this dude’s out here waiting for the light to change so he can cross. he’s on the phone:

Dude! I swear to GOD~! She NEVER. SHUT. UP. I was just, like, “Can I get you another beer?” Longest night ever, I’m not kidding…I KNOW!! But she never shut up long enough to finish a drink, legit. No one caarrrrres; No. One. Cares. Longest night, seriously…Dude, I know I know…

i always wonder what my students are really thinking, what’s in their hearts. or, if not in their hearts, the kinds of things they think when they’re not busy trying to perform for me. i always want them to be their authentic selves in my classroom, in their writing for my class. i want the class to connect to their real lives, to be relevant to them. for them to be able to transfer the skills they build in my class to other areas of their lives.

dude, i know i know…

a fellow student told me about an exercise where you try to write a full story in six words (like “For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.”) . i’ve been thinking, for quite a while now, about how i might make a blog entry that is a single sentence. i’ve tried to do a single sentence entry, actually. my shortest entries are still around 100 words or more, and there might be one that was a single sentence, but it was like 300 words i think. the struggle continues.

The neighborhood I grew up in, Normain Heights, is World War II-themed. This is an odd way to say it. Along with the neighborhood itself, all the streets that comprise the subdivision— Guam, Normandy, Ardennes, St. Lowe, Palau, Bastogne and Leyte –are named after WW2 battles. My family lived on Bastogne, which was consistently the most mystifying for outsiders (followed, usually, by Palau, which I was actually never sure if any of us who even lived in the neighborhood were pronouncing correctly). Apart from mispronunciations, I regularly received mail with the street name misspelled, which seemed less understandable than the mispronunciations. The most common misspellings were either Bastone, seemingly spelling the word phonetically according to what it sounds like to a native English-speaker, and Bastonge, which I always took as a simple typo or, alternatively, reflective of the person being aware that there’s a ‘g’ in there but being unsure what to do with it. Occasionally, there was a more bold interpretation, like Bagstone or my personal favorite, Bustogus (I saved the envelope with that one, actually).

None of this is important.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\//\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

There was this kid, Andy, who lived on our street. His grandparents lived on it, actually, but he was often there, and he sometimes went to the same school as us. My parents were always telling me that I needed to be careful hanging around with Andy, that his parents were white trash and he was no good. I always thought they took him too seriously. (Plus, my mom seemed to believe that everyone is no-good white trash, which hurt her credibility in this area.) He was an idiot and a magnet for trouble, but he was harmless. I think my parents, honestly, recognized this, as they never intervened and kept my brother and I from hanging around with him. I think they felt sorry for him, actually. Andy’s older cousin, Robbie, who used to live with their grandparents, was rarely around anymore, as he had already started on a full-time career as a juvenile delinquent, while his other cousin, Danielle, still lived with their grandparents, and I remember my mom making a few cryptic comments, starting when she was around thirteen, indicating that she believed that every day Danielle remained not pregnant was a minor miracle.

Along with our other neighborhood friends, Matt and Stevie and Jeremy and Chris (all, according to my mom, varying degrees of white trash), we did stuff. We played wiffle ball a lot, and we were relatively serious about our shit. We carefully wrapped our bats in electrical tape to give them weight, the better to hit the ball for distance. It was an art, because you didn’t want it to be too heavy, as that might feel better to swing, but the ball wouldn’t pop off the bat in the same way. In the winter, we lowered the basketball hoops and purposely didn’t shovel the back half of our driveways (the driveways of most of the houses in Normain Heights were long enough to accommodate at least five cars parked in a single straight line) and played tackle basketball. Jeremy occasionally supplied us with pornography stolen from his uncle, who was paralyzed and had one of those wheelchairs that move in response to the user’s breath, and I was never totally sure why that dude needed so much porn, though I was grateful for the overflow. Matt and I briefly, furiously, collected baseball and basketball cards. We all had bikes, and we rode them. One time, while we watched the MLB All-Star Game, Andy set Matt’s living room carpet on fire. I don’t think he was trying to accomplish anything; he just set the carpet on fire. We called each other ‘faggot’ a lot.

