beat-em-up weather

It's one of those times of reckoning and I feel upset right now.

I co-facilitated a training today where all the ninth-graders kept asking me permission to get water or go to the bathroom (good GAWD, are we teaching ninth-graders to ask permission to do everything now? if you need to take a leak or get a drink just GO, how ridiculous is it that I as a visiting trainer have to bless your departure?) and the only group of girls who genuinely seemed interested in what I had to say merely wanted to hit on me and compare my looks to Marc Anthony's.

I just had another weekend where I got NOTHING done on everything I had intended to do--statements of purpose for grad school, formulations of a second interview of Grace Lee Boggs, long-delayed research and revisions to my piece for the book, getting started on a small grant application for creative writing. None of it happened, and it will now hover over me during my upcoming 11-day break, which is feeling less like a break every passing day.

My older sis went quite apeshit on one of my nieces Saturday for pooping in her underwear, a dear friend is reeling from the shock of getting laid off at one of the worst possible times, another dear friend is abroad and I feel terrible for screwing up arrangements for a relaxed evening with her before she left, and there's a very important MTID (Meeting That I Dread) tomorrow morning which is followed by (FUCK!) a potluck, which will likely not be cheery.

In that training I alluded to, two students were telling me about their civics projects working on gay rights. When I asked one of them what they would do if someone didn't care about this issue and didn't see why it was important to them, she didn't offer up a counter-response to try and reel the skeptics/know-nothings/idiots in. She just said, "I'd beat em up."

I think this mirrors my sentiments exactly.