april 23, 2001. Must call Dad. Must call Dad. Must call Dad. It's his birthday today. I have no gift for him, nor have I sent a card. How many ways can I castigate myself before it becomes boring for everyone involved? Oh, one for the road: I suck. I'm having a somewhat difficult evening: I'm so tired that I keep losing track of my work, yet I can't go to bed until it's done. And so it goes... The last 24 hours have been filled with the kind of quotidian crap that builds up like emotional plaque. I was up way too late last night, toiling away at the Blake Archive in order to complete (what else?) the day's lesson preparation. When I finally lay down on our floor futon, the Boy was already locked in deep sweaty sleep. That was a bit of a drag right there; the weekend was very enjoyable but I'd been waiting for a chance to have a serious conversation with the lad the whole time. There lay my chance, snoring peacefully. He got up & left at 4:30 a.m., leaving me to toss & turn for another 1 ½ hours. Going going gone. Anyhoo. Today's class has - well - sucked, I guess. I had a review exercise planned for today to prepare them for the upcoming quiz. As the weeks have rolled on, some basic facts have become apparent: despite the easy-peasy "let's make them happy" poetry curriculum on the younger grades, most kids in my class think poetry is boring/stupid/a waste of time. I get 3 or so comments daily along these lines and it's pretty much ceased to bother me as it's just formless "why do we have to wuuuurrrrrk?" whining. And yet. Today one girl became livid during a conversation with me, saying that she liked poetry but 'every poem that [I]'ve picked so far was horrid!' I was taken aback by her vehemence - she was red in the face and surly, and in previous classes she had shown nothing but quiet, serious engagement with the material. That depressed me. I can take the 'poetry is boring' stuff. But she made me feel like a stereotypical stormtrooper English teacher, beating all the innocent joy and natural enthusiasm out of my students. I'm worried that she'll flunk the quiz to show me who'd boss. I would hate that - in those situations everyone loses. I just don't know. This afternoon I cancelled the kitten. A few days ago I finally bowed to the pressure of sensible advice about my new allergy-conscious lifestyle...all that I needed to do was to make it official. I feel kind of hollow about the whole thing: not really sad because we didn't have a chance to know the kitten longer than 30 minutes spread over 3 weekends, but definitely not happy. As Johnny Rotten would say (and has said in the past), I felt cheated. Then I walked over to the post office, mailed our taxes and bought stamps. At the card store I chose a plain card featuring little dogs in dresses. I was unaccountably reminded of my classes - the little upright dogs in dresses seemed so much like my class on a good day. What the hell, my dad will laugh. I wrote a quick message by the side of the road in purple pen and sent it off. It will be late, but yeah. It's done.