Boston Medical Center

Just twenty feet from the revolving doors, eight women smoked eight cigarettes, all crowded around one baby stroller.

from the workforce, pt. 2: neurosis is...

I probably spend too much time worrying about student behavior, that is, when I’m not crushed by my own inadequacy, which is often. I had a dream this week that I asked a student to put his phone away, and in response, he cursed me out, threw a desk, and punched me in the mouth. Even though it’ll probably never happen, I’m now putting together a strategy to dodge the desk, and the right hook.

Aside from averting violence, I want students to learn and enjoy my class. This can cause me to be a bit of a pushover. And because I’m a pushover, I sometimes rehearse the occasional, hypothetical harangue I’d deliver to my students for not completing their reading. They’re not speeches I never hope to give, but I’m learning that I’m much more likely to either give in or flip out without such a script.

Sunday’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade put me in a strange funk, and it probably contributed to my suspicion that I’d show up to a crowd of unprepared students. But to be fair, this panic wasn’t totally unfounded. Earlier this week, a student in class posed this question:

“Do we have to, like, watch Metropolis?”

“Yeah. You, like, do.”

I didn’t say that, of course, because it’s rude. But I think my eye-roll was audible, and deservedly so. Seriously, guy, we’re half way through the semester. Figure life out.

With this brief conversation in mind, I spent my time in transit to school running through a few scenarios.

Scenario the first, wherein everybody’s prepared:

Me: I hope you all had a terrific Spring Break. Lets get right into Metropolis. Everybody watched the film, right?

Students: Yes. It was really interesting.

Me: Wonderful. And you all read the criticisms?

Students: Yes. Also interesting. We’re all prepared to share insightful articulations in an organized fashion.

Me: Wonderful! Let’s light this candle!

Scenario the second, wherein half of the students are prepared:

Me: I hope you all had a terrific Spring Break. Lets get right into Metropolis. Everybody watched the film and completed the readings, right?

Students: Various sounds of hesitation.

Me: Some yes, some no?

Students: Uh...

Me: Okay, raise your hands if you watched the film and read the criticisms.

Half of the students raise their hands, and my face turns pink. 


Me: Hmmm…Two things, guys. This class ain’t SparkNotes. It’s not my responsibility to summarize what you should have learned through your reading. This portion of class is designed for discussion and analysis, something we can’t do if you haven’t read. Also, it’s not fair to your classmates who are prepared, so those of you who didn’t do the reading, you’re dismissed. You have a lot of work to do. 


And I’d spend the remaining 45 minutes trying to lower my heart rate, curious if anyone will show up the following Friday, and wondering how I’d live with the guilt of kicking students out of class.

Scenario the third, wherein nobody's prepared:

Me: I hope you all had a terrific Spring Break. Lets get right into Metropolis. Everybody watched the film and completed the readings, right?

Students: Pure, unadulterated silence.

Me: Anyone? Did anyone complete the reading or watch Metropolis? Raise your hand if you did.

Nobody raises their hand.

Me: Nobody did the reading. Okay, then everybody take out a piece of paper and a pen. Do it now. I want you to write a paper, a five paragraph essay, arguing why you don’t have to do your reading. Three reasons. And I’d better be convinced by the end of it, because you’ve clearly convinced yourselves. Pens move the entire 50 minutes. Turn it in to me at the end of class. Go.

And then I’d probably throw up. Also, I haven’t quite mapped out how I’d react to the mutiny that would inevitably follow this exchange.

My projection of the third and most extreme scenario wrapped up just as I walked into class where I realized (once again) that I’m not badass enough to follow through with the two latter exchanges. I hung my coat and scarf over my chair, wrote out the agenda on the chalkboard, and organized my notes. When D and L sat down, they extracted their readings, highlighted and annotated, just as readings should be. I relaxed a bit.

Though class was not without one strange hiccup—a detour into Soviet history?—it followed Scenario One closer than expected. I spent the ride home evaluating the mental stability of a woman who lived the above entry.

I got home and confessed to my roommate/good friend how I spent my commute. “I sound crazy. And not crazy like quirky, but crazy like certifiable.”

