I know everyone always talks about how it's all over once you have kids, that there isn't any time for yourself anymore, that you won't clean the house, take care of yourself, sleep, breathe, anything.

I thought they were exagerating.

They're not.

That being said, I've recently been furloughed.  I'm especially bitter because, nationally, the whole fiasco is being portrayed as somethign the teachers have done- that we believe we can squeeze five instructional days into four, that we agreed to take fridays off for the rest of the year, that it was somehow our idea.

Bullshit.

THe governor, who now is acting as if she's heartbroken over the state of education and she wishes the teachers hadn't agreed to our new contract (wtf!?!), originally wanted to cut the school year by 24days.  We whittled it down to 17days, an 8% paycut not counting the increase in medical costs.  Our other options- to go on strike or to lose 8% of our workforce, thereby increasing class size and losing elective course teachers and having to rearrange school structures.

The governor is an evil bitch.  For real.  See, the teachers union refused to support her in the last election (exactly because she's an evil bitch who does nothing for education) and in an attempt to stick it to us, she tied our raises (which, by the way, did not even meet the increase in cost of living) to random drug testing- an expensive procedure that we'd be the only state to unleash on teachers.  After giving herself, her cabinet, administrators, and all her other friends massive raises, she decides the dept of education is going to have to help pick up the deficit, along with firefighters, police, and county and state workers.

So to summarize- wealthy people got raises, poor people saw pay cuts.  She lost millions of dollars on a superferry because she adamantly refused to follow the laws for environmental testing and proceeded with a plan that harme hundreds of migrating humpback whales.  She has over a billion dollars slated for a rail transit on Oahu that gets partially paid for with our outerisland taxes.  She refuses to raise taxes on tourism or businesses.  Right now, while things are heating up, she just got an all-expense trip to Japan and China paid for out of taxpayer money.

  She just released 75million dollars to go to Construction contractors to do school building repairs, but couldn't spend half that to actually pay teachers and keep kids in school.  Seriously, how does this not make the national headlines?

How does the fact that she's now acting contrite because she didn't even apply for federal assistance for education (she's very anti-Obama) not come to the surface?  What about the US secretary of education claiming that she has misappropriated funds she has received (ie, priorities going to facility repairs (money to her contractor friends), administrators (her poitical allies), and beign funneled off to other pet projects instead of going to actual education)?

Let me add this food for thought: there was a program, hailed by Georgetown as a successful example of how to assist low-income youth, in which all uninsured and underinsured children were provided medical coverage.  The legislature passed it to go into effect for an additioanl two years and for funds to be appropriated to keep the program running.  Governor Lingle refused to release the funds.  She had already vetoed the legislation, and thankfully the veto was overruled.  But she still holds the state checkbook and so she just didn't allow the money to go out.

How is al lthis possible?  She's become a dictator on our island chain and nobody seems to do anything about it?

HELP!  Somebody, save us!

In other news, I am not just bitter about this but other cuts to my educational programs that I run; my child is consistently sickly; I am not writing, exercising, and have been subsisting on a diet of caffeine, sugar, spam, cheese, and cocoa; my grandfather passed away; sleep never takes over; and am altogether not in a good place right now, hanging on to my sanity by a thread.  Btt it's gonna be okay.  I'm pretty sure that it'll all turn around soon.

"I heard you were coming for me."  Delilah smiled at her younger sister, the one who never came to visit, the one who thought she was smarter, stronger, so sophisticated.

"Didja now?"

"You know how fast word travels through the rumor mill."  She smiled as she jumped off her ladder.  The shelves were designed as if for a library, but instead of books, the shelves housed an assortment of curious little knick knacks, crystals, and small abstract art pieces.

"Except I never told anyone I was coming.  And certainly Jezebel never said anything."  Agnes already felt that this was a bad idea, but knew that Delilah was logically the next step.  "So I'm assuming the rumor mill was the sapce between my lips and your eavesdropping."

"Eavesdropping.  Rumours.  It's all the same."  She flipped her hands, letting a giant amethyst on her finger sparkle and reflect light off the crystal bangles on her wrist.  "In any case, I know why you're here."  She put up the same hand to stop Agnes from interjecting.  "And so I am prepared to tell you whatever you need to know."

"How much preparation does it take?"  Agnes imagined a straight-backed, mahogany-colored leather chair, adorned with brass buttons and nothing else, and sat down.

"Oh, you know," Delilah flipped her wrists again as she spoke.  "Meditation.  Remembrance.  Running through the files stored in my mind to recall the details of a case I had hoped to banish from memory."  She tossed her hair back, long waves, and looked at her little sis.  "You really should do something about that mop- shear it short, let it long, but that lip-length bob does nothing for you."

