I’m procrastinating the reports I’ve got to finish by Friday. I can whip off about eight at a time, and after that I start to sound redundant. I think each child’s report should be individualized. I’ve read comments from teachers in which they’ve copied the same mumbo jumbo on each progress report and just changed the name. That doesn’t fly with me. So I do mine in stages. Right now I’m in the “resting” stage.

Tickets for the Clay Aiken show in DC went on sale last week. Tony purchased a block of eight for the motley crew we’ve assembled to attend this concert. I left my cell phone on so he could call me and confirm that there would be yet another opportunity for me to make a fool of myself in a public venue and possibly cause permanent damage to one of my body parts.

Tony called while my class was involved in our daily calendar routine. Luckily, it was a “student teacher” day and one child was holding court. She was in the middle of asking the “question of the day,” and her inquiry of choice was, “Do you have a dog?” She continued seamlessly while I got the scoop from Tony. When I hung up, she looked at me inquisitively and asked, “Who was that on the phone?”

“Tony,” I replied.

“Oh. (Pause) Does he have a dog?”

I loved that she was completely uninterested in learning more about the person on the other end of the phone. She was on a mission to keep the calendar routine moving along at a nice pace and nothing was going to distract her from that goal.

I’m getting my hair cut today so I don’t have to look like Cousin It one more day. I don’t think showing up to a job interview looking like one of the Addams’ Family will help me secure a new job. I was thinking about Shizzolating my response to every question, but, again, not so professional.

The school district with which I’m interviewing was closed today and yesterday due to snow. We don’t close schools in Buffalo unless there’s a distinct chance your nose will actually crumble from your face if you spend more than two minutes out of doors. Schools closed on account of cryogenics.

I have frequent dreams about telekinesis. Usually I’m willing doors to open and close with my mind. It’s the coolest feeling. Then I wake up and actually try to do it. In my state of half-sleep, I actually believe it will happen and when the door remains immobile, I get pissed off, flop over on my side, fold my arms poutily and go back to sleep. Friggin’ door.

This amuses me because as a child, anything that had to do with the supernatural terrified me. Kelsey and I planned to watch “Carrie” during a sleep-over at her house when we were in third or fourth grade. We ate orange Push-Ups and made “Carrie Juice” to drink. The previews alone sent me running to the bathroom, where I spent the next half hour throwing my guts up in a garbage can and waiting for my mother to pick me up.

Horror movies set me over the edge as a badass suburban preteen. Clearly the ultra cool back pocket comb and Jordache jeans were masking the fear and insecurity I was feeling. We went to the Amherst Theater in junior high and saw a horror film starring Jack Palance. Jack Palance’s leathery face should have been enough to send me running from the theater screaming, but there was one scene I remember vividly, even today. A woman, lying in bed, was stabbed multiple times by an unseen psychopath lying under the bed. I was thankful I had a Swedish box bed at home, but it didn’t stop me from checking under the rest of the beds every night before I went to sleep. After watching Halloween, I also felt the need to check the closets. I’m not sure what I would have done if Michael Myers was standing behind my yoke sweaters and velour V-Necks, but the ritual of checking gave me comfort.

There’s a little town near Buffalo called Lily Dale. It’s a lakeside cottage town on the edge of Lake Chautauqua and a community for psychic mediums. Many of them are seasonal dwellers, but some do live there year round. I am all about the psychic mediums, and I’ve made several visits to Lily Dale. I’ve had group readings and private readings, and I’ve been chosen from an audience of hundreds by more than one medium to be told that I’ve got a bit of the psychic ability in me. I’ll write more about my experiences at Lily Dale another time...

Most of the things that freaked me out as a kid are the things I embrace today. Scary flicks, the supernatural, dogs, roller coasters, boys. I’ve evolved quite a bit in my thirty four years of life. I’m not planning on growing up any time soon, but it’s nice to finally know myself. Hi, me.

Here’s a (loose) conversation between me and my best friend, Amy.

Amy: The roof of my mouth really hurts. It’s all raw and sore.

Me: Did you, by any chance, eat Peanut Butter Crunch cereal for breakfast?

Amy: (pause) Oh my god! How the hell did you know that?

Me: It’s a universal truth. Peanut Butter Crunch fucks with the roof of your mouth.

Did that ever happen to you?

Another question. Did I ever tell you I wanted to be a doctor? A pediatrician. I was preparing to enter college in a Pre-Med track. I was accepted into AP Biology (which I completely blew off senior year - I got a “1" on the exam) and I secured an internship in the Biology Department of a local college.

I was the world’s worst research assistant. I had three jobs.

I had to record increases and decreases in the weights of tiny snails in a black and white marble notebook. I have no idea why this was necessary, but I do remember picking them up with tweezers and inadvertently cracking the shells of more than half of the poor creatures. I don’t think the results of this study were very accurate. In fact, I’m pretty sure I frigged up that whole experiment.

My second duty was taking vaginal smears from mice. Have you ever tried to do this? It isn’t easy. First of all, mice have very tiny vaginas. Also, they don’t really like giant humans probing their hoo has with a swab. They squirm and fall on the floor and hide from you when you try to catch them. I hated that part of the job. It seemed so cruel, well, because IT WAS. Seeing those animals trapped in cages in the name of “medicine” made me realize as a doctor, I would be incapable of being detached and separating my emotions. Plus, I couldn’t weigh a freaking snail without cracking its shell. Who in their right mind would want me as their surgeon?

The best part of this internship was the alligators. I’m not sure why they were studying alligators, but that didn’t concern me. I was instructed to help feed the alligators and clean their tanks daily. The alligators were kept in private quarters, away from the mice, although I think the mice would have preferred being swallowed whole by a gator rather than having homo sapiens poking around their nether regions with foreign objects. The alligators had a knack of getting out of their tank each night. We’d open the door and see them standing on the floor with their unblinking eyes and permanent grins. The goal was to get them back into their tank and remain unbitten. The alligators were three or four feet long, and there were several of them. I’m sure we looked like slapstick comics trying to round up these reptiles and make them climb back into their tanks. We may be the more evolved species, but the alligators are smarter, I can tell you that.

I’m sure I’ll be adding links with fun titles to this entry, so check back later this afternoon for an update. (See, I added them!)

Right now, I’ve got to scrape ice off my car (OMG, my car is completely COVERED in a thick layer of ice! It's going to take a half hour to scrape it off! Why are schools even OPEN???) and head over to school where I’ll be spending the day with another group that beats adult humans in the smarts department: four year old kids.