Still Breathin'

Well, I'm still here. I still have no answers to life's myriad problems, but have continued to put one foot in front of the other for a whole week.

I went back to work last Tuesday. I found out on Wednesday that I missed a Very Important Meeting. (yeah, right) on Tuesday morning, and my ass is probably still in a sling.

None of my students had been told I'd be back, even though I e-mailed all the schools' secretaries, so I basically did nothing all week. My students have a big concert with all the other students from the various geographic areas of our district. The music for this concert has to be checked out from the central music library which is inconveniently located and not open when I need it to be. Further, I was absent when the selections were announced, so most of the music will be gone when I go to get it tomorrow.

I e-mailed my colleagues and explained my predicament. Not only is no one willing to send me a few stinkin' copies of music, no one even responded to the e-mail! Nice, huh?

I'm eating like a premenstrual maniac, and I'm not even close to that week. I had 200 carbs today, and I continue to exhibit compulsive/addictive behavior, not only with food, but with drink as well. Last night I had three cocktails before bed. Then I got up in the middle of the night and had a protein bar, a glass of milk, and a bagel with butter and brown sugar! Good God in heaven, what the hell am I thinking?? I don't know what's at the root of this food orgy, but I have to get a handle on it before there's another set of handles on me!!

The new quarter starts next week - for my paralegal studies. I'm taking Legal Research & Writing II, and Torts. The texts for both classes are the same ones they use at the prestigious law school downtown. Yeah, one's not hard enough. Let's take two!! Moron...

One fun thing: tomorrow I'm having a fancy lunch - I usually have a lean pocket and a quart of water - with the local paralegal association. Chicken parmesan. Yum! (Boy, I am easily amused.)

That's all my ramblings for now. OH! Except for one... I have a friend who lost her job last week. In addition, she recently lost her boyfriend, and her mother is nagging her from 1500 miles away to come home. (I sense that while she's home, she'd spend most of the time getting ragged at for the very things that the rest of the world admires her for!)

Anyway, she posted this info on a board I participate in, and the well-meaning readers wrote post after post about how this is a "new beginning" and she's "so lucky" and she can "go anywhere she wants" because she doesn't "have a husband or children" to weigh her down.

What a bunch of crap! Let's remind her that she's alone, shall we? Let's remind her that she's lost a job she loved and a man she loved in the same week. It's not like if we don't remind her, she won't know. As Billy Crystal once said "why don't you give me a paper cut and pour lemon juice on it."

I DO NOT understand how otherwise intelligent and reasonably compassionate people could so completely miss the point!

If you're reading, hon, know that you are not alone. And this progression of life events truly sucks. You have no reason to feel bad that you're not "embracing the future" or whatever pile of crap snowballed in that thread.

I wish I could be there with you, get drunk with you, rail at the unfairness of it all. I feel so bad that someone so wonderful has to go through something so terrible by herself.

Sometimes life just really isn't fair, and that's all there is to it.

Comments

[Marybeth]

Thanks Mel :)

[melody6499]

You're welcome. You are a wonderful person and a dear friend to all those who need one, whenever they need one.

Call/write/beep/fax/whatever, anytime you want. :-)

[Deluzy]

"... and a bagel with butter and brown sugar!" Oh hell. That sounds really good. As in, now I want to try it. Am I suggestable? You bet.

You teach AND do paralegal studies at the same time? Wow. That's kind of amazing.

[melody6499]

A raisin bagel, no less. It was good, but not worth the 400-odd calories it must've had in it.

Yeah, I'm sick to death of teaching. My job is so boring it's ridiculous. But, it gives me a lot of time to study.

I hope to make the transition complete by the summer so I don't have to teach another year, but it'll be tough to find an entry-level job that'll equal an M.M. + 10 years experience.

Time will tell.

Thanks, btw. One doesn't often think of one's own endeavors as "amazing." :-)