Happy Valentine's Day!

I drove to Yakima yesterday. It's slower to go down the back road, but much more beautiful. I took a few photos. This is from Yakima Canyon Road.

I also took a little video. Hope you like it!

Today is Valentine's Day. I left G to sleep in and went to work out.  On the way home, I picked up some flowers, fruit, cheese, and chocolate dipped strawberries for our breakfast, along with extra strong coffee. 

In turn, he prepared the food. He made extra strong coffee. That means he brewed the coffee and put the coffee back through with new grounds. I can't stop shaking and I'm typing really fast! 

I made us reservations this evening for our favorite restaurant. As much as I don't like Valentine's day, I do love G and he's a helpless, hopeless romantic.  He got me a cool gift too- new earbuds especially made for exercise.  I keep fearing that I'm going to sweat too much and end up electrocuting myself as I work out. I'd never thought to get good earbuds and that's an incredibly awesome gift. You can't get them in town so he had to order them in. I didn't know about any of this until the UPS guy showed up at our house at almost 7 last night. The package had fallen in between others on the truck and he was on his way out when he saw it. 

Too cool. 

Hope your day is bright and kind and loving and thoughtful. 

Reprieve

Quick post today. Maybe I'll get to write more tomorrow.

I have a small reprieve at my job.  I can't go into details but my position has been extended through June 30th.  That's nice. Very nice.  The only downside is that I'll be working full time on top of teaching full time.  It's ok though, I've done 60 hour weeks before. I can do this.

All I need is lots of this:

Owl Cup Holds Lots of Java!

Oh, wait. I can't have very much coffee at all. I use this guy (an amazing gift from Meghan and Dyllan, who I met over the course of last quarter) primarily for tea and to make me smile.  Works every time.

Boo for less coffee!

But yay for having a job!

It's a temporary reprieve, but will buy me the time to find something permanent.

A Million Little Things

Oh My Gosh, do I have a problem.

It may not seem like much but I have to stop drinking coffee. Like altogether.  I figured this out two weeks ago.  My body has bee intensely disinterested in working with me on getting food in and not being sick. I tried lots of medicines, including an antidepressant since there is seretonin in the gut and the doctor thought it would help.  It helped a little, I admit. My husband also reports that I am less cranky and less bubbly when I take it.  But after a month or so, the benefits dwindled and I have been back to potatoes and rice and bland things for awhile.  What other possible irritant could I possibly give up?

*Groan* I wish I hadn't asked.

So what the heck. I have stopped drinking coffee, except for one cup a day.  I split that into two half cups, or rather two half-caff cups.  I've started drinking loads of tea, which not only helps but keeps me hydrated.  I've had muscle tension, headaches, pain, crankiness and days where I feel like I'm going to pass out from fatigue.  In coming off of my addiction, I've had this fogginess about me, like the world is moving faster than I can keep up with.

Pretty severe addiction, huh?

I have been drinking coffee since I was 11.  That's 29 years. About 20 of those years have been about 2 pots a day.  Not cups, pots.  I've stuck with it through ulcers and a year of this colitis business.  Wanna see me without coffee?

Not Pretty

 Yeah.  

Wanna see my new haircut (with coffee)? 

Caffeinated

The good news is that I am so much improved. It's like I stopped drinking poison, and I am so sad.  

On the bright side, I can eat dairy again.  DAIRY! I thought that was gone forever. I'm going to eat ice cream and stuff and cheese.  Yeah. 

In other news, I took a group of students up to Leavenworth, Washington for a trip to Icicle Creek Performing Arts Center.  Lovely people, and we got to eat lunch at a pretty swanky restaurant called Kingfisher.  Some people in the group wanted to hike; others wanted to go shopping in Leavenworth. Nobody wanted to leave each other so we hung out around the grounds and climbed up hills for a bit.  I snapped a few photos: 

Icicle Sculpture

Icicle Creek

See the ruby in her mouth? 

I love that 12 students who only met a few weeks ago are so attached to each other that they don't want to part.  We all headed into town as a group and shopped together, only splitting up for about half an hour.  It's the sweetest thing I've ever seen a class do. 

