I'm sure there are more important things for me to be doing, but I've been promising a serious post for a long time now, and nothing beats livejournal for rank procrastination.
The past few weeks have been a lot of fun. First, a week in Palo Alto, at
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ladypimpernel's house, followed by a week in Chataqua, with
ladypimpernel's family. Both were a lot of fun, with lots of solo gaming and sleeping in and wandering around beautiful Palo Alto and beautiful Chataqua with, you guessed it,
ladypimpernel, which amounts to a whole class of enjoyment in and of itself. I also had a chance to read her the first two chapters of
A Knight of the Land, and she has since read the third chapter on her own. It seems that my worst fears have been realized; my father was right, it really is quite good, and while it needs some work, I ought to try to get it published.
The week in Palo Alto also gave me time to pursue jobs for the coming year. California is looking very likely now. I have recieved one offer for a teaching job at one synagogue and another, as yet uncomfirmed (ie. I want to have a final conversation about salary and hours and the rabbi is playing hard to get) job as a part time office worker and "informal educator" (whatever that means) at a different synagogue. Another offer as a youth group leader is pending, and I have the time and the inclination to substitute teach at several synagogues and take another part-time job at a bookstore or a coffee shop or a restaurant or something in that neighborhood.
At the moment, however, things are tense and unhappy. My mother, as she often is when my life is engulfed in some upheaval or another, is on the rampage. She wants me in New York for a variety of reasons, some stated, some not, some legitemate, some not. She thinks it's best, she thinks I can make more, she thinks I'm less vulnerable to being laid off here, she wants a greater measure of control over my life, she's suffering from empty nest angst - whatever it is, it's getting on my nerves. I really don't like this. My parents, even my much-maligned mother, can be very reasonable at times, and dealing with them is the picture of an ego struggling against dissolution. I can't dismiss them out of hand because they're not bad parents, really, just very human in some specific ways that I, with my own baggage, have a hard time dealing with. Because I can't dismiss them, my compassion, relativism, and love of discussion kick in, and I start arguing with them. I need to prove them wrong and have them acknowledge my arguments to feel vindicated, but I often get the impression they aren't playing by the same rules that I am. They were always good at letting me win from time to time when I was growing up, letting me keep the gaming books hidden in the back of the closet, letting me walk the dog for an hour with my brother so I could run him free-form games, letting me think I had gotten one over on them here and there. What happened? Why do they feel the need, all of a sudden, to really, really win?
Or possibly this one is on me. Maybe the stakes are higher, and suddenly I'm the one who wants to win, and they don't know how to deal with it.
I feel pretty adolescent posting all this. Aren't we supposed to have made peace with our parents by now? Made peace or told them to fuck off? I can't seem to do the first, and I don't want to do the second. I had damn well better be in California next year. If I'm here, I'll do what I did last summer, just swallow my self-determination and simmer. It was good for my writing - I produced a three hundred something page novel, and it's apparantly worth pursuing - but it plays hell with everything else.
Further bad news: I have decided that except in the sense that every bad experience is a learning experience, the Bay Area Mitzvah Corps was basically a bust. In an email with one of my fellow coordinators, I have discovered that in the final arithmetic - in her opinion - I basically did a bad job. I can't argue, though I wish I could. I know I shared some good times with the kids and taught them some good lessons, but as a counselor I had a hard time staying engaged and as a coordinator I had a hard time staying on target, though both improved with time. While it's possible that my coworker is being hard on me, I think she's right. I'm going to chalk this one up to experience and move on. Transferring from a counselor or office intern who takes the orders to one of the counselors and coordinators of an entire program, with one third the fate of fourteen teenagers resting squarely on my shoulders, is not easy. I'll have to get good at this, but I'm not going to beat myself up too much. I'll do better next time, but I really wish I'd done better this time.
Enough moping. It turns out that my brother picked up juggling over the winter, which is pretty great. With his help, I've picked up my first trick, adding stealing to my malnourished juggling repetoire. Also, I have a collection of jobs that will let me live in California, if I can ever get ahold of the rabbi, which is exactly what I've been looking for. Even my father admits that it's a distinct possibility that this will work out, though confronting my mother will be tough.
In the final thought of this great mess of a post, Abby and I are considering living together next year. While our readiness is dubious, it's not totally out of the question. We'll have been together a year in September, after all. We spent the two weeks before this basically living together, though we left out a lot of real-life necessities like keeping things neat. I don't know if we're ready, and Abby has been asking for advice on her livejournal, so I may as well do the same on mine. Advice welcome.
So, in short, I am in a frustrating and disappointing limbo where every success is hard-bought, and most of them turn out to be failures whithin a day or two, regaurdless of how much I paid for them. I can't seem to please any of the people I love and want to be proud of me. I suppose this is life. I'll work on it.
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