i was born to? and what makes these people so sure that just by believing something they will go through the pearly whites?
i once made an appointment with a rabbi to ask him about afterlife and heaven and hell. he gave me a really ambiguous answer that left me confused and kind of hopeless. many jews don't believe in heaven or hell, he told me. but of those that do, many believe that heaven is the way you're remembered fondly, and hell is the negative memories of you. kind of dismal, but it's nice to think that someone might remember me in a nice way. so, life ends after, like, 2 generations after you live, if that? that doesn't sound so great. what about forever??? what's the point of trying to live a good life if you don't reap any reward later on? (besides that whole feeling good about what you do and freedom from guilt, thing... whatever. we'd find reason to feel it anyway, i think) jews fast for 24 hours on yom kippur to cleanse themselves of their sins and get written in the good book of life (i don't know what i think about how valid that can be, either). so why try to be in the good book of life? it doesn't change what you did, and it doesn't change where you're going.
i just don't get it.
maybe religion and faith are both just ways for people to have some reason to not feel hopeless. maybe they're just ways for them to try to figure out the big picture when really there isn't one. maybe it's just a way for people to make friends or family that they believe are like themselves.
i guess there's only one way to find out and it's not really reversible.

what did i do?

2006-03-21T08:02:00.000-07:00

so we have 2 dogs. cutest dogs in the world. seriously.
the little black one's name is charley. the less-little white one's name is oscar.
charley was our first dog... a rescue. sweet hearted but fiesty. one thing that drives him crazy is when my boy and i play fight. he gets upset and yelps and chases us around trying to kiss us. it's adorable.
well, last night my husband smacked me on the ass and i smacked him even harder in return. we were outside in the snow (drunk after league bowling night). next thing i know, charley is yelping and crying and then falls over. poor little guy had a panic attack or a seizure or something. i held him in my arms and his whole body was so tense. i kept setting him down to try to get him to walk, but he kept falling over.
finally, on our way out the door to the emergency vet, his body relaxed and he started to act more normal. we called the vet and they said he probably was just upset and had a reaction and just to keep an eye on him.
you think? i almost brought him to work with me today.

las begas
in other news, we planned a trip to las vegas. leaving a week from friday. i'm looking forward to it, even though i'm not too crazy about gambling overall. i was promised a seafood buffet and a strip club visit, so i'm pretty psyched about that. i sure am hungry.
if anyone knows where to get some sexy "i'm going to vegas" tank tops and hot pants, let me know. i'm in the market.

other stuff
the visit with the art teacher went really well. he's a really nice guy and everyone who met him thought so, even my husband. there might be a job opening at my school, so if that's the case, we may be teaching together. how strange! it will be fun, though. we're pretty close buddies now, seeing as how i walked around the house in my jammies with him there PLUS i had a stomach virus and he got to see me at my grossest.

i got my hair cut... 3 inches off. the most i've ever cut off it. i hate it. it looks healthy and springy and "cute". that's SO not my style. freakin' poodle head.

spring break in 3 1/2 days and counting

a day of celebration

2006-02-28T17:14:00.000-07:00

word is that he was surrounded by family and friends until the end. they held his hand and sang to him and told him stories and he was happy until the very last minute. his family is peaceful about his passing and celebrates a life well-lived.

not a bad way to go at all.

sad day

2006-02-27T17:27:00.000-07:00

today is a sad day. all around the world there are people saying that exact thing. there must be a million or maybe a hundred million reasons why today is a sad day for some people.
today is a sad day because my friend's father is on his death bed after a long struggle with cancer. i feel sad for her and her mom, and her dad, too, because he never got to grow old and live his life out with his wife or see his daughter get married to the man who asked her daddy's blessing just before he started chemo.
i can't imagine what it feels like to sit by and wait for the person you love to die. the thought of it makes me physically ill. the news was that he won't make it to the end of the day. what do you say? what do you pray for? do you dare hope to drag it out another day? what do you say to your daughter? i don't know.
today my heart goes out to this family. i know there are no words to console grief like theirs.

