My boss! Oh my holy shit. A while ago she treated me to an "informative" lecture on patron saints, starting from the assumption that I had never heard of the concept, because "I know you're not Catholic." As it happens, I'm not. But I certainly never mentioned that to her, AND I was raised Catholic, so I know the basics, AND I read, so sometimes I know stuff.
So I had to listen to fifteen AWESOME minutes of "...and that's why we pray to Saint Anthony for intercession! Now 'intercession' means..." I only put up with it because I wanted to know how long she would go without asking me if I already knew any of this. She did not ask.
This week my eyes have been horribly bloodshot, probably from the stress of going back to this job after a wonderfully long holiday. Same thing happened years ago when the bookstore was killing me. My boss, who has no tact, asks why my eyes look so awful and makes a very hilarious joke about the possibility of my still being hung over from New Year's. I say, damn, can you imagine what kind of bender I'd have to have gone on, to have eyes this red on Jan. 4th?, and besides, I don't really drink.
She says, Oh I know you don't. This didn't bug me until later, when I realized she does not know this about me, because I've never mentioned it, because it is none of her business. I don't know why it bothers me even more than the patron saint thing. But it does. She makes up her mind about people and will not be persuaded otherwise. This is, of course, the same woman who once threw away a long, complicated, important note I wrote her, detailing a bunch of activites I wanted to do with the kids, and also containing a list of supplies I needed her to buy. She read the first sentence and threw it away, because, she said, I figured I probably knew what it said. Wow. Wow.
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There's this kid, a middle-schooler. She's tall and goofy and smart and wonderful. I've sort of been courting her favor for a while. She only comes to the program about once a month, not enough time for much conversation, so it's hard to tell if she likes me. But I know I like her.
Today there was a big whispered conference so I knew one of the girls was having a problem. They were supposed to be doing algebra homework but really who gives a damn? Not me. So I did the perfect nonchalant saunter at the perfect distance from their table and it worked, I heard somebody say Hey, maybe you should ask Jess, she has good advice sometimes. Hmm, what, need help with your math?
Casey told me the details of her (of course) boy-related problem. It wasn't a hard one, but then I'm not hazy-headed with the weird angst of being thirteen. I basically solved her problem in three sentences, and made her laugh, and when I walked away I heard her say That's a really good idea, I think it might actually work! I really, really hope it does, because I was already smug about this all afternoon.
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Ava, four years old and halfway up the new climbing wall on the playground, paused when her head was level with mine. "How's work going?" she asked, very serious. I said that it was going all right, and how's playing? "Oh, it's good, we made up a new game and I'm having a pretty fun time." She gave me a little nod and got back to climbing; the kid had stuff to do.
