I still don't understand...

May 26, 1987

Many things have happened. I don't know what I wrote last time or when but I decided not to look back. I bought this book I think in January this year and now half way through the year I have bought another! Fancy that - my last book took me from September 1981 until December 1987 - most of Aja's life. Well it goes to show you what influence people have over the lives of others. Here's Phebe Hanson telling me to write. I resisted and the pressure was there, she never even was phased. She just was so calm. I write now because of this, because of her patience and understanding , because she is wonderful.

I have learned so much lately. I still don't understand the cause of the heaviness on my heart. I don't understand the weird dreams of killing the kids that I drew in my visual journal. The decapitated heads floating down the creek. The blown away faces on thin, small bodies, and more. I sense I must have dreamt more. I feel it right now, a heaviness on my heart. weighing me down, foreboding something. Who knows?

Driving down the highway on the way to Bayport on Saturday or was it Sunday, I thought of how if we were all to die here, not by nuclear means or anything, but if our civilization was to pass away now, gradually dwindle into nothing, and still survivors elsewhere, and our cities would become lost and overgrown. Highways would begin to crack and trees would crack them further and houses would be lost to one another by the trees and brush and it would be untouched until thousands of years from now people would rediscover this place and wonder about us. Tell stories. Write romantic books about our lives. Make assumptions such as we do about the importance of such things as peoples who lived eons and eons ago. Egyptians, Sumerians, Greeks, Mongolians, Aborigines, Mayans, everyone. It would be all wonderful to discover such a place but it is lost to us. We plunder and can not leave well enough alone. We cannot look and not plunder, to set aside some discoveries for the future inhabitants. It is so stupid that we don't even think about this sort of thing. This is another a priori of man (A priori knowledge or justification is independent of experience - I had to look it up. I am not sure what I meant when I used this term). That the idea of us looking into the future is inevitable because it has been done and we can do nothing to change this within us now.

June 3, 1987

Cris and I went to the library downtown today. I had never been there before. Cindy watched Harrison and ianthe so we could be free without children running around.

We both got a whole bunch of books. I got books on Love and addiction, Ed Gein the murderer, schizophrenia and tried to get a book on self-hypnosis but couldn't find one. That library was very larger. We went out to eat at the Lotus afterward. That was nice.

We seem to not be able to talk while eating. Weird problem. I think the television must be moved out of the kitchen to remedy the situation. We look at each other occasionally but we don't talk.

A few weeks of silence should help us learn to talk while eating again.

That's it. I'll try to move it tomorrow. I think everyone will go into shock. Oh my god! What about WKRP? Oh well, sacrifices, sacrifices!

I am a rich man

May 14, 1987

Tomorrow is the last day of classes at MCAD before next fall - YEAH! I am very happy school is over. Summer I can do anything I want - just be me. Ahhhh RELIEF! I've been thinking about what I must do. I promised myself another journal (visual) that I must do certain things: exercise, read, work. I notice the state of the house - this also must be dealt with - DREAD - and a garage sale must happen soon. I want to do it all. I want to balance it all out. I should make a list of parceling out the things I wish to do so I don't burn out on any one thing.

Also it came to mind I must write in my journals - anything - I just have to write - write often and with passion - must learn all I can about myself this summer - and the only way to do that is to write my butt off.

My classes I preregistered for today seem interesting and I am pleased at the schedule - Tuesday and Friday only so I am free to work the other days.I am taking Photo one, Video one, Science of Behavior and a Chinese Art and Culture class. Good!

Bonita Wahl said I could help her at film in the Cities. High school students in July and early August four days a week - fun stuff. I can work for Halle and possibly Norman Anderson. I have a feeling he won't call me to work though so I am not waiting for him or anything. I want to write up a serious resume and cover letter and apply for some position - possibly just a stupid job somewhere.

I want to hurt my mind with writing - writing poetry and stories and just stuff.

I want to clean my house - sparkling clean - rid it of pests - no mice, no roaches - no excess!

I want to clean my body, no chemicals, exercise it - healthy.

I want to pick my brains - to know myself - inside and out. To be surprised at myself - to assure myself of my goodness - to feel whole and well. To gain control of myself. To be empowered. To be beautiful. To be well.

Reading "Memoirs from the House of the Dead" (Dostoevsky) and I am feeling horrid. I have a common cold. One thing that stands in my mind is this..."He wanted for nothing...lived like a rich man." I like this thought. It is true, you can live like a rich man if you do not desire what you cannot attain. If you do not feel sorry for yourself - you will be alright. Herb Grika said today that jealousy is when you react to something being taken from you, but envy is want for what you do not have. There is a supreme difference between the two. Envy can spur two people to action to attain what they do not have but if envy (and jealousy for that matter) are held in check then you arrive at the state where you live indeed as a rich man.

If you want not - or want not for anything - you are like a rich man - who is satisfied with his lot in life.

This journal entry seems pretty boring. I cringe reading it, remembering that I asked every one of my teachers for job leads. I had so little experience in the world. I asked the Art History professor if he had any work for me over the summer, he told me I could come clean his house. Yikes.

I understand now, 23 years later, that I was probably annoying them. One teacher, Herb Grika, openly despised me. He was the teacher that asked me what I wanted to do in life. When I answered that I wanted to teach at a college, he laughed at me. He said, "you should teach high school students". I think he was trying to tell me that I wasn't mature enough to teach at a university. I think he was trying to hurt my feelings. I actually left MCAD at the end of the Fall semester the following year as a result. Transferred to the University of Minnesota to get an Art Teaching degree and license. 

Teaching high school is a good and a bad fit for me. I like teenagers, but they react to "authority figures" warily. I yell at them, threaten them in cute ways, I am often misunderstood. I am abrasive and frightening. I am also very loved, many kids say I am their favorite teacher. I have a soft safe place in my heart for the awkward kids, the dark-siders, the emos, the special needs kids, the poor kids, the homeless kids, the native kids. I protect them. I watch them, help them with their schedules, advocate for them.

I believe that teaching is going to destroy me. I am a train wreck, running down the rails. I am an expert in my subject area, a leader in the district, and I hate my job. I hate it. I need a quiet place to work. I am looking at master's programs. I think Library and Information Science - with a focus on Digital Archiving. That sounds quiet doesn't it?

Welcome to my blog

Recently, I lost a dear friend to brain cancer. His loss has been crushing. Antidepressants helped a bit, but I decided I needed better coping skills, so I made an appointment with a specialist to check my meds and refer me to a therapist.

The day of the appointment, I was running late - and realized I knew the suite number, but not the address, that is so like me, to know details but not the big picture. I almost went home, which is my normal response to a stressful situation, but I had waited more than a month to be seen! So I guessed what building it was, and I was correct.

The interview went okay, my stress was apparent. Halfway through the intake, she asked if anyone had ever suggested that I was an Aspie. I thought about it and remembered in 1995 a psychiatrist had described my cluster of symptoms as "Social Autism". I thought he had made the term up.

She arranged an evaluation with an Asperger's specialist. My husband questioned why I needed a "label" after my diagnosis. I told him how freeing it was to finally let go of all the guilt I have carried all my life.