i’ve always avoided having my picture taken, my whole life. my partner, for example, only has two or three pictures of us together, all taken under protest. i’ve been trying to remedy this lately, pushing myself to allow my picture to be taken, though always with the caveat that no one is allowed to see it except the person i’m having it taken with (and it’s never a picture of just me). for the first time in my life, i’ve got multiple pieces of photographic evidence of my own existence. it’s a very, very strange feeling.

i think my head is lopsided.

i’ve never really encountered this before, not like this.

i’m in this mfa program, so naturally we talk about authors a lot. the school i’m attending, the truly unfortunately named Georgia College and State University, is actually the school that Flannery O’Connor attended as an undergraduate, in the town where she grew up, so there’s a lot of talk about her. (you can actually go to her childhood home and take tours, and the school seems to nurse more than a little butthurt that Emory University, the rich and prestigious private university in nearby Atlanta, has possession of O’Connor’s personal papers.) but talking about authors is not weird, certainly not talking about authors in a university english department. what is strange, to me at least, is how they are referred to in this program/english department: when they talk about them, they often refer to the authors by their first names. not always, but everyone does it sometimes, it seems.

i first noticed it during discussions of O’Connor, and while it seemed odd to me, i didn’t think much of it. the school, particularly the english department, is very proud of its connection to this important twentieth-century literary figure (so much so that it sometimes feels like a creepy ownership thing), so it didn’t seem outrageous that these feelings manifested in referring to her in such a familiar way. other students and instructors would talk about how they felt when reading ‘Flannery’ or how ‘Flannery’ had inspired them. it’s weird, but i guess they are, in fact, at ‘Flannery’s’ old school, and Andalusia is actually just a few miles down the road, so whatever.

however, this habit is not confined solely to references to Flannery. the past two weeks in my prose forms class, we’ve been reading Sylvia Plath’s journals, and during both of the presentations given by my classmates, they repeatedly referred to Ms. Plath as ‘Sylvia.’ to my knowledge (which is limited, obviously, so who knows i guess), Sylvia Plath has about as much connection to Georgia College and State University and Milledgeville, GA as she does to Arena Mexico, the long-time home base for CMLL (Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre–Mexico’s largest and oldest lucha libre promotion) in Mexico City. this is to say, of course, that she has no connection to either one, so my logic for why Flannery might be addressed by first name doesn’t work here. certainly, Sylvia has, culturally, taken on the status of almost a patron saint for a certain type of sensitive, tortured artist, particularly for female artists, so that might account for my fellow students feeling a kinship with her that makes them feel comfortable calling her by her first name. (both of the presenters, in fact, were female, though many other students, male and female, followed their lead in calling Sylvia by her first name.) i’ve also heard multiple other authors discussed as though they’re old friends of everyone in the program/department. after i did a presentation on him last semester (where i only called him by his last name), we had a lively discussion about ‘Haneef’ (Abdurraqib), and i actually met another real live person who is as enthusiastic about ‘Annie’ (Dillard) as i am. i suppose it’s not a big deal, but it never stops taking me by surprise.

my best guess is that the department i’m in now is sort of defined by its creative writing mfa program, which is all about training students up to be writers. the majority of its identity seems to come from that, so it follows the lead of the program, and a large part of the program’s goal is to get us, the students, to see ourselves as writers. my prose forms teachers made us go around the room and proclaim, ridiculously, that we already are writers. maybe a small part of that, of seeing ourselves as the same kind of people as Flannery and Sylvia and Haneef and Annie is to speak about them like they’re the exact same as us, like they’re our homies. i suppose there’s some logic in that. or maybe everyone is just crazy but me. probably, though, it’s that i’m a tool.

Annie, give me strength.

