Well...it's been awhile, no? I apologize but my laptop is not happy right now. Perhaps somehow beer got spilled on the keyboard and maybe some of the keys are no longer working. Until this evenig, it was booting up just fine with all of the programs working. Now it's stuck on the media player that can be used without turning the computer on. I'm hoping that's just because a key is stuck or something like that. Just in case, though, I'm going to take it to Burton tomorrow to see what they have to say. I will not be taking it back to BestBuy, where I bought it, and I won't ever be buying another fucking thing from them. I don't care how low their price is. Apparently the $250 I spent on an extended warranty does not cover accidents, even though I know that I asked if it did or not. I'm super pissed about that. I need Shan to call them and let them know what fuckwits they all are. Dammit.

I have two days of work left. It's kind of odd to be at sixs and sevens right this minute. I'm sure that will be better on Friday. On the otherhand, the lack of communication has me really frustrated, so I'm kinda at the point that I don't care what's going to happen...at least at the school. You know what I mean?

My head is killing me, and I still...still...have a cough. I think I should probably take myself to the doctor before I lose my insurance. I can't believe that I have this cough still.

So, did I tell y'all about the palm reading I had? I can't remember. If I did, then this will be redundant, and I'm exceedingly sorry. (nothing new there, huh?) Anyway. The palm reader was this little gypsy woman...suffering from dwarfism. She didn't touch me, just looked at my palm. She said that I would live a very long, healthy life, and that I was incredibly lucky, that I wasn't meant to beg or borrow. She also said that I'm generally pretty quiet, but when I have something to say, I say it and don't hold back. She said I'm also pretty upfront and don't go around people's back. She wanted to know about the man in my life, and I told her that there wasn't one. She said there would be. Dark hair, slight greying at the temples, and that this would be one of those things that started slowly, with friendship, and then progressing to what I wanted it to be. She then cautioned me that this would not be someone from my past, although someone from my past would be coming back around but this time we would be no more than friends. (I think I know who both of those are...one of them just hit me last night) She also said that I shouldn't worry about a job...that soon I would be receiving a call from the west coast, probably california. It would be a man, and it would be soon...perhaps after the holidays, but not much after the holidays. I shouldn't worry about money because I'll shortly be making more than I ever have. She also mentioned that the next 6-8 weeks would be time to take care of me, and that in the last couple of months, I've been giving and giving to others but now it's time for me. I don't know. I suppose.

I know I wanted to say something else, but as per usual, I can't remember what it was.

November 20, 2006

It's been a really stressful two days. You know how I can tell that? Because in each of the last two days, I've had seizures. Ha. Good indicator, huh?

I think I might be out of the woods, but we'll see. All so very tiring. Ughhhh.

Back home. It always kinda strange being home. I don't have a whole lot of expectations for being home, but I have a love hate relationship with it. I did some writing during on of the writing marathons about it. I don't know that I'm ready to post that writing here or not, though.

I don't really know if anything I wrote during the writing marathon is ready for a wide audience. Maybe the piece about lingerie versus underwear that I wrote at Coyote Ugly.

During the writing marathon, we talked a lot about Katrina and about New Orleans. We also talked about Mississippi. It's kinda hard to talk about Mississippi when there are people from New Orleans there as well. It's like I wrote last year that while it was bad for us, it was bad for New Orleans too...in a different way. I have difficulty with the scale and measurement of such things, and I'm not altogether sure that there needs to be scale and measurement, except that there always is scale and measurement. We can only understand something within the context of what we've already seen and known. We have to make some sort of comparison so we can sort and relate.

It's funny, I think, that just after I spent a lot of time talking about Katrina...again...there were two different articles in the New York Times about the impact of Katrina on New Orleans. One about housing projects, and the other about the justice system there.

I have to stop saying "it's funny". It's become my new filler phrase.

There is still no word on a job, and that is stressing me out. I've been remarkably calm about the whole thing, or so I've been told. But my acid reflux is working overtime. I could go for a chewable rolaids right now in fact. The Wild Cherry flavor isn't bad, but the whole notion of chewable antacids bothers me for much the same reasons that I'm bothered by gum. It's the stickiness.

There's so much more to say, but the small fuzz is not going to let that happen tonight. Her pitiful cries are like a knife through my brain. I need to concentrate on drowning her out.