not taking the hint

2006-02-20T09:19:00.000-07:00

so i've taken two pretty serious spills lately on a snowboard. last weekend i tried to ride a rail (again, i know, right?) fell before i even got there and hit my back on the metal corner. only missed my spine by about 1/2 inch. cried (i've tried to ride a rail 4 times in my life and i have cried every single time).
then saturday i took a jump in the baby park at breck. actually got a little air (i'm learning how to pull my knees up when i jump) and then landed it, caught my heel edge and fell backwards, hitting my head pretty solidly (i wear a helmet, of course but it still freakin' hurt) and causing something to crack within my neck. i didn't feel the pain in my neck until about 10 minutes later at which point i realized i couldn't turn my head. since then i have slept almost non-stop. i wonder if i concussed myself or something, because i can't stop sleeping. i'm going to try to take today nap-free. we'll see how that goes.
since i never remember to take the camera where i go, here's my vision of what i look like snowboarding. i accidentally drew myself left-front instead of goofy, and although i haven't seen sun in a while, i don't think i'm that pale, but otherwise, it's pretty much exact. :)

i think so, anyway.

so the point here is... seems like maybe the big guy upstairs is trying to warn me that i shouldn't be trying to hop on and over things on my board like a 12 year old. every injury lately has been a "wow, i was really lucky it wasn't an inch to the left" sort of thing. so i guess i should be taking a hint, but NO WAY

it's just too much fun

houseguest, kids and peace

2006-02-15T15:17:00.000-07:00

three things i have on my mind don't really go together at all, but i am going to lump them together into one blog post.

houseguest
my high school art teacher is coming to stay with me for somewhere between 5 to 9 days. i don't know for how long, honestly. he's getting to town tonight and leaving the 24th. that's really all i know. the problem is that i think we lead kind of different lifestyles. ooh, speaking of lifestyles, i have a fourth topic for my posting: phone sex. but that's another story for later. so this art teacher is of a very different religious faith than i am. i think he is offended by foul language and movies of a sexual nature. he doesn't drink at all--although i think he'll go to a happy hour every now and then. i'm not really sure what to do with him, really. when i asked him what he wanted to do, he said he would like to cook for us. that's really nice, but it's not going to fill up 9 days. i guess we'll see. i'm feeling a little anxious about the whole thing.

next topic: kids
my husband and i talked about when we'd like to have kids. he wants them sooner than later. i want them not really at all. we decided two years is a good compromise.
ugh

next: peace
i feel most at peace when i'm snowboarding. the cold wind barely leaking through my goggles, puffs of powdery snow wisping to each side... just the slightest move alters my direction and i'm always just a tiny wrong movement away from a crash... and yet i glide along, blissfully unaware of how i look or who's watching. just feeling in control of my body, but only barely. it's amazing.

and finally: phone sex
our bowling partner has a second job as a phone sex operator on the weekends. she just told me about it monday league night. next week she's going to bring some items from her "treasure chest" and have us play for sexual prizes. i don't know how i feel about it, really. kind of freaked out to tell the truth. i'll write about it if it's anything good.

