The Gift of Tongues

On days like this I wish I could drown myself in beer. It's another weekend and there is still far too much to do, three places too many in which to be. And like a dedicated soldier of the old Soviet Union, I'll throw myself at the tasks anyway.

I don't relish the idea of knocking back a few super drys with my old friends. Beer tends to loosen tongues. More often than not, loose tongues let slip sentiments buried in the name of keeping the peer group from splintering. Addled friends then use their unsheathed, sharpened tongues to skewer each other. 

It would be great though, if those loose tongues would stay soft and just lightly touch. The arms would follow, then the torsos. The night would pass and all those buried sentiments would rise up safely, usefully, out of our souls and into the great hereafter... where all the hangups, the recriminations, the fouled expectations go after we've come to terms with them.    

But we all know that's not gonna happen. 

I waste my gift on people who don't appreciate it. I think that's my superpower-- the ability to find and pledge myself to lost causes with pretty words.  

Anyway, tomorrow (meaning later today), I will use the old silver tongue again. To explain the intricacies of teaching TOEFL. To ultimately give another batch of dreaming Koreans another shot at a life unfettered by the limits of their native language. 

It's the job, I know, and I'm not really complaining much. It's just that there are far better uses for my gift, far better places for my lips, my breath, my tongue to be, now that I've put another work week behind me.

I hhhhhhhaaate weekends.