November 19, 2006

I have no idea what today's date is. Get me away from school and a regular schedule and I have no clue what's going on or where I am.

Ever have one of those moments where you just wish you could take the words back from the air after you've said them, or erase them after you've put them out there in the world?

I'm having one of those moments. I wish I could make it go away, but it's not going to go quietly. I might have done some real damage, but I hope not. I'm in the midst of doing damage control right now (apologizing and such). Open mouth, insert foot. *sigh*

I'm tired. Lots to tell, but it's late and I need to go to bed. Still alive; have just been in Nashville.

November 8, 2006

I have to say that I'm a little surprised that the Dems took both the house and the Senate (cnn has just called Virginia for Webb). I guess maybe I figured that the Dems would pick up a few seats, but they wouldn't make the headway that they did in fact make.

My kitten is sitting on the floor in front of me, looking super pissed, holding her left paw in the air like she's thinking about striking or some such. She's probably pissed off because I haven't given her anny bonito flakes lately. Cuz I'm mean. She's very fierce, but in about 20 minutes, she'll be in the bed with me, trying to make her way north when she knows she's supposed to be south.

I'm going to head to bed. I'm tired.

Did you all go and vote (or vote absentee or early so you didn't have to stand in line today)? I went right after work. We used the electronic voting machine here. The machine used in MS keeps a paper record. It was fast. Apparently I was supposed to also cast a paper ballot for the state senate special election. I didn't know that until I got home and didn't want to go back out.

It's about 6:30 and I'm exhausted. Yesterday I said that I thought the cold was about gone, but I've been coughing a lot. It's that rattley, wet cough that is settled into the chest type thing. Ughhh. I do not want to go back to the doctor.

Today was a harder day. Much drama this morning. There were little girls with an attitude, and one of them wasn't there yesterday, and she's the type that can derail an entire class. I did my best to ignore the most of it, only dealing with the most egregious and most disrespectful antics. I keep thinking...I won't be there much longer, I won't be there much longer. (I don't know where I'll be, but it won't be there)

I think there was something else I was supposed to do tonight, but I'm going to have some ice cream and go to bed. That tired. And it's only 6:30.

November 6, 2006

So, I think the cold is finally about gone, although I'm going to continue to take that gawd-awful expensive antibiotic until it's gone. I'm not wasting $8.50/pill. Strangely, though, I've been feeling like I'm going to pass out. Like sit down before I fall down. I'm not sure what that's about. Maybe it's just that I'm still so dehydrated. I'm gonna go with that.

The heavens let loose this afternoon, and I had to take children out to the car line. Soaked to the skin. Ughhh. The line "the masturbatory fantasies of adolescent boys" is kicking around in my head for some reason. I suppose I could write something along those lines. Might be some fun to give it little whirl. Perhaps I'll save that for the Nashville writing marathon. Hmmmm...

Have you been following the Haggard scandal? I was talking to a friend this weekend, and one of the things we said was if this man hadn't been so gung-ho on telling other people how to live their lives, it wouldn't have been such an incredibly big deal. Because he was hell-bent on dictating to other people what htey should do with their lives, when he fell, it's that more noteworthy. The man's problem is that he's gay, and in his community, it's not OK to be gay. His friends, family, congregation don't support and accept who he is, so he attempted to change who he was. We are, though, who we are, and I think our truth wins out. We can fight against it and try to deny it, but I'm not so sure that we can change the fundamental, elemental parts of ourselves.

I don't want to go to work tomorrow, but I don't have anything better to do. Today we started out new schedules. I'm teaching language arts all day long, and that's fine. Had a pretty good time with it. It wasn't a disaster or anything like that. I didn't have the power struggles with most of the students. Then again, much smaller classes and lots of trouble makers were not there today. I had five of my 20 absent, and then two of the remaining 15 in ISS. How can it not be a good day with that many gone? At the end of the day I had two kids withdraw. That takes my numbers down to 18, and I'm not ashamed to say that one of those who withdrew was one of my worst students. I hope that little girl gets the help that she needs because she's in a world of hurt.

Sadly, there hasn't been a whole lot of thought about how this whole thing is going to work, either logistically or practically. It sucks. They threw me to the wolves, and they're throwing this new teacher to the wolves too. With all the literature out there on teacher induction, you'd think that they'd have at least the tiniest bit of a clue. Guess not, though. Maybe it's just that it's Mississippi. I dunno.