We spent the night at each other’s house occasionally. A particular time, Matt, my brother and I spent the night at Andy’s grandparents’ house. We were probably around twelve, so it was around 1989. Since it was 1989, when we stayed up late we played original Nintendo games, mostly Contra. I liked staying at Andy’s, because his grandparents’ house was two stories and his bedroom was upstairs, so you always knew if someone was coming to check on you. But the reason you knew someone was coming was the reason I didn’t like staying at Andy’s; his grandparents’ house was one of those old houses where every move anyone made, in any part of the house, was audible in every other part of the house. In particular, if you even took a deep breath upstairs it would sound like the world was coming to an end downstairs, like the house itself was taking a deep breath.

They had a cat, and the litter box was in Andy’s room. It was rarely seen when I happened to be there, and I was never sure if it was because it was scared of strangers or if it was wary of Andy. Both explanations seemed equally plausible. What I did know for sure was that they never seemed to scoop the litter, and Andy was taking advantage of that fact to pelt the rest of us with cat turds while we tried to blast these faggots in Contra. Eventually, we all gave in and just had a big cat turd fight. Then we had to clean up all the cat turds, which was less fun. When I say ‘we,’ I mean Matt, my brother and I, because Andy just kept throwing cat shit at us. Matt got pissed and went home, which was a really reasonable response.

Finally, Andy’s grandpa yelled up at us and told us all to go to bed. Andy was irritated by this, as he was sure it was evidence that Danielle (whose bedroom was across the hall at the top of the stairs) had gone down and complained that we were being too loud. We turned the lights off and didn’t sleep, but we weren’t being too loud. Andy still had a lot of fight left in him, and he insisted that we go over to Danielle’s room, though he was noncommittal about the objective of this excursion. My brother and I weren’t into it, to which he responded by throwing more cat shit at us. He had remarkably good aim in the pitch-blackness, and the turds were, at this point, breaking apart from being thrown around so much, which was making them smell pretty bad again. Finally, my brother and I relented and agreed to go to Danielle’s room. Later, we both acknowledged that we wished that we’d left with Matt, but at that moment we felt trapped.

We tried to walk stealthily over to Danielle’s room, but the sound of the house creaking was deafening. Andy was confident.

“It sounds way louder out here in the hall than anywhere else.”

I was familiar with the house, so I knew that this wasn’t true. As we crept into Danielle’s room, she registered her opinion without pause, no delay in which she might be trying to figure out what was happening:

“Andy, what are you doing? Get the hell out of here!”

Inexplicably, Andy directed us to get under the bed.

Even more inexplicably, we got under the bed.

Danielle hissed at us to get out from under her bed, and, again, it might have just been my imagination, but it really felt like it wasn’t the first time she’d had to say this to Andy. I lay in-between my brother, who had slid under the bed first, and Andy, who went last.

At this point, Andy and Danielle’s grandpa yelled up at us from the bottom of the stairs:

“Get the hell out of there and back in your own room!”

Andy wasn’t bothered by this, telling us “He doesn’t know anything, don’t worry.” I was really wishing I wasn’t in the middle.

“God damn it! I mean it!”

Danielle, exasperated, exclaimed “Andy!” helplessly, sort of under her breath. Andy giggled, and I wondered if this had actually been his endgame.

“I’m going to count to five, and then I’m coming up there!”

I looked at Andy, careful to angle my head to avoid the rusty piece of metal sticking out from the bottom of the mattress. If he was having any doubts, he betrayed none.

“He’s just talking, he’ll go away.”

I started to open my mouth, possibly to ask ‘But what then?,’ but I was interrupted by Andy’s grandpa:

“One!”

“It’s fine, just be quiet.”

“Two!”

“Don’t worry, he ‘aint doing anything.”

I don’t remember exactly what I was thinking at this point. Most likely, I was trying and failing to make sense of the situation by connecting it to a similar experience I’d had in the past. Danielle exhaled audibly, the house responding in kind. I looked over at my brother, hoping to make eye contact and get some kind of confirmation that this was, indeed, a ridiculous situation, but he was staring, expressionless, straight up at the bottom of the mattress.

