Recoil

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Growing up, a major theme in our household was, "It's not what you say, it's how you say it." My mother was all about tone. And the only tone she really wanted to hear from her children was a pleasant one. Sarcasm, whining, bitchiness and sass were all best muttered into a pillow in the privacy of our bedrooms. Even then, the woman could hear an eyeball roll and smack it back into place without leaving her seat.

All these memories flooded back to me in room 404 of Stabler Hall the other night as my professor discussed the importance of delivery in effective rhetoric. Rather than lecture, he let the music do the talking. We each got a copy of a mysterious song's lyrics and were instructed to guess the style of delivery. Was it man or woman? Fast tempo or slow? Country, rap, rock? Absent the artist's delivery, it was all up to our imaginations.

What would you have guessed:

I want to know how it'll end
I want to be sure of what it'll cost
I want to strangle the stars for all they promised me
I want you to call me on your drug phone
I want to keep you alive so there is always the possibility of murder later
I want to be there when you learn the cost of desire
I want you to understand that my malevolence is just a way to win
I want the name of the ruiner
I want matches in case I have to suddenly burn
I want you to know that being kind is overrated
I want to write my secret across your sky
I want to watch you lose control
I want to watch you lose
I want to know exactly what it's going to take
I want to see you insert yourself into glory
I want your touches to scar me so I'll know where you've been
I want you to watch when I go down in flames
I want a list of atrocities done in your name
I want to reach my hand into the dark and feel what reaches back
I want to remember when my nightmares were clearer
I want to be there when your hot black rage rips wide open
I want to taste my own kind
I want to be wrapped in cold wet sheets to see if it's different on this side
I want you to come on strong
I want to leave you out in the cold
I want the exact same thing... but different
I want some soft drugs.. some soft, soft drugs
I want to throw you
I want you to know I know
I want to know if you read me
I want to swing with my eyes shut and see what I hit
I want to know just how much you hate me so I can predict what you'll do
I want you to know the wounds are self-inflicted
I want a controlling interest
I want to be somewhere beautiful when I die
I want to be your secret hater
I want to stop destroying you but I can't
And I want and I want and I want
And I will always be hungry
And I want and I want and I want...




So, what did you hear? Who did you see?

For me, it was her:





But I was wrong. Give a listen and see how close your perception was to reality.

The Deep End

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I love my job. I love my students. I love my hours. And I could pin June, July and August down and kiss them full on the lips. But as a teacher in the great state of Arkansas, my salary leaves a bit to be desired. With each passing year of service, the dollar signs inch ever so gradually away from the poverty line. But without my master's, by the time I retire my salary will still be in the same tax bracket as your average paperboy. Of course, we won't have newspapers anymore by then, so a teacher's salary may be in a class by itself.

Surprisingly, we're doing fine. Our ends are always neatly dovetailed. Jesus thought he was all that with his loaves and fishes trick? He should see what I can do with a bag of pasta and a can of beans. We don't need more money. Still, I've decided to go back and get my master's. Honestly, it probably has more to do with my ego than my wallet. It rubs me wrong that other people in my building are making more money than I am for doing the same job.

And so, last week, school began—both the one where I am the teacher and the one where I am the student. Immediately, a strange inverse relationship became evident between my confidence levels in each role. As a teacher, I'm kicking ass. Already, I have my new group well in hand and foresee a very smooth year. As a student, however, the tables are most assuredly turned. Other than mandatory "professional development" sessions, I haven't been on the receiving end of a lesson plan in a solid decade. It's daunting. I feel like I've just jumped into the deep end of the pool without my floaties. Meanwhile, all around me, everyone is kicked back on a chaise, slathered in Hawaiian Tropic, margarita in hand. In each class, I sit smack dab in the front row, biting my fingernails and trying to remember to breathe, while my classmates all look more like customers in the waiting room at Jiffy Lube than grad students. Maybe I'm mistaking apathy for confidence, but I really wish just one of them would do me a favor and quit acting so damn comfortable.

Here's a tidy example of the disparity between me and the rest of my classmates. Just last night, one of our professors expressed her concern that she had packed our syllabus a bit too full. A concern, I am not ashamed to admit, that I shared. So she offered to lighten the load by dividing the reading list among us. One group would read this stack and the rest of us would read that one. Before I could even get the sigh of relief out of my mouth, a twenty-two-year old named Jennifer chirped, "But I think we'd get a richer experience if we all read ALL the books, don't you?" Thanks for your input, Jennifer!

