The last parent phone call of the year.

Little Jimmy was all set to graduate. All he had to do was pass my class. Not the easiest thing in the world to do, in all honesty, but not the most difficult, either. Doing he work and paying some semblance of attention tends to help. Little Jimmy, it should be pointed out, was none too hot at either of these habits.

So I made another one of my Award-Winning Parent Phone Calls. The Award-Winning Parent Phone Calls have a rhetorical structure to them that would make Cicero himself blush in pride. First I fineangle my way into their good graces, then call attention to the kid's poor performance (often glossing over the months beforehand that I didn't call by underscoring the numerous progress reports the school mails home and the wonderful facility for our online gradebook resources).

After that, I serve attention to any upcoming assignments, volley a suggestion that close monitoring on their part and contact on both our parts is bound to be successful, and smash my best wishes upon them for a happy rest of the day. Your serve now. Match. Back to the clubhouse for martinis, so to speak. (Man, I miss tennis.)

At the end of the year, however, it gets a bit harried. Usually, I have parents calling me about their kid's failing grade, which puts me not so much in the defensive as in the responsive, fielding serves like "What are his chances of passing," "How did his grade get so low?" and "Just what have you been doing in that classroom all year anyway?" with "It depends on the final exam", "He's been making all the wrong priorities" and "Hell, I don't know."

But when parents don't call, it makes me take the initiative. Which I don't like. It cuts into my doing-anything-but-calling-parents time.

Anyway, Little Jimmy failed to complete some required makeup work in time, and I realized that, despite numerous pleadings and parent contacts, not to mention guidance counselor visits, Little Jimmy wasn't going to pass my class. My class, I must point out, is a requisite for a diploma.

Little Jimmy's ex-cop dad picked up on the seventh ring. "My kid's not home right now, dipshit."

"Well, actually it was you I wanted to talk to, Mr. Jimmy."

"Start talking then, asswipe. Just don't expect any more money for your referendum. You should see my friggin' tax bill."

"No no, that ship has sailed. It's about your son. Have you spoken to him today?"

"What's it to you, dickbreath?"

"Well, I still haven't received his makeup work, and so he won't receive a passing grade. I'm afraid that means his graduation situation is untenable."

"The kid took an Elective," Mr. Jimmy said, belching. Thank God phones are only auditory. "He's an English credit ahead, so he doesn't need your class."

"Oh." I tried to digest this. "So all those other times we talked..."

"Nah, I want him to learn as much as he can. Doesn't sound like he did, though. I know I never got into all that fag poetry stuff you've been doing."

"Yes." I felt like gnawing through the line and spewing Wilfred Owen at him until he cried uncle. Who's the fag now, beeitch? "Well. I did notice his eyes were pretty red. And that he said something about a late-night party last night, where booze was served. Would he have attended a party like that?"

"Oh, it's possible."

"Still, it's probably not worth looking into," I replied. "I'm sure he was a model of teenaged virtue."

"Hey, listen dickhead," Mr. Jimmy interrupted. "I'll decide what's worth looking into."

That'll teach him.

Except it's my own fault. Going in those past few weeks to report his status, and I never even thought to check on whether or not he needed the class. That's like going to the dentist's, letting him yank your tooth, then grinning through a novacaine haze and saying, "Just a cleaning, right, Doc?"

That reminds me. I have a dentist appointment next week. I hate the dentist.

Eh...make that an hour.

I just got a blister opening a bottle of champagne. It's official--I'm out of shape.

OK, no booze for a month.

Four hours sleep last night, most likely due to paranoia over missing my cab ride this morning. I brought my alter-ego Dillinger to teach my morning classes, where he spent the better part of three hours glowering at the kids writing in-class responses, softly stroking his pencil-thin mustache.

"What are we learning from this?" one of my scholars spoke up.

"How to stay on my good side," Dillinger responded, helping himself to the erstwhile student's water bottle. "And a guarantee to live until graduation."

"Are you going to grade these papers?"

"What do you think?" he snapped back.

Afternoon classes weren't much better, so I cadged a ride to the mechanics. Paul Towers, local math teacher extraordinaire, favored my ears with a litany against his ex-wife the entire twelve miles to the station. Dillinger didn't bother to feign polite interest, moodily staring out the window and affecting a distasted air.

"I tell you, being married for ten years, you forget what it's like to be single," he was telling me. "I only got two girlfriends, though. Guess I'm slowing down."

The arrogant little prick. If he only knew. My social calendar is bursting apart at the seams. If I can get the Spice Channel free again tonight, I might stay up past eight-thirty.

The good news: the car is running again. Like new, if you ignore the wear and tear on everything but the glove compartment.

The even-better-than-good-news: the whole deal only cost me $50. A walk in the park. Dillinger celebrated by drinking a bottle of wine he found where I usually keep the drain cleaner. Hopefully I have not mixed the two inadvertently; right now I'm sacked out on a sofa that for some reason won't stop spinning around, watching a West Wing rerun that, for some reason, doesn't have any picture. Either that or I'm losing oxygen to the brain.

This one you won't believe.

Yes, the suburbs are fraught with peril.

Twenty-four hours, more or less, without my car. This time it's the exhaust. Simple, inexpensive problem to fix, but it's Sunday and nobody's around to order the necessary parts from, or so my mechanic, he of the insipid smile and guilty conscience after screwing up my car a month ago, tells me. I press the keys in his hands, mumble that I'll get it tomorrow when it's (better fucking be) fixed, and accept his offer for a ride home.

Geeking on the web didn't cheer me up. Watching the second-to-last episode of West Wing didn't cheer me up. The knowledge that my sophomore papers were finished helped a little, but not when I remembered the stack of senior papers I'd have to get through this week. Plus, without a car in the suburbs, you're more or less neutered.

So I took a walk.

My walks used to be infamous. Always alone. Always late at night. Always with no money in the pocket (in high school, this was so I wouldn't buy another acne-inducing candy bar; in college, it was so I wouldn't cave and buy cigarettes; nowadays, it's simply because I don't have any). And always talking aloud. I have a hunch I've saved myself thousands of dollars in analyst billing by arguing with myself about whatever was bugging me at a given moment.

I'm at my best when I'm proactive and honest, but it's a struggle getting there sometimes. You have to heel your mind, get it doing what you want it to do, like a well-trained dog. That takes some kind of zen activity. Buddhists can meditate. Spider-Man can web-swing; I have to settle for sidewalks along well-manicured lawns with white people playing frisbee with each other. At least when darkness falls, I can be assured nobody's lipreading some of my more disturbing embezzlement confessions.

So I took the boulevard east, turned north, made two more turns on streets named for presidents, and found myself hopelessly lost. Good, said my dangerous, rebellious, home-after-suppertime self, my John Dillinger type, if you will, a little lost is exactly what you need right now. Make you forget all the piddly shit wearing you down. "But I need to get to sleep on time so I don't oversleep and miss my cab for work tomorrow," I whined in response. Call in then, damn it, my dark self sneered, pointing at several windows nearby where, at the ripe hour of 8:35 p.m., people were gathered around dining room tables, playing cards, discussing mundane matters with an animation and vivacity President Bartlett's cabinet would envy. Worst case scenario, you'll actually feel tired tomorrow morning for a reason.

It's probably a mistake to go around in circles too late at night in my particular neighborhood. Cops do cruise around. They do notice you, especially when your voice rises and you start gesticulating. The fact that I am white, and that my pants had no (noticeable) holes in them helped, but only a little. Sooner or later, I got "pulled over."

"Where you going?" one of the town's finest asked, shining a light right in my face.

Dunno. Where's the nearest brothel?

"Back home," I said nonchalantly. "It's this way, right?"

Bad codicil. A guy who doesn't know the way back to his house is clearly suspicious. Cop #2 asked for my ID, and when I said I left it at home, he didn't seem surprised.

"How old are you?" #1 asked me.

What the hell does that have to do with anything? I muttered, pitching a cigarette in his general direction. "I'm thirty, officer," I piped up agreeably. "Why? Are you looking for someone? Did someone pull some heinous crime somewhere and I fit the description? Because I swear it wasn't me."

I've had experience, you know. I'm getting good at this sort of thing.

I couldn't tell if I or Dillinger should be doing the talking. We both seemed to be cocking it up quite admirably.

"No," #1 replied bemusedly. "But technically, you have to stay out of the park after dark." He pointed, and then I saw the black asphalt path leading past the volleyball courts and swing sets that make up our neighborhood park. Nix that notion. My hellraising has been cut short by the Pigs in Power.

I assured them that I would then go around, rather than cut through the lawn, where I could undoubtedly sell drugs to imaginary children. They both nodded, as if to say "Yeah, whatever" (I guess guys wearing Curious George t-shirts aren't seen as too much of a threat) and wandered off. I resumed walking, feeling harassed and oppressed by The Man, finally able to join legions of the Harassed and Oppressed.

Throw some dirt at them, Dillinger suggested.

I settled for petting a passing dog.

"Darling, you know you done me wrong"

CHAMPAIGN/URBANA--Hey, baby, what's shaking? I know you're all upset about last night, but I'm here to settle everything down. By the time I'm done talking, your nerves will be tingling, your stomach will be settled and you'll open the damn door and let me in. I'm getting cold out here, sweet thang, and I don't want to have to kick your damnn window in just to use the can.

But none of that matters, baby. Because I'm here to smooth everything over.

See, first of all, I didn't know your friend Jenny was going to come over. And it's not like you couldn't see her hitting all over me, showing me the top of her blouse and offering me sips from her can of Malt Liquor. Oh sure, she tried to play it all smooth and everything, but I could totally see through her facade of friendliness to the raging sex machine she kept chained up in the basement of her psyche. It was all I could do to keep her from jumping on top of me, seriously. The fact that I was looking down her dress was purely incidental.