I have a habit, which I insist is charming, of telling my partner about my bowel movements. Most often, my reports seem like  simple declarations of their character, before turning into a narrative and/or something symbolic or even thought-provoking (e.g., “It was reluctant, and therefore unsatisfying, because I felt guilty, like a frat boy coercing a girl who’d had too much to drink and wouldn’t be able to be sure later if the experience was consensual”). Occasionally, I explode the whole thing into something self-consciously epic dramas in which I leave the bathroom a different person than I was when I entered. Like the time when my shit was like fucking Avengers when Thanos snaps his fingers; it was such a reality-shattering game-changer that there was no way things would ever be the same, but at the same time I knew that next time things had to revert back to normal, to a degree, so that the stories could continue, and I couldn’t wait to find out what would happen. Or maybe it’s simple, like when my shit was like the weather in Georgia— unpleasant. Or when it’s kind of like me myself: inscrutable, hard to define. Or maybe I become nostalgic and compare it to the past and find the current scene lacking compared to the movements I romanticize from my youth, getting all dumb as hell, like the YouTube comment section under a video from some Alice In Chains song from the 90s saying how shit hasn’t been the same since like April of 1995 and I remember it and what in the world are these kids going to remember from today, fucking Imagine Dragons?, and I wish we could go back (not just me, but all of us, because these kids deserve better than this shit these days), and I imagine some comment on my shit from someone claiming to be fourteen and who validates me and says “I’m fifteen and I really think today’s shit is terrible and I wish I was alive in the 90s when shit was real and authentic.” Or maybe it’s one that I really had to force, just put all kinds of pressure on it, like Chinese parents putting all that pressure on their kids to succeed in a really narrow, proscribed way and it can easily destroy the child, and I wonder whether I really care about the shit or if it really is all about me. Or the long-anticipated follow-up to the Thanos finger-snap shit, and it starts off underwhelming and I’m thinking “What did I expect? How could it be anything but a letdown?” and I really start to wonder about myself and where I’m trying to try to find fulfillment and meaning in my world, but then out of nowhere shit starts touching down on the battlefield like toof toof toof toof fucking everything up and I’m ok wait a minute lil bitch you mighta done did something.

I try to be careful, as a general rule, never to say anything that might be taken as sincere bragging, but I’m actually kind of proud of my capacity for finding novel ways to describe my shits. It’s true. I’m not ashamed of this, and this whole post, to be honest, is evidence of that fact. I guess I’m posting this because I feel like it will make me seem like a really cool person who you want to know more about, someone who transforms the mundane and quotidian into something fresh and interesting. Holler at me, I’m out here and I’m really wit the shits.

For the second time in eight days, I went to the Georgia Aquarium today. I had two different groups of out of town visitors, and itself the most high-profile tourist attraction in Atlanta. So I drove almost two hours into the city, faced the crowds of shuffling goons and their greasy, unvaccinated children, and saw a bunch of fish and mammals.

I saw dolphins put on a show. They leapt from the water, jumping over ropes and hitting red balls hanging from the ceiling with their nose (which is not really a nose, it just looks like a nose to us— dolphins don’t have a nose, they breathe through their blowhole…also they are warm-blooded, since they are mammals; they’re whales, actually). Their trainers hold onto their dorsal fin and get pulled around the tank. The trainers also stand on their (not actually a) nose and ride the mammals like a surf board. Oooh. They use their tails to splash the first ten rows of the audience. Aaahh. Part of the show is when they take some dumbass kid from the audience and let him interact with and touch the dolphins, and also throw some fish in its mouth when it did the things they wanted it to. It seemed very happy to get the fish.

I saw the giant tank with the whale sharks in it. One of the employees did a presentation about how what a pain in the ass it was to get whale sharks to middle Georgia, so we appreciate all the effort that they put into bringing these amazing, massive creatures to this place where they don’t belong. UPS helped, which makes sense. We all sit and gawk, taking pictures and videos with our phones while the whale sharks and rays swim in circles forever on the other side of two feet of clear acrylic.

The tropical exhibit, with its brightly lit tanks full of perfectly clear water and technicolor fish, is the best place for selfies. I saw the clown fish, hiding in pulsating orange anemone. Little kids screamed and slapped at the glass, screaming for Nemo. Everyone ignored the posted signs asking them not to use flashes to take pictures of the jellyfish.

