Cause I've made my mind up...

A friend once described me as all processor, no buffer.  (Yes he was a computer programmer; still it was apt.)

I like teaching, it allows me to use my processor at full speed most days.  Thankfully teaching has given me some pretty effective and real time filters.  I rarely something I shouldn't in class.  Further, the kids think I really have it together, because most of their teachers can't handle all they throw at them.  (I have bad days, obviously, but overall.) 

It is hard for me to sit on things.  It is hard for me to step away from an argument or discussion left unresolved.  It's hard for me to put things into a buffer and ignore them.  While the other person is doing whatever they need to do to deal with emotional information, I am processing through the same information over and over again.

While someone is considering through something for a day or two, I have already taken it out, examined it for flaws, replayed the argument or discussion three more times, updated information and then ran it through a few more times just for kicks.

Now add social anxiety and general insecurities to that, and the lack of buffers becomes a ticking time bomb.  Because one other thing about being all processor, it is really hard to shut my brain down.  I can do chores, cook dinner, grade papers, or take a brisk walk and my mind will continue to stew and process.

It takes real thought and consideration to reset myself to the point I was when the other person called for a break in order to process.  I have to remember that I can't start new arguments or offer new information, because we are still working on where we were, not where I am.  So now I am trying to figure out their new information and adapt it to my scenarios, which lends its own problems, when someone doesn't react the way I anticipated.

I can do it.  I have done it.  It makes me feel like an impatient child that I want to resolve everything in real time, right now.  I feel like I am stamping my feet and throwing a tantrum.

At the end of the process, when i relax and allow the other person take their time, unpack their feelings or whatever needs to be done, it's better than if I pushed.  I know that, and I am usually happy that I waited.

But the waiting, it's agonizing. 

"Dance 10, Looks 3"

I want to sing, to perform.  I want to be the center of attention and more importantly, I want to be good at it. 

So why don't I?  What it really comes down to is that while I am great at stealing the spotlight and I can be entertaining,  I am female and I am in my 40s.  Performance venues are mostly about looks, youth, and beauty.  I'm a decent to good singer.  I need to rehearse and know my song well, but I know I have chops.  But, my looks, well they aren't anything to write home about.  I have a few favorable attributes, but no one looks at me and thinks "Wow, what a beauty, get that woman on stage."

Women like Barbara Streisand and Bette Midler have overcome being unconventional in their looks; they are also reincarnated Sirens.  It doesn't matter how reliable, how hard I work, how much I try, my voice isn't that stellar, my charisma isn't that engaging.  There is always going to be a woman who is prettier with more charisma.  Provided she can sing passably, someone will ask her to perform.  Someone once told me that was all BS, I just didn't want it badly enough.  They were right, I'd like to perform, but not so much that I want to be told over and over that I am fat, that I am not pretty, I'm old and that my voice isn't good enough to compensate for my looks.  I get enough of that day to day, thank you very much.  (The person who told me I didn't want it enough was gorgeous and quite a performer.)   

When it comes to performing, I really wish I were male.  A man who has a good voice doesn't have to be all that great looking.  If he has a modicum of stage presence, a decent voice and is willing to get up there, directors will salivate for the chance, because a guy...in the theater!  I watched a fellow (who did have an amazing voice) miss rehearsal, not know his lines and yet he was still allowed to perform.  Further, I'll bet he will be invited back.

I've been given the chance to perform and I blew it.  I wasn't rehearsed, I didn't know the song that well and it's hard to have presence when you are struggling for the lines.  It was enough to put me off asking, because it seems performance charisma is one of those things you have or you don't.  I have many enviable talents and I I know that not being able to do this thing shouldn't matter.  There are times when I just wonder what it would be like to get to do things because I have worked hard and earned it and not watch someone else do it because they have a pretty face.

If that makes me seem bitter, well I guess I am.  But hey, that's what I am doing here, writing this stuff out and deconstructing it. 

Brain of Cheese

I am sick of being sick.  I have binge watched horrible television such as Reign and The Librarians.  I rewatched a favorite movie and one really horrible one.  I have tried to play Dragon Age: Inquisition, but I get too sleepy.  I am feeling better, but my brain, she is Swiss cheese.

I have also done some work, writing lesson plans for the substitutes, finishing up letters of recommendation (only 3 to go!) and trying to figure out how to recover my schedule after losing 4 days of school right before finals.

