Bits

I have discovered an ardent love for footy pajamas.

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I am now on Christmas break. Started it off on a raucous note last night by collapsing into bed at 9pm. Hoping to ward off future narcoleptic attacks. At least until after New Year's Eve.

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God must be trying to teach me something along the lines of "put your foot in your mouth and keep it there." I keep offending people.

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Yesterday, the last day before break, I took my 7th period sophomores around the hallways caroling. Got some delighted looks from students; some ornery looks from teachers. (Well-- just Mr. Wa, but that's to be expected.) My rationale: no one's concentrating during the last 15 minutes anyway, so we may as well spread holiday cheer. Right?

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Except I assigned homework over break. I know. I may as well have bombed Bethlehem.

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Like I said, I keep offending people.

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Description of recommended apparel for tonight's Christmas party: "Dress in holiday attire, but no tacky sweaters please. We're keeping it classy." How on earth does one dress "holidayish" if one can't wear a tacky sweater??

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Today, when reading a book to my 4-year-old niece, I received an impromptu lecture on safe reading habits. "But you have to be careful when turning the pages Auntie Greta, because if you go like THIS, the pages will cut you, it will cut on your nail. This is a very sharp book."

One Fine Day

When I was in sixth grade, I developed a giant crush on the boy across the street. He was two years older than me-- my older brother's best friend. Therefore: irresistibly forbidden. The crush continued through middle school, through high school-- even into college. In between boyfriends, I would return to my crush on the boy across the street, and in all those days of pining, I would think of this song:


One fine day
You'll look at me
And you will know our love was
Meant to be
One fine day
You're gonna want me for your girl...


ONE day, I thought, that boy is going to decide that I'm the one he wants. Maybe after he goes off to college, I concluded. He'll come home, and WOWZA, I'll be all grown up, and then he'll like me!

And funny enough, that's what happened.

So this boy and I swung from the star-hung pendulum, reaching to one end of the galaxy in passion and sureness, and then swinging to the other where we said firm goodbyes... On one end, exchanging rhapsodic utterances, on the other, watching the star trails burn out with the darkened knowledge that the ride could only ever be temporary. Eventually, we were graced with Disappointment's dreary presence, and we stopped speaking, grew apart, fell out of favor, began forgetting.

And I fell in love with new boys.

And I learned about real heart-break.

Today, on my drive home, I heard on the radio--


One fine day
You'll look at me
And you will know our love was
Meant to be
One fine day
You're gonna want me for your girl...


... And I thought of the boy across the street: now a grown-up man with a fiance, in a city far far away. All I could do was shake my head in amazement at the way time has changed things. The memory of my fervent teenage affection now seems as fuzzy and old as the recording of that song. Yet forgetting, it turns out, brings a "finer day" than the two of us ever had with one another. The consummation of the "one fine day" was not his choosing me, but his forgetting me, and choosing someone else; the deliverance of the "one fine day" was not me receiving him, but forgetting him, and throwing open the doors of my heart to the great wide spaces of promise. Perhaps it isn't forgetting even, but rather remembering in a different way: this fine day's remembrance is colored-- not with longing and regret-- but with innocent nostalgia.

* * * * *

I say all this, because I'm forgetting again.

"I fell in love with new boys. And I learned about real heart-break."

Or rather, remembering in a different way than I have been remembering.

It is such a mercy to forget. Such a mercy to remember in a different way. Such a mercy to hear an old song, and realize that one fine day, I hear it with a different heart.

I tried posting this as a status update but it was too long.

By me.
(Forgive the breaches in iambic pentameter.)

To leave or not to leave? That is the question.
Whether 'tis nobler in the long run to suffer
The long oppression of my classroom,
Or to take off from school,
And sink into the comfort of my couch?
To leave, to part-- no more.
And in parting, to say I end the thousands of messy papers
Stacked on my desk and simply forget them.
'Tis oblivion devoutly to be wished. To leave, to vacate...
To vacate, perchance to VACATION... Ay, there's the rub,
For in Christmas vacation what dreams will come!
Yet before I shuffle off this grading coil,
I first must pause... There's the respect
That makes for such long hours at school.
For who would bear the messy desk, the flourescent lights,
The piles of papers, the students' slacking,
The incessant planning, the papers still to come--
When I might simply leave and go home
To my hot tub? Who would all this bear,
To grunt and sweat for this difficult profession,
But that the dread of grading over Christmas vacation
Makes me rather sweat it out now, and try to get 'er done...
So that come Friday I'm just a little bit more free than I am right now.
Thus, conscience does make drudges of us all...
And thus the native tendency to procrastinate
Weakens and cowers when such Christmasy freedom beckons on the horizon.
Soft you now, the AP timed writes...! Back to work and grading...

p.s. Have I mentioned recently that I really DO like my job...? Most of the time...?