Secrets

It's funny how when I don't want to share something, everyone seems to ask about it.  When I'm excited to share or actually have something to share no one asks.  Worse, I'll try to share and then other things come up so I don't get a chance.  We went home and everyone asked about work.  Naturally.  No one asks about work.  Not even when I'm trying to share something exciting or a funny story about it.  Or I'll share the story and it'll fall flat--that's usually with my mother, who interestingly always asks about work over the phone.  It's like Bill Murray's character in Ground Hog's Day when the old lady asks him about the weather and he gives a detailed forecast.  She looks shocked and doesn't say anything and he responds with something to effect of, "Oh, you didn't really want to know about the weather you were just making small talk weren't you?"  That's my mom.  I'm not so sure she's really interested, she just asks because it's the polite thing to do.  Thing is, this time I just didn't want to talk about it.  It was my secret.  Not that I like to keep secrets, although I tend to keep many from myself.  It's that I didn't want to open myself up to the criticism and the what are you going to do all quarter, which is what I got from a couple of colleagues.

I finally had to fess up that I decided to take the quarter off.  I don't like doing that with my family because they ask all sorts of questions that are not grounded in actual interest.  Their questions stem more from criticism (Why would you do something like that?) or to force me to second guess myself (Are you sure you did the right thing?  I think you should've...).  I had to say something because they were asking and I couldn't lie, as much as I would've like to avoid talking about the whole thing.  When I told my mom over the phone she asked the following: "Why?" immediately chased with "Don't you get along with your coworkers?"  I actually get along with my coworkers really well and kind of miss them right now, but thanks for your vote of confidence.  I appreciate it more than I can say and Norma (Norma or Paranorma) is gloating right now.  My mom and her are besties.  My mom speaks from her lizard brain and there's no filter, unless she's asking for a favor and won't get to the point.  This is why my so-called sabbatical is such a secret and you may think that I'm nuts by the time I finish explaining…

Any sort of dream or idea I've had has been scrutinized and blown off by my family.  I still remember being about 5 or 6 and answering the question "What do you want to be when you grow up?" with "An artist" and being told that was "nice" but that should be a hobby you need to find a real job. It was also followed by some unnecessary critique of my artistic skills.  It stung.  I avoided artsy things and singing for a long time.  Sometimes I'll indulge privately, but don't tell.  So, to take the quarter off to write is insane (I didn't tell them that part, I just said I was taking the quarter off, so it's still a secret of sorts).  It doesn't matter what kind of writing it is, although some kinds are "less than" others if you get my drift.  This fear of criticism is like a cloak or a mantle that I wear and it shrinks what I have to offer. I play it small, despite the fact that I'm an inveterate storyteller.  I've always been told that, even by my family.  Of course from my family's perspective that was not a positive moniker by any means.  I've chosen to make it positive. The irony in all this is I've taken time off to write and I haven't written as much as I would've liked.  What I've written has been by hand and private.  I've barely written here.  I'll have to get over the fear of judgement to do better writing and to get to the deeper material.  I realized that at the beginning of the quarter, the task now is how do I do that.  It really hit me when we went home.  I vacillate with the fear--it's like a layering piece, I don it and shed it and the rotation goes on ad infinitum.  I'm fearless in some arenas of my life and in others I'm meek.  Most days it's a toss up.  I like to people please but I still have these uncontrollable urges to be different.  I always have it's just those days are coming more often.  However, people pleasing doesn't mesh well with being different, especially in my family so I'll have to come to terms with that very soon or the quarter will be over and I'll have nothing to show for it.

At least I'm over this hurdle.  I've confessed (sort of) and I can get on with writing.  They don't need to know.  I resisted and resisted saying something (I've known for a couple of months I was going to do this) but I feel better (although at the time I was resentful) for saying something.  Sadly, I tried to tell a couple of friends but our conversations didn't move there like I had planned.  At any rate, now I can move on and hopefully stop worrying and looking over my shoulder.  Maybe the blog posts will come to me now...