“Three!”

“Man, he ‘aint coming up here.”

“Four!”

“Alright, let’s go.”

Dumbfounded, I followed him as he scooted out from under his cousin’s bed. Danielle kicked at him as he stood waiting for my brother and I, and we all trudged, eyes on the ground, back to his bedroom, while his grandfather glared at us. As I cleared any remaining stray cat turds from my sleeping bag, I tried to make sense of what we’d just done. Another piece of cat shit bounced off of my shoulder, but I was over it by this point. I zipped myself up in the sleeping bag, leaving a small opening for air and hoping that it didn’t occur to Andy to put anything besides air through it.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\//\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

The next morning, we all sat around the kitchen table eating breakfast. I hadn’t showered, because I wanted to go home as fast as possible and that seemed like a good excuse to leave as soon as we finished eating. The kitchen was sweltering from the heat of the stove and the sunlight crowding its way in from every direction, and smelled like burnt white toast, because that’s how Andy’s grandpa liked it. As he came into the kitchen, his giant, pale belly spilling over his unzipped and unfastened jeans and his unbuckled belt flapping and clanging as he walked. He poured a cup of coffee and, as he sat down, looked squarely at Andy. Both lenses of his bifocals had clear smudges all over them.

“What the hell were you doing up there last night?”

I wondered about the answer to this question to, actually. Andy looked him square in the eye, and answered without missing a beat:

“What are you talking about?”

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\//\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

None of this is important.

Good afternoon,

If you are interested in applying for an assistant editor position with **** * *******, please send an email to YOUR MOTHER (editor@eatshit.edu) expressing your interest and answering these two questions:

1Why are you the right person for this job?

2What are your qualifications?

We realize that you are probably not trained as an editor so that does not need to be how you are qualified. Let us know about your good qualities. Please send the email by Friday, April 26th.

Thanks,

*Low Growl*

—————————————————————————————————————————

Dear Mom,

• Why am I the right person for this job?
  • Because I invented all of this. There’s no one else.
• What are my qualifications?
  • I’ll answer this question with a list of my strengths and weaknesses.
  • Strengths
    1. I am saving myself for divorce.
    2. I’ve been told that I have a ‘way with words’ (whatever in the world that means).
    3. I have very little conscience or empathy, and even less of a moral compass. (These qualities aren’t mentioned explicitly in the list of responsibilities for the position, but reading between the lines I felt like it was strongly implied that they are desirable.)
    4. I am out here tryna make a difference.
  • Weaknesses
    1. If I get the position, I will absolutely spend the whole year (and beyond, probably) really aggressively, mercilessly rubbing it in the faces of those who didn’t get it.
    2. In the past year and a half, I’ve accidentally wandered into the women’s restroom, when I was intending to go into the men’s restroom, three separate times. It has been an accident each time—I’ve sincerely panicked and rushed out as soon as I realize what’s happened, hoping no one is there to notice my mistake—but three times in eighteen months feels like a lot. I’m starting to wonder if I’m doing it on purpose. And if I am, that can’t be good.
    3. Honestly, I’m pretty terrible at reading between the lines. It often causes problems.
    4. Barbara Applebaum defines white culpable ignorance as “a white refusal to know what one ought to know because to know would implicate one in the perpetuation of systematic injustice.” Instead, white people who take part in culpable ignorance bolster the system of racism by “agreeing to misinterpret the world.” The manifestation of privilege in the construction of white ignorance is indicative of the power that heightened social position wields. Not only can white people choose not to see, hear, or acknowledge something that stares them in the face, they can also not know and believe that they do have a realistic perception of the world surrounding them. White people are allowed to continue believing their perspectives are accurate because white ignorance is maintained collectively through the epistemology of ignorance. An epistemology of ignorance is a “systematically supported, socially induced pattern of (mis)understanding the world that is connected to and works to sustain systematic oppression and privilege. In other words, there is a “culturally sanctioned discourse of evasion that protects the interests of the privileged and their moral composure.” (Roberson, “An Act of Bearing W(h)it(e)ness: Exploring the Past, Present, and Future Struggle to Desegregate Public Schools in Central Arkansas”)
  • Strength/Weakness (not sure about this one)
    1. There is an impossibly dark, bottomless emptiness at the center of me. I am in constant terror of disappearing into it, and this frenzy drives my every action. I know, in my mind, that I will never escape it. But I also know, in my heart, that I will never surrender to it.

