OK. I’ve put off the sesh for the whole day because I don’t know what to say. Maybe we could compress this part of the whole thing. I do believe I am thoroughly repeating myself. Didn’t I just suggest that a little bit ago? Like, we could just say GOSUB DUMB_DISCLAIMER or something, and have it be understood that I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t know why I’m doing it, I will never amount to anything, and I don’t know how to make proper use of semicolons? GOSUB DUMB_DISCLAIMER How about just fragments of scenes? How about if you literally carry a little actual notebook literally everywhere with you. OOooohh, this actually sounds kind of fun. Like a camera, only Waaaaaaay cheaper and it can’t get obsolete on you because it’s already from the fucking ice age. An actual notebook and an actual pen, just always with you. Then when you’re walking along up boring old Janesville Road, curiously overjoyed to see that there is a waste basket on the next corner, you can stop when this comes into your mind, and write it down; literally write it down: Well, shit. I forgot. Because it was earlier today and I didn’t have a notebook with me. I didn’t even have my phone with me, but you know what? THE PHONE IS NO FUCKING FUN TO TYPE ON. IT WILL NEVER BE A RAINBOW MEMO PAD REPLACEMENT. IT IS NOT THE SAME AT ALL. IT BURNS YOUR RETINAS OUT AND SUCKS YOUR BRAIN STEM INTO IT AND MAKES YOU A ROBOT ZOMBIE SLAVE. ADMIT IT. YOU KNOW IT’S TRUE. Take a notebook. Leave the phone at home or in your pocket in case your kids need something, bless their needy little hearts. Grumble grumble we didn’t have grumble grumble we survived all right grumble grumble and so on. But it’s true. So Megan went skating with Ian instead of going to marching band. NOTE TO SELF GET A NOTEBOOK AND CARRY IT WITH YOU AND RECORD FRAGMENTS. NOTE TO SELF IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT TO WRITE DURING YOUR SESSION AND YOU’RE KIND OF PUTTING OFF THE SESSION BECAUSE YOU DON’T WANT TO JUST WRITE ABOUT YOURSELF ANYMORE, JUST WRITE FRAGMENTS. IT CAN BE FRAGMENTS WITHOUT BEING TOTALLY NONSENSE, RIGHT? I mean yes, I get that you have to start somewhere, but haven’t I been starting somewhere for like a few decades now, giber take a few? I mean, am I never going to grow up? Remember that conversation with Kate, bless her depressed, artistic, smooth round little pebble of a self? ME: sometimes it’s not even about making the thing; it’s just about learning about the process of making the-- HER: No, sometimes it has to actually be about making the thing. ME: I-- uh-- well-- OK but-- And that’s pretty much where I’ve been with that for like twenty years, giber take a few decades. I don’t know. Maybe I’m like Millie. She’s up there singing. I’m down here writing. Enough said. #pdp Maybe I’m like my dumb students who can barely write a sentence. Of course that means I’m a dumb teacher if I just keep sending them back to the same bullshit philosophical abstract non-existent fish, and tell them to make sense out of it, dammit; do my assignment and you win the prize!! What’s that? You didn’t do it? No prize! Good luck being a loser in life, you loser! It’s so sad that not everyone can be smart and capable like us teachers! But don’t ask us to explain quantum computing, or publish a novel, or actually make a significant difference in the intellectual life of a child. Ha ha that’d be dumb. Who has time for that (eye roll)? I got papers to grade! Yeah, seems like everybody’s got to be a gate-keeper of some kind or another. That’s what you get paid for, I guess. You got put on the right kind of suit and pay for the right kind of college or else prove that you’re a noble enough savage to get someone else to pay for it for you, and so then you can get a piece of paper that says you jumped through the right hoops by hitting the buttons on your consumer electronics device at the right speed in the right order at the right time, over and over again, enough times to get enough in-game currency to go to the next level and-- What is the next level? Another stupid game? When do you get to the part where you get to be part of the conversation? When do you get to make the games? Is that why so many of my students want to be video game designers or special effects producers? I mean, it’s probably just because video games and movies are cool. That’s probably it. But then again it could be because they have a hunger to make something and not just watch something. What does *The Crucible* have to do with that? I don’t know but I only have a minute left on the timer and so I guess we’re not going to find out tonight. Because the night is about to fall, hard, and like the guy in *Memento* I’m about to forget all of this. I better leave myself a note, so I can-- Nah, what’s the point. I wouldn’t listen anyway. Who listens to a dumb teacher?