By the second verse, dear friends, my head will burst, my life will end

M wanted me to meet him for coffee this morning. When he invited me - several days ago - I said yes and immediately began thinking about which excuse I would use to get out if it. There may have been a fifteen minute stretch over those days when I considered the possibility of actually going, but not seriously. In the end I went with the classic (sick); the pandemic has made this excuse much easier to rely upon. People no longer encourage you to take some ibuprofen and do your best. They want you to stay the hell away. It would have been cooler of me to just decline the invitation, but I haven't totally mastered that art quite yet. Sometimes I can do it really well (for example when S invited me to help him move furniture to prepare for his renovation I said hell no with gusto, while the other two meekly acquiesced) but other times it feels impossible. Especially with M, who is a weird combination of bossy and fragile. ***
*** Today S taught me how to use some digital wizardry that will allow me to have access to my university textbooks on my computer, ipad, and phone, all at once. I can even make the screen reader read the text out loud to me while I am walking. What a world. He tells me that the new AI technology will also help me write papers. I wonder where this kind of magic crosses over the line into being unethical. ***
***

I can’t be anywhere without being somewhere else so I always miss what’s happening here

This morning the Director sent me an email with a direct link to the job posting we discussed the other day. With this kind of encouragement I am going to be a little annoyed if I don't get the job. But what am I doing? Am I really going to leave public education, just like that? In my special sociopathic way, leaving will trouble me in that I have still not been successful making C leave. C sucks and without me putting pressure on her to work, she will probably stay forever. (Sucking and so forth.) I like that she is uncomfortable with me, I like that she knows that I know she sucks. But apart from my sociopathy, leaving could really be incredible. Terrorizing C is not a good enough reason to stay.

Ka-pow

Last night I learned about "hot chocolate bombs", something I have managed to avoid coming across long past the peak of the trend. Yesterday I received a pretty (unlabelled) little gift box with a pretty little (unlabelled) chocolatey-looking thing inside it. With no knowledge of hot chocolate bombs, I made the assumption it was some kind of pastry, like a cream puff or something like that. Being the generous soul that I am, when I got home from work, I asked S to share this cream puff with me, and he agreed. Because we share cooties, I figured I would bite it and then hand over the other half. When you bite into a hot chocolate bomb, the chocolate shell shatters like glass, spraying shards of chocolate in all directions. And the powdery middle explodes, bomb-like, in a choking cloud of chocolate dust. And the intensity of the chocolate, which would probably taste nice if it was diluted in hot milk, is sickeningly strong and overpoweringly sweet. So don't bite a hot chocolate bomb if you can avoid it. You pobably won't like it.

Click

The side gig teaching university has potentially blossomed into another opportunity, which now has me spinning a little. I asked the director for some more information about it, expecting perhaps a job description handbook to come to me in an email. Instead she asked me to meet her in a Zoom call. The Zoom call suddenly meant staying in my clothes when I would normally be in my pajamas, which was a little stressful. But more than that, really, was the fact that it suddenly felt like I was going to a job interview, which is something I have not done for a very long time. However, it went very well. The director made the job sound very good. Some instruction. Some administrative work. No need to leave my house if I don't want to. (Ummm. Perfect.) Some paid time to work on my doctorate (what?!). No overtime. She told me I am a good candidate and encouraged me to apply. She also told me that the other Associate Director recommended me. Not to sound cocky because I do not know who else might be applying for this gig, but I feel like I have a good shot at it if I decide to pursue it. That's a crazy thought that I could leave public education just like that. In the middle of the school year. It's wild. If I was P, I might just dive in and see what happens. He's brave like that. But in my own way, I am whirring a bit about gains and losses, loves and not-loves, people and screens. And all those things. There is time to think.

Fallen

abruptly it has become quite cold and dry; it feels like Winter Prairie instead of Wet Left Coast. i had almost forgotten the apprehension of static building as feet cross carpet, the hilarity of the ZAP! when someone else (not me) touches a metal door handle and screams. *** i am amused by RD; to be fair he is new and being new may come with a certain desire to prove oneself. the way that looks can vary. on RD it seems a bit smug, with a side order of needy. he often tells me that he is smart, and i do not disagree. but anyone who works full time, has young children, and claims to read a novel every other day is definitely lying. (or as BB would say, that is clearly not your tie.)