And then the party. Baby, I didn't invite Roger, Fred and Chris over just to give myself a good time. Seriously, you said you felt like entertaining, and so I called them up to do some entertaining. I honestly didn't know they were going to bring over the clown midget, the circus seal and twelve pounds of melons, but baby, it's not like they're not professionals. They're fully accredited. And you did leave the vegetable oil out on the counter. Clearly that was an open invitation to them, which, obviously, was misconstrued.

Finally, there's the little matter of Gwendolyn. Darling, you know you're my world, and I'd never so much as look at another woman. When you walked in the bedroom last night, what you thought you saw and what was actually happening were two totally different things. See, Gwendolyn thought she had one of those rare tumors that develops on the inside of the thigh, and she was completely terrified about it. Naturally, being the only person in her immediate proximity, I volunteered to check it out for her. I'm no doctor, but I can assure you and her that there's definitely no tumor in her inside thigh. Or the inside of her other thigh. Or the outside of her legs, or northwards along the small of her back or her stomach, or along her shoulderblades. Completely benign territory, as far as I could see. And since you and Gwen are so tight, I'd think you'd be relieved to hear such good news, instead of getting in my face about where my tongue has been and all the lighted candles and all. Baby, I was saving you electricity, and the only thing you can say in return is dripping with recriminations and suspicion? That's cold.

My Love, you and I have a future together. That's why I've planned a night you'll never forget. While you're cooking dinner--and make it that lasagna I like so much, will you?--I'll be out picking up a bottle of wine. Actually, I'll probably have to stop at Gwen's house on the way, since she accidentally left with my wallet. But that will only take thirty, forty minutes tops, after which I'll be back at your place to massage your feet, listen to your pointless stories about work and maybe, you know, sex you up and what not.

Baby, you haven't lived until you've experienced the thrill of kowtowing to me when you know you've been wrong. And you've been wrong, baby. So wrong. Now let me inside and get your ass back in the kitchen. I can hear the pasta sticking to the pan.

Texan Indian Nuptuals:

Spent the weekend more or less bombed. Ajay's wedding was a blast, but I still have no idea what half the memorabila I walked away with the ceremony is for. Normal Indian weddings, I'm told are upwards of four hours long. This one was about an hour and change; after that, a ceremony with three open bars and no lines. I kept looking around for Saint Peter.

The night before, I made my famed toast--not reveling in it quite as much as I did at my brother's wedding, but enough to make a few references to the good old days of high school and Ajay's singleminded pursuit of top grades and good references. "Now there was a guy who never had his priorities straight," I said breezily. "Always work work work, never really taking the time to enjoy being a teenager..."

The room full of doctors, lawyers, bankers and vice presidents nodded sagely, taking in my rumpled suit and bloodshot eyes. Yes, they seemed to indicate, he's absolutely right. Success is overrated.

I blathered on a bit more about what kind of relationship I thought the two of them would have together, working purely on hearsay and a first impression, given the fact that I'd only met the blushing bride some two hours earlier, and then only for about five minutes. I concluded with best wishes, got moderate applause and a bear hug from Ajay. The following morning, I would charge a modest bar bill to his hotel room and congratulate myself on being a good friend.

Before the wedding, though, I hit Dealey Plaza. Always wanted to see the site. I've mapped out my voyage in the image below:

It turns out that the Cult sound excellent when they give themselves a five or six-year break between tours. It turns out Ian Astbury sounds great when he dumps the Doors and gets back to his roots. They sounded like they'd had a vacation, and come out of it super-charged and ready to sound like it was 1984 all over again.

It even turns out they even mixed up the usual set with some tunes I've never heard live before, like "Brother Wolf and Sister Moon" with a cello as bass. I even think Astbury lost most of his gut, though my learned colleagues differ with me on this matter.

It also turns out, however, that the Vic didn't exactly impress the hell out of the Cult. I think they cut their show short, probably because the audience was more like a coffee bar crowd than a bunch of rock fans. Basically, they cut our nuts off, metaphorically speaking.

See, it wasn't our fault. The show was sold out, and we were pressed up against the back like freshmen at the junior prom. In front of me was this house of a guy who was great at swaying and dipping in his air guitar solos but not so great at staying the hell out of my way. Boy, I thought to myself, you're damn lucky you're not about three hundred pounds lighter, or I'd give you such an ass kicking. That, combined with some broad yelling in my ear over "She Sells Sanctuary," I couldn't make a damnn thing out that the band said between takes.

Fortunately, the Cult was engaging in a live CD buyout. See, they tape the show, at a pretty high quality, as it turns out, and $25 will get you a two-disc set of the show. Lest you think they're recycling old shows, the recording is complete with every riff, solo and yell from the stage, that is, unless they're telling Saint Louis how much they love the Windy City.

So on the way home, we played the CD and found out exactly what Astbury was sounding off about on stage. He compared us to a Barnes and Noble poetry reading. He warned us not to make him "get Bon Jovi on your asses." He was unimpressed with the yelling and cheering.

And if I hadn't had some washed up midlife crisis brick house getting his bald spot between me and the show, I might have been able to do something to make them stay on stage longer than a lousy hour and a half.

Actually, I probably wouldn't have bothered. But you never know.

Political Graveyard, a mishmash of trivia and factoids about politicians. Did you know there were 17 politicians who were former slaves? And six who were in space? Fucking hell.

The problem: You're broke, but you want the bar experience. Substandard food, reprobates for company, a cold bottle in the hand.

The situation: Ten beers in the fridge and a barely-functional boom box.

The solution: Wuss rock marathon in the kitchen.

The result: Splitting hangover Sunday morning after drinking until 4:30 a.m. Tso passed out in the next room until noon. No energy to grade. No motivation to read the paper. No strength to do anything but stare at the television and reminisce about listening to Steel Dragon on a tape deck.

Outstanding. Nothing I want to make a habit of, but there's one for the memoirs, by far.

My curtain call

Acting on a Sunday is tough. For one thing, there's work that needs to be done. For another, I don't like being in a public school on a Sunday. It's supposed to be either a day of rest, a day of catchup, or, in my case, a day of resting-while-you're-supposed-to-be-catching-up, all complete with a healthy dose of light reading, Sunday newspapers and Bloody Marys.

Instead, I shuffled through my lines, delivered in a deathless monotone to a three-quarters-full auditorium. No euphoric rush at the end of the evening since the lesson plans I was supposed to do were buried in a rush to meet my cue of "I wish an Army guy would come and tell us what to do."

Of course, tomorrow morning, I'm going to wake up realizing that, after the final bell rings, I have nowhere else to go and nothing else to do but schoolwork.

Enough. 'Twas a nice career while I had it, but I think I'm going to hang up my musical career for another decade or so.

Today's newspaper ire: students bribed to go to school. It had to happen. Teachers get pay raises in certain districts when standardized test scores go up (can you say grade inflation?); administrators write themselves checks against inflated budgets. Now, little Jimmy has a car or a Nintendo to work for instead of an education.

I need to become a politician and protest this kind of thing.

My Big Opening

Been fighting a cold for days now, and wouldn't you know it, I woke up Thursday morning with my head swimming and unable to speak.

Oh no. No, no no. I did not forego sleep and lesson planning all week just to crap out now. About thirty hours to go before the show, and I needed my finely-tuned baritone in tiptop shape. So I called in sick (it probably would have gone smoother if they'd been able to make out a word I was croaking on the sub hotline), hit the couch and slammed lemon teas like they were Harvey Wallbangers. By noon, I was asleep. By three, I was rasping, rather than croaking. By five, I was nervous about expending energy grading, so I watched more TV and rested.

By Friday morning, I felt more or less functional. But by the end of the day, I was back to square one.

I went to talk to the Director about four hours before showtime, croaked out "Once more into the breach, dear friends," and waited expectantly.

She looked at me nonplused. "So what. Go get your uniform on and quit whining."

"But it hurts to talk," I grumbled. "I need to sound tough, not terminal."

"Then we'll mike you."

This didn't exactly sit well with me. Being microphoned would mean I'd have to engage in some crazy game of musical chairs with a microphone with as many as four other people. All for the express purpose of making my asthmatic wheeze audible to the cheap seats as I rumble, "Hey everyone, get down the road and get to work." Somehow, it didn't seem worth it.

The director shifted her clipboard and looked around the theater, where about a zillion things were going wrong. "Figure something out, will you? Because it's almost curtain call, and I'm damned if I'm going to recast you just so you can slink back home and watch the forty straight hours of South Park you taped while you were at work."

Dammit. She's psychic.

Fortunately, a special ed teacher kept me plied with cough drops while another one added DayQuil to my can of mushroom soup. It didn't fill my head with any extra energy, and it didn't improve my acting skills any, but somehow, when I wasn't whispering hoarsely off stage, I was bellowing on.

It worked out pretty well, I must say. I might have a future as Second Fiddle in Two-Bit productions. Though my stage time was minimal, I managed to insert some character into my entrances, exits, and barked orders. Afterwards, I got some quick side reviews from some colleagues, students and former students:

"Man, what a stick up your ass when you march. Is that that back problem you've been yapping about?"

"Were you supposed to have your fly unzipped up there?"

"Hey, we tried to cue you the line you forgot, but you ignored us. Just for the record, you don't pronounce 'eschelon' like an Arabian curse."

"Who did you play again? Daisy Mae?"

I jest, of course. It was fun. In retrospect, I'd probably do it again, even though I have to haul my ass out there again on Sunday afternoon and whip through it all over again. That's if my voice at least retains its present quality. I went straight home after the reception and downed another pot of tea in an effort to heal myself, which is why I'm not currently out getting blitzed with my co-stars.

Anyway, one down, one to go. Hold the applause.

My first day in costume

I have no idea how I continue to draw breath. Eight hours teaching, two hours scurrying around the suburbs looking for a cheap pair of overalls, half an hour standing in line behind an irate soccer mom who came to return a coffee maker, half an hour standing around, three or four hours of straight rehearsal (which entails a lot of standing around for myself) and flubbing my lines, and now, instead of popping off to sleep, I'm here to bore the Internet community with the trite details of a High School Play Production.

