As I once used to do years ago, here are Five Questions on Friday whose answers may or may not be of any interest to you.

In Labor

1. Labor Day weekend traditionally marks the end of summer. What will you miss most about summer?

Not having to work. And naps.

2. What are you most looking forward to this fall?

Fridays at the Pineapple Hill Saloon and Grill. And school related trips because I get paid extra for them.

3. What are your plans for Labor Day weekend?

Pineapple Hill on Friday. Party on Saturday. Party on Sunday. Prepping for school on Monday. Nothing too exciting, but there is beer involved.

4. Labor Unions were the driving force behind the creation of Labor Day. How else have they impacted your life?

Really? Is this seriously a question? I feel like I am in highschool history class again. To be perfectly honest, my school has a union, but I don't want to un-ass the $42 a month to join.

5. Natural labor or fully medicated labor?

Fully medicated, of course. Does anyone go through natural childbirth anymore?

It's Friday. Even though school is not in session I have been here everyday this week doing random stuff around campus. My classroom changed, and it seems as though my new classroom is where all math materials go to die. I have been boxing, and throwing out, and pawning off anything that I possibly can to make room for the stuff that is actually important to me and for me.

But enough about work. It's as boring to do as it is to read about, so I will spare you all.

Recap of my life:

August 7-10: Went to cheerleading camp in Santa Barbara. Had to charge one student's fee and the rental vehicle to my own credit card. I still haven't seen the money.

August 11: Ran my friend's truck into the back of an Audi in Beverly Hills. Awesome.

August 12: Flew to Boulder.

August 13: Begin 2 day drive from Boulder to Los Angeles in a U-Haul. I drove the U-Haul and followed Joel. It was peaceful. I listened to a lot of a.m. radio shows about horses.

August 14 - 25: Spent the last ten days organizing things around the house, trying to catch my last few naps for a while, and moving books and boxes in my classroom. I also had to go and buy "fat pants" for work. If there is anything that I hate more than getting fat, it's not being able to breathe in my pants.

Tonight a few of us (number unknown) are meeting for pre-school-year drinks at the neighborhood bar where we will meet every Friday of the school year. It should be fun. Anyway, it has to be more fun than cleaning mouse droppings out of my desk drawer.

Sheribomb out.

My life is in a weird place right now.

On Sunday I found myself at a film shoot for a porn mocumentary as a cheer coach. No, I was not in the movie, I was simply called to the set to advise the actors on cheerleading. But seriously, how the hell did that happen?

Then in the evening I went to Fiesta Cantina to take advantage of their killer happy hour and found myself sitting by two of the five "queer eye" guys. God bless my gay boyfriends for sucking me into their world. It's so much fun.

Now, I am winding down my days in LA with a bit of denial and a lot of sadness. My gay neighbors are getting ready to move to Florida, and thus when I get back from Texas, they will no longer be here. They will be embarking on their next life adventures, while my life goes from fun to amazingly busy and confusing.

I start school in a little over a month, and I have yet to prep for anything. I have to move out of my apartment because it is too small for Joel and I, and the landlord is raising the rent on the gays' place to an unimaginable $1695 a month.

I don't want to move again. I hate moving.

So, in 24 hours I will be on a plane to Texas, plotting out the timeline of my next life adventure. Where am I going? Who is going with me? And what the fuck happened to Marie? I think she might be dead...

* * *

To the gay neighbors: I thank you for your kindness and friendship. I thank you for all of the free meals you cooked for me, and for taking better care of my fish than I ever took of your cat. I thank you for supporting me in all of my craziness, and I thank you for all of the pre-party shots you made me take. I thank you for spin-the-bottle, and smoking on the stoop, and introducing me to Martin. I thank you for all the good times at the Abbey and at Fiesta. I thank you for the work-out challenge, and the mutual quitting of the work-out challenge. I thank you for your advice, and your wisdom, and always carting me around on Saturday nights. I thank Jon for being the world's more irritating drunk - a quality that he knew and wholeheartedly embraced. I thank Robert for always being the "guy", and always taking pictures of things that should never be recorded. I thank them both for their amazing dynamic, and their amazing spirit.

There can be no other neighbors like the gay neighbors, and for the memories I am forever grateful.

Good luck Robert and Jon. May Florida be all that you dream. And don't let the hurricanes get you down. Just remember, if you get in a bind, you can always drink your pee for survival. Or each others' pee. Whatever you're into.

