Anatomy of a weekend.

Usually, I overschedule myself.

Overscheduled Me is a total bitch. I mean, a BEEEEYOTCH of epic proportions.

Unscheduled me? Muuuuuch more mellow.

The side benefit of hermitting and cocooning because I feel sorry for myself is that my social calendar has slowed immensely. Not that friends aren't inviting me places; they are. Just that I'm being much more choosy. Not that my friends' events don't sound delectable; they do. Just that it's really really hard to beat sitting on my front porch doing a crossword puzzle* with a glass of wine.

This weekend I had a very short list of goals. The big advantage to a really short list of goals? Easy to accomplish.

Laundry? Check.
Clean the front rooms? Check.
Dig up the nasty-ass old-lady rosebushes** and replant something, ANYTHING? Check.

I ROCK. AND I'm not stressed.

BOOYAH.

----
*Note: given my family's obsession with crossword puzzles, and now the revelation that my high school math teacher has become a Will Shortz Published New York Times Crossword Author, I have more supplies of books of Sunday crossword puzzles than any one person should have. Spiral bound and otherwise. I have more crossword puzzles than I could do in, literally, a month of Sundays.

It's AWESOME.

**When we bought our house, it had recently passed from Mrs. S, who had inhabited the house for thirty-odd years. She left her mark in three--THREE--different freezers, one of which had a handle that had broken off so it couldn't be opened (leaving the piecrust, steak and fish (!!!) in it until the junkers came to pick it up), two nicotine-soaked rooms (that took one full week of painting to keep the tar from soaking back through the primer and paint) and yard full of prissy prissy roses. I got rid of three bushes and one puffball rose tree.

Next up: the dumbass droopy trees in the front yard. Their asses are... well... grass.

Repetition makes the heart grow fonder.

Games Will and I have made up with his parents aren't looking:

Put your hand under your jaw, in a fist (a la Rodin's The Thinker). Now, without moving your fist or lower jaw, open your mouth (will necessitate moving the upper part of your head back, sort of like Guy Smilie from Sesame Street). Go "Ya! Ya! Ya!" while doing so. Giggle until you lose breath. Repeat. And then repeat again. And then repeat again.

Put cardstock insert from magazine on top of tennis ball can. Blow card off. Scream with glee. Repeat. And then repeat again. And then repeat again.

Put (teeny wee) hat on Kari's (ginormous, huge) head. "Blow" off (with perhaps, reportedly, assistance from a flinging motion of Kari's hand). Repeat. And then repeat again. And then repeat again.

Help Woody and Buzz perform "I'm a Little Teapot" in basso profundo. Applaud their performance. Repeat. And then repeat again. And then repeat again.

The game that started it all: Put block on head. Tilt head so block falls off. Put block on someone else's head. Laugh with mad insanity when it falls off. Repeat. And then repeat again. And then repeat again.

Telephonophobia

I just cleared out my voicemail on my cell phone. Yeah. The messages were, oh, um, what, crap. Like, they went all the way back to March 2nd. And um, the mailbox was, er, full. (To be fair, half the messages were from Andrew, who will call back every five minutes.)

I'm a terrible phone person. I don't chat very well. If I'm mildly upset or stressed, I reeeeeeally don't chat well. Emily has a very funny story about me "chatting" with her on a day when I had been particularly stressed, where I thought I was being all chill, and apparently I was coming off more, oh, serial-killery.

And cell phones... gar. Really, just don't try to get a hold of me via cell phone. Chances are about 4 in 10 that I even have it with me. Add in "forget to charge" and "has she even turned it on?" and you're much better off either figuring out who I'm with or just giving up on an immediate rendezvous and leaving me a message at home, because eventually Andrew will have to listen to the messages.

My discomfort with the phone extends to listening to messages. They are just a reminder of how much I suck at answering the phone, remembering my phone, checking my messages. I'm sure that every message left will be someone disappointed in me, so I just don't want to hear it.

Yay, maturity!

So yesterday when I answered the phone from my brother, that's a testament to how much I love him. Our conversation lasted all of five minutes, though, because as soon as he told me his wife was pregnant (surprise!), I was incapable of forming coherent sentences.

I broke.

Broken.

Pieces. Everywhere.

