a snippit

for those of you who still come here... and i'm amazed you do, thanks! i figured i'd share an old video with you, as well as an update. liam is doing remarkably well lately. after getting kicked out of yet another school shortly after he arrived in virginia, he is finally getting along well in his second school there. it seems as though the first psychologist was right, in that one day, when he was ready, it would all just "click." updates will come more regularly once he's back with me in june. i just can't seem to keep this place up when he's not here with me, unless i want this site to be filled with my depression/anxiety/pain about it all. and since i'd rather keep this place more on the positive side, i'll give you this instead:

this is a video from three years ago. we had a 30 minute commute from downtown then, and the whole ride home, he/we would make up stories. sometimes i would just let him go at it and listen. half the time, he was so involved in his stories that he wouldn't even notice when we got home. so one day i pulled out my camera and shot a little of his story.

sorry about the jacked up video. if someone has decent code for it, please let me know. i don't do video.

fuck. fuck. fuck.

school no. 3, down.

not sure what the future holds for us right now. the school is giving me some time to prepare for another course of action. they claim that he has special social needs that they cannot meet in a large classroom and are recommending either a small special needs class (which they do not have), or medicating him. he has excelled in his lesson plans when he works individually, so they're aware that he his very intelligent and has no learning disability, but he is socially inept and cannot work in groups. the teacher told me that it usually takes six weeks for chldren to transition in a new school, and that it might take a little longer for liam. so how long did they give him? TWO WEEKS. jesus.

i made all of the phone calls last week to the shrink, physical therapist (who they know and says has many resources that might be of use to us), and pediatrician. next week i'll be calling other schools to find out what my options are. e wants me to ship him off to his parents for the rest of the year. i don't see how that's a solution, really. he gets everything he wants there, so how can that help him learn to handle conflict?

i have a meeting with the head of the art dept. next week to look at my options as far as lightening my course load without getting too far off track for graduation in the spring of 2008. liam obviously needs more than he's getting from me, and with my current courses, i'm already spending several nights a week pulling all-nighters.

i'm at a loss. i'm exhausted emotionally. i've been treading water for so long now, just trying to keep my head above water. i'm so tired of being his only advocate. he's a bright, funny kid with loads of personality, but he just doesn't show this side at school. i hate that no one likes my kid, and no one feels any desire to support him. i don't know. maybe i need to take a year off, focus completely on him. i'm the only one he really has, and i'm stretched to my limits between him, work, and school. sometimes i feel like i just took on too fucking much.

today's a bad day. perhaps i'll feel less misanthropic tomorrow. perhaps i'll feel worse. i'm not crying anymore, which is a good thing, i suppose. i'm out of tears. i'm full of mother bear rage. i need to help my kid get his shit together and mine together as well. we're a disfuntional team, but we're a team.

when it rains, it pours.

man, what a summer. i've been super busy. with life, for once! i'm currently freaking out because a boy (my first high school crush, in fact) is driving down here to stay for four days and he'll be here in a matter of hours. i haven't seen him in 15 years and while we get along terribly well by phone and constant emails, you just never know how these things are going to go until you're face-to-face. and all of this comes after a short-but-sweet dating stint with my 23 year old neighbor, david. we're still good friends and he's great with liam. in fact, he was over most of today, helping me with things around the house and entertaining liam as we roamed around the grocery store. we hang out nearly everyday, but merely as friends at this point. he's a great guy, but is not what i'm looking for in a relationship, though i have to say it was one hell of an ego boost to be pursued by a sweet, smart, and very cute, young boy.

kevin, who is driving his car down here as i write this, graduated a year before me. my freshman year i was at a sleepover, and all the girls were dared by our hostess to call the boys we had crushes on. the other girls made their calls and their boys either laughed at them or hung up. i was naturally panicked about my phone call, but unnecessarily so. he asked, "so you have a crush on me?"

"yes."

"but you refuse to tell me who you are?"

"yup."

"and you just want me to entertain you?"

"yes, please."