Peace out.

For the last few months, everyone in my life here in LA has been going through the same crisis. We all ask ourselves "Who am I?", "What am I looking for?", "Am I happy in my life as it is now?" and "Is there something else out there for me?"

And one by one, we have each been waiting for our 'moment of clarity,' the moment when we finally find the answers to each of these questions and decide how to move forward, or how to embrace where we are.

For my friend Melanie, her moment of clarity came when she decided that she needed to divorce her husband whether or not that meant that her son would grow up in a 'broken home'. For Marie, her moment of clarity has been slow, but she is learning to become her own woman, independent of her relationship of 6 years.

As for me, I found clarity in the final season of Queer as Folk.

To commemorate this newfound enlightenment, I spent $100 on all but one of the Queer as Folk soundtracks.

And now, I sit and listen to them one by one, knowing that whatever is meant to be will be, and that I have many years to figure many things out. But for today, and for tomorrow, I concentrate on myself, and making myself happy, and finding out exactly what it means to do just that.

* * *


I look into the window of my mind
Reflections of the fears I know I've left behind
I step out of the ordinary
I can feel my soul ascending
I am on my way
Can't stop me now
And you can do the same

What have you done today to make you feel proud?
It's never too late to try
What have you done today to make you feel proud?
You could be so many people
If you make that break for freedom
What have you done today to make you feel proud?

Still so many answers I don't know
Realize that to question is how we grow
So I step out of the ordinary
I can feel my soul ascending
I am on my way
Can't stop me now
And you can do the same

What have you done today to make you feel proud?
It's never too late to try
What have you done today to make you feel proud?
You could be so many people
If you make that break for freedom
What have you done today to make you feel proud?

We need a change
Do it today
I can feel my spirit rising
We need a change
So do it today
'Cause I can see a clear horizon

What have you done today to make you feel proud?
So what have you done today to make you feel proud?
'Cause you could be so many people
If you make that break for freedom
So what have you done today to make you feel proud?
What have you done today to make you feel proud?
What have you done today
You could be so many people?
Just make that break for freedom
So what have you done today to make you feel proud?


-Heather Small - "Proud"

The biggest question I had to pose to myself today was whether drinking a beer after taking zanax was a good idea, or a bad one. With the advice of one of my gay neighbors, I chose to lay off imbibing, at least until (or if) a plan forms for tonight that requires the consumption of alcohol.

Tomorrow is my third week of summer, and I can't say that I have been super productive. Sure, I've played some golf and mini-golf. I did some organization in my classroom, and around the house. I went to the Erotica LA convention which proved to be creepy and slightly disappointing. But overall, the largest consumption of my time this break has been drinking. I now officially know all the happy hours in the area, and even drive over the hill into West Hollywood for Fiesta Cantina's killer "2 for 1" deal everyday from 4-8pm. I don't go everyday, but I would like to start taking them up on it at least twice a week.

I have also decided to start seeing a therapist.

In our teens, we try desperately to "find ourselves." Lord knows my journey was long and complicated. One year, I thought I would try to integrate fangs into my everyday life. I would wear them to the neighborhood grocery store, or out at the movies (which I always went to by myself - this was also my 'independent phase'). One year I wore nothing but mens' clothes from the Salvation Army and hung out with all the stoners in school. The next year I went through a "professional phase" where I would wear suits or dress slacks to high-school everyday, although they were always black and made me seem totally antisocial to my 16-year-old peers.

Once I got to college, I embraced myself, my body, my sexuality, and my mediocre mathematical abilities and I ran with it. I was me, and I have basically been this same person for the last 6 years or so.

But now, like Bob Dylan says, "Times they are a changing," and I no longer have a five-year-plan. I am pretty sure that I never want to get married, and I am not completely sure that I even want to have kids. Although if I did, and of this I have informed my mother, it would probably be out of wedlock, and possibly not even with a father figure in the picture.

And all of this has nothing to do with Joel.

He knows something is wrong. It's pretty damn obvious. But what that "thing" is, is totally baffling to me. Joel is my best friend, and I love him more than anyone I have ever loved in my life. But unfortunately, that is all I know. My anti-crazy meds render my sexual desires completely non-existent, and I know this is not fair for any relationship. My new obsession with everything gay (gay bars, gay clubs, LA Pride 2006, and my constant companionship with gays) makes me question everything.