The aquarium does lots of research and rehabilitation and conservation activities. According to their videos, they’re always working to try to help mitigate the damage that the rest of us do to the natural world.

I have been to the aquarium twice in the last eight days, and four times in total. You would think I’m bored with it at this point. And I am. However, when the sea turtle (whose name is Tank, bt-dubs) shows himself and lazily paddles across the huge viewing window, I still gawk and fumble for my phone. I still lose track of time staring at the Beluga whales coasting gracefully and blowing little air bubbles that they seem to play with. I still call my friends over excitedly when the sea otter rubs his face in the ice, grabbing some in his little hands and chomping on it, because it’s adorable. I still get excited when I get to see them feed the whale shark, marveling at how they vacuum up everything in front of them. I still use a picture of the jellyfish for my phone’s lock screen (though I did not use the flash), or a picture of a clown fish for my wallpaper. I still almost buy a stuffed seal pup or something from the gift shop.

It was dark when I drove home from Atlanta. I hate driving at night, partly because I suffer from night blindness, but also because— as my guests pointed out to me eight days ago when I had to drive back home from aquarium at night (and which I had never actually noticed before) —deer can be seen grazing, right next to the road, as though they’re killing time, waiting for a ride. It’s terrifying. They’re just calmly chewing away, cars speeding by right by them. Seeing them, I understood why deer are hit by cars so often. I gripped the steering wheel tightly, my right foot hovering over the brake. I imagined how I would probably freeze if I saw a deer in my headlights.

To be honest, I was kind of mad at them. Like, you fucking dummies. What is wrong with your dumb asses? Do you not see the reckless parade of cars flashing past you? The speed limit is 70mph, and no one is going less than 80mph. We’re going as fast as we can, and we’re not interested in your lives. We’re not paying attention to nothing. We’re out here trying to run into whatever we see, hit it hard and make it explode and turn it from a solid into a mist. We aren’t paying attention and we like to make stuff into other stuff that it wasn’t before just to keep from getting bored for a couple minutes and we’ll make you dead just like that and not give a fuck. We’ll mostly be upset because of how much it will cost to make our car look perfect again. We won’t even bother to tell ourselves stories about why we killed you. We’ll get UPS to bring a giant whale shark to Atlanta, GA just to do it, just because we can, and we’ll tell ourselves it’s because we’re good people. And you’re not no whale shark. We’ll just clean the pieces of you from our car’s grill and wipe the blood from our headlights and forget you, because there’s always more things to not pay attention to. Listen up, and get as far away from us as you can. Pay attention and do what I want you to do. I’m trying to help you, stupid animals.

i’m complicated. i contain multitudes, obvs. in most ways, i kind of fiercely protect this idea, trying self-consciously to make myself hard to sum up or pin down. i bristle, for example, at calling my partner my ‘wife,’ though we are married, because i want to reject all of the baggage that comes with the idea of being ‘married,’ of simply being thought of as someone’s ‘husband.’ i don’t like that whole concept, but more than that, i also don’t like having one word sum me up. (i don’t like the idea of a single word or concept summing anyone up, but i can’t control these things for other people. i can’t even control them for myself.)

in spite of this, the idea that i might be able to state simply and definitively “this is me” can seem, however fleetingly, to an attractive one. and so i wonder, what could i say about me? what identity might i assert that’s strong enough to make all the remaining inconsistencies and complications seem less pressing? is there a me that can be said to overshadow all the other me’s? let’s find out now~:

