Extroversion and a glass of wine

I'm drinking a glass of wine at 4:00, which is clearly breaking that 5:00 rule. But then again, I also just had dinner, which may be a mitigating factor.

Clearly my normal schedule is way off! I was up at 6:00 a.m. for the first time in months and had lunch at 11:00 a.m., so everything's just gotten shifted earlier. I am now fighting off the urge to go to bed, which would just exacerbate this situation.

The reason for all of this scheduling chaos is that today I went to Temporary School, where I'll be filling in for one month as a teacher of high school juniors. I was going to get introduced to the students, pick up the textbooks, get logged into the computer system and introduced to the technology, and other miscellanea. It turns out that the commute is about a 45-minute drive due to traffic; combined with that whole working-a-full-day thing, all of this is going to make for a much longer day than I've been used to for the last many months.

Plus I had insomnia last night, which means I've been operating on less than six hours of sleep, when I really need at least seven to function well. The source of my sleeplessness was the incredible adrenaline high I was on after beginning a four-week class I'm leading at my parish. It was the first time I'd taught (other than my less than fabulous demonstration during my on-campus interview at Temporary School) since last May, and it was SO MUCH FUN! I came home and announced to D. that, whatever career path I found myself on, it must include teaching in some form. She looked at me blankly and asked, "Is this new information? Didn't you already know you loved teaching?" Well, yes, but it's good to have these things reinforced.

I'm hoping that by the time I actually start this temporary gig in a few weeks, the adrenaline rush of getting to teach again will have moderated and I'll be able to sleep at night. But it is going to be a huge (and probably good) adjustment to have to go to bed by a certain point at night so that I get enough sleep before getting up in the morning and commuting. Oh, and showering first thing in the morning and putting on something other than sweatpants. Goodness, it will be just like being an adult! D. and I are going to the outlet mall on Thursday for me to pick up some extra clothes for this new having-a-wardrobe phenomenon, and I'm quite excited about it.

Last week in the class I'm auditing, apropos of something we were discussing at the end of class, the professor said that it must be hard for an extrovert to sit through a sermon in church and not get to talk back. This is indeed agony for me (I often want to raise my hand mid-sermon and say, "But what about X?") but even more than that this throwaway comment kept swirling in my mind until I had a slow-going epiphany the next day. I've been wondering this last few weeks why I've been talking so much in this annoying class, especially when I keep sternly chiding myself to sit back and be quiet. And suddenly last Wednesday I realized: This is the only time in the week when I actually talk to anyone other than D. I go days and days when I don't actually speak to another human being, other than to say "hello" at the gym or grocery store. And while I'm certainly not an off-the-charts extrovert and like my alone time as much as the next person, I do rely on stimulating contact with other people  to help me know that I'm alive, that I'm a functioning member of society, that I'm someone worth knowing. And that piece has been missing in my life this semester. So I think I've gone into class almost desperate for human contact. Plus class provides an academic context in which I can feel like a competent person capable of carrying on an intelligent conversation.

But clearly I need not to rely on auditing a class for my sense of being an alive, intelligent human being of worth! And I need not to rely on D. for all of my human contact; we've never been one of those couples who are all-in-all to each other, and so this lack of other company is, I think, an unnatural strain on us at times.

Last Friday I went out to lunch with a neighbor who's becoming something of a friend. We went out for a burrito and spent three hours talking and talking about most things under the sun. I felt so invigorated afterward! I want to make a point of seeking out experiences like that lunch and like the parish class last night. A few conversations along those lines in a week would, I think, help me to retain this sense of self and be much more happy (and productive!) when I'm alone in the apartment.

And now that I've had more interaction in the last 24 hours than in the last month or more, I'm seriously considering skipping the audited class tonight. I wouldn't really learn anything (it apparently not being that sort of class), and I'm just so damned sleepy. And I'm so sated with other people's company that I think I'd rather have one more glass of wine, go to bed really early, and get up tomorrow morning and buckle down to reading and writing.

E.T.A. I wound up going to class after all, since D. pointed out to me quite rightly that 7:00 p.m. was really too early to go to bed. And I went with the expectation that I would learn nothing at all, which it turns out is exactly the appropriate frame of mind -- cuts down significantly on the frustration level. And I had three good conversations with other folks, both in small group work and at the break, and those conversations made the evening for me. So that's all good. And now it's 9:45, which is a perfectly reasonable time to retire for the evening. So it's off to bed for me, and early to rise in the morning for what I hope is a productive day of work!