The three wise witches gathered on my porch this morning, offering slippery herbs to cut the windsome dawn.

I don’t really know what that means, but I couldn’t think of how to start writing, only of things I want to say; so I called the harpies to initiate the discourse.

I continued trying to get back on track at work. I’m still trying to figure out what to work on more than anything. I have a list of to-do’s, but I feel bungled about where to start. I did create a Word doc that prints on Circa paper for my notebook. With the problems in my hands, writing the lists out manually just isn’t an option. I do have an appointment with a resident on Monday to try to stop the pain. I can’t wait till the doctor’s appointment on the 19th. I also moved the April calendar entries forward for their 2006 revision and editing. Had my weekly update with Sharon, and she shared information about the Leadership Meeting that took place in the building this week. I need to spend more time focusing on the strategic governance areas:

• Teacher Quality
• Testing and Assessment
• Multimodal Literacies
• Adolescent Literacies
• English Language Learners
• Literacies of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics*

I need to try to make the Inboxes and ReadWriteThink content better fit into those areas. (*I think that’s correct. The paper I saw used STEM as an abbreviation, and I can’t remember how it was written out.)

I turned in my registration form for CCCC today. I can’t really justify it, as it has nothing to do with my job anymore. I’m all K-12 these days. I’m not on the travel list for the event, so I have to work out all the details on my own. That’s just as well though. If I were on the list, I’d have to work. If I take vacation, I can attend sessions and do what I want. There is much to be said for just having a hotel room for a few days. No I can’t afford it. Yes, I will be bringing peanut butter and jelly to eat in the room for my meals. But at least in a hotel, there is nothing messy for me to have to deal with. Someone else gets to carry everything and deal with everything.

My car is still full (obvious transition, no?). I can’t seem to get the energy to unload it. I did go to the grocery store after work, and I bought mostly healthy things. Not that I have really started that diet yet. I read something about starting small, with doable goals. It may actually have been a management thing from LifeHacker. I can’t remember. Anyway, it suggested doing little goals. One article talked about making them short-term even, one small goal each New Moon.

So anyway, my goal this next week is to eat something fresh every day, a fruit or veggie. More than one is a bonus. To try to be wise, I didn’t buy a big bag of apples. I always end up tired of apples when I do that. Instead I bought a couple apples, a couple pears, and a couple of bananas. Plus broccoli and green beans and cabbage and romaine. No doubt because of the grocery store’s plot to entrap the New Year’s Resolved, Lean Cuisine meals and Skinny Cows were on sale; so I bought up tons of those too. And little bags of pretzels, because big bags are trouble. My downfall is butter, but I bought it anyway. If I don’t have it, I’m just going to be pissy and eat a pound one night. So I just have to say, “Butter is okay as long as I’m being careful with everything else.” Oh, and cheese. I have real cheese. So, yeah. We’ll see if this works. I can make good choices in the grocery store, and then spend the week eating lard. And in my head, the diet hasn’t even started yet. I’m putting that off for a good moment.

When I’ll find a good moment, I have no idea. As I said, I can’t seem to get anything done. I wanted to go to bed early again tonight, but made myself stay up. There was a time when I always went to bed very early on Friday nights. If you’re asleep, you don’t notice that you’re not doing something. I had a friend who would call me around 2 am frequently, after all the bars closed. I wasn’t good enough to be seen with, but I was fine for providing more liquor or whatever after 2 AM. I would go to bed soon after dinner. If the phone call came at 2 AM, I got up and took stuff over for the hour or two that I was considered a “worthy friend.” If I slept till the next day, at least I hadn’t been up wondering if the 2 AM call would come and getting disappointed when it didn’t. Yes, I am this pathetic. I can know that someone is using me, and yet I am alone enough that I go along with it. That was years ago. Many, many years. But I still have the tendency or flaw or whatever it is.

So tonight, I considered going to bed tonight. Tonight (and probably all weekend) I am trying to avoid that I don’t know what I’m doing, that I’m bungled and scattered. And that I don’t have the will power to go unload the car or do much of anything else. I have to read drafts for the online course this weekend, and I can’t even do that. I wish I could blame my hand problems. I have pain when I try certain things, but it doesn’t hurt to read. And you can hardly claim that you need bedrest for tendinitis.

I just need to escape and disappear. I could almost hide in the house all weekend, but there’s all that stuff in the car. Apparently I am dark now. Someone has told me. Sharon said that she wished I weren’t so sad. I thought I was hiding it. I guess I just cry too much. I didn’t think anyone had seen me. I don’t know. Maybe she just guessed because I can’t concentrate. I dunno what it is. Maybe going to bed makes more sense than blundering and babbling though.