"Is that so?"  She eyed her elder and admired her style only in the sense that it fit her personality.  While Agnes was streamlined, a lot of simple pieces, pinstripes, clean lines, solid bold colors mixed with lots of grey, Delilah was about layers.  She wore flouncy skirts with strappy sandals, peasant tops corseted in leather.  If she wore a silk scarf in her hair, she wore a chain choker.  If she wore a daintily crocheted dress over satin, it was belted with a tight leather strap.  It was about soft volume and then restrained.  Chained flowiness.  And her conversation ran like that.  Off the subject and flowery, but then to the point.

Agnes was more streamlined.  In both dress and conversation.  All tangents must lead to a separate and necessary point.  And one must get there fast.  But when dealing wth others, she often let them lead and stilled her tongue so as to gather pertinent information that could be used later.  Plus, the other conversatee felt they were given free reign and often loosened their tongue.

"Oh, Agnes, if only you could trust.  Too much knowledge and not enough fact."  She shook her head and Agnes heard bells, somewhere hidden on her person, ringing.  "So be it."  Two glasses of ruby wine came off the shelf in crystal goblets.  "Where would you like to begin?"

"Well, you already know already."  Agnes took the wine and gulped rather than sipped.  It'd be better if she could relax through this.  "I'm stuck on a case wherein Mother Maui stole one of my clients and I'm working on trying to get her back.  Jezzie mentioned that you had gone through a similar predicament not long before, only a few rollovers and so in a contemporary setting.  I was wondering what you have/had done- did anything work? what failed?  what was your general assessment of the situation?"

"Ah, yes, and that's where the reminiscing (spelling?) began."  Delilah took a huge sigh and fell back onto a love seat equipped with large puffy pink satin pillows.  "She was beautiful.  Cute, really, in just so many ways, what with her jump roping and double dimples and ticklish little smile.  I was so sad to see her go."  And here, she really did frown, in that childish, piquant way that some adults maintain.

"Did she have a name?"

"Of course she did.  Doesn't everyone?"  Delilah scrunched her eyebrows and laid back on the sofa, which elongated just slightly so she could stretch out a bit.  "But we'll call her.... Gloria Vanderbilt."

"Isn't that the woman who makes purses?"

"Is it?  I thought the name sounded familiar.  Only it isn't her.  Or any real Gloria Vanderbilt.  That's just a fictional name.  But the person was real.  So real and so honest and so troubled and.... you know my gig, yeah?"

"Your gig?"

"How I function?  How I cull my caseload?"  Agnes looked blank and Delilah credited it to the youth assuming only they had their particulars.  "Just as you grab the tangential-thinking intellectuals whose creative genius is thwarted by the very locked thinking that makes them special, so I tend to a very specific category of young ladies."

Agnes had to smile at that description that so nearly described all the women on her caseload.  "And your specialty is?"

"Those who have suffered abuse.  Those who break free in an attempt to empower themselves but too often just escape into another cycle of something that chains them."

"Really?"  Agnes had never given much thought to her sister's caseload and was slightly unnerved by the noble sound of it.

"Yes, really."  Delilah smirked.  "And more than that, we have something in common, you know.  Your girls excel in essays, in diatribes that mask their pain and highlight their inadequecies.  My girls are poets, who reveal the pain, the self-loathing, the surrender, because they feel they can never overcome their own foibles and transgressions."  She waited a beat, and when there was no response, she added, "And they all love to dance."

Agnes smiled and Delilah continued, "Isn't that amazing?  You can hear your girls the same two ways that I can hear mine- when they write something out in that stream of consciousness style that begs to be acknowledged and when they're out on the dance floor somewhere letting their body do the storytelling for a change."

"I've been feeling a bit wicked."  She set down her tea.  "You know, nothing malicious or with an intent to harm, just something devious along the lines of 'all's fair in love and war.'"

"And which would this be?"

"Pardon?"

"Is this love?  Or war?"

"Little bit of both really."  She adjusted herself on the cushioned seat.  "It's for reasons of love that I go to war."

"I once wrote a story about a battle."  She leaned in close, as it was seldom she divulged her great writings that no one had yet to see.  "It was the tale of a warrior queen, impregnated in the aftermath of battle, and getting ready for her first mission after the birth of her son."

"Does this have anything to do with what I've been talking about?"

"Just wait.  Listen.  See if you can draw comparisons."

She heaved a giant sigh, resigning herself to hear out a story that was in no way applicable, but that she'd have to nod to gratefully out of respect.

