What has gone wrong in my life?!?!

The other day as I was speeding around town in my Mini Cooper, I did something unthinkable.  Something I almost don't want to admit.  Something that made me question my sanity, my humanity, and made me use language I've never before spoken.

I was in StL for the 2nd leg of my much needed and anticipated Spring Break.  I had left Target after returning a purchase that after leaving the store initially, I hated and would have returned right away had it not been almost closing time and the Customer Service area had been opened.

I forgot I'd paid with cash and was really excited to go spend that returned money on greasy, delicious StL Chinese food.

So excited that while pulling out of the massive, busy parking lot, I did the unthinkable.  Something that after publishing this post, I will never speak of again.  Something that made me wish Papa Pope, of Scandal fame, was with me to give me a speech about just how fed up with me he had become and how he was going to ship me off or lock me up some place so that I could clear my thoughts.

The weather was beautiful - mid 70s, sunny - so I had the sunroofs opened and the windows down.  I've missed radio since I tend to listen to my downloaded music or the crazies around me during my NYC commutes, so I was blaring various stations throughout my stay in Missouri.  Top 40, Hip Hop, R&B, Rock, NPR, whatever suited my ears, I could sing along to, or was interesting.

Something seemed to happen to my ears as I anticipated my Chinese food and enjoyed the weather.

A song came on the radio and I not only listened to it, I sang along with the lyrics. I seemed to actually enjoy it.  I sang along and even started to slightly dance as I drove onto the highway.

When I got to the next exit, I finally snapped out of my seeming trance and realized what a horrible thing I had done.  I turned the radio completely off.  I pulled off at the exit and pulled into the nearest parking space so I could really contemplate what I had done.

As I sat there, off of Bellvue, I started to wonder what had gone wrong in my life.  How could I have seriously just been singing along to a Puffy/Puff Daddy/P. Diddy/Diddy/Sean Combs song?

I'm not going to slam his production or money making abilities, I won't even talk bad about those ridiculous wife-beater shirts he made that people actually bought.  But his ability to rock a mike is more than shitty -- it hurts my ears.  Ordinarily.  Of course, there are songs when he did a collabo with Biggie that I can tolerate, but the song I was jamming to was his ode to Biggie after his death. It is so horrible.  And somehow, I seemed to know much of the lyrics and to momentarily enjoy it.

I sat in that parking space for close to 5 minutes trying to figure out my life. I questioned if the sun from the sunroof may have altered my capacity to distinguish good music from the really shitty.  I wondered if maybe time away from radio and my quest to not complain as much in my life made me unable to discern a valid rapper from a Diddy.

I had no answers, which led me to fall on a term I have never thought or used in my life.  A term, which, given the present circumstances, seemed to suit me well.  Ne'er-do-well.

If I have become a person who cannot only tolerate Puff Daddy, but also sings along with his music, with the windows down for all to hear, and even sing the same freaking song in my head later in the day, I must have become a ne'er-do-well.

I've never used or thought that term in my life, but it popped into my head when I was contemplating where my life has gone wrong that made me want to sing along with Diddy.  I'm pretty sure my actions fall into the category.

I will never speak of my musical slip up again.  And I hope that no one holds it against me because all I will do is deny, deny, deny.

Instead of dwelling on this dark patch of my life, I will strive to move beyond being a ne'er-do-well. I will strive to better my life so that I never fall to such low depths again.

I'm not in school, but still love Spring Break

Teaching can be really stressful, but one of the great things about teaching is that I have never had to stop getting excited about Spring Break. A week and a half to relax, refresh, and frolic without 100+ children all day -- so nice!

I need meds not prayer

I've had really bad sinus infection-type symptoms for about a week and finally made it to the doctor because my home remedies and OTC meds were not working.  The doctor did not give me a prescription; the doctor told me to take vitamins and pray over my condition because that is what she does when she does not want to be ill.

Why can't we be friends?

I really love to keep in contact with old friends (even old relationships) to see how they are; I only bring people into my life that I want in it for a long time.  Unfortunately, they don't always feel the same and I become kind of sad and question if I did something wrong.

I punish myself with excessive grading

Yes, administration, I agree that it is a great idea to do a full mock test (50 multiple choice and two full out essays) with my students to see how they will do on the actual test in two months.  Said I before I remembered that I would then have to grade 70+ of these while also keeping up on regular class grading; why do I do these grading punishments to myself?

Customer service - for the win

Sometimes talking with customer service can be a pain in the nether regions.  Other times, after 30 minutes on the phone, they are able to fix my cell phone problems and reduce my bill and I can breathe easy again.