The other really neat thing is that I have a writing mentor for the class and a co-teacher. (Ah, the beauty of grants!) My writing mentor, Jamie, is a wonderful budding teacher and her kids came to see us off the morning for the trip. Megan and Dylan are practically class members anyway, since they sometimes attend class or help out in one way or anther. Kyle, one of the students in the class, was taking his dog so he was driving up separately.  He didn't say anything but smuggled Megan and Dylan up to the lodge.  Cool as could be, both Megan and Dylan did our writing assignments with us and participated like everyone else.  I loved the way the whole day went down. I am a lucky, lucky teacher.  

My other English classes are going well too.  In one assignment, my students were to summarize an article that they chose. Preferably something interesting, academic and in their field of study.  The student above was talking about a peer-reviewed article from the Library database on orgasm in contemporary romance novels.  She said she couldn't help but have fun with the title.  I took a picture and put it up on Facebook. Can't help it.
On the 21st, I'm heading off to Boston to present at the National Council of Teachers of English conference. I'll connect with my Oklahoma teacher friends and attend seminars and probably get a good look at Boston.  I like it there, but it'll be cold in November! I may have to stay inside a nice, warm museum or something...

Wish me luck- pretty soon I'm going to wean off of caffeine altogether, forever.  For some reason that looms over me like a cartoon monster.  On the other hand- ice cream. 

In Excess

Clearly, I cannot be trusted.

Let me clarify.  I can be trusted with lower-level things, like secrets. I can be trusted with curriculum development, teaching young sprouts to read and inciting activism in college students.

I can be trusted with things like car maintenance and paying my insurance (which, in the interest of full disclosure, is set to automatic bill pay, like my mortgage) paying my mortgage, and in keeping people safe if they ever have need of extra security.  I'm handy with sticks and knives and can shoot passably.

Likewise, I usually feed my dog, and trust me, he ain't starving.  Neither is the little potato-shaped friend of his that belongs to my room mate.  And Eleanor gets her medicine twice daily like clockwork, though admittedly, she has a team of three looking out for her: me, Grey and my friend Cathy who sometimes watches her.

No, I can be trusted with that stuff.

It is other things that quietly suck the willpower from me.  They are the kyptonite to my SuperWoman-ess.  Take ice cream, for example.  I cannot keep ice cream in the house.  Grey doesn't fully realize that yet, that if there is ice cream and it is designated "mine" that it will be eaten within a reasonable amount of time, like fifteen minutes.  He lets his JUST SIT IN THE FREEZER. For weeks!  Then it has to thaw for 30 minutes and then he eats a couple of spoonfuls. Pppthhh!  Amateur.  I take off the top off the carton the minute I get home and eat that tub for dinner.  It's a sight too, I reckon: drippings running down my fingers dripping into the sink because I eat most of my food over the sink, and occasionally snarling at the dogs as they attempt to beg for a bite.  Getting a ring around my face from sticking my whole head in to lick the sides.  That's how it's done, y'all. Not pretty, but real just the same.

Same goes for barbecue potato chips.  Pop a family size bag in the freezer and leave me to find it.  I dare you.  That Gollum-like creature in the middle of the night that smells like a picnic gone wrong? That's me pigging out on my precious.

This also goes for foods with salt and/or sugar in them.  Except for chocolate.  I'm not really a chocolate fan.  I'll eat it, don't get me wrong, but it's not my favorite.  I know.  Don't shoot.  I'm still a woman. And I'll do anything to get out of grading by doing other very important things.  Like writing a blog post. Or reading other people's blogs, like smartasscripple.blogspot.com.  Mike is hilarious and satirical and altogether irreverent.

Really what you cannot trust me with are caffeine and my husband.  The husband part I'll just leave alone as your guess is correct, but the caffeine part is flummoxing.