"Back to my story..."  She attempted to put on a storyteller's false bravado, but the skill was lost on her.  "She consulted an oracle before leaving on this seemingly easy, diplomatic mission, and the gods instructed her to breastfeed her son as often as possible in the fortnight before leaving and to releave herself regularly into leather pouches that could be packed in the snow.  They also told her to pack twice the food rations she'd usually take along."  She sipped her tea.  "This was a harsh, winter journey."

"Mmm-hmmm" she replied, as patiently as possible.

"So our heroine assumes the gods are mocking her, that as a mother she has no place in political maneuverings, and angry with them, she plans to disregard their advice."

"And then somehow comes to ruin because of it, right?"

"No, not at all.  Because despite any misgivings she may have about their advice and how useless it would be, she has read her myths and legends and knows that the advice of the gods shoudl never be taken lightly.  So off they travel to a large manor/castle/kingdom maybe a few weeks away and as they near, they find the villagers to be starving.  The women so malnourished that they cannot breastfeed their own babes; the men unable to feed their families because the same duke/lord/whatever they were planning to consult/pacify/unite with comes and demands the fruits of their labors in abundance."

"So naturally our heroine surrenders her breast, some milk, the extra food and then has this particularly village and maybe one more on the way to join her.  Am I right?"

"This times you are.  I think.  I never really write the story, just sort of thought about it."

"And again, I'm not exactly sure how I see this fitting my situation."

"There are many kinds of battles, many forms of ammunition.  Sometimes the most benign and ludicrous items in your arsenal are the most effective."

"I'll consider that."

"Oh yes, and always trust the gods' intuition."

The sky was a muted rose-gold with sharp shards of brilliant light still piercing through and casting shadows and those she watched below.  As the clouds shifted and shaped, like ivory or opal, tufts of opaque white and translucent bluishness, she started imaging the sun and clouds forming exotic pieces of antique jewelry.

"I wonder why abstract art is such a relatively new concept."  Agnes spoke, knowing someone stood a few paces behind her.  The jasmine and patchouli gave it away.

"Because sapiens think they've mastered the art of realism."  Jezebel's voice was confident, yet soft, a manner Agnes had tried in vain to copy, as she always sounded flighty or perturbed.

"Huh."  She kicked at the blank air in front of her, willing open a hole beneath her feet to stare at the city scape beneath her.  "What about surrealism?"

"Over and above what is real."  Jezebel came closer, but stayed out of her friends line of vision.  "It would seem that having conquered what is real, sapeins must move beyond it... to what is unreal.  To what is incongrous, unlikely, absurd."

"So surreal is basically supernatural- a step above what is actual."  It was a statement, not a question, but she expected Jezebel to disagree.

"Well, perhaps.  But sapiens would never call it that."  She moved into view so she could glimpse what Agnes stared at.  "See, supernatural to them denotes some sort of otherworldliness, some sort of spirituality or godliness or the idea that certain aspects of life are unimaginably out of their control."  She put her hand on Agnes's shoulder, a quick squeeze to promote eye contact, and obligingly Agnes looked up.  "Surrealism is their artistic explanation for the juxtapositions are strange coincidences that we, in fact, supernaturally cause.  Those who are drawn to such an art form are drawn to us, looking for answers, through art or literature, for why life is so complex and strange."

"But it doesn't have to be."

"No.  And for many , it is not.  But there are so many of them out there, breeding, multiplying, stretching out across the canvas of earth.  And they, in turn, become our paintbrushes, our medium for creating surrealist works.  Because we are, of course, the supernatural, the surreal, that thing that hovers above them producing irony and inconceivable coincidence."

"Hmmm."

"Is that all you have to say?"

"Of course not.  But I've got a lot to think about."  Agnes turned to face her friend.  Both of them were barefoot and Agnes's eyes came only to the swanlike neck of her pseudo-mentor, something like a sister, teacher, and best friend.

"I, too, have been thinking.  Running through my mind's recesses to see if I could come up with anything useful.  And it dawned on me that, not long ago, a similar situation occured with Delilah.  She lost one of her vessels on that same island."  She smiled, expectantly.  "You might want to talk to her."

"Oh, no no."  Agnes took a step back and Jezebel's grin widened.  "She's flaky and bright and energetic and optimistic and all those things that grate on my nerves."

"And she's your sister."

"Well, so are you.  But I like you."

"And you love us both."  Jezebel hugged her close.  "Just talk to her.  I know you've been worrying about this Holly case, and if she can't give you any insight, at least she can, in her absent-minded way, provide you with some direction.  She makes an excellent sounding board."

"Alright, alright.  I'll try it."  Agnes shoudlered her way out of the embrace.  "But only cause she's a relative of yours.  Otherwise, I'd have no patience for her."