Rude awakening

Today was a "late arrival day" at school. Late arrival days are only designated as such because the students arrive late, while teachers have to the endure mind-numbing meetings wherein we gather with our curriculum teams to discuss progress on the multitude of goals we are forced to set for ourselves each year. Most of these goals involve improving student performance on various tests, with the ultimate goal of improving their performance on the standardized tests used to determine AYP (annual yearly progress- NCLB). What a treat.
As a gift to myself, I make it a late arrival day for myself as well. Whereas my alarm typically goes off at 4:50, with me snoozing until as late as 5:20 on a normal day, my alarm goes off at 5:10 with me hitting the snooze button until about 5:40 on a late arrival day. So instead of arriving at 6:50 or so, I arrive at 7:30. Well today was a little different. On this late arrival I actually arrived LATE, as in 10 minutes past 8:00 late, 35 minutes AFTER the meetings started. I don't even know how it happened. I vaguely remember my alarm clock going off at the designated time. After that, I don't remember a damn thing. I may have pushed the "off" button instead of the snooze button; I may have never even set the alarm to begin with. Either way, as I slept soundly in my warm (but oddly uncomfortable) bed, that inevitable feeling of overindulgence crept into my brain. When I realized I was just too well-rested for it to be a Wednesday, my eyes snapped open to see 6:40 staring at me in the face. 6:40. Normally at 6:40, I am a Jack Bauer-style "5 minutes out" from school. But today at 6:40, I was in a Whitney Houston-style coma in my bed in Chicago, which is about 50 minutes (sans traffic- HAH!) away from my school. This is not the ideal way to start any day, much less the day after the night I had on Tuesday...
(cue flashback sequence....) My boss asked me on Monday if I could fill in for a colleague at the dreaded 8th Grade Parent Open House night at my school on Tuesday evening. The colleague had some sort of family emergency, and my boss, knowing that I am incapable of saying no (insert joke about naughty college years here), asked me to fill in. In spite of my sinus headache, runny nose and a sore throat the size of a college co-ed's at a Top 25 basketball team victory party, I said I'd do it. By 9:00 on the night of parent night, I was regretting that decision, and began to wonder if I should start subscribing to "O Magazine" where I've seen the headline "Learn how to say no to your boss (and yes to your health!)" on the cover at least 3 times. I have to admit, I was on fire though in front of all those parents. I did an academy award winning performance for them, complete with cheesy jokes and sly winks at hot dads in the front row (...kidding of course).
So when I finally got home on Tuesday night, I went directly into my room and passed out, not from a wine-drinking binge, but from a working binge. I felt so damn responsible it nearly made me sick.
That Golden Apple award-winning feeling melted away when I saw 6:40 on my alarm clock the next morning. The shit of it is that there are some people that get to school that late every damn day. But because I have set this precedent of being one of the early birds, I was convinced I wouldn't hear the end of it. As it turns out, no one even cared, and when I called my boss to tell her, she said it was no problem.
Moving on, Built To Spill is coming to Chicago again in April. I've seen them 3 or 4 times already, but I'm going again. I might even splurge and attend both shows. I hate that feeling that I might have missed one of my favorite songs on the night I didn't go. So I'll just avoid that and go to both. I might not be able to find a date, but it won't be the first show I've attended alone (loser). I know my ex will attend at least 1 of them, but we agreed that we will share custody of BTS.
Well, I have to set my alarm now. 4:50. Not 6:40. 4:50.
Wish me luck.