getting lost

Angie got me this shirt for Christmas. She thought she was getting a "girly" size small when in reality she was getting a little girl's size small. She told me "that's OK, because you're Little People Big World." She thinks that is funny. Anyway, the shirt has some meaning to me because somewhere I have a "Meat Is Murder" t-shirt from my youth. For anyone who might not know, it is an album and song title from the smiths (one of my all-time favorite bands). I was actually a vegetarian for several years. Three different doctors had to persuade me to eat meat and dairy once again. Angie didn't know any of that. She just thought it was funny and especially since it is a pink shirt and, as she puts it, I am a little person...and for some reason that shit's just funny.


I cannot believe that this is true, but I got lost today!

Some back-story first (because, as I have come to embrace about myself, I love the back-story).

Heck, I am *this-close* to launching into a story about how I have come to embrace that about myself...but I won't.

Work was delayed two hours due to the snow (and I could go on and on about what a farce it was to even have school today at all...but I won't). The power went out during third period (we only have four classes each day and alternate back and forth from day to day for a total of eight classes, in doing so we are able to have longer class periods). Luckily, my room has two walls that are pretty much all windows so the room is full of light. Third period is my planning period, so I don't teach a class then. My friend Angie does, so I invited them into my room since hers is an interior room and was dark like a cave. She and I team-teach together fourth period and we immediately figured out how we could still have a productive day even without power. But it didn't come to that because the administration decided to have the students remain in their third period class for the rest of the day, even though the power came back on at about an hour before dismissal. (One thing that I will whole-heartedly admit--the back-story isn't always relevant or necessary in order to hear the *real* story...sometimes I am just setting the stage, and sometimes I am just being tangential...hence my complete over-use of parenthesis). Ahem...so anyway...since my fourth period class wasn't going to happen I asked Sheri if I could leave early to return the helium tank and carpet. She is supercool and said yes.

I am so glad that I left work about 20 minutes early, because I ended up doing about an hour of extra driving. Yes, an hour. The first bit of detour happened after I returned the tank, the onramp that used to lead to I5 north off of 38th St now only goes onto Hwy 16...and once I was on it I couldn't get off. So that doesn't count as being lost, I knew where I was the entire time and just had to endure it.

It was after I delivered the carpet that I somehow--I still am bewildered by it all--merged onto the wrong freeway. I was certain that I was merging onto I5 north. I was just there the other day, doing the exact same thing. How could I have gone in the wrong direction? How could I not know where I was? The only way I can make any sense of it all is that it was snowy and the roads were slushy and when I got onto the freeway my attention was on the road ahead of me and the semi trucks that were way too close to me in the next lane. Then as things started to get more into the flow with the traffic and the road was less slushy I was simultaneously lost in thought (baby thinking, no doubt) and listening to the radio...George "W" had a big speech last night so there is a big buzz all about it from all sides of the political spectrum. So my mind was occupied, but it still makes me just flabbergasted that it didn't register in my brain that I wasn't seeing all of the landmarks that I always see. I drive that road 5 days a week and have for 7 years. Of course it did finally trickle down into my brain. The thought was actually this:

"Gee, I don't recognize this stretch of the freeway. That's weird. I've driven this freeway so many times, why don't I recognize it? Is it because I am always on autopilot? If all of the sudden someone plunked me down in this spot right here I honestly don't think I would know where in the hell I am."

So after thinking those thoughts my attention to my surroundings became much more acute. I started seeing signs for roads and yes, even towns, and BINGO--realized that I didn't know where in the hell I was...or how in the hell that happened. So I took the next exit and decided to turn around and head back in the direction I was just coming from (when in doubt, back-track). And low and behold, the opposite direction was I5 north. This just confused me even more. I was sure of one thing, I definitely had not driven south on I5 all that way...but here I was about 20 minutes south and east of Tacoma!

So that was my big adventure today. It was more a mental adventure than anything else.