Well Strangers & dear ones,

I am up past bed time cuz I slept during the morning cuz of a fever & cold. Nasty stuff going around my school... I seem to have a light version of it, if you call emptying a box of kleenex a day light... fever comes & goes. Highest was 102. Right now it's low enough I can think, but high enough I requested a substitute for tomorrow.

Have visited another blog site... yahoo 360 is where an old friend of mine hangs out. Yup, I stressed the old... he used to think I was too young, eventually he decided I was too female... but that was after I fell in love with my now ex hubby & he had moved on before then too. We are Im'ing tonight too.

It is odd catching up with old friends whom you haven't really talked to in 20 years. It's like once I got married, I started losing contact with friends. Especially after child #3. This fall I got together with some college buddies. The one other female & I had kept in touch, but since 2 of the 3 guys were our ex boyfriends... well mine was more of a friends with benefits type thing, never had but one real date & that was when he was engaged to a girl he did not marry... I think. Well if he did, it was later & not as quickly as originally planned. ... any way the guys & the girls had not kept in contact. Interesting how some things change, and some don't.

For example. In college I did not drink; they did. I sniffed & sipped, but it all was nasty. But eventually I discovered Amaretto. So last fall we all get together & go to a restaurant. There was a bit of awkwardness when the waiter asked if we wanted any drinks... they all hesitated. I broke the ice & ordered my amaretto & 7up... they all laughed & were surprised. Later on after also going to a bar, 3 of the five commented on how they weren't used to just going out & drinking anymore. Most of us were into sodas before long. In college that is all most of them seemed to do.

I keep telling folks that if in 5th-6th grade Tina & Tracy & Sue had offered me rum with Dr. Pepper or Pepsi, my life could have been very different... cuz I like rum in fruity things... but Coca-cola/Coke is nasty, besides I really did think we were too young then. I changed my mind long before I was a senior... about the age thing (3.2 was legal for us at 18, so what's a few months or 12), but beer was & is nasty, but they never invited me to a party with booze again after 6th grade.

Any way it turns out that OLD friend blogs about lack of intimate relationships between males. I told him that females aren't truly much better. Oh, yeah if you put a group of females in a room, long before an hour is up we'll have discussed periods, childbirth, husbands' annoying habits. But that's like guys talking about cars or sports... it's checking out the groundwork... You know first the weather & then the how are ya's & what's ups. but the answers are 99% "fine" & "you?" type. I decided long ago, much to the ex's dismay, to actually tell the truth instead of answering "fine" even to strangers. Ok, so strangers didn't get the whole truth.

My students are always asking "What's up?" I usually try to give an answer related to something that is truly up, or not. For example since the boys mostly sag, they get "the degree I'm enforcing the dress code, so pull those pants up." Today if I had been there it would have been "my temperature." For some kids who do no work, "your number of missing assignments." Students who hand me lots of late work, "your GPA." When I'm busy, "the number of things I'm trying to do at the same time." I think they ask me, "what's up?" just to hear my answers. I try hard not to give the same answer twice in a row, but sometimes I do just have to say, "the ceiling" or "the sky" cuz I'm just not witty at the moment.

Anyway. Got my own computer in January; right around the time the ex paid the settlement to me... & now I actually get to communicate with my brother & the OLD friend, who has to go to work in the morning so just im'd goodnight... eegad it's after midnight... what am I doing up still?

oh yeah, I slept a good portion of the morning away cuz I was up late unable to breathe or think straight due to illness.

Well, since he's asleep, I'll continue the topic. I then read his blog & discovered that he must spend hours a day on the computer. Good golly. I suspect this must be how many people are. Searching for companionship via internet, but actually inhibiting intimacy by being online instead of with people. Thus they don't understand why they still feel a void. They "talk" to people all day long, but they don't get the eye contact, hand /arm / shoulder touching stuff we do when talking. Ok, so maybe guys don't do the touching when talking, but I still think we must get something more from live conversation... like pheromes or something.

So am I joining the world of lonely folks who spend hours on the internet? Doubtful. I have to grade papers, go to square dance lessons (amazing how much I forgot in 17 years), church choir, and read for fun. So why a blog? To be honest cuz i have always loved writing. I used to imagine myself as a cross between Erma Bombeck, Ann Landers & ... that bowtie wearing , eye glass wearing very Republican editorial page commentator... dang, can't remember his name. I want to type Will something. I also could see myself as the next Laura Ingalls Wilder... but my life has not been that adventurous. I do have the first chapter & a partial outline though for a book. I will have to work on it now that I theoretically have more free time.

And now it is 3 hours until I usually wake up. I must go to bed or never convert back to reality.







I must admit, I used to stay up all night long with no problems. But I blame my kids' baby years for my sleep deprivation & need for sleep. Doesn't matter that I only had about a 8 months of normal hours between high school & H being born & that's when I was pregnant with her. I worked nights at a bakery, & for Sprint along the way too.