Lora

I grew up with a friend named Lora.  She lived down the street from me and we went through school together.  We became good friends in second grade a were friends through our senior year of high school, some years more closely than others.  She had some sort of disease that made her grow wildly tall before her peers but retarded her growth around 5th or 6th grade.  She then became one of the shortest people and ceased to grow.  I defended/stood by her as an awkward giant in 2nd and 3rd grade when she towered over everyone, including the tallest viking boys.  I defended/stood by her when she was a physically and socially awkward preteen.  I stood by her when other friends came and went.  Then we stopped talking.

She had this favorite book bag when we were in high school that totally overpowered her small frame.  It was a big red, square LeSportsac.  LeSportsac was very popular during our high school years.  I don't know what made me think of that red bag.  When I did all sorts of memories came flooding back to me.  

During high school we used to walk to school every day until one day she decided that she couldn't wait for me.  I was a few minutes late.  I'm not habitually late but she was super timely--almost to a nervousness.  Then she started to leave earlier (without me) and I started to leave later.  We were lab partners in chemistry--disaster because of our height differences, arguing where the fill line actually was.  Our projects took longer and sometimes had to be redone or were lower grades.  Unacceptable to two type A personalities and who only got good grades.  I suppose this was our first foray into true failure, in more ways than one.  We couldn't work out our differences and apply a consistent system.  Of course, it was always the other one's fault.  We were part of a group of larger friends that was amorphous--the division into smaller groups always changed and no one thought twice about it.  We took turns hanging out with one another.  Eventually, Lora went with one group and didn't leave it.  It was a kind of natural split but one where there was a little tension between me and Lora.  We still talked but our relationship gradually drew further and further apart.  It confused me and no one could explain to me what was going on.  Despite some nasty hearsay, I apologized profusely for being late and, eventually, about chemistry.  I even repeatedly asked if I had done something else to offend her and she always said "no."  Lora certainly wasn't talking, at least to me.  I finally let it go because I did all I could do.  I honestly don't know what set her off until years later.

By this point we were both going to different schools.  She went to a small college on the east coast and I went to the state university.  I received a letter in the mail from her one day.  I hadn't talked to her or her friend Mari in a long time.  I read the letter, in which Lora stated she felt bad for what had happened in high school and didn't know what to do for a long time.  Mari is the one who suggested she send a letter to me.  In her letter she wrote that she was jealous of me because I had a lot of friends and was "popular" (her words, not mine) and she didn't know what to do.  She was sorry that she was so mean to me.  I guess the last straw for her was when a group of Japanese girls stayed with the high school cheerleaders--she didn't like all the time I spent with the foreign exchange students, even though it was for a short period before they moved down to California to spend a brief time with some students there.  They were doing a Pacific Northwest kind of exchange student program where all the girls collectively stayed together, with individual girls going to different homes in the same high school.  I can't remember if it was a week or two that they stayed.  Long enough to raise Lora's ire and cement it.  The letter was nicely written and when I was finished I breathed out and thought to myself, "That was really nice."  I also didn't know what to do with it.  We hadn't talked in over 2 years at this point and she didn't fit into my current life, at all.  Sadly, I put the letter in the drawer and didn't respond.  I didn't know what to say to someone I thought of as a friend but had turned very strongly against me.  Someone who knew my likes, dislikes and secrets and occasionally thought to use them against me (I'm sensitive).  Although I repeatedly thought about what to do and how to do it, because at this point her parents had moved away and I couldn't call over there, I still didn't do anything but chew the whole thing over in my mind.  I didn't know what to say to a person who while she was very close to me off and on over the years put a knife in my back repeatedly, especially in our senior year of high school.  She often poisoned the well with her bitterness and lack of enthusiasm for life.  That's not to say that she wasn't fun and didn't have a place in my life--I had to face the fact that she was the friend whom I liked but not many of my other friends liked.  Now she was a friend who repeatedly abused my friendship, rejected me and now she wanted back in or maybe she didn't.  She wasn't clear and I realized she never had been.  I did what I thought was self-preservation and I let the letter go.  I've regretted it ever since.

