[insert profanity of choice here]

It's been one of those days.

I couldn't get to sleep until the wee hours, so I allowed myself to turn off the alarm and crawl back into bed to sleep a while longer. I waffled about whether to call in "sick" to Advisement, whether to cancel the entire day, and ended up going late to Advisement, agreeing to make up the 1-1/2 hours I missed (when I'll do that has yet to be determined), and meeting both classes. Both were difficult. Nothing new.

After class, I scuttled around trying to clear some of the tangle from around my feet. Among other things, I wanted to be sure I have all the handouts I'll need for the 101s for the rest of the semester, as I live in fear that I'll be in class without the crucial handout for the very convoluted writing/revision process I demand--but I was trying to sort them into stacks, seven of each in one stack, for the M/W class, eleven in the other stack, for the T/Th class, and all the while I was trying to have a conversation with Paul, which I truly wanted/needed--but I kept getting confused about what was in which stack where...

Then a student from the Poetry class came to talk to me about whether her work has improved. She's the one who admitted to having been in an abusive relationship. (If I've invented a moniker for her yet, I've forgotten.) (Who am I again?) She wanted to get some feedback on her work, but I hadn't had time to look at any of it yet. We talked for a while--a nice, albeit unofficial "mentoring" session--and when she left I started marking responses, which meant sorting them out, and by the time I had that all done, it was already after 7, and I was running low on mental fuel.

I don't know how things are going to play out tomorrow. I have a doctor's appointment at 11:30, and I'm seeing official mentees during my "seminar" hours, so a lot of the time when I'd usually be able to sit at my desk and simply grind will be lost--but I have an absolutely staggering load of stuff I have to mark and return ASAP. I'd bail on everything on Wednesday, but the day starts at 9:30 with a meeting of the Seminar Hours committee. Thursday I have to conduct an observation--which should be good, actually, as I truly like the person I'll be observing; immediately after that I have to make up time in Advisement. I will have a decent chunk of time between the end of the time in Advisement and class on Thursday--but that doesn't help me get ready to return stuff on Wednesday, which is what I'd really like to do. (I also said I'd attend a professional development thing on Friday. The topic sounds interesting, but I don't know if I'll want to deal with another early a.m. alarm to get there on time--or at all.)

Grouse, whine, bitch, moan. All of this is manageable--and all of these are the complaints of a woman who has an excellent life, an excellent career, and really no reason to complain about anything at all. Period.

And, in fact, I'll end on that note. It's getting very late, and I'm clearly not going to accomplish any further work this evening, so I'll walk out of here, reminding myself how tremendously good my life is, and how much gratitude I owe to the cosmos.