• social phobia
  • this one is probably, if i had to pick one, the winner. it colors every other part of me, and there’s no decision i make that isn’t at least partly influenced by it. it’s the only part of me that i have to take medication to keep from being wholly swallowed up by. it’s the part of me that i acknowledge most consistently and openly, but it’s also the one i try most actively to fight against. it’s the me that i wish i wasn’t, even though it’s me when i’m at my me-est.
• teacher
  • this is my favorite me, but it’s also the me that least resembles me. this me is supportive, optimistic and genuine. it’s the best me, to the point that i have a hard time recognizing myself i am positive and encouraging and sincere, and i truly mean these things. when i started teaching, i was told that i would create a ‘teacher persona’ that would still be me, but it would also be a really distinct version of myself that doesn’t appear anywhere but the classroom. it’s true, and it’s so weird. if i had to pick one of me that i wish i was, it’s this fucking guy.
• writer
  • in prose forms, the instructor asked everyone to say out loud “i am a writer.” we went around the table, one at a time, announcing “i am a writer.” i said it when it was my turn, but it was a lie when i said it. i write, but i’m not a writer. i’m not super sure what ‘a writer’ is, but i feel confident that it’s not me.
• caregiver
  • maybe see ‘teacher’? we live with lots of animals, and i get a great deal of satisfaction from looking after them, just taking care of their daily needs. this cat named Maxxx used to live with us, and he was very sick. every day, he needed medicine put in his food and his pee needed to be constantly monitored. additionally, one of the other cats was an asshole to him, so i was also always trying to keep aware of his interactions with his mates. when he died, i was devastated, and i realized how much taking care of him had become part of my own identity and just how much losing him was losing a part of myself.
• depressed
  • i have been depressed in the past, though i didn’t recognize it until years later. my partner will not stop suggesting that i am depressed now. i mean, i may be, but it’s not very interesting.
• friend
  • see ‘teacher’ for sure. this persona has been very much redefined by the emergence of that one.
• alienated/disconnected from others
  • very much related to the social phobia, in that this is a reflection of that condition and that it is also a contender for one that could potentially be the one that crowds out the others and defines me.
• white/hetero/cisgender male
  • objectively, this is the answer, because it defines all my interactions. i didn’t choose it, of course, but it doesn’t feel like i chose any of this mess. nevertheless, it doesn’t make me feel unique or special, so i reject it as a possible answer. as a white male, it is my prerogative.
• no identity
  • i suppose i’m too old for this, but i still kind of like to pretend that i can reject the idea that i have to have any kind of identity (see the opening of this post) . to pretend that i can be a cipher, an empty box with a simple outline of a person instead of a profile picture. it’s juvenile to still be playing at this, but i won’t deny that the idea still holds a lot of attraction for me.
• afraid
  • very connected to ‘social phobia’ and ‘alienated’ (the link between the two?) but more generalized in that it’s not necessarily connected specifically to interactions with other human beings. however, the most intense, pervasive fear revolves around those moments and relationships, and it seems dishonest to elevate the generic over the specific, in this case.
• partner
  • this is what i like to call myself, since the idea of being ‘husband’ is profoundly unattractive to me. i like this term, because it’s less weighted down with expectations and previously existing associations that i had no hand in establishing. it’s more wide open, meaning that it’s easier for me to fill it up with my own (social phobia, writer, teacher, caregiver, depressed, friend, alienated/disconnected, no identity, afraid) bullshit. it comes with some baggage (it implies a strongly liberal bent, and i have had multiple students ask me if i’m gay), but that baggage is less oppressive and the idea is more open for me to shape in a way that’s comfortable for me. that being said, part of what i’d like my personal version of ‘partner’ to be is collaborative, in that i want to allow my partner to define the role with me. it’s going entirely smoothly, because one of the major pieces of input my partner has contributed so far is that, actually, she doesn’t care for this whole ‘partner’ idea (she prefers to refer to me as ‘husband,’ which is a source of conflict), so i’m not totally sure what to do with that. i’m able to work some of my other stuff into this me, as well, particularly the ‘caregiver’ me, because i get the opportunity to be supportive. though ‘supportive’ is tricky here, because my mode of being supportive doesn’t always necessarily line up perfectly with my partner’s needs, making that element of the relationship an ongoing negotiation. additionally, my constant social phobia and fear taints, or at least exerts pressure (though not always negatively) on the relationship, and thus my status within the relationship. i have a fairly strong personality, when i feel comfortable enough to show it, so i worry that the relationship (and therefore the concept of ‘partner’) is being defined less collaboratively than i like to imagine it is, and i worry that this is especially true in light of the fact that my partner, despite her repeated, vocal waffling on the topic, doesn’t actually even want a partner- she wants a husband.
• contrarian
  • this is what my partner and my oldest friend and my mom say about me. but they’re wrong about that, so it’s not worth spending more time on.

