What glass?

I'm a stress case.

Most of you have, at some point in our relationship, realized this. Most of you have commented on it. The bravest of you have reassured/reproved me, bringing up examples from the past of times that I've stressed irrationally and laughed at myself later. The moral of the story: everything will probably be just fine.

Case-in-point: I offered to get tickets for Sundance for this mini-course I'm teaching. Offered like it was the promised crowning point of the course. Offered with only the vaguest conception of what getting tickets would entail. I waitlisted the very last shorts program of the festival last year with some friends. It was fantastic: rushed and mad and cold and obscene. Fantastic for a handful of college kids out on the town, exactly the opposite for ten 15-17 year old Lindon kids and my job. Anyway. Sometime last week the truth started to sink in: Advance ticketing. Online sales. People were getting tickets and those people weren't me, meanwhile my headmaster and coworkers started getting inquisitive: "Do you have tickets yet? When are you getting them?" And my plan, heading up to Park City the day the box office opened, started seeming less and less viable. If you could just go and buy tickets, why the notoriously hard-to-get reputation? And no chance for mercy, right? Sundance is not interested in selling tickets to groups or to teachers, no in that I could see.
This all accumulated into about an hour last night where I surfed around Sundance's terribly designed website listlessly, the muscles in my neck getting tighter and more tender by the minute. I'd failed. Failed and everyone was going to know and my students would hate me and I'd lose the good graces of my administration and not get into graduate school and doubtless I'd end up old and alone and living with stinky cats my entire life. The only logical possibility.

So I woke up early this morning, printed out a very handy list I found online--Best Bets--put on all black and headed out. (Not early enough, not prepared enough ulcer forming drowsy on the road.) I get to Trolley Square, find the box office, and take a seat. Number 6 in line. We start chatting: I know more about ticketing and films than half the people in line. Someone borrows my list. The man on my right starts telling about the time he waited for tickets for U2's film and they made an appearance. The former school teacher on my right berates herself for the first of many times (hrm). Rachel calls to tell me that Randy can come (I can only buy 4 tickets per screening) so Anne doesn't have to drive from Provo. The man on the right starts snoring. I have a conversation about Devil in the White City with man-in-line #10. Rachel and Randy come, the box office opens, I am the first in my line (6 cashiers), I buy 4 tickets and in 3 minutes I've collected all 12 from R&R. Done. We go to breakfast.

I gave myself ulcers for this? On the way home I get lost a little, am certain I'll be late for class and start berating myself for going to breakfast. I got to school right on time, though the half gallon of fluid I drank with breakfast started weighing real heavily around the point of the mountain. Into class, more dynamic and prepared-feeling than I have been all week.

Right now I'm thinking that someone probably bought tickets for the wrong night and that I'm screwed. This is unlikely.

I'm posting this mostly so I can remember, next time tragedy strikes, that everything will probably work out just fine. Dear ke: relax please. You're entirely competent and accomplished. Just a little reminder. Thanks. Love, ke.