Okay...so I've not written since December. So, sue me! I had a rough semester with my online students (lots of complaining and moaning about actually having to work) Blah. Blah. Blah.

My grandma is also really ill. I think she is getting closer to death and this scares me a great deal. She needs a feeding tube put in and all kinds of crazy stuff. It totally blows because she is my favorite person in the world. I don't know how I will live once she doesn't.

Okay...so one of the main reasons I am here is because the last time I journaled, I put out this laundry list of things I wanted in a guy. It turns out Mathguy maybe everything I am looking for and a lot more than I had asked for which is fabulous.

I am really afraid of meeting him and having it not work out for me. However, you must take a chance on love. I KNOW there is a least one corny love song with that name. Well, probably.

So, I am flying out to Oklahoma (leave your corn, tornado and cow jokes at the door) to meet him. I leave in like 3 weeks and sometimes I just get nervous about it. I can't help it because I want it so much. However, I am just so insecure...I can't help it. Which is why I usually get into trouble...being insecure and doubting myself. Anyway, he fits my laundry list to a "T" which is great. Bonus for Sarah, he loves heavy metal.

I did get my teaching contract renewed (yay!) but the evaluations from the online composition class sucked ass and the lady mailed them to the dean (lovely). He liked me until this, I hope he still does. I have proof that I did do my job anyway...I offered to show it to my boss and to the dean. Hopefully this will be enough if there is an issue.
I followed all the guidelines for the class and even spent so much time working with individually. It was unreal.


So other than that, nothing else is really new. However, I hope to be more consistent with writing (and not with ignoring my journal).

Here is what I am looking for in a man:

1) Someone who is as intelligent as I am
2) Someone who is loyal (no cheating)
3) Someone who will accept my family
4) Someone who is kind and loving
5) Someone who loves cats and children
6) Someone who is okay with my being epileptic
7) Someone who is accepting of my rotten human beingness
8_ Someone who lets me have artistic control of the house
9) Someone who lets me me the artsy "famous" person in the relationship
10) Someone to attend church with
11) Someone who goes out of their way to help others
12) Someone who will bring me tampons if I need them and O.j. at the last minute
13) Someone who is taller than me with a great smile
14) Someone who likes movies and music as much as I do (tastes can vary but no country!)
15) Someone who is active in a cause they believe in
16) Someone who will let me not clean the house and agree ot ahve someone else do it.
17)Someone who will give me my own space
18) Someone who will take charge of bills and other pesky things I don't want to handle
19) Someone who will christmas shop and decorate with me
20) Someone who will help my parents if they need without me asking them too
21) Someone who understands how important it is for me to see my sister and sometimes her emergenices may not seem like it him, but I do need to be there
22) Someone who will always let me have my own space when I want or need it
23) Someone who will watch me run
24) Someone who will be crazy about me forver

God..please send me this man...I am so ready for him. Thank you.

Okay...so this is just it. I have some people and I mean some real hardcore control freak idiots trying to tell me how to teach. If it were people in my department, maybe I'd respect them more but it's not, it's people who don't teach at all. The sad thing, is they expect me to be a good girl and compromise my ethics for them. Freakin' lovely. They don't tech and they don't teach in my field. I really hate it when people try and tell me what to do. IT double super sucks.

This is part one of why I am mad. Part two is that I am injured. My grandma kicked me (because she has no control over her limbs) and dislocated a major muscle in my knee. It hurts so much I can't put weight on my leg.
How's that for creepy? So I can't run and have no way of truly releasing all of my negative energy. I also can't help my mother get ready for Christmas either because I am so injured. She needs help most desperately.

Then I heard from Ron. He finally responded to my e-card and said something to the effect of thanks, I was hoping to wish you a Merry Christmas too. He knows nothing about me at all. It would've been better had he stayed away entirely. Men always do this, want to have the last word. Naturally, there is no applogy for his behavior, his actions or even what he said. He just tra la layed his way out of it. I am glad I wrote that poem criticizing and when it gets published, I will make sure everyone knows.

I did hear from Bryant though. He could be interesting, more interesting if he wasn't at student at the school in which I teach. Can you say "hot for teacher?" However, maybe this is what I need to pull myself out of a routine and just have some fun. I don't want to get hurt again, but I an okay with taking chances.

Current Mood: sick
Current Music: Hot for Teacher

Okay so I have about four days to relax before the exams start pouring in and my mother has decided

that I am to sit with my grandmother for tonight while she and my dad go to his work Christmas party.

This is really no big deal because I love my grandmother and I'll bring over some Jane Austen movies

and we'll eat some bad food and sit in our comfy P.J.'s and cuddle. Besides, mom NEVER gets to go

out and do anything.


