I fully intend to do some
correcting tonight. Grades close Friday,
and I have a pile of semi-coherent essays to mark up and put commentary on,
essays that have been mocking me for a couple of days. Okay, 25% of them are done, so 75% of them
are mocking me still.
Today is the first workday
after Daylight Savings Time, which I still wonder why we do, but that’s not my
real issue today. My real issue is that
I feel like taking a walk after work, so I have to rush myself home in order to
get my walk in before darkness descends.
Sure, sure, sure. I should be
correcting papers, but it’s a beautiful fall afternoon – not too cold, somewhat
breezy, and I know the walk will do me good.
Of course, about a block
into the walk, my still-swollen Achilles tendons start squawking. I don’t know what their deal is. It has been months, and still they’re bugging
me. I’m bored of talking about them but
even more bored of living with them. I’m
walking, though. If I don’t keep
walking, I’ll have to come home and grade papers.
Once I get home, I decide
I’ll eat dinner before I shower before I grade papers. I put together an excellent meal of chicken
with barbecue sauce and sweet potato on the side. I like my sweet potatoes with a hint of salt
and a pound of butter melted all over them.
I fail to see how anyone can eat sweet potatoes all ruined with
marshmallows or brown sugar – or worse, both.
This thought about sweet potatoes and the travesty of further sweetening
them keeps my brain occupied long enough to keep me from correcting papers.
Of course I must update
myself with social media and all. Can’t
let that pass me by. I see my friend
post, and, knowing she has just returned from a day trip to the snow-covered
part of Maine, I feel I certainly must call her. I must also tell her about the strange
spitting-yelling man who sat next to me at a trivia fundraiser the other night
because I suspect she knows his wife. I
am correct. I tell her that the man was
lucky to escape from the trivia table with his balls still intact because had
he spit on me one more time, I was going to castrate him with the plastic knife
the hosts so generously and willingly allowed me to carry. The conversation about my possible jail time
prevents me from correcting papers.
Then I have to call my son
about some mail that arrived while he is away at college. Does he need me to bring it up to
school? No? Not yet?
Okay. Yak yak yak … I only end
the call when he insists he is on his way to study. I pretend that I am going to correct papers,
but I open a bag of Sugar Babies from the trivia night (I stole the small bag
and shoved it into my purse along with a miniature Three Musketeers candy bar)
and decide that counting the number of Sugar Babies is far more crucial than
correcting papers.
I’m still sweaty from my
walk, and I am also staving off a hot flash, so I sit in front of the fan for a
few minutes. I can’t possibly correct
papers with the fan on. They’ll blow
around everywhere, and I’ll just end up making a mess or something.
Oh, look. The clock says it’s after 8:00 p.m. That means I probably should write the blog
so it will post on time in the morning.
Important stuff going on. I mean,
I’ll be totally distracted thinking about the blog if I even attempt to do any
correcting. I cannot have distractions
while trying to read through the essays.
I’ll be all, “Oh, what was the topic sentence again? I keep thinking about spitting-yelling trivia
man and where I might bury the body.”
Tomorrow afternoon I need
to vote. Hmmmm, somewhere in my mess of papers
is the booklet about the issues. I
really ought to read through that so I can make some educated decisions
tomorrow on the ballot questions. I don’t
want to make a state-wide mistake on account of some essays that muddle up my
thought process. I’d better dig up that
booklet and make myself a political genius.
The essays surely understand the importance of political activism,
right?
Ugh. Just got a whiff of myself. I really should take that shower. I meant to shower when I finished my walk in
the almost-dark at 4:40 p.m. I should
jump in the shower and then correct some essays. Of course, it’ll be a little late to get
started then. I need to get to sleep at
a reasonable hour because I’m staying up late Tuesday for trivia, a different
trivia, though. No spitting-yelling man
at this trivia, at least not that I’ve ever seen before. I’ll be fighting with the bartenders to keep
the Bruins game on the whole time. Thank
goodness baseball is done. Imagine
thinking that baseball trumps hockey.
Who thinks such a thing? These
jumbled thoughts keep my brain from thinking about essays.
Wait … am I talking about
a shower or trivia or correcting papers?
This conundrum alone bothers me so much that I cannot even think about
grading essays now.
I know! I’ll think about grading essays tomorrow, for
tomorrow is another day! At Tara! And I’ll be Scarlett O’Hara. You know my favorite part of that movie? When the little girl is riding the horse and …
Face it. Those essays won’t be getting done anytime
soon. Oh well. I have until Friday. Bets are being taken, folks. I’m betting I’ll be kicking myself in the ass
trying to get them all done Thursday night.
But I think there’s a Bruins game on Thursday night … and … ooooooooh …..
shiny! So much for good intentions.
