Thursday, March 19, 2009

Random Shit

I have no idea how to gather all my thoughts into some sort of themed post. I just need to express some things.

I started today off with tired bloodshot eyes, weary and tired of teaching and bush alaska, day dreaming and procrastinating for summer, not wanting to be in school at all, short timers syndrome, senioritis, apathy, spring fever and a case of the F**k its all wrapped up into one.

I started by waking up to sad Modest Mouse "Iiiiiiiiii'm not, the Dark Center of the Universe like you thought," then went into a deep Paul Simon (self titled 1972 remastered) self introspection periods 1-4 "Holes in my confidence, holes in the knees of my jeans..."

Lunch gave me incredible hope and happiness though, I got to talk to my brother on skype and due to some amazing help from Corinna with Greek travel options we actually got some things figured out.
We had so much to talk about and so little time to talk about it that we ran an agenda with items and everything (just like Bret Jemaine and Murray on Flight of the Conchords). I want to break that down item by item so you can see how much we talked about in like 35 minutes.
Hal? Present.
Kale? Present.
Blog Readers? psst. Thats you! Present

Item 1: Europe planning: Hal will get a much needed relaxing of responsibilities and start devoting more time to trip planning starting soon. Good leads on Greek islands have given the trip new shape and realistic features. But we are still not even 25% planned.

Item 2: High Sierra Music Festival has thrown complications into 4th of July at Mom and Dad's plans: John Butler, Tea Leaf Green, Umphrey's McGee, ALO and Disco Biscuits make for an impossibly amazing line up of our favorite bands that we simply can't miss (we loved High Sierra Too in 2007). It is two weeks after we get back from Europe with no jobs or place to live so that would make it also very irresponsible to to go. But...we both want to. We set a two week thinking period and reassessment meeting for April 1st.

Item 3: String Summit Confirmation (thanks for saving the Tickets mom). We are ticketed, scheduled and passed inspection ready for fun with Randy, Sydney and possibly Suzye for this amazing festival. Its a lock. Still need to work on my friend Jeff in sanfran to come up.

Item 4: Discussed the Pro's and Con's of 10,000 Lakes Festival in Minnesota the very next weekend. Pros include a good line up of bands, a new experience of a festival and fun road trip. Cons include expensive gas, lots of drive time, and slammed right between other festivals. We put a two week reassessment period on this to allow for contact with Matt.

Item 5: FLOWMO VS. PHISH: If Flowmotion keeps Summer Meltdown on the same weekend as Phish at the gorge my brother and I will be attending Meltdown. It is the right thing to do. Support your local musicians please.

Item 5.5:
We also discussed preliminary Camp Conco ideas (and hoping Meltdown didn't get moved to this weekend). No news yet on Meltdown reactions to Phish summer tour announcement. Camp Conco a go go. Get yer root down!

Item 6:
With the AMAZING news of Mason and Reese coming up for Dave Matthews Band I informed Hal that there would be some great friends there to hang with. FACTOR AND REESE WE CAN'T WAIT!!!

Item 7: Yes I am in love!

We then had to split. Lots of important things were discussed. lots to talk about and plan in the best summer of my life. We got a lot done using this "Item Method" plus it was funny and exciting.

Then...

Enter stressful rock and mineral identification laboratory activity with majorly ADHD post lunch High School Earth Science class to realign my grumplestiltskin attitude and desire for leaving this place for the warm sunshine of my home.


But Then the latter part of the day was filled with parent teacher conferences.The conferences were wrought with scheduling nightmares, parents gone, students gone, 15 minute increments from hell trying to fit in all the extremely important things into the group of people that need to meet about it. Luckily I used all the Self Determination stuff and each student presented a thoughtful, professional, informative powerpoint presentation on their progress this year and projections of the future. I realized how far some of them have come since I first met them. The presentations were very good compared to others from earlier in the year and I could tell parents and the principal were very impressed. Plus some things got out in the open that needed to be addressed.

