|
starts are easy...finishes tough.
i've written starts to two journal entries in the past two weeks,
but never had the... something.... to finish them off and upload.
life's been chugging along. i've been feeling pretty good about
it all. and then some little thing shows up, some little problem
or goof... and this funky castle of maybes and whims crumbles
down. stupid, ain't it.
(warning: moronic boring downers
ahead)
(warning: i need to write this,
but you don't need to read it)
(warning: this is yr last warning)
for one thing, i haven't submitted
my substitute teacher info sheet. i've only had about a million
reminders.... since september.
for a second thing, i haven't
gotten even the tiniest bit of work done on that brandsma translation
project (you know, the one i haven't told you about).
for a third thing, i forgot to
check my voicemail all week until today and sure enough there's
a message from a parent recorded last monday.
for a fourth thing, i'm just
not happy with the overall structure of my classes... feel like
i'm not getting enough done - certainly not enough writing.
for a fifth thing, i haven't
even begun submitting stuff for the damn stupid teacher's re-certification
process. i have a few things to submit but just can't take the
time to fill out the forms - don't even know what forms to fill
out - don't even care - they make my stomach hurt - so because
of this it looks like my career as english teacher is limited
to another three or four years - and of course we all know there
is no life after high school.
for a sixth thing, my teeth hurt...
over the past week or two they have become extraordinarily sensitive
to hot and cold... no, all that sensodyne hasn't helped a bit.
for a seventh thing, i'm becoming
a big blob, a big fat lazy blob, eating all kinds of really bad
stuff, doing nothing to burn it off.
for an eighth thing, the short
daylight is killing me... is it killing you?
for a ninth thing, the cat has
been puking... a lot, but not in a sickly way... not in a rush-to-the-vets
way. it's the food, i think. i'm using the same brand of catfood,
but they "improved it" with a "nouveau gout delicieux"...
cat never deals well with new food... so we've got carpet stains...
many many gross carpet stains. you do not want to visit this
room.
what else? that's it for now.
was it a good purge? a tidy catharsis? nah. but it helps a little.
i don't want your sympathy or your pity. i know that your life
is a thousand times more difficult than mine and africa is dying
and the war is imminent... and i feel really bad about all of
that too.
a few good things: a succesfull
shopping trip for our homeroom's christmas family... sophomores
are reading whitman... seniors are presenting poems... kaiser's
morning check-ins, thanksgiving: a really fine time with seventeen
miracles whose names are mom, meg, beth (off to iraq on 12.8), rihab, mary therese, john,
matt, tracy, tony, mike, josh, robin, korie, taylor, john, kathy,
sara... ya books i been reading: whale talk (see below), shattering
glass, this land was made for you and me, rag and bone shop,
tribes...
so... let's end it here... was
hoping that by this stage of life i'd have managed a certain
gravitas... turns out i am a silly person....
a fragment:
so i'd written - or started to
write - an entry back on 11.24.... i called it "common"
and took my inspiration from a reading of chris crutcher's fine
book Whale Talk. i went on and on about the book's appeal to
a need we all have.... the need to belong to a supportive community....
a group of people who, when it all comes down, will still be
up for you or me or whoever. i guess we expect this (realistically
or not) from family, and we hope for it from others. i wrote
this about crutcher's book:
chris crutcher tells stories
about people in pain. most of those people are kids, teenagers;
but there's more than enough suffering for everyone - younger
kids and adults get their unfair share, too.
in Whale Talk, crutcher returns
to the turf of previous books like Stotan! he sets up a smart,
vulnerable narrator, assembles a crew of weaklings, outcasts
and misfits, sets them to a prodigious physical task and, in
the process, evolves a strong community under the watchful eyes
of some caring adults (also deeply wounded), folks who know that
life is very hard.
i went on to talk about this
pattern in contemporary pop storytelling:
a healthy community (by which
i mean nothing other than the individual members thereof) knows
that its members have been, are, and wiil be in pain. an unhealthy
community can't or won't see that - is desperately busy pretending
otherwise.... or just doesn't care.
that community where people care
about and for each other, creates a supportive environment wherein
individuals sometimes find the strength to be their better selves.
look at my tv shows: west wing,
e.r., nypd: these ensemble-cast dramas each involve a hard-edged
group of professional people who prove, in the long run when
things get tough, that they care about and for each other (to
one degree or another). the same applies, as far as i can tell,
to shows i don't watch: frazier, friends, will & grace, scrubs...
you name it.... and to those now-defunct shows like my so-called
life, st. elsewhere, northern exposure, i'll fly away, all in
the family, m.a.s.h., cheers, taxi.... leave it to beaver, ozzie
and harriet... etc.
are we really - as a culture
or as a television target market - this hungry?
|