There really was a post here this morning when I hit the “publish” button, but apparently everyone and everything wants to give me a hard time today.

The People’s Evidence #1: After buying a new tire to replace the one WITH THE NAIL IN IT the Low Tire Pressure light came on again.

Evidence #2: Sitting in a meeting all day with other English department chairs only serves to get me and my mouth into trouble as we can’t agree on anything. If we’re not arguing about what to teach and when, then we’re arguing about how many formal assessments to give in a year. When we discussed how long it should take to teach each story in the collection one of the other chairs mentioned that we’d all be different because of the kids. I took issue with this because I don’t like to blame students for ME not teaching.

Me: Some teachers can get it taught in 2 days and some in 4.

Her: That’s right. It depends on the kids.

Me: No. It depends on the TEACHER.

I got no where with that. It was not the time to argue that teachers are in charge of their own classroom management and it’s a age-old issue that’s usually fixed with a “Band-Aid on a broken arm” mentality.

Evidence #3: Summer classes for me starts tomorrow. Tomorrow. Where did my break go? Ask yourself this: How much do you want to hear about my fretting over taking both Law and Ethics? Because I’m obligated to finish the Reading degree, I have to take Psychology of Reading as well. Ken just may have me committed soon.
Some of it was on a weekend full of graduation festivities (With 8 more to go – we know too many people and will be broke after putting cash in envelopes for these people!), the Old State Capitol Art Fair (Know what the worst sound is at an Art Fair? Breaking glass from a bag someone drops. That sucks. The best part about that is that it wasn’t me.), and lots and lots of picture taking. LOTS.

One of my favorites is here and was taken at Monica’s graduation Friday night. I needed to move up to get a really good shot of her walking across the stage and a hush fell over the crowd and this energy started buzzing around me. I looked up from fussing with my camera to see this older woman get her diploma and hear the announcer explain the cheering going on: Normally, it’s in bad form to reveal a lady’s age, but in this case it’s warranted by this little lady getting her diploma at 76 years young.

How’s that for inspiration? Check your pulse if that’s not making you grin from ear to ear right now because it’s so incredible that it’s brightening up my crap day even right now.

The defense rests.

You know how some days you need the coffee and some days you need the whipped cream on top of the Frappuccino? Yep. It’s a hazelnut frapp WHIPPED CREAM kind of day.

Blogs of Bravery by Boca Java. It was the “bravery” part I liked, but the dark roast didn’t disappoint, either.

When I was in high school there was a lot of pressure to do well and I’m lucky that my own experiences gave me a lot of opportunities. In fact, the junior high I attended was grades 7-9 and the high school was 10-12. Since I got pregnant with Mallory as a Freshman, I was technically in junior high.

It was a shock to so many people because, for one thing, it was just not common. For another, I played basketball, volleyball, ran both cross-country and track and was in show choir (”jazz hands!”) and was in the high-track classes for math and English. It just didn’t happen to girls like me.

I spent that year being embarrassed about my growing belly and hoping that I didn’t lose too many friends not to mention the prospect of raising a baby. My confidence level was shot and low-self esteem came to reside in my brain for many years after that. I had a baby in May of 1986, spent the summer trying to figure out just how I got HERE, and started school at the high school in the Fall wondering how I would juggle it all.

It never occurred to me that everyone would think that I lost brain cells when I gave birth.

When I got my Fall schedule for classes they took me out of the high-track classes and put me in the lower ones. They didn’t ask my permission or give me a test which I failed, they just assumed I couldn’t do well and all my friends that I made in the “smart” classes seemed to have left me behind. All of a sudden my counselor was suggesting I go to cosmetology school so I could get a job right away. No one asked me if I wanted to finish high school. I wondered why they thought that when that baby came out they thought my brain cells slid out along with her.

It was something I decided to fight and while they refused to put me in the elite combination class called Humanities (2 hours, 2 teachers, high-performing students take Social Studies and English all together in a cluster) they finally gave me a high track English class where I did very well and where I determined that I would major in English Literature in college if I ever got there. Why did they think my reading level was lowered all of a sudden? Why couldn’t I, too, appreciate Arthur Miller and Shakespeare and T.S. Eliot?
Slowly, the confidence continued to dwindle, no matter how well I did in classes. Since I decided to take the ACT along with my classmates I was feeling better about staying in school while raising a baby, but I scored so low on it that I’ve only ever told one person that score and he is sworn to secrecy BECAUSE I CARRIED HIS SONS IN MY WOMB FOR 9 MONTHS. It is an embarrassingly low score and when I told Ken my score one day after he badgered me to know it I cried, but doing poorly on that exam set the tone for how well I would do in school for a long time to come.

By the time I was a senior, I had determined that college had to be my way out. That I wasn’t the first 12th grader with a child (a 2 and a half year old by this time!) who has aspirations to continue schooling. I got wise and asked another counselor to help since that batshit who was supposed to encourage me kept on and on about me doing people’s hair and nails for a living when I clearly WASN’T ABLE TO DO MY OWN.

Am I the first girl with a kid who wants to go to college? Has anyone else ever wanted to do that? Are there other single mothers at university?

Finally, someone softened to me. She helped me find a university with married housing (there WERE other single mothers there!) and secured financial aid and she did her actual job: she encouraged me and supported my efforts to get to school.

My confidence levels have taken years to get back up. They, the collective “they” of people who thought I wasn’t worth a damn, kept me from feeling any sense of worth for a very long time. “They” looked at me with disdain at the Welfare Office when I collected food stamps and a check to live off of for the month. “They” were certain I acquired a taste for government cheese and wanted to spin it so I could work the system. “They” were assured of my low-intellect because I wore a backpack full of books and a kid on my hip. The kid was what they really looked at. They ignored the backpack.

When I spend time freaking out about not doing well in a class, all of those memories flood me and I am paralyzed with fear and loathing and I hear a voice in my head.

You are so stupid. You can’t do this. What are you thinking?

That voice needs to shut the hell up. I passed my statistics final and got an A in the course.

“They” can shut the hell up, too.

Double chocolate Ghirardelli with nothing added. Doubly delightful.