Be that as it may, I did get in costume today. My Captain costume.

It's imposing, with gold medals and a shirt so starched you could play pool on it. It's also made of wool and itches like hell. My legs look like a Chernobyl survivor's, but the respect the uniform commands is not to be underestimated.

No matter. I still flubbed my lines. Partly because other people flubbed theirs. Acting in a high school musical, I'm starting to think, is a lot like running a concession stand: it's a fuck of a lot harder than it looks. I never thought it was easy, truth be known, but now, while waiting for my cue ("Hey everyone! Let's go to Washington and let 'em know what we knows!"), I'm apt to zone out, wonder if I should be grading papers, wonder if I should have assigned papers in the first place, wonder if I'd be missed before I made it ten steps out the door...only to realize that my new cue had come and gone ("Hey everyone! Let's get to Washington and tell the President where he can send his bombs from now on!"). It's amazing how often a cue line turns to "Oh, shit" when the stakes are high.

Anyway, I didn't come here to tell you all that.

If Tso is correct, the Cult is back together. And while Tso's politics leave a lot to be desired in the way of...oh, what's the word I'm looking for...reality...he's rarely wrong about concerts.

The Cult. Back. This March.

Life suddenly has meaning again. Screw the play. My new line is, "Gentlemen, peace is a dirty word."

What's my motivation? Getting off this hot stage and into a cool bottle of vodka:

hurriedly scratched out longhand, to be transcribed later. at the time, this felt like something worth taking down. now, I'm wondering why the hell I didn't just stay in bed an extra fifteen minutes.

The past several practices have been a piece of cake compared to what we've been doing this week. For starters, we're not allowed to use our scripts any more. Secondly, we have to walk while delivering our lines. And finally, the kids, who have known their lines since the New Year began and are probably wondering why in hell they agreed to work with a bunch of surly old farts like us in the first place, are now pushing and prodding us gently, reminding the slackers (not me), distracted (sometimes me) and raging incompetents (definitely me) that Opening Night in this case does not refer to the next baseball season.

So I've done some tripping over my own feet, listening to my heart race as I deliver my lines in a deathless monotone that would make Ben Stein proud. We got out of there at 8 one night, 8:30 the next, 9:30 the following. If we stay true to course, we won't even have to leave the theater in order to arrive when the show premieres.

The kicker: some of these guys and gals are eating their parts for breakfast. They are fantastic. If the character is elderly, a twenty-something sophomore teacher can make herself sound like her nickname has been Granny for the past twenty years. If the character is hillbilly, our resident art teacher can make himself look like he ought to be playing a moonshine jug in a backwoods band. Other hillbillies make James Dickey's ensemble look like the frigging Smurfs.

And then there's me. Pivoting and marching on stage and off for a grand total of five seconds apiece.

TAKE 1: "Gentlemen, I'd like to debrief you right down the road."
TAKE 2: "Gentlemen gentlesladies, your briefs are right down the road."
TAKE 3: "Gentlemen, the road to briefing is less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."
TAKE 4: "Gentlemen, the road to debriefing is within all of you. Now get our there or I'll shoot your asses."

I mean, seriously, when you wait around to deliver one line (though I am not complaining--it satisfactorally cuts down on the amount of singing and dancing I'll wind up having to do for this bad boy--I convinced the director I couldn't do the Stomper number because it would throw out my back), that one line takes on the magnitude of the 127 lines another character has to deliver. There's no diffusion. No saturation.

No way to go unnoticed if you screw it up.

TAKE 21: "Gentlemen, what's the deal with debriefing? I mean, when you demystify someone, you're taking away the mystery, right? And when you deform, your form is not good. So if you want the brief, let's de the de, am I right?" (insert Seinfeld theme here)

I know, I know. Don't worry. I haven't quit my day job. It's my day job that got me in this frigging mess in the first place.

More chorus practice

Word to the wise: Don't try to hold an E-flat note in bass baritone after two beers in a smoky bar.

Two kids wanted to know if I'd been running a marathon. Director told me to stop crying, be a man, and bring it up to falsetto level. The room was spinning and my palms were sweating, but I managed to blurt out the words in a singing voice that makes a torture victim sound like Maria Callas: "He's just an ordinary not so very nary wary mortuary...man!"

"That's two beats on the last syllable," called the chorus director. "No passing out until then. Get up and get ready to sing the square dancing number."

I may be in over my head.

Play Practice: Day 2

Yesterday, I got to get up on an empty stage, surrounded by fellow faculty, and block lines. Tremendous experience, blocking lines. It's a lot like acting out your favorite scene in a movie, as long as you substitute "acting out" with "taking directions" and "your favorite scene" with "some play you never heard of and already can't stand."

We're doing Dogpatch County. (Actually, we're not, but I'm superstitous about putting in the play name.) My part is The Colonel. I've got all of two lines, and I can spare everyone yea suspsense and give them right now:

"Hey everyone, this is a matter of top security!"

and

"Gentlemen, there's debriefing right down the road." (exit)

God, that's all so far. That may even be the entire corpus of my performance. My Nana Vrabel could pull it off, and she's been dead for seven years.

Since I hadn't (and haven't yet) read the play, I decided to picture my colonel interpretation along the lines of R. Lee Emery in Full Metal Jacket, or maybe Sam Eliot in The Hulk. Curses, I found out belatedly, are not allowed in a high school production, so I had to throw out improvisations like "Hey numbnuts, this is major security" and "If God had wanted your ass down the road for debriefing, he'd have miracled it there."

The Director (a personal friend of mine, and if she ever read this, she will perhaps forgive my acerbic take on the evening) did her best to settle down everyone to get to work. Fat chance. If you've ever seen a bunch of teachers hanging around in street clothes on a stage with the opportunity to act like the adolescents they all discipline day in and day out yet are secretly jealous of for being young with opportunities, then you've seen the world's oldest, most rebellious and logorrheic street gang ever.

I was no exception. After twenty minutes on stage, I could already feel improvised lines ready to vomit themselves up and waste everybody's time.

"Okay, Colonel," she finally called out to me after twenty minutes arranging for the Town Wives' entrance on stage to offer their husbands up for some sort of chemical concoction that would turn them into Ultra Hunks. "You're going to enter here."

"I want to be an Ultra Hunk," I whined.

"No, we're stressing mimesis in this production. Stand here and act like you have a backbone."

I stood, and did my best to comply. "What's my motivation?"

Director looked at me austerely, and I could almost read her mind: For Christ's sake, you've got two lousy lines and you're asking me for motivation? I've got about all I can handle keeping Jackie from hitting on every male teacher in the room, and three parents have their toddlers running amok in my scene shop. I've got your motivation right here...Fortunately, with one-third of the cast still paying attention to her, she had to clip her response. "You're a colonel. You're in the military. Sound arrogant and officious. You know. Just be you."

Good comeback, I had to admit.

"Now you're going to walk over to Nancy and tell the men behind her, humbly, about the debriefing."

No way. G.L. is not humble.

"Then you step back and let her take the scene over."

Uh-uh, baby. G.L. does not step back to relinquish control.

"Now, okay?" Director barked at me, pulling a face that probably had her freshmen scurrying for their books and homework.

Well, maybe in a pinch I can fake humility and submission. I scooted over and meekly did as I was told.

We went through the scene, and I did my best to sound officious, military, in control, domineering. Director, meanwhile, was fixated on the more vexing task of getting one of the castmembers to simulate choking to death on a bottle of moonshine.

"Iraq was our greatest effort yet," I boasted, trying to establish character. "We've actually won the war already, but most of the left-wing just hasn't allowed us to tell you yet."

A chorus of catcalls and curses followed me. I swallowed, flipping pages of the script I'd stolen from the lead frantically. "The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew." I managed to ad-lib a clenched fist at the end of my statement.

"Just do the fucking line," snarled a recent Divorcee (playing Southern Belle #3, no less). "My babysitter charges $5.50 an hour."

I stepped back up to the plate and tried to arrange metric regularity in my line: "Gentlemen, there's debriefing right down the road."

Director removed her pince nez and massaged her eyebrows wearily. "Why do I feel," she asked quietly, "like you're counting your lines?"

"Sixteen words; 78 letters. Come on, I can totally play the Ultra Hunk."

"What if I throw in a six pack? Would that be enough to get you back on track?"

I frowned, insulted. Who the hell did she think she was, thinking she could buy me off so cheap?

"I'll let you drink it opening night."

Oh. In that case...

We finished ten minutes later. I am now an Employed Stage Performer. And with that six pack on the way, I'll be a Functioning Alcoholic Stage Performer. Steppenwolf entourage, eat your collective hearts out.

Of course, next step is memorizing those lines. But first things first.

Play Practice: Day 1

Back in 1986 or so, I was in a musical called "Off the Wall." Or "Up the Wall" or "On the Wall" or some damn thing, I really don't remember. It was a conglomerate of skits and songs designed to clue the modern audience into the perils and perks of being a young adult in the eighties. The extent of my involvement, to be honest, went little farther than background chorus and two lines:

"But really, what's with kids today?"

and

"I think I hear him coming!"

Who he was, I have no idea any more. I don't think I ever did. Actually, I have no idea what the play was about. I spent most of the time staring out the window and daydreaming about being Batman.

I went to my first chorus practice in almost twenty years tonight, with many more to come. We're doing a production of a musical where both faculty and students get to match vocal and acting talents in an effort to draw butts into the seats and raise money for charity. At least, that's what Jenny told me--it could be very well that she was lying and just wanted to get me in the chorus to make a jerk of myself.

I can't speak for the wide suburban audience we're currently pandering to, but I know of at least three friends and a few family members who will show up just to ensure themselves that I wasn't feeding them a load of shit about not being able to make the bar that night. "Nope, going to be busy singing 'She's Gonna Be the Bride'" must not have sounded like a realistic excuse. Go figure.

