Assorted evidence of insanity

I woke up at 5am on Tuesday, and as I rolled over to drift back to sleep, a little voice reminded me that my grant proposal needs to be submitted a week before its official deadline.  And then I started counting backwards from the official deadline, and jumped out of bed.  It's due at the end of this week.  Not next week.  Stupid, stupid voice in my head.  So I spent the next two hours writing.  And guess what I'm doing tomorrow morning?  

Speaking of writing, I have far too many writing projects looming over me, and I don't seem to be able to finish any of them.  All those projects are really stressing out that same little voice in my head -- the one in charge of keeping things organized and running on time.  It can't keep track of what needs to be done and when, and it is lashing out against me in its frustration.  I'm not quite sure what to do with it.  To make things worse, the writing projects themselves keep bothering me, too.  They all clamor for my attention, and when they don't get it, they pile on the guilt -- at least the work projects do.  The fiction projects don't just pile on guilt.  They scream at me to do something about them.  And unlike the work projects, which stay down when I tell them to except for a whimper of guilt, the fiction ones climb after me, and attack when my guard is down, such as when I'm drifting off to sleep, or walking over to work.  If I were this single minded about work projects, I'd be winning my Nobel prize.

Jonathan needed a Wednesday after school program.  So I volunteered.  I offered to run a math program for kids, grades 3 through 6.  I have taught it three times so far.  There are too many kids.  There are so many kids that even the simplest example takes forever to explain.  And every kid has an idea for an answer to every question.  Or if they don't have an idea, at least they have something else that they really really need to share.  And if I don't have a question for them to answer?  Then they have one for me!  They talk on top of each other and on top of me.  And they generate random, unexpected answers that I have to think about, and that I have to ask everyone else to think about, but it's hard to think when you really really need me to call on you.  Oh!  Oh!  Please!  Please let me spew something random!  Me, I come home totally wiped out.  But I don't think there is anything I can do about it.  How could I justify squelching such enthusiasm, especially for math, of all things?  

Today I forgot my keys.  I biked to school in the rain, and then went to lock up my bike and found my keys were not in my pocket.  So I looked at my watch.  I had to teach class in eight minutes.  Home was a 15 minute bike ride in the wrong direction.  So I wheeled my bike up to my department office, begged to borrow the master key, let myself into my office and parked my bike behind my desk, and ran off to do my teaching.  Later in the day, someone saw me wheeling my bike out of my office, and said I was very smart to have brought it in out of the rain.  Except that I felt like a complete idiot for having forgotten to bring my keys.  

I think I'd better stop.  I am coming up with too many items that point to my insanity, and I can't afford the time to see a therapist.  Must write....  Aaah!