I'm really happy for you, but I can't. I. It's. I can't.

and I hung up.

Yay, maturity!

This is not going to help my fear of the phone.

Today is gonna suuuuuuuuck.

Yahoo!

I woke up at two!

Today will be great fun!

And tho it's technically just begun,

Hours I've been up is four

And there will be so many more

Filled with teens and work,

My job I cannot shirk.

Yippee!

Don't you wish you were me!

Drill down deep.

When I was in school, we had one tornado drill a year, and maybe one fire drill a year. Everyone has fire drills, but tornado drills are peculiar to FlyOver Country. In a tornado drill, kids are lead out to the hallways, away from windows, where we knelt, put our foreheads on our knees, and laced our fingers over "the most vulnerable parts of our necks" in an effort to protect our, what, carotid artery? from, uh, flying debris? I dunno, we were ten and did what we were told!

Now, by state law, my high school must have one drill per month (which usually means it's on the 30th or 31st, at whatever time is possibly least convenient). This being the Pacific Northwest and not, say, Nebraska, we're not so big on tornado drills. Instead, of course, we do earthquake drills. At this school, earthquake drills look eerily like atomic bomb "Duck and Cover" drills. Which seems to me, um... well, admittedly, I've never been in an earthquake (that I could feel) but still. Wouldn't, uh, outside, like, out from under a roof be a better choice?

In addition to earthquake drills, though, we have another drill. A Stranger Danger drill. I draw my curtains, lock my door (buy, uh, opening my door and using my key, which I'm sure I'll have no problem with should I ever get the "this is not a drill" announcement) and we all are supposed to do is huddle as far away from doorways as possible.

Which is awesome.

My school is an open campus, a little mini-college campus. I'm in one of the smallest buildings that's right next to the parking lot. There's no way to lock down the campus. Almost everyone's classroom opens right up to the outside. (Hey, great plan for Portland! No, really!) I'm sure, when it was built in the eighties, there was no reason to think anything about it.

Since the New Year:

In January, in Tacoma Washington, one student shot another.

Last week, in the surburb of Portland (the one that's oh, half-a-mile from my home) a fifteen year old boy, angry at his mother and two teachers, took some shots.

And worse, so, so, SO much worse:

Today, at Virginia Tech, in Blacksburg Virginia, four students survived a classroom massacre by pretending to be dead.

Despite our lockdown drills, I don't ever really imagine this happening to us. I'm sure they didn't either. You can't operate that way. Any time my mind wanders into territory even near wondering about it, it skitters away and shies away almost instantly. The image of a stranger walking into my room with the intent to do me or my students harm terrifies me and angers me with such a protective fierceness that my mouth gets dry. Those are my kids. I've read People magazine stories about students overpowering intruders and it gives me chills. These are my kids.

"School Shooting" is now a term, separate and different from just, y'know, "shooting." Statistically, for all that, not something I'd call a movement or anything, but it's what I do, where I work, who I am, and scares the shit out of me.

And I feel completely powerless. And I ache for the faculty, students, staff and families at Virginia Tech. And I dread the revelations over the next few days of "if-only" and "I never thought". And when I think about it happening to my kids, my heart goes still.

It's official!

I just heard the beginning of summer!

Anyone able to take the stress away?

I hate days like this. I had to call two sets of parents under the pretext that I wanted to verify whether an absence was excused or not. I say pretext because it was a test day, and there is no way on earth those boys didn't know it was a test day, and mysteriously, they were only absent for my class. Plus, they are friends. And both absent together. I'm not always too bright but I'm pretty sure I know why they were absent.

But that means they get a zero for that test. The crap of it is, I really like both of them. If just by psychic force of will I could get them to work and to think, I would, in a New York minute. As it is, they are probably going to fail the class. And that sucks. They brought it on themselves, but it really sucks. Plus, I think I got them in a LOT OF TROUBLE at home.

I tried to play it as fair as possible. I warned both of the boys, told them what the penalty was, and gave them the opportunity to talk to their parents first. I had spoken with both parents on other occasions, and knew they were straight shooters and wouldn't excuse the kids to get them out of a punishment they'd created. One of the boys took me up on it and fessed up to his mom before I talked to her, which was good. The other? Whooooo boy, I think he's in a heap of trouble.

