Things I Cannot Believe I Have to Say in my Classroom

I say things every day that shock me and make me laugh. A lot of them are from one person. There's always one....She's a sweetie, except going through early puberty, so there are a lot of mood swings (more than the usual). She has autism and is still "in her head" a lot. I am trying to get her in touch with me as much as I can so we can actually accomplish something. She drives me crazy but at the same time, she does so many funny things, and is so loving at times, that I have to just love her. She is nonverbal but finds plenty of ways to let us know what she wants. Plus, she is the loudest kid for being the least verbal! Ha!

Volume 2 coming later, after this week's shenanigans.

• Stop licking the glass!
• Don't lick me, either!
• Put your clothes back on!
  
• Move along kids, move along. No students in HERE only wearing diapers because they've taken up defiant stripping.
  
• Eat that pureed hot dog. (Followed by: OK, you know what? That's gross. I won't make you eat that. At least there were apricots on the menu today and those aren't bad pureed.)
• TAKE those hands OUT of the urinal! Oh we are so washing our hands.
  
• Please remove your nametag/crayon/shirt/alphabet card from your mouth. Here, use your chewy instead.
  
• Try not to grope me.
• Could you please not grab my butt?
• Knock off the Joker laugh please.
• Do not giggle and say "that's not me" EVERY SINGLE DAY when we identify names at circle time.
• Please don't run us over.
• Fingers out! No fingers should go in ANY....uh...anythings.
  
• Hmm. You have Wednesday underwear in your locker as backup. Well, better than nothing, even though it's Friday.

Wait, I'm not straight? (NSFW)

Here's when I knew. I like this story because I like remembering the feelings. I think it's hot. It's also my first time with a woman. It was going to be a short explanatory thing, but I'm turning it into sort of erotica, because I've always wanted to write it. It's not perfect erotica, because it didn't even go that far, and no one came, but it was a huge deal for me, and the feelings were very intense. So here goes.

I had sort of thought about me perhaps not being straight for 2 years before that, ever since I roomed with a lesbian. But I didn't spend much actual thought on it, my mind just wondered about it every so often. I was after this guy who was an aide in my student teaching room. After I changed placements, he was fair game. He invited me to his Halloween party. I thought I was getting somewhere with him. I drank a lot of cheap alcohol. I began running around with his neighbor Holly. She was cute. Short, small, and athletic. The more we drank, the clingier we got. After a while we just ran around, literally, holding each others hands asking people embarrassing questions. She ended up getting pretty drunk (I was, but it wore off quickly) and she went next door to her house to sleep. I honestly DID want to check on her even though I was mad she was sitting on the guy's lap and hogging his attention. So I followed her into her garage.

We were in her garage and she leaned up against me and wrapped her arms around me. We just hugged for about 5 minutes. For some weird reason then we were sitting on the floor and she was leaning against me. It was at least 2am and we were both tired. I have no idea how that happened, honestly. At some point, we were standing up again, and her arms went around my waist. When that happened, I touched her hair and started to stroke it (why I was doing this is beyond me, it just felt right). The longer I stroked her hair, the lower her hands got. It was so slow that it was almost imperceptible but I could feel it. I stopped stroking her hair and I put my hands on her waist. As soon as I could feel the curve of her hips under my hands, I could feel her breathing change. And when I heard that, the familiar feeling came to me. The tingling, fiery, feeling that made all of my muscles down there tense up all of a sudden. I should point out that while I was drinking, it was starting to wear off, and I was cognizant enough to take full responsibility for my actions. I'm sure I was a bit less inhibited than usual, but I knew what I was doing. As I felt her breathing change, I had a very clear conversation in my head. I said that I could do two things. I could go home now and be done with the whole thing, or I could stay and see what would happen. I was too curious to go. I didn't understand why I wanted to stay. But I did, because I didn't know if I would ever have another chance to explore these feelings.