weekend realization

2006-02-07T15:07:00.000-07:00

i came to a startling conclusion this weekend. i shouldn't have been surprised by it, but i was. i don't know when it happened, but i got old. older, anyway. and i don't know if that's okay with me. i mean, i don't feel like i've changed much, but i guess i need to. i still have the same sense of silliness and adventure... a sense that anything is possible if i actually try, but since i'm too scared or maybe lazy to, nothing happens. to me, there are few things better than a night of silliness. maybe even drunken debauchery... a night of stupid funny behavior... a night ending no earlier than the next morning. a night of one fun thing followed by the next... of hugging strangers and singing out loud.
apparently i have few of these nights to look forward to.
my boy and me rented a condo in the mountains for the weekend. it was a sweet penthouse right at the base of a ski mountain and within walking distance of all the town had to offer. we bought it for the weekend through this silent auction to help raise money for homeless colorado. we had huge plans for it... maybe throw a superbowl party there, or invite a bunch of people up to stay with us; sleep where you can find a spot type of deal. turned out we invited two couples to join us, one who just got engaged and another that was married about 3 months ago. the engaged couple's 9 year old (the woman's child from another relationship)'s babysitter fell through. it ended up as 6 20 and 30-somethings and a 9 year old. i can deal with that. things happen, right? well
we were sleeping every night by like 10. the one night we went out to a kind of late dinner, the mom and kid waited in the car for us to finish because the kid was sleeping at the table. there was no silliness. no singing... no hugging of the stranger. we went through maybe like 20 beers total for the weekend. maybe. for 6 adults. 20 beers. one weekend.
that is so wrong.
when everyone finally left, i asked my hubs, "did you have a good time?" and he replied really enthusiastically "yes, i really did" and then i lied and said that i did, too. there was nothing that great about it. truly. and i just know that things will continue to become more and more boring, and that i'm supposed to change and learn to accept the subtleties and enjoy the simplicity of life. well, i don't. not even a little. it eats me up inside because i don't know how to be happy as an adult. i need to let the playful nature of a child out of me or i'm going to explode.
why does growing older have to suck so much? seriously

royally screwed the pooch

2006-01-30T16:25:00.000-07:00

so... i've finally done it... screwed up badly enough at work to be on the "we're watching you" list. it was bound to happen really; i've never been one to follow the rules. i usually just fly low enough under the radar that no one notices me. what i did was basically break one of the first rules they teach you in teaching school... don't ever leave your kids alone. every teacher breaks this rule. i don't know any who don't. run out to the bathroom for a minute... pick up copies down the hall... nothing ever comes of it. until friday. left the kids alone for 1 minute and all chaotic hell broke loose. seriously. harrassment and bullying... a boy even pushed a girl. i mean, are you kidding? this is high school. not nursery.
long story short, the administrators have their eyes on me now. don't really trust me. are requiring me to keep the blinds over the window to the hallway open so they can look in whenever they want to.

in other words... i'm looking for a new career. anyone have any ideas? i know not many people read this. but if someone stumbles across it, i'm open to suggestions (of the pg rated kind.)

i'm skilled at writing, math, art, and procrastinating.
thanks

2006-01-25T09:50:00.000-07:00

it's interesting to me to see what people choose to write about in their blogs. i have a few that i check on daily... people write about everything from what's going on at their jobs, in their pregnant tummies, with their favorite sports teams, inside the deepest workings of their souls ... it's amazing. my problem is that i don't really know what i want my blog to be about. it has no personality. no theme. i feel like maybe it's just a place where i come to dump the heart-breaking realities i don't want to bring my friends down with. that doesn't seem like much of a reason to have a blog. perhaps i'll make a commitment to myself in this blog. every so often, i will go ahead and share something wonderful.
today i will share one of the most FUN things i have done in years: SNOW TUBING!
none of the pictures i have really accurately shows what the track looks like, but i'll attach a few just to give an idea. this is a picture of 4 people linked up in their tubes sliding down the tracks. fun, right?

here's another shot of one person heading down. you can kind of see what the tracks look like. also, if you ask them to at the top, they'll spin you in an overly-nauseating kind of way while you rush down the track (it's about as long as a football field). sweet, right? i'm not the screaming type, and i shrieked my head off all the way down while twisting like a top. my stomach is gurgling at the memory.

anyway... it's not quite as fun as snowboarding is (seriously... that's more like flying) but it's great fun, especially with whole families. if you try it drunk, don't ask to be spun. i think it's pretty self-explanatory as to why.

