Healthy Schmealthy

The district is in the middle of this "pretend we care about your health because we don't like paying for you being unwell, even though that's the only reason you give us money" thing sponsored by our insurance provider.

I went, under duress. (If you don't go, you have to pay an addition $10 a month--or you don't get a $10 per month deduction that everyone who goes gets. Either way, it's duress because they're saying I'm $120 poorer than those who go if I decide not to.)

Well, the good news is, I'm a miracle, in that my terrible blood pressure had somehow not killed me. The other good news (which seems to amaze people, for some reason) is that my cholesterol levels are still great.

There was a weigh-in part of the event, and people at school had been complaining about it, and my plan was to wait for them to tell me my weight, then say, "And how much more do I have to gain for it to qualify as a disability?"

But there were technical difficulties, so I didn't get my chance to say it.

After they took my blood pressure reading, analyzed my blood, talked with me about different things, re-took my blood pressure to make sure it was right the first time (as I wasn't clutching my chest and saying "it's the big one"), I got to go sit in a very private area to answer very personal questions on a computer.

By "very private" I mean RIGHT NEXT TO SOMEONE ELSE ON EITHER SIDE OF ME. It didn't bother me so much, because I'm mostly like, "Here it is, whatever." However, the woman on my left needed assistance from one of the people there helping out, and he was standing in such a way that I got to type my whole survey at an angle.

Also, I learned that she's experienced a loss in the past year, and her Aunt Flo first visited her when she was twelve. Seriously. And this I heard while jamming a finger in my left ear in order to give her some sense of privacy. Imagine if I was TRYING to eavesdrop!

Anyway, it was just an irritating experience. I wasted about an hour of my work day to learn I have crazy blood pressure that I should be talking to a doctor about (oh, wait, I already have), and that I should exercise more (ya think?).

Yeah, I had nothing to do at school at all. No papers to grade, and the team didn't need to meet about anything at all. But at least the insurance company is happy, and at least they won't be yanking that $120 from me over the course of the year. Hooray!

My gig as interim choir director ends on Sunday. Lord willin' and the creek don't rise I'll soon have another job that isn't pizza delivery. I haven't heard back about the tutoring job I'm looking at. It pays well, but it might take up several evenings during the week. But at least it isn't delivering pizza, eh?

Speaking of money, I need to save up for shoes. I think we're getting past the sandal weather. Well, since I'm indoors most of the day, I could get away with it year round, if not for the snow. But it's always fun to start wearing the monochrome black Chuck's, and wait to see how long it takes the kids to notice I'm wearing "cool" shoes.

Well, conferences are over, and that's a good thing. I hate the evening hours of that deal. I minded less when we got a full day off, back when I first started teaching. But now we have to do a half-day on Friday, and it just wears me out.

Or life wears me out, and that's just a part of life. Something like that. I find I'm very tired, anyway. Probably something to do with my blood pressure! ;-)

What else is news? Oh, I played BINGO on Saturday. That was a good time.

Root Canal Day is Thursday. Wish me numbness! (I mean more than my usual numbness!)

Poll Results

"If you didn't have to wake up to go to work or take care of the kids, what time would you wake up?"

The same time I wake up now. 0%

A few hours later than I wake up now. 33%

Five or six hours later than I wake up now. 33%

No work? No kids? Why do I need to wake up? 33%

There were 3 votes. Lame, people. This week's poll's deadline is 11:59 pm. on Saturday, 11/3.

A Terrible Mistake, A Toothache, and a Trip Down Memory Lane

What a great way to start the day...

Last night, during conferences, I remembered at 7:30 that a very important person on my List of People to Notify about No Choir Rehearsal did not get called. I was in the middle of conferences at that time, and by the time conferences ended, figured I'd have to find out what happened later.

Well, I found out first thing this morning when I got my e-mail.

You know that feeling you get when you do something really stupid and put someone through a ridiculously unnecessary amount of time-wasting and stress?

Well, whether you know it or not, there was that feeling.

And what can you do, other than apologize and try to do better in the future, and work really hard to make sure the stressed party knows you are sorry... and so on. It's just an awful position to be in, especially when you know it's all your own stupid fault you're there.

And my tooth, which has gone from a Saturday Night Pain to a daily visitation, decided to kick in early today. But it's payday today, so I decided to see a dentist as soon as I could after school.

