I want you to understand,
especially on days when I feel most vulnerably human, and I have been sad since I woke up, and when I know that you do not think or perhaps you do not even believe that I have a life outside the role you see me in, and, since I'm seeing you linger outside the classroom door and you've been there for half the class waiting for me to come over to you, rage and not pity makes my heart skip fast beats in my chest and I really do not want to have to remember that you will believe, for whatever reason, that I am not me but, instead, your parole officer or absent father or jerk older brother or perhaps you have confused me with an interested therapist or forgiving priest or kind reverend or, in its most surreal manifestation, homosocial homeboy;
especially on days when it is all of this combined with the fact that you have suddenly realized with utter shock that, yes: you are going to fail despite the countless times I have stayed after class and spoken with you one-on-one (alternating quiet concern and hopeful enthusiasm or brass tacks honesty) about the critical importance of reading and writing well or, if not this, then at least the importance of shaking bad habits, and despite the time I took to clearly and sensitively make positive suggestions on your essays so much so that I actually got up in the middle of grading one of your papers to move away from it -- I was so pissed that you seemed to have forgotten everything I had taught you in the last two weeks and you reverted to positively annoying text-messaging/email language -- because, deep down, I believe that no one deserves to feel that wrath of misplaced anger (how easy and deliciously cruel it would have been to have crossed it all out and written in crazed capital letters in your too-big margins ARE YOU A COMPLETE MORON??) and because I need to teach and not be angry at you;
especially when you start to tell me I have done you wrong or tricked you or lied or ruined your life or your chance at success in the world, and when you begin to cry and tell me how hard you have tried, that you have quote not even gone to church on sundays just so you could work on this unquote, it is so hard not to listen to a tiny voice that says, "I saw this coming on the first day of class," and then hear how quickly the second voice says "Don't think that -- what good does it do?"; but I still remain with you and allow you to project all of your hatred onto me for a full twenty-minutes because, I am telling myself, you need to do this and it doesn't really matter if it stings a little bit, after all, in another hour I'll be sitting in a meeting discussing something administrative and this whole thing will be another part of a longer day that, surely, will not prevent me from sleeping or from cursing someone like Rod Paige or the increasingly popular (and totally iditotic) idea that active learning in the writing classroom means giving students something called "clickers" with which they can play a kind of video game to answer questions about grammar when the whole point, in my estimation, is to tear students away from point-and-click reward systems and have them think out loud, discuss, write, and revise their ideas with a circle of people that, eventually, become part of their intellectual community;
that I am on your side, and that I am working my best to figure out how to do this without either of us getting crushed in the squeeze.
Monday, October 30, 2006
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Friday, October 20, 2006
who knows what's nesting?
I remember this past summer when Melanie, Hank, and I were traveling in upstate New York, and the sky was the color of Scope, and the day was full of cool air, and I felt so lucky to be out of the scorched dirt of Houston. Today, however, is miraculous -- about 65-70 degrees during the day, with that big, blue Texas sky. It could trick you into thinking the city has no pollution problems whatsoever.
At noon, I took the elevator ten floors down and stepped out of the university with four colleagues to get lunch. On the university's deck, looking out over the Bayou and the edge of downtown, watching the waters from the recent rains rush past, I could do nothing but stretch my hands in the air and try to grab the sky. The day felt huge, the city -- smart and clean. We descended the long, winding concrete staircase that leads from the deck to the Bayou, followed a little path, and crossed the bridge into downtown, admiring the workers who were putting the new, huge lettering on the side of the building. We turned right and ducked into the Vietnamese cafe right there on the edge of Market Square, ordered our $2.00 tofu sandwiches, and chatted in the sunlight as students, lawyers, theater folks, columnists, waitstaff, and businessmen stood in twos and threes, decked out in sunglasses and carrying the local free city rag.
This evening, I'm thinking about Westheimer Square, the huge, affordable apartment complex whose parking lot borders the gated and locked dead-end of our street. Much to my surprise, a sign went up a couple of months ago claiming that it was going to be knocked down to build some -- surprise! -- pre-fab highrises that no one I know could afford (Well, maybe I can think of one person. Or two.).
