Sick in the City

Being sick sucks, but if you are a teacher it double sucks. Most jobs, you are able to call in sick and not really worry about much responsibility. Not so with this gig. You have to prepare lesson plans, contend with the fact that your students will treat a substitute with some semblance of disrespect and, above all, worry about whether or not your classroom will be in shambles when you get back.

But you just have to take a day once in a while. For me, that was yesterday. I arrived at school with a 101 degree fever, feeling weak in the knees (not in a good, Anderson Cooper way), and wanting to lay my head down and weep. Why did I even bother getting up and hauling ass to school? Because I didn't want to have to deal with putting sub plans together, that's why! They are a pain in my coccyx. A pain, I say.

You know it's going to be senseless work and you know you are never really going to look at it. Yet, you have to put some middling effort into putting them together. After being at school for ten minutes, though, it was clear I wasn't going to make it.

Perhaps it was the fact that I fell asleep lurched over the copier, but I don't know...

I packed my bag, hopped on the train and made my way back home. The world is so different during the day if you aren't working. For one thing, it appears that no one in New York City actually works. People are everywhere. I mean, all of these people can't possibly blog for a living, can they?

I drifted in and out of consciousness throughout the day, and each time I came to, I would like to myself, "If I was teaching, I would be doing A or B right now." It's kind of sweet to realize you aren't doing either of those things. Instead, you are lying on the couch you rarely lie on because you are so busy and watching season six of "The Simpsons." Does life get any sweeter? Only if I had been well enough to scarf down some mozzarella sticks. Mmmm...mozzarella sticks.