As summer approaches- I wonder who will pay for my sunshine?

I always go in to writing this blog with the idea that I want to write about something profound or atleast deeper than your average stop-light-thought.

But today I came to a realization about my summertime anxiety. I will be making significantly less money this summer due to the fact that my summertime job prospects include minimum wage latte slinging and......whatever else I can dig up on craigslist.

Don't get me wrong, I've been through a long drought of being poor. So long has this drought been that I can safely say I've never been able to not worry about money. I was unemployed a few years ago which marked, hands down, the most worried I've ever had to be about how I was going to eat dinner. Regularly.

Enough of the sob stories. I have got to get RILL. Can I get by this summer making a third of what I usually make? Well, I will just have to adjust what I spend my money on. For starters, I'll have to change my diet. High in starch and Taquitos that they sell on the side of the road. What else is very cheap to eat? OH, damn it damn it DAMN IT. I am going to have to start eating FISH. I'm going to have to challenge myself to eat the only meat that is still cheap enough to survive on- you know- on the survival level. I'm going to have to catch my food this summer. Time to get creative.

....and by creative, I mean enough of a buzz to eat pretty much anything.

Well, here goes nothing. I'm going to force myself to start eating fish. I've always wondered what spawned this life-long dislike of the taste. The smell. The texture. The cosmetic appearance. Of all animals that live in the water. Maybe if I wrap trout up in bacon. I can grill that, right? Bacon's cheap- it's like fat back. They don't sell fatback in Texas though.

This post has already gone on way too long. I better go get started tricking myself into eating sea monsters.

And You Call This BLOGGING?

I've been really crazy lately. Not crazy like sneak-out-of-the-house, lie-about-your-age, and sleep-in-a-car-high-school crazy. More like come-home-from-work-and-go-fishing-while-updating-your-facebook-status-with-unnecessary-cap-locks-crazy.

I have two problems. One- I make really bold and far fetched metaphors. One could call me an "over-simplifier". I have a friend named Kevin who accuses me of oversimplifying complex situations and make light of them. When I teach my students math, and they don't know their multiplication facts by heart, I tell them that I'm teaching them how to drive, but they aren't putting any gas in their car.

"Well, Ms. T, Gas is expensive."

Too true, my destined-for-drive-thru-career student, too true. Oh, right. I have a second problem. I ramble so much that I often forget to stay on point, not to mention forget my point altogether. Altogether IS a word, btw. There is no squiggly line under it.

As I write this blog, I'd like to say that life is great and perfect, but it's not. Each day I experience it for what it is. My mother always told me that I should stay focused on the present. Garth Algar always said, "live in the now!". I mean, the signs have always been around me, but now, finally, 28 years old, I realize that there's an entire psychological destination I get to develop in to that embraces the present as my true reality. I fear that somebody really is going to read this at some point. I mean, yeah, we are on the innerwarbs. Guten Tag, Amigos. However, I am looking forward to recognizing and learning more about my new discovery of the present. Living here, now, really is a liberating concept because it allows me to let go of all of the judgements and false realities I have created in my mind for the past 28 years.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not done judging! I have yet to see my last day of hating! There are many more conclusions to be jumped to and books to be...covered? However, I feel like I'm one step ahead of the game to understand why I judge the way I do. Sure, it's tough to hold students to a standard that my community held me to in Raleigh NC. In South Texas, 5th graders aren't expected to go to NCSU and study engineering and work for a fortune 500 RTP superpower. They don't have the same standards to rise to as I did when I had to write research papers with citations in 4th grade. Is that wrong? Is that bad? No and no. Is it different? Yes. And I've recognized that awareness is one thing, but exhausting myself judging these facts is just that- exhausting. Let it go, LT. Live in the now. Go ride your bike to the beach. Cruise in the kayak to a deserted island. Hop on the Carolina Skiff and spend an afternoon catching red fish and cursing the sea monsters for stealing your bait. I can't allow myself to get caught up judging things that I can't ultimately change. I can only allow myself to construct my own "present dictionary" and fill those pages with real life, concrete events to reflect on and learn from.

Yeah. I'm not even going to live in the past by proofreading or editing this blog. I know it's too long. Sorry I wasted your "present", but that's all in the "past", so....position yourself to enjoy the future.