I Should Be Grading!

I should be grading.

I have the paint. I have the rollers and pans and brushes -- make that: the roller, the pan, the brush. I have the step ladder. I have the blue tape. I just haven't found a spare second to do the actual painting. Story of my life.

Meanwhile, although running eight miles at a time was my goal for December, I have already achieved it. I'm about 2 lbs. short of my not-really-a-goal-but,-really,-it-was-a-goal of losing weight.

By the time the weight got to something I considered acceptable for a woman over 40 and the number of miles became something impressive, I found myself at a crossroads. One road led to eating disorders. Being as I was a fucked-up, white girl in the suburbs with serious control issues, I was anorexic in my youth. Hell, part of me is still sort of impressed that I had the discipline to get as deathly skinny as I got at around age 19. (That's fucked-up on its own.) So when the numbers on the scale kept going down and down and down, the lower number became something that I was chasing, and I started to think that I wanted to see how low the number could go.

That response I quickly found at odds with the other, which was the endorphin high and satisfaction that comes from seeing how far and fast your own body can go. I love that feeling of "damn! I just ran EIGHT miles!" (Or "ran" eight miles.) Sometimes, it's the single feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction that I have in a week. Yet, running eight miles burns off about 1000 calories, and I began to realize just how important those calories are in being able to run another eight miles the next day or the day after while also being able to simply function during the day.

So, the question became: do you really want to take the fucked-up path of eating disorders, or do you want to maintain that feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment? I'm proud to say, I chose the latter. Silly, but true.

Also, I sometimes find myself on the treadmill thinking, "I could stop now. There's no shame in simply running 6 or 5 or 4 miles. In fact, it's downright impressive." Still, I keep going not for the sense of accomplishment and satisfaction or for the eating disorder. I keep going because stopping means that I will have to face yet more grading. Stopping means that I will have to face the feeling that I am a lazy bum who dared to take an hour or two for her own health or sanity or whatever she is doing that means she is not grading every single second of the day. Then, I tell myself that, if running is avoiding grading, I can only justify the running by running really really far. Heck, that's two different kinds of fucked up right there. I'm quite talented in that department!

Which brings me back to painting. I feel almost guilty for having taken the time to even write about my desire for painting, much less going to price the paint and pick up paint chips on Saturday, then going to purchase the painting accoutrement on Sunday. Why wasn't I grading during those precious minutes?! Why am I wasting my time and writing this instead of grading right this very second?! Why must I shower and go to the restroom and eat when I could be grading?!

I mean, I do grade. And grade and grade and grade and grade. Seriously. Yet, it never ends. There is no relief in sight, just the hope that I met the grading quota for the day (ten) and then have to wake up and start the quota for tomorrow. I'm really not understanding how this is "learning centered" when the time/space continuum does not allow for any real time to be spent on meaningfully addressing the problems in these papers or improving what happens in the classroom because of the avalanche of grading.

Ah, but now I've written a serious post that I vowed not to write, and I'm working myself into a pissy tizzy before 7 am. That's another of my special talents, too!

On a final note, yesterday I showed the film Iron Jawed Angels to a group of students (more on that later, because it ended up being an incredibly positive experience that I would have written about here right now had I realized that I was going to take up this amount of time when I started to write this post, which was when I thought this post would only take a minute or two). In it, the Lucy Burns character was trying to motivate the Alice Paul character by reminding her of the fun they had storming Parliament. They had been hiding in a closet, when Paul had to pee. Burns (god, Frances O'Connor was lovely and fun in that role!) suggested Paul relieve herself in a Lord's boot. "That's what we do," Burns reminded Paul. "We piss in the boot then come out with guns blazing."

That's kind of how I get through my days, and what I'm about to do right after I click "publish post." I "piss in the boot then come out with guns blazing." Figuratively speaking, of course. My talents for being fucked-up don't go so far as actually pissing in a boot.

At least, not yet.