Thank you for deciding to accept the inevitable and giving me this position.

Love ya lots,

ya boy ****

• _{“but you sure struggle to face the task at hand:}
  • _Late
  • _Off-target
  • _{Generally pissed off}

          _{Although, I guess I’d rather you take your frustrations out in your writing than in a 7-11 with a semi-automatic machine gun”   ̿’̿’\̵͇̿̿\з=( ͠° ͟ʖ ͡°)=ε/̵͇̿̿/’̿̿ ̿ ̿ ̿ ̿ ̿}

• _{“I think I do not have enough knowledge to read this.” ◉_◉}
  
• _{“This essay deepens your analysis without sacrificing any of your trademark wit.” ♪~ ᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗ}
  
• _{“Tooo deeeeep. Cannot cope.” ರ_ರ}
  
• _{“I stopped reading the footnotes after a couple pages.” ┬┴┬┴┤(･_├┬┴┬┴}
  
• _{“I recommend the work of Fredric Jameson, particularly The Political Unconscious. I really think it will allow you to deepen your thinking about these ideas.” ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ}
  
• _{“though the canny move here would be to link this to an authorial choice, rather than to characterize it (however accurately) as laziness or apathy on your part” [̲̅$̲̅(̲̅ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°̲̅)̲̅$̲̅]}
  
• _{“Remove the footnotes. They add nothing of substance.” ﴾͡๏̯͡๏﴿ O’RLY?}
  
• _{“I loved it. I would read a whole book of this, seriously.” ~(˘▾˘~)}
  
• _{“SEVERAL missing pieces of writing…Even a SLIGHT effort would have improved your grade!”     (´・ω・`)}
  
• _{“Approved by L*** I*****, 2/21/06” ヾ(⌐■_■)ノ♪}
  
• _{“This isn’t acceptable, I won’t publish this. You can write something new or take a zero for this project.” (;´༎ຶД༎ຶ`)}
  
• _{“You crack me up!” (▰˘◡˘▰)}
  
• _{“I trust this narrator. They come across as really perceptive, like they have a good bullshit detector, so I am willing to go along with whatever they’re telling me.” (^̮^)}
  
• _{“Looks like an ‘L’” ب_ب}
  
• _{“The footnotes really reminded me of David Foster Wallace. If you haven’t read “Consider the Lobster,” I think you’d really like it.” ¬_¬}
  
• _{“Though it doesn’t come together at the end in the way you obviously intend, it’s clear what you’re going for, and it is an interesting idea.” ٩◔̯◔۶}
  
• _{“Your refusal to take a stance is so uncompromising that it somehow starts to border on heroic.” Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ}
  
• _{“Re-do— see me” ┬─┬ノ( º _ ºノ)}
  
• _{“Please use Times New Roman, or some other standard font.” 〆(・∀・＠)}
  
• _{“I don’t get it, but I think it’s because of me, not that the essay is bad.” ☼.☼}
  
• _{“The constant profanity adds nothing, and it’s not funny. This is very disappointing.” ಠ╭╮ಠ}
  
• _{“Include a title.” (☞ຈل͜ຈ)☞}
  
• _{“Actually, I like the footnotes. They’re not necessary, but they’re like little easter eggs for the reader. They really add to the experience.” ( ಠ ͜ʖರೃ)}
  
• _{“It’s all so much, it ends up being kind of disorienting. I want to connect with this, and there is so much interesting information about this weird, fascinating world, but there’s no way in for me. The sheer amount of information, and the lack of clarity about the narrator’s relationship to this world makes it impossible for me to gain a firm grasp.” （╯°□°）╯︵( .o.)}
  
• _{“I hesitate to say this, but, as I read the essay, one word kept popping into my head over and over: Asperger’s.” ಥ_ಥ}
  
