Los Angeles is Not a Desert

There's been a shift in my plans.  I'm more dutiful daughter than flowing stream, but you get the benefit of more words as a result as I sip instant coffee with instant creamer and follow it with Ovaltine because I'm at Mom's house and that tastes like my childhood. Los Angeles is not a desert.  Seriously.  It goes against everything I've ever been told, but I'm reading and learning because there's a boy who looks like a man and he said it's not and I'm researching a bit because he sparked my curiosity and I need to know now. Yes, he shifted my perspective, but we won't go into that because I work with him, can't have him and will only be able to daydream and objectify him. Technically we aren't even in the same department and he's not my supervisor and maybe he's too close for awkward later. I don't want to risk it going south. And I don't know that he'd be interested. I don't write about the people I actually go out with for the most part because reality is rarely as amazing as my imagination. And some guys are just special with memories that are mine. As long as I don't see him as a possibility, I don't mind objectifying him. 

Yes, this would be the same man that was on my mind when I wrote Earthquake Country and part of a conversation with him happened before I hit Santa Monica and met two other Los Angeles transplants that prompted me to write Native Californian before that.  Talking to him makes me want to write and it's a good thing.  I may also look for him in common areas, and that's a problem.  But it's my problem and I'm enjoying it.

Yesterday at the company barbecue we were talking about the endorphins that hit him after running about a mile and I was in my slack jawed glory, just trying to focus on his face and not the way his faded red t-shirt was hanging off of his pectorals making my mind drift to naughty places.  The conversation shifted to the Los Angeles mild weather versus East Coast hell.  After painting the picture of shoveling snow and layers of clothes contrasting against oppressive humidity and a need to shower more often than the commercial breaks in an hour long episode (and yes, I pictured that), he brought up the fact that we are not in a desert.  He mentioned a documentary and his curiosity was infectious as he managed to say it all without making me feel objectified. He was adorably expressive and nearly bounced with childlike excitement.  Maybe I'm exaggerating, but I loved what I was seeing.

It was sometime after he wasn't in front of me and I wasn't looking at the chest hair peeking out of his shirt, or the bright excitement over his ideas and sharing them or the way I wanted to . . . There's a point, and I will get back to it because we work together and he's off limits and that is the story I keep telling myself.

The American Association of Geographers has a long case built on the fact that we have more rainfall than a true desert making us semi-arid and we have groundwater that keeps us looking like LA and not Barstow in natural areas that are not funded by water wasters. (We can ignore the fact that they misspelled Los Feliz.) The fact that our water resources cannot support our population does not make the land a desert in the classic sense. We also grow much of the food for our nation in California, and aside from pretty lawns and luxurious bathing, what we put toward agriculture on a national scale requires more water than is natural to the land, but our climate is arid and mild enough to nurture most plants and vegetation.  I often ignore planting schedules on the backs of seed packets, because plants will usually sprout as long as they have water because our sunshine is good for that.

This article says we have a Mediterranean climate based on the Köppen system.  We certainly have a love of mediterranean food and I have a thing for the men. Sometimes.  It just depends. The point is we have great plants that thrive here and if you are wise enough to support a xeriscaped garden somewhere, these plants are made for home and know how to come back after a drought or fire or flood because that and the earthquakes are what Los Angeles is used to. I remember a geology class where my professor talked about plants that will only release seeds once the plant has burned. We usually get heavy rains and mudslides after fire season.

I won't go into articles that whine about bad propaganda because that just blames long forgotten individuals for an evolving classification system, because science changes as we see things differently and add information.  But yes, Mr. Adorably Curious was right.  We are not in a desert. His large brain has my attention. He shifted my perspective. This is what it feels like and it feels good. Imagine that.