fyi, these pics were taken at keystone

i refuse to change

2006-01-23T08:19:00.000-07:00

i have discovered that i'm really quite stubborn. all of me is (anyone in my family could verify that), but my heart is, too. first off, i refuse to stop loving someone once i feel love for them. it doesn't matter how much i may grow to despise their personalities later-not how much a person may hurt me and chisel away at my happiness. once there is love, it sticks. that's all there is to it.
but there is another part of me that is stubborn in the strangest way. i refuse to change how i remember people in my head. once i get a mental image, well... it's tough to make it go away. take yesterday. i called my parents on my mom's mobile phone. they were at the nursing home visiting my paternal grandmother. she is very sick with alzeimers and, as i remember, the last time i wrote about her, time had taken away the yiddish she learned as a child. since then, sadly, time has taken away most of her words and her faculties. she now eats mostly liquids because there is a possibility she may forget to properly chew and choke herself. often, she just repeats one sound over and over again until it has lost all meaning, if it ever had one. each time i see her or talk to her, i am surprised, because that is not the woman i know-not the one i remember, anyway. each time they put me on the phone with her (i can hear them in the background saying "put that to your ear" so she knows what to do) i am crushed down to the very insides of my soul until i hang up and then the memory reverts back to the original. i do not see this broken woman whose deteriorating body is so much more healthy than the mind. i see a porcelain-faced woman of amazing intelligence holding her chin high in quiet dignity. i see her dancing with my grandfather at a formal party, her silver hair pulled into neat waves framing her face. i don't know who this woman is that doesn't recognize my voice or my face. the one who mistakes my father for her husband. the one who forgets she can't walk and tries to pull herself out of her wheelchair. who is this woman? i refuse to change my memory of her. i just can't do it. maybe it's selfish, or stubborn... or maybe i'm doing her a justice. maybe i'm just doing myself a justice.

Nothing Important

2004-08-21T00:44:00.000-06:00

it's nearly 1 am. i just got back from my cousin's husband's concert. he plays in a funk cover band. some stupid girl walked in and ran onstage and hugged and kissed him on the cheek. my cousin was pissed, so she said 'i don't appreciate you disprespecting me' and the girl apologized, said 'i'm sorry, i know he's your husband. no disrespect intended.' she then proceeded to dance directly in front of him on the stage, gyrating her hips and looking at him and smiling. in return, he gave her looks. wiggled his brow a little. smiled at her. looked into her eyes. my cousin and her husband have two young children. i am typically not a violent person, but tonight at the bar, watching her dance and him look on, i couldn't decide which of those two i wanted to punch worse.

my husband is in vegas at a bachelor party as i write this. most likely, he is fondling the fake breast of a stripper, while his moronic friends egg him and the others on.

me? i'm sitting in the dark, typing on the computer. it's a little chilly tonight, and i still have my coat on, didn't bother to take it off. i had a nice time tonight. i did, i think. i could have lived without it, i know. but whatever. it's so quiet in here, i can hear my dog chewing his kibble in the other room.

i'm a teacher. or, i guess i can say, i was hired to teach middle school kids. do i actually get any teaching done? i don't know. in one of my classes i have the one student in the school that's permitted to wear a hat in school. the chemo made his hair fall out all last year. he is a fair skinned redhead with a round face. i have known him for four days and i love him so much that my heart breaks just thinking about him.

i'm not a great teacher. would definitely make a much better mentor or big sister. i care about my students. i really do. but i spend my whole day thinking about the end of the day, about the weekend, about something else.

the best part of the school year is when the kids begin to like me as a person. when they smile at me and walk out of their way to see me. their hearts are so open, so vulnerable, so precious. 'do you have any papers for me to hand out?' 'can i erase your board?'

could you be any sweeter?

i still haven't figured out what to make this blog about. i guess it doesn't matter, anyway. no one will see it. there are so many things in my head that no one will ever hear or know, or ever care to know. it's strange to always be in an influential position, but never have any influence. it's like being transparent

family circle

2004-06-01T14:57:00.000-06:00

by choosing to live halfway across the country from our families (mine in particular), my little family here (me in particular) is obligated to follow the following rules:

1. i must feel guilty all the time, but particularly when talking to certain family members who feel it is necessary to regularly remind me of where i have chosen to live and all the things i am missing as a result of it.

2. i must plan trips out of guilt, not pleasure. at least once a day during visits with my family, i must endure an adult temper tantrum.

3. i must endure insults, such as being called "terrible, selfish, inconsiderate, spoiled, etc." and must also agree with off the wall comments such as "if i had beaten you more as a child, you would have lived closer". i must also feel guilt when such comments are made, as if it was my fault.

