Friday: Woke up with congested nose. At work, progressed to dry throat, runny nose, and abdominal pain. Sent home early. Three hours of sleep. Comtrex doses. More sleep.
Saturday: Fully raging sinus infection. Regular doses of Comtrex. More sleep.
Sunday: 4 am woke self up because of enormous stomach pain. 8 am woke up to get ready for church. Cannot fully extend torso, because of stomach pain. Feels like someone punching GI tract from throat to spleen. Cannot eat. Skip church. Pick up shift at coffee shop. Have low blood sugar, pass out, hit head. Cut and bruises on jaw and elbow. Headaches and neck stiffness. No more drugs. Lots and lots of sleep.
Monday: Wake up late. Go to work late. Sent home within five minutes. Still raging cold, still pained stomach, still painful head injury - but eating a lot.
Tuesday: Another day off. Still sinus infection, less stomach whatever it was, less head stuff.
Wednesday: Went to work. Fuzzy nose feeling. Healing cuts. No head pain. Hungry all the time.

So, I've never passed out because of hypoglycemia. I've ALMOST passed out several times - once memorably carrying a basketful of laundry from Pew to my dorm, another time standing up in front of my Headmistress to be told I looked as white as a sheet and needed to go to the nurse.

I tried to do a hypoglycemia diet today - six smaller meals. It ended up as pig-out snack sessions.

I just made my apartment smell like acridity. If a smell could burn your eyelashes off, that is the smell I am smelling.

I let some of the olive oil from a pan drip on the bottom of my oven, and thus grease smoke - not grease fire - just a little billow of smoke that was ridiculously powerful enough to pervade the apartment, possibly the whole house. Sorry second and third floor tennants.

Yesterday, the roommate and I locked ourselves out of our apartment. We had gone to a Bobby McFerrin concert (wherein he conducted an orchestra and symphonies by Mozart, Ravel, and Rimsky-Korsakov), and left with such speed (and also had a ride for which neither of us needed keys to our cars), that we both left our keys in the house. We realized that on the return, and spent half an hour jimmying doorlatches with Borders Reward cards, calling our various landlords (of course at 11 pm), and, eventually, breaking in through a front window. I said, "What if a cop saw me?" to which the reply was "Why would anyone suspect a giant, purple person crawling into a house? Wouldn't they be wearing less distinctive clothing?" Point taken, because I now have a gigantic, wind-proof, cold-proof, moisture-proof poof-poof coat ... and it's purple.

The purple coat is the same coat that my boss has. This is disturbing, and I think I've been subconciously trying to destroy it ever since I found out we had the same coat. Thursday in my Educational Technology class, I smelled the most delicious aroma of vanilla coffee. I then realized I had kicked over my coffee mug, and my coat was dutifully sucking up every last ounce of it. So, attempt on coat's life number 1. And I just tried to burn down the house with olive oil, so attempt number 2.

I'm taking classes toward a multi-age licensure in Spanish (possibly Latin). I get 8 free credits from CSU for working for them. "Educational Technology" and "Teaching as a Profession" are the lame-o classes I'll be taking. I hope there will be arguing - I like a good argue.

I'm their Study Abroad gal. And I had to quit the educational aide job. And I'm going to work at the coffee shop again. I confuse myself.

I'll be teaching a math lesson at the afterschool program today. We'll be talking about word problems, and how they seem corny in a textbook. But then I'll break out a game I just got called "Allowance", which is basically Monopoly with money earned from chores and spent on bubblegum rather than on real estate. I'm going to make them write word problems based on their actual transactions during the game. And then, hopefully, at the end of the game (who knows - Monopoly can go on forever - I'm hoping this game has an actual end to it), they'll exchange papers with their problems on it and make the other students figure out the word problems. Sweet, right? Too complicated as well, but if it all works out, I hope to make tiny synaptical connections between textbook learning and real world application in the students' minds.
I remember how my favorite part of elementary math was "real life" math. We'd learn how to fill out a check. We'd use store circulars and plan a meal with an imaginary budget. It was ridiculously fun, because it was like playing pretend - and it was officially endorsed through state licensed professionals!
Also since grade school I've been fascinated with the concept of bartering (also with the word "broach" which I memorized as "to bring up" by making a heaving sound when saying the word). Money, in its essence, is just metal metaphorically representing what used to be valued in salt, chickens, cows, other livestock, or any other tradeable good.
I broach this topic, because I need a hair cut. The last time I had a hair cut was in May, and my sister-in-law's sister cut my hair. She's a freelance hair stylist who stays home with her children and takes customers when they and she are available. Back in the day of steady employment, I was all set to pay her with greenbacks, but she told me to bring my sewing machine instead, and I could repair her son's overalls in compensation for the haircut. And it was a very good haircut - and my older brother had his cut at the same time as well. He bartered his lawn cutting services. Now I need a haircut, and my bartering hair stylist is in Maryland.

