Maybe I've just been reading too much Marx but...

Funny how our capitalist society makes you feel so useless when you're not making any money.  You could be writing beautiful things or helping people who need it but your social security meanwhile collects "0...0...0" month after month and in this way you're nothing.

Tutoring

I absolutely loved tutoring today.  I'm so glad I've found a job I like.  Well, more generally--teaching.  But there is such a difference between this summer's busy packed hours helping kids and last summers boring hours that dragged on and on as I wilted in an office.  I've got young kids that need help with reading and high school kids doing algebra and I actually feel like I'm helping all of them.  It's such a welcome change.  I'm so excited for when I'll have my own English high school class.  That way I'll be able to help kids while continuing my personal study of literature. 

But it looks like I'll have to go try to get a substitute teacher's liscence tomorrow--booo.

There's too much lonliness and misunderstanding

in the world.  If I could only conquer communication and say what I mean and mean what I say, then I would have done something.  But it's impossible.  No wonder the world is so fucked;  we never know how to talk to each other.  Things come out all wrong and the other side fleds in horror at something he feared but didn't actually exist.  And we all have have those moments, at least I think we do, when we're ready to be open and talk to anyone about anything, just to talk, just to touch another soul and not feel so alone.  Because we are so alone, so islolated.  But when that moment comes, the person sitting next to you isn't ready for it.  He has something else to do or just wants to sit by himself.  Or maybe he doesn't, but how are you to know?  We're islands.  You could poke, you could prod, but he will probably just assume you're hitting on him. 

There's a man watching the news at Au Bon Pain and you can tell he really wants to talk to someone.  He's outraged that the state of New York is even considering legalizing gay marriage and he wants someone to be outraged with.  That's how he communicates.  He tried talking to the girl next to him about it, but she clearly backed out.  She went so far as to pick up her stuff and leave. 

I'm sorry Black Man At Au Bon Pain.  I don't really feel like talking politics with you either.  Especially not gay politics.  That won't help bridge our islands at all.  I'll say everyone has their rights and you'll assume I'm an angry liberal.  Then you'll say it's not the way God intended and I'll think you're a histerical Christian.  There's no hope for this to go right, so I'll let it go.

If only we could just talk.

Adolescent Development

As part of my recent plunge into the dizzying process of getting a teacher certification, I'm taking lots of classes that have to do with the psychology of raising kids and how much of an effect parenting techniques have on them.  Not feeling too far from adolescence myself, it's been making me think a lot about how I was raised.  While I'm not completely hopeless, I've got my share of fucked up issues and I wonder if it's fair to blame my parents.  I've been blaming my mom all my life and while that hasn't helped my situation it still hasn't gotten old for me.  As I hear new psychology theories I get ideas that make her responsible for messing up my personality on a whole new level.  It's apparently important that a kid has someone to learn from at a young age.  And my parents were pretty typical in that my dad worked and my mom stayed home with me while I was growing up.  So I guess that would leave my mom as my primary caregiver.  But from a very early age I've learned to hate my mom and hate everything she represents.  I decided VERY long ago that I DO NOT want to be like her so I developed this neurosis that if I spent a lot of time with her I would be in danger of picking up her traits and habits.  As a result, I purposely avoided her and would spend a lot of time by myself.  To this day I still have a tick that I shudder away when she puts her hand on my shoulder or something.  So I probably didn't learn things I should've from her because I was too busy avoiding her.  I never learned to cook, sew, or to do other simple things that I didn't pick up from my dad.  I can probably thank my dad for the parts of my personality I actually like.  I always absorbed whatever he taught me and never forgot.  The problem was he wasn't around as much as my mom. 

I know, I know, I know.  It doesn't do any good to point fingers.  What's done is done and I'm not a little kid anymore.  But it feels better to vent.  I am a strong believer however in the idea that people can make themselves happy at any stage in life and change little pieces of them that annoy them.  But people never REALLY change.  Not completely. 

I've hardly in my life reached a point where I completely give up on a person.  I hate to admit when I'm either completely baffled by a character or see no hope of me having a positive influence on a person.  I'm not particularly controlling, but I like to think that I have the power to help people.  It's time, Natasha, to give up or get pulled in.  It's a sad resolution but that's what it is. 

I also always saw our relationship to this person as necessary because there were aspects on both parties that could change for the good in order to support the other.  And my motto is always that a person is a person and there are traits that must be appreciated, no matter what the cost.  And there were fun times where I really cherished this person's friendship.  But I see now it's not worth it for some.  

And also there is so much anger I actually feel a little mad that I've even dedicated this post to this person.  For the sake of myself and people I care about, it's over.