Down with the Sickness -- The Mono Chrons Cont.

o yes, i'm still down with the sickness. i was very well-behaved and took three whole weeks off work, but i can't stand it anymore. one can only spend so much time cooped up, you know.

this week, i'm attempting to be back at work half-time. this should actually be less stressful than staying home, where i'm constantly behind on paperwork and trying to chase down substitute teachers who don't return phone calls. sometimes i wish i was a substitute teacher -- then i could get paid $80 a day to show up late, lose things, and ignore all the work and energy the actual teacher has put into lesson plans a chimpanzee could carry out. if anyone had a problem with it, i could just say "well, i didn't know" and that would make everything all right.



okay, enough bitter ranting.

i'm back with my kids in the afternoons, and that's the important part. luckily for me, my afternoon kids are actually my really good kids -- one honors american lit class and two senior writing classes. as every teacher knows, students fall into two basic categories: those who invigorate you and those who suck the life out of you. these kids are the former, so even in my somewhat delicate condition, i actually felt better after spending time with them than i do just loafing about at home.


* * * * * * * * *


in other news, i got a very exciting phone call from one of my brothers yesterday. he called under the guise of asking how i was feeling and then said he wanted to cheer me up. naturally, i supposed he meant he was going to do a little song and dance number for me or recite a little poem or maybe send me a gift of some kind... after all, that's what i do to cheer people up. but no! he had a much better plan.

he called me "aunt g."


then he said, "o hang on, *other brother* is on the other line. just a second," and put me on hold!


seriously.


i sat there for a second musing. when he came back, i felt it necessary to clarify. "we aren't talking about your stupid cat, are we? 'cuz i'm not that cat's aunt. and we're not talking about *other brother's* new dog? i mean, we're talking about your wife being pregnant, right?"

we were, indeed, talking about his wife being pregnant.


so sometime in mid-april i'm going to be an aunt. i come from a sizable family, but currently, the youngest "baby" in my family (both sides included) is my cousin, who is twenty and engaged, so it'll be quite a change for us to have a little one around.

that is pretty damn cool.