Popping Zits Leaves Me Crired

I’m deeply distracted. My head is a zillion miles away, so when I get in the hot seat, I don’t really know what I’m saying. I think I know what I’m saying and I certainly sorta know what I mean. Until my head is right, I need to learn to take a deep breath and say nothing to let people think I’m a fool rather than open my mouth and prove it. Or I need a “so what if I said it” sort of attitude. I used to have one of those. In 7th grade a bully said to me, “I heard you called me a bitch.” “Yeah? What would you do if I did call you a bitch?” “I’d kick your ass.” “Would that make you any less of a bitch?” Exit bully.

I had not in fact called her a bitch; she was looking for a fight. Sometimes, people just look for fights. This morning I had a similar experience and instead of shrugging it off, I said, “That’s ridiculous!” But in a game of he said/she said no one really wins. There are no re-dos. I’m tempted to contact all the “right” people and set the record straight, but I’m not going to. I will not do it. I really want to, but I had better not.

In The Birthmark by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Georgiana attempts to rid herself of what her husband convinces her is an imperfection by consuming a potion that kills her. Possible interpretations of this story include the effect of psychology on sexuality, the inability to achieve perfection in life, a critique of epoch reforms, the disastrous affect of scientific study on the natural word, and blah blah blah. Now, wake up! I’m trying to tell you something.

The temptation for me to pick at something that may or may not be an imperfection is a horrid thing that isn’t likely to yield good results. Still, I want to pick, pick, pick. When you pop a zit, you are left with a bloody, pussy mess. It’s no good. Seriously though? Regardless of my sizable mental powers, not thinking of a white horse yeilds nothing but thoughts of white horses. Resistance is all but futile. Not popping that zit means you have to live with it until it goes away. In the case of a birthmark, IT NEVER GOES AWAY.

Apparently at a school meeting I said fifty thousand things that I didn’t know I said and wouldn’t have said if I were conscious. Or was it the gossip that colored it all? What it listener bias? I don’t know. I was hit upside the head by the rumor that I hated teachers. What? In turn, teachers hated me. What? Now that we know how evil you are Mom-a-Tron, kindly get on with your day.

And here’s how that went:

I was doing my weekly thing in the 9 YO’s classroom. The kids just completed more than a week of testing on top of a week of testing prep. Plus, there’s a big presentation tomorrow, so I assumed the teacher would need the classroom time. For these reasons, I hadn’t prepared a discussion. I should have known to run when I saw there was no fluoride to distribute. The room was not the same.

An observer sat at the side of the classroom to evaluate the teacher, who just received a pink slip. The teacher wasn’t leading the discussion. I was. The teacher’s aid was zipping out packing tape to secure name tags to desks. ZZZZZIP. STICK. ZZZZZIP. STICK. Things were discombobulated. I sincerely wished for an alien abduction (if that meant I could be at home under the covers). I spoke off the cuff about how a bill becomes a law to a room of students who were bored and a million brain miles away. The thrilling morning ended with a sound critique of my son.

Next week the kids are going to write, introduce, and pass laws and it’s going to rock the Houses. Today, I’m too crired.

(And now time for true confessions. I wrote this whole blog because I just learned the term “crired” from my pal Connie and I knew I must use it.)

3 thoughts on “Popping Zits Leaves Me Crired

  1. populistpugilist says:

    You had me at Hawthorne.

    I never told you, lawyering turns out to be scary. That’s because (1) whether and for how long someone goes to jail in part depend on me, and (2) I’m the equivalent of an infant (admitted less than 6mos ago)doing a grown-up job. Time was I tried to keep track of my screw-ups. Now they’re just an ever-thickening blur.

    I don’t know. Life is probably easier without a conscience, easier without some standard you’re trying to live up to, easier when you can come up with a way to blame everyone else. It certainly would be better if we could at least tell the difference and admit when it really is someone else’s problem.

    We went bowling with some friends a few weeks ago. Predictably, I suck. I haven’t bowled in 18yrs when it was required for high school P.E., but I sucked then, too. My friend told me that the way to look at bowling is as if every frame is a whole new start. I’m trying to look at mornings that way. But I still suck at bowling.

  2. Tracy says:

    I had to look up “crired.”

    I guess I am the nonsmoking moron who cyberstalks your blog who keeps cattle prods in the fluff of her pettycoats for fun.

    Send Valium.

  3. JoeFix says:

    For the record, DM *was*, in fact, a bitch. The fact that you never actually called her one did not, and does not, change that. Although I must admit, I think you could’ve taken her – at least I would’ve enjoyed watching…

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