thank god i have a sense of humor. so, the school called my house three times today, trying to track down grades for students. people, i am coming back tomorrow morning! there are only a few grades missing, and they can be taken care of tomorrow! the other thing that they did - oddly, enough - is that they went into my classroom for approximately 30 minutes this afternoon after the children had gone; apparently, they were in and out of my room??? i don't like people walking in and out and around my room while i'm not there. hopefully they were fixing my wayward computer so that it has a consistent internet connection (what with the 300+ viruses that one of my kids found on it the other day). oh! AND we have to have an integrated lesson plan (with vo-tech) by tomorrow because the tech-prep people are coming. there are all of these things we're not supposed to tell them, and it's absolutely ridiculous. frustrated. still sickly, but i'm going back tomorrow because i have to take care of some business - like the PTA meeting where the report cards are being given out (and everything that goes with that), the tech-prep crap, and just general school stuff. i think it's been necessary that i've been out for two days, but i'm sure that's not how the administration views my absence. whatever. it's not like i'm skipping. i'm still coughing my lungs out. anyway...

finished grace matters today. deep. loved it. makes me want to visit the voice of calvary church in jackson.

i'm so over this war in iraq. does that make me sound selfish? i've been trying to enclose myself in my happy little, locked-in-mississippi fog for the past week, but the girl-from-the-city inside of me keeps demanding to watch msnbc. she wants to watch this whole thing unfold (basically because she wants to be out protesting somewhere), and i just want to have a nice, sweet innocent world. sigh. reality? no. absolutely not. is that too much to ask? i hate watching and listening as the commentators say shit like, "these kids are very tough," emphasizing the "tough" when i would emphasize the "kids." i want to talk to john. i want his input, and i want to bounce things off of him. this is like an old, old record. how can you have a love that's so deep and then just keep on going, as if that person never existed? and then, you know, you wonder - does he wish he still had me to bounce ideas off of? logically, i think not. i wish my friends now could have met him. he was such a presence. if he had been wondering about me, worrying about me, he would have found a way to find me, to come to me. so, i'm stuck, knowing that this is one-sided, knowing that he's over me, wishing that he'd confirm it or that he'd find me so we could talk. i don't even know that i would need the physical connection. sigh. and then i wonder if i make this shit up, wishing i had his attention and time, or wishing i felt that same connection with somebody, anybody down here. can we love more than once? god, i hope so. am i worthy of loving again? what are the chances of finding "the one"? what if your one doesn't come around? are we back to plato's "split-aparts", wandering the globe, searching for our other half? what if we miss each other? what if god doesn't have a plan for that part of my life? i feel like i'm digging through all of the shit and muck and mire in pandora's box, searching desperately for hope, as elusive as it has become in this area of my life. drama? perhaps. but quiet drama.