Enter emotional regret/melancholy for leaving my little soldiers next year. They have so much life shit to deal with, a boring village, little opportunities, apathy, parent problems (or lack of parent problems), I feel like some of them have really come a long way in a year and a half. I don't want to leave them. They are the best thing about this place. Its the 6 hours of sheer isolation each night eating horrible expensive food alone and missing out on the lives of everything I know and love that outweighs it.

Brother, Parents, Grandparents, my friends, my baby, my students, my co workers, my legacy, my memories, my future, my life. Its all fucking swimming around constantly and it keeps me up at night. I'm so stressed out (and nearly out of T-Flu). I hate not know what the hell is going to happen. I hate not knowing where I'm gonna live, what I'm gonna do. I'm nervous because my life is such a routine up here, a solitary, lonely routine, will I be able to adjust to the life of my alter ego?

Then I remember...thats just Responsible Kale dominating the thought process. And responsible Kale is booooooooring and a total prude and worry wart. I keep forgetting about my alter ego and how he is. Up here Responsible Kale is always on, even at 11:00 at night I get a knock on the door from a student. I never let Free Kale out...ever. He's addictive and tenacious and he has a killer tan and cool sunglasses. He just waits inside of me...grinning, neon green shorts, funky hat, no shirt wearing mother shut yo mouth plotting and planning and getting all the necessities ready for his grand entrance. Free Kale is a scheming little asshole hell bent on one thing, loving life and infecting his friends and family with the love.

He's whispering in Responsible Kale's ear always "Take care of your shit buddy, cuz when I come around it better all be done, I don't got time for all this nonsense, you get to go around doing your teacher/career thing all year and I get to sneak out fo 3 months, that shit is unfair man, you better figure it all soon out cuz I wanna go fishin pardner!"

"Shut up already then, quit distracting me, don't you know how much pressure I'm under? There is tons of crap I have to do so just hold yer horses and I'll get it done ok?" Responsible Kale replies frustrated.

I've painted a menacing picture of Free Kale. Thats not the point. Its just that Responsible Kale and Free Kale don't get equal time. Responsible Kale spends all year long working his ass off to free up time for Free Kale to get 3 pure months of bliss. Free Kale gets his kicks where he can sneak in, trips to Anchorage, Christmas breaks and what not. And Responsible Kale gets his kicks out of being successful in overcoming goals and pursuing responsible interests. But why does he have to be in control so much? It is exhausting! Its not to say that Free Kale is amoral or evil, he's just undeniably, uncompromisingly himself and lives in the moment.

Ah, two peas in a pod those two though, they make the Kale world go down. Free Kale could never get a master's degree and Responsible Kale could never take a vacation.

In non-schizophrenic news both of my personalities are hungry so I'm gonna go home. I know that this post might not have quenched the thirst I have to share with you so here is a poem, off the top of my head, right now, ready?

Who thinks these things?
Clutter and insanity.
Packaged boxes ,
Passing faces,
We come and go
We come and go.

Who lives this life?
Loving and losing.
Slow Lies,
and new butterflies.
We hold on to let go.
We hold on to let go.

Who knows what is what?
electronic demons,
wires and words,
and fifths and burns,
Its just so typical.
Its just so typical.

Who wins it all?
Hearts or brains,
living the moment,
and trying to own it,
Always impossible.
Always impossible.

3 comments:

Randall H. Sloot said...

an age old question that one. we spend our whole lives in a tug-of-war between the two and finally we just break. wow, didn't mean to be so morbid. oh well.

much love,
Randall

Anonymous said...

living the moment,
and trying to own it,
Always impossible.

...So true!

Anonymous said...

Hey,
we are so so so down with the Camp Conco....from fishing to gold panning....we are getting our groove on...Dang, we may need to make Camp Conco shirts before we head out!!!! :o)
Hugs and kisses to you, from US!!!
C,J,A and M Wicks


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