Be the change you want to see.

Funny How a few of the things that give me joy, also give me anxiety.

Gender-related questions give me joy and also anxiety. I was plucking my chin hairs again today, and realizing that having facial hair changes my presentation. Which gives me anxiety. Another thing that gives me joy and anxiety is aging. Growing older, understanding the way the world works in new ways, more complex ways, gives me joy and also infuriates me and also makes me want to punch governmental bodies and rich people and the entire human course of history. It's complicated. Not really sure what to say, how to juggle these things. I know it's just a part of being human. We cope with the facts that the world is finite, our lives are finite, our accomplishments are finite. We cope with the fact that the world expects things of us, and sometimes we expect things of ourselves that we've been entrained to expect call me even if it's not really what we would want for ourselves, if we could unplug ourselves from the expectations of society, traditions, and the outside world.

I'm decently content with my privilege life. I get to spend my days largely how I want to, and though I feel guilty because that's not the case for maybe 95% of the world, I would rather bring more freedom to do what you want to the rest of the world, then to force myself to feel guilty for my ability to live freely and to choose.

I'm rambling a bit today. I have questions and conversations I would like to have and have answered. I know that once I had a teacher. Once I had a guide. Once I had someone who made it and expectation that they would ask me questions that would force me to think about who I was, what I wanted, what I was doing with my life, and if I was satisfied with that.

I'm not generally speaking, very good at pushing myself into doing things that I find emotionally difficult. And I'm not really sure how to do that now. I feel like it would be beneficial, if I could find some means of doing that some means of forcing myself to answer my questions, to even delve down and discover what the questions are...

Thanks for listening. Voice to text helps a lot in moments like today. And I just needed to speak, to make notes, to think out loud.

Dear dream with I hope you are doing well, I hope you all are staying safe and happy. I hope that your burdens are no heavier than you can bear.

Three dreams this morning/last night two I still remember and one that faded with the light. All were me, committing to do different jobs.

The first one was a clerical job. I was introduced to a very messy situation without clear beginning or ending, I had two separate and messy responsibilities (desks) that I was gonna have to clear out before I could really get started. One of the two desks was in a high traffic area of the office (analogous to "next to the copier), and was a shallow workstation piled with papers and stuff and junk. High distraction from others around. The other workstation had, specifically, a thousand tiny photographs of the previous owner/occupant/worker, pinned to the walls and suspended, in long strings, from ingenious structures on the ceiling. I was not told who they were or what to do with the photos, but I vowed to myself to put them away carefully so I could return them to the person whose they were.
Themes: neglect, abandonment, clutter, mess, disorganization, and solitary work.

The second dream was set in an amalgamation of classrooms I've taught in and classrooms I went to school in. The same theme of mess, clutter collections, the desperate hoarding of supplies, students swirling around, some helpful, some indifferent, some unhelpful. But still I always wanted to do better for the students, that was my motivation.

In both cases clearing the decks completely, just shoveling it all into a dumpster and starting from scratch would be easier, but in both cases burning it all down meant giving up on a few specific valuable things inherent to the space.

BUT! if you know what those valuable things are, and you have other resources available, you can seek and find the valuable things to keep them, and then quickly shovel the rest out of the way so you can get things DONE.

FOCUS tight on the valuable things. Trash the broken, outdated, useless. Trash the harmful. Trash the lies. Give peoples things back to them by which I mean return that which belongs to others and isn't your rightful possession. Work together to make it a better place. Ask for help when you need it. Find the people who actually will give you the help you need.

You know more than you realize. You are stronger, and more powerful, then you know. Pick a part of the project and get to work. We all have to start somewhere, and getting overwhelmed by the state of the current mess isn't helpful. So take a deep breath, pick one thing, and get going

Since I don't remember the third dream but I remember there /was/ a third dream? I'm just going to say that it was a dream about celebrating and dancing and hugging and being with people and accomplishment and love and striving to make the world better.

TW: murder, nightmare
Woke early from a dream in which three old white men were gonna murder me because I'm a woman who's loved women. They were about as competent and careful as the Sheriff and Boss Hawg in the Dukes of Hazzard, so...it was still terrifying. Before I snuck away, one of them hollered, "YOU'RE GOIN' TO HELLLLL" and I hollered, "psssht, YOU'RE THE MURDERER" They were measuring temperatures in the neighborhood to determine the best place to dump my body, in that way dreams have. And another one said, "we'll be killing you right over yonder" and I said "welp, you'll have to carry and drag me" and he said "great, we'll be able to get some kicking in" and I looked down and he was wearing heavy boots.

In the dream we were all in the house that I grew up in, so I knew a great hiding place. And a bunch of old friends were, again in the way of dreams, playing music in the back yard, just the far side of the sliding glass door. I had to sneak out through the back room that used to be my parents', stay low to the ground so they wouldn't see me from the house, to get to them.
Megan and Sandy and Nicole and Pandora were all playing music.

I got over to them without being detected and Sandy looked down at me (I was still close to the ground) and I leaned up and whispered in her ear "they're gonna murder me because I've loved women" and Sandy's face changed like a STORMCLOUD.

And then I woke up. With all these feelings and this fear and this run run run run run feeling. And it took me an hour to sit down and write this.

NEVER AGAIN IS NOW. Their hate and fear and entitlement has always been POISON. And there's a BODY COUNT TO IT.

I have people who would help me if I were in mortal peril. People are dying.

I wanna believe that if the dream went further, I would have hid, and my friends would have taken care of the problem. But in real life, I'm one of the ones who is gonna help take care of this.

Be afraid. Do it anyway. Interfere with ICE. Join a protest, or a liberal church who's organizing legal aid. Call the congresscritters and tell them what you demand. Spread the truth. Be kind and compassionate and help each other out. Debug your mind and heart of racism, sexism, classism, A bit at a time. Decide to treat people equally, no matter what your brain may sneaky try to tell you. Hear those voices, acknowledge they are bullshit, and practice to do better.

Do the work, rest, get back up and do the work. The work looks different: feed and teach the kids, help people who need help, take care of yourself, learn about our terrifying history of racism, sexism, and queerphobia. Rest again. Pick a job. ANY JOB. Being frozen indecision is no longer an option. Too many things to worry about? Pick anything. Do something to make the world better.

I dreamed I was a teenager and that I woke up with appendicitis, or something that blew up my low left belly in a painful distended lump. (I knew I was a teenager because my belly was small and flat and the lump was distinct, painful-tender and hot to the touch)

I called for my dad to help me out of bed and said, "I need to go to the hospital" and he helped me sit up (I didn't know that I remembered his hands) but then he left and found a lot of other things he had to do before he could take me... He didn't listen when I talked to him, and the pain in the dream was enough that I couldn't walk properly.

When I woke to go to the bathroom, the physical sensations from the dream had me bent over and hobbling to protect my belly for several steps till I touched my belly and it was fine, didn't hurt.

I know my brain got the belly-pain from my recent gastritis/incredibly painful gas that wouldn't pass for days. Don't wanna think about where I got the lonely-he-refuses-to-listen part.

I'm definitely feeling sad today. It's probably partly from whatever brought up a dream like that... But too, California is still burning, and that acts on my mind at a subconscious level.

I'm going to set up some social time with my people for the next two weeks so I have something to look forward to. Hopefully that will help me feel better.

I'm currently running lessons with my reading-support kids about researching careers.

In an attempt for ME to learn something new, I've signed up with surveymonkey.com and have built my very own open survey.

If you are willing to share information about your job(s) past and current, and to perhaps give me some new direction for this student research project, I would be happy to see your input.
Click Here to take a brief Job Selection Survey.



thank you very much!