I'm not going to mention the title of the production--figure it out yourself--except to mention that my character is "The Colonel." With speaking parts. So I expect that will be my new cool nickname, replacing the embarassing "Puddles" nickname that's haunted me since summer camp, seventh grade.

Side note: Mick is married. Just found out. God help us all.

The Secret to a Good Monday Night...

...is sorely needed when you're facing potential b.s. from an article in your sodding school newspaper the next morning. When kids stand up and start making sense, that's bad enough, but early in the week, it's death for me. So how to take the mind off the ensuing headache?

1) Drink to excess. (Well, duh.)
2) Exercise. (Can't. My back. You know.)
3) Therapy. (The last one jumped out the window.)
4) Immersion. (In drink? I'm there.)

I recommend (4). I took an hour and a half off and watched David Cronenberg's Spider. I'd just blown sixteen bucks on the double-disc edition of The Fly (outstanding, by the way), and figured, since I was on a role, I'd stay with it. And man, am I glad I did.

Brief blurb: "Spider" Cleg is recently released from a mental institution, and makes his way back to London to make sense of his childhood with his friends. The adult Spider, in extended flashbacks, finds himself a bystander to what happened twenty years before, watching his younger self deal with his surly father, powerless mother and his father's "fat tart" Yvonne horning in on the family. There's enough visual symbolism and semiotics to keep a geek English teacher happy, and there's enough feeling packed in Ralph Fiennes' (Spider) mumbling to out-Lenny Lenny Small. A smarter man than myself might have seen the ending coming--not that that's saying much--but according to Cronenberg, there are greater questions abounding once you realize Spider's therapy isn't finished.

I was so impressed, I immediately ran out and picked up the book from the library. I'm thirty pages into it now, and once I finish off The Economist, I plan to finish it before collecting a set of papers on Wednesday.

So, as for stress busting, a good story does it almost every time.

Oh yeah, and I haven't had any trick-or-treaters. Maybe I can turn the lights on now.

Warning: WASP complaints about to follow

What with my new frenzied reading schedule (news magazines, newspapers, BBC), I don't know how media-saavy people can manage to eat three squares a day, let alone hold down jobs. I had a conversation today with a co-worker that was right out of West Wing:

Him: Did you finish grading those papers?
Me: No, I have to get through these reports on the oil deal for Russia. You know, it's only a few million more than the most conservative estimates?
Him: I think you're shirking your duties...
Me: That's crap.
Him: ...so you can act like a guy who has a clue.
Me: I'm waiting for the guys with clues to act that way. I'm waiting for the president to act that way.
Him: You know about Russian oil, do you? What about your lesson plan for next hour?
Me: Ha. That's a trick. I don't have one. Sucker.

So my reading schedule is thrown completely off whack. But how can I discard it all? It's just so damned entertaining:

Item: President Bush appoints Harriet Miers to be the Supreme Court justice replacing Sandra Day O'Connor, in the wake of Rehnquist's death and Roberts' appointment. I guess Billy, the cool kid down the street with the nifty Tonka truck, wasn't around, and he was running out of other cronies to appoint, so his own pet lawyer was a good move?

Item: House Representative Tom DeLay got slapped with another charge yesterday: on Fox News Sunday, he referred to a "left wing political machine" driving him out of office, and assured viewers he'd be back on his job. Funny. President Clinton had a conspiracy against him too. He just finished writing an 800-page book about it.

Item: President Bush is facing the worst political numbers he's ever seen, and only after a botched hurricane response, a prolonged war with no end in sight, a shelved Social Security renovation plan, an economy that looks like a deep-sea fish brought up to the surface only to explode, and a bad guitar solo in September. Pretty radical of the public, wouldn't you say? I would have waited until he did another victory lap around Ground Zero, once it's been rebuilt.

Item: Some dumbass public figure (Dr.Bennett, wasn't it?) made some dumbass comment about aborting black babies to cut down crime. Seems to me, spreading condoms throughout the Republican Party would be a better first step.

Item: The whole religion-in-the-science-class debacle is being tackled in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. If the court case goes smoothly, it should settle that nagging question: did God create the earth, or was it evolution, or was it evolution masked by the hand of God, called "intelligent design"? Hey, why stop there? I think there's room for "semi-intelligent design," "quasi-intelligent design," "dumbass design," "hung over on Monday morning-design" and "I forgot my homework but I came up with a sort of design-design."

All this peace and quiet in my new place is great. I waste even more time.

The amount of things that are annoying me these days is an amount that seems to increase with age. You can add crappy horror movies to the list.

Scratch that: crappy horror movies that could have been good.

I give you, for example, The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

The plot: a young girl is found dead, horribly emaciated, teeth missing. The local priest is taken into custody when allegations of an untreated epilepsy condition arise. The lawyer, a young, ambitious, determined agnostic, pits wits against the determined, Catholic DA and, ultimately, the Devil Himself. Ooooh.

I say "Ooooh" because, let's face it, the whole religion vs. science debate never did well in a courtroom. It's even worse in an hour-and-fifty-minutes' worth of "What really happened to Emily Rose?"

Possession scenes are lame and halfhearted. There are some creepy portions where Emily is wandering through her college campus and sees demon faces leering at her; every time she contorts her body, the part of my brain that registers what's natural in the world and recognizes what's unnatural was suitably fooled. But all of this combined, multiplied three ways from Sunday, can't make up for crappy lines like, "The forces of darkness are watching this trial." Puh-leeze. It didn't work in Book of Shadows when the witch figured out how to program a VCR. Since when is Satan up on Blackstone's Commentaries?

So in a fit of dissapointed pique, I picked up a copy of Angel Heart. Now there's a devil movie you can sink your teeth into. I'm taking it for granted that the underlying premise of the film is known: New York gumshoe picks up a Missing Persons case and gets enmeshed in an underground voodoo cult, with a surprising, satisfyingly creepy conclusion. And yes, this is that movie where Denise Huxtable from The Cosby Show takes her shirt off.

But then I picked up the book and read it in a four-hour binge Monday night (when I should have been reading my new subscription-copy of The Economist). If the film version is a mixture of Chinatown and The Exorcist, the book is a mixture of Who Censored Roger Rabbit and Ira Levin. The writing is fast-paced, snappy, engrossing. The story grabs a hold of you; there aren't too few names for it to get long-winded, and there aren't enough names to confuse you. And the ending is more or less consistent with the film (I should say it the other way around, since the book, Falling Angel, came out first), but with this cavalier private dick tone it takes, a lot of the horror and devil-noir is taken away, leaving a book more pulp fiction than horror. Which is okay, I guess.

So as far as Sunday/Monday reading, I've definitely done worse. But if there's one thing that's annoying me now that wasn't annoying me forty-eight hours ago, it's the pile of papers sitting on my desk that could have gotten graded by now if I hadn't enmeshed myself in devil worship and seedy detective yarns this long. Ugh. Somebody owes me a time refund.

To the man who made me want to study English...I mean really study...

To the man who told us Emerson asked not "What shall I do" but "How shall I live..."

To a teacher, mentor, scholar who will be missed...

RIP Gustaaf Van Cromphout (1938-2005)

--NIU English Department announcement

"Hell is full of musical amateurs."

--George Bernard Shaw

"...and idiots with laptops and Napster."

--me

URBANA-CHAMPAGNE--The little woman has a wireless connection. This is sweet.

That means fast jukebox downloads. That's even sweeter.

So if I was listening to Verdi and Puccini at home during a stressful work week, and if I've got fast access to the best classics on the face of the earth at the touch of a button right now, what's the logical choice for immediate downloads? Tosca? Otello? Maybe some Listz, just to let my hair down?

Not even close:

Iron Maiden, The Number of the Beast. True story. A long time ago, my brother and I traded all of my John Mellencamp for all of his Iron Maiden. I know what you're thinking: "What a sucker." You're damn right. What the hell could he have been thinking? And how could I take advantage of a poor, misguided soul like that? Money spent: $9.99

Skid Row, Slave to the Grind. Don't laugh. Seriously. The album stinks, but four tracks on it make me feel like I'm sixteen years old, washing buses and wading through the camp's pond. Oh, and I'm twenty pounds lighter with long hair, too. Money spent: $3.96

Sinead O'Connor, some Celtic music. I love it. But love it. Money spent: &.99

Weird Al Yankovic, "Headline News." Just the part where we hear the kid from Singapore holler in pain is enough justification for the buck fee, if you ask me. Money spent: $.99

The Black Keys, Rubber Factory. Admittedly, I don't know this album. But I loved Thickfreakness, and I figure, what the hell, my brother's tastes haven't led me astray just yet. Money spent: $9.99

Natalie Merchant, "Gun Shy" (live). Admittedly, I'm not the biggest 10,000 Maniacs fan, but Kim has some stuff of hers, and I figure, what the hell, her tastes ahven't led me astray (much) just yet. Money spent: $.99

REO Speedwagon, the usual pop singles. Admittedly, I didn't go to see these guys live last year when Styx opened up for them, but I figure what the hell...what the hell. Money spent: $2.97

Two things tend to happen when I have access to fast wireless service: 1) I waste time, $30.88 and brain cells finding just the right picture of an Iron Maiden album cover; 2) I imagine myself contributing valuable music, art and current events commentary, only to do the online version of spewing, muttering, and scratching my head.

Pay no attention. Back at home I'll be back on a cellular connection, forcing me to slow down and think.

But then, when I do that, I wind up turning the computer off anyway.

The First Day

Warning: The following words are an accurate and verbatim transcript of today's senior classes. Complaints may be lodged with the NEA, the Board of Education, NCTE and PETA, if necessary.

Hello, class, now settle down now. Don't be shy, come on in, there's seats aplenty and learning afoot! Come on in, now take your seats, okay, that's good. All right. Welcome to English. I'm your teacher, and I want to be the first to welcome you all to what will be, for some of you, your final year in high school. For some of you, that is. Others will not be so lucky, either because you snoozed through nine months of higher learning and bombed every test, or because you're just naturally slow. But don't worry kids, there's no shame in being slow. The world needs drive through managers too.

