So Tired

Has it been a week already? My, how time flies.

This past week has been rather hectic. I started my job on Monday, right in the middle of the busy season. It's that time of the year when winter has finally disappeared for good, and every school teacher in the area has had the same brainstorm. "Hey, the weather's turned nice, and if I schedule a field trip I'll be able to get out of my stuffy classroom and actually enjoy the sunshine. And I won't have to actually teach my class of ruffians if I can come up with a way to make the trip 'educational.' Hey! I know! I'll take them to the Zoo!" The teacher then pats herself on the back for having such an original idea, and dials my number, where I am frantically trying to enter the registration information for the other 15 teachers that have had the same bright idea in the last hour.

I'm really not complaining, though. I really do like my new job, despite the fact that I can't see my desk. I know within a week or two the calls will slow down, I'll get the hang of all of the computer systems, and I'll figure out what doors all of the keys on my key ring open. In the meantime, I'm just enjoying the fact that I have something to keep me busy, and it's in an office where no one thinks it unusual that we usually have a roseate spoonbill or cattle egret wandering around the back of the office. (The upstairs office has fledgling Lanner falcons that will be trained for the bird show. This is not a normal office setting, folks.)

I got my new car on Monday, but I still haven't logged enough time behind the wheel to feel confident enough to drive it home. (It is currently living in Zappagirl's garage, where she can use it to blackmail me when I beat her in online spades.) I'm hoping that this weekend I will finally get the hang of this stick shift thing, because I'm tired of being stranded at home and dpending upon the kindness of friends and family to take me places. I miss the freedom of being able to make a midnight run to Burger King if I feel so inclined.

Zappagirl and I went to a sneak preview of The Scorpion King the other night. Following in the footsteps of the last Mummy installment, it's a silly action movie with non-stop fight scenes and cliffhanger scenes. It's insipid as hell, and follows every formula ever created for the genre. Muscle bound lunkhead hero, barbaric but honorable, and bent on avenging the death of his brother? Check. Evil power hungry guy who kills everything in his path to get his way? Check. Sexy and scantily clad psychic (preferably Asian) chick, who inevitably will fall for our hero? Check. Wacky ex-criminal sidekick for the hero who will follow him to the ends of the earth because the hero saved his life? Check. Camel who is probably smarter than everyone else in the film? Check. Cute rapscallion of a kid who strikes up an alliance with the hero? Check. Kick ass female warriors with implants? Check. Hermit-type guy who is researching Chinese "magic powder," which will always mean gunpowder so the hero can blow up things real good? Check. The list goes on and on. And despite the fact that it was a color by numbers wrestling match masquerading as a feature film, we enjoyed the hell out of ourselves. The Rock may not ever win any awards for his dramatics, but he seemed to be having a good time. (Although in an interview last week on Today, he told Katie Couric that he wanted to do more movies, and hoped to escape the action genre. Don't quit your day job, Dwayne. I'm not holding my breath for your take on Hamlet.)

After the movie, we decided the only way to follow up something that stupid but fun was dinner at Hooters and the newest episode of The Osbournes. I cannot profess my love for this show enough. It's just insane.

With all of this sudden hustle and bustle in my life, my body is having a hard time adjusting, and I've actually found myself exhausted after I come home from work. The unseasonal heatwave and the fact that I just started a diet isn't helping either. It feels like all of the energy has been sapped from my body, it's excruciatingly warm in my apartment (I refuse to turn on the air conditioning yet, since I know the weather will be back to normal by the weekend), and for the past few days I've come home and collapsed. While this is a good thing, since I have a gigantic sleep deficit to work off, the fact that I'm crashing and burning at 6:30 pm only to find myself unable to sleep at 2:00 am is not. So I'm taking melatonin in hopes of getting on a normal sleep schedule, supplemented by the more than occasional cup of Sleepytime Extra tea.

I'm almost out of tea, though. I need to learn to drive my car soon. My sleep schedule depends upon it.