09.18.2007 - 10:08 p.m.

I always turn off my cell before the class I teach. If theirs goes off, they have to sing "I'm a little teapot" in front of the class. If mine goes off, I owe them lunch.

I usually forget to turn it on until just before the class I take, when I have to consult with the husband over what the hell we'll be eating after our respective twelve-hour days.

Tonight, when I turned it on, I had a text from one of my best friends: "You okay?"

I didn't answer it then, as I was trying to print up a paper to hand in and to find my good notetaking pen. But I did some thinking about it, in between the words that needed writing down. Was I okay? Had I seemed particularly unbalanced here lately? Was it that time, where I should be sharing something that was drowning me?

I did some math in my head, thinking of why I might not be okay. All summer, I worked a 40-hour week, of which up to twenty might have been worked from home. Since classes have started, I teach a class, prepare for that class, grade for that class, take another class, do homework and reading and the extra field hours for that class...

... and I came up with 60 hours. Some of which are still worked from home, I'll grant you... but now, they're actually-worked, not pretend-worked-while-writing-for-fun. Some of which are even actually-worked at two in the morning. But they aren't drowning me, not yet.

I called my friend back after class. "Hi," I said. "I'm okay."

"Good," he said.

"You sent me a text where you asked. I didn't know why," I explained. I am Captain Obvious at the ends of days like this.

"Oh. There was a thing, by the college. With cars and a Medevac. So I wanted to... I just get paranoid about these things," he answered.

He does. Once, years ago, there was a tornado warning, and he called to make sure I knew. Left me a message, since I was in a meeting. It was the first time he'd ever told me he loved me, and I saved that thing, every thirty days, all the way to this last year, when my pathological avoidance of my cellphone during the wedding planning got it overwritten. I was sad when I realized it had gone.

But I'll always be okay, with friends like him.

-stonebridge

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