Sorry, I didn't hear that. Yes, you in the back, with the pierced...everything? Oh yes, the course content. Well, we'll be studying the old masters, the sages, the ones our current language was built upon. You can't call yourself educated unless you know this stuff. Our first assignment? We'll be reading Beowulf. No, I don't know who wrote it. No, I don't know why it's so important. Why are you bothering me with these stupid questions? Do you want an office referral, smart guy?

What's that, precious? Yes, you in the front doing your nails. What kind of a class do I run? So glad you asked, sir. The rules are simple. Most things you guys find enjoyable are things I hate, so you can obey the rules best by not having any fun. Things like annoying cell phone jingles, loud, incoherent bands who purport social messages, talking and enjoying one another's company, crying during tests and field trips to fun and exciting places are all things I frown upon. Here, you're going to get the entire corpus of English lit crammed down your collective throats. And you're going to go through it with a smile on your face. Page 22 of your packet lists the do's and don'ts. Pay particular attention to the "no gum popping rule," especially on mornings after the pub has two-for-one Amstel Lite specials.

Now, here's your textbook. As you can see, it's not for sissies. The first half should be read by next week. And here's our syllabus. Note that your first assignment is an essay, due next week. You can save me a lot of time by crossing out your introduction after completing the draft, since they'll all be crap mostly anyway. Oh, and no persuasive papers about Brad and Angelina, or Tom and Katie. I don't know about all that. I don't care about all that. Neither should you.

Okay, now for the bad news. If you pass this class, you'll graduate, go on with your lives, and I'll get paid. If you fail this class, you'll be stuck with me another year, have a miserable summer, and I'll get paid. Hey, come to think of it, I make out like a bandit either way, don't I?

Well, that's about it. The short version of this class: The Brits ruled the world, both militarily and literature-wise, for the better part of a millenium, before we Americans wrested control. Game over. Now, our entire future depends on a bunch of semi-literate xenophobes who like to blast libraries and hospitals for fun, not to mention a president who couldn't find Afghanistan on a map until it was time to throw a bomb at it.

The long version of the class begins tomorrow. We'll be going over the rise and fall of Roman occupation in the British isles, the basic functions of the gerund phrase, and twenty ways to not piss your friendly neighborhood English teacher off on a Monday morning.

Any questions?

No?

Good. Then close your collective mouths and begin on page 12 for tomorrow's reading: 'When Books Used to Not Stink So Much.' Finish it for tomorrow. I'm off to the pub. If anyone asks, I'm in the can.

How to anesthesize turning 30

I'm about one week into being thirty. It has the damndest way of sneaking up on me: I could be at a shopping mall looking for a good Wagner CD (or Vanilla Ice, whatever), and I see myself through some kind of objective third eyeball: "There's a thirty-year-old homeowner in ragged jean shorts, needs a haircut, glasses are dirty, and he's hanging out at a mall. Ugh." Or "Look at that thirty-year-old homeowner pausing to glance at new Batman Begins action figures. How old does he think he is?"

Then, there's also, "Look at that thirty-year-old homeowner lurching down the back alley. You'd think he'd be able to tell that diluting whiskey with vodka isn't really dilution at all." Okay, that one I'm more comfortable with.

So, summer is dwindling, and as always, I'm clutching on to it like a drowning man onto a floating plank of wood. And one of the things I swore to accomplish: some kind of memorandum on July 16.

The party was awesome. Originally, I had a more comprehensive, column-type story to tell about it, but truth be told, some of my memories of that evening are a bit hazy, so this will have to do. I remember I drank nothing but Black and Tans.

I remember someone commenting, "It's his party--it's been ten years since the last one and it'll probably be twenty until the next one, so he can do what he wants." Cool! I thought, a total excuse for anarchic debauchery! but I don't remember if that led to anything illegal.

I remember finishing my first cigar in years with my brother. I remember a lot of old friends showing up. I remember a lot of people calling my name in a way that suggested comraderie ("Hey! Hey get over here!") instead of how they usually call it at work ("Hey you! Get the fuck over here! You messed up again").

I remember that, for an Irish pub, they played a lot of eighties rock. I wonder if that was by request.

I remember getting a floating candle in a pitcher of beer. (Kim would later complain that the staff treated her request akin to one for a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow--apparently, at this pub, they don't do pitchers, and it's uncouth to ask.)

I remember I had a speech (of sorts) planned, which would have entailed digging up a list of things an old health teacher told us to write down that we'd want accomplished by the age of 30. My list ran like this:

Be a full-time novelist. (Nope.)
Be well-adjusted and stable. (Nope.)
Be surrounded by people who love me. (I guess...)
Be healthy. (Oy, my back is killing me.)
Be confident. (Hey, we're having some time now...aren't we?)
Be athletic. (Oy, my beer gut is killing me.)

I remember signing an outrageous bar tab, having trouble keeping the pen steady in my hand, thinking, I'm lovin' this.

I remember getting back to my place, and eventually seeing five or six complete strangers in my living room. I remember one of them (and he must have been a stranger--no friend would do this) suggesting that they all apply makeup while I was passed out. I remember the other strangers (again--no way they were friends) laughing and looking for lipstick and mascara. I remember staggering to the second bedroom and pulling a blanket over my head.

I also remember the furtive wakeup the next morning. That, for those of you with livers healthier than mine, is when you come to consciousness, afraid to move for fear of discovering a hangover, afraid to get up for fear of learning of bad behavior. I came outside, looked around cautiously. Kim was at the breakfast table, eating cereal, looking a little haggard herself but not exactly brimming over with wrath. Little by little, I relaxed. Everything's fine, I got away clean, is more or less what I'm thinking, when the trash is dropped off outside. Trash cans clang, engines grind, brakes squeal, and all I can think of is, Oh shit, my head is about to explode. I regained poise a minute later, to see Kim regarding me with a look that was three parts concern mixed with two parts weary exasperation. "Do you even know how many you had last night?"

"It was worth it," I said. "I regret nothing." And then we were off to breakfast.

So that's that, another milestone in the life of yours truly. The rest of my time has been more or less spent straightening out this place, catching up on my reading, watching crappy movies, seeing more friends and family, and mourning Bush's appointment to the Supreme Court (as are we all). You wouldn't think picking up a new bed, grilling material, nightstands, bathroom necessities and what not would occupy so much time, but listen, when you make a trip to even Bed Bath & Beyond, it takes a minimum of ten minutes just to find a parking space, let alone purchasing anything. So while I can't complain for lack of relaxation, it's still good to be done with all that crap.

It's official: I'm in my thirties. My twenties are far behind me, and from now on, when someone asks me, "What did you do in your twenties," I'll actually have to answer. Damnation. The following things are older than me (nothing new, but entering a new decade gives one pause):

Seventies music
Polyester
the term "mojo"
transformational grammar and syntax


The following things are younger than me:

grunge rock
GWBasic programming and DOS operating systems
cellular phones
Dallas' surprise series finale
Remedial level secondary classroom Socratic seminars

Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh.

And yet, it doesn't feel that bad. My aunt and uncle told me: "Being thirty doesn't hurt." Dewey tells me, "It gets easier. Or so I've heard. Because we'll be dead soon."

Still, when you reach a milestone like this, the answer to the question "Who's the man" becomes even more evident, does it not?

Settling in...

This must be a first in the annals of geek history: blogging from my balcony. It's a sunny, breezy day, and the Janesville, WI trip is a few hours away. Last night, while what few friends I have were out partying, attending the Tom Petty concert or lighting fireworks in their front yards, yours truly was grunting and swearing while filling a cheap waterbed so I wouldn't have to sleep on the floor for a record-breaking third night in a row. Of course, now that I'm about to go camping, the whole task seems sort of pointless, unless, if for no other reason, I'll now have a bed to actually come home to.

I can feel elements of every nagging parent, grandparent, friend's parent(s), aunt and uncle struggling to break free. Certain waspish accents are creeping into remonstrations towards any company I've had lately: "Don't carry that over the carpet!" "Wipe the counter down!" "Wipe your feet on the mat, asswipe!" and "It's a six pack and a twenty dollar cover to get in the door." Amazing what home ownership can do to you in a scant seventy-two hours. Like turning to the dark side, I would imagine. Years ago, we made fun of people who felt tne need to clean up during a party. Years ago, we swore we'd never be so anal as to try and make vaccuum marks symmetrical on the carpet. Now, look at me. I made my bed right when I got up thie morning. Ugh.

Then again, there are still boxes and crap all over the place. A responsible homeowner wouldn't blow it all off for a day to camp, fish and drink in Wisconsin, right? Damn right. Just call me Peter Pan.

S'WOOD--In my life, there have been about four or five instances where everyone in the world but me felt that congratulations were in order. My high school graduation. Getting my first job. Buying my first car. Making sure my girlfriend didn't run screaming when she saw me with my shirt off. And now buying a home.

I suppose congratulations are in some sort of order. I mean, maybe a trained monkey could have done half as well as I did signing my life away during closing yesterday, but I doubt it. What I heard and what was said didn't always add up to the same thing:

My attorney: Now this is your tax increment form. It means you'll have an eschrow account to the tune of x dollars a year, which will cushion you from any windfalls the government throws your way.
My head: Tax...dollars...goverment.
Attorney: Understand?
Me: Taxes bad. Equity good. Where I sign?

Then, of course, there's packing up the old place (already a subject upon which I've touched to yea length). There's also the matter of the previous owner coming and going to get her riding mower, potted plant collection and various kinds of facial soap out of what's supposed to be my place. Then there's the nasty carpet stains left over, about which I had to call in professionals:

Carpet cleaner: So this stain here is either cat urine or a hairball. Been sitting a while. Nasty. You've got to get these stains cleaned immediately, not months later.
Me: (Bristling) It's not my cat. I just moved in.
Cleaner: Yeah, okay. Now over here, it looks like somebody never wiped their feet. Really dirty. This is what we call the Slob-With-Kids carpet job.
Me: I told you, I just moved in.
Cleaner: Okay, okay. Now here, looks like the previous owner tried to mix a Bloody Mary while lying down in bed.
Me: (pause) How much is this going to cost me?

