2001-03-27 - 11:59 p.m.

The Inevitable Drunken Entry

If there is one cardinal rule about having an online dairy it is do not EVER write entries while drunk. And if you DO write them, you better not post them.

Hi, everybody!!!!!!!!!!

Yesterday was Lilly's and my nine-month anniversary but because of one thing and another we didn’t really get a chance to celebrate it. So tonight Lily cooked us a marvelous meal - the kitchen table was all festooned with candles. I bought a bottle of champagne to celebrate - I don't ever drink champagne! - and Lily and I finished off the bottle.

As we finished the last swallows from our tea cups (note to self: get some champagne classes) we turned to look at each other. Dude! We are so tipsy! The second thought we had: is there any more booze in the house?

I feel GREAT! It doesn’t seem to have affected my typing tho. While I'm working at this I am chatting with Lily on AIM and she can barely string two words together but she's fine to talk to. I am not so sensible when I'm talking.

As you might have guessed, I am an utter lightweight when it comes to alcohol. Thanks to diabetes I've all but given up drinking. I think I'm really going to be paying for this tomorrow. I couldn't even take my diabetes medicine because it said "do not take with alcohol." Well, like Lily says, I've forgotten my medicine before. Oh well.

In spite of how good I'm feeling now, today was kind of a crappy day. Today's chess class was the worst ever. None of the kids wanted to sit still and listen. A couple of them were openly defying me. Sigh. I really suck at being a teacher of young kids. I was pretty good at being a camp councilor, but that was 20 years ago, and its clearly not the same thing as being a teacher.

Everybody was talking and wriggling in their chairs, and Todd, the space cadet, was off in a world of his own. Several times I had to ask him to stop singing to himself, and I couldn't get him to participate in what the rest of the class was doing. I guess the voices in his head were talking too loud today. 

The kids were so restless that I gave up trying to teach them anything and just let them play for the last half of the class. Tim, probably the best player of the four of them, got paired with Todd today, and he was getting obviously annoyed at how slow and dreamy his opponent was being. Bill and Christine played three games in the time it took them to finish one.

Todd's father, whom I hadn't met before, came to pick him up, and he asked me how Todd was doing, and I told him that I couldn’t seem to get him to pay attention at all. The father got a little angry and said that he wasn't going to be bothering to bring Todd any more. He seemed to be equal parts irritated at Todd and me.

I feel sorry for the little guy - he clearly knows how the pieces move and is obviously not stupid, but his presence is incredibly disruptive. It's a relief to not have to deal with him any more.

I'm really disappointed in how this is turning out, but maybe today was just a bad kid day overall. As I was walking by the other classrooms on the way in I could hear the other teachers trying to discipline their kids.

Today, I also had to go see my father at Hotel Happy. Even though Monday was the day I was SUPPOSED to see him. Yesterday, I just flaked and forgot, which is a bad sign. However, I dislike going there so much I can see where I'd get selective amnesia about it.

He was as loopy as I've ever seen him. He was whining about the money in his bank account, but couldn’t seem to remember the account number. He also seems to have forgotten that April 15 is the deadline for filing income taxes. He thought the date was in February sometime. This, from a man who used to make his living in the financial services industry.

And, there is sad news on the hamster front. Poor Linda miscarried her babies. I don’t know if its because she is too old, or for some other reason. I'd like to try again for her to have a litter, but she seems to be plainly not feeling well. If she doesn’t perk up in the next week or so I'm going to give up the whole idea. Poor little thing.

NOTE: My typing wasn't as good as I thought it was, I had to fix a couple of things before I posted it, a few days later. Oh well!