Holly said that we should sit on the couch. We did. Who the hell keeps couches in their garages? Whatever. You know how when you are so close to someone, and you are new together and you are just hypersensitive? You can tell when someone moves or puts pressure on you even a tiny bit. We could feel this in each other and would move closer and closer until our noses were almost touching. We were in the delicious moment before a kiss, where you can feel each other breathing and are breathing the same air. Your noses are brushing and your hearing even goes a little funny. The whole time our faces are so close, I feel like I am going to just burst. It had been so long that my body had responded this way to anyone. "I have a boyfriend." she says. "I know." I don't move away. Neither does she. We don't speak again for another few minutes. Slowly, our hands simultaneously move to each other's backs. Our movements mirror one another's, taking cues from the other person's movement on our body. She moves her hand just barely under my shirt. I do the same, and continue up her back. Even though we are mostly equal, I'm the one going a bit further each time. As our hands go from each other's backs to the front, she whispers "It's OK," over and over again. And then for the first time in my life, I feel someone else's breasts. I imagined that it would feel strange, but it didn't. They were smaller than mine and felt foreign but not. I began to kiss all over her chest; her collarbone, in between her breasts, and up to her neck. She mimicked my movements on me again and I closed my eyes. We did this slowly and shyly, with the hesitation of new lovers. Why didn't this feel weird? Why didn't I feel guilty? "I have a boyfriend," she repeats. "I know. I'm sorry. But we've done so much already." Our foreheads touch and lips touch, and I almost wish I could say it was a long passionate kiss. We slowly touch lips, and I put my hands on her face. We're just trying things out, seeing how we feel, trying to fit together. Her hands run up and down my back. She puts her leg over mine and I pull her closer to me. We can't get close enough. My memory gets a little fuzzy here. The next thing I remember is our conversation.

"I even wore special underwear because I thought R was going to see it," I said. "Let me see it," she said. Holly clicked the button to turn on the headlights which flashed briefly and then shut off again, quickly revealing black lace boyshorts that I'd bought "for" a previous boyfriend right before we broke up. "Can I take them off?" I lifted myself up and she did. We wrestled with each other sideways on the couch and just explored each other. It was a surreal experience, feeling on someone else all of the parts that I had on me. She was much smaller, and inside her my fingers were surrounded by something so hot. I wondered if this was what I felt like at the time. I'd only ever let someone go down on me a few times in my life and none of those times felt very good (although I think it was a mix of bad company and inexperience). I was dismayed that I wasn't immediately ready to come. See, in the few experiences I had, they were all bad, and everything related to sex caused shame and certainly no good feelings down there at all. But I could FEEL something so I wanted all of those feelings right away. But I knew that neither of us had the energy to finish anything. I kissed her and flipped her over and did the same thing to her. I was so new at this and so worried I'd get something wrong. I did the only thing I knew to do, but saw that she was so tired and I wanted her to sleep. So we put our clothes back on and began to process what had just happened. That last part, even though it should have been the most memorable, was not. I think I was so exhausted I just coudln't remember any more.

We got up from her couch and I said "That was kinda hot." "No,"she said, "that was REALLY hot." We kissed one more time, and she walked me back to my car.

And that was it. I knew she had a boyfriend, and I wasn't planning on this being anything permanent. I was OK with it. I didn't anticipate the kind of aftermath it had, and it took me a few months to decide that yes, I was bisexual. I talked it out with Emily for a long time and she pointed out that it was the first time I'd been involved in anything sexual that didn't involve shame and pain. And it just felt so normal. The guilt I felt came from something else, I don't know what. But not that. I think I was in shock. I didn't really know what to feel. I'll get into that another day.

Note: Holly was conscious and we had conversations during all of this so I am not worried about consent. I still maintain that there was nonconsensual sex after the consensual sex in the situation I've discussed in a previous entry. I was passed out and I made it clear I didn't want to continue. OK.

I like writing things out as stories. I think I'll do that again. I already have ideas.

Life update, Photo Edition.

I can't decide what to write about. I want to talk about my mental health issues more, because I have more information now, but I also want to talk about my new classroom. I'll go with the new classroom. As you know, I am no longer in an ED classroom. Last year was so full of stress and crying and stuff. Most of my students made great progress, but at the expense of my health. I'm now teaching in a different school (same corporation) in a 3-4 (well, they moved a couple 2nd graders to my room) LifeSkills classroom. This includes students with severe disabilities. It's hard to explain. We are working on functional academics and daily living skills. Because these kids are still working on recognizing and writing their names, matching identical items, identifying shapes, colors, survival words, etc. You get the picture. I have a couple of medically fragile students as well. They both have grand mal seizures frequently, so I have to keep an eye out for that. People ask me why I work with these kids, they tell me I have patience, and that I must be some sort of angel. Well, not really. The real angels are general ed teachers. I loathe teaching general ed. I did it a few times subbing. I dropped that degree early on and stuck with special ed. Anyway, I love these kids. I feel most comfortable around them. I've really gotten attached to one already. Sweet little J (I assign random letters for my students if I talk about them) is in third grade and unfortunately her seizure meds have really lowered her functioning. But even on day two, she was more alert, and she was holding eye contact with me for almost 10 seconds at a time. She isn't tracking too well with objects, but then again I wouldn't really want to look at a cup full of Pediasure for too long anyway. Who knew they made banana flavored? I have quiet kids, except for one. S has a loud cry that suspiciously sounds like a lot of other autistic kids I've worked with (I don't get hte similarity but all of them make my ears ring). They're all pretty sweet.

