Bookish (and not so Bookish) Thoughts

[successful completion of the corn maze!

I’m desperately trying to finish Lucia Berlin’s collection of short stories, A Manual for Cleaning Women, by tomorrow’s book club meeting. I like it so much, but I’m just so unbelievably swamped this week.

I had a very confusing, somewhat heated, misunderstanding with my kindergartner about a lower-case i and an exclamation point. We figured it out, but it got pretty intense.

Do you ever just stop and say, “I just cannot sustain this level of __________ anymore”? This morning, for me, it was anxiety, but the phrase just seems so applicable to so many emotions. Exhaustion, worry, pressure, confusion, distrust, loudness, quiet, anger, intensity, sadness, anticipation, excitement, whatever. I operate at pretty constant level of stress/anxiety- it’s who I am and I’ve learned to cope with and even utilize it as a catalyst for productivity and motivation. But often lately I feel it gaining steam and inching into the not-so-helpful territory. At that point, how do you help yourself? Spoiler alert: I consume a lot of caffeine, make a lot of lists, and try to distract myself.

On that note, this weekend I am away for an IB training in LA and the district is paying for a hotel for three nights, since it’s pretty far and starts early each morning. I think the opportunity to have some time to myself, not have to run around taking care of tons of things, and some extra sleep will be so helpful. It is definitely hard to essentially lose a weekend, though, so I am scrambling around trying to get all my normal house-related tasks out of the way right now.

California’s governor passed a law saying that high schools have to start after 8:30 am, which is an hour later than our current time. I fully understand the science behind it, but I’m still vehemently opposed. Part of it is for selfish reasons; I commute and this means I will be home even later and will have less time with my son. I also have take issue on behalf of extracurricular activities, including sports, since this will now create issues there. And let’s be real: the kids will get home later, they’ll stay up later doing what they need to do, and then it will slowly become a struggle to even get to school at 8:30. I’m also mad over the fact that the governor is overstepping his boundaries; this should be a decision made at the community level, since it impacts families in different ways.

I bought a bag of assorted Hershey candy and the essence of the Twizzlers finagled its way into the chocolate somehow. Disgusting.

After I finish my book club book I am wide open- I feel like a lot of what I’ve read lately has a reason behind it (work, book club, potential social media FOMO, etc…), so I’m excited.

Parent-teacher conferences are tomorrow night, which I always feel conflicted about. It’s such a long day and sitting in the gym with a few hundred people for over three hours is always the perfect recipe for a killer headache. On the other hand, though, it’s always really nice to talk to parents and discuss challenges and victories. I’ve been in my district for fourteen years and this is my tenth year at my site, so I know a lot of the family’s well and it’s fun to catch up.