30 Something

I've been in a funk for the past couple of weeks. I'm upset over the fact that I'm 29 and still making foolish decisions when it comes to relationships. I can't believe that I've been making some of the decisions that I have about men. I've never thought of myself as being a desperate woman, but because of the rash decisions, I'm beginning to think that I'm truely desperate for love. I can't seem to get it into my head that I'm good enough by myself. It is exhausting. I need to get it together.

I've had a fairly decent day today. My biggest problem is getting my second hour class to shut up. They are quite chatty. It's true what they say, "give'em an inch and they'll take a mile." At first I thought it was just me, but my mentor even told me that today when there was about 10 minutes left in class he decided to allow his students to have open gym. Instead of playing nicely, they went crazy and he's been here for 16 years. So I've been puzzled. I wanna know how successful inner city schools do it because it's not being done here. I want to work for a well oiled machine and I can't think of one place that I worked that had everything together and it ran smoothly, but I see it all the time on the news and in books about companies that are the best of the best. I want to know what that feels like: to be the best of the best. I want to know how it feels to be a complete success. I started reading the book Good to Great and is tells how companies have gotten better instead of staying mediocre. I want to get better, but can I do that in a place that is not great? Also, I've never really had a good mentor before. Technically I have a mentor here because I'm a new teacher, but he doesn't know how to put together a good lesson plan. This is something that he told me, so that dissappointed me. I knew I was hesitant about him being my mentor in the beginning for a reason. He's a P.E. teacher, they dont' do lesson plans. They play games for a living. So, I knew that he wouldn't be much help, but sure enough I went to ask the principal if she had someone in mind and she choose him. I almost grunted, but I smiled and said "OK." I should have went with my instincts and choose someone different, but I didn't. I'm desperate for some really good guidance. The assistant principal would be my ideal mentor, but she's not teaching so she can't play that role.

In relationship news:
Terrance seems like the ideal mate, but he's short. I long for a man that can help motivate me to live my life better and he's that man, but there's just something that is keeping me from wanting him. I don't know what changed, but something did. He didn't used to want to kiss me as much, but now he wants to be all over me. That makes me sick because I'm not that attracted to him. He also told me that he loved him and he wants me to love him, but I'm not there. I don't know what to do. I don't want to hurt his feelings, but really I can't see this as being love. He doesn't even know me. We've know each other for a couple of months. This isn't love. I don't know I guess it's hard for me to fall in love or something, but I don't understand it. I want to fall in love with Deon. He's my ideal mate, but I think he's in love with someone else, so I won't dare go there. I'm not sure if we can even be friends because when I call him he won't call me back. That burns my britches.

I had the hardest time getting out of bed this morning. I was dreading facing my students, but today turned out to be a good day besides the fact that 7th hour is a complete pain in my ass. The reason I didn't want to get up to go to work was because I hadnt' complete the stuff that I needed to complete during my time off: clean my room, grade 120 or the 200 papers that I need to grade, do my lesson plans. I was just tired and unmotivated to get those things done. I tried to call Deon last night to get him to motivate me,especially since we've had our first good conversation in all the time that I've known him on Sunday, but he ignored my text. I did spend time with Terrance and Mister of the weekend. I wasn't in much of a mood for sex, but of course we did anyway. Actually, I wasn't in the mood because I injured myself slightly during a bathroom episode on Friday night. I went with a friend of mine to see the Wild N Out tour with Cory Holkem and DeeRay. I laughed my face off. It was sad that there wasn't a lot of people there. They were really good. Even the opening act was good. Somebody name Lil Rel did the opening and hosted the rest of the show. Afterwards we went to this really swanky martini bar. I had a few martini's and needed to go tinkle. In the interest of hurrying because there was a line forming, I went too fast and ended up poking myself with my fingernail....down there. Where? is the the question that I kept getting from the few people that I've told. "on my privates, " I told them pointing down there. Two people actually wanted to know exactly where I meant. Did I mean my clit or some other part. I can say that my injury has caused it to be painful to pee (it burns) and painful to have sex, but did he care? No!! He did apologize. I stabbed myself so hard that I did draw blood. I was a little scared at first because the blood was way too bright red to have been from my menses. Speaking of blood...

