'she's an odd duck'

every time they say "deep throat" on the news i snicker to myself. i am such a 10-year old boy. or maybe it's just that i have been grading my ass off and am losing it, slightly. perhaps -most likely- both.

my department is throwing a going-away party for me next week. it made my stomach drop a bit when they told me. i hadn't at all stopped in my crazy year-end frenzt to consider that i will be out of school in 3 weeks, and that packing up my classroom won't just be for the summer. gulp.

a friend of mine confided in me this past weekend that she has joined AA and is newly sober. i was completely caught off guard and one of my first reactions, which i thankfully quelled, was why? in the years that i have known her i think i may have seen her drunk twice, and nothing out of control. this particular friend is prone to dramatics (isn't that the pot calling the kettle!) and i am so accustomed to taking everything she says with like an entire shaker of salt, that for her to have done something as serious as join a 12-step program really threw me for a loop.

later i berated myself for thinking i could judge anyone's problems from just what i saw from a position on the outside, and then further felt like i had fucked up somewhere along the way for not noticing that she needed help. it's just hard when the boy who cried wolf before might really have something dangerous going on. i'm still thinking it through and trying to process it all.