Dear Cormac McCarthy.......

Your writing is fraught with detail. As an English teacher, I am tempted to edit some of it out. Some of the details you include really add to the story. Some of them......well, they just add to the junk.

You could have easily omitted some of the unnecessary stuff and included .... oh, I don't know .... maybe some FREAKIN' QUOTATION MARKS TO LET ME KNOW WHO IS SPEAKING?

I'm the one who gave up on John Steinbeck, remember?

I'm not above giving up on you too.

Had a long week today,



Bragger

The Decline of Professionalism.....

I'm only speaking of my own professionalism here, not that of anyone else.

And I'm not really talking about professional behavior so much as dress. This occurred to me as I was dressing for school on Friday.

Friday has become jeans day for most high schools around here, except for one county where I used to work, where the former superintendent said that blue jeans were never acceptable.

Back when I first started teaching, I wore mostly dresses and skirts. And pantyhose. And relatively high heels. Not stilettos, mind you, but pumps. I don't think I EVER wore sandals. We were allowed to wear jeans on Fridays then too, as long as we wore school colors. The only thing I hated was that particular school's colors were red and gold. Yuck. I was embarrassed if I had to stop at the store on the way to school and I was wearing spirit wear. It looked like someone's color-blind mother was dressing me. And she was mad at me.

Sometimes I wore suits to school, and I didn't look out of place at all. I remember a couple in particular. One was a green plaid jacket and solid green skirt. My aunt gave me that suit, and I loved it. I wore it with a frilly white blouse and the obligatory pumps. On a shopping trip with my mother when she was feeling generous, I fell in love with a navy blue suede leather skirt and vest. I remember wearing that suit poolside one afternoon when I was coaching swimming. When I lost 50 pounds, I went through my rayon pantsuit phase. I had a navy blue one, a red one, and a gorgeous coral colored one. That was the one I was wearing one morning when our school was experiencing a rash of bomb threats and resultant evacuations (nine in two weeks; two in one day) and it started to pour rain. Bye-bye coral pantsuit.

I used to accessorize, too, mainly due to the influence of my ex-friend Angela. She shopped with me, advised me on what to wear, and had no qualms whatsoever about telling me that something I had on was tacky. I wore scarves with some outfits, pins with others. I remember one of my favorite dresses from that time period. It was red linen, with a tiny pleated panel at the bottom. It also had a black-and-white-polka-dotted ribbon between the pleated part and the skirt part. I found a pin of a clown riding a bicycle, and the clown's outfit was red and white polka dots. That's how much into matching my accessories I was back then.

At another high school, there was a lady who participated in the 3-day walk to raise money for breast cancer research. She was a breast cancer survivor herself, so the principal allowed anyone who donated money to her "buy" the privilege of wearing jeans. A certain amount bought you ten days of jeans on any day you wanted to wear them, a higher amount twenty days, and so forth. I donated the amount that would allow me to wear jeans any day of the week I wanted to, unlimited, for the whole school year. All I had to do was wear my pink ribbon that day to indicate that I had earned the privilege. Man, that was freedom. Having those random days when I just didn't feel like dressing up, just to be able to put on jeans and sneakers. I miss those days.

I have discarded every single dress and skirt in my closet, except for one denim skirt and a couple of dresses that I may (or may not) wear to formal night on a cruise. I haven't worn pantyhose since my friend's funeral six years ago (except to my teacher-of-the-year banquet), and I may never wear them again. Pantyhose are OF. THE. DEVIL.

I still try to dress somewhat professionally, though. I wear black slacks with a mock turtleneck or a shirt and jacket at least once a week. I have an awesome pair of sort-of-big-legged black-with-white-pinstripe Ralph Lauren pants that I would wear every day, but I try to limit them to about every other week. They are so comfortable, and they feel almost like heavy denim, so when I wear them I feel like I'm getting away with something. I have a pair of almost-but-not-quite herringbone slacks, a dark gray, a couple pairs of brown (all of which I hate and detest), and a couple of requisite khakis.

I'll be glad when spring is here, so I can go back to wearing capris. Please, God, don't ever let capris and crop pants go out of style. I have a much larger selection of those than I do slacks in my closet. And as long as you pair them with something mostly professional looking (as opposed to, say, a t-shirt), at our school we can get away with capris, crop pants, or walking shorts. I'm getting too old to wear shorts above the knee, however. Damn it.

I need to go through my dresser drawers and throw away all those pantyhose (and some tights) that I've had for years. If an occasion arises on which I MUST wear pantyhose, I will fake a coma or something. I also need to purge my shoes, but that's for another post.

Sunday Random Musings Part Deux.......