My inner dialogue: I didn't make him skip class. I didn't make him skip class on a test day. I didn't make him lie about it.

But still, I hate being a grown up sometimes.

Bridges.

I've been trying to process my parents visit. I don't remember visits with my parents being this... difficult, for lack of a better word.

Of course, the last time they visited, I had lots of percoset and dilaudid, so maybe, I shouldn't trust my memory.

Just maybe.

I want them to have a good time when they're here. I want them to enjoy themselves. I just don't know how to merge my desires with, y'know, reality.

Amazingly, it took my mom two days to give me the head-tilt-"How-are-you?" Note: don't start conversations that way.

I spent days and days and days, cleaning our house, setting up our guest room, planning and researching, and hoping. And Mom and Dad stayed at the Comfort Inn ("We don't want to make you uncomfortable."). Dad got impatient with everything we planned. Sightseeing Oregon's beautiful waterfalls like a drive-by attack? A short walk on a flat path through a beautiful park? Looking into pioneer history? Ashland's antiques?

I finally broke down and asked, "What do YOU like to do on vacations?"

This, I asked of a man who went to Bermuda to play bridge. And that was all he did.

He looked at me and grimaced, and ground out, "Horseback riding." Which, if you met him--you know was sarcasm. Thanks Dad.

It wasn't all bad. I mean, I love my folks. I think I was just hoping for too much. They hadn't seen me in almost a year, and as previously noted, that one time they've seen me in the past year and a half, I was stoned as all freaking hell on prescription pain killers, so where on Earth did I think insta-bonding would come from? You think maybe I put too much weight on My Parents Will Love Me More If I Entertain Them Really Well? Maybe?

Nah.

On the bright side: I now know how to play bridge. A really really lot of bridge. Hours and hours of bridge.

Because that's what my dad does on vacation.

Filler

So, update on the family vacation will come later, suffice it to say: I'm alive, we're all still speaking to each other, and Andrew has not threatened divorce, so we're all good.

IN the meantime, because everyone has already seen Blood, I give this for your viewing enjoyment:

To my high school students: For Reals, Yo.

Communication.

Dear 2007,

Okay, I've slammed you in the past, but in my defense, you've done some really shitty things.

Okay, okay, this isn't going to be a blame sort of letter. It's a new beginnings sort of letter. So I don't want to start off on that negative foot.

Yay, I got my period! My first period of 2007! (if you don't count that four weeks of bleeding that totally included my embryo, but whatever) It's a chance to start over, that kind of restart you never get with a boyfriend who swore he didn't mean to give head to your roommate because oops it just happened and it's really you he loves or your high school friend who totally sent that note that you intercepted calling you a bitch even though she totally denied that it was so in her handwriting even though it totally was because no one else made those y's with the crazy "artsy" loop. Those restarts were never, you know, untainted.

Ahem. Not that I'm holding a grudge or anything. Clean slate, hormones! New beginnings, uterus! I loooooove you, 2007! You wanna come over, just hang out? No, yeah, we're totally friends!

Seriously, a friend just gave me the best compliment tonight. "You're much less angry," she said. Which is true. I am able to be focused on what can still happen, what the next few months can hold. Mostly. Let's not say I'm not totally panicked about how I'm going to react when the gush of babies that's about to happen does, in fact, occur (blessings of health upon the half-dozen of babies due to friends and family because the opposite is too calamitous to contemplate) because I am panicked but I choose not to focus on that. When that happens and if I'm not knocked up at the time, then I'll deal with that when I deal with that (probably with chocolate and alcohol, because hey, at least I'll be able to drink! silver linings, right?) but what I can focus on right now? I'm bleeding which means SOMETHING is still working the way it should and that means I'm that much closer to trying again.

It's not awkward at all that I don't know how to talk to loved ones who are pregnant. It's not awkward at all that I don't know how to communicate the sadness that's always there, the anger that is still there. It's not uncomfortable at all that I see my relationships changing because I just don't possess the fortitude to admit that the relationship has changed just as a result of circumstances and be okay with that. I don't want to blame you for that, 2007, but you are kind of a guilty bystander to all of that. Life is unfair, at its base, and that's not your fault anymore than it's all these mommma-to-be's faults.