“You’re not crazy,” she replied. “You just...have an active inner-life.”

Cheers to Fridays, and to friends who tell all the right lies.

from the workforce:

Every Friday, I teach a section of Intro to Cinema. I’ve got a good group, I think, though they were particularly unresponsive this last Friday. I’m blaming it on Spring Break because even I wanted to check-out early. But I didn’t, because we were discussing an article about how art is political, a thesis with which I agree completely. So I arrived upbeat and, dare I say, bouncy.

“I know these articles can feel like a bit of a slog,” I said as I stood in front of the class, “and I know you’re all looking forward to tearing out of here today, so where would everyone or anyone like to start? Who wants to take the wheel? What arguments did you buy or not buy?”

I stood, eyed wide with chalk in hand, ready to scribble their insights all over the board. I wanted an eruption, a crackling debate, or even a sign of comprehension. But instead they dead-fished me: mouths open, eyes glazed, and bodies barely upright.

Finally S raised her hand and said, “I guess I don’t understand why he thinks the frame story of the film changes the main story so much.”

“Thanks, S. That’s a great place to start, and it’s probably a common confusion, so let’s dive right in. What do we think?”

We hammered out the main story in which a very average Joe bucks authority and exposes the madness inherent in said authority. The frame story, however, situates this average Joe as not so average. He’s crazy, in fact, and has been diagnosed and is being healed by the very authority figure he’d put away in the main story. Not so subversive anymore, eh?

There was some light debate about whether or not the man was actually crazy. I asked how the story might change if he was or was not crazy. One student raised his hand and said, “We’ve done that, though—put people away because they didn’t fall in line, not because they were crazy.”

“Of course,” I said. “Can anyone think of an example?”

“Homosexuals.”

“You bet. Scarily recent, too.”

“And women, right?” asked another student.

“Yes.”

“When did they put women away?” asked a boy.

“It wasn’t limited to just one specific time period,” I said, “but one example was when women got really tired of just ironing and breastfeeding and cooking all day, and the medical community was all, ‘How can you not be fulfilled doing this? You’re biologically wired to perform these tasks. Oh no, you’re hysterical!’ So naturally the answer to all this irrational hysteria was to, you know, lock them bitches up!”

And then I had a flash of what unemployment might feel like. But the class laughed and I worried less that one of them would report me to the school authorities.

At 12:50, I cut them loose. I hope they spend the week sleeping in and watching good and bad movies—and maybe they’ll think, just once, about its political agenda. And I hope I have a job to come back to.

too personal and not about Boston, really.

Wednesdays were designed to build character. Of this, I am sure.

I don’t much care what happened today, though—some good, some less than—because I came home at near 11 p.m. and had mail: Comcast bill to pay this month, my credit card bill, and a square letter with actual blue, hand-written ink.

Today I got a card from Heidi.

Heidi’s my BFF (an acronym I find revolting in any other context) from Utah. She and I met at UVU’s Writing Center and took an ass-kicking class together, and we’ll always be friends for a number of reasons: she is, without a doubt, one of the most genuine people I know. Sweet, kind, and way too hard on herself. Someone’s gotta keep her in check and I nominate me. Also, she’s seen me lose my temper and butterfly kick a garbage can down the school hallway. Okay, it wasn’t a butterfly kick; it was a generic side-kick only elevated by its motivating fury. Post-garbage can, Heidi and I cranked out final papers together and spent hours at the Barnes and Noble Starbucks working, chatting, and ranting over tea.

We keep in touch via e-mail, but everyone knows that a card is different. Mostly because I can so clearly see her with a squishy-grip pen composing the most direct and kindest of “thank yous”, and because her last-second decision to pass on a little “social update” likely underwent much debate before penning the exchange she outlined.

So now it’s on my board with a card from my adopted Serbian sister, a note from my sister, K, pictures of family and friends, concert and game tickets, and the string of beads my brother S gave me when he was 5. In Boston, I keep my heart on my wall.

a sudden turn

It rained all day Friday, which was a nice break from the snow until I stepped in a puddle and trekked around campus all day with a wet left foot. Still, it was worth it to lay in bed that night listening to the rain against my sliding glass doors.

