New Life

I was offered a new job yesterday.  AND I AM TAKING IT!  I love my current job in a lot of ways, but it’s also a very frustrating place to be for a new teacher who needs other teachers in her content area for support and yet do not have any.  It’s also implausible to stay in the current job because I literally get paid six times a year.  They’re big ol’ checks, but I’ve got bills to pay and I can’t go from July to October without getting paid.

This job is a little less money, but I will have a support system.  I’ll have training and a mentor.  It’s really a great move for me, and I loved the new school, even though I wasn’t so sure at working at a private school.  After interviewing and touring, I was in love.  And, they seemed to really like me too, which is also a plus.

So, all of the sudden I fee like I have a new life.  A wife, a homeowner, an English teacher without having to qualify exactly what I do (dual enrollment).

With this “new life” I am thinking about changing the name of the blog.  These aren’t just brushes anymore, adulthood is here rearing its simultaneously ugly and wonderful head.  But, I am terrible at titles.  The process might take a while, but the URL will stay the same.  So, keep coming back to the same Bat place, don’t be thrown if you see a new Bat title.

May 3rd-Out!

 

26

I am now officially past the quarter-of-a-century mark.  Usually, I look forward to my birthday all month long because I love birthdays, even when they are disappointing, I can always make myself a cake!  This month, with so much going on, I’ve barely given a thought to my birthday.

I think I am more excited about the internet FINALLY being installed at home today than about the steak dinner at Outback and the present R. will buy me with our wedding Target giftcards (he sees nothing wrong with this… don’t you see something wrong with this?)

Best birthday gifts of my 26 years

-keroseen lamp

-quantum leap script bought off Ebay

-necklace from R. in our first year of dating

-giant bouquet of flowers made by my Mom and dropped off to work for me by my Mom

 

Moving

I should be an old pro at moving.  During my childhood, my parents moved from place to place quite frequently.  They’ve been in one place for over 12 years now, but after 5 I trotted out towards college life–and haven’t stayed put anywhere for more than my current 13 month record.

The story of my life is intertwined with the loss, change, and adaptation of moving.  The goodbyes, the fresh starts, the cleaning, the empty space.  I doubt this is unique.  In today’s society of upward mobility the family that stays put in one place is the abnormality.  30 years in a home–let alone a job, is a thing of the past.

Still, my sincerest wish has always been to stay put in one place–one job, one home.  To grow roots so thick and deep that moving them would be torture.  And yet, I look at this new home that is solely MINE and my husbands–and I wonder if I will really want to be there for 30 years.  Perhaps my dreams of country life outweigh my dreams of stability.

It’s been busy around here.  Too busy to ponder one’s future when one’s present is so full.  Yet, my mind is beginning to wander down the path of those future years.  Is stability a reality?  Is the pioneer spirit, is Pa Ingalls, ingrained upon our genetic makeup and staying still would end the adventure?  Has my past directly decided my future?  Is moving in my blood?  Will growing roots ever satisfy?

Usually, I don’t like uncertainty.  But, in this case, this far down the road… I like the not knowing.  It is the journey, after all, not just the ending destination.  So much of my life has been spent waiting for the next thing to happen–to graduate, to get married, to have a career, and so on and so on.  I feel like I’m finally at a point where I can sit back and enjoy the here, the now.  I’m excited for the future, for a family–but I’m not rushing it, I’m not pining after it.  I’m living one day at a time–I never thought that would be fulfilling, but with my future stretched out before me–it finally feels satisfying.

 

1892

More and more, I wish I lived in 1892.  When I tell people this, they ask me–but what about computers, TV, indoor PLUMBING?  And, yes, it would be unfortunate not to have those things–but if you never had ’em, you wouldn’t miss ’em.

The appeal of 1892 is that you were in charge of your life, man.

There were not banks telling you that you need copies of CHECKS YOU’VE DEPOSITED in order to close on your house in 1 WEEK even though your bank says it will take that week to get the damn checks.  Ahem.

If there was, say, water leaking into the basement you were in the midst of building–you would fix it, because you would be the builder.  You wouldn’t sit and stew and wonder and wait for the walk through for them to talk you out of  worrying that your basement will implode the minute you sign your name to the house.  In fact, there would be no signing.  Hell, live long enough on some land and it is YOURS.

And there would be no cell phones, so your fiancee could not call you thirty times while you’re TEACHING to bitch and yell and be a general DOWNER about both situations.

Everything will work out.  We can only do what we can do.

 

Monday, April 7th

The sun is slanting through the semi-open blinds, creating patterns on wall and carpet.

Kids are rumbling by on bikes and calling to each other.

The Cardinals are on TV, Dan and Al keeping me company as I cook.

