I’m in my free planning period right now. I’ve survived an hour of advising (it’s like meeting with your guidance/home ec/health teacher as a group, every day, and my Advising class is almost all psychotically nervous and silly freshmen) and my Senior Ethics class (which was a bunch of older, calmer, fun students).
My Assistant Director just popped his head in to check on me. I was like, “Do I look as shell-shocked as I feel?” He said I looked fine, but when I said that there’s this constant “high energy buzzing” in the school, he just nodded and was like, “Yes. VERY high energy.”
It’s like the teen center was – just on crack. Mind you, a highly organized, highly structured, highly professional version of the teen center, but definitely that high, high, high energy. On crack.
I wish I could describe it better than that. Though it definitely makes me feel better to see that everyone looks shell-shocked. It’s kind of funny, actually.
I have my English I class and two English II classes left. And then I’m certain – very certain – that I will implode.

Someone please tell me what possessed me to wear 3-inch heels my first day teaching?
Now mind you – it was really just orientation for the new students, and that was only four hours – and I got to sit for most of it. (Side note: I have the most adorable kids ever!) It got so bad that my officemate gave me a pair of her flats so I could walk to the bathroom!
Tomorrow is the real thing – all classes. I’ve spent weeks getting ready and I still don’t feel prepared. My head’s spinning with prep for four classes and I’m sure I’ve forgotten something. Almost everyone bailed today around 3. Me? I got out just before 5 – and I would have stayed, but being the only person in the building kind of gives me the heebie-jeebies.
Now? A glass of wine. Get dinner ready for the hubby, who had a rough, rough day. We’ll finish the rest of Lord of the Rings II, I’ll take a mellow bath and pray that I don’t wake up at 3am to run over and over in my head just how unprepared I feel. Really, 3am TV is boring as all crap. I know. I watched an hour and a half of it last night.
I can do this. I kick ass. (And I prefer “strong” and “confident” to “wow, she’s a cocky bitch, isn’t she?”, thankyouverymuch.) Though another glass of wine and I’d probably burst into giggles if you called me “cocky.”
Oh, and I need to find an outfit that doesn’t involve heels. Ever. I think birks should be standard professional wear, don’t you?

I read the police logs faithfully. I can tell you where almost every block is in our city, and which blocks are always showing up for what kind of arrests. Last weekend, someone was arrested for assault and battery with a deadly weapon – a cup. The joke in our house – “common nightwalking” – essentially, prostituting. Occasionally, some woman will be arrested on M. Road for selling her wares.
So we’ve been letting Stinky Walker out during the day. He’s soooo much happier now that he’s back outside. Most of the time he just sleeps under the deck, and almost always I can call out his name and in less than a minute he’s at the back door, ready to come in.
Except for tonight.
I try not to panic. He’s an outdoor cat, aside from the seven months we forced him to live inside with us. He can fend for himself. Still, it was dark, and he’s a black cat, and I’m having panic attacks that he’s been hit.
So here I am, walking up and down our quiet block in my “it’s too hot to wear anything else” clothes that I’ve been vegging on the couch in: a tank top, a kind of short skirt – and my garden clogs. I mean, we were in for the night, watching Lord of the Rings. I wasn’t exactly planning on walking around the neighborhood calling out, “Stiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinky! Where aaaaaaaaaaare you?”
No sign of Walker. I make it to the corner and think I see something on the side of the road – the main road. The sketchier road. M. Road.
Can you see where I’m going with this?
Here I am, walking back from the lump that I was certain was Walker (but am grateful to find out it’s just a patch of grass) when I hear a whistle and notice a white truck swerve over and hang on the side of the road, a little less than a block up from where I was. I picked up my pace to the corner of our road and ran across the street, at which time the driver of the truck slammed on his gas and took off.
Me? A woman of the night? I feel so.. so… dirty.
(We found Walker, by the way. He’s safe and sound, eating dinner in the kitchen, where he’ll be allllll night.)

