perspicacious.org

Hi there. Sorry. I know it's been weeks and weeks and you've all but forgotten I even exist. I do exist. I exist on the edge of the sphere of sanity somewhere, but I exist.

I've been super poor (who knew that $100 a month in heating costs would add up after a while), so I got a crappy second job cutting fabric at a fabric store. It's fairly tedious, and I mostly hate the customers and don't care much for my coworkers, either. But it's not too bad, and it will pay the heating bill and student loans for a while.

So far I've had lots of fun customers– the restaurant owner wanting like 30 yards of plastic tablecloth fabric, the crazy lady who yelled at her kids and showed me several magazine pictures and then made me figure out how much fabric she needed for curtains, the gross greasy-haired chicken farmer who was buying hot pink leopard printed lace to make her own underwear (eww), and the snotty lady who made me remeasure everything because she thought I was shafting her an inch. Yeah.

We went to the ice park last night and saw the ice sculptures. The multi-block sculptures were amazing– so big! Some of them were 15 and 20 feet tall. The winner was this absolutely amazing dragon boat. The best part, though, was the kids park. There was a skating rink and lots of fun slides made out of ice. They were slippery and really fast (I couldn't stop when I got to the bottom), but the ice stairs were a little scary. It was fun. I have pictures I can post when I'm home.

So, I'm sorry again for not being around. Can I make you a promise of once weekly entries, at least? I'll give it my best shot, anyway. Have a good week.

Thursday, even though it felt like a Friday. School is silly and random and rampant with gossip and underlying tension– so much drama for a place with only 14 employees! I can't write about any of it, but can I give you some teaser hints? I got to drive around in the minivan with a scarf and a hood as a disguise, and a pair of binoculars. I also got to run the classroom without help yesterday morning. It's been…interesting.

It's fabulously warm and beautiful out– around 30 degrees. At this rate the sculptures at the Ice Art competition will melt before I get to see any of them. Not that I'm complaining. Supposedly they have a park for kids with slides and things made from ice, which sounds more fun than the ice sculptures themselves. I'll take pictures when I go.

Next week is our spring break. I'm too poor to go anywhere (and a week off won't help), but a week of sleeping in and shunning corned beef and cabbage should be fun. We're planning a St. Patrick's party with green beer and all sorts of lovely and disgusting Irish food. I don't know about those Irish and their meat concoctions.

What else? Tiny A sang the My Little Pony song for me today and it was the cutest thing I ever saw, there is rampant stomach virus going around school and one day I counted 6 children who were at school despite having thrown up the day before and we made biscuit peanut butter and jelly sandwiches today, which was messy but fun. I do like these little guys, but I miss 5th grade. Cross your fingers for me that I can find a teaching position next year.

Must go enjoy the sunshine. Or my laundry. Whichever.