I’m free…

You know that ‘Who’ song? I’m free (nenner nenner nent, nenner nenner nenner nent) IIIIIIII”’mmmmm free (nenner nenner nent, nenner nenner nenner nent) and I’m waiting…for you…to follow me? Yup… that was me, singing at the top of my lungs as I emerged from our front office today…yeah, you heard that right…TODAY, Tuesday, ostensibly the third day of my freedom…

The story is actually pretty damned hairy…no, nobody was coming to fix my computer, why do you ask? Oh…well, the whole school is going down for two weeks…you need to take your stuff (!!!) to the District Office to enter your grades. I do. I feel like I’m being choked to death by small fingered fish, but I do. And then I get there, and two weeks of my Junior class data is lost (!!!) and just when we figure that out, the server goes down.

So I had to come back today. I was so stressed last night, I came home, did a unit of my school work (which sucks…you ask the most upbeat, brainwashed professional what they think of their CLAD classes and the most positive response you’ll ever get is, “Well, at least I got mine over with.”) knit, walked, knit some more and then, in a final desperate move to get rid of my overriding need to choke the living shit out of some asshole who desperately deserved it, I broke out my favorite stash and sat around and FONDLED it for an hour. It was private time, but very effective as stress reducer, so I thought I’d share.

And today, while Chicken was (thankfully) away getting some chips from the vending machine–she was there to go book shopping afterwards–some young, fresh faced kid took a look at the server to see why my 3rd period was doing that ‘EX then lose my data’ thing and when he came back he said, “Do you know that you’re set to save data every 20 days instead of every 10, like everybody else…it’s because you’re missing two crucial updates…it’s only you…do you know why your system is like this?” I burst into tears, and he (looking supremely uncomfortable) says, “Have you been having problems all year?”

To which I replied, “Do you have any idea what it feels like to be gangraped by your technology for a year?”

“No ma’am, I really don’t…”

I told my administration about that little conversation, and they looked embarrassed to know me. That’s okay, because I’m embarrassed to work there. I figure we’r even.

So, Chicken and I went book shopping–extremely satisfying…until Mate spots the bill. Then it’s duck and cover time… but he won’t be too surprised…you know it’s going to be dire when I’m forced to fondle my stash…

But, hey, on to REALLY COOL STUFF!!!

I have no pictures but I will… Rae sent me some yarn…some ribbon yarn and some suede yarn (that the students will fall all over themselves for… I love stuff that I can make for my students that makes them think I’m a rock star…) and some (ooohhhh joy oh joy…) Socks That Rock (which I have NEVER tried)in the colorway ‘Monsoon’ (just the name makes me feel at home!!) and some Samurai’s Fibery Goodness in the colorway, ‘Queasy Iguana’. The ‘Monsoon’ may just hang out and get fondled during stress times, but the Queasy Iguana is probably going to be a pair of fingerless mitts for Chicken. She’s sort of already put her “igh-no-feh” on it. (Middle school speak for ‘I’m too cool to like it but I still like it’.)

So that came yesterday, just when I was about to slit my wrists with a pair of plastic play-dough scissors out of sheer frustration– couldn’t have come at a better time…I put it in the stash to fondle and made the kids clean off the table so I could wind it immediately…all the better to pounce on the little yarn cakes and devour!!!

And as for my second kind of cool thing? Okay, I was wandering the internet last night, (waiting for Mate to stop invading some poor Alliance outpost and come to bed) when I stumbled upon my book name in an unusual place. (Yes. I am an egomaniacal narcissist–why do you ask?) Some ingenious soul kept track of the top ten selling fiction books at the self-published labels–and I was #6!

I was totally surprised, because, well, i-Universe hasn’t given me any of those nifty little labels they have that would make it easier to publish–best selling, editors choice, readers choice–that sort of things…the idea that I’m in the top ten for fiction seemed… well, where did this guy get his information? Was it accurate? How did he know?

So I asked i-Universe if it’s true. They haven’t gotten back to me.

That’s okay–it’s probably a sweet fiction, and I have no idea how my book got on the list, but still, that’s okay.

Because until i-Universe gets back to me, I’ll just pretend that it’s true.