2009 in Review

January:  House burned down on the 29th.  The rest of the year was a blur.

End of story.

How's that for an atypical year in review?  No boring ramblings about vacations (there were none) or happy events (there were a few) or what the kids are doing. 

When you are homeless and possessionless and heartbroken, life takes on an odd twist. 

Twisted thoughts like this float through your head:

Wonder if this house will burn down too at any moment?
Wonder why we were spared from a middle of the night fire, where we surely would have died.
Wonder if people are talking about us negatively now that we have a brand new nice house.
Wonder if shit is really important at all -- accumulating shit that is.
Wonder if we'll be able to pay the bills, mainly because of a bad loan we made to a family member, but also because we are still replacing everyday things.

And yadda yadda yadda.

I'm just gonna write off 2009 and pray for a productive and happy 2010.  End of Review.

The Religion Entry

I think I finally found a religion I can buy into.  I've been searching for many years, and all I've known is that I'm probably more Jewish than I am Christian; even though I've been raised a first Baptist Protestant. 

But this new definition I stumbled upon through a google search of, "What is a belief in ALL religions called?":

Omnism or omnitheism is the belief in all religions; those who hold this belief are called omnists (or Omnists). ^[1] The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) quotes as the term's earliest usage the 1839 long poem "Festus" by English poet Philip J. Bailey: "I am an omnist, and believe in all religions". In recent years, the term has been emerging anew, due to the interest of modern day self-described omnists who have rediscovered and begun to redefine the term.
Contemporary refinements have modified "belief in all religions" to refer more to an acceptance of the legitimacy of all religions. The OED elaborates that an omnist believes "in a single transcendent purpose or cause uniting all things or people".

This will help me in my new endeavor as an ordained minister.  I have a glossy ID card that proves I am CLERGY now, through the Universal Life Church's online ordination program.   I guess I got bored a couple days before Christmas and decided I wanted to perform gay weddings.  In college and shortly after, I photographed a couple drag queens as they went trough the metamorphosis, and I enjoyed the experience immensely.  My state has approved gay marriages, and I thought there might be a need for a non-denominational, non-judgmental preacher to provide marriage services.  Plus, I can snap a couple candid shots and call it a wedding package!  I hate posed shots, I only do action shots; I'm a photojournalist dammit, not a portrait photographer.

So there....yesterday I even created a website with my real name (yes, Delani Bleu is a pseudonym if you didn't know) and posted a little note saying I'm available for marriages of all kinds.  Now I'll get the word of mouth going, and might even hang a poster up in the gay bars announcing my services -- I haven't been out dancing in forever. 

I have a feeling this entry wasn't what most people expected.  Only Delani can go from religion to gay bars in the space of a few paragraphs -- and have it all make sense. 

Ahhhhhhh, Sunday mornings and Elvis and caffeine gets me going on deep, philosophical ruminations.  Wonder what most people do?

Son #1's Last Christmas

Son #1 is seventeen and I get him every other year for Christmas.  This means that this year will be his last before he's a college student and then off to become his own man.

This makes me a bit sad; although I'm happy he is here this Christmas.  We have new memories to create; new house, new tree, new everything.  I'll need him to make this house a home, and I'm thankful he is such a cool kid.  He is into hip music -- plays as well as listens; he is into upper level literature and upper level math.  This kid will go far, I have no doubts, in spite of his part-time mother.

That's the only thing that has sucked about life since the divorce -- I get my kid part-time.  He has grown up away from me and I have been relegated to being the "texting" mom or the "facebook" mom.  Without those two things I wouldn't know him very well.   OK.  End of Pity Party, Delani...it's not very becoming.

I wouldn't go back and change anything about life -- I'm very happily married now and am very happily divorced; except I'd like to see Son #1 a bit more before he flies the coop.

I'll just patiently waits until he texts me with his ETA, and try not to focus on this being the LAST holiday season I'm guaranteed a visit.  He will always need his mommy, won't he?

More Photoshop Promos

Made this up the other day, just for fun:

Stuff and Shit

We, the hubby and I, have decided that stuff just isn't important any more.  Plain and simple. 