I think this will be my new Sunday night blog topic. It's the way my mind works on Sunday anyway: so many thoughts whirling around, fighting for attention, teasing each other like rival siblings. It used to be much worse, when I had lessons to plan, papers I hadn't graded all weekend, yearbook deadlines approaching. No wonder I used to take the day after the Super Bowl as a personal day.

• Thank you SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH to the readers who sent well wishes my way. They must have worked, because I feel much better today. Well enough to go to school tomorrow. Damn it.
  
• I crocheted a scarf for one of my students. God, I hope that doesn't start ANOTHER wave of requests. It calls for flowers. I have finished the scarf and the flowers, and for three days I have avoided actually sewing the flowers to the scarf. Why?
• Sean Payton (head coach for New Orleans) has gorgeous eyes.
• So far the Super Bowl commercials have been a letdown. Except for a couple of the Bud Light ones. Maybe I'm just prejudiced because Pepsi doesn't have any ads this year.
• I have also been avoiding doing a couple of simple assignments for an online professional development course I'm taking. I don't really need the PLU's, but I signed up because I was interested in the course. I just don't like homework.
• I have been denied access to the teachers' retirement website because I didn't know my password. When I clicked on "forgot password" and answered the two secret questions, it told me I didn't know my mother's maiden name or where I was born. Huh. I've been wrong all these years.
• Today I made a dessert to take to my co-workers tomorrow. It has chocolate cake mix, chocolate pudding, chocolate chips, peanut butter, and peanuts in it. It's the only reason I'm going to school tomorrow.
• Both the dog and I have hair appointments this week. His will cost more than mine.
• I haven't been out of my pajamas all day. Seems kind of pointless now, don't you think?
• We have a four-day week this week. I'd like to be excited about it, but Friday is a FWOP day. Furlough Without Pay. To add insult to injury, I scheduled my yearly exam and mammogram for that day. I didn't schedule it very well, however. My doctor's office is about 40 minutes away, in the same town where I will go to a gymnastics meet about 9 hours later. Duh.
  
• I am so clearly a numbers person that it is baffling to me why I became an English teacher. I'm crocheting a new afghan, one that goes round and round instead of having to be pieced together at the end. I fretted over the stitch count because it wasn't looking right, and the pattern didn't tell me on EVERY round how many stitches there should be. When I figured out that the number of stitches was the row number times four minus one, the earth settled back into its natural orbit. And then I started over.
  
• I wanted to be an Olympic ice skater when I was a little girl. There's so much opportunity to practice THAT here in the Deep South. Then my brother told me that you couldn't weigh over 100 pounds or you would crack the ice, so I gave up on that dream.

The Streak is Over.....

.....at least I think.

I don't think I've been sick in at least two years. I apparently have a powerful immune system, but I attribute it to the fact that I exercise EVERY DAY. I'm glad it's good for something, because it certainly isn't melting off any pounds.

And I'm not really, really sure I'm sick now.

It began yesterday morning. I had exercised, and I was getting ready for school. I hadn't eaten breakfast, but I often take something with me to eat when I get to school. Suddenly I felt extremely dizzy. Hubby blamed it on the fact that I had worked out but not eaten. It didn't really feel like a low blood sugar dizzy, though. The vertigo continued through the day, but I didn't have any other symptoms. I almost hesitate to write this part, but it's true: the vertigo is worst when I cut my eyes to the right. Not left, not up or down. Only to the right.

Naturally I still went to the gymnastics meet last night. It would take a heck of a lot more than a simple cold to keep me from going to gymnastics.

Today I've become more and more congested, and now I feel achy and possibly feverish.

This isn't the way I usually get sick. Usually I wake up one morning with a sore throat and feel like a truck has run over me.

It doesn't usually sneak up on me like this, one little symptom at a time.

I'm waiting for the big whammy. But I'm attempting to ward it off with drugs.

I'm sorry I couldn't write something more meaningful than a state-of-my-health post tonight. I'll try harder tomorrow.

We're Baaaaaaaaaackkkk..........

The gymnastics team I have come to know and love is back.

Thank goodness.

We might not yet be in championship form, but there were certainly some championship moments. Including a 9.975 on bars from a sophomore. Two 9.95's on floor. A 9.95 on beam.

Deep sigh of relief.

I won't bore you with ALL the details. But after all the whining I've done about our recent tragic performances, I thought I at least owed it to you to include some of the positive things.

And I made my midnight deadline for blogging....but just barely.

Good night!

Shhhh.......Listen........

Can you hear that?

Listen closely........

If you mute the television and shut off the dishwasher, you can probably hear the sound of teenage asses being kicked all over the state of Georgia.

Those would be the parents of my online students whom I had to call tonight.

