It never occurred to me to become a teacher. I’ve always had such a weird relationship with teachers – some of them adored me and made me see the endless possibilities my life held, but a lot of them were really kind of awful, a few even stooping so low as to resort to bullying tactics. I was, admittedly, an outrageously annoying child. I talked incessantly to cope with my almost unbearable insecurities. I was, as I’ve mentioned here previously, super tall and pretty fat. For a while there I was also reasonably smart. My first grade teacher made a point of that last bit, pulling me apart from the rest of the class and bringing my reading level three grades higher than everyone else’s. Additionally, at story time she would have me read to the class. As you can imagine, this made everyone think I was awesome. Oh, how they’d cheer my name at recess.
whatifandwhynot
2 of us here…finding our feet on familiar ground…
An Explanation.
It has been a while, gentle readers, hasn’t it?
This is partly because I’ve been run off my feet. It is also because I’ve been a bit lost for words. It is true that when we don’t keep up our good (or bad) habits, we fall out of them. So there’s that. But it’s also a question of integrity.
Lately I’ve been watching this show Girls. It’s something I’m selfish about…I don’t share it with Chris, not because of the presumably girly nature of the show itself (Chris was a die-hard Desperate Housewives fan for years. True story.). Anyway, it’s not even just a girly show. But it does bring up a lot of emotional junk for me. I started watching it, incidentally, because there is a character named Shoshana, and as many of you know, one of my besties is named Shoshana. Not an uncommon name, but I only know just the one. My Shoshana is also a little crazy, but more in a Liz-Lemon-as-schoolteacher sort of way, not in the way of Girls‘ Shoshana. And I miss her a lot, a lot of the time. There are many other reasons I heart this show, including that the main character (who happens to be played by the writer/director of the same show, the ridiculously talented Lena Dunham) is so fantastically flawed I can completely relate to her. In fact, the likenesses between us are frightening…our differences lie only in what we are and aren’t shameless about. I really need to take a step back from my friends on the small screen.
I know you’re on the inside . . . lookin’ out.
Many years ago, I found a picture of my godfather giving me a gift.
It’s weird, because it isn’t a book. He and his wife always gave me books. She was a librarian, he was a teacher. The book I most remember, because I read it roughly 50,000 times, and because I still own it today, its edges worn and frayed, its hard cover that maybe used to be black now some sort of greenish-grey, was Shel Silverstein’s A Light in the Attic.
Test Day
Last week, in the wee hours of the morning, I headed off to the train station to make my way to Clermont-Ferrand, where l’Office français d’immigration et integration, aka the OFII, had ordained that I and a couple hundred other immigrants to this fine country should take our test of the French language. It was still dark outside as I half-walked, half-ran to the station – and not because I was late, but because it was so freaking cold. The streets were bare save for one truck shooting salt out onto the pavement and another picking up garbage. Just me and the streetlights and that most silent part of the day, before the world has kicked into gear. Then – at volume:
“Ann!”
Criminey. I nearly peed myself. It was M, a former classmate – Ukranian – making her way the same direction. We did that penguiney power-shuffle together the rest of the way, not talking much as our faces were buried in our scarves. At the door of the station was M2 – Romanian – and Y – Chinese, the former waiting for M and the latter for me, both of them standing with hands shoved deeply in pockets and chins tucked deeply in scarves. It was not warm.
Explain, Explain, and Explain again: On “vegans” wearing leather
One of the things people probably find most annoying about vegetarians is how much we talk about being vegetarian. I know I can’t speak for my fellow veggies about it, but for my part, this is unavoidable for a few important reasons, aside from the fact that I care a lot about animals and consequently want to share that love with the world. These are as follows:
- We eat. And we often eat with others. Whether they know us or not, and no matter for how long, the subject comes up. Most often, not of our own volition.
- Our friends and family often share our lifestyle with new friends in our presence as a conversation-starter.
- We need animal-related information constantly. So we read ingredients and we web-search animal-friendly brands, but we do have to ask once in a while: Is this cooked in butter or olive oil? Do you carry non-leather shoes? etc.
That last thing – the bit about the leather shoes – that’s a touchy one. I remember when I first became vegan, how scrutinized I always felt by people who were becoming newly aware of this part of me.
Rambling into 2013: An update
I think I’ve always been a bit of an all-or-nothing type. I’m melodramatic and a bit self-involved quite a lot of the time, much to the annoyance of anyone who loves me and many who don’t. A knock-on effect of those tendencies happens to be that I give something a go and if it doesn’t work out, I let it go pretty easily. I don’t give up, mind – I just shift. My attention. My effort. My raison d’être.
When I was 15 I thought I might be a writer. By 17 I was hoping to fall head-first into rockstardome. At 18 I boarded a plane to Manila. Said I to me, “Either animals, children, or music…that’s gotta be it.” By the time I boarded the plane back to LA I was set upon working with kids. Homeless kids, to be exact. And I did – much more than I ever did poetry or rocking out. But life has, in the past couple of years, led me in a number of different directions, and so I’ve found myself doing the things life has led me to do. Most of those things haven’t involved homeless children…or children at all, really.
The last year has been an interesting one. At the start of it, I was feeling rather zen about all of it, like things were sure to fall in place if I just kept my head about me and stayed focused. I suppose things did fall into place, if by “things” I didn’t mean “money” and by “place” I didn’t mean “my bank account.”