Since the fire, we have slowly been accumulating shit.  We only have about 7 bins of extra stuff in storage in the basement; the rest is tucked nicely in spacious cupboards upstairs.  We aren't interested in acquiring stuff anymore:  stuff like 750 gig of music and movies; stuff like a new outfit for each day of the year; and finally, stuff like collectibles and knick knacks. 

Some stuff I still want, don't get me wrong, like photographs and shoes.  Can never have enough of those.  But, during this holiday season (yes, i chose the PC version on purpose) we find that we only want what we are still replacing.  Shit like bathrobes and slippers and winter sweaters.   As we approach the year anniversary, we have come full circle in missing shit, and I think it's wearing on all of our psyche's a bit. 

There you have it, the lowdown on stuff and shit.  Some shit is important, and some shit isn't.  Oh, and I haven't even begun to talk about the dilemma of epic proportions we face this week.

Dancing to Lady Ga Ga

After demanding he be seen earlier by calling in and impersonating a crazy woman, I'm happy to report that the doctor has agreed to see him on December 29, rather than January 22. . . 

And, after having that detail arranged, he seems to have turned a corner...he hasn't vomited for 24 hours and he was caught dancing to Lady Ga Ga's Pokerface this morning. . .

And, finally after all of this, I am thankful for our health, happiness, and entire well being this holiday season.  Will be with Son #1 this year, which is always a bonus.  If Son #2 gets his proverbial shit together, this could end up being a better holiday season than I thought.

Health Care Crisis

We have a health care crisis here of EPIC proportions.

Son #2 is on Week #4 of puking/pooping/dizzy/headaches.  His platelettes are high, indicating he's fighting ann infection, but his poop test and blood test came back "negative."  He doesn't have H1N1, and he doesn't have mono.  

He has missed 3 weeks of school, and he shows  no signs of getting better.  His nights and days are mixed up because he gets more sick during the night, so he's up half the night puking and getting hot flashes and watching Nick at Night.  Then he sleeps all day and is lethargic while he's awake.  We had his stomach X-Ray'd on Friday, and he fell asleep on the way home from the hospital. 

We shall get the results of the X-Ray on Monday, and if they show something, then MAYBE the GI Specialist will get him in before January 22, which is the next available appointment. 

We are frustrated and worried, to say the least.  We should probably pack him up and head to University Town to the Children's Hospital there, where they might fit him in sooner. 

AND THE REAL CRISIS is we don't know how much of this the EBIL Insurance Company will pay for.  IF WE CAN GET HELP for him, that is...

I should write to President Obama -- he could use our story to show how even "middle-class folks" WITH insurance get screwed every day in our country.  Plus, the ACCESS to the health care is abominable. 

OH well, just another example of how we feel we get screwed in this country, and another story to highlight how badly we need health-care reform in this country.  We are so close right now, but yet so far.

Snow Days, Round 1

Today is the third day of round one:  snow days 2009-10.  The storm started up around midnight Tuesday morning, and Mr. Superintendent called off school around 6:35 AM.  We had a good old-fashioned blizzard from then through Wednesday night, and now, frigid temps have helped call off day 3. 

Of course, I didn't bring any work home with me on Monday, thinking there was no way school would be canceled on Tuesday.   I have an entire consensus map to poop out for curriculum mapping, and I have a small, but manageable pile of papers and projects to check.  I have to be at school to check the projects that are housed on the server, but the rest I could be doing.

Guess what I've done instead?  You got it; social networked until my fingers were numb.  I've been so thankful that the electricity didn't go out as per usual in this small-ass town;  for without the Internet, I'd be lost.  Plus, with our geothermal heat source, we need the electricity to make it run.  We have no gas in our house, except for the gas generated by Son #2, who has had the runs and the pukes for going on 3 weeks now.

The next step is to take him into a GI Specialist at the children's hospital in the Capitol City; however, said hospital has been closed due to the weather.  So, our only option is to sit and ride the storm out. 

For those keeping track at home, 3 snow days puts us going to school well into the second week of June...and it's only December 10th.  The Farmer's Almanac predicted a wet winter -- so insert your own Global Warming joke here.  I'm too tired to comment on the fact that the Midwest will soon be a tropical climate -- plus, as the parent of one of my students complained to my Principal about -- Global Warming is just a theory.

