Spring Cleaning

As I sit here at my computer, killing time before my next soccer game, I watch Cervantes squirm in my lap. He's trying desperately, sometimes aggressively, to catch his own tail in his teeth so that he can clean it. I guess that tail movement is somewhat involuntary, because he seems somewhat surprised when his own tail smacks him in the nose or eye, and looks frustrated (if a cat can look frustrated) that his tail isn't getting as clean as he wants it to be. The thought crossed my head that maybe I'm like that right now, trying to battle involuntary forces in an attempt to get my own life in order. Maybe I should just let my tail wag where it will, instead of chasing after it. The cat looks pretty silly trying to keep it under control, and if I were to extrapolate that to me, I'd look silly too. Or, I could just give up using my feline companion as an example; he does lick his own butt.

It's springtime for me, I've decided. It's definitely *not* spring in Philadelphia or New York, where it was alternately raining in near-frozen torrents or snowing, but returning to excessively humid and warm weather here in the tropics has artificially synthesized spring for me, by giving me that transition from dank cold to balmy breezes that tells my corporeal timepiece it's time to renovate, renew.

Most superficially, I cleaned the apartment, including the bathroom. Our bathtub, once a damp haven for several kinds of brilliantly (and not so brilliantly) colored mildew, is now shiny white and disinfected. I was long overdue, and really wasn't that difficult, I just needed the right kind of cleaner. Hmm, do I sense a metaphor here? The bleach fumes have gotten to my head, and I can't quite get it.

I also tried to make a fresh start of things this weekend, unpacking all of my suitcases shortly after arrival en casa. I have found that if I leave half-unpacked suitcases lying about the room, it just reminds me of the trip that I'm not on anymore, and is all-around depressing. Thus, I quickly hung up my new outfits from Anthropologie, put away the fun new green shoes, and wouldn't let myself unpack my beads and finish another necklace. There were grand plans of making headway on my FIU work, but alas, a killer headache set those back. Instead, much napping on the couch with the cat. At least he's not mad at me anymore for going away.

What I didn't really do was prepare for school today. Luckily, it wasn't overly disastrous, but when the kids trooped in at 7:20, I didn't really know how to react to them. It took me several hours to readjust to being "Ms. Williamson" again, woman of guarded emotions and flat-faced somberness. I was kind of sad that I hadn't better prepared my introduction to the Odyssey, and could see 2nd period's faces lagging a bit towards the end of the lesson. Dammit, this is supposed to be the fun part! I think I just tried to cram in too much information too soon. The silly thing is, and this isn't quite so silly as watching a cat try to eat his own tail, one would think that I would take this time tonight to fix the lesson, come up with some better student-oriented summaries than what the book provides, and draw connections from ancient Greece to modern-day Miami. Instead, I sit here listening to Willie Nelson, indulging in quasi-narcissisitic blogging. Yay for self-involvement.

The truth of it is that while I have begun the literal spring cleaning, there are more figurative cleanings which I have yet to undertake. The graduate semester ends surprisingly soon, and I need to STOP forgetting to look at the syllabus and consequently miss deadlines. I need to have a plan for English, revamp Read180, and start taking my extra classes (that would be the lovely 7th and 8th periods) seriously. I've had them for an entire quarter now, I guess they're really "my" students and nobody's going to miraculously give me a break and take them away. So much for hoping Central would get its head out of its ass. I'll leave it to the reading public to decide whether that's literal or figurative.

As the price of gasoline skyrockets, I need to decide if buying my Vespa is indeed going to happen this spring/summer, or if I need to keep building a nest egg.

There are so many decisions to make, and shit, I'm going to be late for my game!

Countdown

Hey there, it's been two weeks. Seems like Monday night is my "I-don't-give-a-fuck-about-this-week's-work-that-I-haven't-done-yet" night. After posting for my two FIU classes, driven DDH to FLL one last time this year, played a game of soccer, and savored several sips of chilled plum wine, and had a rather irritating conversation with the maternal parental unit, I thought that I was ready to post.

Grr. Maybe I'm just too damn tired. Why can't I be too damn tired to bubble in TWO THOUSAND bubbles on the scantron sheets for the stupid damn Third Quarter grades? Funny how that's not an acceptable excuse for MDC-PS.