So I call one dentist office, and the receptionist tells me they don't have any openings for over a week, but I should call her dentist. So I do.

I get an appointment for 3:15, but in the course of calling, I realized a few things.

First, I realized that the dentist must be in Liberty, because I recognize the prefix from my college years. (In the late 80s and early 90s, Liberty had two prefixes: 781 and 792. Oh, the worthless things we remember.)

Second, I realized I somehow had failed to realize this before I call.

And, most importantly, I realized that some part of me didn't want to go to Liberty.

Part of me thought this was due to the fact that my "once I had this friend who came to the emergency room in tears when she thought I was about to die, and now I have this former friend who would probably show up just to make sure I did die..." lives in Liberty.

And that probably is part of it.

But then I thought, "Hey, it's the middle of the day, I can go hang out up at Jewell and catch up with the theatre department and all that."

It wasn't until I was cresting the hill of the road I used to take to the college (I always forget that road doesn't go up onto the campus any more) that I realized I had another reason for Liberty-avoidance.

I don't like going to Jewell when my life is crap.

I had that feeling that there was something left on pause at Jewell, which I always get when I head that way, and I struggle to figure out what it was. It's almost like I feel I didn't pursue my dreams because there was something I meant to do at Jewell before I left, and if I could only remember what it was and FINISH it, I could have the life I meant to have. Only not, because it doesn't work that way. But you get the idea. Or a vague idea of it, anyway.

Also, going to Jewell when my life is crap is about five times more likely to make me pine for the days when life was so much easier, and I was innocent enough to not realize how easy life was. So I pine with a desire to have it back as long as I get to keep the knowledge that life was so much easier then.

I got to the campus, and first thing, I couldn't find a spot to park. I finally found a spot near the football field, behind Brown Hall (where I spent a lot of time, as it contained the theatre, the newspaper office, and... well, the theatre). I walked in the bottom entrance, and right there I saw one of the green-cushioned benches that have been in Brown Hall since before my time.

Hello, Memory Lane.

But, I walk into the newspaper office, and things look different enough to make my brain throw up an overlay of what that office used to look like.

And I guess that's where some good stuff started happening. Because I think that started a slow process of me putting an overlay of my life onto what my life was, instead of putting an overlay of my life onto what I wish I would have manged to have. Does that make sense?

Anyway, it didn't happen immediately, but I think the process started there.

Then I went back out of the newspaper office, noticed the old "computer lab" was now a "debate lounge", and headed for the stairwell.

They have done very little to that stairwell. Okay, they have done extremely little to it. It's exactly the same, that's what I'm trying to say here.

And what's more, the art department hallway, which you have to walk through on the next level to get to the theatre stairwell, is pretty much exactly as it was my last year or so at Jewell (the "or so" including when I lived in Liberty for a year or so after college).

So I began to get nervous, thinking when I walk in the theatre office (which was honestly my home for most of my five years at Jewell), I was going to have a nervous breakdown. And I almost did, but for a different reason.

But before I get to that, I have to say the stairwell up to the theatre level is exactly the same as it was in 1985. Right down to the scuff marks on the steps.

I walked into the theatre office to see a bunch of people who are probably 20 years younger than me doing what I and my classmates did in the late 80s: hanging out in the theatre office.

I didn't notice how there weren't any big desks in the room, but instead said, "Is Kim or Nathan around?"

Some young lady was nice enough to tell me their office is down the hall and to the right.

Wow. Major deal. Seriously. Kim always had an office surrounded by all of the college theatre freaks having conversations and generally being college folk. So strange. And plus, those offices they've moved to were the Psychology Department offices!

Not that it means anything; it's just things aren't supposed to change that much, right?

So I stopped by Kim's office, and he was chatting with a student. I apologized for interrupting, but told Kim things shouldn't change ever, and that when he was done I'd be hanging around if he had time to talk. There was a hug in there somewhere, too, of course.

Nathan was in his office, but only to stop by to pick something up, I guess, for the class he was in the middle of. He told me he'd come back in a bit and show me the new theatre look. And later he showed me.

But first, we stopped back by the theatre office, now the communication/theatre lounge. He introduced me to the students, mentioned they've probably seen my name on a plaque or program or two, and then asked me if I'd been at Jewell when the renovated Brown from a gym to the building it was now. I told him I started a few years later, and to clarify how long after (since I don't remember when they did that renovation), I said I started in 1985.

