It's been a Monday

Monday! More snow and gray skies and cold cold cold, plus a commuter student who couldn't get to campus and wants to make up the reading quiz when there are no makeups, ever, for any reason, except I will offer extra credit opportunities later in the semester, but the students who were present to take the quiz all aced it with the exception of one who admitted struggling with the reading, and why is it so difficult to read Eugene O'Neill? My final time teaching Long Day's Journey into Night and once again I wonder why no theme park has yet opted to open the Tyrone Family Thrill Ride. (The rest is silence.)

The brain feels frazzled after responding to emails and editing accreditation documents and writing a letter of recommendation and prepping for meetings later in the week, and why do meetings tend to come in clusters? Every project I'm working on has a major deadline in the next two weeks, which makes some sense since everyone wants to get things done before Spring Break, but my eyes hurt and I can't think straight so I seem to have copied a bit of text into the wrong document. Accreditation and recommendation: the words aren't at all the same but they sit in similar spots in my work queue right now and they seem to be invading my dreams.

And meanwhile all the things I can't write about are disturbing my sleep. The other morning at 3 a.m. I awoke in a panic to puzzle over a number I'd heard in an all-campus meeting, and a week later I still can't make sense of it, or of the number of people who are publicly blaming the College for the resignation of yet another coach (not our fault but if I tell you why I'd have to kill you), or of why I'm obsessing over an inconsequential number that ought to appear in next year's contract but probably won't.

So it's been a Monday. When I get home and my hubby asks how my day has been, I'll be hard pressed to come up with a coherent response, but then anyone who expects coherence at the end of a February Monday when the world seems to be going to pieces is probably delusional.