I've actually been having a nice month o'September, including the birthday and starting to teach, visiting with friends, and even the weather (so far).


I started teaching two weeks ago, and it looks like it's going to be a busy quarter. I took an extra class to make more money, so have about seventy or so students, most of whom are sixteen and male. Actually, all three of my classes are about 65% male, at the very least, and the vast majority are Running Start students. I've had my gripes about Running Start over the years, but I still think it's a nice group of kids. One thing that worries me is that, despite me mentioning that I feel uncomfortable teaching people I know, SP's former stepson is in my class--a kid I've known since he was about seven. And, like, I've, um, been intimate with his mother. It's weird. And that's all there is to say about it.

I haven't spoken to SP in a couple months, not since I called from Kodiak to talk about how weird it was to be in AK and yet not to see her. She moved to Valdez after finishing her BA... things were rough between us those last six or so months: me not feeling the way she wanted me to feel about her, her getting passive-aggressive via other women, me confronting her and our talk, breaking up, then more passive-aggressive interactions culminating in me not being able to go to her graduation party because it was sprung on me at the last moment that the party was at her new girlfriend's house... the one she was jerking me around with when we broke up, and even after that. I was so angry at the time I could have ground nails with my teeth, but also depressed and sad because it was her graduation and should have been all about her. I felt like I should have been a selfless, chillaxed friend who goes to say congratulations and celebrate, but I was once again put into an emotionally compromised position, which she should know after all these years is one of the most terrifying positions for me.

I guess we roughly kind of patched it up and have been okay, but now that she is dating yet another person, and I get to find out yet again over Facebook (plus making-out pictures), I find it more difficult to be happy for her than it is to just feel irritated and upset. What is it with people who date for a month, and are in a relationship? Why are public announcements of relationships on the internet so important? Why is it that those who leave me fall fully in love with the second-to-next person they're with, and always so quickly?

NM has been visiting and she has a few things to say about it, and I think she's right about one especially: the constellation of conclusions I draw from such regular occurrences in my life are often flawed. Truthfully, it makes me feel like romantic love is nothing but BULLSHIT, and I am a completely swappable loser. It makes me feel like making yourself that vulnerable is never worth it, nor ever will be, and that everything experienced had merely been an illusion in the first place. It makes me wonder what is so wrong with what I would like out of a relationship... is it so wrong to want something slow and meditative and sweet and honest and independent and mature and mutual? Maybe if you're a lesbian it is... as far as I can tell, lesbian relationships play out either in fast-forward or scene-skip. Is that true for straight ones? I don't know.

Anyhow, NM is right. It's not about me. It's not about something I'm doing wrong within the relationships. It's maybe that I am unhappy in Bville, or maybe that I haven't become the person I want to be yet. It's maybe that relationships take up a lot of time, and I haven't been willing to give up that time. It's maybe that I haven't found the right person, and maybe that 'right' person doesn't exist in Bville, or maybe anywhere. It's maybe what MH says: that you often have to give something up to make room for something else to enter.

Whatever it, is, I am working on not feeling jealous or irritated, and instead being happy for SP and happy for the rest of the world that seems to find success so soon, so quickly, so cheerily. Like I've told myself before, seems is an important qualifier. In the meantime, it is weird having SP's kid in my class, rolling his eyes just like the rest of the sixteen year old boys.


NM and I have been doing incredibly well since we had our talk. I feel about 105% better to not be hiding my emotions, to not be trying eternally to be patient. I feel good that I've understood, and I have been very clear with myself about not being picky or critical, but rather direct and clear.

NM and I have been talking about passive aggression lately, because that's what she accused me of when we had our discussion, which stung a bit. And it's what I've noticed within past lovers and friends. I guess anger and resentment always slips out one way or the other. Just when you think you're being kind and keeping your temper in check, it turns out that it has permeated the interactions you've had.

I don't really think I'm passive aggressive though. But sometimes my comments apparently come across that way. Sigh.

But back to the doing well... It's been pretty stellar, and everything feels better now... both of us are trying, and because we know each other pretty well and care, I don't think the trying feels painful or awkward too much.

NM came up yesterday... surprising me in my pajamas actually (embarrassing)... in part to support me because I was going to a reading that I thought EC and her wife might be attending. I often avoid events or places where I think I might run into them, so it was a step on the wild side to go support an old college professor and listen to her reading when I thought a bump-in a distinct possibility. I mentioned it only offhand to NM and she right away knew what was going on in my head...

"Um, Brenda's having a reading I'd like to go to. You interested in coming?"

"I'll be there, girl. You don't have to go by yourself."

Apparently I'm not as subtle as I'd like to believe I am.


I also invited MH and my dad for back-up. Dad didn't come but MH did, and EC wasn't even there (!!!), and the three of us enjoyed the reading (I bought books!), then went out for a walk followed by some Oktoberfest Leavensworth, and the shoveling of spicy baked chicken wings and celery into our months, licking our fingers, giggling about mutual friends and Paul Simon's Graceland. M observed that N and I were wearing the same red thread as a necklace and asked about it... thinking how close I am with that girl, and how sweet it is for us to run our fingers over the same red thread with its history of texture. Then after the beers, we were walking around the area, looking at the plants in the window-boxes... M and I look over at each other, and we were independently both pulling our fingers through the rosemary and pressing our tips to noses to inhale. We start laughing, and N tells us she thinks we are crazy, and then it is time to go home, where I cuddle up with my dog, reading a trashy mystery and NM nodding off to sleep though pretending to be doing work, and it is quiet and peaceful and okay.

At some point in the conversation at the bar, N mentions how her friend Sean feels like a loser at 45 because he doesn't have a great job, family, wealth, etc. And I say, "Tell me about it! I am ten years younger and that's exactly how I feel!"

Both N and M look at me, and M asks, "Is that really how you feel?" and I say "Yeah."

Because I forget sometimes that my friends don't know how crappy and unaccomplished I feel. How sad that I don't have a partner with family or even a lover or stable job or book out. How much anxiety it gives me on a regular basis to be living on my mom's property with no prospects in sight, and a mere two local friends. But MH looks at me and says, "I want to beat you up really badly right now."

It makes me laugh, but I have to remember that my future is not a black hole, and that I am not finished with the living I have to do. I told Mary that I would try to align my self-perception with hers from here on out.


For my birthday, I was teaching, so mostly I just treated myself to some damned good food that day.

Breakfast: Eggs scrambled with chard, kale, and scallions fresh from my garden, plus herbed chevre, spicy sausage, and a touch of sour cream on top. With Ezekiel bread.

Lunch: Greek soup & lentil salad from the local co-op.

Dinner: Zucchini casserole & cream cheese cupcakes.

Delicious, no? But nicest was the next day, a Friday, which I took off and went down to an old 'insane asylum park' with my dog and camera. It was roasting hot... I was a bit too warm and dehydrated by the end, but wandered around stuffing my face with heated blackberries, and smelling the hay roasting, and laughing at Herald as he rolled around in something deliciously nasty. Afterwards, I went over to a berry farm and bought a flat of jam-strawberries, and a flat of blackberries, and some pancake syrup, and the coup--a blackberry milkshake. This from the place my sister told me had the best milkshakes in the world. She was right: it was pretty perfect, as was the rest of the day, where I rolled down the windows, bent my left elbow into the warm heated wind, and lilted around the sunny flat valley with my golden sunglasses on, and a milkshake raised to my lips.

The next day I made jam.

Here are the pictures from my birthday (equinox) walk at the insane asylum park:





















Like I said, happy birthday to me, happy year-on-the-cusp.