You do, however, make an extremely convenient scapegoat.

So I'm trying not to blame you, 2007. I really am. And I'm trying to be okay with everyone else being as fertile as the fucking Nile Delta ("hahah! we got pregnant the first time we tried! Isn't that funny! And awkward as all fucking hell? Hahaha!") because it's not their fault either.

So can you do us a favor? It's not our fault either? You know? So, kinda, cut us some slack? Because that'd be great.

Thanks.
Me.

Thanks be.

It's spring break. It's the first day of spring break, nine sweet, holy days in which I'm sure I'm meant to contemplate the fact that Jesus rose from the Dead, but instead I get to do whatever the hell I want. Which involves my parents coming to stay for a week.

I"m not anxious.

No, not at all.

First off, they've never visited for more than two days before. Second, they've never visited on their own. Third, they've never visited because I guilted the hell out of them, singing the refrain of "You Go See My Siblings All The Time" and "Plus You Screwed Us On Christmas", with the added encore of "And That Birthday Gift? Who's Sorry Now!" in three part harmony. It was like Row Row Row Your Boat sung in a round, only with more guilt. In my defense, I never thought they'd seek retribution with seven straight days.

So They're Coooooooming!

We're going to Ashland to see the Oregon Shakespeare Festiveal, which isn't so much Shakespeare so much as it's Plays Which Include Shakespeare and not so much a Festival as Plays All Year Long (We Have Them Too, Y'Know). We actually have tickets to see a Stoppard play, which my little drama-girl heart is totally thudding for. But other than that? We'll play it by ear.

And hopefully we'll find lots of things to do, or my dad might end up reframing the walls in my basement while my mom buys lots of shoes.

Why I didn't go to the gym today

5:00 Wake up.

5:25 Realize that the clock had not, in fact, read 6:00 like I'd thought. But now I'm showered. And dressed.

5:45 Might as well have breakfast.

6:10 Might as well go to work.

6:30 Grade the quizzes I was supposed to grade this weekend, but didn't because my geek squad WENT TO THE STATE CHAMPIONSHIP AND TOTALLY WON AND IT ROCKED.

7:00 Students! Hi! You are all very loud! And I have not had my coffee yet! I swear, I'll be right back!

7:05 Get hung up on the office as everyone wants to congratulate me on my geek squad WHO ARE NOW CERTIFIABLY THE BEST IN THE STATE AND PROBABLY THE BEST IN THE NORTHWEST AND PERHAPS THE BEST IN THE COUNTRY THEY ROCK THAT HARD.

7:20 Get back to my classroom just as zero period starts. I have ten students in asking for help.

7:50 Zero period over before I ever found anything even slightly resembling a groove. A grooveless, groove-free, nongrooving zero period.

7:55 My prep period starts in which I need to (a) finish grading quizzes (b) plan for the class where I'm to be observed by the principal (c) write a test (d) write some review sheets and (e) something else, and it must have been what I did because I certainly didn't do (a) through (d), but I'll be damned if I can remember what I did.

8:55 Stats class. Three people--THREE--have done their homework. Put off test one day. In the last three minutes of class, get a call from a local newspaper about my geek squad WINNING FIRST PLACE IN THE ENTIRE STATE BECAUSE THEY ROCK THE HARDEST. I ask if I can email her more details later, but I'm teaching class right now.

9:50 Oh, Hi, Principal M! Yeah, I'm totally prepared to teach this class (what was (b) in my prep? shit shit shit! it's not, like, totally obvious I am faking my way through this class and am, in fact, completely pitted out right now, is it? shit shit shit!)

10:35 Can forty five minutes go more slowly?

10:40 Class over. Thank you sweet jesus for not actually stopping time, even though, I have to admit, it totally and completely felt like it, but I'm not holding grudges, baby jesus, I swear I'm not.

10:45 Give the same lesson plan another go. Equally shitty. Crap. Can't blame the principal's presence on the shitfest that was 3rd period.