To which the young woman who directed me to the offices said, "I wasn't even born then."

To which I said, "If you want me to leave, you can just ask me to."

For fun.

Then Nathan took me into the theatre.

Again, things are changing.

It looks really good, and I'm glad nobody will get the joy of smashing their finger with those crazy heavy seat platforms when converting from proscenium to thrust layout. But it was wild. The green was gone (or had become red), and there was more of it.

I would have loved to have seen the shop and all the tech areas, but I don't think my heart could have taken it. By this time I was doing way too much "remember what was here before; now place it over what you see now".

I got a chance to talk to Kim shortly after that. I didn't realize how much I missed talking to Kim until I saw him.

At one point, he pointed to his wall that is a sort of homage to our 1986 production of "Marat/Sade" and told me some kids were looking at the pictures and asking the date of that production. When he told them, they said they hadn't even been born. I cringed again.

Kim told me that the age we are there in those pictures is how he always thinks of us.

Yeah, guess what: Most times it's how I think of me, too.

I'll always be 20. Kim will always be 40. Except for when I'm even younger, or slightly older. But basically, I feel about 20.

I guess a lot of my figuring out who I am happened in college. I don't know how to explain it. What makes it especially difficult is I'm not sure I've figured out who I am, even twenty years later.

Apparently not having enough overlay going on in my brain, I decided to go see Lois Anne, Kim's wife and the newspaper advisor, who now has an office over in Curry Library.

She wasn't in, so I left a note. Then I decided to go to Jewell Hall to take a picture of the view from the hill (see STILL:Life for that one), but before I got there, Dr. Geilker passed me, and I said, "Hello, Dr. Geilker," just like it was 1990 or something, and walked on by.

It hit me that while I have this story I love to tell about a day in Dr. Geilker's class, and while he's a main character in it, I've never really gotten his take on it.

It was my 5th year. Fall, I believe. Yes, it was the autumn of 1989. I had gone to Jewell for four years and three summers prior to this, but still I didn't have all the credits I needed for my teaching certificate (in fact, I went back to Jewell to get the certificate when I realized the summer before that I wouldn't be able to get a great job with just a Communications degree... and while I was there, I finished my theatre emphasis).

I had given up on the English part of my degree (I had started as a triple major: Communication with Emphasis in Theatre, English, and Education... the idea being I could teach speech, theatre and English to high school students--and here I am today, teaching math to 7th grade kids. Go ahead! Make plans! Life's just gonna do what it wants anyway!) early on in my college career. It wasn't until the beginning of my senior year that I found out I took the wrong science class (or something like that) and couldn't get my teaching certificate. Then I got a bad grade in Theatre History, and dropped the Theatre Emphasis. So I got my diploma with just a Communication degree. B.A., no emphasis.

So, when I went back for the teaching certificate, I had to take Physics, some sort of Poli Sci class, and some other class the nature of which is currently escaping me. And I took Theatre History to get that emphasis I so wanted. I had student teaching and all that to deal with second semester.

Now, to understand this tale, you need to know a few things. First, my older brother Todd was always having me read things that were beyond my grade level. And one day I either picked up one of his books or he had me read it, and this whole book was a sort of "FAQ of Science" for older kids.

The question was: "What would happen if the earth suddenly stopped spinning?"

The first few sentences of the answer explained that if the earth suddenly stopped spinning, we'd all be thrown off.

I didn't read any further. I used this information to piece together that gravity happened because the earth was spinning.

I obviously didn't do much to analyze this theory. And it was never challenged, because I didn't take physics in high school. I mean, once you have a theory about why gravity happens, all you really care about is that it DOES happen. You don't think about the why.

That is, until Dr. Geilker says, "Gravity is a force. We don't know why it happens, but it does."

I was sitting in the front row. Pretty much everyone in the class was a freshman. I very calmly (not) yelled, "No way! Seriously? Gravity just HAPPENS?"

Nobody knew that I was dealing with a little cognitive dissonance. Nobody knew that in my mind I was having to rearrange stuff I hadn't thought about for years.In fact, I have often wondered if Dr. Geilker thought I was pulling his leg, since my reaction to learning that gravity is just a force was so huge.

And you know most of the people in there thought I was an idiot. I don't blame them.