November 3, 2006

Thank god it is Friday. It wasn't a terrible day, but it wasn't the greatest either. We seperated the three classes into four. And we had to tell the kiddos where they would be going on Monday. I don't know why it's so difficult to think that it might be a good idea to have each teacher have a list of what students the other teachers have. I think that would have been the sensible thing to do. But apparently I don't know jackshit.

I'm again catching up on my Grey's Anatomy. I'm on disk three. George and Meredith have just slept together. Izzy is just now having that bond thing with Denny. It's the episode where Callie appears.

I'm tired. Incredibly tired. I think I'm going to actually pack it in and call it a day. I'm supposed to get up early in the morning and drive to Tunicca to hang out with my friend Dana. We're going up to Memphis (not that long of a jaunt). Should be a good time. I'm supposed to be there in time for lunch. That means I gotta leave here by 8:30-ish at the latest. *sigh*

That's early for a Saturday morning.

My girlies are sticking close. Must be because they're frozen. It got really cold last night, and it's supposed to get cold again tonight. I suppose I might need to turn on the heat while I'm gone tomorrow. Maybe that gross burnt dust smell will be gone before I get back to the house. My baby is all tangled up in the bottom of my quilt. I'll have to be careful when I get up.

November 2, 2006

I keep waiting for the peace of certainty to come to me...you know, that feeling that you get when you know, without a shadow of a doubt, that you've made the right decision. I don't know that I've made the right decision. Some things have been changed and some things are going to be changed on Monday. Maybe with the changes I could have stuck it out. Maybe with the changes I could have started over and it would have been better with a different mix of kids.

I handed in my resignation letter today. It's supposed to be effective Dec. 1. I really do hope that they let me work through that date since I could use that paycheck in Dec and I haven't found anything to do instead.

I think that's why I'm not feeling that "peace"; I need a plan. I need to know what direction I'm headed in. Something will come up; I know it will, it always does, doesn't it? it may be at the last minute, but it does come up. You know...when I put myself on the transfer list at Pine, I was terrified I wasn't going to get a job, but I was offered two. Here, I was terrified something wasn't going to come up, but at the last minute, there were two options open to me. Something will happen. I just have to believe that.

I am parched. Cannot stop drinking fluid and it doesn't do any good. I don't know if that's because of the fevers or what, but it's killing me. A ton of stuff goes in, and very little comes out. On top of that, my period is getting ready to start. Ughhhhh.

I brought a bunch of the plants in from outside. It's supposed to get down to 36 or so tonight. Thinking about bringing in my dragonwing begonia and that one thing that I don't know what is...it's a lovely mix of neon green and a reddish purple. I suppose I should take a picture of it so that y'all know what I'm talking about.

I'm also considering turning on the heat tonight. It's November. I can justify turning on the heat since it's now November. I'm not ready to put the electric blanket on the bed. I've just been sleeping under the down comforter, and to put the electric blanket on the bed means I have to put a flat sheet on the bed too. The electric blanket is too itchy to use on its own.

Anyway. I think I'm going to take some narcotic-laced cough syrup and go to bed. Doesn't that sound like a GREAT idea? I suppose I could use that right about now.

I don't want to go back to work tomorrow. But it's time for me to do that. I don't want to deal with everything that needs to be dealt with. I suppose, though, that adults do that. They do the things they don't want to, and they do those things even if it terrifies them.

These are uncharted waters for me, and I'm a little afraid...OK, a lot afraid...to just dive right in. I like to know what is coming, what my future holds. I like having a plan. I don't know where I'm going or what I'm doing, and I don't like that feeling. I know that something is going to come, there will be an answer to my problems and it will be even better than what I'm doing now. It will be what I am supposed to be doing, but in the meantime, I'm a little frightened.

I'm feeling somewhat better, although the antibiotic that I'm on totally dehydrating me. I've had a ton of water today, and I feel like I'm dried out. Killing me. Now instead of running like a faucet, my nose is so dried up that it feels like I can barely swallow. I hate being sick. And I hate that being sick is costing me so much money. Dammit.

I should be entering grades into the computer so I'm not a total slacker weasel. *sigh* Or so I won't get written up for not having done my grades on a weekly basis.

I don't want to face the music.

I think I'm having an allergic reaction to one of the meds I'm taking. My upper arms and chest are all red and itchy. It better not be the $85 antibiotic. Dammit.