I suppose I wanted to let her know that I was glad she sent the letter and it made me feel better.  It was a relief to know that it wasn't anything I did to her.  I try hard to be a good friend even if it doesn't always translate to that.  Sometimes my reticence does me in.  I couldn't write her because she was no longer at that college address and years later she didn't come up on any internet searches (oddly enough).  It was actually Mari who contacted me on FaceBook years later to let me know that Lora had died of ovarian cancer.  She didn't know if I knew and hated the way she had to tell me.  When reflecting on the timeline Mari provided (when Lora was diagnosed, etc.) I realized that my internet searches for Lora began the spring she was diagnosed.  I would casually poke around and then give up but for some strange reason (which I now realize) she was very much on my mind.

This is one of those cases of how much does one put up with and where does one draw the line.  I allowed the line to be drawn for me and was somewhat passive in its acceptance.  Instead of taking the tardy olive branch I followed the status quo.  I get to live with that but I do wish peace for Lora and always have.

Sabbatical, Non-Sabbatical

So I'm taking the quarter off, a sabbatical of sorts.  It's not much of a sabbatical when I'm running the millions of errands I've put off and worrying about getting other work and research done and what I will return to when I go back.  A couple of my students are pretty sure (and worried) I'm not coming back.  If I keep having days like these, I'll probably run back--early no less.

Chief asked me how my first day of the sabbatical went and all I could say was, "It was horrible!  I got nothing done!"

He laughed and said, "Day One: Sabbatical, terrible."  Followed by, "It'll get better.  It's only the first day."  I suppose this will be an exercise in planning and scheduling myself with myself which I've never been good at.  It's very easy to blow myself off.  In fact, I'd like to take a vacation from my neurotic self but I haven't figured out a way to do that.  Either way I'll have to get my act together--figure out how to get work done or how to take a vacation from myself.  I won't feel accomplished or rested unless I do one or the other.

I had planned on blogging Monday, when I read Jeff Goins' post/challenge about blogging.  Yup, procrastinated on that one as well.  Blew myself off.  Well, as part of getting my sabbatical act together, I'm going to put the paddles to the blog and try to resuscitate it.  Meanwhile, I think I'll go to my happy place…(I'd normally include a photo here but I seem to be having difficulties.  Par for the course, this week only!)

Satan must've left the door to Hell open, it's hot in Phoenix!

I'm breaking my number one summer rule, complaining about the weather.  I don't feel it's very helpful to complain about it, because it just is.  It's ok to "talk" about the weather, but not to ruminate.  With that said, I'll say this: Satan must have left the door to Hell open, because it's hot in Phoenix.  It feels hair dryer hot--like those old fashioned ones you sit under until your head feels like it will catch fire and then maybe your hair is done.  Your mind was done long before your hair is, which is kind of like summer in Phoenix.  Summer cruises along well past the point of being summer, until it becomes more of a form of secret government torture, only nature is inflicting the pain and not the government (pick a government, any government).  So, that's my one summer rant (I hope).  When it's 117 degrees before the high point of the day, I think allowing one little comment is ok.  There you have it.

ParaNorma or Norma

I've decided that I officially have an alter ego, her name is ParaNorma or Norma for short.  This name stems from my paranoid nature the feeling that I'm constantly doing something wrong or that someone is mad/hates/out to get me.  I don't feel like this constantly, and for the most part I'm not really paranoid, but when I get into a lather it's generally a doozy.  My mind goes on some endless loop of how I'm so wrong.  Lately, I've been able to feel Norma creeping up on me and I try to keep her at bay but that hasn't always been the case.

My tendency is blame me first, ask questions later.  I carry around this guilt that would give even the strongest man an hunchback from the weight of it.  I often am asked if I'm Catholic or am told I "sound" Jewish--you the old joke about the _____ guilt.  Mine is an asian guilt for not conforming/being wrong and a being a tremendous bother of some sort or another.  At least that's what my asian mother always implied--sometimes said outright--about me and to me.  I didn't realize how much I was doing this until I started teaching and fretting about my students.  "I don't understand why..."  or "How come they don't get...?"  immediately followed by "What am I doing wrong?  How can I fix this?"  One of my colleagues finally had enough of my fretting and anxiety and very kindly said to me, "It's not you, it's the students.  You've done all you could and they just have to..."  Whatever the situation at the time might be.  Her words had an impact and forced me to shift my thinking.  I didn't believe what she said to be true all the time but it did knock me off my usual self-deprecating and self-blaming tracks enough that I could see what she was saying.  What she was saying is that I don't need to take responsibility for everything that happens or doesn't happen in the classroom.  The students really needed to step it up and I needed to step it down, facilitate but not hand hold as much as I do.