4. i must feel guilty at all times for following my heart and spending my time with whom i choose.

5. i must feel more and more guilt with every breath that my elderly grandparents are going to die someday, because of course, somehow, it is my fault. i must also feel guilt when i do not call them and guilt when i do call them because they remind me constantly of how far away i am.

6. i must be questioned regularly as to why i do not love my family, and of course feel intense guilt as a result of it, because when you hear it enough, you begin to question if it might be true.

7. i must accept the fact that no matter what i do, it will never be good enough. the people with whom i am compared with are
a. my brother
b. anyone else's children who live unbearably close to their parents
c. anyone else's children who call their parents more than once a day. because obviously, that's not enough.

8. i must live with the knowledge that no matter how hard i try, i can not satisfy my family and i can not convince them that life is not a competition between in-laws.

9. i must live with the fact that my husband will resent me, probably forever, because of my family and the way they treat me and accuse him behind his back.

10. i must understand that this is the life i have chosen and i bring all of this guilt on myself through my choices, and even though i would make them again, nothing i can do is right. nothing is ever right.

the enema joke

2004-05-27T09:17:00.000-06:00

we asked him at least a hundred times to tell us the enema joke. i started from way before i even knew what an enema was. it was the only time he really cut loose, and made noise, and even had a little color in his cheeks from laughter. he would get through the first two or three lines and stay fairly composed, but we all waited for that next line when the joke started to get funny. she tried to look aggravated about him telling the joke again (and in front of the children!), but those high cheekbones and twinkling eyes gave her away and we knew she wasn't angry, couldn't be. by the fourth line of the joke, he was completely beside himself, choking out words in between wheeze-laughs and knee-slaps. although i'm sure i have, i can't remember laughing that hard, that many times, at the same thing. tears squeezing out all corners of my eyes, cheeks aching from laughing so hard... i loved the enema joke. i have no idea what it was about, other than an enema--i couldn't understand what he said between his hoarse giggles. i'll never know, and don't need to. i love the enema joke

flipping the coin

2004-05-24T15:42:00.001-06:00

they were so different, especially to me as a child. one couple so vibrant and colorful, fashionable, active. the other quiet, methodical, less mobile. as a child, i always found myself drawn to the colors, the action. i didn't see the merit of the others' ways. found them dry and dull, as if they could be in black and white and it wouldn't change a thing. i'd cry when left with them to babysit me. i couldn't understand their slow movements and soft words.

the first pair had their own way of doing things as well, but were more with the times. they would take me to rated R movies and cover my ears at the curse words. she walked the aisles of marshalls with my mom and looked for me countless times as i hid under the shirt racks to scare them. she let me try on her jewelry and make-up, and he worked in the empire state building until his retirement. people always liked them. they looked and acted younger than most people their age. they had about them a certain grace and charm. she never went to college, and often referred to herself as "a dummy" but she had a way with people, all people, that only a very special person could have. i remember one particular time, at a young age, i turned to her and said "you need to go on weight watchers" which, i don't even think was true, but i was learning about what not to say to people, and that was a pretty darn good example. she rose and held her arms out to her sides proudly and spun around for me, wiggling her body, and asked me "does this look like the body of someone who needs to lose weight?" and even though i knew i had hurt her feelings and i felt terrible because i realized my words hurt, we laughed together and i suppose i learned something that day, sitting on the linolium floor in my parents' kitchen. she never showed me anything but her smile, all the way to the end, even though i knew it was coming. and he sat by her side so many nights, and even all these years later still tears up when he talks about her, his love.