I suppose that is the one thing that teaching has taught me, plans are a fine thing, but without flexibility, all is lost.  I never thought of myself as terribly static, but man has teaching given me a whole new concept of flexibility.  When I make lesson plans, it is always more than I can possibly get to and then I pick and choose based on the need.  That is going to get really interesting, because when I go back, I'll have one week before we go into finals.  Ideally, I wanted the students to be all the way up to WWII, but due to illness, I have barely taken them  into the 1920s.  So the time has come to devise a prohibition lesson plan and use it to teach the constitutional amendment system.

Except my brain...she is Swiss cheese. 

So, I took today off.  I didn't really do anything that required much thinking.  My hope is that tomorrow I will be able to settle in and get some real work done.  I figure if I can do a few hours Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I will have something akin to a plan and updated grades for my kiddos come Monday.  I just have to remember, moderation. 

I should mention that there have been some upsides to being sick.  Trader Joe's Lemon Echinacea Ginger drink is made of awesome when you aren't feeling well.  (It's especially good warmed.)  In true tonsillitis fashion, I have been eating ALL of the ice cream.  And I picked up lobster bisque today because it's liquid and filling.  So, while still on a liquid, soft foods diet, I have been indulging.

I'd write more, but I can't think of anything terribly interesting to write, and my brain...cheese.  Mmm, cheese!

"I'm looking for baggage that goes with mine."

High Self Monitoring is the diagnosis (I could have done better than Wikipedia, but a lot of the articles I read about it are behind pay walls.)  Isn't that a better term than "obsessed with what others think of them?"

Okay, there is a lot more to Self Monitoring than just worrying about what people think, but that is a lot of it.  Couple that with a healthy dose of social anxiety and its a wonder I go out and meet people at all.  (Yep, I'm an extrovert with social anxiety, because God loves a good laugh.)

I think too much and too often about my interactions with people.  That guy who cut me off on the freeway and forgot about me 30 seconds later, he's taken up my residence in my brain for the rest of the drive.  It was one of my biggest fears about becoming a teacher, because a good teacher doesn't want the students to like her, she needs the students to respect her.  Earn their respect and they'll like you well enough, eventually.

So I wrote a post a few days ago and I was depressed and getting sick (although I didn't know it at the time.)  When I am depressed, the social anxiety goes into overdrive.  There are people who can connect dots and figure out who and what I am talking about, but I decided it doesn't matter.  I didn't use names and I need to start facing up to this stuff.

I am worried that if people know I have Hashimoto's they will somehow think less of me.  I also have social anxiety and depression (which is exacerbated by the Hashitmoto's), which has a host of other problems.  I don't want to seem like I come with baggage.

But people do have baggage and I think that I could do with being a bit more honest about mine.  It isn't easy for me to say, but don't like it?  Tough.

photo credit: mellyjean via photopin cc

Details of the ER Trip

I went to Urgent Care yesterday morning, because my throat was not responding to the usual treatments, gargling, lozenges, slippery elm tea etc.  I wasn't running a fever, but the pain was intensifying and a couple of other symptoms suggested in could be a bacterial infection.  The UC did a rapid strep test (which was negative).  They gave me antibiotics and some stuff to numb my throat, that does nothing.  After that, they sent me home with some instructions.

I went to the ER because I was told if I started to run a fever and/or my throat closed up, I was supposed to seek attention.  I took a nap and woke up with my throat so closed that I had difficulty swallowing water and I was running a fever of 102.  Thus my trip to the ER.

By the time i went through ER triage my temperature had gone down to 99.7.  I spiked a fever of 102 while I was being seen, which seemed to make them a bit worried.  They kept me for observation until they could get my fever down and made sure that the steroids worked.

The doctor made me feel like I shouldn't have gone to the ER for something so trivial as tonsillitis. They didn't seem to believe when I said that I was having trouble swallowing water.  I believe the doctor was an ass and was wrong.  I think his poor opinion was because the staff took a shitty case history and i don't think the doctor even bothered to really look at it.  (As an example, as someone diagnosed with Hashimoto's Disease, it means that tonsillitis can be a big deal.)

No one asked me if I had received a steroid shot, I guess that they just assumed it had been given, since I had been seen earlier in the day.  I didn't know to tell them one way of the other, because I don't have allergies, so the idea of steroids to treat swollen lymph nodes doesn't occur to me (and again, as someone with Hashimoto's steroids aren't something I can take lightly).  They also didn't seem to understand that I didn't have a fever when I had been seen earlier in the day.  It was later that I was spiking a fever or 102, despite having taken ibuprofen.  (And guess what, delayed fever reaction is another thing typical of Hashimoto's, which I didn't know until I spent this morning reading about it.)