But I had a huge reaction to this news. A really inappropriately huge reaction. And I still laugh remembering it, and imagining what I must have seemed like to all the people around me who knew for years that gravity just happens.

So I turned and saw that he had gone into Curry. I followed him in and introduced myself. He seemed to remember me (not that I think he has no memory, it's just as a teacher I know how hard it is to remember former students, and also I only had the one class with him) and I told him the story. His take on it (at least his take now--I'm fairly sure he doesn't even remember that day in class, because to him it would have just been a normal day made slightly odd by the strange guy in the front row) was to tell me that in his astronomy class he spends the first few weeks going over the history of astronomy, and how for centuries we viewed the universe as earth-centered, and he always ends up with students telling people at the end of the semester that Dr. Geilker teaches that the sun goes around the earth.

So I think he was telling me that I could have been a lot dumber.

Anyway, that over, I went back to take my picture from the front of Jewell Hall, then I visited the Union, which is massively different now, and then I checked to see if Lois Anne was back in her office, and then I left the campus.

I did drive by all my old apartments. That was odd, too.

Here's what I figured out: I may not have done all I wished I could have done, but I'm not dead yet, and I'm doing well enough.

To which Jhoneric said when I called him later, "Oh yeah, you got to work at kinko's, and..."

Shut up.

Okay, So I AM Cursing The Darkness...

Blah.

That sums it up.

Okay, sorry about that last post. I typed it up, then was going to spell-check and edit it, because I just sorta threw it all out there and wanted to fix it up, but my computer froze on me.

Luckily, blogger.com saves every however-many seconds, and when I logged on the next night, there it was. However, I was too tired to do more than publish it.

Not my best rant, is all I'm sayin'.

But I meant well. And as per Andy's comment, yeah, I get the glass-half-full thing, but what with the situation that made me start thinking about the need for mentors, I guess I had "the horrible future of the road hopefully avoided" on my mind more than "the great future of the rode hopefully taken".

Well, and it's more than that. I guess with what I do or maybe it's just how I'm wired, I think more about stopping the horrible and figure someone better at living life will do the "starting something wonderful" part.

I mean, looking at my life, I'm thinking I'm WAY more skilled at knowing where the stupid choices get you than I am at knowing how to do things in a way that make sense.

So let me be the mess standing there saying, "Turn around! Bridge out! Abandon hope all ye who continue down this path!"

And so on.

Okay, that went a lot darker than I meant it to. Lighten it up a bit and you hopefully get the idea.

While I'm on the topic of Comments, let me first say "Hey" to Chris! I was really amazed that you read this, Chris, and thrilled that you commented! Go over to my website and find a link to my e-mail an drop me a line! I'd love to know what's going on in your life.

And also on the topic of Comments, let me second say, "Are there no mentoring programs other people are aware of? I was really hoping a link or two would crop up in that last post's comment."

There, I've said it.

Anyway, tonight I'm thinking about what a horrible place this world can be, and how I am SO not equipped to manage very well in it. Or, I'm thinking about how I'm wired in such a way that I more often wait around to be of use to someone than think about what I want to do or be and work toward that. Or, I'm thinking that this is all wrong, and if I could just figure out where I took the wrong turn, it'd just be a matter of back-tracking and adjusting... but who has a time machine? Oh yeah, and I'm thinking that decades-long apathy doesn't lead anywhere good.

Also, I'm thinking about this thing that happened to me this summer, where I thought... or felt, I guess... that things were going to be better--

And let me stop that thought to say that, yes, they are better, but the stupid hopeful part of me thought that meant "better" in that life would be better, not that I'd be much better equipped to say, "Well, what happens is what happens, and I'll deal with it when it comes." Which is nice and all, seriously, but stupid hopeful me just thought things would be... you know... BETTER.

Anyway, I felt like I had a life-changing experience... and now I'm wondering if the big change was that to completely make it out of the frying pan I'm gonna have to drop into the fire and make my way around the... okay, now I'm wondering if there's a word that means "the stuff you've put in the fire so that it keeps burning" (and don't say "fuel", because I'm looking for a word more... um... fancy than that), be it logs, or paper, or whatever. Well, whatever it's called, I imagine there's now all this fire and stuff that's on fire that I have to work around to get out of the general vicinity of the frying pan.

Well, now I've gone and painted it much more dire than I meant to.

