A Long Day

I have absolutely nothing to write about today. I'm tired and that seems to be my default setting these days. It's hard to believe that people used to tell me "Get some rest. You're running yourself ragged." Maybe that's it. I used up all of my energy in my teens.

In high school I'd get up around 7 in the morning. I had five minutes to get ready and then I'd be out the house so that I could play tag with the driver of the 7:06 bus. That bastard would see me running and speed up so that he could beat me to (and drive past) the bus stop. This was back in my track days, so I won most of the time.

One hour and one bus transfer later, I'd be at school. That's when I'd finish the rest of my homework that the concentration camp leaders gave us to do and then I'd give my blood offering to the education process for six and a half hours. Then I'd go to track practice for 90 minutes and then change into my work clothes. Forty Five minutes, one bus and one subway ride later, I'd be at the movie theater in Pentagon City where my job was to waste away my youth.

I worked from 5:30 to 11:30 and then I'd scramble to get to the subway before the last train. I'd get to my stop around midnight and then walk another mile to my house. I'd get in the house and make myself something to eat for dinner. Nine times out of ten it was a hot dog, oodles of noodles, a can of Bruce's Yams and some grape Kool-Aid. I know that's random, but we seemed to have an abundance of those.

Around 1 in the morning I'd make a half-ass attempt to do some homework. My school prided itself on giving out 2-3 hours of homework a night. I prided myself on not caring so they got about an hour of homework out of me. At 2 in the morning I'd usually start counting on my fingers the number of hours I had left to sleep. I'd end up talking to some girl on the phone for a half hour (Uh uh, no I'm not sleep) and then I'd go to sleep.

If I have any former high school teachers reading this, now you know why I kept falling asleep in your class. The weekends were no better. I just went to two jobs instead of one. I remember one teacher in twelfth grade came upon this profound idea: Why don't you just quit your job!? She then gave me the After School Special speech about how I was smart and had a future and I could be on the honor roll like so and so if only I applied myself and quit my job.

I can't remember exactly what I said, but it had a lot of words that you're not supposed to say to teachers. Something along the lines of:

Do you know how much bus tokens cost? College applications? How about deodorant, lunch money, laundry money, class dues? Then I pulled out my pocket organizer and showed her my list of expenses for the month. Do you really think I'm killing myself doing this because I WANT to? I don't have a choice.

She never brought it up again. Strangely enough, she talked to one of the administrators and got me a job at the school stamping textbooks, cleaning out lockers and organizing the files in the office. That just added another thing I had to do during my day.