Saturday night made me feel a lot better. I went over the list with Forest, and told him I was definitely not going along to Chicago. He instantly made me feel better by trying to understand what was going on in my head, and by spending some time snuggling me, and telling me how much he'd miss me. He actually had a hard time leaving, and instructed me to be careful to keep the doors locked, and to call him if I needed anything, and reminded me I could call his sister if I got lonely. He made me feel really special and loved. It was nice.
For my part, I was proud that I had a plan, so I didn't fall apart when he left. Matter of fact, I didn't fall apart at all! I had decided not to blow town, because it would cost so much money, and I wanted to save for a trip Forest and I are taking together next month. While he was gone I did an hour of Yoga every day, and two hours of Tae Kwon Do, minimum. It felt good to be so active, and productive, besides. I memorized two new forms this weekend, and started learning a third, bringing my overall total to 7 Tae Guk forms, and 4 Palgwe. I'll test on the Tae Guks in a couple of weeks, see how far I get with the Palgwes in the second half of the semester, and might be a brown belt by August. I was really only shooting for blue. Besides, I found that my dumb toes didn't hurt much anymore, so I kicked things all weekend by way of celebration, even while I was reciting Shakespeare.
Out, Dog! Out, Cur! *blam*
Thou drivest me past *thud* the bounds of maiden's patience! *ka-slam, POW!*
Hast thou slain him, then? *bap, bap, booooom*
Henceforth, *ker-pow* never be numbered among men. *pant, pant, pant*
In preparation for the weekend, I bought a book of Shakespearean monologues for women, and picked out a tragic one to do for my audition next month. I need two contrasting ones, and was thinking of doing one really angry one, and one semi-insane/tragic one. I'm going for the role of Kate in Taming of the Shrew , and I know there will be some harsh competition, so I started working on it this weekend. I also read "Shrew" again, to refresh my memory of it. Unfortunately, it's just as bad as I thought. There are only two female roles, and one of them has practically no substance. It's going to be an ugly audition.
When I finished reading "Shrew", I started reading I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings again, since that's the subject of a discussion group Shelly is leading. I had forgotten how evocative the language in that book was. I think the last time I read it was high school, when it was required, and I didn't know enough about the world to really care about the characters. It's odd that a few years of growing, and living my own life would allow me to better sympathize with the plight of a small black girl in segregated Arkansas, but somehow it's true. Maybe I didn't really know what alienation was in high school. Or maybe I didn't know about being poor. Either way, I guess I grew up in a pretty sheltered environment. It gave me a lot to think about while I did laundry.
Piles and piles of laundry. I washed things I didn't even know we had, and there are still a few more loads to do. I washed Forest's Tae Kwon Do uniform and packed up his stuff for class, feeling good for being able to do something really nice for him. I knew he didn't remember to do it before he left, and would be kicking himself. (It would be fun to watch, but it was more rewarding to prevent.) On my way up and down the stairs with loads of laundry, I noticed that our bedroom was getting cleaner and cleaner, so I scrubbed it inside and out, cleaned the closet, and organized the drawers. That naturally led to cleaning the bathroom, which spilled out into the dining room, and eventually the whole house was clean.
When it was time to eat, I pulled out movies with really good female acting in them, and studied the actresses' performances. I watched Jodie Foster in Nell, Robin Wright Penn in Forrest Gump, and Gwyneth Paltrow (much though I despise her) in Shakespeare in Love. I wasn't really trying to learn anything, I was more looking for inspiration, and am glad to say I was inspired, indeed. Best of all, I didn't forget to eat, and didn't get depressed because I was eating alone. I usually don't take very good care of myself when left alone, so I was proud that I had come up with a way to remember to eat.
When I thought about Forest, or missed him, I tried to be glad about missing him. It means I love him, right? He called late on Sunday night to tell me how much he missed me, and to tell me that we both should have known better than to think it would be a good idea for him to leave me behind. Apparently he felt he spent the whole time thinking of me. Frankly, depite my best efforts to be mentally swamped with Shakespeare and Poomses, I thought of him endlessly, too. Next time, we're going to try to make plans as a team, I think, and prevent the silly distraction that being apart for no good reason produces.
Speaking of being apart for no good reason, on Sunday when I went to Jeff's to pick Kirstin up, I ran into all sorts of people from my past life. Richard was there, basically hanging out, and seemed honestly glad to see me. We chatted while Kirstin was getting herself changed and packed, and I was relieved to see that Richard didn't seem to be uncomfortable. He and I were never really close friends to begin with; he was someone I enjoyed acting with a great deal, and we hung out together in the group. From the conversation, I was encouraged to go for "Kate", and got to bounce some ideas off him on audition material. Richard always makes me feel good about acting.
As I was about to leave, Jack and Emma Dowd came by to pick up Emma's script for Faustus. They greeted me with big hugs, and smiles, and chatted for a while with Kirstin and I about this and that. Overall, it made me feel really good, and made me wish I had made the time in my schedule to go out and audition for Jack. He's doing "To Gillian" again, and had asked me to audition for "Kevin", which is a role I played for him at BCTG a while ago. I couldn't do it, because of Kirstin and her school troubles, and because I committed to bell choir and Tae Kwon Do, which means two nights a week I'd have been late getting to rehearsal. Who knows, maybe going to theatre every night was good for Kirstin academically. Maybe being sleep-deprived helped her focus last year? I don't know. It's an interesting thought, but I promised Bill I'd keep my attention focused on her for the rest of the school year, and I'm not going to back out of that now.