I just mean--in case people haven't been paying attention to the world around them--that this world can be difficult and disappointing at times.

Blah blah blah.

Here are some joyful things:

Kids who are 12 years old will go out of their way to make sure nobody sees their class photo, but if you suggest to them they should put a paper bag over their head, they act all insulted.

Just when you think life is boring and awful, there's the sky, full of blue and whatever other colors go with the time of day, and--more often than not, it seems--a bunch of REALLY cool clouds. Also, there's often some cool sun action in there as well.

Grades are done for the first quarter! I've got my plans done for second quarter!

[INSERT PHONE CALL HERE]

Okay, how strange is that? I'm sitting here trying to focus on the joy, and struggling to come up with some really great joyful thing to end with... and I get a joyful phone call.

This world is a trip.

Cleveland

Yes, I'll share more about Denver some day. I truly will. I'll also tell the stories alluded to in one of the earlier posts (about my last day at PJs, and so on).

But, as you may or may not be aware, there was another school shooting today.

Statistically speaking, we're doing okay here. Again, that's strictly statistically speaking. And by "we", I mean public schools in America. The friends and family members of those shot, and the friends and family members of the kid who did the shooting probably aren't doing so okay, non-statistically speaking.

I mean to say this doesn't mean the school near your home isn't the safest place for a kid to be. Schools are safe, trust me. It's just a school being safe doesn't make the news.

But, back to the horror that is any school shooting...

I have a suggestion for you if you hear about these things (or see them on the news) and wonder what's wrong with the world--or, more importanly, if you feel like you should do something.

Ready? Here it comes: volunteer to be a mentor.

There are so many programs out there to give adults the opportunity to mentor a kid, I'm not sure where to begin. In the Kansas City area, we have Youth Friends. There are Big Brother/Big Sister programs just about everywhere. You can do a search for "volunteer, mentor, youth" and the name of the city or state where you live to find programs in your area.

I don't have any solid numbers handy at the moment, but trust me when I say there are a lot of kids out there who need another adult in their lives. At our school alone, we're needing mentors for another fifteen kids or so. There are ridiculously huge numbers of children and young adults who could benefit greatly from just a little attention.

There are kids out there (and not just a few) who have parents they seldom see. (That's not to judge the parents who are working two jobs or a night job to provide for their family, mind you.) Many kids today don't have that sense of community, or a sense of belonging. They don't have a decent number of trustworthy adults in their lives. And it's not like you have to be all that great of a human being to do a great job at being a mentor. You just have to be A human being... someone with a heart that can listen and make conversation over lunch. Nothing fancy required, honest.

If you could dedicate an hour a week to hanging out with a kid, you wouldn't believe the difference it could make.

So go volunteer. The down side to volunteering to be a mentor is also the up side: you may never know what horrible future you may have helped a young person avoid.

Denver

I'm in Denver as I type this. Ten-hour drives are for the birds.

If you're looking for the post related to the poll that ends this Saturday, you need to scroll down to the next one.

Anyway, I made it to Denver. I'm hanging with Sarah when I can, singing when I'm supposed to, and spending the other time trying not to think too much about that drive back to Kansas City.

As I was driving to the first event this morning, I had to reflect that it wouldn't suck to have mountains to look at every day as you drove to work.

Then I thought, "Yeah, but I bet after a while you'd forget they were there. Or, worse yet, maybe you'd come to resent them for some reason."

This led me to start writing a story in my head about someone who, as he drove to work every day, would look at a mountain top and imagine there was someone there who didn't have all the worries he had. He would imagine if he had this guy's life, he'd be so much happier. The guy becomes obsessed with the idea, and one day, after receiving one more piece of disturbing news to make his life more difficult, he sorta snaps and decides he's gonna go to that mountain top and tell this ideal-life guy off (having gone just insane enough to forget that he made the guy up in the first place).

So he pulls off at the next exit, and begins figuring out how to make sure he goes to the right mountain top (because he is sure he must go to the specific one that is the source of his anger).

At this point, my story became fuzzy, due to a need to research how he would go about figuring out how to get to that specific mountain top. But, in the preliminary version, this bitter and angry man gets to the right mountain top, and of course there's nobody there. There's no cabin (because he'd imagined this guy lives in a very nice cabin, and looks down at the folks on the highway, thinking, "I'm so glad I don't have that sort of life"); no sign of human life at all.

