February 5, 2000

Have you ever been asked, "If you had a day to do anything you wanted, what would you do?" Today I had one of those days. "I'd sleep as late as I wanted..." Last Saturday, Andy and I were adult leaders at Snowball, a club at school that advocates smart choices for teens. We left home at 5:45 a.m. and didn't return until midnight. What were we doing for 18 hours? Well, there were small group meetings (held in classrooms where everyone parked it on the floor with pillows and blankets), workshops, speakers, a dance, and much, much running through the school with everyone in pajamas and shoeless. First of all, I discovered at around 9:00 p.m. that night that I'm far to old to run around without shoes, because I felt the beginnings of shin splints--which I still have tonight. Secondly, I'm far too old to roll around on a hard floor for hours, no matter how many blankets I'm lying on. I still have back pain as we speak. Because Saturday was so draining, I was useless all day on Sunday, and I entered the week with nothing done--no laundry, no planning, no grading...which made for a really tense five days. Of course, this was the week I had chosen to begin a formal essay with both my freshmen and sophomores--no "reading days" where Mrs. Lester could get off her aching dogs and get stuff done while chickens worked quietly by themselves. Instead I found myself running around the front of the classroom lecturing in the most old-school way about topic sentences and supporting details. By Friday, I was sick of myself. I don't know how the chicks stood it. When I looked in my Frank on about Thursday to see what I had coming up for the weekend, I was ecstatic to discover that nothing was entered for Friday, Saturday or Sunday...what a frickin' treat! My first goal was to sleep in on Saturday until I couldn't sleep any more. And I did. I rolled out of bed at 9:45, just in time. "I'd watch bad t.v...." "Andy...get up...I have a surprise for you downstairs!" Andy glared at me accusingly, then flopped over and tried to go back to sleep. But I whined and tugged until he followed me downstairs. When I turned on VH-1, he realized what I meant. Rock 'n Roll Jeopardy! We watched for an hour while I berated and nagged Andy to get his sorry self on the show to win us $5,000. He is completely RainMan-like with music trivia. It used to bug me when we watched it together because I didn't get to play, but now I'm so used to listening to him chant the answers (in a slightly bored way) that I'm starting to think that I'm good at it. So I feel kind of victorious in an ignorant kind of way. "I'd go shopping and buy shoes" Andy, having some type of out-of-body experience, wanted to go to Woodfield--a large, large, larger-than-life mall that he usually likens to water torture. I asked no questions, but quickly changed out of my sloppy overalls so as to look presentable for the public. We not only bought shoes for me (hate Marshall Field's, love Nordstrom), but we wandered into this store called Z Gallerie where Wanna be notified when I update? Send mail and thou shalt receive!