Coming Out Questions

Between the volunteer work at the library and the beer/book club, I am slowly but surely gathering friends.  I find myself at a cross roads of a sort.

 Do I continue to live a life in the closet, or do I crack that door open out here in the real world?

What about at "work" in the library?

When should I come out to my friends?

I have already slipped several times and referred to myself using male pronouns, used King of the World rather than Queen.  The longer I'm away from the multi connection town in Alaska, the freer/looser my tongue becomes.

I would like to stop hiding, but am needing some help/advice with this please.

Conversations, volunteer style

A few days ago, I received an email from one of the many people in charge of programs at the library.  She wanted to know if I were interested in "Table Talk", and if I were to come in and have a chat.  Now, I've heard some scuttlebutt about Table Talk but not much actual info. After walking about the rabbit warren of offices on the top floor, I finally just gave up and asked someone for "Beckie's" office.  LOL I had walked right past it!  Her name was second on the placard, and much smaller, and yeah basically I'm blind.  After a nice chat, she gave me a choice of times to go and observe an actual meeting to see if I'd be interested in facilitating my own group.  We set up a date for today, and gave me a worksheet to take notes on, that I promptly forgot to print out until moments before the class, but jotted down her questions in a notebook, so was good to go.  

Table talk is for non-native english speakers who struggle with conversational english.  The group is organized very loosely, this isnt a class to learn english in, but a way in improve speaking skills.  Today we talked about climate change, and what we as individuals can do about it.  The facilitators walk around and listen in to the conversations, and help out by correcting pronunciations, and plurals, and the like.  Asian languages dont use plurals, so for them, its a tricky thing, and then you add in the words where the word itself is altered to show multiples, tis quite tricky really if you stop to think on it, add in our english grammar quirks, and that makes it tricky for people to learn.

It was a full class today, 17, we were our own little United Nations, with people from: Mexico, Spain, India, Korea, Iran, Sudan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Egypt and the Ivory Coast!!  Some had been here quite a while, the longest was 11 years, but she was surrounded by people who spoke her native language, so her english was slow to grow, and the newest only 4 months!  She was very uncertain of herself at first, but settled right down and seemed to enjoy the class.   To get things rolling, and help break the ice a bit, we all took turns introducing ourselves, that was a very interesting part of the class for me to understand where they are in their lives.  

I'm excited now to start working with my own group!  What I find interesting is the exchange of cultures that occurred in class.  They learn about our culture while improving their english skills, and I learned about their cultures.  In my books thats a solid win/win/win!  

After my class gets going, I'll only have three days a week where I don't volunteer at the library, no shift is more than 3 hours though.  But still, I'm out and about, meeting interesting people, doing needful work, and having a great time doing it.  The cherry on the sundae is that I now have a friend to go and do stuff with. 

Whew!

Hey y'all, tis been crazy busy busy of late.  My phone's calendar went from virtually empty to stuffed full, leaving me when I finally drag thru the door exhausted and only wanting to watch tv or read.  I'm so not complaining however, its super nice to be out and about for more than shopping for food or yarn.

I volunteer at the local library several days a week, but these last 10 days have been on hyper drive as their annual book sale has been in full swing.  Increased hours is one effect, however due to the fact that I'm around 20-ish years younger than the average volunteer, I do get a lot of the grunt work of moving heavy boxes and whatnot.  Not complaining, just saying.

The beer and book club meet this week, at a much quieter location.  Noisy enough not to feel constrained, but quiet enough that we didnt have to shout to our neighbor to make ourselves heard, which is not really conductive for talking about books.  One funny thing that happened at the meeting is that the one person who lobbied hard for reading Ender's Game didnt finish the book, thought it was "spoon fed tripe".  Which most of us found weird, but out of the 20+ people in the group he is really the odd duck. This time we have picked World War Z, which has been turned into a movie, as has Ender's Game.  It was the joke of the evening that we can only read books that are going to be movies.

As the meeting started winding down, the bar began a trivia game, there were only 5 of us left and we were having fun answering the questions for the first 3 rounds.  And then we were 3, and we decided what the heck, lets play too!  Yeah, we came in at last place, but scored above some teams that had played from the get go!  The up shot is, this coming Tuesday will find me at the bar again with my two new buddies playing trivia.

There were two other groups playing trivia in the back room where we were, and one group was having a good time chatting with us.  Lots of good natured bantering back and forth, the other table was more into smack talk, but then they didnt do so well either, and as the night went on, they got more surly until they gave up and just started having fun.  The "leader" of the fun group told me if my two new buddies dont show up next week, sit with them!  Sure they want me for my trivia stuffed brain, but who knows they might become friends as well.

Still knitting like a crazed person on future daughter-in-law's sweater.  Its a fun knit, and I have the lace pattern memorized now, which makes the knitting much faster.  Two sleeves down, the back about 1/3 done.  Next up, the two front pieces and the front edging.  w00t!!!  When my brain is to tired to do lace work, I work on my much simpler sweater, no thinking involved, just plain stockinette work.

Ok, off to a doctor's appointment, catch y'all later!

snips

hey y'all, its been a while between posts, or even reading your blogs, sorry.

two weeks before xmas, i caught the arizona version of the flu from hell.  laid in bed coughing and sneezing and feverish.  missed loads of time at the library, missed going to see "the hobbit' with the movie bears, missed loads of stuff.  started to feel a bit better and then it was time to

head home to alaska for xmas.  got off the plane at -44.  it was so cold that the jetways were all frozen and we had to sit at the gate until they could find a gate that would work.  finally one of the six decided to level out so a tug came and pushed/pulled us to that gate.

it was super nice to be with TH again.  2nd son and his wife came by.  talked to youngest on the phone several different nights as he drove home from work.  and then we went over to his house for thai food and pictures of their vacation in italy.  what a wonderful night that was, but i did feel sorry for youngest, as us being there meant that he had to go with a shortened sleep cycle.  he is working 14 hour days 6 days a week, he is one tired guy.

we did "xmas" dinner at a restaurant. 2nd son and his wife didnt come up for the holiday.  but the other boys did come, including eldest who brought the grand baby.  and it was clear that he didnt really want to be there.  i have no idea why he even said he would come if he really didnt want to be there with us all.  and no, it wasnt just TH and I he didnt mesh well with, he also didnt talk much with son #3, or his aunt, TH's sister.  so idk what's up with him, and at this point in time, am getting to the point where i could care less.

flew back to az on a warm alaskan evening, 10 above at home!  w00t!  to come back to an empty house.  no TH, no one to talk to, alone again.

my battle with depression/grief is ongoing to the point where i'm thinking of going to either a therapist or an acupuncturist.  yes, acupuncture does help with grief, ive used it before, and it helped center my emotions.

thanks for listening,
biki