Never again

Cue that song "Have you never been mellow" and change the word mellow with "grouchy" and this was my mood today. And yesterday. And yes, the day before.

It is strange for me because I aggressively temper grouchiness. I do not let it run its course. But whoaho ho!

At my new school, one of the "norms" for some of the old timers seems to be utter disregard for all other teachers that they don't know well. Initially I found this surprising. Sometime humorous. Today when I was interrupted twice by this same old behemoth bag of a bossy English teacher I gave her to stink eye probably more than I even intended. I was just having difficulty comprehending this notion that no one valued for anything in her world unless she stooped to give them value. She noticed my look of utter disbelief and then I finished what I was saying...but I guess I kind of surprised myself.

And it didn't end here. I was speaking my mind frequently. Probably much to the annoyance of my colleagues, but I felt like I had just kind of had it with the people there. And since it doesn't matter if I work there next year, I guess my caring about making a good impression went on utter reprieve today. I rolled my eyes, slouched in my chair at meetings when the principal said things like "collaboration is mandatory". It didn't last long, I caught myself, put on my listening serious face (which I learned from my division chair, who very adeptly nods and seems to be listening very carefully but I always wondered if maybe he wasn't contemplating dinner or something more interesting than whatever the person he was speaking to was blathering on about) and attempted to not act like a petulant teenager. Not always an easy task!!

It's all wrong, but I feel utterly justified in this cyclone of grouchiness, with smart aleck comments approaching 120 miles per hour, don't come to close or else my sarcasm will at least wreck your hairdo.

I moved this weekend. I moved my woodworker husband who has massive quantities of wood and heavy equipment as well as a complete home office plus my daughter and her 35, 000 stuffed animals and 20 tons of Walmart half broken toys that I can't throw away because they were given as gifts. Between them, they made me look like an ascetic who doesn't believe in keeping material goods. Clearly I need to go buy some clothes.

After this experience, my strongest sentiment is that I will never ever move again, and that I would sooner move out of the country and donate every thing I own except my camera and my photo albums to the poor (who wouldn't care about the photo albums anyway).