I stopped by Kroger on the way back from my school, where I picked up the flash drive I had left in the back of the computer in my classroom and a laptop I checked out for use at an upcoming conference I’m attending.  The woman behind me in line had a frightening countenance, garishly painted in the most unnatural hues.  The John Cougar Mellencamp song “Jack and Diane” was playing over Kroger’s music system.  She was singing along, and not quietly.  I tried to ignore her, but it got to be too difficult.  I noticed that she was purchasing a package of small/medium Depends in a bright pink plastic bag.  If I was buying something like that, I’m not sure I’d be drawing attention to myself by singing really loudly along with the store music, but that’s just me.  Then as the checker was processing her purchase, she started to put the Depends in a plastic grocery bag.  The woman stopped her, saying she didn’t need a bag.

The incredulous clerk asked, just to be sure, “You don’t want a bag?”  Let me finish her thought — you don’t mind carrying this big bag of adult diapers into the parking lot where everyone can see it?

The strange customer said, “No, it has handles on the top.”

Sure enough she carried the bag out into the parking lot, hopped into her car, and sped off.

Phew!  This place is growing so stagnant that I think I am beginning to see the pond scum forming on the top.

Sorry about that.

I guess part of my problem is the old “who cares?” argument.  I could sit here and record the minutiae of my life, and there are about three of you who would be interested because you’re my sister or friend.  On the other hand, some days, I’m doing all I can to get an absolute minimum of my required work done.

Then time goes by, and I say to myself, “that was too long ago” and I’m not interested in writing about it.

Stuff I have coming up that I need to get ready for or am excited about:

• My article for English Journal comes out this summer.
• I am presenting at the next GISA conference about using blogs and wikis in education.
• Summer vacation — maybe I can afford to go to Colorado and see my grandparents.
• I need to go back to school and get my Master’s.  Where?  Gah.
• I need to take some staff development so I can renew my certificate next summer.
• My kids seem to have all developed problems at the same time, and I have a spate of medical appointments to squire children to.  Hopefully nothing serious, although Sarah might have a condition called pseudotumor cerebri, which will require medication, and Dylan will be in speech therapy.

My career is very much in my thoughts these days, and my education websites have received more attention lately.  It’s May, and I am feeling tired.  One of the things I like about teaching is that you can always tweak and change how you do things next time, but it also creates this feeling of wanting to go ahead and do that and not being able to.  I hope that made sense.

Well, that was about five minutes of your life you won’t get back, but thanks for stopping by!

I spent most of today happily parked in front of the tube.

First, I watched the tail end of the History Channel’s program on the Salem Witch Trials. I think I had seen it before, because I remembered the end when the historians were sitting around a table in the home of one of the victims discussing the hysteria.

Next, a really interesting program about the Plague came on. I learned several things I didn’t know or hadn’t put together before. It was interesting to see the ways in which this momentous event entirely changed history. This might have been the first program I’ve seen, too, that successfully brought home the enormity of the disaster.

After that I watched a program called Little Ice Age: Big Chill. Did you realize that a mini-ice age gripped the planet for about 600 years between around 1300 and 1850? I knew there had been one in the Middle Ages, but I didn’t realize it had lasted until so recently. I didn’t realize it had impacted so many aspects of our ancestors’ lives, too. For instance, there is a theory that Stradivarius violins owe their excellent tone in part to the coldest part of the Little Ice Age in which trees in the area where the violins were made grew particularly dense wood due to the cold.

Finally, I felt like watching a movie. I checked the Pay-Per-View new movie listings, but I didn’t see anything I wanted to watch. I decided to see if there was anything good in the bargain section (not really a bargain, since it’s only a dollar cheaper) and saw that they were offering Love Actually. I love those sorts of British movies, and believe it or not, I hadn’t seen it yet, so I purchased and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Sometimes it’s great to just sit in front of the tube.

Twenty years ago I was in the 8th grade and in the midst of my first crush.  In Sixteen Candles Molly Ringwald’s character Samantha has a crush on Jake, one of the most popular boys in school.  When she tells her dad about how she feels, he says, “That’s why they call them crushes. If they were easy, they’d call them something else.”  Such an obvious statement, yet so true.

My first crush was on a blond, light-eyed boy named Tracy Bishop.  I have always wondered what happened to him.  I can’t believe twenty years have passed now.  Sometimes I can conjure up exactly how I felt.  That first crush is a killer.  Especially when it is neither requited nor reciprocated.

Tracy and I had gone to different elementary schools.  The first time I met him was in 6th grade.  We were on the same team (you remember how middle schools divided — and still divide students into teams?).  I don’t recall being in his classes.  I really wasn’t that interested in boys, yet, anyway.  We were selected as students of the month by our teachers — I think he was December and I was January.  Our teachers took us out for pizza in the middle of the school day to one of those grand pizza places that were drummed out of business by the likes of Chuck E. Cheese.  Crystal’s Pizza had a movie theater that showed cartoons, all kinds of games, and a late Victorian/Edwardian era decor.  I remember the place was fairly empty.  We were allowed to play games, but Tracy and I didn’t really know each other, so we kind of drifted in different directions.  I was playing skee-ball — very badly — and I heard a soft laugh behind me.  Evidently Tracy didn’t think much of my skills, either.  We didn’t say anything.

I went to a different school the next year because my family moved, but I returned to my former school for 8th grade when my parents had to sell their house — there was a lot going on that isn’t germaine to this story, so I won’t get into all of that.

Tracy’s family had gone to Germany on vacation the previous summer.  I just remember all of a sudden, there he was.  Omnipresent in my thoughts.  In my classes.  He joked around with me.  He probably had no idea how I would cling to each conversation.  I think he knew I had a crush on him.  I think he was even flattered.  Perhaps in another world that didn’t revolve around how cool people thought you were, he might even have acted on it.  That’s the sense I get, anyway.  But middle school isn’t about being true to yourself.

No one really seems to know exactly what happened to Tracy.  I moved away to another state after 8th grade, and I finally just learned that Tracy moved away while in high school.  I don’t know where he graduated from, so I haven’t tried to track him down.  Wouldn’t be any point now.  That’s twenty years gone.  I passed the point of wondering what if a very long time ago.

Still, every once in a while, I think most people think back on that first crush.  It just occurred to me this morning that it was twenty years ago.  That seems like a long time for memories that you conjure up in such crystal clarity.