As I get older, I'm trying to get a handle on my moodiness - trying to stabilize my moods, be a pleasant person all the time. It's a difficult business - a job even. I'm not a consistent person, and I think that's part of my charm - who knows what will happen next with Hannah around? I put it to Brendan yesterday, "Stubbornly inconsistent is an oxymoron, except in relation to me." Today I was in a humdinger of a mood at Caribou. I got there, and I did NOT want to talk. Wild horses, perky people, and even coffee could not draw out a pleasant peep from me. I thought I was hungry or thirsty, so I tried a chocolate (chocolate!) muffin and some nice ice water, and while satiating, I still couldn't care less about making sure people had a good day around me. So I went into a fog - a fog of self-examination and malaise. But people got their coffee. So I did my job, and hopefully I'll get paid for it.
I'm wondering if a lot of my moodiness stems from diet. I totally got enough sleep last night, which I think lack of is the usual impetus to mood swings. I did eat a lot yesterday throughout the whole day. I'm wondering if my blood sugar crashed in the morning, even though I had breakfast - like my body was crying out for the same HIGH amount of calories and sugars I gave it yesterday.
Or I could have just been bored and took it out on co-workers and customers.
Anyway, won't be working there for much longer. I'll be switching over to doing Study Abroad work for a nearby university. Sweet bippy!

1. Marc's - a grocery store, from which produce does invariably go bad if not used immediately, has the cheapest prices consistently of any area grocery store. These prices are possible because the store does not accept credit or debit cards, thus cutting out the fee imposed by credit card companies for use of their products. They also have close-outs, which can be hilarious, cheap stocking stuffers, or feed my need for kitchen gadetry.

2. Caribou Coffee - their coffee blends smell (and taste) delicious. I know, because I get to grind them and smell their fruity/nutty/coffeeness. The prices are exactly the same as Starbucks, and the coffee less bitter (what does Starbucks do? Filter their coffee through used panty hose? Add roadkill as filler?).

3. Applesauce-Carrot Cake Muffins. Fluffy, low fat, and amazingly sugarless. Amazing, because you just don't care, they're so fluffy and warm and ... excuse me for a moment ...

4. My roommate - a baker, an independent woman of privately acquired means, a seamstress, and a pugulent advocate of truth.

5. Facebook - I was able to get onto this previously prohibitive website, because they now allow anyone with an email address onto their site. I have claimed Cleveland, OH as my network, but I can research old friends from high school (very hard to find them, because I went to high school partly in England) and see pictures posted of college friends (it's like being connected without the effort of emotional support - HA!).

6. Timberland - Not only the maker of boots, but of my favorite single strap backpack. This backpack provided a conversation opener with one of the most difficult students in the afterschool program for which I help tutor. He said, "Your backpack is made by Timberland. So are my boots." And the door was opened, and he got all of his math and science homework done.

Coffee.

Weezer has penned a song ... well, more like Rivers Cuomo (because I hear he's a song-hog and doesn't let his bandmates produce any of their songs under the Weezer aegis) ... called "We are all on drugs." My public school education told me about the bad drugs Weezer is probably indicating in their song. However, I'd like to push the concept further and say that the "we" and "all" in the song can truly apply to all humans. I am currently very, very stimulated by caffeine derived from a large cup of coffee. I do not take (and have never taken) illicit drugs. I've been antibiotics four times in my lifetime. I do not use drugs to calm tummies, reduce headaches, or sooth pains. But I drink one or two cups of coffee everyday. I am an addict. A severe addict (ask anyone who has seen me come off of caffeine - it's scary - Hannah angry, very, very angry). Point being: People of "advanced" cultures can't live without artificial stimulant. I'd like to see caffeine removed one day from the USA, England, France ... there would be nuclear holocaust. And now I sell the stuff. I'm a pusher. I'm a dealer. And I get tips for it.