I gave blood for the 1st time in almost 2 years a couple days ago and it was by far the worst experience. The very first time I gave blood, I felt a little faint, but the spell passsed in a few seconds. This time I was totally fine up until the very end. I was told to raise my arm to stop the blood from flowing and suddenly a wave of nausau hit me. I them began to have hot flashes. I didn't know what was wrong with me and I frantically told the nurse that something was wrong and she immediately lowered me down and put my feet up. Another nurse rushed over to give me a cool towel for my head. I layed there forever before they gradually lifted me up. By the second lift another wave of nausau hit me and I knew I was gonna throw up and pass out at the same time. They immediately put my head back down and put a paper bag over my mouth and nose and told me to breath deeply. I layed there for what seemed like forever before I was able to get up and go. It took me almost an hour and a half before I was able to leave. It normally took me about 30 minutes to give blood. I hope nothing has changed with my health. I can't think of why that would have happened to me.

Today is the day before Thanksgiving and i'm so geeked. My brothers are coming here. I don't know when I'll have time to cook, but I can't wait to see them. I need to warm up my camera because many pictures will be taken today. This is the first year in a while that I've spent Thanksgiving with anyone in my family. Usually I spend time with Mister's family or with Tonya's family, but not this year. I've got a turkey and all the fixin to work on. Most likely it will be tomorrow because we are headed to Great Lakes to pic my oldest brother up. I hope I don't have any problems with the children today. I don't want anything messing up my high. I got up feeling pretty good today, I'm now wondering if is only because of my brothers because I did spend time with Omar last night. I'm gonna text him to tell him that I was high waking up this morning. I'll see what his response will be.

Because tomorrow is Thanksgiving I have much to be thankful for.

My health: Last year and the year before that I was pretty unsure of whether I would make it.
My family: Even though we don't spend much time together and we aren't as close as I'd like, I love them dearly.
My friends: I've never been one to have a lot of friends, so I'm really happy to have people that I think genuinely love me, even if I have skeletons in the closet that they don't know about.
My job: There are so many people that don't have jobs, I'm pretty grateful to be employed. I'm gonna try to work hard to keep it that way because without it, I'm not sure if I'll be sane.
My students: I love my students despite the headache that they cause me sometimes.
My faith: I grew up going to church and it will always be apart of me even though I don't attend very much as of late. I do have the desire to go back, I'm just afraid at this moment. But I love God and I know He loves me and I'm thankful mostly because he has truely truely smiled on me. I give him the praise because without God, I would be nothing and I would have nothing.

My blast from the past didn't last. We hung out on Wednesday night and he didn't call me afterwards. I text him to see what he was doing, but his response was pretty snippy. I took it to mean that he didn't want my company anymore. He did mention that I could call him later in the weekend, but I didn't feel like it. Plus I was too busy spending time with Terrance. He spent the entire weekend telling me how much he loved me and that we should get married. I'm not too thrilled. For some reason I'm not really attracted to him anymore. I guess it was the other women that he was mentioning. Or maybe it is his short stature that is throwing me off, but whatever it is, it is keeping me from falling for him.

We are going on Thanksgiving Break in a few days and I can't wait. I want to pig out and sleep all I want. I did want to get up and go to Best Buy on Friday morning, but I'm not sure if I'll make myself get up. I'm in desparate need of a new computer. I think I'll go for a new laptop, but I don't want a cheap one. Nate kept telling me that I could get something pretty decent for under $500, but I want all the bells and whistles. I'm not sure I can get that without spending at least $800. I'm going to try hard to get up on Friday, but from what I've heard there going to be people lined up outside at two in the morning. I don't think I can do that. I don't have the patience.

I don't know what it is, but when I'm lonely I can't seem to find a man, but when I really don't feel like being bothered, they come running. Recently, Al, Deon, and Bryan have been blowing me up. Recently, since the breakup, I've been spending time with Deon who tracked me down at school and left me a message to call him. I'm not sure if it was because he deleted my phone number since he decided to date a different woman or what, but I was super surprised when I got the message from the office to call him. I couldn't believe he called me at work. The message made it seem like it was work related, but it wasn't. He then went on to tell me how much he missed me. I'm sure it was some ploy to get me in bed because if I remember correctly, we didn't have too much in common. Actually, it was quite awkward being with him. Neither of us had much to say. I like guys who are talkers because I'm the opposite. I can't entertain with good conversation. I'm too much of a listener and laugher(is that a word). I didn't mean to, but on wednesday night I spent the night with him. I could hardly contain myself. He is uber sexy and it's hard to fight the urge to bite him. He had the most beautiful nude picture of himself on his wall. Talk about vain, but I can't blame him, if I had a body like his, I'd like to show it off too. I haven't talked to him since because I'm a little scared to call him. I'm not sure if it was simply a booty call or if he really did miss me. I'm a little afraid to ask. I don't know if I can handle the rejection if it was simply a booty call. Well, actually I can handle it, I just don't want to face it. I don't want to know that this beautiful man who seems to be perfect for me doesn't really want me. I did spend time with Mister on Wednesday evening too. I missed him a lot and I was happy to get to spend time with him.