So I'll keep treading water, keeping my head above the surface until the doggy paddle comes back to me. I may never become Michael Phelps, or Jennifer, but I'm not going under either. Wish me luck.
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Golden

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Before an actor takes the stage, well wishers tell him to break a leg. In my father's case, it was his good fortune to break an arm. After he did, his best friend, Art Connery, came by the hospital to visit. Art's girlfriend, Judy, tagged along.

Today, Judy and Ed celebrate their Golden Anniversary. And we celebrate them.







Thank you, Mom and Dad, for showing us what true love looks like.


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Did you see God?

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I had spent the day at Six Flags and still hadn't quite gotten over it. My body held up remarkably well. At 44, I had my doubts. Three minutes on a playground swing and I'm left retching and wrecked. Other moms arrive and find me there, pale and quietly heaving. They cast a scornful eye at me, scan the ground for telltale empties, then usher their kids to the far end of the park. Even the rhythmic sloshing of the spin cycle is enough to set my belly on edge. Which is why I have no choice but to leave laundry duty to my husband.

But at Six Flags, my stomach was on its best behavior. We had an unwritten pact that I'd continue to fill it regularly if it promised not to surrender its contents in public. Or maybe it just understood that I was shelling out forty bucks for admission so it better not give me any shit. I know where it lives.

Instead, it was my psyche who decided to get uppity. I forgot to consult her going in, but she was determined to get the last word. It wasn't my fault, really. The trip to Six Flags was so spontaneous I didn't have time for a debriefing. Of course, in retrospect, I can see where she's coming from.

One minute, we were here:






A phone call later, we were here:



You can see why she may have been upset.

Sasquatch.

Sasquatch looms in the distance as you make your way north into Lake George. You see it there, a comfortable mile or two away, and think: Oil rig? Cell phone tower? Electric Substation? What you do not think is: Golly, in a minute or two my ass is going to be strapped to that motherfucker! You park the car, still a good mile from the actual park even on a slow day, and Sasquatch continues to rise in the horizon. It demands your attention, but in a completely nonthreatening way, like a Republican candidate on a presidential ballot. Oh, I see you there, but ain't no chance in hell I'm getting anywhere near you.



So imagine my surprise when I found myself sitting on Sasquatch's lap. I'm still not sure how it happened, but my money's on Rohypnol. The first thing I remember is an apathetic seventeen-year-old named Baku. He set aside his BlackBerry just long enough to give a perfunctory tug on the scrap of fabric securing the skinny metal bars assigned the responsiblity of stopping my body from becoming a projectile. I wouldn't say Baku was bad at his job, it's just that I give more focused attention to my popcorn in the movies. What with him keeping me on this side of the morgue and all, I hoped for that extra touch. Maybe just ramp up the enthusiasm to, I don't know, awake.

As soon as Baku had jiggled the fabric between all his prisoners' passengers' legs and returned to his Shakira video, we were ready. Three seconds later, we were teetering two hundred feet above Baku, my sister, my son, and what remained of my sanity. And there we sat, precariously perched on the ledge of a twenty story building.


(Me, seated third from right.)

We were held hostage, dangling in the clouds, for somewhere between ten seconds and eternity. If I were a bigger pray-er, that would have been the time for it, what with us being walking distance to God's house and all. But instead, I limited my activity to more pressing bodily matters, like coercing an eye open and a bladder shut. Not that peeing on the strap before Baku had to touch it again would have been the worst idea of the day.

Tom Petty knew what he was talking about. The waiting is the hardest part. Except for the dropping. After the torture of being held captive in another latitude, Baku has a sudden change of heart and releases you, allowing you to free fall back down to earth. Your body knows what's coming and does its best to escape, rocketing itself upward until it strains the metal bars thrown loosely over your shoulders. Miraculously, the bars hold. Your body isn't hurled into space as you are sure it will be, but a tiny splinter of your sanity is thrown clear.

That night, I curled up in bed with my five-year-old and told him all about being up there in the sky. Fresh waves of terror churned the pit of my stomach with each detail. All he wanted to know is, "Did you see God?"