I didn't have anywhere to go with it after that, and traffic drew my attention away from the story. As I think of it now, I think the guy should decide to leave his life behind and live on the mountain until he could find some sort of sane way of living. But that's just this version of it. I'm sure if I sat down and wrote it, the story would go some completely different direction. I'm not saying I have a story that goes anywhere. I just wanted to give you a glimpse into what my brain is like on a morning drive.

Then, as I was typing this entry and specifically the part about how nice it would be to see the mountains every day going to work, I realized that on good days (when I have a good and restful evening the night before, anyway), I like to get to school by 6:00 in the morning. So how often would I get to see the mountains on my way in to work in the morning? Well, there it is.

Anyway, I'm going to nap now. Did I mention that 10 hour drive yesterday, and how much it wore me out?

Am I Insane?

First, a recap of the last poll:

Which closest matches your theory as to why I had disappeared?
You're a jerk who doesn't return e-mail. 0%
You were dead and nobody sent me funeral arrangement info. 0%
You were gone? Oh. Welcome back, I guess. 0%
You were attacked by bears or aliens or clarinets or something. 33%
You were busy getting ready for school and finishing that Pre-Algebra curriculum. 66% (Although it should read 67%... who does the math for these things? My students?)

Okay, now let's get back to topic:

Am I insane?

I'm not one of those folks that buys into the whole, "Insane people don't think they're insane" thing. I think there are plenty of insane people who know they're insane.

And I'm not poking fun at the insane here. I'm really starting to wonder.

I mean, here's something I don't bring up to people, but am willing to share online with the world: I've been seeing things out of the corner of my eye. Or the corners of my eyes... I don't think these "things" favor one eye over the other.

Nothing specific, mind you. Well, nothing more specific than the message light on the phone at school, which was the first false thing I realized I was seeing out of the corner of my eye. I sometimes see the message light flashing out of the corner of my eye, but then I stare at it, and it doesn't flash at all (I have to stare, because there were times that it WAS flashing and I'd glance, look away, see the flash again... rinse, repeat).

Then, there was this whole crazy thing with the Encyclopedia "Yearbooks" at the first of the year. Although there ended up being a rational explanation as to why I'd look at a book and it would say 1985 as clear as day, then several minutes later it said 1986 or 1984, the feeling of "Oh man, I'm going insane" was not unfamiliar to me at that time.

I keep seeing movement out of the corner of my eye when nothing is moving. When I'm home alone, it's very disturbing. Especially when it's accompanied by a voice.

I kid. No voice.

Well, I mean, barring the ongoing dialogue between the different parts of my brain, which sometimes seeps out into the real world in the form of conversations with myself, which is a whole other insane thing.

Also, let's reflect on how I have the financial planning skills of a milk truck. I mean, isn't the definition of insanity (or the popular t-shirt version) doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?

Oh, and if you knew the story behind the potato-chip picture over on STILL: Life, you'd be voting "he's TRULY insane" on that poll over there.

Or, maybe I'm just bored. I have all the free time on my hands, so I can see how I'd get bored.

I kid.

Okay, I'm done worrying about it. You people vote on it (hopefully more than three of you this time) and I'm going to type some more, updating folks on my life.

I don't deliver pizza any more. There's a great story about it, and I'll post that some day before I die, if I'm lucky... or if you're lucky... or if someone has some sort of luck. Whichever applies.

I'm the interim choir director at the church right now. It's an odd feeling, directing a choir. I mean for me. I doubt your average Joe Choirdirector has the same feeling. For me, it's a mix between the "People are looking at me" I felt back when I would pitch on our Khoury League team, and the "People are looking at me" I feel onstage. That is to say, it's a mixed bag, based on my feelings of inadequacy. But I'm enjoying it. It's just an odd feeling.

I'm going to Denver this weekend to sing. Also, I get to visit my college chum Sarah, and meet her family. I haven't seen her in a coon's age... almost literally, there. Come to think of it, I don't know if I've seen her in even more than 16 years.

However, I'm driving to Denver, and that gives me odd feelings of dread. I don't know why. The car is practically new. But, if this is some psychic thing, let me take this chance to say I love you all dearly, and my will is under my mattress.

Okay, I'm tired. I'm driving ten hours tomorrow. My laundry is about done. I'm gonna add a link over on my other blog, then hit the hay.