tuckova: I like a book with characters.

My first day teaching at the high school went pretty well. I liked the kids a lot.

Although I do not have the magical head-tingling feeling I once had as a teacher, it appears that I do remember the basics of getting through a class. Also, some key points were recently refreshed by Squire's previous teacher, such as: 1) making eye contact with the students is a good thing; 2) smiling periodically is a good thing; 3) wearing clothes that cover your body is a good thing; 4) telling people that they are doing well tends to make them do better. So I'm already ahead of the game, what with my pretty blue eyes and my magical molars and my muu-muus and my tendency to blush-inducing praise.

Squire has been fantabulous this past few weeks, funny and sweet and incredibly easy to live with. Partly this is the new teacher, who is not a twelve year old eedjit; partly this is two years of extensive training in the effectiveness of "so?" as a response to any stupid commentary; partly this is just growing up. I don't mean we've taken up living at Unicorn Junction-- the darkness surrounds us, as always. But it was never the dark that was scary, but ever what was hidden in it, and this seems more manageable lately for him.

We have mice at the cottage. This would bother me except that they are so courteous, the way they open up the carton of cigarettes for you and pull out a pack and then tenderly open that as well, dragging out and destroying the first cigarette so you don't have that "20 wedged in a pack" problem, and then they scurry around leaving little nicotine-addled poops! Adorable.

Friar is cracking me up nearly daily, too, which makes me think there's magic in our water or something. What's with all the smiling around here?

Perplexed by Clarence Thomas, by the left leg in Ingres' Odalisque (seriously, what IS that?), by adults who still choose books by genre, and the other usual suspects, but generally I'm doing well. And you?