Yeah, honey. I think I did.
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The Capacity of Hope

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I just went to the funeral of a five-month-old boy, the baby brother of one of my favorite students. I don't know the parents well, but the part of my brain where that fact is stored wasn't consulted when dread arrived on the scene. Between the day I first heard the news and the moment I arrived at the funeral home, dread had settled in, unpacked its bags and made itself good and comfortable. I've never exactly looked forward to a funeral, but there's a special brand of apprehension when it's the funeral of a child, a funeral no one should have to attend.

I set my brain on Hi and I waited, and hoped. I hoped that if I thought long and hard enough I might find words that would offer solace, but those words haven't been invented yet. I hoped that if I really tried to imagine their pain, I might come up with a gesture that could ease it for a moment, but again the bar was too high. So I headed to the visitation with a goal I thought I could actually pull off: Just be there so Ahkeem knows I love him. That, I could manage.

My brain had done its homework and ushered me into the funeral home well-prepared. The air was heavy with sadness, tears, impotent words of condolence and offers of help that would never be fulfilled. All the things I had been braced for. The open casket threw me a curve ball, but I cried only the appropriate amount and managed to get out without saying anything regrettable.

My brain, however, was unarmed for the task of prepping me for the funeral. It could find sadness and loss in its files, but what was coming at the church was not a part of the database. The funeral was held at a black Southern Baptist church. I am currently submitting applications to become Southern Baptist, and black. It, was amazing.

My only clue of what was to come was the line in the obituary where the family requested that guests wear bright colors, not all black. Now, it makes perfect sense: this was not an occasion for mourning, it was a celebration of life. The music, the words, the atmosphere were all laced with jubilation. There was sadness, sure, but the degree to which it was offset by joy was totally unexpected. How could there be anything in this room but grief and misery? I pre-set my dial to Grief and Misery mode. But this, I didn't even have a setting for.

So I sat back and watched, a marshmallow bobbing feebly in a pot of boiling hot cocoa. I watched the family, so numerous they filled the entire center section of the church. When the preacher said they shouldn't question God, their agreement was unanimous. When he said God had a plan, their acknowledgment was loud and clear. When he said they'd see their baby again in heaven, they shouted their belief so wholeheartedly they left no room for doubt. And that's when I understood.

I went just hoping to give Ahkeem a hug.



I left with a completely different hope: I don't believe in heaven today, but I hope by the time I need to, I will.
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A few things I learned coming up in The Depression

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A friend of mine has decided to start pinching her pennies. Something about the economy . . . blah blah blah. My ears glazed over at that point. All that economy stuff. Bor-ring. Anyhoo, she asked for some tips to help her save money. Why she's asking me I don't know. I'm not an especially frugal person. It just happens that some of my character traits end up inadvertently saving money, so I guess people confuse that with frugality. Perfectly normal things, like:

1. Patience: Most people just can't keep it in their pants. (I'm talking about their wallets, Mom. You have such a dirty mind.) They have to have the latest greatest thing yesterday. I'm good with tomorrow. Or some time after Thanksgiving. Where's the fire, people? If you can just hold tight for a few months, the movie's exactly the same at the fifty cent matinee as it was in the fancy schmancy first-run theater for $8.50. They don't change the ending or cut out the dirty parts or anything. All they cut out is $8.00. And the cleaning staff.



You can also take advantage of off season or off hour bargains. Willow Springs Water Park in Little Rock, for example, offers a P.M. Swim at about half the rate of going during the day. So there's a little more pee in the pool. There are also fewer UV rays in the air. A little pee in your mouth is a small price to pay to avoid skin cancer.

2. Humility: I had a really sweet car for a few years there and you know what, it only raised my insurance, not my self-esteem. If you get off on driving a status symbol, bully for you. We all have to do what makes us happy. But at our house, we park our hubris at the door and drive away in these:



Combined they cost under $9,000, cash. That's a lot of leftover latte money. If I bought lattes.

3. Pragmatism: This is my husband's cell phone:



He lovingly calls it his Phonosaurus Rex. I think his mom got it for him in case he ran out of gas driving to the prom. She's good like that.

This is my cell phone:




Because whatever you have to say to me, it can wait till I get home. (See item #1 above.)

4. Stamina: Malls are for pussies. Everything you need, reliably and attractively arranged in one place for your shopping convenience? Hell, where's the challenge in that? I don't mean to brag, but it takes an intrepid shopper to completely outfit a family, equip a house, and satisfy every gift-giving obligation from Christmas to Mother's Day out of the discarded crap strangers toss on their lawns every Saturday morning.