/me goes back to roaming with the dinosaurs in real life. 

Bling Bling Photo

Death of an old friend.

I'm naming names.  Zynga, the ebil gaming company, killed my favorite Internet game:  My Heroes Ability. 

OK.  I've mentioned this game and the friends I've made several times in this blog/blook/monstrosity that I've created.  Remember my friend who's son was in a coma for four months?  He has plans to come visit us from the UK next year -- we've grown that close. 

AND I could go on and on:  the Tennesse/Malaysia couple who are hooking up IRL (in real life) for the second time in March: the struggling poet who is currently unemployed and only lives three states away, and who cried last night because the game was dead officially; and the 42 other friends I have actually "friended" on facebook are all wonderful characters --  doctors, lawyers, students and educators. 

Well, one may be sure that I did not cry over MHA's demise; I am the one who didn't even cry when her own house burnt down.  I almost cried once about a month ago, but I didn't.  Thank you Dr. G for the wonderful brain cocktail.

Decorating From Scratch

We have started over many times over the past 11 months.  When all your worldy shit burns up, you get used to starting over.  We have started over with pets, for example.  We are on our 3rd hamster, and now have accumulated 2 cats and a killer albino bunny.  We are talking fencing in the yard and getting a couple Beagle puppies, but that is a year away or so at least.

We have also started over with clothing, computers, kitchen stuff, collectibles, art and furniture.  It's the exhaustive list that never seems to be done:  we ran out of money before we replaced half of it, so now we are just accumulating stuff as we go.

One thing I didn't anticipate was decorating for the holidays.  We had just bought a new Christmas tree last year, along with a butt load of decorations, which of course, burnt up a month after Christmas, along with all of our new presents and everything else we owned.  So, we had nothing to get out to decorate the new house.  Thank God for moms, though, and grandmas who come to the rescue.

Mom gave me a whole box of Grandma McCoy's home-made decorations for the tree, so we had to buy a new one.  Son #2 insisted on a white tree, so that's what we got.   It goes very well with the navy blue and pearl decorations, and as soon as we buy the right kind of lights for the tree, it will be quite stunning. 

But dammit, I miss my old decorations that I had been accumulating over the years:  the ornaments with the boys' baby pics; the "play that funky music, white lamb" stuffed lamb I bought at a craft fair; and my Santa doll that i got on my first birthday that STILL played music. 

So, once again, as I WAA WAA WAA about SHIT, life goes on.  Life will always plug along, and occasionally drop those memories that make you both feel whole and sad at the same time. And in the meatime, we decorate the house from scratch and begin to make brand new rocking-chair memories.

Fall in 3D

Photoshop is my friend. I resized all these images to fit in an easily downloadable file.

Morning After Thanks

I'm thankful for my solid, green poop.  Don't know how the red Sangria or the blonde turkey could turn it green, but I'm thankful for it nonetheless.

And I'm thankful that I have advertised my love for scatological functions in previous Thresholds.  But in case you missed it and are just now catching up on this third journey, here is a refresher course from freedictionary.com:


scatological
Also found in: Medical, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia 0.04 sec.
sca·tol·o·gy (sk-tl-j, sk-)
n. pl. sca·tol·o·gies
1. The study of fecal excrement, as in medicine, paleontology, or biology.
2.
a. An obsession with excrement or excretory functions.
b. The psychiatric study of such an obsession.
3. Obscene language or literature, especially that dealing pruriently or humorously with excrement and excretory functions.

See defintion number 3.

The New Cast and Cutting

So I have an editor who admitted to being a relapsed cutter in a public blog. 

I also have a beginning photographer who was up half the night after his mother was hauled away for being abusive to her drunk husband.

I also have another editor who is in counseling because her step-dad had an affair.

I had two students cry during newspaper Burning Issues discussion, and said-cutter ran out of room after declaring her hate for her brain medications.