You know, those calls I ABHOR? The ones I will actually avoid by balancing the checkbook and washing the dishes and possibly regrouting the tile in the bathroom?

Yeah, those.

I bit the bullet and made them tonight. I figured I may as well, since I was on a roll. I pissed off several of my regular students today and made two of them cry. That I know of.

For the four students with a zero average because they haven't submitted ANYTHING, I simply used the phrase "grade is currently failing." I wanted to say, "Tell me again why he/she signed up for this course?"

For the girl with an average of 2 because she thought (WTH???) that all she had to do was participate in discussions, I have had two conversations with her explaining how to listen to a recording of an online session (it's called "click a link") and one call from her mother asking about getting a tutor for literature. I'm not sure she understood that I don't actually work at her daughter's school.

For the young man with an average of 6, this was the third consecutive week I've called his house and spoken to his grandmother. Seems he's very smart, but he just doesn't do his work. Not a good sign in an online course. Apparently he's trying to drop this course. I hope he waits until after pay is calculated, since I deserve SOME compensation for having to call his house every stinkin' week.

The one I felt the worst about was the kid with a 44. He has already been switched to a later group, and he's still behind. He says he gets bogged down in discussion forums because he reads every single thing everyone else has posted and tries to come up with something that hasn't already been said. He also indicated on his student information form that he "forgets things...a lot." I'm guessing he forgets due dates, his course schedule, his checklist, and the address for logging in.

Experience has taught me that the rest of the semester will be much better for my having made those calls tonight.

But damn I hate being the bearer of bad news.

I Am NOT Fearless.....

Way back in the days of long ago, when Hubby was still working -- you know, last month -- he talked to a guy about delivering some firewood. The guy was going to deliver it on a Saturday when I was home, and he asked Hubby if he needed to call me first so I wouldn't be scared when he drove up.

Hubby replied that he didn't have anything to worry about, because in his words, "She ain't scared of NOTHING."

Wrong.

I have jumped out of airplanes, I have parasailed, I have rappelled off the side of a mountain, I ride a motorcycle, I have ridden a bicycle down a hill at 47 mph with Katydid clinging to the back, and I would bungee jump in a heartbeat.

But I'm not fearless.

Case in point:

A couple of weeks ago, I went down into the basement to put a load of laundry into the washing machine. Keep in mind that our house is almost 40 years old, and our basement is a scary place all its own. Hubby has lived in this house since it was built, and he hasn't discarded one piece of junk. Oh that's not fair....he once threw away enough stuff in the basement to make room for his '69 Ford pickup truck.

Before I put the clothes into the washer, for some reason I peeked inside. I don't normally glance into the washing machine before I dump the clothes in.

There was something small and furry at the bottom.

I pounded back up the stairs, wringing my hands, breathless and nearly crying.

"There's a mouse in the washing machine."

I cannot explain my deathly fear of mice. It's illogical, I know, to be afraid of something that much smaller than I am. And it's not a jump-up-and-down-I-might-wet-my-pants kind of fear. It is a gripping, PARALYZING, I-just-might-hyperventilate kind of fear.

Hubby just looked at me at first. I KNOW what was going through his mind. He was thinking, "I don't do rodents EITHER, what does she want ME to do about it?"

But he's the man. That is clearly a man's job. Feminism can go straight to hell. It is a man's job to get a mouse out of the washing machine. It came in our vows, right after "to have and to hold....in sickness and in health.....in mice and snakes...."

He stalled. He asked, "Is it dead?"

Hell, I didn't know, I didn't stick around to take a pulse or have a conversation or anything.

He hesitated just long enough that I flounced back through the door to the basement, muttering "Never mind" as I went.

I don't know what I thought I would do, because there was no way in a hot place that I was going to reach into that washer and get that mouse out.

Hubby did come down, the mouse was dead, probably having starved to death and wondering how he got into such a mess, and all was right with the world.

Only I couldn't stop thinking about what might have happened if I hadn't glanced into the washer.

What if he had made it through the wash cycle and I had come across his lifeless body when I was transferring the clothes to the dryer?

What if he had made it through that cycle as well, and I had come across his corpse when I dumped the clothes on the bed to fold them?

Or what if he had made his way into the pocket of something, and I didn't realize he was there until I was standing at my desk one day, talking to a student about active and passive voice?

It's hard to say whether I'm more deathly afraid of mice or snakes.

You know what's worse than finding a mouse in the basement?

Finding a snake. I haven't found one of those yet, but I know they're there somewhere.

Because you know what's worse than finding a snake in the basement?

Finding a snakeskin.

On the dryer.

If you'll excuse me, I have to go pack.