All of these were obstacles I overcome--turns out the paperwork was the easy part. Tomorrow is the final move, but for the past twenty hours or so, I've been residing in my new digs. Cleaned carpets, space, central air and a balcony big enough to camp out on. Mission, as they say, all but accomplished.

So what's to be proudest about?

I'm blogging on my kitchen floor.

Tomorrow I'll try blogging in my guest bedroom. Then the balcony. Then the roof, and then my garage (where I can now keep my toolbox, where it belongs, rather than next to a pile of dirty laundry). Take it from me, folks: you can't get it any better than this.

So here's a big thank you to all the people who made this possible. They are:

1) Me.
2) Lowlife neighbors who drove me out of my low-rent lifestyle.
3) My realtor and attorney.
4) Me again.
5) Dad and DVM, who doublechecked the place and remembered to look for loose floorboards and other lemon-esque details that tend to escape my notice.

Now then, if someone can figure out how this new lifestyle is possible without having to go to work every day, come get me. I'll be the guy on the kitchen floor, with no furniture.

If I were a poet, I'd write an ode to this stinking hellhole I'm leaving behind. If I were an artist, I'd draw a picture of me hauling ass out the parking lot. If I had friends, I'd invite them all over to tear it up one last time in a completely gutted living room. If I were a musician, I'd hook up the most obnoxious guitar I could find to the loudest amp in the city and blast out all the windows. If I were tough, I'd knock on the doors of the people who've irritated me the most and shove them in the chest, driving them back into their apartments and reminding them of their drab and useless lives.

I am, however, none of those things.

I am a blogger. A mild-mannered, kept-to-himself-kind-of-guy blogger. And we bloggers are long on outrage, but short on physical voice.

So this is how I get my comeuppance:

"So long, buttwipes."

Give the local reprobates time. Years from now they'll stumble onto it while doing online research over how to consolidate welfare accounts and find the nearest AA meeting. My scorn will do nothing but eat away at what little self respect they've managed to convince themselves that they have.

Closing in 65 minutes. Oh yeah.

School's out, sucka...

I bounded out the door today like a glob of oil out of my frying pan. First day of summer, dig it. What to do? How to celebrate first and foremost? A trip to the Lake? A volleyball game? A cocktail party and in-depth discussion of Sartre's principals in an increasingly meritocratic society?

Library. Get book. Read book.

God, how pathetic. No life. Not until 7 p.m. or so, when I can get properly pissed. But I wasn't going to let this lack of social activity get me down. Never have. Never will.

So as I left the building, I saw some of my old fogey colleagues milling about. Poor saps, I thought, they probably have to go back to their families, be responsible adults. Their lives are over. How pathetic.

So I figured I'd throw some of my gleaning health and bright disposition in their collective faces. I rollicked past them, putting a spring in my step, throwing back my shoulders, doing a bit of the John Travolta hustle from Saturday Night Fever, taking the trouble to leap ahead a few times, if only to revel in my agile, powerful physique.

Then I slipped and plummeted, badly scraping my knees, uttering a "Fuuuuuckinhell! as I fell, like, I might add, the Mighty Oak. Whatever savoir faire I'd been exhibiting was now running out of me in so many open wounds.

They were all about me right away. "Hey, son, are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, fine." I started limping towards the security of my car and the flask I'd stashed away.

"You got to be careful. I always am. Last week, during my tennis game, I really threw my knee out..." The middle-aged father of four with no hair and rippling calves brushed the gravel off my shoulders and wiped the tears from my eyes. "It's played hell with my bench pressing, too."

"I had a bout with a stretched hamspring during my judo tournament," a fifty-something librarian responded. "But then I started a new yoga method, and it really seemed to help."

"No, I'm fine. Really." I kept protesting, shoving the concerned hands away and avoiding invitations to a game of squash behind the football field that afternoon.

Karma, it seems, is not without a sense of humor.

Some journalism instructor I am. Today's top story all over the Fourth Estate: Deep Throat is finally revealed, and I tell everyone not to think about it right now, we've got a really important test to take. Hearst would throttle me alive.

Don't bother looking to me for links and what not: just pick up any newspaper in the country. The news is out: FBI Agent Mark Felt, who denied numerous times that he was Deep Throat (once even in his memoirs, published in 1978), was the cigarette-smoking guy in the underground parking garage.

The Tribune's lead: The world's most famous anonymous news source outed himself Tuesday.

The New York Times: Deep Throat, the mystery man who reigned as Washington's best-kept secret source for more than 30 years, was not just any shadowy, cigarette-smoking tipster in a raincoat. He was the No. 2 official of the F.B.I., W. Mark Felt, who helped The Washington Post unravel the Watergate scandal and the presidency of Richard M. Nixon, a feat that he lived to see disclosed on Tuesday, frail but smiling at 91.

From the Washington Post: For three decades, former FBI official W. Mark Felt lived with one of the greatest secrets in journalism history.

And from my afternoon class: "Everyone put away those newspapers and take out a Number Two pencil. These scan trons aren't going to finish themselves, people."

Just great. Now, when Felt does die (Woodward's stipulation for giving up his identity), he'll haunt me but good.

Ben Bradlee on the Post's confirmation of DT's identity

Go West, young man, Go West...

The search is over. I made an offer on a place and they were dumb enough to take it.

The address is 123 Noneofyourbusiness Street, but it's not far from my present neighborhood. It's spacious, clean, quiet, with a balcony, domestic applicances, room for a minibar, and two lovely working toilets. So what more could a guy want?

Maybe someone to come once a week and clean the working toilets, I don't know. Screw it, who cares. By the end of the month, I'll be out of this hellhole and into a new one where the only complaints raised will be the ones I create.

On a lighter note, one week left of school. Done teaching. Just giving finals, looking stern, policing graduation. No sweat. You could prop up a dummy made of cardboard and latex, put it in my desk and the kids would be none the wiser. Shit, you probably could have done that six months ago.

Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet (1996)

A half an hour a day for the past two weeks or so and I finally made it through the only complete version of Hamlet on screen. It now occurs to me, after umpteen years, that I've seen three or four film versions of the masterpiece, and of course read it a dozen times or so, but I've never actually seen a dramatical performance. I can hear chants of "Philistine!" "Wannabe!" and "Go back to Stephen King, you hack!" filling cyberspace as I make my confession. "Make thy insults bloody, or nothing worth."

No matter. I'll just wait until the Hanover Park community theater breaks out the performance. Or, barring that, I'm sure the YMCA will have a stunning adaptation in their summer youth group theater performance.

(Sarcasm, people. You ever hear of it? "How absolute the knave is...")

In the meantime, I've got Branagh's adaptation to chew over. What can I say? It's got as many pluses as minuses, and when you're dealing with both a Shakespearian actor (I hate to be snotty, but when you tour with the RSC, your experience is self evident) and Shakespeare himself, not to mention an all-star cast, the finished product is bound to be worth the four hours of your life you spend watching it. Besides, I'm just enough of a DWM worshipper to believe that any minus you come across in a Hamlet production is minimal, compared to the crap you find in contemporary film. ("Speak the speech, I pray you.")

Branagh plays the Olivier Hamlet: brooding, slight in frame, not a little bit whiny. But it works. Not all the lines are as how I would envision them: when Branagh confronts Gertrude (Julie Christie) over her dalliance with his uncle, he looks more like he's going to stomp on the floor and hold his breath than attack her. But then he does attack her, and, bereft of all the psychological luggage Ziffereli dumped on Mel Gibson in the corresponding scene in his 1990 production, we are free to experience Hamlet's justified rage instead of wondering whether he's working out an Oedipal fixation.

Kate Winslet (Ophelia) works well, too. When she needs to be smitten, she's smitten. When she needs to be sexy, she's sexy. And when she needs to be crazy, she looks crazy, demented, physically ill and even conniving. In short, she's great. Ditto Jacobi (Claudius), Michael Maloney (Laertes), Nicholas Farrell(Horatio), and Brian Blessed (the ghost). The bit parts are hard for me to appreciate, mostly because I'm getting too much of a kick out of American actors putting in their two cents on the Bard (Jack Lemmon, Robin Williams and Billy Crystal, especially), but overall I sucked up their performances like a Danish prince sucks up self-pity.

I can't necessarily say I was overawed with the filmic representations, but then, they were original. Branagh delivers his "to be or not to be" in front of a series of mirrors, casting infinite reflections as he ruminates on the death he wishes for. The swordfight at the end is more believable than any other I've seen--you almost expect them to break out lightsabers and jump ten feet in the air. And the tensions between the characters work as smooth as an oil slick. Gertrude looks like she wants to wash her eyes when she sees Claudius in the last two acts, and Polonius, so often played as a doddering do-gooder, comes off as the crafty manipulator many critics have defined him as.

So, while I'm no Shakespeare critic (just a humble Shakespeare teacher and reader), I know what I hate in a Shakespeare film. I hate it when what I see jars with what I've read. This version does anything but. Mr. Branagh, a divinity has indeed shaped your end: genius.

---

--Some Misc. Links

Hamlet to come out on DVD in 2006. Now I have to watch it again. This likes me well.

A Hamlet cheat sheet. I have no other reason to link this page except the fact that I stole their picture above. But if thou ever held literature in thy heart, absent thee from assholery a while and write thine own term paper, thou rump-fed runyon.

