shoe she mounched and mounched and mounched but still she ‘as hungry quoth she gimme some more carmel corn bitch every word is exactly equal to every other true or false is false for example equal to true? is false equal to flase? is disternchin equal to coaybtete? is mouth equal to ass god shut the fuck up no but seriously, it’s a legitimate question is legit equal to legitimate? That’s a good one too, because like for real, if words keep getting shorter, we’re gun end up w sum like: F s w fi v s d wp f s dj? “W fh si wi f so,” h s. AND THAT’S IT. That’s a whole novel, right there. OK, let’s review. I think there’s a certain problem with the way you’ve been doing this so far. Let’s enumerate the problems, even though enumeration, like any kind of mental arithmetic, is SO FUCKING EXHAUSTING AND I AM SO TIRED. 1. racing through but holding back at the same time: discomfort, distraction 2. staring straight ahead like a horse: kind of weird, a little tense, but i can see the value in it somewhat, because you don’t need the kitchen and its dull roar to keep interloping into your brain world holo space thing 3. lying to yourself: you said there were no rules except doing it. You said you could come here and it could be a space. And yet when we got here, you started making up all these strings and proverbs and negative assumptions, like “you can’t say i” “you can’t talk about yourself” “you can’t do this” “you can’t do that” god what are you my fucking WIFE? 4. Looking ahead. It’s like you’re still stuck on predicting in advance what this is going to be. Oh it’s going to be another fish food. Oh it’s going to be another park bench. Oh it’s going to be another failure. Because you have looked deep into the dry-rot of your own soul, and you can’t cope with the fact that there is literally, definitely, unambiguously NEVER going to be another him and me. 5. That makes—quit fucking numbering things, jesus, why does software always have to fucking DO stuff for you these days That makes you sad, and you don’t have a lot of time or energy for being sad these days. Instead of being sad, you smoke or eat weed, or beer, or $4 for a half bottle of Kim cupkake, or watch TV, although that’s not all that watching TV is about, but it is part of it. Or do your job. SOmetimes you do do your jab, and that’s cool, I mean in addition to the fact that you have to because you have three cars and shit but hey past self, don’t get too excited, you didn’t pay full price for any of them and you literally didn’t pay at all for two of them, so don’t get too full of yourself. You race, your heart races, your palms race, your brain sweats. Your brain hurts, it’s like a dull throb. When was the last time you actually enjoyed taking the time to be in this space? I mean it’s what, day three, and yes, I did get some satisfaction out of days one and two, and I am getting some satisfaction out of right now, but I’m not certain satisfaction as such is exactly what I’m looking for. FInding those old Shakespeare papers was fun. Maybe I should read the rest of them. THey honestly aren’t as cringey as I was afraid they were going to be. They were decent. They were competent, with occasionaly flourishes of something approaching momentary brilliance. Kinda like my entire yeah but, what were we talking about? It seemed important at the time, like several inches up there. Unless we make the type real big in which case it could be as far as from earth to mars as it is from here to the thing i was trying to think about a second ago. and still i want to eat or drink something, is that pathetic or what. Hang on, let me see. In the old days, this is where I would roll a smoke. and look around the cage. Haha I meant to type cafe, but take your pick. I don’t exactly miss smoking per se, but I do miss taking the time. And I think that may have been what we were talking about. Time. Also did you notice how in grad school I wrote some papers that had research and references and stuff? They were ok, not great. But at least I know I can do it if i have to. Will I ever have to again? Could I make myself do it just to prove I can still do it? It seems important not to only be able to do stream of consciousness navel gazing. Somehow that just seems important. That’s one thing I like about the part of my job it seems like I never have enough time to do. Let me break it down for you: THINGS I AM NOT SO CRAZY ABOUT: 1. eval 2. PD. Excuse me, *”Professional Development*.” Clears throat. Extends pinky. 3. grading 4. progress reports 5. being given a new responsibility like ‘study skills’ 6. most of AVID 7. being on commitees or teams or whatever when most of what they’re doing is talking in circles and generating pointless documents that no one is ever going to look at except for the three times a year when someone says they’re supposed to ThiNGS I AM CRAZY ABOUT: 1. making a good sesh 2. talking to students 3. creative writing class 4. reading and looking for resources and pulling stuff together in a somewhat leisurely but still structured time frame 5. making cool quizzes and assignments and docs, taking the time to make them just right 6. the parts of grading that are not stuffy and predictable and teachery and boring. Like “here’s your next challenge” or making comments on something cool that someone wrote 7. going over people’s drafts in comment mode (most of the time anyway) Most of the “Am crazy” things, you’ll notice, are similar to things that make me feel like i’m doing something concrete and real; similar to some of the parts of writing i end up liking the