wash. rinse. repeat.
January 16, 2004, 12:41 pm

5:45am: Shit, I'm late.

6:07am: Shit, I'm later.

7:10am: Shit, I'm late.

7:17am: Shit, uh, do this stuff.

2:00pm: Shit, I'm late.

2:05pm: Shit, clean out this closet, bitches. Uh, shit, I mean, students.

4:00pm: Shit, I'm going to be late.

7:00pm: Shit, I'm late.

8:00pm: Shit, I don't know what I'm doing.

11:00pm: Shit, it's late.

12:37am: Shit, I'm still awake.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat. And there you have an update on my life for the past two weeks. My dull-as-a-dull-doorknob life is in a holding pattern, I'm afraid to report. Hate mail aside, it's been a pretty dull week.

In the "I'm definitely quitting my job at the end of this year" department, a lovely email from a parent of Linus, who insisted that despite my tireless efforts to include her son in everything I've done for the past two years, I really didn't "give a damn." As I've moved on the grieving process, I'm stationed steadfastly at anger now, and I'm quite convinced if she were to appear to me in any form, I'd have to smack her skull with a crowbar. True, if she were a ghost, I'd probably thwack the wall and get a pretty nasty reverberation in my hands, but it would be worth it.

I spent most of the afternoon sobbing in the school psychologist's office with the crumpled, tear-stained letter occasionally blotting my face. If this experience taught me anything, it's that I care too much. It's time for me to stop caring, which is great, because really, I didn't want to care about those papers sitting on my desk that have sat ungraded for a few days.

Another teacher bitched because I'm keeping my drama students in the drama studio. I wish I was making this up.

I've started creating elaborate fantasies in my head about the end of my teaching career: I am discovered by a reality television show who wants to follow around the most awesome person ever, I am wooed by a wealthy diplomat that insists that I spend his money any way I please, I become a roadie for Paul Westerberg, I write the next great American Novel, I win the Jeopardy Tournament of Champions, I get into grad school, I marry my childhood sweetheart...it keeps going. Frankly, the only fair escape I have right now are the limits of my imagination.

All this and I need to start popping pills to control my crazy spells: the times where my mind is running, running, running and I refuse to stop or blink or breathe without throwing myself into a full-blown hyperventilating mess that allows snot to dribble down her face and is not at all attractive enough to pull off the damsel-in-distress thing.

I'm terrified. I'm terrifying.