Now, she has decided that I am to be at their houese by 2:00 pm so they can get their hair and nails

done her and grandmother. I love them both but I want to know what it felt like to clean my own

house, sleep in and enjoy a Saturday when I wasn't rushed to do things because other people had

plans. Clearly, this again is not the day. This sounds whiny as well, I know. I do teach 7

classes during the week and Sundays is church and get ready to go back to school usually.

So, carting Grandma's wheelchair in and out of my mother's van in -0 weather today, well, I'm

not feeling it.

I also feel like my activism clsss for Women's Studies that I teach in the Spring probably won't

make it's enrollment. It barely did last time. I love that course but students aren't interested

in being activists in the right kinds on ways on our campus, just about hating differences of opinion

especially on abortion issues. It's really creepy and just a little sad. Their are policies which

don't make sense either regarding free speech set by people who wish to control speech for reasons

that I don't quite understand. Let people express at a college if they want to--it's their time to

play around with ideas before they are forced into jobs they probably won't like and took to make

money. Most of my students when I see them out in their workplaces, aren't happy. If you think

about it though, they are just complying with American history, Women couldn't vote until 1920,

even when Black men could vote, they didn't want them to do it, we hated the immigrants when they

came even when they were cheap labor and now it is mostly illegal to protest the President.

Is this America or Cuba?

On a personal note, dating in this country for me is still transitional. I had a dream about

the Canadian who broke my heart and whom part of me still longs for deep inside (sad but true for

most women). You know how most young women date assholes in their 20's (it's true, just spend some

time talking to them and you'll learn a lot of things you thought you forgot or wanted to)? He was

my second asshole of my 20's. He wasn't abusive like the first, he was just cowardly (even at 35).

Now that I am 30, I am trying to date men who have goals, commitment, ideas, conversations, interests

besides themselves and their buddies. This is still proving difficult. There was Ron who I thought

was really good for me.

There was also the doctor my sister (in med school fixed me up with but

we've yet to meet because he keeps getting stuck at the hospital), the runner I dated this summer

who was great except I couldn't feel anything when I kissed him and it was weird to date someone

skinnier than me ( I run but I am not skinny). Finally, there are a couple of others but we'll see

where the wind blows. My sister may try and fix me up with more doctors (that is all she runs into)

but I am probably more of a free spirit for them.


One of the current online possibilities ( my parents want grandchildren so they signed me for an


online service) is actually a student who is older than me at my university. I did ask my assistant


if it was ethical and he said as long as isn't my student now of in the future (and it's better if


he hasn't been), it's fine. All three of these things are true. At first I thought this guy was


really eloquent and now it seems, he's not. However, I will try because well, when you're starving


....



The other is a PhD student in Math in another state. He seems really nice and I always look forward

to our exchanges when we write. We say interesting things, there is a connection that is about

substance. The only issue is he is halfway across the country.


Santa Baby...bring less confusion this year....and possibly a good mate...Santa Baby...hurry up and

make it soon!

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Casanova's Purring

Today is the last day of classes for the semester and while I truly miss 98% of my students this

semster, some of them, well, it's better that they're gone. It's just a long day. I woke up to

discover that I may have accidentally bounced my rent check but I think it's okay. Get this. My

landlord every other month calls me (usually it involves a first of the month holiday) and tells me

my rent is late and demands a late fee. Then two hours later, when he goes to the post office, it's

there and guess what? It's post marked on time naturally. This is one scenario. The other trick he

likes is to sit on our rent checks for up to 15 days. Yes, that's right. We all hate it when he

does that.

I gave Maureen her present, she really like the plague of ABC's like Always be kind, Dream, etc...

I said it reminded me of what she has mentored me about teaching. I do feel a bit lost though

without her. See, the politics of teaching college are very cutthroat sometimes and she helped

me figure out what to say and whom to talk to and how to handle people who were in places and

positions of power and unpleasant. Now, she's not there to handle any of that for me. I'm

frightened.

Current Mood: confused
Current Music: Prodigy

I am so distracted I am losing everything this shopping season and for no reason. A list of the things I have lost in the past few weeks: my cell phone, debit card, check book, good sweater, favorite pair of shoes and ability to multitask.

Maureen retires from the University tomorrow. I have a present for her ordered. I hope it comes today.

Current Mood: crazy
Current Music: Kylie Minogue

Today school was long and tiring but Friday is the last day of the semester. I don't dream right now of anything interesting. I worry about not running when I want to and I come home and watch mindless television and worry about becoming one of the "masses of men that lead lives of quiet desperation" to quote Thoreau.