The apartments have been vacated, and it looks like they've already begun the process of ripping some of it apart. I've known a few people who've lived there over the years, mostly working class queers and Mexican families inhabited the place. We used to squeeze through the gate when we first moved in here to go swimming in one of its many pools, get some sun when it wasn't too hot outside. In addition, it was really easy to sneak in with a couple of pairs of jeans and secretly thrown them in the washing machines, which only charged .75 as opposed to the $1.50 the local laundrymat charges per load.
My other worry (sorry . . .) is about what will happen to all of the vermin that live over there once the wrecking ball starts to swing. When I lived over on West Alabama, a mostly empty four-plex about three lots down from where I lived was knocked down one summer. That night, while sitting out on the porch drinking beer with my friends Walter and Rebecca, a massive carpet of roaches suddenly and grotesquely swarmed over the front wall of my apartment and began to dive-bomb us. I remember Rebecca, who has very beautiful, long, thick, curly hair, yelling "They're in my hair!! They're in my ha-a-a-air!!!" as we ran down the staircase and out onto the sidewalk. It was awful, even as it was funny, but the roaches were thick that summer, and I was told that it was the result of the knocking down of the building. The place just west of us is not just a building, it is a huge, sprawling complex. Who knows what's nesting over there . . .
Tomorrow there are free films showing on the lawn of the Menil made by or about Paul Klee. We're hoping our friends join us with picnic baskets and coolers and blankets to check it out around 7pm. (If the rain stays away.)
At noon, I took the elevator ten floors down and stepped out of the university with four colleagues to get lunch. On the university's deck, looking out over the Bayou and the edge of downtown, watching the waters from the recent rains rush past, I could do nothing but stretch my hands in the air and try to grab the sky. The day felt huge, the city -- smart and clean. We descended the long, winding concrete staircase that leads from the deck to the Bayou, followed a little path, and crossed the bridge into downtown, admiring the workers who were putting the new, huge lettering on the side of the building. We turned right and ducked into the Vietnamese cafe right there on the edge of Market Square, ordered our $2.00 tofu sandwiches, and chatted in the sunlight as students, lawyers, theater folks, columnists, waitstaff, and businessmen stood in twos and threes, decked out in sunglasses and carrying the local free city rag.
This evening, I'm thinking about Westheimer Square, the huge, affordable apartment complex whose parking lot borders the gated and locked dead-end of our street. Much to my surprise, a sign went up a couple of months ago claiming that it was going to be knocked down to build some -- surprise! -- pre-fab highrises that no one I know could afford (Well, maybe I can think of one person. Or two.).
The apartments have been vacated, and it looks like they've already begun the process of ripping some of it apart. I've known a few people who've lived there over the years, mostly working class queers and Mexican families inhabited the place. We used to squeeze through the gate when we first moved in here to go swimming in one of its many pools, get some sun when it wasn't too hot outside. In addition, it was really easy to sneak in with a couple of pairs of jeans and secretly thrown them in the washing machines, which only charged .75 as opposed to the $1.50 the local laundrymat charges per load.
My other worry (sorry . . .) is about what will happen to all of the vermin that live over there once the wrecking ball starts to swing. When I lived over on West Alabama, a mostly empty four-plex about three lots down from where I lived was knocked down one summer. That night, while sitting out on the porch drinking beer with my friends Walter and Rebecca, a massive carpet of roaches suddenly and grotesquely swarmed over the front wall of my apartment and began to dive-bomb us. I remember Rebecca, who has very beautiful, long, thick, curly hair, yelling "They're in my hair!! They're in my ha-a-a-air!!!" as we ran down the staircase and out onto the sidewalk. It was awful, even as it was funny, but the roaches were thick that summer, and I was told that it was the result of the knocking down of the building. The place just west of us is not just a building, it is a huge, sprawling complex. Who knows what's nesting over there . . .
Tomorrow there are free films showing on the lawn of the Menil made by or about Paul Klee. We're hoping our friends join us with picnic baskets and coolers and blankets to check it out around 7pm. (If the rain stays away.)
Monday, October 16, 2006
deluge
Houston's tropical weather has kept a massive storm right on top of the city, with rain pouring straight down for the past two days. We tried to keep the windows open to let some of the air in (thinking rain = cool air), but finally the humidity was too much, leaving every surface slightly damp, so we shut the windows and turned on the A/C. All day yesterday, into the evening, the darkest hours of the night, the twilight of dawn under cloud, the rain just kept on coming. A real deluge.
