Sympathy for the Devil

After some internal debate, I decided to send a holiday card to Elphaba just to let her know she didn't shut me down. Of course I wrote a card in the most conciliatory tone—just shy of sycophantic—but the underlying message was, "you played your little game, but you didn't ruin my name." Reminds me of the lyrics in the Stones' song:

"Pleased to meet you,
hope you guess my name/
But what's puzzling you,
is the nature of my game.”

Coincidentally, Elphaba sounds sort of like Beelzebub (don't you think? as in the mosh-up Beelphabub?), which is also appropriate to these lyrics. I didn't plan that correlation—funny how that worked its way into my thoughts. As I said in my introductory post, there are some poison apples in the orchard, and Beelphabub has been one of them (see Witchy Poo and her poison apple above right). I shall, however, refrain from letting one rotten apple spoil my otherwise lovely orchard.

On a more festive holiday note, I sent thank-you cards to the principal and the assistant principal at City High and one of the other English teachers there, Mr. Pline. In addition, I decided to go ahead and send a card to "Coach Donahue"—the co-teacher in Beelphabub's class—who had given me some solid classroom management advice while I was at Hendrickson High. I don't expect anything to come from any of the cards I sent, but I figure it's just professional courtesy—something most people seem to overlook these days.