Motherhood as Leadership

I was one of those Leadership kids in my Freshman year.  Over 20 years ago it was the last year of Junior high and not the first year of high school. We had meetings and someone took minutes, but it was really a free pass out of class to run around and plan school dances and fundraisers.  There was so much more to what it was supposed to be, but I only ran for my office as a popularity contest on someone else's social agenda.  I got the hall pass and sweatshirt and front and center seats for major assemblies, the panorama picture and graduation.  We booked the d.j. and diluted fruit punch concentrate into hydration for the circles of dancers that showed off their moves, but would pretend to be wall flowers as soon as the lights were back on.  We sold tickets and decorated a depressing boys gym into a room suitable for raging hormones, gross insecurities and cliques of kids rushing in hordes for potential dance battles and fist fights. I never understood what the goal of the class was meant to be because we had a series of tasks but I didn't have the understanding of the reasons behind them. In recent years, my thoughts on leadership have grown.  During my last pregnancy, we spent a lot of time at amusement parks.  The ex lost over 100 pounds and he wanted to go and keep going with his new-found energy.  We had littles and I was pregnant with another couple's twins.  We would walk in a line where he would lead and I always took up the rear to make sure we didn't lose anyone.  That was when I decided I wanted to be more than a mom.  I wanted to be a leader to my sons.  It was in noticing that our pace wasn't set by the most capable, but by the one that needed the most guidance and hand holding, which switched between kids several times per hour.  In taking the rear, and making sure my kids were on course, I was guiding them. I was encouraging them to catch up to Daddy and watching that they didn't wander in a different direction.

Leadership isn't about telling people what to do and expecting them to jump because of your position or their fear of you.  It's not about puffing up your position, but letting your team know the ways they are a valuable and essential part of your team. It's about guidance and encouragement to lead your team to want to do better and think in ways that promote the team, and not the individual. Leadership means the leader is as much an integral part of the team as every single member, but the leader is accountable for fostering a culture of advancement.

For my family, leadership is about establishing a compelling direction and for now that is a direction founded in acceptance and unconditional love.  No matter what choices they make in life and love, they know I will always love and support them.  Soon after they started telling me they loved me, I started telling them that I will always love them, whether or not they love boys or girls. Their choices might not always make me proud, but I will always be proud to be their mother.  I do my best to encourage open communication and I don't place my shame or my feelings on them if I can help it.  I help them solve problems and the day they stop coming to me with them, is the day I know I have failed them as a leader.

My goal for my family is to foster relationships that build each other up.  I hear it gets easier when brothers are older.  Leadership in this way takes the direction of enabling a structure of support.  It's encouraging them when they play together and discouraging destructive competition. It's in helping each other to do well.  It's a thank you when one sacrifices for the other, or when one helps with a homework problem explanation when my reserves are low and I need the perspective of someone else in my single mom home.

One day the authority I empower as mom will help my children internalize my ideals.  When those thoughts become theirs and they understand their own manifest and latent benefits, they will idealize and live out these lessons in every area of their lives.  Leadership teaches others to lead their own lives with intention.  It's not enough to be an angry mother with timbered calls of authority.  It's the gentle guidance that makes them search for answers on their own, with nudges from me that lead them along the path I had scouted in my own adolescent adventures.

It's been a difficult year.  There's no way to sugarcoat that. Being positive is part of my personality but it's also about leadership.  If my kids see that I can be positive in a negative situation, it shows all of us that our answers are not impossible. It's about knowing I will make mistakes and just get things wrong. It's allowing them to hold me accountable and asking them to call me out on my prideful ignorance.  I frequently remind myself to be the mom my children deserve, and not the mom I feel like being.  I let them know that our family is ours, and our home is not just mine.  It helps them find enthusiasm in being part of our family and obligation becomes privilege.

I believe leadership is found in doing what is right, rather than what is easy.  It falls in line with financial stewardship and embracing the idea that you don't know all of the answers, and you don't have to, but your curiosity will be rewarded with at least trying to find the answers.