Here's what happens when you're home on a Saturday night: I found my old elementary school notebook. I've culled a typical week's worth of writing, the kind of pre-blogger fourth grade nothings that make you wince even as you grin. Textual scholars need not read any further:

The Flannel Diaries 1984

September, 1984

Monday, September 2

Today was the first day of school. My teacher is Mrs. Strand. She kept looking at me when she called all our names. I don’t know why. The book I read during class was A Wrinkle in Time. I liked it. Mrs. Strand said not to read during class, so I got in trouble. At lunch, Dave dared me to snort milk up my nose. I dared him back and he did it, but then he choked and almost died. It was funny. Then Mr. Kelley came over and said something mean that we didn’t hear, so we all got in trouble. Then Dave said I was a pussy because I didn’t snort the milk, and he was crying a little, so I left to go read my book.

Tuesday, September 3
Today Mrs. Strand took my book away and said I was supposed to be working on math. I didn’t get the math, so I started to write weird sentences because I was bored. I came up with “My very educated mother just served us nine pimples,” and I showed it to Matt and he started laughing really loud. Then Mrs. Strand yelled at us and we both got in trouble for not doing our math. When I got home, I told my mom what happened, and she said I needed to do math better if I wanted to get full bright, whatever that means.

Wednesday, September 4
Today was my brother’s birthday. He got a bunch of cool GI Joes. He let me play with them while the cheerleaders for his football team came over. They went into his room and played while I got to play with the GI Joes. I can’t believe he just let me keep them like that. What a loser. Matt came over later and we went exploring out in the woods. Mom said not to get our shoes muddy, but we did, so she got mad. Matt swears a lot.

Thursday, September 5
Mrs. Strand got mad at me again today because I was reading another book during Social Studies. She sent me to the back corner of the room for me to cool off, but I said I wasn’t angry and she said, No, not you. I don’t get it. She came back and said, Are you going to start paying attention? I said, Okay. She said, are you even listening to me right now? and I said okay. Then she said, have you been sniffing glue from the art supplies when you were back here, and I said Okay. Mrs. Strand looks red when she gets mad.

Friday, September 6
Fridays are fun because you don’t have to go to bed on time. My brother and I stayed up late watching World Wrestling Federation. My brother said all the wrestling was fake, but it’s cool anyway because all the wrestlers are all buff and can throw eachother around a lot and that’s cool. My brother says he’s going to start lifting weights so he can look as big as a wrestler. I said I wasn’t going to do that because I want to be a ninja and ninjas aren’t that big or they can’t sneak into fortresses and stuff like that. My brother said girls like it when guys are big like that, and I said, but then I couldn’t be a ninja. Then my brother rolled his eyes. I’ve seen him doing that a lot lately.

Sunday, September 8
My mom and my dad made me do homework today. My brother started at ten in the morning and finished before noon, and then he went to go watch the football game. I started at noon and finished at twelve fifteen. I told them I was really smart and that was why I finished it so quick, and then they wanted to see it. My dad said, what’s a fifth of twelve, and I got confused because I thought a fifth was a bottle of bourbon. I said so, and my dad said, don’t get smart with me, mister, I pay the bills around here. Then I said I thought the Bills were a football team, and everyone rolled their eyes like my brother does. Mom made me finish my math homework, and then we all watched King Kong on TV. I don’t think they made any more King Kong movies after that, and I think I want to write one of my own. I want to make King Kong come to our town and trash my school. That would be cool.

Monday, September 9
Mrs. Strand said we were going to be making an insect collection for science class. We have to find twenty different insects, kill them and mount them on a piece of cardboard. Mom made me start when I got home from school, so I went out in the field with a butterfly net and caught insects. Then I killed them. Then I left them on the kitchen table and forgot to put them on the cardboard, so I got in trouble. Matt said he’s going to get his insects from the windowsill. Today, Andy Richter said if I gave him my milk money he wouldn’t punch me in the face. Matt said for me to punch him first, but I gave him the money. I don’t like milk anyway. Mrs. Strand took my glue away from me.

Tuesday, September 10
I got four more dead bugs today and put them in an envelope because I forgot my cardboard. It was gross. Andy told me to give him my money again today, but he didn’t say he wouldn’t hit me, so I didn’t. Then he hit me. Mrs. Strand yelled at him and pulled his ear and made him apologize to me. Then Chris Freeman said Mrs. Strand beat him up and I didn’t, and everybody laughed. So I took my dead bugs and threw them in Chris’s lunch and he cried. That made me feel better. But then I didn’t have any more dead bugs after school so I had to go out and get more.

Thursday, September 12
I got my last dead bugs today. I put them on the cardboard and wrote names underneath them all. My dad saw the project and asked me if I was supposed to put their scientific names under them. I said I thought I was supposed to name them, and that I named them all after the dumb kids at school like Dave, Andy and Chris. My dad said he liked that better. My mom said, don’t encourage him. My brother did seventy pushups today, and I drank three Cokes.

Friday, September 13
Mrs. Strand gave me a D on my insect project. She said I didn’t label them according to kingdom, phylum and class, and I wasn’t supposed to give them people names. I said I didn’t use people names, I used Chris Freeman’s and Andy Richter’s names, and she smiled a little and changed my grade to a C. My mom said it was a dumb project anyway, and that John Steinbeck probably never had to do one either but he turned out okay. We went out to dinner at Port Barrington and my brother and I got a bunch of quarters to play Donkey Kong Junior with while Mom and Dad stayed at the table with the neighbors. I went to go eat the chips on the table, but they turned out to be cigarette butts. It was gross. My brother laughed and I hit him, but I didn’t get in trouble because he didn’t notice.

Except for Matt, who is shameless anyway, all proper names have been changed. Weird how I never refer to my brother by name, isn't it?

Fare thee well, Arthur Miller. You were a voice we (or I, if you prefer) took for granted as immortal. All too late, I regret it.

New York Times' obituary

From Cisco:

A Year of Lies. The chronicles of a PI with three slugs in him. One is lead and the rest are bourbon. Hysterical. Makes me jealous. Get off this pathetic excuse for a blog and go read his instead.

More Marriage Mayhem

Todd called me up out of the blue to ask if I would stand at his wedding. Open bar? I asked. Bachelor party? Reception? Good looking tuxedo? Open bar? Sure, I'll show up. Open bar, right?

It's my third standing thus far; I thought about compiling some kind of Groomsman Resume, only I'm somewhat reluctant. It doesn't look good:

1993: My cousin's wedding. Face broke out. Hid in the bathroom all afternoon, too embarassed to come out and dance with her friends. Grey tuxedo made me look like a parking lot attendee. Lost the room key. Brother sarcastic.

1997: Stood at Dale's wedding. Late to ceremony. Got lost on the way to the reception. Hated the bride. Sunday night, and no open bar.

2002: Dale's second wedding. On time, but hung over. Holes in socks. Ate two pounds of deep fried calamari; lousy stomach ache.

2003: Brother's wedding. Stood and made a kickass toast. Too pale compared to everyone else. Open bar. Good food. Good ceremony.

2005: Todd's wedding. Will get lost. Will rip tuxedo. Will forget to buy a gift. Will enjoy open bar. Will make a speech whether or not anyone wants to hear it.

A memorable moment:

I'm out for drinks with a couple friends (no, I'm not naming them by name, but careful readers will be able to discern any likely candidates), and we're going over past New Year's Eve nights:

Me: One year we went drinking in DeKalb. Another night we were in Florida.
Tso: Hey, didn't we go ballroom dancing one year?
(pause)
Tso: Wait...I meant...
Me: I remember that night. You didn't hold my hand.

Okay, I blew the anonymity. God, it was funny.

Don't fuck with a right wing dental assistant

It had only been about four months since my last visit, but my resident gum-scraper wanted me in to take a look at a few things. So while he's out taking care of whatever, I'm strapped in the chair like Dustin Hoffman in Marathon Man, having my teeth worked over by Wendy the Republican Dental Hygenist.

Like all hygenists, Wendy wants to talk to you about all kinds of pathetic things while you've got nothing less than Fort Knox in your mouth. First she tells me about her new neighbors: "I'm not racist or anything, but I can't stand that spic music." Then she moves on to raising children: "My new neighbors let their kids run around all over the place, so I called the cops on them. They had the nerve to tell me to mind their own business!"

And finally, the election:

Wendy: So who you voting for?
Me: Awww...ak gah baghd.
Wendy: I know, I don't know what people believe they're going to get if that East coast phony takes the White House. We need a president who's going to stand behind his people. Spit, please.
Me: (spitting) Well, a lot of people say a change is--
Wendy: Back in the chair. (scraping furiously) Ooh, those damn Democrats make me so angry! All their talk about peace and multilateralism...where would we be if Bush hadn't stuck his big boot up Hussein's ass? I'll tell you where--the smallest fucking province of the Iraqi Empire! That's where. You know?
Me: Gah bagh awd...gah bagh.
Wendy: You're damned right. When I hear that kind of whining, I could kill someone, or at the very least cause them some serious pain. Spit.
Me: You know, you have beautiful eyes. I bet you can sight like a marksman with your nine millimeter.
Wendy: Oh, you. Look, I'm blushing.

So You Wanna Fix a Dangling Modifier and Save the World...

I started this post in an effort to write a serious reflection. Look what happens when I try to get serious. Learned my lesson.

It was one thirty in the afternoon, and my fifth hour composition class was belligerent. In fact, they were downright bewildered, looking at each other in irritation, as if wondering what they were thinking when they signed up for the course last spring.

Yours truly was up at the front (as usual), tie pulled down (not as usual--I don't normally wear ties) and with an irritated look of his own (very much as usual). "I don't see what the problem is with this. It's a dangling modifier. It dangles. It doesn't properly modify. What's the freaking deal?"

In the back of the room, one Edna P. (name changed), from UIC, is observing me. Edna decided a while ago she wanted to be an English teacher, and was urged by her sister to choose me to shadow for a day, as per the university's certification process. Every five minutes, she scribbled like mad in a little steno notebook she brought along. Every time I saw her scribbling, I started to get even more irritated. I didn't know what she was writing, but in my heightened paranoia, I was making some interesting guesses:

Students belligerent...don't comprehend significance of dangling modifier...teacher belligerent...doesn't comprehend students' inability to grasp said modifier...teacher smells like beer...

