The World is Too Much Weirdness

I have so much to do...finishing the Lady In Red's secret thing, proofing BOUND, working on BITTERMOON... (Didja notice housework and correcting papers were NOWHERE TO BE SEEN on that little list?) Doesn't matter... what am I doing instead? Talking to you people...why? Because you're nice to me. At least my priorities are arrow straight!

Anyway, the last few days felt sort of random, so this post is going to be sort of random...sometimes, life just doesn't follow the reflective essay thread, does it? Here goes, in random order, the weirdness of my little corner of the world:

**So I was at Jo Anne's today to get cheap plastic crochet hooks and knitting needles to give, gratis, to the many students who come in to learn how to knit and crochet during lunch. I'm putting, literally, handfulls of the packages on the counter when the guy (? seriously--when was the last time you saw a guy at the counter of the fabric store?) looks at the basket and says, "Stocking stuffers?" I blinked, because, hello, talk about random! And said, "No--I'm a high school teacher..." And he cuts me off and says, "That would have been my second guess."
What would have been his third guess--marital aids?

**One of my favorite kids from fourth period starts looking through my roster, and her conversation goes like this. "Man, this class is lazy--I can't believe you don't yell at us more. Hey, wait--I know these kids in your second period. Man, this is a bad class. No wonder you don't yell at us. Oh, man--third period is worse...we must seem great after third...Oh my God, Ms. Mac--look at your fifth period! If I had to deal with this class I'd kill somebody." *sigh* 'Nuff said.

**And speaking of my 5th period, I have completely lost all sense of due process, propriety or even pride dealing with them. I send three kids out a day--I've gone through so many referrals that I've had to replace my stack. Twice. Some of those referrals I had in my files for ten years--I know, because the school changed sites and I used ones with the old address on them. I don't care anymore. Today, I was talking about the groundlings who attended Shakespeare's plays and how there was prostitution, sideshows, bear-baiting and rooster fights going on during the play, and the actors knew they actually were doing their job when the front was quiet. Sort of like this class, I said, into what was, miracle of miracles, a nano-second of complete silence. Then this one kid who is the poster child for crack-hos in the making (I'm going to catch flack for this, but you haven't heard her speak--there are probably interventions out there that would save her life, but I'm not trained to administer them and six teachers referring her to the office three times a week can not all be wrong that school is the wrong place for her, period) anyway, this kid who hasn't said an intelligent word in sixteen weeks suddenly starts laughing. I'm so sure she has to be laughing about something else that I refer her. *sob* She was actually the only one who got the joke.

**On the flip side? One of my kids who checked out my first book, VULNERABLE, came in to class this morning with a very hurt look on her face. "Ms. Mac, I've got a bone to pick with you." "Oh..." I said with true understanding, "You finished the book." Everybody who finishes the book has that same reaction. It is sometimes followed with, "That book was soooooooo good." I love that part. I'm such a narcissist, I can't hear that enough, ever.

**My 3rd set of eyes is very happy about BOUND so far. I'm still feeling like I have an cast iron set of twatsticles (that's a Rabbitch word, thank you darling for that) just subjecting the world to that, but, it makes me feel just a little less embarrassed about possessing a set of those things anyway.

**Have I told any of you about my first publishing attempt? When I was a sophomore in High School I wrote a 24 page epic poem on binder paper and made my entire family read it. (For the record? My handwriting is that of a manic-depressive cartoon character on meth. I can produce testimonials to this effect if you like. 24 pages, people. In that handwriting. I'm still shuddering to think.) I've read, ahem, that poem since them--my shame is as deep as my post-modernism class and twice as hard to forget. It doesn't matter how much I've grown as a writer, a person, and a woman, for the rest of my life, everything I force someone to read is going to be "The Ballad of Jarad and the Witch." *sigh* Sometimes High School really is forever.

I was going to put in a picture of the adorable infant, but blogger is being a meretricious mulchheifer, and I hates it.

But I love you all! Cheers!