I feel peaceful. I know I will have hard times, but it won't be anything like last year. I feel somuch better. I visited my old school to meet with someone and as soon as I walked in, I felt the huge weight on me. I forgot what that felt like. It made me realize I made the right decision to leave.

Unlike last year, I have two wonderful staff members in the room to assist. They actually do what I ask them to do, and have a good balance of respect/love and laying down the law.

This is the week before school...I'm just pretending to work on stuff. Really, I'm freaking out.












I take the best pictures when I'm feeling some intense emotions. Sometimes it's anger, sometimes it's sadness, and sometimes it's lust. It happens to be anger here, after this ridiculous conversation I had that made me want to just throttle someone. It was around that time I completely cut off a whole bunch of my friends. I feel better for it.














Last bit of info: I've started playing my violin again. I played for about 8 years and then stopped in college. My goal is to play in a symphony within the next couple of years, either in my city or the next over. However, when you stop playing, your fingers get all soft again. I'm trying to reacquaint them with the strings. Note the string markings on my fingertip. I do love this picture.

My mental health issues are really getting me down right now. Thanks to some new testing I've been requesting for ages, I've been diagnosed with bipolar disorder (just not the "classic" kind everyone thinks of), a secondary of at least having borderline personality traits, and a provisional diagnosis of intermittent explosive disorder. My therapist explained it like this: maybe if I get on some bipolar med like Lacmictal, Depakote, or whatever (they often use anticonvulsants), it might take care of my giant temper so therefore the IED as well. I don't completely understand the psych report I read. I told my therapist to read it and she said she'd translate it for me. Basically, I have a lot of mood swings. I have a terrible temper. I take everything personally. Loren said she's not surprised at that. I got yelld at in high school for dating behind my parents' backs. They monitored my email and phone calls and we were not on good terms. In college, everyone I knew, everyone, got all bitchy with me about dating this jerk. Yes, he was a jerk who hurt me, but I needed friends, not more rules about when and where i could see him. I didn't need people following me, and I certainly didn't need to be kicked out of the one place I thought I could trust people. So hte reason I'm paranoid now? That's because I got a bunch of crap dumped on me all at one time. Of COURSE I feel like I'm being judged all the time. Because for a while, I WAS. So now it manifests itself in me having very thin skin, and thinking everyone is insulting me when they're making general statements.

It's so hard to go through life thinking everyone is out to get you. As much as I tell myself it's notr ttrue, it doesn't work. For a while, no one really cared enough to really hear my side of the story. And now, with all this other stuff going on, I can go from normal to raging mad in under 10 seconds. If I don't get out of there ASAP, and sometimes I get no warning, I will scream at people uncontrollably and pound my fists and cry and claw at my face in frustration. It makes me want to cut all over again. Now I just scratch. It feels cathartic. I'll discuss self injury anothe time. If someone criticizes me, or even so much as postpones something or changes a plan, I break down. I feel like they don't like me, and also, my schedule is changing and I simply cannot handle that and I get panicked.

Right now I'm stressing about school. Yes, I love teaching kids with severe disabilities. But I've never had to plan a classroom all by myself. I'm very worried. It's all new for me. I have a principal who is supportive but has very high standards, once being a special ed teacher herself. I hope if I seem proactive and ask questions maybe she won't mistake me for being lazy. I'm just new and need to know things. Nothing can REALLY prepare you for having your own classroom.

My Xanax I took is making me tired. I got some water on the computer and the mother(fucking)board is done for. I needed a new computer before December anyway because my warranty ends, and I NEED that warranty. Guess I am getting a new one now. I screamed at technical support because the salespeopleweren't going to be there until Monday. I then cried, no, sobbed, uncontrollably for a few minutes. I didn't settle down until I took Xanax.

If you know any of my friends, please understand my mental health issues are completely confidential. Please respect that. Don't even allude to them. I'll share when I'm ready if I ever do.

It's scary going through life when you are at the mercy of your emotions. All I want is a little bit of control.

Reality: I am not ready to accept you. Go fuck yourself.