I have been drinking coffee since I was 11.  It's an aspect of my culture and my quasi-addictive nature.  We aren't talking a nice, polite, 2-cups-a-day habit either.  There have been times in my life when I have drunk 3-4 pots of coffee a day.  Pots.  Of strong coffee, not that cheap-ass 7-11 or Denny's brew.  Hot, black coffee.  Because I like it, that's all. I like coffee. It is freakin' yummy.  I thought for a time that if you cut me, you'd get half-calf.

I have tried to quit before too. Not because of health or anything, but because I don't like to be addicted to stuff.  I obsess over things: bits of music, the smell of coffee, the view from the pier in Seattle, laying my head on Grey's chest.  It's how my brain works. I like routine too. I like getting up and doing the same morning stuff because it reduces the need to think: make coffee, check email and FB, drink coffee, yawn, stretch, more coffee, yogurt, shower, teeth/hair/etc and out the door for adventures.  You know?  It's normal.  And I can occasionally skip any of those behaviors except for the teeth part.  I am ok with my addiction to a new toothbrush every month and awesome tooth paste. What I am not ok with is the need, every morning since I can remember, of having a cup of coffee.  For three quarters of my life.

When I tried to quit, I went cold turkey.  From two pots a day.  Had a headache for a month.  My personality flattened out as the incessant storm in my head raged and screamed and howled.  At work people tried to be supportive and we changed to decaf coffee.  I was cranky and even more sarcastic than normal.  For the sake of everyone, it was gently suggested on the fifth week that I had a cup of coffee already as nobody loved me anymore.

So I decided to wean off this time.  I got down to about a pot a day for a couple of years.  I don't like change.  Then half a pot, where I have hovered for even longer.  I took a deep breath and told Grey I'd like to quit coffee.  We spend a significant portion of our income on coffee and coffee products.  I have enough coffee cups to use one every day for a year and never touch the same one twice.  He is a little skeptical, though he knows I can do it. And he's great at the Pep Talk. Since he drinks stronger brew than I do, I wonder at his own ability to just say "ok" and be done with something.  Me? No soy una persona en la manana sin cafe.

Sunday, I had one cup at breakfast and one in the afternoon.  Monday, I just had one cup all day.  It was awful and I was tired.  Yesterday I had to teach and had one cup in the morning, vowing to make it all day again.  And then next week cut it to half a cup.

I made it until 2:15.  Fifteen minutes of teaching and I needed, not wanted, a shot of caffeine.  I gave in because I wanted to. Because I feared I wouldn't be a good teacher that day. Because I wanted a soda.  I drank half of it and tossed the rest.

I considered lying to Grey and saying that I had made it without coffee.  That was technically true, anyway.  But I just can't.  Lying is a slippery slope. So when we talked last night, I confessed.  At least I can be trusted with the truth- a responsibility I try to hammer in to my students.  At least I am not a hypocrite.

This morning, I took Charlotte in for a medical test that she had to have anesthesia for.  Got up at 6 a.m. with no time for coffee. Wouldn't matter anyway, I reasoned, since I purposely ran out.  I took her in and had time to kill, so I crossed to Braums and had an oatmeal and a weak cup of coffee.  I bargained with myself: don't drink all of it and have a cup of tea later.

And this tea is really damn good.  At least it's not an entire pot. Because you know I have to go grade some stuff and would like to be able to do so in coherent English.

I'll keep trying.

On A Personal Note

One Of My Healthy Trees

Now that the difficult part of school is out of the way, I wanted to catch up on things happening in my world, my personal world; my home, my family and my life.  I'll add some pictures too.

Sick Tree

I am mostly happy with my house and home.  My front porch is filled with plants and the yard is manageable.  The mulberries are mostly done and one of my apple trees is turning an ugly color.  That's too bad because it is such a heavy producer and normally so healthy.  Let me know if you have a suggestion of what to do for my poor tree.  Also, if it turns out that we stay in our house, we are going to do two things.  The first is put down wood flooring.  The carpets have always been nice but over the last year have started smelling like a dog. Steam cleaning, carpet deodorizer and vacuuming help to some degree but I always notice the smell and dislike it.  Second, I want a deck on the back of the house.  I should change out the windows, but that's a project for another year. These two are relatively inexpensive and I can do them myself.  Well, myself and my cousin Christian and my wonderful almost husband...

