The impossible scream

Some days I'm expected to accomplish seven impossible things before breakfast, and some days I'm expected to accomplish seven impossible things instead of breakfast.

And then there's today.


I can't put a number on the impossible things I needed to accomplish today. They just kept pouring in: teach Paule Marshall and Olive Senior in one class and Jean Toomer's Cane in another, meet with students upset about grades on papers, meet with students wondering how to revise papers, meet with students begging me to predict grades their papers might receive after they revise them, meet with students worried about upcoming exams, meet with Learning Community partners concerned about students worried about papers and exams, read and respond to online reading comments, write study guides for two exams, prep tomorrow's classes, run to the bank to make an emergency deposit to cover an error so my mortgage payment doesn't bounce, and somewhere in there find time to eat lunch.

All that would have been impossible enough under normal conditions--heck, teaching Jean Toomer is beyond impossible regardless of conditions; there's nothing to do but gesture lovingly toward the text and say, "See?" But "normal" is not the word I would use to describe conditions today. I challenge you to wend your way elegantly through a complicated labyrinth of challenges and encounters when the only thing your entire body wants to do is to scratch.

I don't know exactly what stung me--I barely caught a glance at the winged fiend last Saturday before it struck and then moved out of sight. Some sort of wasp, I suspect. Whatever it was, it left me with a wee red mark that slowly grew and spread and puffed up until today this hard red swollen knot was radiating enough heat to power a steam locomotive.

And it itches. Like crazy. All the time. I might be soothing a distraught student, writing midterm exam questions, or trying to gesture meaningfully toward Jean Toomer's Cane, but behind that measured calm all I want to do is tear off my jacket and go after my swollen arm with a chainsaw. I've taken antihistamines and rubbed anti-itch cream on the bite, but it still screams out during every waking moment, "Scratch me! Scratch me! Scratch! Scratch! Scratch!"

Please, may I just scratch out this whole day and start over? Preferably minus the sting.