When I woke up this morning at 6am, I had a feeling the university would be closed since its location (right where two major bayous meet before they head out to the Gulf) makes it succeptible to flooding. Sure enough, the web page had a sign telling us to stay home and, soon after, the chair of the department kindly called with a message to stay put. For sure, tomorrow there will be at least a dozen long and pointless phone messages from students on their cell-phones who want to thrill me with stories about how they got into their cars, got on the highway, got stuck in traffic, cannot see, want to turn around and go home, and how I have to call them back as soon as I get this message. Hm, sure, I'll make it my top priority . . .
Meanwhile, I actually drifted back to sleep while listening to weather reports and the latest from NPR. I got up and listened to Democracy Now! and heard Amy Goodman's interview with the civil rights attorney Lynne Stewart, which left me feeling so sad and anxious to hear how the judge will rule. (see full story here: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/16/143257).
The rest of the day will be a chance to play catch-up with grading and preparing for classes, reading the blogs of friends and total strangers. My seniors finish Go Tell It on the Mountain this week and start with Giovanni's Room, so I should have something smart to say about the two, together.
When I woke up this morning at 6am, I had a feeling the university would be closed since its location (right where two major bayous meet before they head out to the Gulf) makes it succeptible to flooding. Sure enough, the web page had a sign telling us to stay home and, soon after, the chair of the department kindly called with a message to stay put. For sure, tomorrow there will be at least a dozen long and pointless phone messages from students on their cell-phones who want to thrill me with stories about how they got into their cars, got on the highway, got stuck in traffic, cannot see, want to turn around and go home, and how I have to call them back as soon as I get this message. Hm, sure, I'll make it my top priority . . .
Meanwhile, I actually drifted back to sleep while listening to weather reports and the latest from NPR. I got up and listened to Democracy Now! and heard Amy Goodman's interview with the civil rights attorney Lynne Stewart, which left me feeling so sad and anxious to hear how the judge will rule. (see full story here: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/16/143257).
The rest of the day will be a chance to play catch-up with grading and preparing for classes, reading the blogs of friends and total strangers. My seniors finish Go Tell It on the Mountain this week and start with Giovanni's Room, so I should have something smart to say about the two, together.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
telescope, or kaleidoscope?
It is literally the middle of the semester, and this past week has been filled with not only trying to meet the deadlines I have imposed for all of my students (which means the stack of papers and one stack of exams were, at one point, up to the ceiling), but also my own struggle to meet the ones of the university and the its committees. Everything needs to be in by mid-October so that something can be done with it before the semester ends.
People zoom from floor to floor, elevator to elevator, room to room, building to building with their own stacks of paper, clipboards, handouts, and a wild sense of how important it is to accomplish something. I enter classrooms with dry-erase markers and a sense of daring, demanding that we try something new, shake things up, learn differently. I experience a dream-like sense of time that telescopes into and out of itself, making Monday mornings through Thursday afternoons one, long complicated day. Friday seems like its own day, as do the days of the weekend, but the rest of the week becomes a kaleidoscope of hundreds of different human encounters that turn in my head, in the evenings, for my contemplation:
We sat in a circle of thirty-five.
The flourescent light danced on his balding scalp.
I smelled beer on her breath.
He puzzled over the color scarlet.
He talked on his cell phone in a bathroom stall.
I asked too many questions.
She cried because she failed.
There was silence in the room and I had to remember not to fill it.
I knocked on his door but he wasn't in.
We discussed the difference between guilt and shame.
She grabbed a set of keys and unlocked the door of an office I had never seen before.
He left because the film was too upsetting.
She slipped a demanding note under my door.
She rushed past my office and yelled, "Go home, Chuck! It's late!"
Different people and different rooms and different times of day. I am impressed with the quotidian and banal because both seem to be freakishly human.
People zoom from floor to floor, elevator to elevator, room to room, building to building with their own stacks of paper, clipboards, handouts, and a wild sense of how important it is to accomplish something. I enter classrooms with dry-erase markers and a sense of daring, demanding that we try something new, shake things up, learn differently. I experience a dream-like sense of time that telescopes into and out of itself, making Monday mornings through Thursday afternoons one, long complicated day. Friday seems like its own day, as do the days of the weekend, but the rest of the week becomes a kaleidoscope of hundreds of different human encounters that turn in my head, in the evenings, for my contemplation:
We sat in a circle of thirty-five.