the other pair, i learned, probably could have been in black and white. but even though as a child i believed that was not a good thing, somewhere along the line, i learned about the simple charm that made them magical. he would sit there for hours peeling one orange or grapefruit. first until there was none of the white left on the flesh on outside of the fruit. then, he would divide it up into the pieces, and pick each one clean of its natural skin. he would then pile the sweet pieces in a bowl and my brother and i would devour them in minutes instead of stopping to enjoy how sweet and fresh, and totally skinless the fruit was. instead of becoming frustrated, he would start on another, patiently, calmly. i can still picture him sitting at the kitchen table peeling grapefruits. when i think of my parents' home, a ghost of an image always flashes through my mind and i can see those moments. they dated their canned goods stocked in their spare bedroom in their garden apartment, often called "the attic". when they'd come over, they'd bring a can of olives with the date they bought it on a tiny sticker on the top of the can, sometimes traced over two or three times to make it darker. i always stuck the olives on the ends of my fingers and wiggled them, thinking they looked like alien fingers. to this day, whenever i buy olives myself, i put them on my fingertips and reminisce for just a minute. he was a salesman at sears until the day he retired, and she used to be secretary or bookkeeper who never really learned to drive. in their younger days they always took classes together at the local college and learned about art or finance, or whatever they had interest in that year. they both had cancer. he lived with his for 17 years, maybe more, before he begged for the end. she lives with it, still... doesn't really realize she ever had it, i don't think, but i still find her brave and strong. i've always been told i favor her (besides the 7 inches i have on her... or as she'd say "i can eat applesauce off her head") and i hope i do. somewhere in me is the patience and slowness i learned from them. somewhere inside me i live in black and white.

when we all got together, all four would talk about us in yiddish. their kids understood a little, even though they couldn't speak it, and my brother and i didn't understand a word, even though one of them tried to teach it to us when we were little. i recently asked her if she could teach me how to say a sentence in it, but it seems time has taken that away from her. she still speaks it and jokes in it sitting around that kitchen table at chromed tube chairs on the linoleum floor with the rest of them, with the rest of us. they're all passing on their traditions, their ways... the colors and the black and white

the nevada diner

2004-05-17T09:36:00.000-06:00

his favorite place to go was this less than impressive diner around the corner from their garden apartment home. it had a typical new jersey look to it, with 70s chrome and neon lights. we'd go for an early dinner (it was always early when we went out with them) but the place usually had plenty of customers. there were always rituals... my brother or me helping his wife from the car and walking her up the ramp... both of them eyeing the almond cookie in the plexiglass case next to the carrot cake or pecan pie... always asking us (neither of us liked almonds)"now doesn't that look delicious?" and in younger years, we'd both answer honestly, but as time passed, we learned the courtesy of white lies.

she'd order something salad-ish, with a slice of lemon as the only dressing, and he would often order the goulash, his lips pulling together into a tiny o as he said the word. of course she gave him a hard time as he perused the menu since he had so many restrictions on his diet. no sugar, no salt, no anything good. when the meal came, and i remember this moment, this particular moment so clearly... the decision, the one i would make the same way a million times over, because, in the end, it wasn't the salt after all... i made the decision to sneak him some pieces of contraband (pickle) when his wife wasn't looking. i quickly snuck a slice under the rim of his plate and watched him bring his hand slowly to his mouth. his lips closed around it like the aperture of a camera, and he and i smiled at each other as he discreetly chewed. she caught him, of course, but we shared that moment... that one moment that stands out in the past like a tiny candle flame, glowing small, but bright

onions

2004-05-17T09:17:00.000-06:00

sometimes when you really let yourself, you see... i see, that beneath all the ugliness quietly sit nibbles of memories, platinum moments... and maybe i need to quietly resign myself to rediscovering them and freeing them

tired of all this jazz

2004-05-13T10:54:00.000-06:00

not havin' a job, right? seems gravy, doesn't it. sometimes it is, i'll admit. nap when you want to, snack when you want to, lay on the floor for sport. what happens 5 months later, when you still have nothing to do, and don't feel like napping or snacking or laying on the floor? what do you do when the only thing you have left to do is look inside yourself and think of things to hate? count them, really... there's about a million of 'em. you don't call your grandmother in the nursing home often enough. you're gaining weight. you cheated your way through college. you deprived hundreds of kids their education because you are a crappy teacher. pretty soon, sitting in front of a unix screen, typing in html code until you're practically blind doesn't seem like such a bad thing. does it? At least you have something else to do, to hate.
Anyway, the purpose of this blog is not to whine, it's about finding a solution, or at least passing the time focusing on something else besides the inside