My Weaknesses Displayed

Ask about my weaknesses and I'll tell you I spend more time plotting the next thing I plan to say and not listening to the ideas you've just plopped before me.  If I'm doing well, I'll stop talking at that point.  I tend to talk too much and it will cross my mind that it's a problem because you take too long to spit out what you are thinking and odds are you are not cute enough to entertain me and I will guess repeatedly what you should have said by now because my curiosity isn't satisfied by your slow self expression. Your point should have arrived and you are now stepping on my time and my interest has flown. In short, I can be really impatient. At the same time, I can get completely tongue tied.  When my words come out a jumbled heap and the words don't sound like words, that means I'm excited and nervous and feeling intimidated by the person I'm talking to.  This is the time when silly confessions and saying more than I should becomes a problem.  I will shine with the creepy observations that the average person doesn't see because that careful observation of everything around me and the imagination that fuels them are normally the perfect breeding medium for what I write, but I've turned off that censor and words tumble out and make messes of embarrassment that cover me in bright excitement and the heat rises and my cheeks feel it the most.  It's not as simple as shame or embarrassment. It is a jeweled crown of mortification.

I also have more passive than aggressive in my anger.  I may write what I think, but I won't live it out. I should verbalize my anger. I'm much more careful with the gilded frame in which I situate my words when I have fear my words will hurt another person.  I'm always a little too worried about hurting others. It's usually a strength, but not when it's only at my expense, and not when my caution is fear based. Being assertive is on my radar but I'm very much into hedonistic exploits right now, and assertive training isn't part of that. At the same time, I believe joy and happiness are choices, and I haven't found the balance between happiness and aggression.  Let me know if you think of a safe place to express my pissy moods.

Insecurities are a thing, and they're my thing.  I wrap them around me and push through them until they become my strengths for the most part.  At times I can't even see my insecurities until they've been twisted into weapons by someone else. That's the point of this post.  If I announce it, I can own it and deal with it.

I have been teased about using $5 words and shamed for trying to sound smart.  I like reading and being a bookish broad wasn't always a strength.  Again, it might just be the men I was dating. I find men that can get lost in a book and are able to converse about the ideas bounding from their shifting perspective is a new kind of sexy that I didn't know how to address before. It still intimidates me. I have spent too long trying to simplify my language so I don't look like I'm trying to make someone feel bad. I don't mind explaining myself, I just hate second guessing myself.

I do a lot of reading and much less talking, so I'm sometimes unsure about the words I want to use because I know what they look like and what they mean, but I don't always know what they sound like.  I don't want to relive reading "melancholy" out loud in junior high. That was bad.

I love too hard, and for much too long.  There are patterns we get from our family of origin, so thanks Mom. This inability to quit for the sake of love is what had me holding on to my marriage for so long.  Letting go and accepting that some questions are not meant to have answers is difficult for me.  Closure sounds so silly in the face of all that was done, but at the end of the day, it matters more that too much happened, and not why it had to.  Some things don't need a reason that I can understand.  Earthquakes are natural but not normal and we don't always know how to predict them with accuracy enough to evacuate cities.  Sometimes the shaking is the only point I need to process and grow from.

Some puzzles keep bothering me.  People and their motives are fairly easy to grasp for the most part.  Every once in awhile I'll see a puzzling expression or someone will very clearly bite their tongue on a rogue thought that very nearly escaped. A moment kept crossing my mind to the point where I had a dream about it and woke up to keep turning it over like a cat tiring out a field mouse.  A month later and it was still crossing my mind.  I've had random moments where I'll catch a similar expression on someone else, and that moment is renewed and fresh in my mind for further torment.  It's insidious. I have a hard time letting go of things I want to know that I have no possible way of finding out. It's the same for riddles and plot lines that are not neatly tied by the author.

Math is a weakness. It started with multiplication tables in the 3rd grade.  I couldn't memorize them and math tends to build on itself.  I was solving quadratic equations and slowly counting out the multiplication I should have memorized on tapping fingertips and whispered counting on murmuring lips. I did really well in geometry, but algebra was a challenge. In high school I got through my second year of algebra and believed my counselor when she said I wouldn't need anymore math.  She lied.  You need a certain level of math to graduate college, and that class likely has several prerequisites.  If you don't practice it, you will forget it.  I wanted to be a geologist until the math required scared me away.  I got through college level algebra, but then I was looking at Trigonometry, Calculus, Chemistry and Physics, which are all special names for different math tortures and I decided English sounded a lot easier.  It was the practical decision when I looked at mothering and running a home. It was the boring choice to get lost in literature when  I could spend a night in a tent and get up with the sun to play in the earth with other scientists. Banging out a paper while half asleep was easier than solving equations and mapping complex equations along the x, y, and z axis. It's a weakness I've made peace with but every so often I entertain the idea of going back to do better in those classes.

