Ups and Downs

After four continuous days of having to listen to my friend go on and on about how excited he is about his upcoming "not a date" with the woman in the skimpy costume, I am finally growing numb, or at least resigned to it. Wednesday, I went off on him for his general insensitivity, but it skipped right over his head. I don't guess I was explicit enough. Thursday, I wasn't able to meet that group, and today, I had just decided that if it came up, I wasn't going to rise to the bait. I was very proud of myself. Now if I can just make it through his joyous retellings of whatever happens once he's actually been to the party with this person and this costume (however many days it takes him to relate that) without killing him for being a thickheaded and insensitive male, then life can go on.

It's been a tough week, even without that whole thing going on. Wednesday was the worst, starting off with an earring dropped down a sink drain (one of my jade ones carefully brought back from Thailand; I hope Dad can get it out), forgetting to put my trash out at the bottom of the driveway and it blowing off the roof of my PT Cruiser into the middle of the interstate and my having to retrieve it at 6:15 a.m., and so on. It ended with my Shakespeare professor belittling my profession as "unrespectable" since we high school teachers have to do things like keep bus duty, etc., and all have classrooms that are out of control (? Has he been in my room lately?). It was a long, long day.

The week ended on a high note, though. I got wonderful news today, sort of reward for not picking up a chair at some point and thrashing my friend with it, maybe. One of my students selected me as Star Teacher. I was totally blown away. I never expected such an honor to come to me. When the counselor came to tell me about it, I was completely dumbfounded for a minute. It means so much to me to have been chosen, especially since it's coming just now in the middle of all this horrible crap of the oncoming birthday.

After school, I went to my favorite junktique shop, and tomorrow I have a gathering of friends to go to, so I am hoping that now that January is finally dead and gone that things will begin to lighten up. It's been a rough start to the year, but maybe that's done now.