Little pieces of the nothing that fall

Last Friday was the middle school's annual "Punk 'n' Rock," which is a lip sync show in which the 7th and 8th graders get to dress up in goofy costumes and ham it up as they present a little skit based on the song. Joe was less than thrilled that he had to be in a Miley Cyrus song, but when he and all the boys in his class leaped out from behind assorted furniture in fly costumes and buzzed around every time she sang "fly on the wall," it was pretty amusing. AND, he got to be the drummer in Guns 'n' Roses for a few minutes, as they did "Sweet Child o' Mine." Air drumming, yes, but the teacher let him do the final drum roll for real, which thrilled him to no end. (Which reminds me, I need to write a thank you email to her.) He was also Richie in their take on the Happy Days theme song.



We should have a dvd of the entire performance in the near future. I am so looking forward to watching it again--especially the songs during which I was mostly watching through my camera's viewfinder and may have missed things.

After the show, a bunch of the kids went to the local Mexican restaurant for a celebration, and I could tell Joe wasn't sure about going alone, so I tagged along. He took off with his buddies, so I reintroduced myself to a parent I'd met once and wound up sitting with her and her husband and another parent I had never met before. I got through over an hour of small talk with complete strangers and even managed to enjoy myself. Go-go, introvert girl.

Joe's guitar-playing buddy came over on Saturday. He brought his guitar. And his amp. It was just a little amp, and they wound up playing Heroscape most of the time instead of making music. But I overheard them discussing how when they get to high school, they might have an easier time finding a bassist and singer, and how the high school they want to go to together has an open mic/battle of the bands deal sometimes. I have the feeling I may wind up with a band in my basement someday. I may admit to being secretly tickled about that prospect. At least for now, while the still mostly imaginary band makes very little noise and doesn't risk getting the cops called on us.

More snow this week gave us a two hour delay, and a dentist appointment gave us another one. And then the school called to see if I would help them by covering for an extended care teacher who was out. (They keep the preschoolers during the time of the day when they're not actually in preschool.) For five hours. So I took a deep breath and said yes, and it didn't go badly at all. Maybe they'll call me again. Maybe I'll say yes again.

Highlight of my tutoring career thus far came last night. We were reviewing fractions, and one of the boys said, "We did this in class today, and I don't get it." And I said, "Let's talk about it some more and see if we can help you get it." So we did. And he did. He sat back in his chair with this most awesome expression on his face and flung his arms wide and shouted, "OH. I get it now!"

Oh yeah. You better believe I'm hooked now.

And in the midst of it all, I still managed to thrash out some more word count for Loki. I got another rejection for "Wings" on Friday, pouted about it over the weekend, and then sucked it up and sent it out again on Tuesday. I also found a couple of potential markets for "Pale Roses" and the motivation to revise it. I got it down to 10,000 words yesterday and sent it off to the first market last night.