Today's blog entry brought to you by: school starting in a week, emails from the office asking me questions about new responsibilities (which reminded me that vacation was over and I needed to be an adult again), special ed meetings, psychological diagnoses from my doctor that I may discuss later that are troubling me, and Adam Savage of Mythbusters who says "I reject your reality and substitute my own."

Really?

I fucking have pinkeye. What am I, 8? *grumble grumble*

That is all. I will have a recipe to share with you later.

(Grandma's house through my old Kodak Duaflex viewfinder)

Shedding.

I've been trying really hard the past few months to be more open, and to maybe tell people that I'm not as angry as I seem, and I've been realizing how angry I am and I've been writing a lot about becoming more feminine, nicer, kinder, and that I was ready to allow someone else to maybe make decisions in a relationship. I decided to reveal that there was a person inside there who wasn't just angry at life. I let my guard down. This part of me is guarded with angry dogs to scare people away and cameras so I know when someone's getting close (and this analogy is getting overdone so I'll move on.) That ended up not going so well. I don't want to be misunderstood, so I'll explain.

I don't WANT to look like I need rescuing. I don't WANT to look like I need someone to ride off into the sunset with me. And you know, this is my blog that none of my RL friends are supposed to know about, so I'm going to get as personal about my life as I feel is necessary. Otherwise, what's the point of having it? Every time someone in RL asks to read it, I always say no. I asked both of my parents, BFF, my stylist (who doubles as a therapist sometimes), and my brother if they got that vibe. They didn't. My dad is so wise. He didn't sound surprised at all to hear that something I was hoping for with someone didn't work out. Now, no one in my family belongs to this Christian community we all belonged to; my brother just left too. I had my own reasons for leaving, including being given an ultimatum regarding my bisexuality. I decided a place I cannot be out is a place I can't be at all without being miserable. Not a lot of straight people understand that. They think it's something I can box away and express at scheduled times so that other people are not uncomfortable.

Where was I going with that? Oh yeah. He said I need to be with someone who likes the real me. Unbeknownst to me, I was faking it. I'm glad I came to that realization. So to get back to the real me: I'm redyeing my hair dark brown (and doing purple streaks instead of pink) and I'm getting that tattoo, although not of the same thing (something similar to this cat, I'm going to have the tattoo artist help draw it). I'm excited about it.

Right now I'm leaving my skirt behind (see the picture at the bottom). I'm not leaving femme behind (because as well all know femme doesn't always = skirts and whatnot) but I'm taking a few days to feel less vulnerable. I almost feel like it's drag when I wear boy clothes deliberately. It's something tangible that I can wear as a shield, to help give me the confidence I need to get me through whatever it is until my insides recover. I feel like a bad feminist, because I should feel confident and safe in women's clothes. But I don't. And after writing about TW and what he did to me, it made me remember how helpless I felt and how I could almost physically feel myself spiraling. I don't want to be the person who needs someone. When I said I wanted someone to take care of me, what I meant was that I want a partner who is not going to get me drunk and take advantage of me. Someone who isn't going to threaten to kill or maim anyone who looks at his girlfriend for too long. Someone who will stop when I say no. And most importantly, someone who will know the balance between love, respect, and chivalry, and having fun and doing things like grabbing me by my collar and kissing me (which is totally hot, by the way). That's what I want.

I had a long talk with my dad and he said that I needed to just cut myself off from people who believed such opposite things because it would only frustrate me to try and be friends with them. It doesn't succeed, because I feel on the outside. I hate myself for trying so hard to talk and fit in and then knowing all too well that I will have nothing to say to anyone except for this one really cool guy who spent 3o minutes with me talking to me about WOW and what's in hot dogs. But on the whole we have different worldviews and that's never going to change. My parents may not like this community we were in, and they don't keep in contact with anyone, but my dad pointed out that I go further and I just do not agree with pretty much anything so being involved in that even in small ways will simply make me feel worse about myself. He has a point. He discouraged me from moving to a bigger city in case I just get isolated there too. The other night I felt so suffocated in the straight bar I thought about it. I read what you all have to say and I am envious that you have like-minded friends and some semblance of a GLBT community. I want that. And even if you don't have a huge community, you have a partner. I'm envious. I'll give myself this year to see how it all works.

I don't know what the solution is. I have a few things I know of where I can get involved and I am going to try really hard to go. Dad said to throw myself into something I love so I'm going to take my camera more places and get back into that more. We'll see. Anything to help.