Teacher needs to slow down...students need to wise up...why the hell am I wanting to do this anyway?

Earlier that day, she'd told me about her own history in education. "I went to school in several cities, and they were terrible. I went to a couple of suburban schools, and decided I really wanted to do that. I've spent the past several years relearning everything I was supposed to know already from high school: Hemingway, Salinger, Shakespeare. I decided it would really be something to make a difference in these kids' lives. If I could reach even one student, I'd be making a difference."

Where did she learn to talk like that? Boston Public?

"Well, you're welcome to join in in any way you see fit," I said, smiling broadly and trying to remind myself that, while I'd never been that idealistic myself, I'd certainly been naive, and had had the good fortune to be ushered towards a more realistic perception of the job. What had I told Rich once upon a time? "I'm going to teach literature. If they don't like it, that's their problem. If they do, then they can take the test, graduate, and leave me alone."

Anyway, despite my welcome, and despite my invitation to take part in the lesson, Edna remained in the back of the room, scribbling like mad and drawing crude caricatures of me with a badly-knotted tie. (Probably.)

"Okay, let's take it from the top," I said to the class, deciding the ABC approach might work better. "What is a modifier?"

"It modifies," one of my better students spoke up. (That's right--I said "better.")

"Okay. And when you modify, it helps to know what you're modifying, right?"

Sullen, reluctant agreement ensued. "Like, 'This class is a total waste of time?" spoke up my right-row wit.

I bit down a sharp retort. "Absolutely. 'Total' goes next to the noun phrase, 'waste of time.' But if you put the modifier too far from what it augments, you've lost your audience like Sam gets lost in the McDonald's Playland when his mommy goes out to smoke a cigarette and use the cell phone."

Damn. Blew that one.

"So what's dangling about that sentence?" ejaculated my front row cheerleader. There were a few other cheerleaders in the back row, nodding their solidarity. "It looks, like, fine to me."

The sentence, on which we all fixed our undying attention, glared at us on the overhead like a rebuke. As if to say, If you haven't figured this out already, you never will. Maybe it was even right. It read: Travelling acrost the U.S., it's vastness effected her.

To their credit, the class had already deciphered the spelling errors (although I started to sweat a little when I realized I'd misspelled "traveling" completely by accident), abbreviation problem and wrong word choice. But they were struggling with the idea that, all mechanics aside, the sentence didn't make a lot of sense.

"I mean, it's not like we expect the U.S. to travel anywhere," the cheerleader continued, working on her eyeliner with a compact mirror. "It's, like, a place, you know?"

I assurred her that I did indeed know. "You see, Shannon, if you have to waste time figuring out what is doing the traveling, you've lost your reader. Remember what we said about readers?"

Like the chorus in a Greek play, the class started their solemn intonation: "The Reader keeps us employed. The Reader is dumb. The Reader has absolutely no attention span and would rather be watching Fox News. As a result, we must cater to the lowest denomination of our Reader without compromising our constant struggle for Truth, Objectivity and Value in our Journalistic Correspondence."

"Yeah, but." My front row cheerleader was nonplused. "Like, I don't understand the newspaper half the time. They're not catering to me."

"That's because you're a dimbulb, sweetheart."

(I had to check carefully to make sure I didn't actually say that.)

(OK--I was clear. But she must have read it on my face.)

"You'll get there, Shannon." I smiled reassuringly. "You can start right now. Isn't there any way to rephrase that sentence so it's a little less confusing?"

Edna, scribbling: Teacher suggests direct student involvement. About fucking time.

My right row super-Sophomore roused his head from his notebook (where he'd left a cast good enough for genealogical work, complete with drool for DNA) and squinted at the overhead as if it were the Rosetta Stone. "Let's just say he's traveling," he suggested. "In the U.S."

"Where?"

"Anywhere. Does it matter? If you cross our town, you're traveling across the country, technically. Aren't you? Didn't you say that?"

The Greek chorus spoke up again: "Semantic ambiguity depends on a willfull obstruction of shared knowledge between speaker and listener, but does not necessarily negate any of the main truths. There are two levels of truth--"

"Oh shut up. Why is it you brats only pay attention when you can prove something I said is wrong?"

(Did I say "brats"? Oh God, please tell me I didn't. Well, please tell me I did. They deserve it. No they don't. Oh shit, someone's talking. I guess I better pay attention.)

Edna: Teacher lapses for a moment. There's no glue left in his bottle on the desk, and he's breathing heavily. Coincidence?

"What?" I rasped.

"I said why don't we just switch the subject and the verb."

Third row, fourth seat. My Aspiring Future Journalist. One of about four or five in the class of twenty-one. My shining young angel. I beamed at her while trying to remain outwardly neutral and scrawled "Traveling across the United States, she was affected by its vastness" in a nearly illegible hand. "See the problem? See the solution? Now we know who was traveling, and now we know the given context of the situation. The reader is no longer confused."

"The Reader keeps us employed. The Reader is dumb. The Reader has absolutely no attention..."

"Yeah, yeah. Now, that's how you fix a dangling modifier."

I waited. The class looked at me expectantly, as if to suggest, That's it? You think that changes my life? I'm still a pimple-encrusted, suburban youth trapped in a smothering environment and you don't even have a window for me to look out of. Who the hell you think you are, anyway?

I breathed deeply, for the kill: "And now, your homework. Fix all the dangling modifiers in the article on page 35 of your packet. Go do it now. Work quietly. Don't bother me."

I slouched over to my desk and busied myself with some paperwork. Most of the class went to the assignment willfully enough, but Super Sophomore made himself comfortable on his notebook again, the cheerleader finished with her eyes and went to work on her nose, and my right-row wit started rewriting sentences to include both my name and speculations about my ancestry. I sighed and looked at the clock on the wall. Ten minutes to the bell.

Edna came over. "I got a lot out of that," she said in a chipper tone of voice.

"Yeah? Good. Hopefully you won't split the modifier "billious blowhard" with my name."

She laughed politely, and for a minute I wondered why. Then I realized I hadn't said that at all. More something like, "They're good kids. They just need work on the basics."

"My professor says it's always important to connect with your class interpersonally. Get comfortable with them one-on-one."

"Do tell. What else does she tell you?"

"That it's wrong to belittle students, or tax them for not knowing something when it's your job to teach them."

(Oh crap. I was talking out loud all that time.)

"Yeah, well, you tell your professor that in the Ivory Towers she undoubtedly lives in, that's all fine and dandy. But out here, we have to hold them accountable for what they already know. If we don't, they can ride No Child Left Behind all the way to the unemployment office in their mid-forties."

Now that time I actually spoke. She frowned at me, not sure if I was kidding or not.

"I don't want to tell you 'This is the way it is,' because it's different for different people, places, classes. Who you are is half your day right there. Just be aware that it's a continuous process. You know when they learn what a dangling modifier is? Eighth grade. Maybe earlier. Just like they learn what nouns and verbs are. Half of them mix all that up."

I was rambling. I was tired. Edna wasn't writing in her book.

"What I'm saying: Each kid is a situation. So are you. Connections are fine and dandy, but sooner or later, you have to realize you've got to do it the way you think works, and stand by it until it doesn't work for you any more. That's how you stay sane, pumpkin."

Later on in the day, Edna would tell me she still wanted to be a teacher (interesting comment), and that I "made it look a whole lot easier than it actually was." I suppose I do, actually. Lots of people do, at lots of jobs. The decisions you make are not going to be agreable, or even acceptable, to about half the free world, but, like our sterling president, you stand by them because you believe in them. (If you're proved wrong, that would be a good time to stop thinking like our president and start thinking like someone with functional neurons, but that's another story.)

I have no way to conclude this little vignette, except to point out that Edna is writing a paper about me as we speak. Were her account compared with mine, I don't doubt for a second they would be widely disparate.

Were her professor to compare this account with the textbooks, she'd probably have a few things to say. Ditto my professors' take on it and hers. Ditto my co-workers. Ditto my boss.

There's a lesson in there somewhere. Too bad I didn't think of it in time to teach it to her. But it's nice knowing it myself.

Lessons learned after a crappy Monday:

1) I'm not in grad school any more. As a result, there's only so much time I can devote to higher education, especially considering the fact that this is a 3-hour class for recertification, and I'm not going to see another dime in pay increase unless I do this four more times over the course of a year or two. That means the two or three hours I spent on this Black Plague paper is time well spent...but also robs me of time spent elsewhere.

2) Assigning work for the kiddies is a piece of cake, and fun. "What's that, Joey? You planned on going to the Homecoming Dance? Ha ha, not any more! Get that project together or I'm calling Mommy again!" Then flash forward two weeks, or four, or six, or whatever, and see your Friendly Neighborhood English Teacher sitting at a desk, a stack of essays in front of him, his hair falling out in sheepdog-like clumps, while the students prance along on their merry way, laughing at his shortsightedness...

3) Senioritis is a bullshit term. These kids are just lazy.

4) Skipping coffee in the morning and having a few granola bars on hand saves you five or ten minutes. But if all you're going to do with that time is huddle in the bed, wondering if the alarm going off is just a dream, you wasted that time anyway.

5) Einstein wore the same clothes all the time, this is true. But if you don't know how to shop for clothes, and as a result, have a more or less consistent pattern of colors, the rest of the world picks up on it toot sweet. And nobody's mistaking yours truly for Einstein. More like a cheap bastard who spends most of his money on restaurants and movies.

6) Everyone else is calling in sick because of husbands in town for the weekend, or children who need to be hospitalized. Wussies. And just because I don't have a kid in Little League doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to take time out for him anyway.

7) How dare I waste time pleasure reading? I need to finish the Pitti diaries for class (which I didn't finish for sake of a cold bottle of Bud).