Joel has always called me a "gay ally," but at time goes on, the most common question out of his mouth is "Sheri, are you gay?"

And honestly I don't know. And thus my desire for a therapist.

I wish there was some easy answer or solution to my constant battle with this idea, but there isn't. Honestly, it's tearing me up inside. Could I have been wrong about myself all these years? Or did I simply not experiment enough in college like everyone else I know? And what about Joel? What about Joel who I love so deeply, and who can read me like a book, and who I want nothing more than for him to be here in my new life with me? What does it all mean, and what the hell am I supposed to do?

Who knows? But not me.

And that's where I'm at now.

I love this shit...

Although the name Sheri creates an active mind and a restless urge to explore new ideas, we emphasize that it causes a restless intensity that defies relaxation.

This name, when combined with the last name, can frustrate happiness, contentment, and success, as well as cause health weaknesses in the solar plexus.

The name Sheri gives you a strongly independent and highly creative nature, with drive and ambition to have experiences and accomplish things out of the ordinary.

You can work intently at whatever is new and holds your interest at the moment, but your interest wanes quickly when drudgery and monotony set in.

Obstacles to your progress or restrictions on your freedom to act create a sense of frustration which may cause you to feel resentful and even rebellious.

You can then become intolerant of others, and caustic and belittling in your expression, thereby imposing stress on your personal relationships.

* * *

So, summer has officially started, and everyday I play a game called "What the hell am I going to do today?" Today was a big day. Today I met some friends at the driving range at 11am. I then ate a wrap (that I prepared myself) at school, and now am eagerly awaiting my 3pm swim time with some other ladies with whom I work.

Yesterday I ran some errands. Tomorrow I am going to get waxed and go to the Dodgers game. Friday I am golfing again, and getting a pedicure and manicure.

Besides these non-life-altering activities that I busy myself with throughout the days, I am mentally taxed by outside (and very complicated) issues. I will spare you the details of the hours of introspection that have plagued my life recently - it really is a bore to everyone including me.

The lesson I have learned that I will share, however, is that NO ONE HAS THEIR LIFE FIGURED OUT. No matter how many people proclaim to have their shit together, we are all just one day away from finding out new things about ourselves, or coming to new conclusions, or setting new and completely different goals. It's all up in the air, and each day is a delicate balance of things we know about ourselves combined with things we do not.

As Joel said in one of his songs years ago, "Live each day like it's an adventure." Well Joel, that's what I am doing. And I'll be damned if I don't keep learning more and more that I didn't know about the self that I have inhabited for these 26 years.

As my good friend Rob says, "Kid, you can't fuck up anything too bad in your twenties." God I hope he's right.

Happy Wednesday.

Just kidding. What I want to do is read.

Any suggestions for good books?

I am at the point where I am re-reading the books on my shelf, and it's getting old very quickly.

HELP!

"Tell me Jessica - What do you do to make yourself happy?"
"Nothing. I'm not!"

Since Thursday has been the new Friday for awhile, I have finally started drinking on Wednesday. Because afterall, Wednesday must be the new Thursday and everyone knows that the fun begins on Thursday.

But enough about the infinite loop of justification in my brain.

It's time to go mold young minds.

So softball is officially over. We had a double-header this past Friday at Avalon on Catalina Island. I can honestly say that I am going to miss softball. Ignoring the broken nose and severely bruised chin, I think I really stepped up to the plate with this one (pardon the pun). Despite the bi-polar pitcher, the girl that cried everytime she got out, and the irritating and badly sung chants, it was a memorable experience that I am not sure could ever be repeated. I cried a little tear of pride when the ump yelled "Infield fly rule," during our last game of the season and I actually knew what he meant. Who would've ever guessed. Not me.

But now those days are over, and it's time to concentrate on getting my bank account back above $0, and getting my ass down to a respectable size. I thought that running around playing various infield and outfield positions might have helped me take off a few pounds, but the drinks to celebrate our losses far outweighed the work-out.

So now I have a million things that I have been meaning to do, that I might actually be able to accomplish with the extra time. Topping the list is:

• Go to Target to spend my gift certificate from Marie
  
• Go to the fabric store to buy needles and finish the purse I was making
  
• Make wall art for the stairwell
  
• Go to Trader Joe's to (1) Get food, and (2) Use my gift certificates to save money
  
• Get back into silk-screening
  
• Burn more CDs for friends
  
• Tutor more for $$
  
• Watch my Netflix
  
• Begin walking with my gay neighbor
  
• Work out afterschool
  

Whatever I do in my newfound free time, getting rid of my farmer's tan is high on the list. As well as finding new reasons to drink with Marie and the neighbors during the week.