I'm messy.  I have always been messy.  I grew up with too much junk in the house and it was comfortable. As an adult, walking into the home of a hoarder is both familiar and it gives me extreme anxiety.  As mom, I tried to keep up but found myself snapping at sensory integration dysfunction meltdowns.  When kid1 and kid2 were little, I would piece their wooden puzzles together and neatly stack them.  I'd leave the room for laundry, and hear the crash of a box of wooden puzzles being turned upside down and scattered with the Hot Wheels and Thomas the Tank Engine.  My kids might not have survived being toddlers if I hadn't decided the messes weren't that important. I had to let it go, or risk becoming an abusive parent.  Now I will save major cleaning for when they are with their Dad and I even enjoy cleaning up, but to clean while they are actively making messes can make me angry and a bit terrifying. I used to get so angry when I was trying to clean up around the ex that was watching television or laying in bed. The wife I was had to do everything at home on my own and I knew that if I left a mess, it would wait for me to get to it whenever I got around to it. Ideally, they would clean up after themselves, but that first struggle of having to wait for people to talk translates here as well.  It's easier on me mentally if I just do it myself, and one day I would love to hire someone to do it for me. Sometimes they help and from what I understand, they do a lot more at their Dad's house, but when I'm not exhausted, I find peace in picking up after my natural disasters while they sleep.  I put on music and dance through it.  There's balance.  If you saw how organized my sewing kit is, you'd see how much I crave the control.

I don't cry often.  It's a weakness because humans are not meant to hold it all in. At times I'll have a slow leak of too much emotion.  The tears fall silently and I may sniffle a bit, then blame it on allergies.  Most people around me might not notice it unless they are super sensitive or over informed about my latest drama. There's always drama. I have a seething angry cry.  That usually comes out when I withhold a beating of angry words for someone else's sake.  I don't ugly cry though and those cries are the most healing.  I don't even cry chopping onions anymore.  I could use a good cry and I'm not even sure how to turn that stuff on.  I could have been one of those women that manipulates a relationship with waterworks, but I never figured out how.

Advocating through IEP's

I believe everything happens for a reason.  I'm one of those people.  The optimism in me is tempered with a strong leaning toward disbelief, but I push past that and see the glass not half of anything because I took a sip and it's refillable.  I think the trick is in finding what that reason is that forced something to happen, and acknowledging the season you are in has a purpose.  Not having anything to rush to after my son's triennial IEP meant I spent time reading the reports. Reading the reports showed me something was done to get done and not to make sure my kid would be taken care of. I should explain a few things for those that have never had an IEP.  An "Individualized Educational Plan" is the phrase used to describe the legal document created between the school and parents to first determine educational needs for a student, then to set goals, placing supports where needed to attain these goals.  I can take an IEP to any school and the school would have to do what it says, although they have the right to hold a new IEP within 30 days to see if they can make changes.  Since my sons are at a nonpublic school, the team is usually the parents, kids are invited if they're over 14, a special ed. teacher, a general ed. teacher, a psychologist, the district representative, the school representative, and any support people that would have to present the findings of their report.  It can include an occupational therapist, speech therapist, an adaptive P.E. teacher, or any other support person that would have to give their opinion about what services and therapies would help your child function in class.  Let the diction sink in.  If your child's behaviors are a problem at home, but not at school, it isn't something they are concerned with and the job of an advocating parent is to track down therapies on our own.  If your child is a client of Regional Center, they will often but not always cover what the district doesn't, assuming you remember to bring it up in your annual IPP.  (I'll save that for another post).

Since the first IEP in 2004, we've had them scheduled regularly, without having to do much of anything, but there are times when you have to write a letter to make a request. Anytime your child doesn't seem to be thriving is a good time to ask for an assessment.  Public schools will do this at no cost because that is the point of a public education.  There are lots of assessments to request.  There are plenty of ways to see if your child is performing at their best.  There are also plenty of ways to test them emotionally, psychologically, physically with gross and fine motor skills, cognitive ability to process information, hearing, vision . . . the list goes on and they have handbooks for that sort of thing.