The flourescent light danced on his balding scalp.
I smelled beer on her breath.
He puzzled over the color scarlet.
He talked on his cell phone in a bathroom stall.
I asked too many questions.
She cried because she failed.
There was silence in the room and I had to remember not to fill it.
I knocked on his door but he wasn't in.
We discussed the difference between guilt and shame.
She grabbed a set of keys and unlocked the door of an office I had never seen before.
He left because the film was too upsetting.
She slipped a demanding note under my door.
She rushed past my office and yelled, "Go home, Chuck! It's late!"
Different people and different rooms and different times of day. I am impressed with the quotidian and banal because both seem to be freakishly human.
Saturday, October 07, 2006
tak.a.boost (drink.a.toast)
Tak.a.boost (which you can also call Drink.a.Toast, and both names appear on the bottle) is exactly like flat Pepsi or Coke. You know it if you grew up in South Jersey, across from Philadelphia, by the Delware River: Riverside, Delran, Palmyra, Rancocas Woods, Cinnaminson, Burlington. Although I haven't had it since my early-teenaged years, I can still remember it as a powerfully sweet and licoricey beverage. Usually poured on ice and served to you at the day care in the bowling alley, in the municipal building where your Mom went to vote, or handed to you as you finished something like the Crop Walk, it was supposed to give you sugar and coat your stomach. I really did not like it. How many times did I eagerly approach a collapsable table thinking paper cups of Coke were sitting ready for my consumption, only to realize, too late, that the unfizzy Boost was all there was. I would rather have had Orange Drink, which seems to be the equivalent elsewhere in the country. (Note: Delran, the name of the township [not even a town] where I grew up, is not Del Ran, but Delran, a condensation of the Delaware River and Rancocas Creek, between which it lies, trying desperately not to produce the next spate of white high school shooters.)
Didn't Boost come in a weird shaped bottle, almost like a jug of moonshine, with large bottom and a tiny little neck, and a spout the size of a half-dollar? Am I remembering that right? My family never kept a bottle of it around, so maybe that's why I never developed a taste for it. Legend was that it was a sure thing for a hangover.
Didn't Boost come in a weird shaped bottle, almost like a jug of moonshine, with large bottom and a tiny little neck, and a spout the size of a half-dollar? Am I remembering that right? My family never kept a bottle of it around, so maybe that's why I never developed a taste for it. Legend was that it was a sure thing for a hangover.
Monday, October 02, 2006
Sunday, October 01, 2006
thirty-five
1. Grey
2. Right knee pop
3. Softening middle
4. Publication frenzy
5. Dog dreams
6. Miso
7. Blog
8. Spider painting
9. DVD player
10. Children's laughter
11. Plants
12. Compost
13. Patience and kindness, together
14. Nose hairs
15. Kale cravings
16. New flatware
17. Workplace elations
18. Openings
19. Quality of light
20. Wide sense of time
21. Compulsive knuckle cracking
22. Birth
23. Mother's milk
24. Interconsciousness
25. Extimacy
26. Lung capacity
27. Muscle strength
28. Whole days
29. Words as things
30. Eye hugs
31. Persistent fear of death
32. Memory hangovers
33. Voyeurism
34. Joy in faces
35. Spirals and axes
2. Right knee pop
3. Softening middle
4. Publication frenzy
5. Dog dreams
6. Miso
7. Blog
8. Spider painting
9. DVD player
10. Children's laughter
11. Plants
12. Compost
13. Patience and kindness, together
14. Nose hairs
15. Kale cravings
16. New flatware
17. Workplace elations
18. Openings
19. Quality of light
20. Wide sense of time
21. Compulsive knuckle cracking
22. Birth
23. Mother's milk
24. Interconsciousness
25. Extimacy
26. Lung capacity
27. Muscle strength
28. Whole days
29. Words as things
30. Eye hugs
31. Persistent fear of death
32. Memory hangovers
33. Voyeurism
34. Joy in faces
35. Spirals and axes
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