Oh Bother

I woke up this morning at 5:16 a.m. and it felt like someone had cut off the top of my skull, scraped the inside until it was raw, and then plopped it back on my head. It hurt. Really, really bad. And it wasn't a migraine.

So I did what I always do with a early morning headache. I took some ibuprofen and went back to tossing and turning until the alarm goes off. Three snooze cycles later (8 minutes each) and I'm up looking in the mirror . . . and realizing that I am nauseous. "I shouldn't go to school." But I go to school. With the headache and the nausea and the weird hot blushy feeling and the chills. Because it is easier and somehow better than having to do the "emergency" lesson plans. Plus I have to go to class tonight anyhow. And community college, they are all about the attendance.

I make it through the day. Read to them. Coast. Read to them some more. Kids want to stay for "homework help", which isn't really helping . . . they help each other . . . it's more just using my room and me being the referee. Manage to do my homework (wrote test for tomorrow) and get out by 4:45.

Drive home to pick up "George". Pay some bills. Check email. Change into jeans. Drive by the mailboxes with the bills. Park somewhere that I will have to find an ATM to get out of. Eat a Z-bar for dinner. Realize that I left my extra battery at home and the battery in the camera is cashed. Have to buy book and can't spring car without three bucks. Figure I'll make it with the battery I have. Run to bookstore.

I had forgotten how much college is very much just a lesson in bureaucracy. The bookstore. A line to get your book. Get to front of line, then wait for the guy to find your book. He can't find the book. He looks some more. Finds three books and brings them to you. Pick correct book, but it is used. At this point, I don't want used . . . I finally have the means to buy new, fresh, untouched, unhighlighted, unbent. New. But there is no new book. Have to buy book for class. But cannot take book, must now take number. And go to another line. Wait. Waiting. Waiting. Wait some more. Get to front of line. Guy has to find book. Guy cannot find book. I point to the book sitting behind him. Give debit card. Just want to buy damn used book, sometime this evening, preferably before class starts. Must have "valid I.D.". Dig for I.D. Find license. Sign slip. Then the person has to do this ornate dance of paperwork. Stapling. Printing. Stamping. Stapling again. Just give me the damn book. "Do you need a bag?" Yeah, now I remember about college.

Class took all four hours. I took my pictures in RAW mode and then couldn't see them. He told us last week to take everything in RAW . . . but he didn't mean it. The pictures are huge. But I did learn how to use my manual mode on "George" and I did talk to tattoo boy. He has a dog. I think his name is Jeff. And the girl with the eyeliner . . . she's Felicity, or something. And I don't think the Nikon twins showed up today. And random comment man, well, he's still random comment man. The instructor is now treating him like a child. A hyperactive child that he is forced to sit at the children's table with at Thanksgiving. Nice, but with a ever so slight edge. Cause grandma would kick his butt if he was mean to him. Forced. Took a swell picture of a tree. Which is too big to even place on my computer to resize. So the world will never see it.

My headache is now a plain old familiar migraine. Comforting compared to this morning. Just a sharp stabbing pain on one side of my head. Currently feels like an ice pick just above my temple but occasionally moves to be a vertical line of pain through my head, radiating from the top of my mouth . . . a little to the right. Maybe I will go to work tomorrow.