But I'm giving up beer. It's definitely not on my new diet.

I'd like to send a shout-out to the Viewpoint coaches for putting a quick end to the embarrassment that was our softball game yesterday. Once they instructed their players to "swing at anything" our girls were able to quickly field the ball and end the inning. Coming in off the field our girls were so excited. "Offy, did you see that? We were so good!"

I didn't, of course, have the heart to say that Marie had rigged the whole thing. They were too excited.

So three more games and the season is over, and I get my fat assistant coach check that will go to paying off my credit cards that fueled the softball after-parties.

It's true that the more you make, the more you spend. I just wish I didn't spend it all on beer. Then I would be thinner and richer.

If I'd only known then...

I called it. I pegged it. I expected it. But I am still let down.

...This is totally the end of an era that will forever be engraved in my mind as one of the best times in my life. I will never go back to Courant hoping to see W. I will never study with D again. I will never come home with something great to tell M and have her be asleep.

I don't think I will ever feel so happy and comfortable in my life, and in my skin, as I do now. And this depresses the hell out of me.

What a great year I had. What a fun, decent, scholarly, slacker year I had. I wouldn't trade it for anything. I think I have grown a lot - as a person, a student, and a woman. Thank you Lord, for my life.

It will be 5 years from tomorrow when I wrote this, at such a different time in my life. The smell of my journal is one I can pick out of a lineup. I would sit and my desk and smoke and write, and tell my journal things that I couldn't tell anyone else because they had heard it all so many times before.

So today, almost half a decade past, and I find myself in the same place.

I remember now why I put up walls. I remember why I have hardened my heart, and I remember why I love Joel so very much.

Because it works. And I never question it. And because at the end of the day, it doesn't hurt.

And that's a hell of a lot better than this.

Slowly but surely I am adding all my photos to my Flickr site.

You can check them out here.

Though it's already well into spring, I officially did my yearly spring cleaning this morning. Now all I want to do is sit on my couch and enjoy it, but that doesn't sound as much fun as drinking at my neighbors party for free, so the couch-napping will have to wait until tomorrow.

* * *

Despite having to pay Uncle Sam over $3000 in various taxes, I have spent nearly $150 in the last week alone on CDs. Here are my recent purchases:

• The Smiths - The Queen is Dead
  
• Of Montreal - The Sunlandic Twins
  
• The Clash - The Best of the Clash
  
• Goldfrapp - Felt Mountain
  
• Stereolab - Emperor Tomato Ketchup
  
• Pearl Jam - Pearl Jam
  
• David Byrne and Brian Eno - My Life in the Bush of Ghosts
  

And if there were more, I have forgotten them. Thus far, the Smiths album and the Goldfrapp album are really rocking my world. Much like his solo work, Morrissey has an uncanny way of making even the most depressing songs sound cheerful.


Take me out tonight
Where there's music and there's people
Who are young and alive
Driving in your car
I never never want to go home
Because I haven't got one anymore

Take me out tonight
Because I want to see people
And I want to see life
Driving in your car
Oh please don't drop me home
Because it's not my home, it's their home
And I'm welcome no more

And if a double-decker bus
Crashes in to us
To die by your side
Is such a heavenly way to die
And if a ten ton truck
Kills the both of us
To die by your side
Well the pleasure, the privilege is mine

Take me out tonight
Take me anywhere, I don't care
I don't care, I don't care
And in the darkened underpass
I thought Oh God, my chance has come at last
But then a strange fear gripped me
And I just couldn't ask

Take me out tonight
Oh take me anywhere, I don't care
I don't care, I don't care
Driving in your car
I never never want to go home
Because I haven't got one
No, I haven't got one

And if a double-decker bus
Crashes in to us
To die by your side
Is such a heavenly way to die
And if a ten ton truck
Kills the both of us
To die by your side
Well the pleasure, the privilege is mine

There is a light that never goes out
There is a light that never goes out
There is a light that never goes out
There is a light that never goes out

When I was in fourth grade, I somehow got involved with these two older, bad-ass fifth-graders. We would ride our bikes around the neighborhood and break into houses that were up for sale. People always leave weird shit behind, and we would take the shit and play with it, along with spending hours in these vacant homes doing whatever it is that elementary school kids do in an empty house.