so now i’ve said all these things, talked about myself explicitly for more than a thousand words, and nothing concrete has been accomplished. i haven’t moved forward at all in defining myself clearly. which, as i stated at the start, is not something that i actually wanted to accomplish anyway. so, mission accomplished.

i made a girl in one of my classes cry this past semester. she literally ran out of the room and didn’t come back. another student went to check on her (she was crying in the bathroom), coming back a few minutes later to grab her stuff, because she was too upset to return to class herself.

there’s stuff i can say, details i can include, that give context and help mitigate how bad that sounds, but, in the end, it doesn’t change the truth of the situation. i’m the teacher, i have the power in the situation, and i singled a student out, in front of everyone, and reduced her to tears.

at the end of the session, i apologized to the rest of the class for what i’d done. almost uniformly, they responded by telling me it wasn’t my fault, that the girl i had made cry was just being ‘too emotional.’

***

also last semester, like most people, i was obsessed with the Brett Kavanaugh supreme court confirmation hearings. also, like most people, once i learned about the accusations of sexual misconduct against him, i made an instant determination about what i believed to be the truth of the situation. like most, i suppose, i like to think i’m not the kind of person who does that sort of thing. i was at school during the testimonies of Dr. Blasey Ford and Kavanaugh himself, but i made sure to watch and read about each one. again, like most, my initial instincts were confirmed.

i was right.

i’m always very bothered when an individual is placed into a situation where they become a symbol of the sins of a larger group, no matter how guilty they might be of those particular sins themselves. this is not useful, to me. pushing all the focus onto individuals allows us to avoid thinking too much about how the larger culture is contributing to a problem. additionally, i have an instinctive distrust of any characterization or narrative i receive from, well, anyone. even if the characterization of an individual is accurate, it’s incomplete, and it bothers me that individuals are necessarily shunted into narrow roles that are designed to crowd out any complexity or ambiguity. whatever scorn these individuals might actually deserve, no one deserves that.

nevertheless, i still knew i was right.

***

when i’m teaching, i have a hard time standing still in front of my students. i pace back and forth, i rock back and forth on my feet. my hands, in particular, are always doing something. i place my hands in my pockets and remove them over and over, sometimes taking my phone or keys out and then replacing them. i pull on my watch band and slide it up and down my wrist until it becomes sweaty, making the watch band harder to move easily. i trace squares on the corner of whatever table i’m near with my finger.  i pick up anything i come across.

it’s just a nervous thing. i’m anxious, and my hands reflect my anxiety through their constant movement. i don’t think, i just do things. i don’t stop to worry about what my hands might be touching, how they might be affecting whatever it is they come into contact with. i touch things because they are there, because i can. i’m probably not careful enough.

i’ve had a couple of teachers who, when they discuss their philosophies for teaching writing, they keep coming back to one specific rule: do no harm. do no harm, don’t forget it. i need to remember this more often. i mean, i suppose we all do, which is fucked up. that we need to remind ourselves not to do harm, as though harming others is somehow a natural state of affairs. that i need to be constantly on guard, so that my hands don’t break the things they touch, or build weapons to destroy the things i can’t easily reach. that i might forget to just keep my fucking hands to myself.  somehow, this is difficult. somehow, we have to consistently practice not harming each other. we even blame the people who we hurt sometimes, and if we’re lucky, there’s never a shortage of people who are willing to tell us we’re right. we give ourselves credit for simply making the effort not to destroy everything and everyone we come across, because that’s the most we seem to be able to reasonably expect from ourselves, and each other.

***