At 9 a.m., I locked the door behind me and my corkscrew umbrella leaves sprang into full cover. I hustled across the street and tiptoed across some black ice that was, no doubt, proof of the first snow in early December. My umbrella fluttered in the wind and I looked at my watch. Five minutes until the T arrived. A strong gust almost stole the umbrella from my gloveless hand, and I stepped off the curb and into a three-inch deep slush.

“Shit wet shoe,” I muttered.

A car whizzed past me and I jumped back on to the sidewalk to avoid its wake. Then the white sedan reversed, the treat of the tires throwing gray mush in the opposite direction.

“Ma’am! Excuse me, ma’am.”

I looked up and asked, “Me?” I’ve never been a “ma’am.”

“Yeah, hey, your backpack’s open. I didn’t want all of your stuff to fall out.”

I thanked him twice, and he nodded and said, “It was no trouble,” and sped down The Ave. toward the T stop. I slipped my right arm out of the strap and swung my green backpack to my left, resting it on my hip. It was wide open, wet notebooks and folders spilling out like a tongue from a mouth.

“Lame,” I whispered.

When the train finally arrived 14 minutes late, I sat near the doors, like always, and I imagined myself walking with an open backpack ten feet further down the road, fishing out assignments from the tiny lake accumulated between S. Street and A. Drive, umbrella rolling down the street, and hair soaked.

That man did me quite a kindness. Friday was happy.

at Heidi's request:

Thursday and Friday were the most beautiful no-coat days. I walked to school in 46 degree sunshine that I could actually feel and left my heavy wool coat and hanging in my closet. It was a brief but lovely break from the relentless Windy East Coast Chill.

It’s foolish to say that I had a hard week, because everyone has hard weeks. But I did, and I came home absolutely bushed. My body crashed, but my brain wouldn’t rest. The remedy? Around one a.m. I popped a Xanax and turned on The Devil Wears Prada and fell asleep before Anne Hathaway is reinvented into a chic Material Girl, which was a shame because I really do love a good makeover montage.

Between three and four that morning, I woke to the sound of branches cracking against my deck, to metal scraping on the pavement and tumbling down the asphalt of our charming street. In my drugged daze, I worried that the garbage cans might slam into the side my favorite green Volvo parked across the street, or that my deck would fall right off of the side of my house. I imagined it crushing my roommate J’s car, probably because she insists on leaving the backdoor unlocked so she doesn’t have to walk the 20 extra feet to our front door.

My eyes were too stubborn to fully open, too thick with medicine, but I could see my white cotton curtains fluttering at the heavy wind, a reminder that my deck doors are poorly fashioned. I turned to my left side and felt a cool breeze sweep across my face, and then my bed began to rock from side to side like a rowboat, a slave to the current. I listened to that wind all night.

When my roommate M walked into the kitchen the next morning, she looked as tired as I felt.

“Didn’t sleep?” I asked.

“No. You?"

“Not enough.”

“I kept waking up to the house,” she said and reached for her Cheerios.

“The house?” I asked through a mouthful of oatmeal.

“Yeah, didn’t you feel it rocking?”

“The house rocked?”

“Yeah. Old New England houses in the wind, they rock. You didn’t notice?”

No need for a rowboat or the salty Atlantic in 55 mile per hour gusts.

tweens are clever.

My bus route takes me past The Boston Globe and Boston’s WB headquarters. Or maybe they’re branches. At the very least, they look official enough to be important extensions. Occasionally, if the timing’s right, I get to witness flashes of various promotions for shows like 90210 or Hellcats where teenagers dress up, picket, and make choices they’ll most likely regret. If I’m really lucky, like I was today, my bus hits a red light and I get to stare in total disbelief.

This evening, girls and boys lined the sidewalk dressed as vampires to advertise tonight’s episode of The Vampire Diaries. Dozens of signs boasted heavy red and black ink, all with the same catchphrase: “Catch VD!”

Might wanna rethink the slogan, guys.