Spoiled.  Just Spoiled.

Eleanor, the queen of all things inside and outside of the house, is still the queen.  She gets prednisone twice daily and this has really improved her quality of life since about two years ago.  I know that I am only extending her life and that she is on borrowed time.  I have been telling myself this for the last six years.  I want to make her life as comfortable as possible and enjoy every minute and I have operated under this assumption for too long.  The result is a very spoiled and demanding cat who wakes me up at will and meows like crazy until she gets what she wants.  She has put on weight, going from six pounds to about ten, which makes me ecstatic.  I have taken squirting her with a water bottle when she acts inappropriately.  It has some effect- mostly on my roommate and on Grey.  They are surprised and relieved that I might insist on some discipline on our little grey and white tyrant.

I noticed this spring that Big is getting older too.  He has some obvious arthritis in his left front shoulder and cannot walk more than two miles nor cavort for much longer than half an hour.  He continues to be the sweetest dog and he loves to play with Tobey, my roommates dog, and they seem to be lifelong companions.  They do not like to be separated at all though Big is the dominant one.  Tobey is the tiny vocal one but Big always seems to have the last word.  He likes much more lately to just lay at my feet or at Veronica's and just be with us.  He is still highly respectful of the cat.

Getting Older

Veronica is still my roommate. She is finishing up her Masters in Library Information Services and looking for a place to be once she is through.  She is one of the most determined people I know, continuing to get up at 5 a.m. two or three times a week for boot camp and doing zumba several times a week too.  We talk a lot and coordinate schedules and give each other endless advice.  The only real place of conflict is in the kitchen where we are both used to being the person in charge.  I wouldn't even say that this is real conflict as we don't yell at each other or be rude or anything like that.  She makes me feel like I am capable of living with someone and not destined to be hermit for the rest of my life.  Thank God, because living alone is almost impossible when you get married.

Grey and I both turn 39 this month and I for one am grateful for my health.  I know I have had continuous and chronic bronchitis this last year from my work place, and my asthma was out of control for awhile,but other than that, I am a mostly healthy person.  All of my limbs work and I do not have diabetes, high blood pressure and I can do almost anything I want.  I took Grey to prom with me this year. Every year I chaperon the Pathways High School prom with Cathy, Jackie, Mandy and Becky.  Cathy, Jackie and Mandy are all teachers there. Becky is like me, a volunteer.  It is always a hoot, with girls wearing too short (in my opinion) dresses, boys dressed for the first time in tuxedos and everyone on their best behavior dancing to music that was meant for grinding.

Our First Prom!

Yesterday we went for a walk and ended up going about 8.5-9 miles.  There is a little fitness park on the route with a kind of adult playground designed to assist people with exercise and doing outdoor stretching, sit ups, push ups and so on.  There were also a few straight bars, We took it upon ourselves to play on the equipment and took a couple of photos, congratulating ourselves on being almost 40 and still getting blisters on our hands from playing on the monkey bars.

:) 

