Bellybutton Hood

Today was Day One of my writing teaching extravaganza and it went fairly well. There is, of course, the requisite Boy Named Will in one of my groups. I don't know how many times I have to say it before people stop naming their children names I have warned them about. If you haven't read it here before, it bears repeating: Never name your child Will, Brandon, Zachary, Lexi or Brittany. Just don't. It's been established again and again, and today I saw it one more time.

Who is Will, you might ask? Will is the kid who makes the smart remarks to take attention away from his stupidity. Will is the kid whose temper is something you are warned about. Will is the kid whose arm is incapable of raising, but whose rear end has never met a chair. That's Will. And it's often Brandon and Zach too. Brittany is a different story. Brittany could have any litany of issues, but I can guarantee you she has issues. She often, but not always hangs around with Lexi. Brittany and Lexi are likely to suffer excessive cattiness, may have body issues, and I wouldn't be surprised if they had problems getting their work done combined with parents who make excuses for them. Just my opinion, of course, but my opinion is based on some pretty consistent observations and quality data collection.

The most difficult part of my day was actually trying to fit into some item of clothing which resembled something professional. The dilemma was twofold: one, my stomach is poking out and becoming round. This makes pants with buttons a challenge and length of shirts an issue. If you take a look at today's styles, you wouldn't think this would be too much of a problem since shirts have become nice and long of late. But I have to stop and remind you that the professional side of my closet underwent a fairly rigid pause about Fall 2005. It was January 2006 when I became knocked up with Piglet and subsequently stopped working at the end of that school year. Winter 2007 I spent breastfeeding in warm up suits, and then all of a sudden, there we are at Winter 2008 and I found my wardrobe to consist of shorter shirts and dusty pants. It's a sad waste of clothes, I tell you. After trying on approximately 63 outfits, I squeezed into my former black Fat Pants and a newish shirt of appropriate length which was too thin for the cold weather, but looked okay except for the hood of my bellybutton poking out if you looked too closely. Hopefully, none of those Wills looked too closely.

Ah, well. The teaching was fun and my day went well. I am now snuggled down in bed, my most perplexing thoughts revolving around the mystery of Stephano Dimera being allowed to wear a suit in prison while those around him wear standard jail attire. Don't laugh, I think that soaps have suddenly bumped up in quality as compared to the reruns that fill my Tivo, as they are inexplicably unaffected by the writer's strike. And to all a good night.