The sizzle of meat on pan.

Short sleeves, bare feet.

 

Opening Day

I love baseball.  I have loved baseball my entire life.  Despite us being in the 2000’s, this still never fails to surprise members of the opposite sex.  R. often exclaims to his friends, “She watches Baseball Tonight!” as if it’s like I’m wearing an athletic cup and calling myself Joe.  These shocked males often try to test me, as if I’m only faking it to be attractive.

Sorry, guys–it’s real.  I was practically born with a whiffle ball bat in my hand as my Dad tossed the ball.  When I was in 3rd grade I loved baseball so much and was so dellusional that I wrote a letter to the Chicago Tribue Kids section about how I planned on being a female professional baseball player (in response to some kid writing girls would never be any good at sports).  I cried when Cal Ripken Jr. retired and no, I will not trade you Joe Mauer, Dan Haren, Jacoby Ellsbury, or Ryan Theriot for Jim Thome.

My love for baseball is as deep and obsessive as my love for trivia, fruity candy, and books.  I take it personally when R. claims baseball players are not athletes.  I believe in baseball’s beauty, its complexity.  I believe in its fun and its grit.  I pine for it every winter, and every year it’s  return seems bright and promising (even when looking at the Cardinal’s lackluster roster and dope of a manager).  With baseball, anything can happen.

So, Happy Opening Day, baseball fans!  It will be a fun season (and the Cubs STILL won’t see the Series).

 

Grandma’s Things (Ceramic Cat)

My grandma hated cats, so I have no idea why she had this.  But, she did–it was in her bedroom I believe, with her paperweight collection.  Last summer my Mom came home with a box full of Grandma’s knickknacks.   Me and my sisters each got a few things.  No one wanted poor little blue kitty, so I took him home.

I keep him on the top of the stove.

 

S.O.S

So, spring break is officially 1 week away.  ONE WEEK.  I am giddy.  I need this break–I really need it.  I have much to accomplish in those beautiful, blissful days of not waking up early and not dealing with teenagers.  But, I need your help.  Besides cleaning the closet, planning lessons through April (so I can get through my wedding and moving into a house with minimal outside school-related work), and watching my soaps every day–I want to read, man.  But not just any reading.

I need a book that is going to inspire me.  I need a book that I won’t be able to put down.  I need something that will renew my faith in something anything.  A book that will make me feel active.  A book that will remind my brain that there is a good writer buried deep down in there somewhere.  A book that will refresh me from my winter dulldroms.

Books that have done this for me in the past:

Prodigal Summer, Barbara Kingsolver

Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell

Small Wonder, Barbara Kingsolver

Bird By Bird, Anne Lamott

Red Terry Tempest Williams

One Writer’s Beginnings, Eudora Welty

Persuasion, Jane Austen

I need your help.  What books inspire you?  What should I give my precious time to over break?

You know on other blogs they give away great prizes?  Yeah, all I’ve got is my eternal gratitude–that’s just as good as a $100 gift card, right?

 

I Knew It Would Come In Handy

I have a mind for trivia.  This is why I love Jeopardy.  And also, Trivial Pursuit.  And just about anything revolving around trivia.  This is also why the only person who will play me in Trivial Pursuit who is one of my best friends who is the only person I’ve played with who can *almost* beat me (it’s her knowledge of European History that gives her a leg up on the others).  Luckily, my knowledge of sports, literature, and old TV generally keeps me ahead of the game.

Besides freaking people out and/or making people mad–my trivia has never come in handy for me.  My parents are trivia-ers, but they poo-poo the good stuff like books and concentrate on the pop culture.  I dig it all.  So, despite passing on some good brain genes for useless knowledge, they haven’t helped me out in the usefulness translation either.

However, there is this thing around these parts (perhaps around the nation–though I had never heard of them until we moved here) called Trivia Night.  It is usually a fundraiser for a school or something–and you buy seats to play trivia.  Since I don’t have kids in school (or kids at all) and I’m generally not charitable, I thought this day would never come.

R. has signed us up for a trivia night with some of his coworkers.  It isn’t for a few months, but I am stoked.  (I think I am actually a little more excited about it than my wedding… I hope that’s just invite frustration talking).  It is the first thing that I see as truly “adult” that I am 100% excited about.  I mean, I am excited to get married and have a house, but with those excitement comes fear and nerves.  Trivia Night, on the other hand, I WILL DOMINATE–No fear, no nerves.  It is my one skill I am totally confident and comfortable in.  If only it were a more translatable skill.

 

It’s a little hard and a little strange

This post over at The Collective–if you haven’t already seen it–perfectly explains what I miss about my childhood.