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).

Who says Batman only hangs out in Gotham City?

via Cnn: Dad-Man scales Buckingham, stays on wall for five hours.

I'm putting this picture on my weekly news quiz. I'm only afraid most of the students will think it's Adam West.

Damn it, it's August.

Time to start gearing up. Time to start dusting off lesson plans (ha ha), polishing up on essay assignments (ho ho) and ironing out the wrinkles in the shirt and tie in the back of my closet (ah ha ha ha!).

Still, the summer isn't over yet. My aunt and uncle were in town the weekend before last--see there? They made the "name list." Kudos. Even though I was coming off of a hellacious cold/flu, I made it out to my dad's two or three times, and we all went to dinner at the Millrose once. So you could say it was a weekend of sickness well spent.

After that, things died down considerably, though--I went into overdrive trying to find an apartment, found one, decided to take it, then decided to wait a while. I talked to my landlord about this damned neighbor of mine, and we agreed I could go on a month-to-month lease this year. That way, if I can't stand it anymore, and if all attempts to contact him amicably have failed, I can hit the high road. I was looking at a place in Schaumburg, a high rise of sorts, and it sounded good, but something in me, my Spider-Sense perhaps, warned me against making a move right out of the blue like that.

Perhaps it was the fact that I've got Kim's parents' dog. Perhaps it was the fact that I don't want to spend my last free week of summer packing and moving. Perhaps it was just laziness. I don't know. But it's good to have options. Always.

Tonight: Styx, the concert. Need I say more?

From the New York Times: Fewer Americans Reading. Big shocker, right? But the article points out that, in an era where the population has risen to 40 million, a seven to ten percentage difference in the reading public from 1992 is more than a little eyebrow-raising. I don't know why this riles me so much, but apparently religious book sales are up, while classic and contemporary literature are in the toilet. More of the "I'm right and those unlike me are wrong" philosophy, I suspect. If Michael Moore preaches to the choir, the likes of the "Left Behind" series fucking shout to it.