well, from maybe 10-5, anyway.  that’s a major improvement over the 3hour bursts i’ve been doing, this is working already.

then i remembered that i have this car thing and will have to call and tell them i won’t be there at 7:20…  today’s classes won’t get their special halloween collage project.  it’s just not fair, can i risk driving out there in the pre-dawn fields anyway?  and then the car still won’t be fixed?  aargh.  well, on the bright side, the normal-seeming wakeup memory delay means, at least, that i wasn’t worrying about it all night while sleeping as i have been known to do.  that’s a big plus.

no sooner do i call in and leave my notice on the voicemail—there seems to be no other way to get in touch—at the rec dept job, and then spend an evening with friends at the yarn studio, the first in many months, than on the way home i discover that the check engine light is on in my car.  and tomorrow i have to drive 25 miles into the country to get to my second school.  what to do?

i give up.  i’d already decided i will just live in debt for the rest of my life, but i can’t continue living this 15 hour workday, three hour sleep shift cycle at my age (or any age.)  now i have to figure out what to do about this thing.  i’m fairly well sure, which means i suspect, that it is a faulty light, as the fuel empty indicator, which seems to be in much the same place on the console, has been stuck on for a couple of weeks even though i don’t let the fuel get down below half.  in the owner’s manual it says that the check engine light is also the malfunction indicator for the fuel gauge if you ignore the fuel empty indicator for some reason and actually do run out of gas, so i think it’s that the thing thinks i’m out of gas somehow when i’m not.  the car runs fine.  but i don’t know that and i have to get it fixed, have to take it into the dealership, it says.

so i give up. i can’t figure out what else to do but take it into the dealership tomorrow morning and call the school and tell them i’m sorry but i’ll be there as soon as i can.  we do get personal days, after all, although i hadn’t intended on taking any my first year, much less right after my one-month anniversary, but there it is.  and, of course, you’re supposed to arrange for them with a sub, but i couldn’t have arranged for this.  i don’t really know what else to do, except drive out there anyway, but i would probably die of anxiety on the highway wondering if i could make it, and it still wouldn’t be fixed.  if i had margaret’s phone number, i could call her for a ride, but i don’t have it.  so i guess i’m just going to have to give up and call the school at 7 tomorrow on the way into the dealership.

i give.  i can’t do any more, i’m running myself into the ground.  i’ve quit the extra job and so things will get better now, rapidly, but i hope that i don’t rack up any more debt with this car thing somehow.  if i do, i do.  they won’t fire me for an emergency, i don’t think.

oh, and my first teaching observation appointment is tuesday afternoon, at the other school.  sigh.  why me?  of course, the way to look at it is really how lucky it didn’t happen, whatever it is, when i was unemployed, that would be so much worse.  i’m just going to have to deal with it is all. i’m sorry, school. i’ve never had any problem with this car, this is a first.  the check engine light.  who knew?

how long has it been?  i keep thinking two years for everything, has it been two years?  since i’ve cleaned the house, made a meal, read a book, two years? yesterday i went to the new fresh market and then off to the regular supermarket, got stuff to make pot roast.  today i made pot roast.  today i vacuumed the rug, the motheaten rug, and made a woolflower for the two shawls i just sold.  i ate breakfast.  i found the sock i’d lost and darned the other one. repairing holes, i’m repairing holes. washed my hair.  picked something up.  anything, picked anything up. repairing the holes.

i found my sock.

i haven’t read one in maybe almost two years?  i haven’t been able to, is that over with now?  please?  i do have some lying around, i shall try. tonight.

after all, it’s me that’s whacked, not her, she’s a normal person.  i, on the other hand,  argh!  i am doing entirely to much, i’ve decided.  i keep getting ideas and ideas and doing something or buying something for them and then there they are, just stitting there waiting for me to do them. speakers for the iPod so i can have music in the portable classroom! decorations for the art cart in the other!  i need a flexibile leather binder thingy for my rollsheets and planner!  write the lesson plans!  a notebook to write down the questions in, what should i call those questions, anyway?  do the art camp today!

well, two (2) kids came today.  that’s all.  stupid.  and whatever happened to my policy of not taking work home, anyway?  i always said i would stay late, but not take work home, and then i forgot.  i am taking on to much and that’s the way.  so i looked at my pile o’ stuff i brought home and i’m not gonna do any of it, i’ll wait and start on it tomorrow during my planning time.  and then maybe after school, too.  but tonight?  i’m gonna turn the foot on my stocking.  right about now, as a mater of fact!

(okay, so she’s not really a normal person…)

i’m sorry.  i’m whacked.  it’s taking me over a week to return my phonecalls.  i think i may have lost again the long-lost roommate who’d so recently found me, in the process.  OT called to say he was booked for tomorrow but how about some other time and it took me a week to get back to his machine to acknoledge the fact, and there is no other time.  so no posting. but all is well.  i have some time off this week, because we have yom kippur off (who knew) so i only have to do an art camp from 12-4 tomorrow, and then that also allows me not to have to go back into the studio until thurs. fri and sat this week.  so maybe i will exist some, but i’m not promising anything.

come back d!  please!  I didn’t mean it!  i warned you i would be unavailable, but nobody ever believes me, waaahhhhh!