  • _{“Yes.” ｡゜(｀Д´)゜｡}
    
  • _{“Exactly, I had that thought, too.” °Д°}
    
  • _{“Yeah, maybe not Asperger’s, but something similar.” ༼ つ ಥ_ಥ ༽つ}
    
  • _{“Definitely on The Spectrum.” (/) (°,,°) (/)}
    
• _{“The footnotes, honestly, seem like they should just be essays of their own. They were often very interesting, but I kept wondering why I needed to know this information—why is it important to the essay I am actually reading?” (>ლ)}
  
• _{“I have these thoughts all the time, so I thought it was really cool that you actually wrote them down and owned them.” (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞ ☜(ﾟヮﾟ☜)}
  
• _{“So funny. I literally laughed out loud multiple times while reading this.” (•_•) ( •_•)>⌐■-■ (⌐■_■)}
  
• _{“On the other hand, your central Odysseus = Teen Wolf analogy is darn near irresistible.”  (ᵔᴥᵔ)}
  
• _{“It feels like I’m in someone else’s head, but not in a good way.” ¯\(°_o)/¯}
  
• _{“You’re a maximalist.” ☜(˚▽˚)☞}
• _{“A giant declarative mouth.” °Д°}

i am at a party right now. There are eight people in the room I’m in, including me. This is not any kind of comment on anything, but six of us are on our phones right now. Two people are having a discussion with no phones out, three people are having a discussion including phones, and then the other three of us are just straight on our phones. just a status update. There is room here for me to be me.

When I was little, I spent a lot of time at my dad’s parents’ house. Despite the fact that my grandpa was a professional musician in his youth, they didn’t listen to as much music as you might expect, though I did hear a good bit of country music at their house. My grandpa had a lot of old records and 8-tracks, and his tastes were, I guess, what you’d expect from an old man in the 1980s. He liked George Jones, Merle Haggard, along with stuff like Alabama, the Oak Ridge Boys or the Statler Brothers. One of the newer artists that they liked was Randy Travis, whose music was benign and conservative and whose baritone voice and traditional style appealed to my grandparents.

I went through a brief, but mildly intense period of being into country music when I was in my early twenties, and while artists like Randy Travis were not were my tastes were taking me— I preferred more idiosyncratic artists, like Dwight Yoakam and Lyle Lovett —I did still listen to country radio, which still played Randy Travis and I found that hearing his distinctive voice actually gave me a strong feeling of nostalgia. I don’t even know that it was a specific, personal nostalgia, or if it was just a generalized thing, a kind of haze caused by Travis’ voice, which really does sound like he’s singing to you from some simpler time, where there’s always enough lemonade for everyone and never any small hint racism (but also no people of color, either, besides maybe the black guy from Walker, Texas Ranger).

Hearing Randy Travis again, I was mostly taken by his voice, and, while his music wasn’t exactly my thing, I also had to admit that, honestly, he has a couple jams. While I couldn’t abide the sickeningly sentimental ode to an old dead great-grandpa, “He Walked On Water,” for example, I also couldn’t resist the combination of Travis’ voice and catchy tunes like “Diggin’ Up Bones” or “If I Didn’t Have You.” My favorite, however, is his biggest hit “Hard Rock Bottom of Your Heart.” It’s possibly one of my favorite straightforward country songs period, not because it’s that great, but because it simultaneously makes me smile and want to sing along and also really want to, like, punch myself in the head for liking it, because it’s so fucking bullshit.

“Hard Rock Bottom of Your Heart” is one of those asshole country songs where the guy has cheated and is now making a big dumb show of how sorry he is, and we’re supposed to feel bad for him because he’s suffering and laying his heart on the line. It’s possibly the most bullshit of all the bullshit songs from this sub-genre (though I am nowhere even remotely near qualified to make such a claim, so what I’m actually saying is that it’s the one I’m aware of that is most bullshit to me personally). It’s really gross, with the typical sentimentality, which of course insists on reconciliation, curdling into entitlement on the part of the dude. The song is, basically, sung from the point of view of someone who has listened to too many country songs and apparently can’t believe that the woman he’s wronged isn’t submitting to what he sees as the natural, inevitable outcome of the situation they find themselves in. The title of the song is it’s central metaphor; the woman (and while it doesn’t have to be a woman, obviously, I’m just going to proceed as though it’s intended to be, mainstream country music’s politics being what they were/kind of still are) who the singer is addressing is making him feel like his efforts at reconciliation are being thrown to the ‘hard rock bottom’ of her heart. Like he’s being wronged.