I felt alive, and rebellious, and a little like a bad-ass myself. It was an emotional day in my life when they got busted for doing something way worse than breaking into houses, and I had to cease my friendship with the two of them.

I had to go back to my slow and mundane life, and although it was probably for the best, I still missed them in many ways.

And I find myself at the same point today, as I have numerous times since those primary school days. For the last three weeks I have been rebellious, and fun, and loose-lipped and crazy. I have done whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, and consumed large amounts of alcohol to fuel it all. And it has been great.

In a non-lesbian way, I have fallen for my friend Marie. She makes me laugh, and makes me feel child-like. We don't talk about math or world issues, but instead about which softball players are virgins and which are lesbians. We talk about our respective long-distance relationships, and we school each other about the heterosexual and homosexual lives of 20-somethings. We make funny faces at each other while we are base-coaching, and we think of excuses to end practice early - most of which involve guacamole or Disarrono.

Marie's my bad-ass friend. And I feel a little more bad-ass since I've been hanging out with her.

But now her girlfriend's back, and so is my old life. And I feel as though I am having a Brokeback moment. I don't want to let her go, but I know that our lives can't go on as they have been.

My friend asked me the other day, "Sheri, are you a lesbian?"

I replied, "No, but I have a very special relationship with Marie."

And that's the only way that I know how to explain it.

I must think I am 19 again. For the last two weeks I have been going out on school nights, drinking way too much, and trying to see how little I can pay while doing all of it.

I blame my friend Marie.

There was a time in New York when my life got out of control. I was doing things that 12-year-old Sheri would not approve of, and I realized it one day when I was out shopping for prophylactics and I got $10 extra change back from Duane Reade and didn't say anything to the cashier. It was at that moment that I realized that I needed to go back to Texas and find the Sheri that I let drown in NYC in a sea of coffee and alcohol.

I feel a little like that now.

It's 8:13 in the morning. I am barely hanging on here at school, and I think I still reek of alcohol from last night. I need a nap. And makeup. And a little purging. If I can actually make it through today without falling asleep, it will be a miracle bestowed upon me by the booze-gods, trying to keep me in their camp and particpating in their mischeivious wrongdoings.

And I think I am babbling, but I can't stop for fear of falling face first into my keyboard and looking like an ass in front of numerous impressionable young high school students.

Dear Booze-Gods- why must you tempt me with your sweet liquors and appropriately named shots (Liquid Cocaine, anyone?)? Please let me find solace in my couch and Netflix rather than in the bottle. But thank you, nonetheless, for your warmth and kindness. It has been much needed and much enjoyed. Amen.

God bless the gay neighbors for reconnecting their wireless internet so that I can swipe it for my own personal use.

So, much has been happening lately. I learned that I have to pay out the ass in taxes this year (when am I going to remember how to correctly fill out a W-4?). Joel officially signed with USC so the impending move to CA has now been put into full effect. And the following two events happened. First, I got into an accident in Salt Lake City (see picture). Exactly one week later, mere hours after having my stitches removed, I broke my nose at softball practice (did I tell you that I am assistant coach? Who chooses these things??).

Anyhoo, rather than give up all of the gory details, I have instead created a poll which will hopefully reveal the truth. Please answer the following:

My accident in SLC was the result of:
(a) a snowboarding accident involving tree-lined trail (a la Sonny Bono)
(b) a mugging by two aggressive mormons in Temple Square
(c) a fall on the concrete caused by my own stupidity
(d) name your own cause


And with that, I bid farewell to my two-week-long spring break and welcome the final quarter which will, hopefully, be less physically abusive than the last.

I wonder if I still know what to write in this thing. I ask myself, "have I had any strange reactions to meds? Or done something recently that I regret? Or done anything particularly lj worthly about which to speak?"

The answer to each of these is "no." My life is good. And busy. But oddly uneventful.

There might be a slowdown in my schedule in the near future which will prompt me to update more regularly out of sheer boredom, but until then, just know that I'm not dead. And still looking for a sugar-daddy to pay off my college loans.

Sheribomb out.

Well, I f*ed that one up. Whoops.

You Should Get a PhD in Liberal Arts (like political science, literature, or philosophy)

You're a great thinker and a true philosopher. You'd make a talented professor or writer.