October 12, 1999.

I am spending too much time with Pixie Stix.

I've watched "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" of my own free will for 2 weeks running. And it's not like she sits down & tries to indoctrinate me into a Buffy cult or anything. So maybe it's pheremones. Because consciously? I want the vampires to win. Always.

Interesting morning. I woke up in a relatively genial mood & started gathering things for my grade 6 social studies presentation. Then I ran into my mother, who was on a warpath of unimaginable fury. I'll draw a curtain over what was said/shouted in the house and in the car, but rest assured that I was in tears while walking through the doors of the school.

You know, I think dealings with my mother might be a whole lot easier if I had access to a tranquilizer gun. That way she'd go around the bend & I'd just shoot her & wait for the narcotics to sink in. Then it'd be smooth sailing...well, until the dart wore off. I suppose I'd have to explain the gun at that point, too. Drag.

Despite this early trainwreck, and despite post-long-weekend torpor, my day was pretty damn good. The kids are starting to respect me as a discipline figure now that I'm a more familiar face. This means that I can get them to settle down quicker; the problem being that I tend to fall into "shush" mode rather than "shush & positive reinforcement" mode. Something to work on this year.

As for the presentation itself, I honestly hadn't given too much thought to the whole thing. Then I came in and saw that an extra social studies period had been allotted to give me my own space. Gulp. I wrote out a rough talk during math class and managed not to speak into my chest too much when the time came to present. I was quite gratified with the class reaction: at first they were quiet, but as soon as the pictures started going around, they warmed up to the whole thing. Especially when I told the shark catching story.

Extra good things about today: one girl complementing me on "my style" (whatever that means) and a boy coming over & offering me some of his own blue tack to help re-stick the pictures to the display.

After the final bell, I hung around the emptying class as much as possible in order to delay the next contact with my mother. I needn't have worried. She was immediately apologetic for "tormenting me" in the morning. Apparently she pulled the same thing on my father shortly thereafter. Only this time she threatened drastic measures suspiciously similar to those her own father used to speak of. I hadn't realized before today that my mother may be prey to the same patches of mental instability that characterized her father during the decline of his marriage with my grandmother.

Tell truth, I just thought she needed to sleep more. Shows how well I can connect the dots.