gement | Wake up! Wake up! said Daisy Dog...

Today is the last day of classes. Today I will complete a perfect* attendance record of one year of grad school. (I've never had a perfect attendance record of one year of anything before.)

Today is also my birthday. I am now 27 years old.

Today I tutor all morning (as usual) and then have class this afternoon (as usual), but then when I get out, my father and sister are coming to see me from the other side of the state! We are going to my school's Spring Fling barbecue thank-heavens-we're done party, and then we are going to the Jason Webley new CD release concert! So I'm in constant motion between now and probably 11pm.

Today is also the day that my 12-15pp paper for Instructional Strategies is due.

Last night I drank two pints of caffeinated tea, made a giant pot of rice at one in the morning and neglected to put it in tupperwares, irritated the cat by disturbing her nightly routine, and composed and edited 8 pages of text from nearly scratch.

I also listened to Paul Simon's Graceland three times, the Pet Shop Boys' Discography twice and a half, and the Leonard Cohen cover album Tower of Song twice. If pressed, I would have then switched to August and Everything After, but at that point it was five this morning and I had included all the necessary fact in my paper, so I stepped away from the computer.

So, at five this morning on my 27th birthday, I crawled into bed with my sweetheart for 45 minutes until the alarm went off, then went through the usual morning routine. All quite normal except for the violent hand tremors. Today should be entertaining.

I was just thinking that this was almost certainly the first birthday I've celebrated on NO hours of sleep, but that's not true. For my 18th birthday, I had graduated (and given the Valedictorian address) the evening before, then attended the lock-in senior class party, during which I totally totally lost my voice to an encroaching cold (four hours earlier that would have been very upsetting) and was danced across the floor to the Beatles' "Today's Your Birthday" by my father at midnight. As a math teacher and chaperone at the party, he got to tell the DJ what to do. :)

As I type this, he's setting out across the state with

garillama and strange college boys in tow, so that he can take me to a Webley concert. I am wearing the family crest colors: Bright purple, deep green, and a splash of red. In particular, I'm wearing the family hoodie (it has Dad and Pat's wedding knot stitched on it in green and purple), my long green denim skirt, my purple and black Wicked Witch of the Queer stockings, my red piratical sash, and my bright purple Dad Fan Club t-shirt**. I should amuse the grade schoolers.

* I have been a half-hour late for depressy reasons a couple of times, but I have otherwise been all there all the time. All year. Ever.

** Printed up by Pat after Dad's surgery a couple years ago, for all the daughters and every member of his math team and knowledge bowl team to surprise him with a Happy Staying Alive Appreciation party.

Front: I HANG OUT WITH G----- G----.
Back: STICK THAT IN YOUR CALCULATOR AND DERIVE IT!