Once you've asked for the assessment in writing, you sign a form saying you give permission to test your child.  The school will send you a notification for an IEP date (they have a certain amount of days from the time you make the request to the IEP and I believe it's 60 days). You sign, giving instructions on how to proceed if you can't make it to the IEP and then you go to the IEP.

During most of their elementary school years, their Assistant Principal would bake cookies from scratch.  He was great with the kids, being a Dad himself, and had a white soul patch and an old soul.  I could picture him as a beatnik, in as far as my understanding was from the first Hairspray movie. I'm really not that old, but my knees try to convince me otherwise.

Depending on the team you work with, sometimes they'll want to contact you to go over things ahead of time.  I love these situations because it's easier to follow along.  In LAUSD, there is the Welligent program for the meetings, and more often than not, it will freeze, or not save or not print.  It is a finicky software program/website and a pain for most people that access it, but it's what they use. It's problems can be a little distracting.  Reading reports quickly to get through them and getting to the point means if you aren't as prepared as they are, you can find yourself a little lost.  At the end of the day, the parent needs to sign, but signing comes with a choice. Do you agree or don't you? If you don't agree, you still sign, but make it known that you are not going along with what they say.

Most IEP meetings will start with an introduction, and the same sentences are read and re-read each time.  By the 5th grade, you can probably wallpaper a room in parent handbooks, and you leave with a survey that I've never filled out or mailed in.  During the meeting, one at a time, a person who did an assessment will read through it, or skim through it, handing parents a copy to read along.  After that, we go over goals and figure out what they decide is best.  For the most part, I can agree with what they come to. I can see the logic in their reasoning.

There are some situations where you have to be aware of what is being said and decided and think ahead to the possibility of change.  Reducing Occupational Therapy hours to nothing isn't a big deal when OT is incorporated in the classroom because it's a special needs classroom.  This needs to be spelled out incase they ever decide to stick him in a general ed. classroom. Transitioning out of special ed will always be their goal even if it isn't yours. In that case, the natural support of a special needs classroom would set him up for failure in general ed.

The triennial is a larger IEP meeting held once every 3 years. This is the time for new assessments to be done and to look at all aspects of the needs as they may have changed. More often than not, the district will try to go off of the last assessment, even if it's 3 years old. It is my job to say I don't agree to their shortcut.  I read the report that was clearly copied and pasted from another child, with copied and pasted sections from old reports.  What she tried to present couldn't possibly represent my child.

In the days following the suspended IEP meeting, I was called by the psychologist with profuse apologies that I wasn't interested in hearing. I had a stress headache like a ball of pressure above my left eye in the shape of the finances I was just going over.  She wanted to go over what she had written down, and that part of me that was in pain had to remember being a student with dinner started in a crockpot, a term paper before me and a child on my back who wanted to brush my hair while I hammered out nuance in Diderot's prose. I went through her assessment, word for word, even pointing out misspelled words and filling out information that should have been in her files. She thanked me profusely and asked if I could meet her on campus later.  It's another one of those things a job would have prevented me from hopping over to do.  Of course I could meet her. So much of her job relies on not what is written or said over the phone, but a careful examination of body language, facial expressions and micro expressions, affect, and many other things I didn't bother to study because I couldn't get into philosophers.  It took a while to realize philosophers would make an appearance in all of the liberal arts classes I loved and the ones I hated too.

I met her and she talked about how glad she was to be able to meet with my son because he exceeded all of her expectations.  Of course he did.  My kids are amazing.  Also, she was going off of a report completed when he was suicidal and he wasn't that kid anymore.  He's in a more emotionally stable place and his autism has become a part of him that he understands.  He still has to make an effort to navigate life in ways I could never imagine, and at times that stress becomes clear in a melt down or assault on his brothers, but he's exceptional.