Upside Down Smile

Then we went to Grey's family gathering for their Mother's Day and May birthday celebration.  I like his family.  Even if I didn't know they read my blog, I would still say that.  They are genuinely nice people and over the course of the last six or seven months, I have enjoyed slowly getting to know them.  I do take pains to curb the rough edges I know I have.  It's not lying; they know I teach in a ghetto, that I taught in a prison and that I'm a generally tough sorta gal.  But I also know how to behave in polite company and am careful not to swear in front of children or pick my nose or wear anything slutty (not that I ever do) or do anything... untoward. However, like all relationships, at some point you have to just admit who you are.  I can't avoid the fact that I have had some very colorful experiences and last night I accidentally related one of those to Grey's family.  Grey's family, who is about to become MY family. Permanently.  Now, they have all been kind and not pressed me too much and I like to just listen to the conversations.  Last night's centered around squeamishness and what happens to people in the sight of blood.  Somehow I said something about offering to clean the gunk out of a dog's eye.  That led to the slippery slope of how I was accepted to vet school. That lead to me blurting out that if anyone needed anything castrated, they could just let me know.  Now, I was trying to demonstrate how that particular skill set no longer serves me, how farm life was wonderful but it's not something I am likely to return to.  As soon as those words left my lips, I wished I could grab them from the air and stick them back in my mouth and swallow them.  Instead, they hung invisible in the air.  In the dead silence that ensued, my face got beet red.  I looked at Grey.  No help.  He looked as stricken as anyone else.  Then Grey's brother in law noted that absolutely no one in that house would need that particular service.  There was laughter all around, then everyone took turns adding to that sentiment, and I realized that they were going to tease me about it forever.  I think I'm ok with that and even added that since everyone in the room had daughters, they might find my knowledge helpful after all.  Then I knew to shut up.  I did not add that I taught my brother-in-law to castrate pigs last summer or that I can perform lots of small surgeries. I think I over-shared enough for one night.  Ramblina had done her damage for the evening and I disabused people of the notion that I am all sweetness.  Not that they ever thought that.  I'm going to shut up now.

For our honeymoon, we decided to go to New Orleans.  I have not spent much time there and none in the last 8 years.  Grey has likewise only visited once.  We are going to spend time on historical tours, eating at the Cafe DuMonde and drinking coffee.  Since his parents and younger sister live in Louisiana, I asked if we couldn't stay a night with them on the way home.  I particularly connect with his sister and I hope that spending time with each part of the family will help all of us to become closer. To do that, though, I have to do my part and that involves not just putting my best foot forward but finding a balance between honesty and too much honesty.  Grey didn't tell me that he told his family that I have a May birthday too.  They surprised me with gifts and cards and hugs.  It was, on the whole, a neat time.

In the meantime, I have to finish teaching at my middle school.  I will whip the yard and house into shape for all of the festivities and hopefully get to start going to zumba again with Veronica.  We will see how my lungs hold out. Oh, and enjoy my life.  I'm going to remember to appreciate the people I have and be grateful for the life I have been given. And I'm going to hang out as long as I can.

Look! No Hands!

Quiet

I've been thinking a lot about quiet lately.  I admire a quality in Grey that I wish I had and that's his ability to rest effectively. I wake up in the morning with sixty things on my mind. I want to write and have a list of tasks to accomplish.  The first task is to make a mental list of the things I need to do.  Then I prioritize them and begin worrying about what I will and will not get done that day.  Thirty seconds later I am out of bed and  making coffee. He seems to wake up and open his eyes.  Then he says "Good morning". Sometimes he even goes back to sleep (of all things!).  

Sometimes at night I can't sleep, for all of the things I need to do, the things I haven't done and the endless stream of humanity I have yet to help flow along. I need to grade a set of papers, go running, buy more healthy food, stop drinking so much coffee (I say as I pause to take a sip of the steaming liquid) and somehow find and apply for professorships.  The consequences of not doing so many things seems grave.  Students won't get timely feedback and their next papers will suck.  If I don't find a better job I am going to keep getting bronchitis from all of the things floating in the air at my current job.  If I don't do a better job of planning curriculum, my kids aren't going to pass their CRT's.  If I don't do the layout of the newsletter, nobody will feel connected to each other at work.  Etcetera, etcetera and so on and so forth until I worry about becoming unemployed.  Then things really take off.

If I'm unemployed, I could lose my house and if that happens, I won't have any friends left.  I don't know how those two things work; they just do in my tornado brain.  If I am jobless, homeless and friendless, then I will end up living out of a shopping cart with my little old Eleanor in the child seat and a machete. And for some inexplicable reason in this particular nightmare fantasy, I am also wearing pink crocs.  You can't hack at someone with a machete and run away in pink crocs.  It just wouldn't make sense.

I remember living six miles out in the country, away from our small town of 3,500 people. Our nearest neighbors were in the next gulch. We had a phone but no television reception. I loved the quiet. I read and painted and explored the out of doors. I had a 35# recurve bow that I got pretty good at shooting.  I slept in some mornings and worked very hard but seemed to have time for the things I needed and wanted to do. Not much company out there, save the elk and deer and rattlesnakes.  But plenty of time to think while uninterrupted.

