one small corner of the universe

After a really horrible Sunday–maybe the worst day I’ve had since Mia was born–I am starting to feel like myself again. Seriously, Sunday? Have you ever felt invisible and then had your invisibility confirmed? I went out thinking being in public would energize me, and because we were out of diapers, and while I was in the grocery store the SAME WOMAN ran into me or walked right in front of me at least four times and she DIDN’T SAY EXCUSE ME. I swear to you, she was in every aisle I was in, and it was like she couldn’t detect my presence at all. It was strange. And also annoying. I wanted to bump her with my cart but I was afraid it would just pass right through her as things do when they are just essences or illusions, which is precisely how I felt.

But I digress. Today is better. I am at work and I just typed that sentence, so you know I am either intoxicated, high, hallucinating, or dreaming. Or, you know, it’s true. It really is true, actually. It’s testing time, and because of a new state law we are not allowed to administer our own state tests. I have been pissed about this for weeks because not only is it annoying to be displaced, it is also insulting to me to be told that I cannot even test my own students. What, do they think we’re going to cheat? But as it turns out, my irritation was a waste of energy, as irritation often is. I am testing a Civics and Economics class filled with many students I taught last year. I liked them, and they liked me, and when I walked in a few of them actually said to each other (so I cannot accuse them of ass-kissing), “Yay! Ms. D is here!.” When you ask me in a few minutes, after you’ve read the next paragraph, “What the hell are you thinking?” you can re-read this: there are some really sweet, smart, funny, wonderful children here, and they remind me that this is a place full of immense potential.

So remember a few weeks ago when I mentioned my potential new job? I got that job–finally, after last year’s annoying “you have a job, no you don’t, yes you do, nope, sorry,” I am going to put my nearly completed library science degree to work. I am going to be one of two school librarians. Here. At this school. The one I complain about all the time.

Except, and humor me here, I really haven’t complained so much about The School. I complain about my currentstudents, They Who Have Been Allowed To Get Away With Everything Since the Fire, and I complained about Principal. But I don’t have to teach those students anymore after this week, and I won’t have to be in charge of my own classes for 180 days a year, and Principal is gone, and our current administrative team is devoted to getting this place back on track next year. And then there are those kids I taught last year and the year before–they are, for the most part, good kids, and they remind me why I chose to do this job in the first place. So yeah, I’m staying. It’s a good thing, and I will be working closely with a good friend, and we will build a new library, and I will not let the flotsam and jetsam Principal left in her wake drive me away.

That is, unless, by some hellish unforeseen circumstance, the second librarian position gets yanked, in which case I will be Starbucks’ newest barista. And you knowI’m not even kidding.