feel strange all over. sore in places, not much sleep last night, maybe it’s a flu. i never got a flu shot this year, but when i got one last year i got a flu 2 weeks later, so it’s all the same at some level. had shots of pain, not that the “shots” hurt something awful, just felt strange. hot flashes, then cold flashes. flu like, i guess. boo. nothing a long peaceful sleep can’t take care of.
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i found myself looking pictures and accounts of some high school teacher. i graduated high school in 1986, over 25 years ago, and for some reaosn i found it hard to believe that some of the same teachers were still there at that school. an English teacher, a science teacher, and a student counselor … i knew those 3 reasonably well, and there they are, patrolling the same classrooms as ever. i guess i thought of them as older than they are, but the teachers i knew were only about 15 or 20 years older than me. one teacher i was sure was in his 60s while i was at that school appears to be only entering his 60s now. he had the gray streaks in his hair, and carried himself like a much older fellow, a worldly wise sort who had seen it all, and maybe he had, but i assumed that such wisdom came with age.
i started thinking of those old teaacchers when i for some reason remembered an incident in some science class. i can’t remember if it was biology or physicis or what, but for the entire school year i never once raised my hand or said one word in class. and it wasn’t a class where the teacher called on anyone. the teacher was not a nice person, as evidenced by numerous anecdotes from myself and others.
so one day, near the end of the school year, in what i think was the last 3 or 4 days of classes, i raised my hand to ask a question. i don’t remember the question. i don’t remember the answer. i don’t remmeber the topic or anything about the lecture. i just remmeber the look on her face. she looked like an alien had just leapt out of my chest. she was visibly puzzled that i asked this one question, the only question i’d asked all year, and in the home stretch of the school year, by which time she must have thought i’d no interest in the class, that is if she thought anything of me at all.
she stopped and stuttered a little bit after answering my question, and i felt i had had some success in disarming and befuddling this unpleasant person. there was dismay and confusion in the silence that stumbled between her lecture chunks…
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went to costco looking for a hard drive, but the floods in thailand have depleted the inventory of hard drives. only 2 drives per customer, and none of the type i needed were available. dang.
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gentleman came to fix my piano yesterday. that went well. expensive, but th epiano works again. i’ve barely played for a couple of months because the contacts have been bad. it’s a Roland digital piano, which i’ve had for 6 or 7 years. the salesmanships make it sound like digital pianos need no tuning, and so they must need no maintenance, but it’s nonsense. i paid $460 to get this things fixed, and i think i paid about that much 3 years ago.
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i found a couple of drivers licenses on the street today, 2 licenses owned by the same individual, one of them a learners permit and the other a commercial drivers license. i asked at the warehouse nearby if anyone knew the person pictured in the licenses, but the fork lift operator had no idea. i suddenly had all this responsibility to deal with. i felt important. i planned to throw the licenses into a mailbox, as soon as i got near one. but i knew that the driver would have to deal with a week or 2 of not having a license, and that sounded lame, but i was going to do the best i could. then i took a closer look at the licenses and saw that they had both expired years ago. oh well. i threw them into the USPS mailbox near Costco and forgot about it. responsibility lifted.
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