That, my friend, is dedication.

5. Courage: Before I added a hyphen to my last name and a dependent to my W-2, I was a free spirit in more ways than one. There were years when I traveled back and forth across the continent without benefit of airfare. Sadly, the days of creative travel are probably gone forever, at least for me. Instead of trying to stowaway on a plane or in a stranger's car, you might settle for stowing cocktails into places that would prefer to sell them to you for roughly the price of airfare. Might I suggest . . .

For the lady:

Or the popular unisex Beer Belly:





If neither of these solutions appeals to you, I can also recommend simply removing the vacuum pouch of your favorite wine from its box and slipping it into an emptied sixteen ounce Cheetos bag. Shhh . . . it's our little secret.

6. Adventurousness: I don't even want to know what you people are forking over for your fancy pool memberships. I personally can't imagine a bigger waste of money when there's a perfectly refreshing creek just right down yonder. And as long as we're out of there before sundown, we hardly ever see any Cottonmouths.





7. Tolerance: People have gotten too soft. Everybody's all comfort this and pleasure that. It would do us all good to toughen up a bit. I say, if it's 95° outside, 90° should feel pretty good by contrast. So there's just no reason to set the thermostat any cooler than that. You know those drastic temperature swings are nothing but bad for you, right? And in winter, there's no law that says you can't wear your coat and hat inside. Set that thing at 50 and find somebody to snuggle. Al Gore thanks you.

8. Traditionalism: I like electricity. I'm a big fan of sliced bread. And I'd totally like to shake the hand of whoever invented indoor plumbing, figuratively of course. But there's one convenience modern Americans can't seem to live without that I just can't wrap my head around:



$8.18? For water? Not a month's worth of showers and clean clothes and tended lawns, but three bottles. Of water. If I'm paying $8.18 for three bottles of something, then I better be drunk by the time I finish them. Otherwise, I must have been drunk when I bought them.

9. I'm sorry. I really intended to come up with a nice round ten for you, but I just have to stop now. Like most people these days, we generate our own electricity by peddling an exercise bike and my thighs are killing me here. Why don't you guys take over and do the next two. I could actually use a few tips to start saving money. It's not really something I've ever thought about.

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Pandora's Xbox

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When Bill Gates was in the eighth grade, his school started a computer club. He found himself instantly addicted and his little obsession, as you might have heard, turned out pretty okay for him.

So what's my problem? Why am I actively discouraging my child from having the same experience? I've never been there, but I'm relatively sure Mrs. Gates isn't living in a 1207 square foot 1950s ranch with Formica countertops. Even if she's dead, I bet her ashes are in swankier digs than our house. I should be duct taping my kid in front of the computer every time he tries to go out and piss away another afternoon with the neighborhood ne'er-do-wells. Tire swing my ass, kid. How exactly is that going to translate into a cush job?

But I don't. Instead, I keep a steady stream of daylight between my boy and video games. I just don't quite trust them to keep their sneaky little hands to themselves. I was a kid once, too, don't forget. I remember how innocently it all starts. A little Pong after school with your buddies. Next thing you know, you're moving up to Tetris . . . just at parties, of course. Then it's Donkey Kong and Frogger and before you know it, you're messing around with email right in your own house and your parents still don't suspect a thing. You've got it under control, nothing to worry about. But you drop your guard for a minute and some friend turns you on to Facebook. Next thing you know, BAM, you're on Twitter. And that's all she wrote, people. You're hooked and there's no getting out. I want a better life for my kid, is that too much to ask?

The other day, I caught a few of his friends experimenting. I don't really want to be the one to narc them out, but I'm really pretty worried about them.





Mostly, what worries me is exactly how hard these kids are going to kick my kid's ass in the job market fifteen years from now. In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell talks about the 10,000-Hour Rule: how it takes 10,000 hours of practice to achieve total expertise in any field. The Beatles, Bill Gates, even Mozart didn't really start knocking folks' socks off until they'd clocked 10,000 hours. These boys started computers while they were still in diapers. By the time they're in middle school, they'll be inventing Microchip Mascara or something, so people just have to blink their thoughts to each other.

And my boy?



Well, nobody rocks the Winnie the Pooh slippers like he does. I'm seeing a catwalk in his future. And an endless supply of school yard ass whoopings.

sigh . . .
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