#WeekendCoffeeShare: Mostly Human edition

On October 10, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Stories8 Comments

If we were having coffee, I’d clue you in to a monumental development: last night I felt normal for the first time in two weeks. That is not a minor thing. This week I was reminded rather emphatically that my blood pressure medication includes a water pill, which I had completely forgotten about, and that it is sometimes possible to become rather badly dehydrated despite drinking water all the goddamn time. The reminder was rather unpleasant. My doctor used the phrase “perfect storm” to describe the wicked bout of dizziness and exhaustion that closed out my week, and it turns out that I need to start slamming a bottle of Gatorade as my first act of the morning until I run out of the current bottle of blood pressure medication, at which point they’ll yank the water pill part of the prescription. Also, the Lexapro has been cut in half.

I’m out of sick days for the 2015-16 school year, by the way. In October. That’s… kind of a problem, but there are ways to get some of them back that I’m looking into. Hopefully I won’t follow up two weeks of struggling with medication and anxiety issues with actually getting physically sick. But hey! I feel human. Let’s focus on the positive, hmm?

I’m also kind of sick of talking about medication, so let’s hope this is the last time for a while.

This would be the point where I’d realize that drinking coffee is probably not the greatest idea, as coffee is a dessicant. Waiter! More Gatorade!

Book news: Searching for Malumba is out in just a few weeks, so I really ought to finish the damn thing. As you might imagine, the last few weeks have not been good for any sort of creative work, and while the book mostly requires some fiddling around the edges– it’s 98% releasable in its current form without another touch– I need to actually do that fiddling. I’m hoping to be working on the print cover by tomorrow, which will mean the manuscript itself is ready by tonight. Early commentary has been good, so if you enjoy my commentary on teaching around here, you may wish to pre-order.

There’s no #SilerSaturday this weekend, by the way, as I currently lack the time and energy to be a salesman all day. However, my buddy James Wylder’s birthday is this weekend, and he’s put all his stuff up for free, so go download his books instead.

How’re you?

On where I’ve been

On September 30, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Teaching25 Comments

648_pd2159608_1 True, if ridiculous, fact: other than my wife, no member of my actual family is aware of what I’m about to tell all of you right now. They will be by the time I hit Publish, or at least my parents will be, but I’ve been putting off writing this post for days because I needed to talk to my mom and dad about it before they find it on the blog and, mysteriously, telling 20,000 strangers on the Internet about my medical issues is easier than talking to my parents.

Last Tuesday I had a panic attack at work. How I managed to keep it from the kids, I have no idea, but I managed to keep my shit together just enough to call the office and tell them that they needed to put someone in my classroom for the rest of the day right the hell now or who the hell knows what was going to happen. Wednesday was not a whole hell of a lot better and midway through my morning classes I excused myself for a couple of minutes to call my doctor and make an emergency appointment. They got me in Friday afternoon.

The doc immediately diagnosed me with what she called “major depression” and insisted I take the next two weeks off of work. As that would burn through all my sick days for the rest of the year and the thought of writing two weeks of lesson plans was worse than the thought of going to work, I talked her down to a week. I haven’t been back to school since last Friday. She’s also referred me to a shrink and gave me a prescription for Lexapro, which is an antidepressant.

I met with the doc– I need to double-check his credentials to find out who I was actually meeting with, come to think of it– yesterday, and he’s modified the diagnosis to generalized anxiety disorder. I don’t think either of the two diagnoses quite hit the spot, although the depression is probably closer; my anxiety is very specific and focused. I’m anxious about my job, and that’s basically it. It’s just that teaching is, y’know, kinda a big part of my life. But at any rate I’ll be seeing him every two weeks or so through Christmas; I gently declined to make any appointments any further out than that.

Thus far– granted, three days, so I know nothing– I do not like being on Lexapro very much. I haven’t slept in past 11 barring massive illness since my son was born. Two of the last three days I couldn’t drag my ass out of bed before one, and while I managed to get out of bed at about 10:45 on Tuesday I didn’t actually do anything with my day until then. You may have noted that blog posts have been sparse and I’ve barely been on Twitter for the last couple of days. I can assure you that that is not because I’ve been being highly productive doing other things.

