Desperately Seeking Dash

My lovely friend Heather, who I don't think reads this, posted a poem on her facebook the other day. I read it. I heard it. I felt it.I let it rumble around in my head for a bit. And I may have gotten a bit choked up. Not for any one reason in particular, but rather as a result of the sum of many parts. My dash has not gone the places I expected it would. My dash has been neglected. Sometimes I've been mad at where my dash has gone. As a result, I've treated it poorly, ignored it, infact. Poor Dash. I've let my dash be controlled by so many things that I shouldn't have. I'm sorry. I'll try to make it up to you. Things are looking up, though. As of, May 8th, Dash, you are all mine! I will be done with this masters work, shortly after that I will be done with real work....then it's just me and you. Jill and the Dash......doin it hard core.


The Dash
by Linda Ellis
I read of a man who stood to speak
At the funeral of a friend
He referred to the dates on her tombstone
From the beginning to the end
He noted that first came the date of her birth
And spoke the following date with tears,
But he said what mattered most of all
Was the dash between those years
For that dash represents all the time
That she spent alive on earth.
And now only those who loved her
Know what that little line is worth.
For it matters not how much we own;
The cars, the house, the cash,
What matters is how we live and love
And how we spend our dash.
So think about this long and hard.
Are there things you’d like to change?
For you never know how much time is left,
That can still be rearranged.
If we could just slow down enough
To consider what’s true and real
And always try to understand
The way other people feel.
And be less quick to anger,
And show appreciation more
And love the people in our lives
Like we’ve never loved before.
If we treat each other with respect,
And more often wear a smile
Remembering that this special dash
Might only last a little while.
So, when your eulogy is being read
With your life’s actions to rehash
Would you be proud of the things they say
About how you spent your dash?
©1996 Linda Ellis

Very Serious Plans

But I need some volunteers. This is not a joke.

Don't Call Me Mellow Yellow

Dear Mother Earth,

In light of your day, I just wanted to clear up a few things. I love you. I really do. I love to visit with you in far away lands. I love to swim in your oceans and hike up your mountains. On some level, I might even call it communion.

I traded in my gas guzzling SUV for a jelly-bean of a car, which can only be respectably driven if you are a 20 year old co-ed. I turn off the water when I brush my teeth and I recycle each and every one of the 36 Diet Coke cans I drink on any given day. I'm nothing if not a team player.

However, I have a few things I would like to make clear. I don't think that we are solely responsible for your temperature. You're a woman. Sometimes you're hot. Sometimes you're cold. You get to change your mind just like the rest of us. Do what you need to in order to make yourself more comfortable. Who am I to try and regulate your hot flashes? I'll do my best to turn the air down for you, but ultimately, you're changing. I have every faith in the fact that you will do what you need to get through it. And we will change too, or we will go the way of the Woolly Mammoth. It's a pretty simple equation. I don't think that we can take all of the credit, or the blame, for the changes that you go through.

Also, could you please pass a memo to the dirty hippies, steeped in patchouli and mired about in their own filth? The, "If it's pee, let it be," plan for conservation, is not appropriate for the workplace. It's disgusting and it's rude. No one appreciates those who leave behind their biologic waste, regardless of their noble intentions. One flush is NOT going to change the world. And please, drink a glass of water, for Heaven's sake. Urine should not be neon yellow.

Go green, not insane.
Jillian

My family is growing!

Okay-fine, I'm not knocked up. But there is an expansion in the works. It's not really a growth in the typical, "Go forth and replenish the Earth," kind of way. Seriously, who am I kidding? My sole companion is a fairly neurotic miniature schnauzer. It's more of an expansion along the lines of, "My big giant @ss is busting out of my jeans."

If my calculations are correct, someone may need to contact Maury Povitch on my behalf. I would just like to have a construction crew ready to cut through my bedroom wall and lift me out with a crane if that is what needs to be. I have recognized that there is a problem, but am not quite to the point where I am ready to do anything about it. I don't even have a real explanation for my wild and out of control eating habits as of late. Stress? Boredom? A particularly nasty combination of both?

But really, why are those who manage to procreate the only ones who get to take a pass when it comes to chowing down? Eating for two, my @ss. That's not fair. I am at the forefront of the campaign for becoming a veritable Mormon Nun and I never get an excuse to binge eat? Screw that. (Or don't, depending upon your religious convictions. Mine don't allow for such activities, whadayagunnado?)

Since Monday, I have eaten all of the following. Sometimes cloaked in shame, alone, in my car. Sometimes together with friends in various dining establishments. Either way, know that my jeans are so tight, they are digging into my waist* in a manner that is so painful, only true chubby girls understand. (And if you are a skinny girl, please don't email me to say, "You get it too." No- you don't. And the fact that you claim to is an insult to big girls world wide.)

A) This is where it started.

There is a donut shop next to the place where I take Freddy M.D. to get groomed. It is owned by the nicest couple. Back in the day when I cared that my jeans were getting tight and my arteries were hardening, I would see them at the gym all the time. The irony in that was not lost on me. Anyhow- they make the freaking best chocolate chip rolls.

2) Then, in celebration of stupid STAR testing, a few coworkers and I decided to stop and get dessert.This was quite possibly the best freaking cheesecake I have had in a long, long while. I woke up at 12:30 last night to finish eating it. Under the cover of darkness. Alone. In my kitchen. With no light except for the glow of the open refrigerator door. I am not proud.

iii. I have no explanation for this. I was hungry.

D) Then it got really hot. And I don't know if you have much experience with a room full of sophomores after they have come from P.E., but it really defies description.
I needed a slurpee, or twelve, to quell a heat/stink induced meltdown.

V. This last one was just my humble attempt to stave off rickets for another day. I typically don't eat things that grow, but I'm thirty...I really should have grown out of the Diet Coke and Dorito stage of my life, but I haven't. And I don't see it happening any time soon. This was an attempt at a baby step in the direction of eating like a grown up. In the spirit of full disclosure, I took about two bites, nearly gagged on the blue cheese and ordered the aforementioned cheesecake.

*Update- So after I peed today at lunch, I attempted to pull up my jeans and my poor, overworked belt-loop ripped clean off. I may have reached a new low.

Try Reading the Rules

Normally I put talking babies in the same category as midget cowboys, but this commercial is KILLING me. Shankopotomus. That's great.

Shankopotomus

Notice of Resignation

Can someone please explain to me why, with only 30 school days left and 4 sessions of class before I am done with my masters, I can't think of anything but flipping the bird to all of it and quitting everything...effective immediately?

This Cat Went Away

And the mice certainly did play.

What you see here is the creation of my nieces and nephews. Their little gift was to commemorate the fact that they got to go to Disneyland and swim at my brothers. All the while, I was taking a lazer to my FREAKING EYEBALLS.

I don't know who is keeping score, but that's one for me. Zero for the lazer and a whoopin' for the clowns that fashioned a cane for me out of PVC pipe. :)

I'll take a Mini

For those in the know....you'll understand why I find this disturbing.

I am not proud.

Good Day, Fool

I ran to the office between classes to make a couple copies and left two of my AP students in my classroom. They are a pretty harmless bunch, so I didn't worry too much about it.

No more than three minutes later, I returned to find every single desk turned around so that it was facing the back wall. On top of that, every single student was sitting down, paper and pen out, with a straight face and their hands were folded neatly atop their desks.

It was a sight to behold. I have never seen them be more industrious about anything, all year. For that, I am equal parts proud and ashamed.

Which reminds me, I wonder if Snoop is still Mormon.