I realized that as an overworked school psychologist, going off of old reports is standard practice, and as a parent, when I insist a new assessment be completed, it gives her time to do what she wanted when she felt her calling was to study the mind and behavior.  She was forced to do what she loves.  We talked about her kids and her husband's GI bill.  I encouraged her to look into Chapter 35 benefits for her kids and the California Department of Veteran's Affairs fee waiver because they are independent of each other but go off of the same DD-214.  An advocate never stops seeing where they can lend a hand and how they can help a situation.

She should have finished her report by now but we'll reconvene that IEP after spring break.  In the meantime, I submit resumes, make phone calls, research various programs that would benefit my family and stay connected to groups on Facebook that are on the same journey because we all help each other out.  It's what we do.

A Day in the Life: Single Mom Duties

I rushed to my son's school to pick him up on a shortened day. His parent conference was an arbitrary day where his teacher could fit me in.  I asked if she had an earlier appointment and she fit me in immediately.  She tries so hard for order, but teachers rarely get parents that show up on time, or show up at all when work and other kids come before a report we see on a card.  But I wanted to meet with her so she could tell me he's missed too much school and been tardy far too often because the numbers in black and white with a legend in the corner couldn't be clear enough.  I remind her of the day in dress and heels I carried him over my shoulder from the car onto campus and left him with the principal, later calling in tears on my way to work to see how much he hated me. My knees hated me for days after that. He's doing well in spite of his absences and still has time to improve.  We're starting separate homework packets because separate homes weren't enough.  The line between responsibility tears him in two, but he accepts it with a smile because this insanity is his insanity and it's somehow acceptable. We head home and the fight for his homework begins.  He wants my phone. "Can't find a pencil." Now in need of a sharpener.  "This is too hard.  We haven't done the work that she told you we did." But it says review and I know he's capable when I tell him I'm struggling and I need him to show me. "What are you doing?" As I'm writing thank you's to lovers in my past. "I'm writing a zombie story," because he knows it's entirely a possibility and more exciting than therapy writing. He needs my full focus to get me to give him answers he works really hard to not figure out. I continue writing and he slowly figures it out.

But his brothers will be home in 10 minutes and the three of them will start fighting over the two computers. Miraculously, he gets it done and has minutes to spare before the brothers get home.  Once home, they fight, as predicted because they each want time on the computer immediately.  It's the preferred routine and there's a system to their chaos when they can predict what will happen. Kid1 tries to pry kid2 from the chair, then sees the food and starts with bribery.  The computer battle is won and their after school hungers are sated.  Mom's cherry macarons decided the battle. Kid2 takes his clothes off because there are tags that scratch, and really, he's had clothes on all day and it should be enough.  He sits and strokes his boy parts through his clothes and I remind him we can see him and his restless hands stop but he takes the tablet into the bedroom where I won't hear his videos as easily.

"Hey kids, it's a soup day.  Chicken vegetable okay?" Yeses and sures and "I would like that, Mom." I start boiling a chicken with loose skin and too much blood. My stomach is roiling from the stresses I ignore.  I run a bath and heat eases pain in my old lady knees.  I yell to kid3, "want a bath tonight? Now's the time if you do."  Followed by, "no mom, I'm busy mom .  . . I'll shower later."

Chicken is cooked and cooled and I'm burning fingertips, tearing the bird apart.  "Are you sure you want soup? I still have time to make something different." Kid1 wants soup.  Kid2 thinks he can get past celery and cooked carrots. He'll eat it raw, but cooked carrots and celery have a texture my sensory sensitive autistic children can't always handle.  Kid3 loves mommy's soup. He can't wait for mommy's soup.

Soup is served and only Mom and Kid1 will eat it.  Kid2 wants bread and only bread.  Kid3 isn't hungry.

It's time for showers and bed, and I start with kid2 who wants to avoid his shower just a little longer because he's watching a video.  I check the video and it's on pornhub and I have to explain that it's inappropriate and gives a wrong idea of real sex. Good sex.  Sex that isn't violence based and I have to pry my eyes away from the sex scenes that held my sex starved mind because it's a video where it looks like orgasms are being given which is different entirely from solo play. I'm so tired of solo play.