In other words, I’m acting more like a person with depression now that I’m on a drug to treat depression than I was before I started taking the drug. That seems… backward, somewhat, but I’ll give it a couple of weeks to take effect like I’m supposed to before I start squawking at my doctor about it.

I dunno. Nothing changes, mind you; I’m still looking for another job, and I’m convinced that once I find one all of my other issues will drop away. I understand that antidepressants aren’t something you’re supposed to quit cold turkey, but as soon as I’m out of the classroom I’m going to insist on coming off of the Lexapro. Hell, if the constant sleepiness and general ennui and lack of motivation don’t go away with a quickness I’m going to insist on coming off of it anyway, because the treatment at the moment is worse than the disease.

One thing at a time, though, I suppose. Just like everything else.

Oh for fuck’s sake

On September 21, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Uncategorized3 Comments

I’m actually thinking about applying.

In which this is exactly what I didn’t want

On September 21, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Teaching11 Comments

job-hunt Spent the whole day behind the 8-ball, because on my one day off this weekend I went to the zoo with my wife and my son instead of spending all of it planning for this upcoming week of classes. We had a stellar time at the zoo, too, probably the best visit to that particular zoo that I’ve ever had. And now I’m sitting on the couch coughing up a quick blog post rather than researching methods of teaching measurement and conversion between units (because we have an entire four-week unit coming that I have no material for, which is going to be awful,) which is what I probably ought to be doing, and also instead of hanging out with the aforementioned wife and son, which is what I want to be doing.

I have absolutely got to find a new job. I don’t want to teach anymore; I don’t want any of this– not the lesson planning, not the grading, none of it. I haven’t called a single parent this year, because fuck it. I can only think of two or three occasions during my entire career where it made any damn difference and it’s not going to this time either. I need to sit down and seriously crunch some numbers and figure out just how much of a salary cut I can handle and still stay solvent, because I can’t do this anymore. I need a goddamn job that I can leave at work and not bring extra shit home to do every single day. Enough of this crap.

In which life laughs in my face

On August 13, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Teaching7 Comments

I have been saying all week that as soon as I spent money or took time setting up my new classroom (especially if I did something like, say, unloading an SUV full of supplies, that would be a pain in the ass to reverse) I would get a phone call from the office informing me that oh, wait, we’re going to need you to be the guidance counselor after all.

I should back up a bit.

It’s only just hit me that I don’t think I’ve talked about this– I’ve been campaigning fairly hard for the guidance counselor position in my building, because it keeps me out of the classroom and lets me do a lot of stuff that I’m good at while simultaneously removing the discipline crap that was my least favorite part of my job last year.

Long story short: I didn’t get it, and I’m not going to get into why, because it involves a lot of complaining about very specific people and no small amount of insinuations of bad faith from individuals I do not work with. I didn’t get it. Good enough. But we still don’t have a guidance counselor– a kind of important job right now, since guidance counselors make the schedules and school starts next Tuesday.

So yeah. I’ve been fairly convinced that I was gonna get a call once I did something irrevocable. I walked past the office on my way out of the building today and waved at my principal, who beckoned me into the office, which was otherwise empty and dark.

Where I discovered that, no, I’m not going to be the guidance counselor (still), but I do get to have a substantial portion of the guidance counselor’s job dumped into my lap tomorrow, and I get to do it anyway.

At last count, I’m packing three different jobs into my current position: I’m going to be teaching, I’m still wrapping up a huge amount of stuff from last year, which won’t be completely off my plate until September 30 and which became a much huger pain in the ass yesterday for reasons that, again, I apologize, but I can’t get into, and now I get to do scheduling.

Go ahead: ask how well I know the scheduling software. I dare you.