11:25 In the last ten minutes of class, get a call from newspaper two because my geek squad IS THE BEST IN THE STATE AT THE STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS THAT THEY TOTALLY WON BECAUSE OF THE EXCESS OF ROCKING THAT HAPPENED. Get the students together? For a picture? No problem! Yeah, just send your photographer down! Yeah, absolutely! Well, lunch is in ten minutes, and it lasts half an hour, so send him down in, what, say forty five minutes? Yeah, noon, noon-fifteen. That'd be great!

11:35. Lunch. Shit shit shit. Email due to newspaper one. What does she want? Totally forgot and can't read my message to myself. Get as detailed as possible, she can cut what she wants. And then, newspaper two! What do I have to do to get permission for photographers to, y'know, photograph the students? Where are they? How do I get them here? Oh! Trophies! Where are the trophies? Gotta get the trophies. And how do I get permission? And someone's gotta be in my fifth period class while I'm... hey, can you cover my fifth? Great! AND WHAT DO YOU MEAN MY CO-ADVISOR HAS A SUB TODAY??? AHHHHHH! And I have to find some food. Food. Where can I... right, lunchroom, cafeteria, buy a sandwich and some Sun Chips. Put sandwich on my desk I'll... get to it. Soon. CRAP--that's the bell? Lunch is over?

11:15--thanks for covering my fifth period. This'll be, like, five minutes.

11:20 Nah, you should just take a picture of the kids, they're great, they did all the work (plus, have you NOTICED this giant zit in the middle between my nose and upper lip? I mean, it's a totally bi-colored pulsing MONSTROSITY! No WAY am I committing that to photgraphic record!), 'kay, great you guys are... no? not done? Oh, no problem at all...

11:45 Shit shit shit shit! Sorry that took so long I TOTALLY owe you a covered first period free gratis anytime kthxbieee! Okay, kids, buckle your seatbeltS, we're about to do fifty minutes worth of proofs in twenty! Wheeee! Cuz this lesson didn't suck hard enough the first two times I did it today, it has to suck balls even worse! AWESOME!

1:10 Oh, hi sixth period. So, yeah, what were we doing today? Right. Review. I. Um. Do you mind if I eat my sandwich first?

2:00 Thank God end of school day. Oh, hi... you... right. Wanted to take your test today because you're leaving for China tomorrow. Huh. Right, that test that I... no, I totally have it written I just haven't... oh, you have something else to do first? Yeah, fine, do that, I'll have the test for you at 2:30. Shit shit shit shit shit.

2:10 Newspaper number three. I... they were great. It's all just... can I call you back? Because I just might die soon.

2:30 No, yeah, kiddo, I totally have the test for you. Here, why don't you start the free response while I finish... proofreading the multiple choice.

3:00 See? Here's the multiple choice, totally typo free!

3:03 Ha! Ha ha ha! Isn't it funny? See where it says "confidencer"? Hee! That should so say "confidence"!

3:06 Ha! Ha ha ha. Um. That place where it says "pyrothesis"? Yeah, I don't even know what that means. I think it is supposed to say "hypothesis."

3:10 Ha. Ha. Crap. Number 5, where it says "now" that really should say "not". Yeah, it really does change the meaning of the question, doesn't it?

3:12 Ah, hell, don't even bother to answer #7. I don't even know what I was trying to say.

4:00 Holy hell, how is it four already?

5:00 Sweet she-gods of Jerusalem, it's five? I.... have to leave. I... what the hell? When did that happen? Baby jesus, are you trying to mess with time again?

5:45 Hi hon, I'm home! How was my... ? What? DAMMIT. No, I didn't go to the dentist. Yes, I forgot completely about it. No, I know exactly where I was at four. Yes, I'll reschedule. No, I don't have the other doctor's phone number, and No, I didn't call her, and Yes, you can call and make an appointment all you want.

6:45 Ahhhhh, Screw Kappa Napa, have I ever told you how very very very much I love you?

Ahhh, molding young minds is my job

As said by one of my students yesterday:

"Ms H! I couldn't find your Myspace page! I mean, I googled tattoos, kickball and teaching, and I couldn't find anything."

Hee. And yet still more Hee. With a side of BWAHAHA and some snicker on top.

This weekend.

Dear Matilda,

Please don't whine so much. One, because it breaks my heart, and two, because I miss him too.

Love,
Your mama

Dilemma at the Gym.

