In Which We Walk the Plank

 

In Which I Update! Eek!

Wow, I can’t believe that I haven’t posted on this blog for twenty days. I guess that’s just a sign of how crazy busy my life has seemed to be in the past few weeks. It’s hard leaving, starting, and getting used to jobs. Band camp is hard, too. So, as it turns out, is “intern teaching” – whatever that’s supposed to mean.

The worst thing is, I have very little to say…

I have the most awful blisters. Yesterday I tried to wear some cute new shoes to school – little orange leather slide-mules. Unfortunately, they made my feet sweat like nobody’s business, and I quickly found I couldn’t walk without stopping every few hundred yards to mop out the inside of the shoes with a paper towel. (Ew.) I guess that probably loosened up my skin just in time for me to put on heels for pregame; half an hour later, I was hurting pretty bad, and knew that blisters were starting. I wasn’t sure what to do, because I knew the orange shoes wouldn’t do much good, either. That’s about the point when I discovered Meredith’s flipflops under my desk and decided that they’d be an improvement. They were, too – all except for the tighter-than-anticipated toe strap, which rubbed oozing bleeding blisters between my toes. By the time I got home, I had silver-dollar-sized, teardrop-shaped blisters on the balls of each foot, and open sores between the big and second toes of each foot to boot. Today, I’m limping around in my plush slippers that – fortunately – actually look like normal shoes at first glance. I’m supposed to go camping tomorrow, and I’m really not sure what I’m going to be able to do other than sit in a camp  and whine. I definitely have to get some better shoes – there’s just no getting around it. No more Payless shoes for me.

You’d think I would have already learned that.

Yesterday was our season opener against Weber State. I’m afraid we beat them pretty badly, and broke one of their players in the process. Well, broke his leg, anyway, which isn’t as bad as it could have been. Unfortunately, the broken-legged football player was apparently scheduled to get married today, so that’s got to really suck. The band looked really good – and really big. Hooray, big band!

Owwww.

I’m not getting any reading, writing, crafting, cleaning, or anything else done.
Bleh.

That’s all for now. Got to go back to work. Smooches!

In Which it is My Last Day

Today is my last day at work. I am still not sure what to think about that.

Last night I was thinking about the (professional) life I’ve led for the past several years, and about how as an introvert I kind of enjoy being able to hide in a cubicle or behind a computer monitor and bury myself in work for a little while, tuning the rest of the world out, and then I thought about what it means, on a practical level, to be a teacher, and have I mentioned that I am

TERRIFIED?

Because I am.

In Which This is Not a Good Post, But is an Update Nonetheless

Man, am I tired.

Lots of things soaking up my mental energy, none of which are the least bit interesting. I’m planning a company picnic for about 1,500 adults and 400 kids. That’s this Saturday. Maybe that’s a good excuse for exhaustion, but honestly, it’s one of the least of my brain-drains…

I sat down on the couch for a few minutes last night to nurse an icky stomach, turned the wrong way, and pulled a muscle in the left side of my back. That laid me up for the rest of the night, and I’m still having trouble moving around. Very unpleasant.

I’ve been spending most of my creative energy reading (like it’s goin’ outta STYLE, baby) and reviewing. I’ve got a couple of books I’ve been wanting to make, but just haven’t had time to dig into crafting. R and I are doing some heavy-duty housecleaning and whatnot lately, which obviously takes up a lot of time.

Looks like I’m getting my A’s for both summer courses! Hooray!

Oh, and if I haven’t already mentioned it on this blog… I got my placement to student teach. Whoo! It’s not a junior high, which kind of weirds me out, but I’m still excited.

Well, I’m too tired to think about complete sentences anymore, so I’m going to stop boring all two of my readers with this rambly bad post and go… uh… wish I could take a nap, I guess.

Well, I’m wearing orange and as close to maroon as…

Well, I’m wearing orange and as close to maroon as I could find, and I’m having a really bad hair day, but it’s all okay because it’s Friday and my department is buying us a pizza lunch.

I’ve come to the conclusion that National Poetry Month is easily two weeks too long. I’ve just got far too many other things to think about, and if I thought anyone cared I might make room for the poems, but I really think they’re just the new manifestation of American Idol posts (i.e., things everyone skims over), so I’m letting them drop. It’s the end of the semester and I’ve got projects to complete, not to mention work, and the campaign.