Kid2 in the shower, then kid3.  He wants that bath - once offered and rejected and he will cry until I give in but I don't give in to his bath. Instead I soap him up in the shower.  And it's a battle I've lost that his Dad always wins.  I tell myself he just needed the cry that he cries every time he comes home. He doesn't need to control me too, that's just a side effect - a latent benefit and then I can't see the manifest benefit.  I can't see the antecedent to the behavior that I just rewarded and I'm the one with the consequence.  He's out of the shower and dripping wet and insists on climbing into bed, dripping wet because that's what Dad does. It's okay with Dad.  He's okay with Dad. And he's hungry now and refuses the soup that burned my fingers and I'm headed out to the deep freezer in the laundry room to get him a Hot Pocket that he eats halfway through before falling asleep.

Kid1 in the shower with a smirk and a grunt.  I ask too much of him but I ask and he does what I want, if slower than I want and the night has wound down and we're done.  The pressure builds in my head and I go over it again because I can't see where we went from smiles and hugs and mutual claims to have missed each other to the mess this night dissolved into.  I can't see where it shifted and my mind races through it again and again.

I don't drink.  I won't cry.  I will see the crap for what it was and hug them in their sleep because they are so well behaved then.  I will say prayers for their peace and obedience as I tuck them in. And I will have Butter Pecan gelato because I don't drink even if I really want to right now.

The Education of a Reluctant Student

I liked leaving high school more than I liked being in it.  I graduated with honors because it was never hard.  I was in theater arts and play production.  I hung out with football players and I was fairly popular.  Years later I would see people that remembered me and I couldn't place them. It was an empty existence.  It was so empty that when I left school, I didn't have contact information for most of the people I looked forward to seeing in class, because I never looked for them when I was home.  Facebook has rekindled many friendships, but I'm the same person, so hanging out offline is a major accomplishment if I ever do it. I started in college because my parents wanted me there. They had dreams for me and taught me going to college after high school was like brushing your teeth.  It's not optional. It's what you do.

I was rebellious though.  I was afraid of the SAT test and refused to take it.  I went straight to Glendale Community College instead.  Actually, in the fall of 1996 my Dad went there, registered for my classes and bought my books that first semester.  I started registering, buying books funded by my parents, dropping classes and getting cash back.  I did this for years and they never stopped believing in me or supporting me. By 2004 I wanted to get through it.  I picked up the college catalog and my transcripts, and started marking off classes to see if I had taken enough to get an AA.  I had taken enough for my Certificate in Communications and a few classes later in 2005 I got my AA in General Education Transfer Studies.  I think it was a blanket term for those of us that loved taking classes but still couldn't declare a major because indecision was a skill in Junior College but  I was excited to transfer.

I transferred into Cal State L.A. as a Geology major. I had taken a few classes and did really well in them. I loved the science. I used to daydream about camping along an active volcano, donning a heat suit and scaling the inside for measurements.  It may sound crazy but I really wanted to be a volcanologist.  I've always had a love of minerals and crystals.  Eventually I thought earthquakes would be a safer, more mom like job. I was struggling though.  My professors were amazing, but college level algebra was kicking my butt.  I got through it, but my reality set in.  I was already Mom to two autistic sons, and a third was on the way.  I would get home from class, and if the nausea of cooking didn't leave me dry heaving, I was exhausted from growing a human and studying didn't happen.  I couldn't go on field trips where we would spend a few days studying the earth because I couldn't leave my family behind. Geology is the study of the earth and I couldn't do that from our apartment in North Hollywood. I ended up taking a break for a few years and in that time, I made peace with math not being my superpower.  Every time I thought about the chemistry, calculus and physics required (all math), I would put it off another year.

Finishing school became important to me again.  I had kids and I wanted to be the example they deserved. Coming to terms with my math deficiency was hard, but I did it. I decided what I loved was reading and writing.  My love of reading started when I was 9 or 10.  My oldest sister used to read grocery store novels and I would pick up anything she put down, warping my sense of love and romance for the rest of my life.  Don't buy into the lace and heavy sighs.  It's a formula and just as damaging to relationships as porn.

