Almost Finished

I made a lot of progress on the basement job this week. I’m hoping I can have it done by the end of next. I’ve gotten a few other calls on small jobs. I was thinking about putting an ad in the paper.

Well, I just am coming back to my computer about half an hour later. Wendy showed up and all but knocked down my door in the time it took me to get from the office to the living room. She said what happens between her and me is one thing, but I have no right to be treating Kyle this way. She was mad, too. I have never seen her like that. She says Kyle is a wreck about not hearing from me and how I asked him to leave the other day. He’s been sleeping less than usual and hardly leaving his room. He thinks he did something wrong.

Then she told me she should explain something and I got the whole story of Kyle’s dad. She told me a little a long time ago, when we were on that fake date. She basically just said things had gotten slowly less romantic between them, but there were no real problems, and it was a surprise to her when he left.

Today she told me the details. She said basically as far as she and Kyle were concerned, one day everything was fine. Good, even. The guy was the greatest dad on the books. It seemed like his whole world revolved around Kyle. Then one day he was just gone. He took the dog and his truck and vanished. A few months later Wendy received divorce papers, which gave her sole custody and a generous child support payment. She signed them. He never sent a check, and she never heard from him again. The lawyer couldn’t contact him. She has no idea where he is. They had to move out of the big house they’d bought because she couldn’t afford the mortgage on her own. As bad as it was for her, it wrecked Kyle. His dad didn’t leave him a letter, never called.

It was hard for her to tell me this and I sat there listening feeling like the biggest jerk in the world to have put her in a position where she had to. She rallied at the end and firmed up, and said she didn’t care about what happened between her and I, but I owed Kyle an explanation at the very least. She said she’s afraid another disappearing act will do him real and lasting harm.

Then she left and now I’m stuck sitting here feeling like I couldn’t have hurt these people worse if I’d tried.

Giving Advice is Harder Than You Would Think!

On Monday my new boss gave me three letters with questions written for the new advice column. He said I should pick the one I thought I could answer best. They were hard questions! I’m not allowed to post anything about what I read for work on my own blogs, but let me just tell you these were things I never would have expected people to ask. I had to have a draft in by Wednesday, which he will look over and get back to me by Monday. At the same time I get his feedback he’ll also give me more questions. Then I have to revise the first one and write another new one for next Wednesday. My first column will appear in print on Thursday.

I am sure a lot of it is just getting used to the pattern of it all, but I must say the pay no longer seems high! Oh but the other really good thing is they have decided to call the column “Turnpost Mom” and every time they print it they will include a link to my blog. So I have also been trying to post as much as possible on my other blog, so it will seem like I have been going for a while before the first column comes out. Kyle showed me how to set the date on a post so it seems older than it really is. He also helped me change the design a little so it doesn’t look so much like everyone else’s blog. Thank goodness for young minds.

I had another lesson yesterday. I think the absolute best thing about horses is they force you stop thinking about everything else!

Thinking About The Point

Things have been weird lately because yesterday I went to Annette’s like usual after school so we could work on Biology but sometimes she doesn’t want to focus very much and this time it was a million times worse than usual I couldn’t get her to do anything. So finally I got a little frustrated and said if she didn’t want to study that was ok but I needed to get some work done.

Then she got all serious suddenly and said “Honestly Lara what is the point?” I said what did she mean and she said basically she thinks there is no point in doing a good job in school because the only point of high school is to get done with it so you can meet a husband. I said that wasn’t true I like to learn things and I want to go to college. She said she does too, but only because you find better husbands at college but they won’t like you if you are stupid. Then I said what about a job and a career and she gave me this look she gives someone she thinks is missing something totally obvious. She said “It is my belief you can’t do a good job raising children if you are going to be devoted to a career.” She sounded completely like a grown up when she said it which scared me a little. She asked if I want kids and I said I didn’t know I had always thought so but only if I met the right person.

She went off on this whole thing about how her mother says the problems with so many kids now is they are being raised by people who aren’t paying attention or by one parent only, and about how people who aren’t prepared to put their family first should not have a family at all. I said what about my parents they both work and Annette got quiet and then I thought about how her house is so big and pretty and clean and mine is always messy and noisy and last week I got locked outside and what if I had actually gone home when I was supposed to and Chad hadn’t been there with his truck? It was so cold out and I wouldn’t have been able to get in and all my mom did was say she was sorry.

I said I had to go and I left and the whole way home I thought about what she said. It is not something I thought much about before I guess I always thought you could be a girl and have a job and have kids and it would be fine. But then today I had my lesson and I thought about Taylor and how she has her career and her beautiful barn and horses and she is good at it but she is alone no husband no kids. Then I thought about Kyle’s mom and their tiny house and how tired she always looks and how Kyle is sad. He doesn’t say it but you can tell. I thought about Chad who has a dad that breeds cows and a mom that doesn’t do anything but help his dad and raise kids and Chad is definitely the most perfect person I have ever met. Annette and Victoria have a mom who doesn’t work and they are both beautiful and popular and happy.

So I’ve still been doing my homework and everything but it’s like this new part of my brain is awake now and it makes it a lot harder to concentrate on lab reports and stuff.

Gauge is six months old today

I find it somewhat hard to believe. I still think of him as a puppy. In reality he doesn’t look much like a puppy anymore. He’s probably as tall as he will get. His coat is glossy and smooth instead of fluffy. He’s all leg though. He will fill out as he matures.

I think he’s a good dog. He knows sit, down, stay, heel, come (of course) and he will obey always, even when he doesn’t want to. He will heel perfectly without a leash on. In fact I usually just keep the leash in my pocket when we go out, in case I run into someone who is militant about leash laws. I wish I had something we could herd. That’s what aussies are for. I need sheep or cattle or something. I feel like the simple stuff I’ve taught him doesn’t even start to challenge his brain.

At school we were learning about how to cite sources from the internet, and our teacher showed us this website called Dogpile. It’s pretty interesting. You can search the web for all sorts of stuff. But it also includes a white pages section, so you can look up someone’s phone number if you know their name and the town they live in.

New Computers

The math department got new computers over the weekend, which means the lowly English department gets to use their old ones. I’m not complaining, though, as I now have a machine in my office with the processing power to do simple tasks like open browsers and run web applications. Which means I can now email Travis during my lunch break, and also write blog posts. Because I am one of those a-social teachers who does not eat lunch in the teacher’s lounge unless forced. It is a habit I developed subbing. There is nothing I find less enjoyable than attempting to make conversation with people I hardly know but will run into with some regularity until I either leave this job or this town. Trying to do this while simultaneously eating is even worse. And while some women do the “oh I just drink a smoothie for lunch” thing, that is not for me. Particularly since the kettlebell class. Now that I have muscles, I am ravenous approximately 80% of my waking life.