"ok, then."

and we proceeded to talk for nearly an hour. a year later, i was dating the boy who would become known as my high school sweetheart and his close friends started hanging out with kevin, which meant that i was hanging out with kevin. my reaction was to simply refuse to speak to him, for fear that i would be found out. not only by kevin, but my boyfriend, and all of our friends. he was probably one of the funniest people i'd ever met and i loved hanging around him, but simply couldn't talk much when he was around.

about a month ago, he found me online and we've been in contact nearly every day since. i'm sure i'll have a great time with him, but i'm nervous because i'm not sure that i can reciprocate the feelings he's already expressed towards me. we'll see. i'm just going to see how it goes and enjoy the time he's here. it's been an interesting summer, romance-wise, which is nice, since once school starts, i'll have no time for anything else but my studies.

summer days

i've had a nice little vacation the last couple of days. e came on monday for a visit, so i made sure to take advantage of having liam cared for and do all the things i have been putting off for ages.

monday night, my boss and i went to mia cucina for a food demonstration of the foods of vietnam. the chef was great fun and because he adopted his two daughters in vietnam, has spent quite a bit of time there getting to know the culture to be able to teach his daughters about their heritage. we learned how to make pho, spring rolls, papaya salad (LOVE), nuoc cham sauce (again, LOVE), and cha trung. we were permitted to bring either two bottles of beer or 1/2 bottle of wine per person, and the chef fed us all of the food he made. it was a great way to spend the evening.

on tuesday, the boys went to the discovery museum and i went to get the massage that my boss had bought me for my birthday (back in february). when i got out of class earlier that morning, my boss called me to tell me about this personal trainer she just found near work that has great rates. the student rate is amazing. 12 sessions (3/week) for $130. so before my massage, i went to the trainer for a free introductory session. it was great and i signed up that day. she does most of her sessions during the day, so i thought that i would have to make the trip from downtown out to work (approx. 30 minutes) twice each day just to make the sessions, but when she heard that i work two blocks from her studio, she told me that she could do an evening session at 7 when i get off. perfection! i'm really looking forward to it.

today, e and liam are headed out to buy clothes and play around town and i have an appointment at hair a go*go to get my hair colored and cut. this was a mother's day present from my mom and i'm really looking forward to it since the last time i had my hair done was when my mom treated me to it for christmas. yep, that's the only way i can afford to get any sort of personal care done for myself... wait for a holiday. fortunately, my mom's a girly-girl so she treats me to haircuts at least a couple of times a year. that's about all i need, really.

so these last three days have been a really nice break for me. and very good timing too, since starting on friday, my next summer session begins. it actually overlaps my first summer session, so for a couple of weeks i'll be dealing with two fast paced, intense classes. it's tough when they cram a four-month course into 5 weeks. but i've had this philosophy professor before and he's a wonderful lecturer, so i'm really looking forward to that class.

i'm most looking forward to july when i'm all done with my classes and my mom comes for a visit. this will be the first summer that i don't head off to my friend chris' for the fourth of july or any other trip at all during my break. while i'm a bit disappointed that i'll be missing the 4th (class precedes vacation fun), i'm happy that i don't have to spend the little time off from class travelling around to visit family. i'm really enjoying my historic neighborhood and making my house look pretty on the cheap.

i'll be hosting some movie nights at my house later this summer, which will be a good way to socialize and not have to get a sitter. i bought a projector for cheap on ebay, so i'll be hanging up a sheet on one side of my house to create a nice little outdoor theater in my secluded backyard. so far the movies of choice from most of my friends/classmates for the first movie night is the pilot episode of the land of the lost, followed by shaolin soccer.

yay summer!

yellow pointypointy

After ninety-six hours, it's not a pencil anymore, it's a yellow pointypointy that makes marks for you when you give it brain signals and frankly it's bored and wants a life of its own.

-the cheese monkeys: a novel in two semesters, by chip kidd (a book about a graphic design student, by one of the greatest graphic designers).

oh, this perfectly sums up my brainworkings after pulling an all-nighter (or two) just before a deadline. possibly my favorite quote EVER.