But Not a Word I Heard Could I Relate*

I have this calendar announcement that pops up once a month that is obviously from an ancient online calendar that I can’t access to delete the announcement. It’s Untitled. It has no announcement except that it is Untitled. So every month, I close it or snooze it, depending on how I’m feeling, and wonder if the month I die, that untitled announcement will still pop up, and if the month after I die, what will happen with that announcement. Will it still pop up somewhere? I mean, it’s gotta be years old and who knows where it’s hiding, but I can’t find it and so it will never ever go away for good. 

That’s kind of how all of life seems right now. Laughs hysterically. Too many things to do, as always. I need stuff done for school that I have to get copied for next week…like 3 different worksheets or assignments or something. I need all the stuff prepped for at least the first week of January, so they can get copied in time. I have been backwards planning and the first 8 days back are still blank. Blank is nice. Blank will be good. It’s because I can’t possibly fit all the things I should be teaching into that space, so I have to figure out how to logically place all the things they absolutely need to get through the rest of the units I know we’re teaching, and my brain is just not engaging with that yet, because it’s still panicking about next week. And with multiple meetings each day, I’m not catching up.

Here’s an example of how I cope:

Yes. I’m at the gym. On an elliptical. Grading the last two questions of the assessment they did Monday. I finished! I’m excited about that actually. On my phone, I had the rubric, so if I wasn’t sure what score a kid should get, I could quick look at it again. While listening to Linkin Park. So there.

But I got to the gym late (tutoring after school) and so then I ate dinner late and started doing other stuff late, and then because everything was late, I stayed up too late, and now I’m feeling that. 

I already called my online pharmacy (they called yesterday, but they keep East Coast hours). They’ve discontinued the little stabby things I use in my diabetes kit, so I need a new device for the new stabby things, which are just like the old ones, but of course, a slightly different size and design that won’t work in the new device. Assholes. Diabetes is expensive and complicated and annoying. 

I have to admit to lolling on the couch for 15 minutes before I started tracing. Kitten came by and was trying to figure out how to sit on this, but the drawing is huge and she was nervous about finding the table underneath. 

Also, no one can sit on the couch while I’m doing this (not true…I have my ways).

She finally settled for this position. In case you were wondering, yes…yes, she IS sitting on the edge of the drawing so I can’t move it.

Because she is a cat.

This stage is never very photogenic. It’s just days and days of this. I find it meditative, but that’s me.

I’m watching Killing Eve (thanks to whomever suggested it…it finally popped up somewhere I could watch it for free). It seems appropriate to my holiday, last-two-weeks-before-break-middle-school-teacher-mode brain. This week is going…it’s managed. Next week will be crazy time. I should get all my shopping and wrapping done this week, if I’m smart. HA! Not smart. 

Anyway, I have 4 hours into the tracing and I’m at 330 or so. I’m on the 2nd figure…I’ve finished one arm, most of the other, and the torso up until whatever arm is covering it. So head and neck and shoulders left on this one, plus the stuff that’s touching it. I have a ton of stuff after school today (including negotiating a new tester for the pokey stabby things?), but the goal is to be tracing sometime late tonight, plus going to bed a little earlier than last night? That would be a good plan. I really wasn’t watching the clock last night. My bad.

*Led Zeppelin, Kashmir