'ain't nobody gonna love my ass?'

it was such a challenge for me over the past few weeks not to write about coming home to VA for my week of mid-winter recess. i wanted to keep it a surprise from my friends at my old school, as i had this grand master scheme to show up there one day at lunch time and be seated at my old place at our table in the faculty lounge when everyone came in. it almost worked. i was able to keep my lips zipped on the surprise element but didn't stop to think that maybe my friends wouldn't all be there that day. doh! kim had taken the day off. whoops. she did come to school later though. otherwise the exclamations and hugs and excitement of the surprise were worth it and what i'd hoped for.

it was actually really really nice to be back at NK, where kids ran to the classroom doors and shrieked and people were genuinely happy to see me. i miss so much having that environment. i have colleagues at work i am friendly with now, but not friends at work, and that distinction makes all the (crappy) difference in the world.

i have to remember, though, what when i was at NK not every day was all smiley faces and rainbows. it may seem like it when walking through the halls now, but fun and games were definitely not 24/7. it's easy to focus on only the things i miss and forget about the tediousness of the lesson plans, the hawkeye of my department head, the ludicriousness of some members of the administration, not to mention the higher-ups… i tend to paint a rosier picture in my mind than what was actually really there.

so it's been the usual week at home running around trying to see everyone and do everything and it's almost time for me to leave again and i wonder where the time has gone.

i finalloy got some QT in with michelle, which was excellent, though she and jared have managed to get me addicted to the tv show 'lost.' i feel very behind-the-curve on this one and am going to go buy season one on dvd at costco tomorrow. i have come to find that there is something about being in the middle of watching a tv series on dvd that is really very comforting to me. is that weird? since moving i have gone through season one of 'project runway' and almost through the entire series of SatC, and was feeling a bit amiss not having lined up a new series to become immersed in. 'lost' should fit the bill nicely, though i don't want to watch any of the current season's episodes until i am all caught up. curses!

as i've been typing this tonight i have been running back and forth between the keyboard and the tv, taking in the women's figure-skating finals at the olympics. i haven't at all been into them as i usually am, but the skating finals are always my favorite. my dad even put in the good fight and watched for about 2 hours with me tonight, striving valiantly i think to take the place of my mom, whose hunger for all things olympic i usually seem to have inherited.

i couldn't help but wonder though, tonight, as i watched these bejeweled women stick their toe picks and fly into the air, is skating becoming like razor blades? before, landing a triple used to be a big deal, and now it's all about trying to do a quad. it just makes me think of those silly razors that are up to like mach-infinity-plus-one blades. in turn, this recalls the hyperbolic SNL commericals with the taco wrapped in the taco wrapped in the pizza, pancake, etc. maybe we have nowhere left to go in life other than self-parody.