In the ER's defense, they were slammed.  Part of the problem is that there are only two hospitals in my city, one Kaiser, one for everyone else.  The ER is always crowded.  If it had been an hour earlier, I could have been treated by Urgent Care, in fact had the Urgent Care doctor given me the steroid, I probably wouldn't have needed to go at all.

On the upside, I have learned that I really need to clarify that I have Hashimoto's when being seen by medical professionals.  Doctors are most likely to note the medication I take, and assume that I have something more common with fewer medical complications.

A tiger in the river

Added 1/7/15:  I was going to edit and or delete this post when I decided I would mention this little blog on my facebook page.  Then I realized that it was how I was feeling that day and poorly written or no, it was how I felt then.  I was getting sick and ignoring the problems, using something external to avoid what was going internally.  So the post stays, but with this added disclaimer.


I am not promising to write daily, but it seems I have a lot saved up.  Hopefully this is the last post of the day.  (Not that anyone is going to feel spammed, I don't have any followers for a blog I started 30 minutes ago.  The internet is fast, but not that fast.)  Anyway...

I am poly.  I live with my husband and my boyfriend in a triad.  We have been doing this for nearly 5 years and while we have our ups and downs, I think we all feel that we are more balanced this way.  While I have had lovers outside of the relationship on occasion, it is not something I pursue.

I met a B.A. via a mutual friend.  I don't know if I am interested in being friends, lovers, something else.  I don't know if I am interested at all.  But I know I keep thinking about him and that concerns me.

I don't hold much truck with astrology, but when it comes to a Leo (me) and Pieces (him), this analogy always struck me as very apt:

A tiger comes to a river and sees a fish.  The fish sees the tiger.  The tiger jumps into the river, making a lot of splash along the way.  The fish gently slides into deeper water, and looks up at the tiger from the calmer waters.  The tiger swims in deeper, making waves and chop.  The fish swims to the middle of the river, diving deeper, where the water is still tranquil and the tiger cannot reach.  The fish continues to regard the big cat.

The tiger, now quite frustrated, splashes and sputters on the river bank, trying to figure out how to get to the fish.  The fish, disturbed by the moving water, remains deep in the middle of the river, waiting for the water to still.  The fish and the tiger will remain at an impasse until the tiger stops and lets the water calm down.  Such is the nature of fish, they do not respond well to a chaotic environment.  It is not natural for the tiger to stop splashing, but it is more likely for the tiger to change its stripes than for the fish to change its scales..

However, if the tiger calms down and lets the water still, the fish is in much more danger, for now it is less likely to see where the tiger will strike when the fish resumes its swim.

I have had relationships with Pieces and they have rarely gone well, usually going the way of the tiger and the fish.  As shiny as B.A. is, it might be in both our best interests if I just let him swim away, not because of the day and month he was born, but because I am reacting to him far too strongly.

I wish it were otherwise, but I don't like the insecurities that I am dealing with since meeting him.

Living in Fear

I am a teacher and I like what I do.  As someone who works with minors, I realize that I have to be careful about how I act around the students.  I understand that teachers have violated their trust that they were given and that is a cause for concern.
I really hate living my life as though someone is watching.  I am poly, kinky, and my sexuality is somewhat flexible.  I would like to embrace all of that and more, but I know that if my students or their parents find out that I am not a "moral person", then I will lose my job, my career.  "[T]he possibility of being exposed and fired for our consensual (but stigmatized) sexual practices is a very real concern for many kinky people."

So I have a Fetlife account and I am agonizing about what picture to use.  I don't want my face to show, because I don't want to be recognizable.  Even this blog is a danger, since it could be found by a student or parent.  I tried creating a whole new Gmail, but that just didn't work for me.  But I decided I would just start writing, because a life lived in fear isn't a life at all.  I don't use my real last name here, so that's something, at least.

I will keep my face obscured on 'R' and 'NC-17' sites.  I will try and keep it separate.  But I think I am just going to have to live with the fact that I can't change who I am and that is both teacher and a person with flexible sexuality.  That is simply the way of it, and so I will have to figure out a way to reconcile those two things.

Resolved and Resolute

I am going to stop using Facebook like a blog.  I don't think I do it often, but I realized that I have some things I don't mind being akin to public, so here is my repository for things that don't belong on Facebook.  We'll see how it goes.