I was evalated over a month ago and I just had my post conference meeting on Monday. I was pretty nervous, but the asst principal kept telling me that she thought I did a good job. We are evaluated over what seems like a million different criteria and each component gets a rating of either E (excellent) S (satisfactory) or U (Unsatisfactory). I got mostly E's and S's and no U's. I was so happy and relieved. Now I have two more evaluations to go. The next two--one before Christmas break and the last one before the end of the year--are not planned. The assistant principal will just pop into my classroom. I'm not too worried about it, but there are days when I don't write down my lesson plan, so I have to make sure that I have one every day. I'm not sure how to do a lesson plan for a test, but we have to have one. There are three school days until Thanksgiving break and I can't wait. I've heard that the students will be crazy next week because of the short week. I've got a test planned for Monday and two short lessons with videos planned for Tuesday and wednesday. I hope that everything goes well. I wasn't planning to go home for Thanksgiving; I don't feel like driving, but I'm not sure who I will be spending time with. For the past couple of years I've been spending Thanksgiving with Tonya, but I'm not sure I'll do that this year. I have a giant turkey though. I don't know what I"m gonna do with it. I guess I'll give it away to her. She has 4 children who could use the turkey. I think I'll just go get me some nice turkey breast and and smoked turkey leg to eat. It shouldn't take me more than an hour to cook Thanksgiving dinner. I was watching Rachel Ray do a show on a 60 minute Thanksgiving meal and I really enjoyed some of her dishes. I'm surely going to try a few.

Me and my new beau had a fight. Grrr..... I can't find a decent man to save my life. Basically, he came to my house and he was already a little tipsy (his mom told me later that he had been drinking since 2) around 5. We decided to play around a little before going to the store. When we got to the store I felt really good. We were all over each other like new couples. However, my attitude abruptly changed when he went to the alcohol aisle. He told me before that he had a problem with alcohol, so in my mind when you have a debilitating problem you work to fix it. Well, that's not how his mind works. I guess he feels that thinking about getting help will make him better. So as we proceeded to the checkout lane he paid for he sheepishly paid for his poison. I guess he could sense my disapproval. But, I wasn't going to let this put a damper on a good night. We had plans to stop by his mom's house; this would be the my first time meeting her. We made a few other stops before our final destination for the evening. But during two of the stops I noticed before getting back into the the truck he would take a big swig of his drink. I was getting more and more annoyed by this. He didn't even have the balls to drink in front of me. By the time we got to his mom's he was toasted, blitz, wasted, and any other adjective that can be used to describe him. I was so embarrassed. He's the type of drunk that cries a lot and he doesn't finish his sentences. The worse part was that he was carrying his drink in his inside coat like he was hiding it from everyone and spilling it all over his shirt. As we were leaving a "blast from the past" called me and he immediately came up to me rather aggressively asking me who I was talking to. I was furious, but because I was around stangers I didn't say too much. His mom kept asking me how I put up with him. Little did she know that I had already made it up in my mind that I couldn't. I was planning my break up speech in my head, "Shasta said that she was the only woman that was going to put up with your shit and right now I believe that she's right because I can't put up with it." I was surely going to throw it that other woman in his face. Plus, I figured that he wouldn't remember anything from the previous evening anyway. As the night came to a close I had to nearly wrestle him to get my keys back. Luckily he friend was going past my place and he helped me. He proceeded to call me the rest of the night asking me if he could come over so that we could talk. My answer was simply, "no." We did talk the next day and the nice little speech I had planned went out the window. He was even drunk when we talked. I told him that he needed to get help and that I couldn't deal with that type of stuff in my life. Not right now. I told him about my stepfather being an alcoholic and how it destroyed out lives and how I could not, would not, allow it to continue by getting deeply involved with him. I was sad because I really like him alot. At one point I was even thinking about going to al-anon to see how I could help him, but I really can't. I don't have the time or the energy, plus I believe that anyone who wants help will start to seek it for him/herself and so far I haven't seen him seek too much help.