Drafty Poem #6

Drafty Poem #6

Let us all get down on our knees
And say prayers of thanks for Febreeze
It helps to subdue
The rank office loo
With fruity de-stink expertise.

original image from Aubuchon Hardware website

Transit umbra, lux permanet

I’m having a bad hair day, and CJ has swim bladder disease. I have to go do something at work that I don’t particularly want to do. I threw off my sleep schedule by sleeping late on Saturday and then taking a nap. And it’s way too pretty of a day to be stuck at work. Today is a park-walking day, a mountain-climbing day, a nap-under-a-shade-tree day. Or, if you’re the next door neighbor’s cat (cleverly named Kitty), a climb-Kate’s-tree-after-a-squirrel-and-get-stuck-up-there day.

Speaking of squirrels…

In case you missed it, I’ve decided to do something rather rash and dodgy this month. Here’s the second dose. I’d like to include images – my own if I can – with all of these…

Drafty Poem #2

I don’t know enough about faerie rings
to know whether a circle of man-laid stone
circumnavigating a tree, and filled
with uncertain bulbs, can count for anything
or, if it can,
whether it would protect a little squirrel
from cats (and Kates) as she fed.

But she (the squirrel, I mean) seems to feel
safe and secure, mindful but not distracted
by me or my camera as I crouch
four feet – a yard – arm’s reach
from her feast.

Its protection, if any such exists, does little
to protect her from the thoughts
behind her obsidian-bright eyes. She stuffs
herself full of corn, building against
times of famine – for if winter is at her back,
it may catch her at any time –
and perhaps it is for a nest, maybe
the mouth she gathers for is not her own.

Still, she wants more. Five thousand kernels
poured out on the ground, but she knows
she knows the one here, the one
just out of reach
will be sweetest.

Estne volumen in toga, an solum tibi libet me videre?

This – for better or worse, with or without fanfare – is my 100th post on this blog.

Today has turned into one of those beautiful spring days where it’s all you can do not to prance away from your desk, out the doors, and into the sun. My work ethic has seriously run amok. I’m sitting here at the desk, and Work Ethic is outside, frolicking and picking daisies.

I’d like to spend some quality time with a camera this weekend… this weather just really brings out the shutterbug in me. I’d like to have a Flickr account or something, but I can’t access any of them from work, and I find that rather discouraging. Y’know?

Speaking of photos: want to see some pretty things we’ve done at work lately?

By the way, some of the Latin titles I’ve been using are funny, and most – this one, for instance – are Googlable.

I don’t have anything to say. I just felt like talking. Anyone else out there feel like talking?

Three Questions for You!

1. A rudimentary internet search reveals that the average cost for a copyeditor (someone who reads over your papers, manuscripts, etc. for errors) is $25 an hour, with the assumption that you can cover 2-3 pages in one hour. If you are a college student, a hoping-to-be-published writer, etc., would you pay someone like me $25 an hour to copyedit your paper? If not, what would you pay?

2. When in high school, I had a teacher who was seriously freaked out by blue food. Tonight, I’m going to a housewarming party whose host is literally phobic of white foods. It’s not a choice, not a diet – it’s a phobia. What’s up with that? Are you phobic of any particular kinds or colors of food?

3. You don’t have to watch or like American Idol to play my new weekly American Idol Blog Game (AIBG). Ready for this? Okay. Next week the AI contestants have to sing a “song of the 1990s.” If you were on AI – and assuming you could sing as well as would be necessary – what song would you choose to perform? (This can be a song you just really love, or one you think would get a lot of votes – whatever you like.)

3b. If you’re digging the AIBG, what songs would you have done for “songs of the 1960s British Invasion” and “songs by Diana Ross” weeks?

How to Solicit a WTF Look

You work with someone who drives a yellow car. Said yellow car has a yellow window sticker with the Phish logo on it. Her license plate reads “PHISHA.”

In the midst of a conversation, you decide to make a foray onto personal territory. “So,” you say, “I guess you’re a real big Phish fan?”

(Oh, come on. You know you think it’s funny. And no, I didn’t actually do it – I caught myself just in time.)