Current Mood: blank
Current Music: Enya

I have this firend who does odd things. She never tips more than a dollar at a restaurant no matter

how much she orders. She also never tips the delivery people. She has no life really to speak of

and her husband is an abusvie (verbally and mentally, he doesn't beat her) alcoholic ex-Nazi (like

literally he's 78 and from Austria). She's 55 and has never really done anything in her life

because people always put her down. I guess I expect that if people treat her that way, maybe she

would treat others better, you know? It doesn't seem like she wants to though.

So I have to wonder where is the real value in Karma and I am not talking about the

hollywood, "My Name is Earl" white trash Karma but the real kind. See, I don't think

I'm that good of a person. I've done things that I know are wrong, lied, cheated (not

on a guy and not in school),so I feel guilty. When I do that, I try to stock up on the

ol' Karma count. I give homeless people lots of change, help old ladies cross streets,

give my seat up on the bus whatever it takes to think that God, Allah of Buddha will respect

me again and let me wipe my slate clean. Sometimes, I think we use up our Karma or we're being

tested for things. If you don't give this person directions, you fail. If you don't take the

time to see your friends pictures of her ugly ass nephew, you are going to hell. So, it's when

I feel like I've failed or I get that creepy feeling like something bad is going to happen to me.

Something is going to occur and take away my whole happy, (and more importantly relatively stable)

life, that the karma comes out. Don't get me wrong, I truly and sincerely love giving, have you

ever wondered though what motivates people beyond that?

I have this friend and she just isn't interested in being a good person. I mean, she doesnt't want to play nice with others. She doesn't tip at restaurants more than a dollar (regardless of how much she orders), she never tips a delivery driver and she never buys a present for someone for thier birthday. Why is that? What makes her so selfish?

I've not had an easy life either. Lots of people have stopped my resources from a flowin' but still, I know that to get good things, you have to give well too. Maybe that is why nothing of interest ever really happens to her.

I will go out of my way to do nice things if I feel my karma store is getting low. You never know, right? How can one tell if God or Allah or Buddha or whichever you believe doesn't periodically empty out your bin of good deeds?

Oh sure, I like doing the "Random acts of kindness" of whatever these nouveau hippies say, but it's not certain. Maybe this is still why I am not married and why sometimes, I get this sneaky feeling like somewhere somehow, someone is going to take away from me the life I like and value so much.

What it is, is I just don't get it. Men, I mean. I am smart, no

longer fat and relatively cute. I also work out a lot. Sometimes

for hours even. But men? They disappear like freakin' magic. You

meet them, you go out, everything seems good and then bam! They

say hey, let's go do this next weekend and suddenly, they disappear

into the Ohio river. Why is that? What is that about?

It's not like women can be blamed all the time. Oh sure, we know

the drill, we make bad choices, we pick the wrong men, or the lovely

Sex and the City spin off of "He's Just Not That Into You" (well,

Duh). Here's the odd proposal...maybe (I know this sounds crazy),

maybe it's not women at all. What if we are not the ones who are

at fault here? What if men find someone they are attracted to?

Think maybe this could actually go somewhere (trust me I am not

making mistakes here not calling them, I am being nice, listening,

etc...) and they can't handle women who have it together? Maybe

men have the issue and women need to stop reading books that blame

them. This is just me talking here, and I know it's a radical

concept and all, but I think it could even be true.

Take Ron. HE and I went to church together but that's not how we

met. We met through an internet dating service that promises true

compatibilty. We went out twice and at first he was mister touchy

feely and I was so hot for him. I would've gone to bed with him

right there I was so ready. Which isn't normal for me, but it had

been too long! And, I trusted him, he went to my local megachurch

with me. So he said he would call and he would kinda and we played

phone tag but to no avail. At the last minute he asked me out again

months later and we have a good time. HE suggests we go to the

movies that weekend. I am thinking Yes! Finally! Whoo Hoo! I am

still waiting for that phone call a month later. Oh, I've seen

the movie and it was excellent a good date movie too.


I've not seen him at church or called him but I did send

him an ecard yesterday to wish him Merry Christmas and remind him

very subtly that playing with people in this way is sucky. It is

an issue of power (of whatever kind of power he thinks he has).

While,I was hot for him (and he is a good masturbation fantasy),

he isn't clearly reliable and this hurts because I was starting

to like who he was. He got the card today but has yet to call and

I believe he is avoiding me in church as well. There is always

the long shot something is wrong with him....yeah right...

I have more examples but I think I am out of space for this one.

Other than that teaching the college students was fine today except

for another teacher who got in my way. She was a complete bitch,

I can see why her students hate her. It's hard to be the 30 year

old prof when there are so many older ones who have lost touch with

students. I hope that never happens to me.