Motherfucker, you cheated. You created this situation by abusing trust and failing to be faithful. These things do happen, and it’s rarely uncomplicated, but your feelings are not ones that need extra attention here. And you want to come at us with this sentimental-ass goop about how bad she’s making you feel for fucking another woman? I know that this phrase wasn’t invented yet, but miss me with that bullshit, dude.

The lyrics are so ridiculous, it seems like they can’t possibly be serious:

Since the day I was led to temptation
And in weakness did let your love down
I have prayed that with time and compassion
You’d come around

The first two lines are literally the only time that the song discusses his betrayal. And then this fucking guy gets right into it: “When you gonna stop trippin, girl? I mean shit, I said my bad.” He’s having to pray, because she just won’t ‘come around.’ My dude is so serious. And then the chorus:

And I keep waiting for you to forgive me
And you keep sayin’ you can’t even start
And I feel like a stone you have picked up and thrown
To the hard rock bottom of your heart
To the hard rock bottom of your heart

Sounds rough. I’m sure the last thing you got to the bottom of was softer, so there’s that. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Now this home we have built is still standing
It’s foundation is on solid ground
And do we roll up our sleeves and repair it
Or burn… it… down?

Seriously. My guy’s out here trying to suggest that it’s her responsibility to roll up her sleeves and repair shit. Unless, you know, she just wants to be cold and burn it down. (You know, whatever’s left that he didn’t already burn down when he fucked someone else. 🤔)

Here’s the bridge:

We can’t just block it out, we’ve got to talk it out
Until our hearts get back in touch
I need your love I miss it, I can’t go on like this
It hurts too much

This fucking guy. He’s hurting, and it’s too much. 😂

I  really like this song though, and it’s partly because of how off-the-hinges absurd it is. There are tons of syrupy, sentimental nonsense songs like this in country music, but this is one that really sticks out to me, partly because it’s a legit good song, sung by a fantastic singer, and partly because it’s so bananas that it seems like it has to be a joke. But it isn’t. It’s an example of country music being as dumb and thoughtless as it can be, which is just as dumb and thoughtless as any other kind of music, of course, but doing it in their own special way.

Alan Jackson, actually, has a great example of this kind of song done in a serious, thoughtful way, like the person who wrote it is an actual adult. And it’s also a really great song, too. (And Lyle Lovett had something to say about forgiveness, as well.) (Actually, so does Dwight Yoakam.)

(Also, it’s probably more than a little uncool, because Randy Travis did suffer a massive, debilitating stroke after this happened, but some joke about how we can’t just block this out.)

i’m supposed to ask you about giving encouragement to people. like how you do it, i guess.

it’s easy. this is a dumb question, i know you know the answer.

yeah, but i think we just talk it through, and just in talking about it we can find insight. i know you know that.

yeah yeah. i mean, i just listen to what they say and hear their anxieties, and i can see that some of the things they’re thinking are not useful or incorrect, and i try to think of how i can suggest different ways to see the situation, or i just try to explain to them how i don’t agree with their interpretation of the situation and why i think they’re mistaken.

THAT MAKES SENSE.

ikr?

so i guess the question then is why you can’t do that for yourself? or why i can’t do it for myself.

do you listen and hear your own anxieties?

motherfucker, please.

do you recognize that some of the things you are thinking are not useful or incorrect?

the thoughts cross my mind, but i don’t ‘recognize’ them.

because they aren’t your regular thoughts, so you’re not used to them? or because they aren’t logical?

you are such an asshole right now. because when i consider them, they do seem like, logically, plausible, but they don’t feel like the real explanation. in my mind, they don’t have the ring of truth in the way that the more negative thoughts do.

why don’t they have the ‘ring of truth’? you seem to suggest that, when you give encouragement to others, you feel that you’re pointing out where their thoughts are ‘mistaken,’ that you’re helping them see the truth.

the truth i see. a more positive truth.

and you say that you consider these more positive thoughts for yourself, right? these alternate explanations.

