Okay, so I have to summarize all four of the books in four pages a summary–and I’m stressing.
Seriously stressing.
I have become the worst version of myself, sleep deprivation, snarling at the family, spacing out at work, et. al., and even though I would probably need these synopses would be needed if I wanted to get published anywhere, I’m starting to remember all the will power it took to get me through school.
Goddess, I’m surprised I made it.
In other news? A couple of welcome revelations today.
The first relates to the Cave Troll becoming possessed with the soul of the devil and doing everything but spinning his head around, barfing green soup and crab-walking on the ceiling. Seriously, my sweet little boy of last week has completely disappeared, and has kept his father and I up until all hours of the night being a complete boyshit and I was banging my head on the wall, seriously thinking about tanking the writing thing altogether in order to spend some time with what was quickly morphing from a Cave Troll to a ginormous boil on a cave troll’s ass. (Last night, we were going to bed, when we discovered all of his bedding in the hallway, and he and his sister shivering on their bed. Why he did this, I have no idea.) And then, as my students were chatting (not about their work–what’s new?) one of them asked me, “Mz. Lane, c’mon, you can tell us–do you spank your children?”
I laughed. “Yeah, I was spanked, I spank my kids–I remember (and this memory came to me as I spoke) that when my oldest daughter was about three, we could tell if she’d had a really bad weekend because she would spank her doll when she was playing.”
And then it all came flooding back to me. Chicken was a HORRIBLE child. I loved her then. I worshipped her then. But she had potential to be a tremendous pain in the ass, and she is VERY good at realizing her potential.
And she survive. I survived. And she doesn’t appear to be scarred in any sense of the word from all the times mama screamed at her and gave her a smack on the bottom.
We might live through the Cave Troll years after all.
The other revelation came when I was speaking to one of my favorite administrators.
We’re planning a fairly involved assembly tomorrow–something that’s gonna have us marching our students in (get this!) single file from our rooms to the gym, and then sitting where we’re assigned. Thinking about my 6th period, I called Perry over and started listing eight names from my 6th period that I knew he would recognize.
“Oh…” he said, “The club!”
“Yeah,” I replied, “And they meet every day in my 6th period. Maybe a little back-up tomorrow?”
“Definitely.”
And brother, did I feel validated to know that these kids were really the complete nightmares I had always thought they were.
Then he said, “Hey–do you recognize this? ‘Margaret are you grieving?'”
“For goldengrove unleaving.” I supplied. “Gerard Manley Hopkins.”
SCORE for the English geek.
And now, back to the synopsis salt mines.