I applied to the college when enrollment was high and was accepted in 5 quarters which was the fall of  2010. At the time, I didn't know I would be in my third trimester with my second surrogacy. If I didn't enroll, I might have had to wait another year to go back.  I figured I would try 8 units, and if anything I could get an incomplete.  I didn't realize how much I would love it though.  In September I greeted both professors right after class and explained I was determined to get through their classes, but I let them know I was due in October and I had no idea how it would work out.  One professor didn't notice how knocked up I was.  She was a great professor and loved to geek out on the British novels with their sighs and carriage rides and hints at naughtiness.  The other professor knew I was about to go into labor from my waddle. He was a grandfather and very kind.  I missed two class sessions. It was my fifth birth and while I was able to get around, childbirth makes you leak.  Everywhere.  Staying home for a week was a prudent decision.  In the end I earned a B and a C+.

The next quarter I was encouraged to apply for scholarships.  I didn't have the grades for it with my earlier years of not caring, and I banged out an essay in 20 minutes. I wrote about being a mom and wife while being a student.  I wrote about being expected to take care of house and home and school was treated like it was my hobby and I didn't feel supported at home.  I ended up earning six scholarships in 2 years.  One was a fellowship that was inadvertently given to me. It seemed odd that an undergrad would receive a fellowship.  I talked to the office handling that. They gave me the correct scholarship, but let me keep the fellowship for my honesty.  Apply for everything.  The worst answer you can get won't affect anything but will give you practice in writing an essay. The best answer is free money and the prestige of Honor's Convocations.

My most memorable Convocation happened during my last surrogacy.  It was a gnarly pregnancy because twins were hard for me to carry.  The hormones made my heart race. The morning sickness was off the charts.  I was on and off bed rest so often that I ended up taking a year off of school.  That was emotionally hard.  After giving birth in the middle of a quarter I couldn't understand why I couldn't handle going to class while still at the start and middle of a pregnancy.  I went back for the Convocation.  Of course they had us stand in line for too long to make an entrance.  I was overheating and dehydrated. I ended up feeling weak and faint and puking in the middle of it.  I think I even nailed the poor woman in front of me.  For the second ceremony for the College of Arts and letters I was feeling better until I ended up sitting next to a woman that was wearing way too much perfume. It was a night of memories that make me laugh now.  For my very last Convocation, I couldn't find anyone willing to go with me and I skipped it, but the department mailed my certificate to me.

Here's a hint, natural body scents on a clean body can smell amazing. Perfumes and colognes should compliment your natural scent and be used so sparingly that others are encouraged to get close enough to smell them.  That was a public service announcement and my free little nugget.  It's pure gold so take it and love it like your own. I used to wear Red Jeans by Versace and I love most women's scents by Givenchy, but I typically only wear deodorant. 

I can understand Chaucer and explicate Shakespeare, but my love of minerals and nature keep me grounded.  I love jewelry stores for the research, but one day I want to go on a rock hounding trip. I would love to dig up a vug and find my own treasures.  I don't know if I'd polish them.  Honestly I'd be happy finding quartz.  One day I might start back in school to retake some math classes and raise my GPA.  I always thought I'd go back to school.  I don't know if it will be law school or if I'd go back and attempt that Rock Doctor goal.  Suddenly single has so much potential that I nearly gave up on.

Today I have Mom duties.  My first born is now 14 and has his first invitation to his IEP.  It's his triennial so it's a big one. My second child has an amendment IEP.  I never did housework last night, so that is one of my goals this afternoon, but perhaps after a nap.  Stress had me up at 4 and by 5:30 I decided to stay up. Stress also has me breaking out all over the place like a teenager. If I have teenage skin, I should have teenage boobs too, right?  I'll contact my temp agency and hope she's moved mountains and if she hasn't, I'll start submitting resumes again.  I'm waiting until after my nap because job hunting is emotionally draining. After this last job, the bar was raised significantly and I don't know that I could settle as easily as I was trying to before.  Tomorrow morning I plan to walk along the LA River because it's here and it is full of amazing and just enough trash to feel like the LA I grew up in.