I was working out on Tuesday, and I picked an elliptical trainer thingy that had a good view of the Who Wants to be a Millionaire with captions because, well, it's trivia and if it's trivia then I can be entertained for that entire time and so that with my wee little iPod shuffle (that's orange! I love this wee little thing! It's so wee, I'm destined to lose it in about 90 days, but it's perfect for working out! can't you tell by my exclamation points?) piping my workout music into my ears and the trivia, ye gods, the trivia for my eyes (although some of it--yikes, "Finish this phrase: a good man is hard to..." seriously?) I would hardly notice the half hour passing and I don't need to worry about accidentally being introspective or dwelling on anything and it's like this perfect storm of how to get Kari to actually like (or maybe just Hate Less) working out.

Except there was one teeeeeny flaw in this plan: commercials. And it really felt like it would be question, and then we'll be right back to see if she can answer another dumb-shit question! question, and then stay tuned! question and then Febreeze for all your things with surfaces! So my attention would wander just a bit.

I purposely put a little hand towel over the readout when I'm on one of those torture devices machines because if I pay attention to the time as it passes, that's all I pay attention to, and then I barely make it to 15 minutes. If, however, I can not notice? I can easily make it to thirty or even forty minutes. It's awesome. So distracting me is a very big priority for me.

So there I am, annoyed by the ads broken up by wanna-be trivia, desperately searching or something to pay attention to that wouldn't make me the Creepy Person at the Gym. Focusing on the ass in front of you? Someone will eventually notice. So eyes up! at the TV! at all times! is the unspoken rule.

My eyes are scanning the TVs, and it's like, afternoon news (car crashes! and a fire! and a car crash! and guess what, it might rain tomorrow), ESPN (hey, I hear there's something about basketball going on?), local news, Scarborough Country (even though we're in a super-liberal town in a pretty liberal part of it, so really, wtf? I mean, Trader Joe's is across the street!), and then... Oprah.

How bad could it be?

It just so happened to be showing an episode on thirteen families in Charlotte who adopted twenty-eight different children--teenagers!--from an orphanage. In Liberia. And then a gay couple who had fostered twenty one different kids and adopted four of them and were in the process of adopting, like, sixteen more (that poor kid who was left out...). And then. Then. Then it was of the family who had a set of identical quadruplets, without fertility drugs, just pow! bang! bang! bang! four beautiful daughters. The family's name would make a fiction editor's eyes roll until they could see their own brain: Breedlove.

It's not weird to be snibbling on the elliptical trainer thingy, is it? People would just think I was having a really good workout, right?

Right?

Shit. Next time I'm plopping my fat jiggly ass in front of the VH1 television screen, wherever it happens to be. I don't care if that means I have to use the rower or if it means I have to watch thirty minutes of Paris Hilton: Misunderstood, Skank, or Just Really Shallow? because that must suck less.

Things I learned from watching The 300

• Women don't generally talk.
• Queens/wives/mothers don't get names.
• Shouting platitudes can apparently get people to do really desperate things.
• Dark skinned people are eeeeevil!
• Nose rings are eeeeeevil!
• Girls who sleep together are eeeeevil!
• Eeeeevil kings will wear girlie makeup!
• (and I can be totally jealous of whatever the hell was on his lips!)
• Dark skinned girls will sleep together.
• And be eeeeeevil!
• Any men who do not have sculpted (and perhaps, just perhaps, cgi'd) abs are pussy weakliartraitors.
• Hey also: blackmailing a woman into sex isn't rape!
• Ancient Greeks, especially Spartans, had really great dental plans.
• Persians, not so much.
• No, seriously, those Greeks? For the most part: really white, straight, clean teeth. With fillings.
• Any society that accepts imperfection: eeeeeevil!
• Facial piercings: eeeeeeevil!
• Also: when it comes to movies I might enjoy, a craptastic script rife with cliched dialogue, homophobia, xenophobia and misogyny cannot make up for visually stunning cinematography. Apparently I need some there there.

(For those who wondered: yes, there is only one woman who has any lines at all in this movie, and she doesn't get a name. Oh, wait, there's the adolescent "oracle" who gets to show some tit and whisper some ancient Greek, but she doesn't get a name either. Or, y'know, a personality. Just a tit and some cool cinematography.)

