Sunday, November 28, 2004

Pox Pout

Got chickenpox. Writing this in Word, but let the damn self-correctness be. Don’t really want to be writing but don’t really want to be doing anything but lying on my bed, but don’t really want to be doing that. Sitting in any place for very long I start to feel the sand gathering over me. I’ll be a man-shaped dune. You can’t find me. No one can find anyone including themselves, but that’s normal. Not a depressing thought, just…trudging through that thought. Life is like following a treasure map that that leads you on vast quests with only clues at the end. Keep going. You’re almost somewhere worth being, you’re almost happy. Sounds self-absorbed high school blah.

So!? If I wrote poetry it would sound like high school crap. I’m no poet but, point is, some problems came up around then that still haven’t been solved. Same old subject matter. Is it all about happiness? If I was happy would I be writing, would I be in a trance riding chemical waves, hitching my soul to a butterfly, hoping it won't be eaten by a crow? When I don’t feel happy I wonder what it is and how to get it and keep it. When I feel happy its because I feel really close to someone. Most of the time that happens with a girl, sometimes with a guy, and every once in a while that Someone is God.

Right now I, um….don’t feel close—enough—to enough. Being cooped up in a house day after day, sweaty, scrungy, and…poxy (chicken style) well that gets old fast. I should be reading all the time. Read read read! Haven’t done that yet. Maybe no energy, maybe no attention span. Maybe some of both, more of the latter. Oh so sick of tv. Hate hate hate tv. Hate the tv. Kill it. It should be swallowed by the earth like Carey’s house at the end of the movie. With fire.

Oh, oh, oh….. I’m going over the stuff I’ve got going (nothing) and the stuff I’m planning (everything) and I’m like “that’s all good” and “I’ll be so busy with all that I won’t have time to sulk” and “don’t worry just do the next thing. The next thing. The next thing.

I’ll be a teacher…teaching kids. Will they let me do that? Oh boy, I know I can do a good job but will I? The whole things pretty nebulous right now. I guess a couple months from now if I’m actually teaching with a regular schedule and fitting everything else that’s important and necessary and fun in where I can, maybe my life will feel normal and structured and leading toward something tangible on earth. Maybe that will be good. Maybe that will be conducive to happiness.

Not to say I’m not stoked about he prospect of being a teacher, just very afraid of failure and rejection. And middle school kids. Petrified. Not really but man let’s get on with this and see what happens!! Transcripts go off in the mail tomorrow and I apply online with the fee, so then were off! They say within three weeks I can start hunting. But then it’s Christmas vacation. We’ll see. Good thing I didn’t get a holiday job yet. Woulda had it for a week and had to quit. You don’t call in sick for two weeks on a holiday job. But what’s left after this episode? Not money. Actually since you’re here reading this you clearly care, so I was wondering if for just a short while, I mean briefly, if I could just sorta borrow like, y’know, just…oh, never mind.

Music. I looooove music. I listened so much in China. Don’t know what I would have done without my trusty headphones and CD player. Without them on, I wouldn’t have picked up my butt and started writing tonight, that’s for certain. It definitely a night for keeping Massive Attack’s Protection on repeat. I love this Light My Fire rendition. Plus the title song.i just frikkin love Massive Attack.

I had the desire to reach out, connect, express. Putting words on the screen always seems to address that, fill something up inside. Damn lonely thing too. All this and there’s still just a screen in front of me, people watching TV in the background. Long road ahead. Where’s my hugs and kisses? Where’s my lullabies and sweet nothings whispered softly? Where’s my slow dancing and eye-swimming? I’m worthy! I can love with the best of them! There’s no length I won’t go to to make someone happy, when I know they want it, they’re quietly waiting, they want to love me in return. why can’t normal frienship, family bonds feel more like that? Why can’t we live like the happy aliens? Why is that desire so strong that all the other stuff about job and money and stuff and this and that—the whole rest of life!—just feel altogether like such a nondescript, utilitarian floor to stand on so that I have the chance to really live, which is to touch souls!? Why is that so hard to do? I’m really hungry for it these days. One way or another, that’s what what I’m looking for. And I don’t want a girlfriend out of it, thank you! At least not now. I just wanna go a little higher with someone else. sometimes this life is just too long. Can I move on to the next world now? That’s really what I’m looking for. It lasts forever, so aiming toward it is a good thing, but it offers such delayed gratification.

Times like this are for praying. Do it and it works. It makes it better. I’m gonna go do that. Pray. Seems like the best people that lived figured out that was the only way they could make it through this world. Praying all the time, in their ways. Haven’t tried that yet. sometimes i feel like reaching out to God is like being a diver stuck on the bottom pulling on the cord to give the signal "pull me up!". but the cord is wrapped around a big 'ol coral reef. you gotta keep pullin if you wanna get anywhere, but it's more to get unstuck than to really start raising your altitude.

Wednesday, November 24, 2004

Hello Again

Hey yo, I’m back. Most of you reading this have heard a fair amount from me over the electrowaves but none of it has been inside the blogosphere. Well, I’m back to blogging. Guess that means I have to have things to talk about. Hmmmm…..

Well, this entry won’t be very ambitious, but I’ll get you up to date o a few things. I just got all the stuff that I need together, so tomorrow (I just forgot how to spell tomorrow. Bet that doesn’t happen with Spanish.) I’ll begin the process of application, etc. which will lead me, I hope, by early January to get a position as a middle school teacher somewhere round here. There are a number of openings even at this time of the year, so I just have to find the right one. The program I’ll be participating in is called “iteachtexas.” Basically, there are two parts to it. One is an online curriculum that must be completed within 6 months. The other is field experience as the “teacher of record.” So I get the internship stuff at the same time I’m being the teacher and getting paid with benefits! Sounds nice, huh? It feels right for me right now. The only downside is, of course, jumping into teaching without any experience as a teacher here. I did get some quality experience in China which will no doubt help me tons, but China’s a li’l different. Especially in the classroom. (why am I capitalizing so much? Oh, I’m doing this in Word and it’s doing it for me! That was weird.)

So anyways, I’ll be doing that instead of grad school. I wanna know what it’s likee to be a teacher before I jump headlong into something else. I got the feeling in China that I could really dig being a teacher long term, just not an oral English teacher in China. The interaction with the kids, being this consistent part of their life to whatever extent, the performance and comedy aspect, those appeal to me. Grading papers sucks though. But maybe it would suck less over time. Whatever happens, I’m stoked to try this out. I’ll probably end up teaching for a year and a half and then we’ll see.

Otherwise…..well, yesterday I was sick all day with a 102 degree fever. I slept all day. I was still kinda sick today and I slept all day. Plus I drank lotsa water and took some medicine. Now I’m doin fine. Just came outta nowhere.

We had our real Thanksgiving on Saturday because everyone was available. Tomorrow the actual day but it will only be mom, mike, me, grandma, and mike’s parents. Everyone else is spreading out here and there. My sister’s on call. She’s a doctor.

So that’s enough for now. I’m feelin pretty good, though I’ve been susceptible to the gloomy weather. Here and there I feel overwhelmed by life and not happy, but it passes, and I go back to feelin real good about the way things are goin! Talk to ya later.

Love,
dan