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That's where I am right now on this trail of paper writing drudgery. But at least I've started and I shall get further down the road as the night wears on.

I've spoken many times about the teacher persona never leaving me no matter where I go. Anytime I go into a public place I expect to run into a few of my students. It's just a given. But now I'm realizing that the risk of running into parents is just as high.

All I wanted was a 2-liter of ginger ale. (Yeah, I'm a ginger ale fanatic.) At Winn-Dixie I ran into the mother of one of my students. I always remember her because she's a punky mom. She's got hair dyed jet black with a few maroon highlights. It's cut short and held in place with really shiny gel. I love her son, he's a really cool kid. He's soccer-crazed and sports a David Beckham-reminiscent "faux-hawk" (that's what he calls it) which is held in place by the same gel mumsy uses, I'd be willing to bet. Anyway, punky mom is freaking out because of some zeros her kid got and detailed how she yelled at him and threatened to take away his TV privileges for a week . . . anyway, we got it all straightened out. Apparently, one of the zeros he got was on a day that he had an excused absence or something like that. I assured her that I'd change it accordingly. Whatever, I mean, it's really not that crucial. You'd think I was in charge of handing down magic sentences that would either ensure her child's success for life or doom him for all eternity. lol. But she was really sweet and said she'd tell her son she ran into me so he'd feel better about it.

Anyway. So here am I, a plastic, lavender Starbucks tumbler nearly drained of ginger ale beside me, working up the nerve to trudge on a few more pages in this 15-page-long journey.