I have students who didn't want to go to their family Thanksgiving dinners because they get ugly.  I have students who would rather be eating school lunch than going home.  I have special education students with great needs, largely going unmet in my classroom.

But personally, I have much to be thankful for.  Making Fred the turkey tomorrow.  That oughtta make a good story.

Procrastination as a Virtue

I think I put the "pro" in procrastination.  I'm an expert at it now...used to be pretty good, but I've refined it into an art now.  We are 4 weeks into the term, and I have yet to check a paper or get the grade book set up on the computer.  One of my annual professional development goals this year is to implement that damn gradebook "with fidelity" which means having it current up to 2 weeks. 

I failz.  Big.  My kids are being patient, but they deserve feedback in a timely manner.  My only excuse is I can't seem to rub two brain cells together to get 'er done.  As usual, my lesson plans are motivational and flawless by now, but the stacks of papers breed on their own and have turned into one gargantuan pile that I can't seem to attack.

Instead, I play now on plurk, facebook, gmail, skype and youtube.  I used to think it was bad when I'd spend 5 hours on this social networking addiction, but now I can play all day long...clicking between tabs and windows and spreading the joy joy joy. 

So, I am going to embrace procrastination today as my friend -- a friend who keeps my brain from harm.  This virtuous friend will eventually allow me the brain power to attack that pile of papers -- especially when grades are due tomorrow. 

ACK and uff-duh and fuck my life.  Time to get grading, checking and marking purple marks all over 11 assignments times 36 kids.  If I poop enough purple I will have accomplished my goal -- albeit without fidelity and flying in the face of all that I know about being a Master Teacher. 

So, I ask the Goddess and Sister Procrastination to release me from your web and allow me the brain cells to survive the day. 

Obligatory Update

Steakboy is proud of me, I think.  I can do shit now;  I have learned.

I am well into my fifth year of this journalism gig, and I have to say that I am very good at teaching the basics of Photoshop and InDesign.  That is, if my technology ever cooperates with me; this week the mother board went out on my brand-new teacher laptop and I had to use a very awkward set-up in order to teach. 

There are still many things I cannot do, like make a consistent box around something or wrap text around a photo.  As a matter of fact, it took me 5 minutes to remember what "text wrap" was called.  I can't seem to size an ad in Photoshop and make it retain its sizing in InDesign.  I still supervise more than I have hands-on time, which makes it hard to internalize and reach automaticity with many of these things.

But I can edit a photo and repair a photo and create an illustration fairly well.  I need to tackle Illustrator next, and eventually Dreamweaver -- then I will have mastered the evil Adobe Creative Suite software package -- the nemesis that haunts my dreams to this day. 

When one looks at my resume' one sees a 5 to 7 year pattern of switching careers.  Not just jobs, but careers.  I've been a traditional English teacher, an alternative educator, a sex educator, a grants writer and a philanthropist, to name a few.  This journalism thing has been fun, but I am getting the proverbial "itch.

In scratching said itch, I feel a career switch.  (rhyme unintentional)  I long to get that doctorate degree in Sexology.  I feel a pull to help parents talk with their sexually active teens and to help people live healthy relationship models.

How to get from point A to point B is where this journey lies. 

Grandma McCoy & Gingivitis

Alzheimer's is a nasty disease. My Grandmother McCoy was the sweetest woman on the planet until the age of 85, when it took over and made her threaten to beat up her own daughter. Her body finally caught up to her brain...and she died yesterday morning. I've had the sads for 26 hours now, and it has further been complicated with a diagnosis of a cavity AND gum disease from the dentist this morning.

This is my first cavity, and the loyal reader will remember the cracked tooth. (Yeah, I waited a whole two days to begin part three. I've discovered I need this blog, and its' associated audience, to assist my random brain in sorting things out.) She, the dentist, scheduled me in next Wednesday to fill the tooth, which will as a result fix the chip. The rest of the story involves words like "planing" and "insurance doesn't cover."

So it's been a shitty coupla days. But Three is my favorite number, and you gotta start somewhere. Only problem is now I gotta decide if I wanna quit smoking and please the dentist, or keep smoking and please myself as I feel as if I've avoided Alzheimer's by taking my fate in my own hands.