Like I said, sometimes I need to just do nothing.  It's not that I'm lazy or depressed even, just busy as all get out and in desperate need of a break.  For the past, oh I don't know, maybe ten years, I have rushed from job to after-job-job, to school to home to fitness to animal care to homework and finally to bed.  I don't think I've put enough of my energy into taking time to develop relationships, to calm the inner beast or to just sit still and rest. I used to visit my grandparents twice a year.  In their home there was no wifi and few distractions.  My favorite times were those when my grandma and I would visit with one another and talk over coffee.  But it always seemed to be outside of my regular life.  And I aim to change that about myself.

Last night, Grey and I went to Hastings.  He took some time to explore the store- Tulsa doesn't have a Hastings anymore and I think he greeted this one like an old friend.  I went to the coffee shop and ordered a tea, sat and read a book for almost two hours. They have a fireplace there and I set up camp not across but directly beside it.  I caught myself smiling, engrossed in the adventures of Anne Shirley, and occasionally was distracted only by the visage of the man himself checking in on me.  It was lovely and quiet. And when we got home, we made salad and talked, then read some more with some chamomile tea and Eleanor tucked between us on the sofa.

I have things to do.  School will start again on Wednesday. But I'm going to start unplugging at home more often. Probably I will turn off my phone on weekends except to make phone calls and maybe I will even restrict internet access on weekends too.  I ought to have time now to manage my work life during the week.  No more grad school for me- I've learned my lessons. And now it's time to learn once again about quiet.

Housekeeping

Luke moved out today. He'd slowly been moving stuff over the last week or so and today he took the last two loads of stuff. I don't like the ends of relationships- so awkward. I think that Luke was planning to stay until October but just sort of changed his mind. The last thing he took was his dog, Mia. That's the only point at which I felt like crying.
I'd planned to spend the day working on a presentation for Curriculum Theory class over Henry Giroux. He is responsible for the idea of radical pedagogy, is still living and was a contemporary of my hero, Paulo Freire. I ended up rescheduling. What I did instead was call and text my girlfriends. Cathy came over, of course, and she brought her dogs and we all went to the dog park and hiked the three miles and sorted through issues of life, the universe and everything together. I called my sister Patti too, and my mom and other good friends just to ask for a little moral support. And they have given generously of their time and energy today. Much love, friends. <3
I spent the rest of today cleaning house. I mean dinging and slinging and throwing stuff out and moving furniture and vacuuming and generally sweeping and mopping and caring for my home. I was caring for me too. I took a scrubber to the inside of my eyes, sprayed Windex in my ears and cleaned out some of my psychic muck. I took on the living room, two bedrooms, the carpets and the front porch. I also swept out my feelings and allowed a few moments to just slump in a chair, have a cup of coffee and be quiet. I fed myself and worked myself out from the tight winding of the last few weeks of living in the same domicile with an ex and I feel both physically tired and emotionally unwound.
This is a good thing; it's not healthy to keep things bottled inside. The season is changing and we begin our descent from sweltering days to harvest and turning leaves towards winter, the time of the defiant. I have much to do this semester. We're five weeks in and I have another 11 to go if I'm to stay on track and graduate in the Spring. I'm still not sure how I'm going to break after that, but my opportunities have opened up. My head space and my living space are less cluttered and I am lucky once again. This time it's because the relationship ended on a "no harm, no foul" note.
Tomorrow I will get back on track. I'm resisting the urge to feel guilty. Soon, I will pull out my warm sweaters and hunker down for the winter to wait for a time of renewal and growth. Until then, I'll just sit still and lick my wounds.

Not a Morning Person

It's ten o'clock and I'm wide awake. Ten at night. I could stay up until 1 or 2 and be happy about it. I only need 7.5 hours of sleep a night, so my natural cycle is to sleep from about 1 until about 8:30 and sometimes 9 a.m. I have always been this way.

