Difficult morning, for many reasons.

Let me begin by saying that one should not watch "Brokeback Mountain" when one has other emotional things on one's plate. Great film, wrong time. Then again, I've needed a good cry for awhile. This morning was just as good as any.

My mom called to say my money was in my account. (She's paying it forward into her butt-wiping account.) She calmed me a bit. We're getting together soon for a rousing night of sewing and Scrabble. Mom and I really know how to party!

On the way to the ferry, a classmate who lives 80 miles from school called to let me know she wouldn't be in class today. Someone slammed her 14-year-old against a wall at school, he has a lump on his head and the school nurse is trying to keep him conscious. My friend won't take him to Podunk General, so she's going home to take him to a better facility. She also called to tell me that she found out we are once again deviating from our syllabus in massage practice class. We have revised the syllabus once, and within a week that was useless. Now I'm wondering why we have one at all.

Yeah, I'm in the perfect frame of mind to do a massage exchange with first-term students. Perfect.

I keep emergency chocolate in the glove compartment expressly for days like this.