most. Most of the “not so crazy” things are similar to when I’m clamping down on my own rules and not letting myself stretch or have any fun. I wonder if there’s a way to make less of the “not” and therefore, subversively if necessary, make room for more of the “am.” How would you do that? Because they’re not going to let you not do the bullshit. We know this. It is just a job after all, it may not be a corporation so to speak but it does have an HR department so, you know, six of one, seven of another. So how do you game the system to make it suck less? Because if I can’t do that, I might really have to get out before it’s too late. I have this sneaking suspicion, or maybe this is just me being dramatic again, you know how i love being dramatic, but I do sometimes suspect that if you don’t find some way to tear it down, rig it up, put up a flase front, dig a hole, leave a trap door on the right side of the rickety walkway, dress in drag, fake them out, turn two dimensional on command, play a shell game, build a secret army of automatons to do your bidding and go to meetings for you, without SOME kind of plain old, let’s face it, they may call it hacking now but it’s plain old trickery, intrigue, calumny, or deceit, without some way to blip sideways out of flatland, without some kind of door into summer, the BULLSHIT JUST GROWS BIGGER AND WIDER AND FATTER AND JUICIER UNTIL IT FILLS ALL THE CRACKS AND THERE’S LITERALLY NO ROOM FOR THE GOOD STUFF ANYMORE. I feel that. I suspect that. Something in me knows that’s the sacrifice of a job that you mostly “think” and “communicate” and “help” in, as opposed to a job where you just have to do one identifiable thing like deliver the mail or print the envelopes. That’s the beauty of a job like those—very little bullshit. Here, on this mountain of mirrors and stardust and disrespect, you gotta carve out the concrete for yourself. If you can make other people believe it exists, well that’s easy enough, they already want to believe, for their own selfish reasons, but then you gotta make yourself believe it exists. And you’re no spring duck, my fuck, you’re a little harder to (self) fool than you used to be. I don’t know if i would be fleeing toward integrity because of integrity’s own sake, or because of fear, because of laziness, because of not being willing to bet on myself to be able to keep playing the game. Like you could say “Yes, kids, life is harder now, but at least I’m being true to myself” and so on but does that still count if you’re being true to yourself because you don’t have any options left because you burned all your bridges because you’re awkward and gangly and afraid of people and have crippling adhd? hahaha. lololol. I truly wonder. But so then what do we do? Like for example, I truly enjoyed myself when I was working on the brit lit sesh today. I was digging up old cool stuff, i was reading a little, i was writing a little, i was synthesizing a little, i was doing a little layout, i was planning a presentation, but not for a bunch of moms in boring rectangular conference rooms; you know, for the kids. And i started blipping into flow. and then it was time for tutorial, and i lost it. the rhythm broke, and the rest of the day was ragtag shot to shit, basically. HOW DO I FIGHT BACK, HOW DO I RECLAIM, HOW DO I HANG ON. HOW DO I REWRITE THE RULES FOR MYSELF, AND DARE THEM TO FIRE ME? yes i’ve become awfully attached to my marginally, barely, slightly better standard of living. Yes, I’m living one centimeter higher up on the ass end ankle of the hog, and i sure don’t want to lose that. Shit i don’t even know if i’d have the energy to go back to being a charity case. Dude what a slow burn nightmare. Can you imagine? I can’t be a substitute teacher again, i think i might genuinely be a suicide risk. But so what then CAN i do, with this newfound maturity and experience which is weirdly juxtaposed with being old and basically un-re-trainable? ok, i’m gonna let this asshole program number some shit for me again: 1. Notice. Notice when you’re doing the good stuff, the real stuff, the flow stuff. The bite off and chew stuff 2. Learn to identify definitively the difference between the bullshit stuff and the merely difficult; between bullshit and just that which triggers your old avoidance habits 3. Keep track. Get a little leather bound journal or something; you’ve got too many different “apps” (puke) bound into service already as too many different administrative executive pigeon holes. Get a pulpy ass dirty ass piece of fucking leather and sheets of grimy ass toothy fucking paper, and start keeping track of what’s what. 4. Start figuring out ways to illusion-master up what’s NOT in that book. Bullshit the bullshitters. Fake em out. Tell em to fuck off in a way that makes em think you just gave em a spaghetti dinner and a place to sleep. Call the bluff. Say you want bullshit, here’s some thin as shit, useless, papier mache fucking dollar store ass class C straight up plastic ass right off the boat from China fucking BEE YOU DOUBLE ELL Fu-SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIT, bitches!!!! Suck it. You asked for it, you got it. I’m out. Okay, I’m not exactly sure how that last one is going to go, or what step 5 would even begin to look like. But hey. At least it’s a start. At least I didn’t just count to two thousand and eighty-eight tonight (though remember, it would be fine if i did). Maybe I can get some sleep, but I dunno. I’m pretty jazzed up on vague electricity and half-empty threats. But you know and I know I’m a walking contradiction.