I talked to Bill for an hour or so about Kirstin, and school, and all that. He is still extremely against drugs. He feels that when he was a kid, he was a daydreamer, and that it represents the creative artistic side of her, and we wouldn't want to get rid of that. He thinks she will outgrow it, with effort. She really has been working hard, and bringing home better grades. She's no longer behind at all in math, and seems to bring home less and less schoolwork. However, every week her progress report still says she doesn't pay attention, she doesn't complete work on time, and doesn't follow directions.
What the hell? How can she be doing all these things, and still be bringing home more and more A's and B's? To top it off, I'm getting pissed off because several times in the past month, Kirstin comes home all upset, with a math paper graded D+, when she doesn't know what she did wrong. I read over the paper, and as far as I can tell, problems were marked down that shouldn't have been. Last time I checked, 5 X 5 was 25. There's no doubt of that. When I talked to her teacher, I discovered that the "smarter" kids were helping out by grading the other kids' papers. Apparently those kids didn't grade the papers accurately. She was happy to fix the grade, to an A-.
This really irritates me, because it shows that:
A. Kirstin's teacher is telling her that these kids are the smart kids, and she's not.
B. There are thirty kids in Kirstin's class, and two full time teachers, but they still aren't taking time to correct the kids' papers themselves, or at least check the results.
C. Kirstin's hard work in school isn't being noticed by her teachers, either because they don't see the improvement for some reason, or because they have already labelled her a problem, and aren't willing to allow for slow but steady improvement.
When I go in to talk to Kirstin's teacher about this, I always get the same sort of closed-minded response. I think Kirstin's teacher is a good teacher, but she's brainwashed like the rest of them... apparently if a kid isn't learning from her, the kid must be somehow defective, or it's the parent's fault. Well, I've got news for her. Kirstin's growing self-esteem problem has NOTHING to do with her parents. I'd say it has a lot to do with working her ass off, and not seeing any results from all that work. Kirstin thinks she's a bad kid, and that her teachers don't like her. She thinks she's not as good as the other kids.
It's heartbreaking.
And I really think it's because her teachers are so involved in comparing her to the other kids that they lose sight of her as an individual.
Bill wants to send her to private school next year. He's afraid she's been labelled a "bad student", and that her fourth grade teacher will hear all of this coming from Mrs. J-A, and immediately begin treating Kirstin like a bad student next year. He thinks she should be given a chance to start with a clean slate.
I'm against it. I think we've already shaken Kirstin's life up enough, we certainly don't need to do it again next year. She just got used to the school she's in, and hasn't even decided what she thinks of it yet. She's started to make friends, and started to know her way around. These things are important, and I don't want to take them away from her again. I'm hoping we could perhaps talk to her 4th grade teacher, and try to point out the self-esteem problems, and maybe some encouragement at the beginning of the year would be all it takes.
Forest came home Monday night, and all my cares flew out the window. My first impression was his eyes. I had gotten used to them, I guess, but now they struck me; I had forgotten how startlingly beautiful they can be. He was so happy to see me that he wasn't tired from his long drive. We hugged and kissed, and ate PB&J and brownies together, and told each other how we'd missed each other. We snuggled together, and for a good hour didn't think of anything other than how good it felt to be together again. I was so happy I was skipping around the house.
To top off the happiness, Master Kim is feeling better, and will be making appearances at class this week. We'll both be really glad to see him, and it only made us more cheerful. I went to bell choir on cloud nine, and he went to teach class in good spirits, although he wanted a nice nap quite badly. I went to pick him up after choir, and got to spend an hour working on forms with him and Elizabeth, and he was friendly and flirty, even on the mat! (We're usually very formal and distant in class, since it's not appropriate otherwise.)
It's amazing how complete I feel when he is around. I know I shouldn't be dependent on another human being for my happiness. In fact, I don't think I really am. I wasn't unhappy while he was gone, so much as I felt half-missing. It wasn't painful, like I feared it would be, only disconcerting. It's like suddenly losing one of my senses... suddenly going deaf. I was okay, but the world was sort of like a strange, silent dream. It reminded me of Saving Private Ryan, when Tom Hanks' character would freeze up in the midde of battle, and all the sounds would get muffled and distant. The brain just stops processing for a while, so it can catch up again. Except for the movie character, this only took a matter of seconds, for me it was two days. Then, when Forest returned, and everything was okay, I could hear again.
That's the best I can do to describe it at the moment.
I'm incredibly relieved to say that he's once again proven to me that I'm just plain silly to get so carried away, and terrified that our relationship will turn into what I had with Jeff. He isn't Jeff, it's just plain not possible. Yes, I think we will have problems of some sort, but I can't keep expecting things to turn out just the same way they did the last time, because they can't, and they won't. I've got to have a little faith.
It's amazing and wonderful how much courage it takes to be to really be close to someone for a long period of time. Here's hoping!
