Friday Morning Stream of Consciousness

December 1, 2017

I need to finish grading this stack of papers what day should I book a train for D to come home from school gotta finish my posts for my last grad class what am I going to wear to the concert tonight I hope my students remembered to bring in books for the book drive oh I need to send off finals to the print shop I wonder if there’s anything else I need to do to process my degree thank god it’s payday I need to get a new bed for the guest room that has a trundle so that both girls can sleep there when they come home to visit I need to clean out N’s room so that we can get a smaller bed in there and give him more room man, I hope his job actually pays him this week we need to get him registered for classes next semester I hope he’s doing okay I’m excited to shop for all the kids for Christmas I still want to make some gifts for a few people, too Paint Nite with the girlfriends was a lot of fun we should do that again, but I’m not sure they all loved painting D and I should do some painting and photography during the Christmas break I need to order some prints of the family shots I took at Thanksgiving I’m sad that B doesn’t love how she looks because she’s beautiful, but then I think how critical I am of how I look and I get it we don’t look at ourselves in love like the people who love us do I wish I didn’t weigh so much not loving what I look like right now (ever) the most charitable thing I can muster on some days is well, I’m not awful, but some days I don’t even get there sometimes I worry that D will look at me and wonder why he’s with someone whose weight is out of control but I can’t really ever express that out loud because insecurity is unattractive, so that’s a bit of a catch-22 and it only sounds like you’re fishing for compliments anyway okay, enough of that self-destructive nonsense, because who needs that on a Friday morning speaking of nonsense that world news has spiraled out of control of course it’s been spiraling since the last presidential election, but it’s kind of unbelievable to think how strange it is to wake up every single morning wondering are we at war who has been charged with sexual harassment today what new indictments or resignations of top government officials have been announced and why in God’s name are we not going after the one who needs to be dethroned before more damage is done, because it’s already going to take years to right the ship as it is how much more damage can the ship sustain before sinking altogether my goodness I’m in a dark frame of mind today which is not normal for me gotta reset my perspective before my class comes in I need to fine-tune my planning for the rest of the semester, write a couple of letters of recommendation, prepare for an observation next week, finalize business with my student teacher I need to get Christmas decorations out of storage to decorate the house oh gosh I need to clean the house we need to get rid of some stuff the house is in desperate need of new carpets or flooring holy cow, what are we going to do about the leak and the mess in the back bathroom we still need to replace the lighting in the dressing room and I don’t even have the first clue how to go about doing it and I think D got frustrated with the project so it’ll just get left as is I need to take care of some bills and paperwork too and I need to get to the post office to mail some packages I really want to do some holiday baking, but it is ridiculous to even think about it because then I’d want to eat some of it, and refer back to the earlier train of thought where I said I weighed too much already so much to do, so why sit here writing all this down because maybe, just maybe if I can get it all out here, I can get it out of my mind and start working on some of those things that are floating around in my brain like snow flurries that make it hard to focus on any one thing at a time