At least that’s decided

On August 12, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Teaching6 Comments

I’m teaching next year. Full stop, I’m done thinking and/or worrying about it. I’m back in the classroom, and it will be absogoddamnlutely my last year working in schools, because I’m resigning at the end of the year whether I have a job lined up or not.

I have, what, six days to get my head on straight and my classroom ready.

Fuck it. Let’s do this.

shut up shut up shuddup SHUT UP

On August 5, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn TeachingLeave a comment

kindergarten-cop-movie-clip-screenshot-shut-up_large Actually, first things first: I owe Katherine Lampe a review for her book The Unquiet Grave and haven’t written it yet because lazy; in the meanwhile if you need something to read and have already read all of my books I strongly recommend you go pick it up. I will be out of town all weekend at a baby shower/family reunion thing, so I’ll have to get a bunch of posts pre-written; that will probably be one of them.

Anyway.

I have found that I’m in exactly the same position that I was in at this time last fall, that being that I don’t actually know what my job is going to be in two weeks and so I can’t plan for anything yet. I’m still at school every day, mind you, doing various things that are not getting a classroom ready, because if I’m not teaching I’m not expending effort on the complicated process of getting a room set up.

I screwed up today, though. I looked in the computer to see if my classes were set up yet, assuming I’m actually teaching. And they are. And I spent most of the afternoon learning about the kids I have coming. And also taking the several boxes of math manipulatives and other teaching supplies that I unpacked yesterday and moving them into “my” classroom. Assuming I’m teaching.

Goddammit.

I know better than this. These girls all look smart and adorable, because the photos attached to their records are their fourth-grade pictures, and they’re all dolled out in their best clothes and are smiling and this happens every year, where I look at a bunch of pictures of kids and spend my time pleasantly thinking about potential and hoping and forgetting about all the bullshit. And it’s the bullshit that’s gonna kill me.

(I should be clear. Have I said this yet? If I’m teaching next year, by which I mean in thirteen days, I will only be teaching girls. I’m not just looking at the girls in my upcoming classes. That would be kinda creepy.)

Some of these kids are going to turn out to be assholes. A lot of them will turn out to be immense drama queens. Some of them, through no fault of their own, will be immense pains in my ass that I will do my damnedest to work with. Some will struggle and some will coast and some will not care no matter what I do. And some of them will be awesome.

Some of them will be all these things depending on the day of the week.

Or, y’know, maybe I won’t be a teacher next year at all, and I won’t have to worry about it. Supposedly I find out tomorrow. I know myself, and I know how the last several years have gone; the world is better off (my family is certainly better off) with me not in a classroom.

But I admit it. Right now, I miss it.

Aaight

On June 28, 2015June 28, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Writing1 Comment

(I said this on Twitter, but I should say it on WP too: loving the rainbow banner, guys. Meanwhile, not quite done having fun with this.)

Anyway. Trying to use today to clean up a lot of little writing tasks that have been piling up lately; so far I’ve written up a fairly lengthy interview (details later) and done some promotional stuff for Skylights. I need to go into work on Monday for about an hour and then my grant is put to bed and I actually get to start my summer break, which will be spent working on Starlight and Searching for Malumba and also job-hunting. So July’s full already, especially when you factor in that I’ll be spending the entire 4th of July weekend in Indianapolis at InConJunction. Book signings! Free bookmarks! Woo!

(Are you in Indianapolis, or nearby? The con’s cheap, and it looks like a lot of fun. Come see me! Creator’s Alley, booth C9! Please? I’ll be so goddamn lonely.)

Speaking of putting grants to bed, I have two days to write my final report for the teacher grant that paid for last summer’s writing adventure. It won’t be much different from my mid-year report, since I’m not actually teaching and therefore can’t report on how the grant affected my teaching. Once that’s done, I start planning for the books. My first priority on Monday is to get at least a thousand words done on Starlight; my second priority is to get another thousand words done on a BA story for Lightspeed Magazine’s open submissions period.

And play a lot of Bloodborne.

So that’s me, today. What’s your Sunday looking like?