Bartleby.

All these gray, gloomy, cold days make me think of all the things I *haven't* done in winter because of it. I have S.A.D., I know it. When winter comes I hole up like a bear, and you really don't see me until Spring. That first day of spring I always call in sick to work, go get a big KFC bucket, and when I used to live in Richmond, go to Maymont Park with a book and my sunglasses to melt the winter crust off.

That would be mid to late April usually, but here in Pittsburgh, we really can't expect a day like that until late June - if we're lucky. So here lately, I've been forcing myself out of the house, but it's hard. The pull of the comforter is so strong. I'm like a plant - without sun I don't flourish.

When I was a Junior in high school I checked out that winter so bad I didn't even turn in a term paper, which was probably the most blasphemous thing you could do at Hermitage High in 1984. I just pulled a Bartleby and stated, "I prefer not to," when Mrs. Rasnake ordered me to write a fifteen-page paper on the Circus Maximus. I'm sorry Mrs. Rasnake I prefer not to. I've written 15 gazillion notecards on something I could give two farts about and as for creating something legible out of all this mess in the thick of winter and the sun hasn't shone in three months, uh, sorry, no.

"But Juh-nell, you'll fail English!" she gasps clutching her pearls (okay, I added that for effect).

"Uh, Mrs. Rasnake, I don't have an 'L' in my first, middle, or last name," I retorted. She points her finger out the door ordering me to the office.

Okay, I made that last part up. Mrs. Rasnake did call me that the entire school year but back then I never had the nerve to call her on it. I always wanted to and in my mind made up various clever, snarky remarks I would make in response and other more devious scenes where she would end up looking like an ass and I would finally get the attention and "coolness" I wanted. But I was always too much of a chicken. I would just sit there and Bartleby my way through the rest of the year of English - I ended up with a "D" for the semester which ruined my GPA - a big deal back then.

Those of you who spent high school competing with one another for the highest GPA's will know what I'm talking about here. At my school your GPA meant the difference between UVA and J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College down the road. And we were all just poor enough to really want that scholarship. Isn't it amazing that something that meant so much back then is like ashes at the end of a cigarette now? Remember when crap like that was important? Weird, huh?

Why do I remember this? It always amazed me that a teacher could go 180 days and not learn a student's name or even something that was remotely close to it. So when I became a teacher, it was the first thing I did. Learn their names and more than that, learn who these creatures were in the desks before me. More than just bored eyes and tapping fingers and shaking, bored feet in Etnie shoes. They're not just grades in a book, they're people.

But I digress. I suppose I'll never flourish in winter. I've got a sunbox now, and at least it gets me out the door - I don't call in sick like I used to. I slog to work with the rest of the lemmings. But I still think bears have it pretty good.