YUP.

why is it different, then? you believe you’re very convincing when you give support and encouragement to others, so-

i don’t know, but i hope so.

yah, so why can’t you be this convincing for yourself? what’s the difference?

fuck your mother.

okay.

the difference is that, when i give encouragement to others, it’s the truth. it’s the truth i see, anyway. i believe what i’m saying, so it’s easy to be convincing. when i talk to myself, i know it’s a lie. i can’t lie to myself.

bro, that’s a lie.

okay, yeah. i can’t lie to myself about that.

why is it a lie?

…

because i suck worse than anyone. so bad i can’t lie about it. i’m exceptional.

this is really good stuff.

do you think?

i’m not sure. seems generic, actually. we could ask Herself?

don’t look at me, i’m not part of this. i need to protect my personal time.

sorry.

sorry.

I’m afraid this comes uncomfortably close to (if not just fully is an expression of) hoping for someone’s death, and that’s not what I want to suggest, but I hope that the Game of Thrones book series (A Song of Fire and Ice is what the book series is called, right? i guess i refuse to look it up real quick.) is not completed, at least not by George R.R. Martin. I’ve never read these books, and I probably never will, though I have seen the HBO show, and it’s fine. I have no emotional investment in this world or these characters, which might make it easier for me to take this position, but I think it would be so much more interesting if there’s no official resolution. If a finale is not provided by the creator, then it’s wide open, fucking game on. Anyone can take over the spectacularly detailed, sprawling world he’s created and make their own finish. People will do this anyway, of course, but these things will have more legitimacy if there’s no real ending hanging around out there from the author. It would be amazing. So, to be clear, I don’t want George R.R. Martin to die; I just want him to not finish his greatest work and for everyone to get a shot at writing their own ending and for all those endings to have a real opportunity to be taken seriously. What could possibly be more awesome than that?

i am energized. i have written a lot in the last few days, and it feels good. i’ve given good (i hope) feedback to my peers, sketched out or jotted down ideas for a few different essays, and written a couple long blog posts. i have lots of momentum, it seems, lots of enthusiasm just in general. simultaneously, i am avoiding grading my students’ essays.

the thought of grading stops me cold. i’m not doing these other things to avoid grading (which has been the case in the past), but because i am genuinely inspired, stimulated by them. grading and leaving feedback (for my students comp papers, at least) fills me with the opposite feeling. i don’t want to do it, and i haven’t wanted to do it for quite a while. my turnaround time on major student work gets longer and longer. and this is not okay. i believe that my direct, detailed feedback on their written work is the most crucial element of the class, and i believe that teaching this class is, objectively and undeniably, the most important thing i do. i actually love teaching it, i really enjoy being a teacher and i think that what i teach is really valuable. it makes me feel good, like i’m doing something important and positive.

and yet, i am only becoming more and more reluctant to engage with what i myself characterize as the most important element of that teaching, while i become more and more engaged by things that don’t help my students at all, things that only benefit me and maybe a few others in our useless quests to develop our own voices that we’ll use to say shit that other people have said before and better, uncover our own derivative, shallow, dumb fucking truths. it’s like i only want to do the fun part of teaching, and not the crucial, valuable grinding work that will actually make a difference. i can tell myself that this is nothing to fret too much over, that i’m just adjusting to balancing being a student with being a teacher, which is probably true, and that everyone hates grading, that it’s the worst part of the job and everyone puts it off (which is definitely true), but is it also an excuse? who am i? do i even want to be a teacher? do i want to teach, or just perform? do i care about anyone besides myself? am i the person i think i am? was i ever genuinely that person, or did i just not think i could be different? was i just picking the most noble of the options i thought were available to me?