I remember as a young girl always having trouble waking in the mornings and going to sleep at night. Maybe that's everyone; I don't know. I grew up without digital props. We played outside in the sunshine and rain and snow and tried to stay out of our mother's hair or there wasn't anyone home anyway, so we'd ride bikes in the afternoon. Or we'd hang out and talk or play games. My sisters taught me to play chess and card games and I read like a fiend. But mostly, I just played.

It was worse as a teenager because my mom was the night dispatcher at the local police department. She worked midnight to 8 a.m. and I left for school at 8:15. We'd have a cup of coffee after she came home and before I left for school. I would stay up very late at night and read books, sometimes so late that I'd skip school until noon the next day to catch up. Back in the day, school started promptly at 8:30 and we stayed until 3:25. It was difficult to stay awake during those morning classes. I don't remember anything that was said or taught until after lunch. Of course, after lunch was Ag shop, English and whatever business class Mr. Moore was teaching.

I took jobs that required my presence after 9 a.m.- a job as a telephone operator, a bartender, a desk clerk at a hotel. I've done a lot of crappy jobs. I did for awhile have to be at work at 7:30 in the morning when I worked as a secretary in Las Vegas. And later when I was at a veterinary hospital, it was 7:45. Who gets up that early?

If I have to be someplace before say, 9 a.m., there are a few things you can bank on. One is that I won't be beautiful unless I'm presenting or teaching something. So no makeup, no pretty hair and definitely not a lot of smiling. I'm pretty much a zombie until around 9. I'm lucky that my teeth get brushed and that I'm wearing clothes. The clothes don't always match. Just saying. I teach in the afternoons and evenings and take classes after 4:30 p.m. Sometimes my teaching and school day ends at 10 p.m. For some, that's a hardship. For me, that's life. I like it better in the summer because of the heat, but even in winter I like to sleep in, snuggled into warm quilts with an aging and mercurial cat to keep me warm.

Having said that, it must be quite entertaining for my statistics professor to deal with me these last few weeks. The class begins at 8. In the morning. And lasts until 1. Five hours of statistics is bad enough, but really? Five hours a day, five days a week for a month? Why did I sign up for kamikaze statistics? Because if I do this and also finish the qualitative research course, I can take my comprehensive exams in the Fall with my regularly scheduled six hours of classes and the 18 hours that I will be teaching. Because I'm sort of kamikaze as a student.

I roast my own coffee these days. A good guy named R.E. Davis gave me his old roaster so I can do so easily, and I buy green coffee beans locally. And this morning, I got up late and didn't get a chance to make coffee. Crazy because it only takes four minutes. One minute to burr grind and three to run water through the Bunn- I've got more money tied up in coffee than some people put into their cars. I corrected the kid at Starbucks counter the other day. Don't fuck with me, junior. I have been economically supporting this company since before you were born.
Anyway, I got up late and threw on some clothes and put a hat on my head and ran out the door. It's faster to ride my scooter because I can park closer to the building, so off I went. I mentally patted myself on the back for brushing my teeth. Come 8:45, I was nodding off. This has happened before, but I'm not usually on the front and center row with the good professor lecturing to me and my fellow compatriots in what sometimes seems like tongues. I could see his face clearly, there were words coming from lips and I'm sure I must've looked like I was on a bad acid trip from staring so hard, trying to figure out what the hell he was saying.

I had to do something; I wouldn't want him to think that I don't care about the class. I really do, which is a problem. I need to know the stuff he's teaching us. It helps with critical thinking skills and analyzing data from studies that I often read. If I don't comprehend this, I will take it over again. So I did what everyone does: I pretended I was sniffling and went to the bathroom to try to wake up.

I've got to make it through this week and two more just like it. If I ever hoped to be a morning person, this cures me of any notion that I will ever be so. Here it is, 10:45, and I am still awake and need to get up at 6:30 tomorrow. I've got the original vampire book, Bram Stoker's Dracula, and maybe I'll take a look at it for a bit before nodding off. And I'll roast up a small batch of Nicaraguan for unweldling my eyes tomorrow. Oh morning, why do you vex me so?