Some days are just like this:
Wake up at 6, take temperature in a futile search for a pattern to your non-existant cycle. Shower. can't find a clean towel and the one that is there smells like rat piss/mildew. Search for clothes that don't make you look fat. Give up and wear whatever is around. Go downstairs to make breakfast. Decide that it is impossible to make breakfast until the dishes are out of the sink. Open the dishwasher. Discover murky, swamp like puddle of water clogging the machine. Try to fix it by running the dishwasher disposal in the sink. Discover that it is not working. Madly flip power sockets suspecting power outage. Try again. Fail miserably. Watch as water pours from under the dishwasher creating a flood effect on your already damaged kitchen floors. Throw mildew rat piss towel from shower on top of damaged floor in pointless effort at saving floor. Wake husband. Husband does the same thing, but manages to make it work simply because he is male and you are female. Mix disgusting chinese herbs in hot water and guzzle because you hope that this nasty bark crap will somehow create a cycle and make you have a chance at becoming pregnant. Make an equally horrible bananna shake because there is no time to make eggs nor is there cereal. Wince. Try to find keys. Realize keys are no where to be found. Wake husband again. Husband finds keys in about thirty seconds. Feel like a super ass for waking husband twice in the space of twenty minutes. Drive with co-worker to Bushwick. Passanger seat side of car has broken glove compartment box that hits your knees as you drive. Car has 100 K on it, so you're damn lucky you even have a ride but this thought elludes you.
Meet with AP class. Feel horrified by papers whose opening sentences begin with such eloquent phrases as "poverty has always been around and will always be around, it is what it is." Shudder that it is supposed to be your responsibility to help these children pass the AP exam in May. Giggle at the impossibility of it all. Spend the next three hours squeezing your bladder as you attempt to teach students who rarely crack a book, to cite multiple sources on index cards for a research paper. Feel incredibly depressed when having given the directions fourteen times, another student approaches asking what to do. Try not to punch Jeffrey in the stomach when he threatens to leave the room simply because you will not let him on the computer. Forget to take the official attendance and piss off the school aide who has been waiting for it for an hour. Try not to scream when Clarissa Velasquez shows up to your class for the FIRST FUCKING TIME even though it is now the second week of school and she has already failed the marking period. Try to calmly suggest that she comes during her lunch period to pick up the work that she has missed knowing full well that she is only in school to pick up her metro card and will not be seen again until next month. Try not to cry that this is the third year in a row you've had her in a class and she has never passed because she has attended school for more than about 10 days a year.
Remind Michael M. that he is falling behind on his homework. Tell 3rd period that they will be taking a trip on Friday. Remind 4th period that their interviews are due on Thursday. Forget to collect homework and then yell at the classes for not having done any. Tell Malcom. H. that it is unacceptable to play music on the computer and if he isn't doing research that he needs to give the machine to someone else who will. Try not to scream when five more students say "I don't get this" or "what am I supposed to do again?" Try not to spit fire when students try to turn in their index cards at the end of the period despite the three repetitions of "hold on to your index cards for Tuesday. You will need them. Do not lose them." Thank the librarian for her time. Be so glad that the campus has managed to hire a librarian at all and she has a brain. Visit co-teacher S. and thank her for the concord grapes she got for you at the farmer's market, offer to pay her for them realizing you have only a twenty. Buy her a seltzer water instead and give her two dollars later. Try to set a date with Michael M. to help him do his independent reading. forget to tell everyone that their first independent reading books need to be complete by Friday. Realize you are failing terribly at giving out homework assignments that are meaningful and challenging. By 5th period, realize that you have promised to be in three places at the same time and someone will have to lose. When Gary S. asks if you've finished grading his test, tell him no you took the weekend off. Try not to tell him that he is frankly not your priority as he hasn't bothered to come to school for three days and therefore doesn't deserve your extra time. Try,try, try not to say that.
Go downstairs to the teacher's lounge and heat up lunch. Feel horribly embarrassed that your crab cake leftovers are stinking up the entire room and that all of the teachers are staring at you and hate you. Realize you will never find real friends at your job. Return to the horrible AP papers and try to cope with the fact that 7 out of 10 students did not even introduce the book until the 4th page of a 5 page paper. Sigh. Share this insight with a co-worker who is actually a funny and cool guy. Realize that maybe in fact, you could find a friend at your job if you ever had a moment to slow down. Grade these shit hole papers for the next three hours.
Go upstairs and realize that you forgot to do your professional duty. As the department chair, send an email reminding people to do meaningless tasks that you could give two shits about but have to pretend you care. Speak with AP about how to order lunches for your students on Friday even though none of them will eat the lunches anyway. Speak to programmer and co-teacher about switching some kids from the over crowded classroom of 31 to the small classroom of 15 so that the classes are more balanced.
Open your classroom door to discover that it is a fucking mess even though you spent the entire morning in the library. Clean it up. Write on the board for the next morning. Call two students parents to try and warn them that their children are failing and/or behaving badly. Drop off co-worker. Search for parking. Realize that you had an acupuncture appointment at 3:30 and it is now 3:35. Call acupuncture therapist and apologize profusely while noting to self that you just wasted $80. Drive home. Find parking far the fuck away. Return overdue library books. Discover you've forgotten one of the library books at home and now need to return again tomorrow to return the last overdue library book. Run to yoga in desperate hopes that it will save you from imploding. Pay lots of attention to yuor breathing and feel slightly pleased that your stomach is less obtrusive than the last time you managed to take a yoga class. Sigh though because you are still fat and you have disgusting vericose veins and look like you are 35 which you are (nearly).
Return home. Husband informs you that an insurance claim that you'd both believed to be settled is not settled and he owes 700 bucks. The de-stress of yoga now gone, allow shoulders to return to neck. tell him you will pay because you feel guilty about how broke he always says he is and you got him into the damn test anyway and you just want the fucking thing over with and don't want to talk about it or deal with it anymore.
Send email to friends confirning dinner arrangements that you made between bites of smelly crabcakes at lunch earlier. Read emails from various co-workers about nothing. return phone call to long lost friend. Make a quick dinner of leftovers and feed husband and self. Type blog. Ignore five chapters of reading that you've assigned to your AP class for 8 am but have not read yourself. Ignore grades that have not been entered in grade book. Ignore the fact that it's 9 pm and you don't know what you will be wearing tomorrow, you have no lunch prepared, and your gym clothes are dirty and need to be ready to pack before you leave as you won't have time to come home before your running class. Do your homework for your Wednesday night class while thinking that maybe you are overscheduled. Worry that you haven't made all the calls to parents taht you need to. Worry that another day will go by without having finished G.'s test. Feel sad that you are not able to enjoy yourself the way you did when you were not working.
Prepare to go to bed, sleep for a few hours, and start all over again. Try not to cry.