Things I Wish My Cold Medicine Did

1. Completed my lesson plans for me
2. Taught my students the difference between "there" and "their"
3. Cleaned the bathroom/washed the laundry (simultaneously)
4. Gave me the power of invisibility
5. Actually cured my cold

The people upstairs ...

are building something again. By my count, they have built enough things since the summer to amount to at LEAST four cabinets, a bookshelf or two, a large bed, and innumerable tables. This one has a lot of hammering and so far no sawing. Interesting.

The people upstairs are fascinating tenants. They run around a lot in high heels (there is a woman and a man living there, but who knows which one is wearing the high heels). They yell and cheer sporadically in tones that sound like sports fanatics' screams, but Brian and I always search the TV guide and flip channels when they do this, and there are never any sporting events on. They also failed to close the shower curtain correctly for so many showers in a row that the water leaked through the floor and into our ceiling, where it finally busted the plaster open in a nice, round, nasty-zit bubble. And they have a dog that often seems incredibly distressed, and runs around at night, clicking his toenails on their water-covered, high-heel-marked, construction site of a living space. This fascinates me.

The other thing that fascinates me is this selection, from one of my students' papers about "A Raisin in the Sun":

"Walter Lee Younger is the kind of person that dreams of so many things that he wants to come true but in the end realizes that there just dreams. Walter is the type that dreams of things that will hopefully come true some time in his life. Walter has goals that go beyond the truth. His expectations drive him to a point where he believes his dreams will come true."

Um, HELLO, are you ever going to actually make a POINT?

I also enjoyed this little excerpt: "Walter L. Young was a slim male. He always had a thing with the ladies."

The hammering has stopped. Back to work.

Approximately Five

... more hours until I am no longer 22. I am praying my students don't remember this, because Monday will be a crazy day in the classroom if they can use my birthday as an excuse to digress/party/be obnoxious. I am also praying they never find this blog.

Birthday update: 1 broken laptop, 1 useless but well-intentioned candle, 3 albums of baby pictures at my parents' house, $40 in Victoria's Secret money, $25 in Borders money, and an aromatherapy massage(!) in a few weeks. And a $23 check which, I get the sinking feeling, will likely go towards more books. I realized recently that I am a terrible addict - my cheerleaders gave me a $100 American Express gift card, and my first thought was: I could buy so many books with this! But then I realized that my boots have holes in the soles and I am down to 5 pairs of usable socks (all of which are currently in the wash) and I have a VERY limited rotation of work clothes and I also now have a broken laptop which is going to, conveniently, cost about $100 to repair. I really think that I would stand on corners begging for money to support my book habit, if I had to. I'd definitely rather have books than clothing.

But you know what I'd really like for my birthday? A new job. One that involves me staying at home and reading and eating lots of Fig Newtons and possibly getting inspired to write the next great American novel. I think this is clearly in my immediate future.