It's a little thing, but it's not.

I've started working out again. It's nice. It's a time when I can go absolutely zen brainless listening to music and reading crap magazines and still feel virtuous! It's win-win-win! Plus I've lost four pounds already! I haven't weighed myself since that four-pound weightloss weigh-in, just in case that was a water weight fluke. In fact, I'm focusing on that. Four pounds! Lost! Which means, actually, I can now fit into my Real People clothes as long as I don't breathe. That also means I only have twenty pounds to go before I'm at my weight last summer. Which wasn't ideal, but it also wasn't No You'll Never See Me In a Swimsuit Ever Fuck Off bad, so that's a plus. No pun intended.

Almost two years ago, I was on an exercise kick because I'd gained back some of the weight I'd lost for my wedding (ha! I was twenty-five pounds lighter then! ha!) and I saw this gym had a buy-three-years-membership-now-save-a-ton! deal. So I did. And, in fact, promptly stopped going because I got a job that was leaving me exhausted at 3:30. So, thumbs up, Kari! Well done!

Fortunately, I'd also bought the go-to-all-the-gyms-in-the-area pass, because the gym nearest me is in the corner of a dying mall. Well, the middle part of the mall is dying. Either end of the mall is anchored by a Target and a Home Depot, so no matter which end I went in, I was screwed.

Wait, that sounds dirty.

What I meant was, it was costing me more because I'd just take a little trip through Target and find a t-shirt! That was only $6.99! So I should just buy four! about once a week. Not good.

But then the walk from Target to the gym was through an echoy mall with empty storefronts. In fact, the only store still there is Claire's, and I can't figure out how they're selling enough $4.99 earring sets to stay open, but open they stay. It was depressing. The people at the gym were not very friendly. And I had a trainer that I had to avoid because part of my membership "deal" was that I got to see a trainer free five times. I went those five times before I stopped going, but Rick (Steve? Tom? Whatever his name was) would still call me. He even sent me a Christmas card. I did not make that up for comedic effect. Anyway, I didn't want to explain to him that I wasn't going to pay for more sessions with him because frankly, I was too tired to go to the gym at all and have him guilt me about going to the gym and what all, so I thought it best if I just never saw him again. It was a little like breaking up with a boy. In eighth grade.

Now I'm going to the shiny new gym that's not so near my house but is near a Trader Joe's. I justify replacing my Target shopping with the TJ shopping because hey! organic! Plus: this gym is much nicer. The people-watching is much prettier. In fact, I bring the prettiness average down quite a few notches as I sweat and grunt my way through my workout. I am not a pretty sweater. Meaning sweating person, not the knitted or woven garment. I get all red and flushed and my skin gets all patchy and teenage acne looking. But hell, it's not like I'm going there in order to look glam. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Anyway, I went today, and then went to TJ's and basically I feel that no matter what, if I do nothing else today (oh! and we cleaned almost our entire house this morning, like with mops and stuff! so there's that too!), I was still virtuous and so can consider this day a Win.

Rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant rant

1. I hate it on TV or in the movies when people run a program that is clearly ridiculuous. Does it make funny noises when scrolling through a list, or a boop-boop-boop when it's running a program? Your computer is not a microwave, it doesn't beep as it counts down. And three-dimensional imaging, while fantastic, is not how businesses show the results of a search. CSI? I'm looking at you. Oh, and plus? One does not get one's DNA results by merely spinning a teeny test tube for forty-five minutes. That's not a one-day process.
2. You know what? Don't tell me teachers have it easy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, summers off is a great bonus. But I get shit pay, shittier respect (along the lines of if-you-could-do-anything-else-wouldn't-you-be-doing-it???) and the hours suuuuuuck. I can honestly say that I never worked this hard when I was making twice as much. Today I left the house at 6:45 and got home at 5 and have been working on lesson planning since then. And while this isn't every day, it also isn't unusual. Why do it, you ask? Well, I did want to slit my wrists at my previous job, so--less suicidal is a step up. Don't get me wrong--I love teaching, in the cheesy I've-found-my-calling way (and, apparently, in a need-to-use-hypens-a-lot way). But I also work really really hard to be a good teacher. Back up off that "you've got it easy" shit right now.
3. Hey, students! It's called a typo. Sorry its there, yeah yeah I suck, now figure it the fuck out and move on. It's really not hard to figure out that I meant "te" to be "the". Don't be such dumbasses.
4. Right now I'm finding it very hard to talk to, look at, or even think of pregnant women. Seriously, hate every single one of you. And yeah, this includes people that normally I love dearly. Don't take it personal, but also, don't tell me to just get over it. I am, and at my own pace, but if in the meantime I want to black out the teeth and draw beards on every pregnant woman in a magazine, I will and fuck you. Naomi Watts, this means you, you glowing sack of beautiful shit. I am also contemplating running up to pregnant women on the street and tacking signs on their back that read, "Ask me about my hemorrhoids!" So I don't want to hear how happy-go-yay you are about your full and lustrious hair, how the pregnancy juice flowing through your veins just makes the very oxygen you breathe smell better, nor will I be in the least sympathetic about how rough it is to have to pee all the time. Suck it up and find someone else to be your Pregnant Goddess Sounding Board.
5. If I work with you but take some time off for some horrid personal shit and so miss a meeting we're supposed to have, that is really really not a good time to rant about my communication style to everyone else. Yes, I-dress-in-clothes-from-the-eighties-and-not-in-a-good-way, I'm talking to you, oh you who has the hair down your back and still curls your bangs. If I'm not there to either receive constructive criticism nor to defend myself, why the fuck are you ranting about me by name unless it's because you're a chicken shit cowardly cunt? PS: the ghost of Princess Di called. She wants her blazers with the puffy sleeves and skirts with the pleated waists back.
6. Oh, and 2007? You just took the father of a really dear friend of mine. He didn't smoke, he didn't play with radioactive material, whence his sudden cancer? Fuck you 2007. Just fuck you sideways.

Can someone wake me up when it's May? Because sometimes it hurts too much for it to still only be today.

Would you like some tea with that awkward?

I have the best friends in the world. I've been getting the sweetest cards that invariably make me cry but also make me feel like eventually, one day, maybe even one day soon, I'll be less of a hermit and it won't hurt too much. I still hesitate when I get an envelope with handwriting on it, I kind of put off reading it until I'm okay with the idea that I'll want to cry and it'll take me back to that place but I eventually do read it because I'm so incredibly, deeply touched.

Plus, cards are way way better than phone calls. Such as my 90-some-odd year old grandparents, my oh-so-Minnesota-Scandinavian-Uff-da grandparents. The phone conversation went like this (note: you'll have to insert the northern-Minnesota accent yourself):

Me: "Hi Grampa!"

Grampa: "Oohhhh, Hi Kari, it's your Grampa here... your grandmother is getting on the other line... so..."

Me: "... well, hi Grampa... um... how're you?"

Grampa: "I'm fiiiine... you know... your grandmother is getting on the other line..."

Grandma: "Hiiiii, Kari!"

Me (loudly):"Hi, Grandma, how're you?"

Grandma: "Ooooh, you know... truckin' along... "

Grampa: "We're.... we're calling because.... your mother told us that you... that you... that some rough things happened and... we've sure been thinking about you, you know, a lot...."

Me (thinking, shoot me now, can this get more awkward? and that I suck and will burn in hell for thinking such terrible things about my grandparents being super sweet? and yet, the awkward? is awkward and awful?) "Yeah, it's been rough...."

Grampa: "...and we're sure sorry and sad."

Me: "That's very kind, thanks. I... yeah, it's been a rough week, but thanks."

Grampa: "So, how's the weather down there?"

Me: "Fine, it's 60 and sunny today. How about you?"

Grampa: "Oh, it's been terrible, the worst storm I can remember! We've been snowed in for days now."

Grandma: "We're surviving off the food we have in the house!"

Me: "That sounds awful!"

Grampa: "Oh, you know. Are you planning a trip up to visit us?"

Me: "Um. Well, our plans for the year have been somewhat abruptly changed, so we'll try to figure something out..."

Grampa: "That'd be great, we'd sure look forward to it. We're thinking of you."

Grandma: "Be a good girl, now!"

Click.

Me: "Okay, um, bye?"



I don't think they make a card for that conversation.