Your whole fucking family has cholera, and they were all bitten by snakes, and they tried to ford the river and lost 2 oxen and a yoke.

Morale is low.

Mr. O just came back from a budget meeting. I didn't go, because I'm not paid and thus not part of the budget. Mr. O said that they're giving teachers more work, a lot more work, but that they're not giving them any more money. So is life, so is it everywhere.

Last night I dreamt about Obama. Odd to dream about the President, I suppose, as though we've met and had one of those close conversations you sometimes have with people when you comfortably meet their eyes for a second too long and then smile together. I dreamt he and I were cuddling. And that's all. I dreamt that Obama was lying next to me, under the red comforter, and I was resting my head in his little nook, and every time I tried to fall asleep or disagree with the cuddle and turned away, he said, no, no, now and held me a little tighter. He smelled good--and what a huge goofy grin, like little picture shows could play on each of his white-screen teeth--and I've never felt a body so warm in my life, and I like the feeling of mentally trying to get out of something and physically being held back for it. Like being shook into sense. I would like to have this dream every night, but only if I could never wake up.

Because then you wake up and your outfit this morning is a disaster and you had to make some changes from the initial outfit you'd planned the night before--because your clothes are too tight, and you look fat, and you are fat, and is there anything else in life other than being fat or not fat? Well, there's the winter, the cold, the ice cold bra you have to slowly put on each morning, both cups to the boobs at once to get over the shock more quickly, like jumping in a cold pool after the hot tub. There's the cold toilet seat, because the roommate still keeps the house at 50 degrees all night and then when you wake up, and then there's the cold floor in the bathroom, and the cold wind outside, and then there's the cold car, of course, which doesn't start because it's too cold, but then it finally does start because you hold the gas pedal to the floor, and it makes you feel all strong and womanly because you're doing it with your 3 1/4 inch heel, but damn those shoes make your feet cold.

Then there's school. No reason, whatsoever, that you should be having a bad day, that you're drained, that you're depressed and mopey and long-faced, that you feel like you're a horrible teacher, that it comes to 8th hour and you want to crawl under a desk and die, then there's the budget meeting that you don't go to, but when you hear the feedback about the meeting you're reminded that there are no jobs in this district and that there are no jobs anywhere, anywhere, anywhere, and then you think about John Updike, now dead, and now you think you're only gonna read more Updike because he's dead, and not just because you should've read Updike in the first place. And then you sort of want a sandwhich, and then you sort of want to lock yourself in a coffee shop and write something that means something, for once, because your head might explode if you don't prove you exist by putting some sharp images or ideas on paper in the form of stanzas.

Whatever. What is any of this? Fuck you, stupid Tuesday. Who the fuck do you think you are, stupid.