Sometimes, just sometimes, it’s so freaking hot that you can’t really do much else but sit around in little more than what mother nature gave you, drinking a cold adult beverage and trying really, really hard not to move any body part more than absolutely necessary. A person should never be sweating while sitting completely still under a fan.
Yes, it’s that hot.
I went school shopping this afternoon because a) absolutely nothing from last fall/winter fit me anymore and b) the stores are air conditioned. I’m a clearance-rack whore. I managed to get a ridiculous amount of clothing for a good quarter of the original price – which is good, considering we’re broke and I now have to dress like a “professional”. Considering I could have shown up to the teen center job in my pjs without raising an eyebrow, my closet really wasn’t teeming with “I’m mature and responsible” clothing. Very strange, though – I was bopping around the store to Brown-eyed Girl, got my little “you have 6 items and we know it so don’t even think of slipping those pants on under your shorts and walking out because we’ll know” tag and headed into the dressing room – where there was no music.
Now I know all about Muzak and brainwashing customers and I have to say, it was really freaking creepy to have complete silence while trying on my happy new pants. It was even creepier dancing in them in the three-way mirror without any music. At least I imagine it was by the way the little teenaged snots were looking at me. Brats. Just because I’m old enough to be – oh wait, going to be – their teacher doesn’t mean I can’t shake mah groove thang with the best of them.
Ok, all this typing is making me sweat. How I’m going to BBQ dinner without melting, I’m not quite sure. First day as a real teacher tomorrow morning – provided I’m not a puddle of melted human slime before then!

Twelve years ago today, I rounded the corner and bumped into this tall, scrawny, bald guy in doc martens, smack dab in the toothpaste aisle. It was his second day of work at the drugstore, my first. Aisle 9. I told him to smile. She told me to smile, he said to someone, years later. That’s all it took. Senior year in high school, I told my friend, I’m going to have his kids. She reminded me of this years later when he and I started dating. No kids yet, but I did manage to get him to marry me!
I think once you get married, all the other little anniversaries start to slip away. It’d be impossible to celebrate them all, but I still think they deserve some sort of recognition. So… happy 12th anniversary of the day we met, babycakes!

Nothing beats an ego into the ground like getting booted from a Yahoo! euchre table by your partner after losing her the game by one point.
Not even a “Good try, now get your ass of my team” first – just a quickly closed window and a little pop-up with the big, glaring words: “You have been booted from this table.” I didn’t realize I was so fragile, knocked down a few pegs by aimee_dani and her perfect little Yahoo! rankings. I’m never going to be able to look at Yahoo! games again without the fear of getting my ass booted for one bad trick. Excuse me while I sit my pathetic-excuse-for-a-euchre-player self in the corner and cry now.
Bitch.

I have this strange urge to watch Back to the Future.
(It might have something to do with randomly hearing the music in my head. And that has absolutely nothing to do with the two Mike’s lemonades I just sucked down. Nothing.)
Have I mentioned that I’m bored?

Jay’s gone for poker for the night, and I’m bored. My laptop is still at the computer doctor, so I can’t even do fun design stuff. And it’s only 6pm!!!
So, if you’ve ever had anything you’ve been dying to ask me, go ahead and ask it. (Thanks, Amy, for the link.)

I’ve somehow managed to lose today.
Jay’s working from home, so I figured I’d come into the school for a few hours and then spend some time with him before he headed of for a boys’ night of poker. 7 hours later, I’m still here and only leaving because I want to see him off. Otherwise, I imagine they’d have to drag me away kicking and screaming.
It’s not that I want to be here. I mean, I do. I really, really do. It’s just that, well, school starts Monday and no matter how much I get done, I know I’m never going to feel prepared. I can’t, and won’t, until school starts and I get into the swing of things. Still, I’m almost afraid to leave – it’s almost as though I’m afraid Monday will roll around and there will be that one thing, that one HUGE thing, that I completely overlooked and all hell will break loose.
So it’s 4:30 and my director told me to have a great weekend, to relax a bit. Relax? RELAX??? She’s kidding, right? I start my dream job in THREE DAYS. I’m lucky my body hasn’t spontaneously combusted with the sheer fear and excitement and terror and thrill of it all. KAAAA-BLOOM! It’s a good thing, too – I spent hours on one little bulletin board, and I’d hate to see all those wonderful critical thinking questions covered with my guts.
Though it’d probably make for a great science lesson…
Ok, I’m leaving. Really. I’m going. Just let me double-check my lessons for Monday one more time, okay? Thanks so much. You’re a peach.

It’s been in the 40s at night and the leaves are starting to fall. I understand school’s started and all, but it’s still August, fer cryin’ out loud!
Work’s keeping me busy already. I love our director. She told me and the other English teacher today that we should “pretty up” our office, and maybe get a “comfy lounge-y chair” because it wouldn’t be a bad thing if the kids saw us “relaxing in it, reading a book.” After all, we need to “model the behavior we want the kids to adopt, and really – wouldn’t it be wonderful for them to come into your office to relax and read a book?”
Score! Now to see whether or not I actually have the time to relax and read a book. If this week is any indication of what to expect, I’m certain I won’t be lounging around at any point!
Pissy things: