I tried on a beauuuuuuuuuuuutiful coat yesterday. It was black wool, floor length, and cut just enough like Keanu's coat in Matrix Reloaded to make me swoon but not so much like it that I looked like I was in costume. It was long and swoopy and had these quasi-military-esque double buttons and an awesome folded-over collar thing.

It was on a rack under a big sign that said "$199.98! 30% or more taken off at register!"

But it was on the wrong rack.

It was $500.

I put it back.

pooh.

Jessica, that's fucking tragic. That coat should be yours. (And mine, too.)

Happy birthday, d!

But it was on the wrong rack.

oh, I HATE that!!!

Sometimes I think people do that on purpose just to be mean. Now I'm regretting a $35 coat I didn't buy on Melrose a few years ago. It was a long red-ish black coat with lots of laces and buckles, very JTHM. sigh. I wonder if I could find that store again.

I ordered the coat. I'll have to take the Macy's one back. It was cool, but wouldn't be a good raincoat.

And now, I'll get the J. Peterman catalog!

Trudy, I'm sorry to hear the news wasn't quite as good as you'd thought and am vibing hard that he's breathing on his own soon.

Happy birthday, d!

Vortex, that's a kick-ass coat, and it's going to look fab on you.

Speaking of coats, I really need to go through all of mine and get rid of at least half of them. For one thing, I have an absurd number of coats for someone living in Southern California. The bigger problem, though, is that I tend to fall in wuv twue wuv with certain coats and then hang onto them even when buttons have fallen off, seams have frayed, and zippers have broken. I think I need a coat intervention. (Btw, did anyone else watch HIMYM this week? All the interventions cracked me up.) The worst part of this confession is that I am craving already a NEW coat, despite the fact that I demonstrably do not need one.

In unrelated news, I've had a really good day and feel the need to share:

• I have made real progress in my grading.
  
• The Socratic Seminar I ran in my senior English class went really well.
  
• My colleague (the one who had a bit of a breakdown this past weekend) is back, which means 1.) yay colleague better and 2.)yay no more having to write her sub plans and/or sub her classes.
  
• For the first time in four years, I have actually been writing bits of my narrative comments ahead of time as I've been grading essays, which means the comment-writing process next weekend shouldn't be the nightmare it usually is.
  
• It's drug ed week for the students, so one of my four classes today was cancelled, and TWO of my four classes are cancelled tomorrow. Whee! More grading time!
  
• Our school has an absurdly wonderful Halloween fetish--everyone dresses up, the seniors run a haunted house that they created for the school, we have a "spooky field day" and costume contest, and the students leave at 12:30 (as the dean said in our meeting today, we sugar 'em up and send 'em home early). Of our normal six period day, we only see our classes periods 1, 2, and 3. Guess which periods I teach that day? That's right: 4, 5, and 6...which means I won't have to teach a single class that day. Since teaching is pretty much impossible on Halloween here anyway, that works out just fine with me.
  

Sorry to be all meme, but I thought that sharing some good news might be nice.

It's always good to hear good news. Especially at the moment when sister B has told the family she knows a secret about the alcoholic bf of sister A that we are not supposed to talk about until sister B sees sister A on Saturday after which if sister A continues her relationship with alcoholic bf, sister B will sever all relations with sister A. Of course my imagination is all over the place. I know about the child abuse (which sister B thinks the kids, now grown, made up), drunk driving, fits of rage, etc. What could be worse?

What could be worse?

only one thing I can think of. ugh.

Note to Not!Helpdesk -- You cannot close a ticket until the problem has been resolved. Telling me that "a lot of people have been calling with this problem" doesn't mean that it's solved. It means that the problem should be a higher priority because it's affecting multiple users.

Hi, all! I, umm, had to do some skipping and skimming, so all kinds of ~ma to those that needs it. {{{{{Bitches}}}}}}

I have been well and truly swamped. End of quarter which means grades and switching classes. Prepping for new 6th grade classes Monday. New 7th and 8th grade classes on the following Monday.

And, our fall show opens in 2 weeks. Next week is dress rehearsals. We are not ready. They know the songs and choreography, but we've only got 1/2 of Act 1 blocked. And, some of the kids are reading their lines like they've never ever seen them before. Yipes.

I just keep telling myself what a friend told me last year: They're middle school. If all they do is stand on the stage and fart, their parents would still love every second of it.