Old habits die hard and so when I went back to teaching there was a whole different set of things to fret about, mostly corporate and colleague issues, less the students, oddly enough.  When my friend, who also works there but knew me from before, texted me one day (yes, I was carrying on about wishing I didn't speak my Truth to a certain person one day), "By the way, you are the most paranoid person I know:)" ParaNorma was "born" and I decided that I needed to get some control over her.  You know, that backseat driver who is in the moment mildly abrasive yet completely corrosive over time.  Someone you put up with because they are never "that" bad until you can't stand them anymore.  We joke about Norma and I try to manage her.  It's going to take some doing.  I felt her lingering while I was trying to put a lesson plan together for tomorrow's class.  What she needs is a real Fight Club kind of ass-kicking.  Right now, I'll go back to the lesson plan and kindly ignore her.  I really do have better things to deal with and more pressing items, for that matter.  For example, the 7th ring of Hell: dealing with my children's homework.  Never a dull moment what with my boys and Norma lurking about.

Asterisk

My father didn't like his middle name.  He often made fun of it, turning into something "Italian," much to his mother's dismay.  Because of this extreme dislike, he also didn't do things by halves, he refused to give my brother & me middle names.  He said we didn't need them, kids always tease you about your middle name, etc.  My mom always looked forward to giving us middle names because that's something different than traditional Japanese.  Here's the thing: we were still teased, only it wasn't because of our middle names but our lack of middle names that caused it.  Ironic, no?  Additionally, my dad was retired Coast Guard, so having no middle names was a real issue.  There are so many government forms to fill out for everything and every box and line needs to be addressed or there'll be issues.  Our lack of middle names became one of those issues.  For many years we just had an asterisk added in the box--yes, we see you box but this is all we have for you; it's not even an actual letter.  *.

It's interesting because dictionary.com's first entry for asterisk is this:

"a small starlike symbol (*), used in writing and printing as a reference mark or to indicate omission, doubtful matter, etc."

Do you like the "doubtful matter"?  I do.  It seems to sum up the issue as a whole.  We doubt that you have a middle name?  We doubt you are telling the truth?  We're not sure where this will lead?  We are undecided or hesitant about this issue?  All these questions refer back to "doubtful."  This is ambiguous to us.

Whatever the case may be what eventually happened was something like a game of telephone:  that asterisk turned into an actual letter.  For a short while my middle initial was the letter "A."  That really is no big surprise, I can see how that happened.  The thing of it is--and to add another layer of doubt--how many "factual" or "real" documents, situations, etc. go the way of my asterisk?

On a side note, anyone care to come up with a middle name for me--especially one beginning with the letter "A"?

Male Plumage

We were out riding bikes yesterday when I spotted what looked like a pile of garbage down the side of the canal bank.  I realized that it was a female duck sitting on her nest.  It made me think about how people carry on about how beautiful male birds are & how the females are plain, drab or ugly.  Here's what I have to say to that: smoke & mirrors.  Essentially, the females have the difficult job, which precludes beautiful plumage.  It's a detriment & could get them killed.  Not that I state something that's new or not obvious.  But, that's all the male birds have to offer--besides sperm and maybe some protection, but not always.  The females have to pick a location, make a nest, warm the egg & see the whole thing through.  Maybe the male sticks around, maybe not.  In most cases, he's a glorified sperm donor.  In the best case scenarios, protector, partner and mate.  So if that's the case with male plumage and birds, what about the sassy female numbers of the homo sapiens who augment, primp and preen?  What, exactly, is their role?  (Can you tell that I made a trip out to Scottsdale yesterday, in addition to the bike ride along the canal?--a night jaunt, no less.)