Let me set the scene, for you: I’m teaching my Theatre Appreciation class, which is held each Monday and Wednesday morning in the small theatre studio, a few rooms down from my office. I’m in the middle of my lecture, standing in front of several large benches, set pieces for our upcoming production.  My back is both to the door and the darkened stage.

One of my students, who insists on being called Poonie May, suddenly emits a tiny screeching sound that catches my attention.

As if on cue, the entire class, with one gigantic move of their heads, turns to my left and craning their necks slightly, stares.

I felt that someone, or something, was behind me.

And there was.

I turned along with them to find that a tall man in a red Polo shirt, with a school logo embroidered on it, though sans Name Tag, is standing, almost directly so, behind me.

This man is from Maintenance.

HIM: “I’m sorry, are you teaching class?”

ME: “Um. Yes. Yes, I am.”

HIM: “Sorry, I didn’t know you were teaching class.”

ME: “That’s, OK. Can I help you?”

HIM: “You called.”

ME: “Excuse me?” (I didn’t know whom he was, at first)

HIM: “You called Maintenance, right?”

ME: “Oh, yes. I did, yes.”

HIM: “So, I’m here.”

ME: “I see that. Thank you for coming. But, I don’t actually need you until 3:00. I thought I said that in my message.”

HIM: “Yeah, 3:00.” (He flicks the edge of the paper in his hand) “That’s what it says here.”

ME: “Oookkk. Well, it’s 9:00, now, though. And I’m still teaching.”

HIM: “Yep. Oh, you want me to sit down, then?”

ME: “No, you don’t have—no. Actually. Could you come back at 3:00? That’d be better.”

HIM: “Well…what do you need?”

ME: “A truck. As I said in my message. I need a truck. And some help to move these benches to the other theatre.”

HIM: “A truck? What you need a truck for?”

ME: “To move these benches.”

HIM: “These benches, here? You gonna need help with that, or what, right?”

There is a pause, at this point in our conversation.

ME: “I—right. Well, yes, I’d like that. I can’t move them by myself, as you see, they’re a little heavy for just one, and, and I certainly need a truck because they won’t fit in my car. That’s, that’s why I called and made the request.”

HIM: “What kinda car you got.”

ME: “I…a Honda.”

HIM: “A car? Like, an Accord?”

ME: “A Honda Accord. Yes.”

HIM: “Yeah. Hm. You’ll need a truck. We’ll get you a truck, then.”

ME: “That’s most encouraging. I’m glad to hear it.”

HIM: “But now, I’m leaving today at 2:00.”

I have paused, yet again, at this point.

ME: “OK. Well, you can bring the truck earlier, then? Can you, that’d be fine.”

HIM: “Like now?”

ME: “I…I, maybe in an hour? I’ll be done in an hour.”

HIM: “Just. Here.”

And that’s how I got the keys to the truck.

I turned back to the class, who was fully entertained by this inopportune exchange of half-wit, and I tried, I did, and valiantly, to get us all back on track, and further into Chapter 15, a.k.a. the “chapter from which no bad student returns.” We were discussing, among other heady things, the architectural distinctions between Greek and Roman theatres, both thematically as well as structurally.

But, I couldn’t. I just, couldn’t focus, anymore. I couldn’t even glance at the open textbook, which I’d held in my hands throughout my alleged conversation. So, I dismissed the class.

I don’t know how this happened, this abrupt loss of interest, but by the time I found my way out of this dotty dialogue with a man, a character, so richly and originally drawn that he could not be accurately recreated by any playwright south of Shakespeare or northwest of Moliere, I was frankly, exhausted. I felt defeated, somehow.

I sat down on one of the benches and said to myself, You’ve got only a few months, left, Kris, and then, then NYC.

And though that usually perks me right back up, (at least, it has lately) and though, under normal circumstances, that thought alone would fuel me with such excitement that I could teach all of Chapter 15 in one breath and a hand tied behind my back, it made me a little sad, instead. (And nervous, considering what had been behind my back already).

As aggravated as I get in this job, as frustrated as I am each evening when I drive all the blame way back home, I’ve gotten used to this crazy box of crayons. I like the colorful people I work with, and sometimes, against. They’re hardly more than average, as far as crayons go, mostly your run-of-the-mill Reds and Browns; nothing more exotic than a Burnt Orange…or if you’re lucky, a stray Forest Green.

You know the colors that only get used when they’re all you have left. Or, it’s Halloween in your second grade art class.

Still, it’ll be sad to have to “buy” a new box.

I mean, I’ll do it. I’ve got the change in my pocket, as we speak, don’t you worry about that. I carry that change around all the time.

But, it’ll be different, for sure, an adjustment to make…because God knows, the Big Apple is a brand new box (the kind with the pencil sharpener built-in on the side) of weird, strange colors waiting for me like Electric Lime and Jazzberry Jam, Outer Space and Mauvelous.

All of which are actual Crayola crayon names. Check it out for yourself, if you don’t believe me.

It worries me; I haven’t the faintest idea of how one would even go about using a color known as Outer Space.

Although, on days like this, I have to admit: Outer Space sounds pretty Mauvelous.

And I hope it is, because in my book, New York City and outer space are pretty much the same thing.

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And I don’t just mean having to look it up in a dictionary. Since, I come before the mandatory use of home computers.

I had a personal encounter with the word.

It’s surprising, though, what one’s personal history of fads says about oneself. For me, in retrospect, my string of passing fancies was equivalent to that annoying solid beep of an emergency broadcast—“ in the event of an actual emergency, contact information will be provided.”

That second part there, that never happened.

Some of my “interests” were rather unique to me and me alone. Aside from the veritable sexual deviant scream of my addiction to jelly bracelets, in third grade, and the cheerleader-look of a Scrunchie bunched up on the top of my hip, right or left, holding a wad of a paint-splattered or tie-died T-shirt, I also went through a phase of wearing bells knotted at the end of various widths of ribbon necklaces.

Just because, I guess…

God, the praying my family must have done behind my Bugle Boy button-up back.

It got worse, though.

I wanted charms for my bracelets; I rarely left any day of the school week during the early 90s without a tight-roll to my blue jeans; and I believed with my whole heart in color coordinating my swatch watch with my slouch socks or, on fun days, with any of my enviable collection of Hypercolor shirts.

My fads were cries for help. Loud, in-your-face, gossip-creating cries. I see that now.

Granted, I never did fall for the love-you-and-leave-you lure of a fanny pack, but really, is that any consolation, considering the above-mentioned atrocities?

I suppose, looking back, one could argue that I was merely trying to bridge the brokenness in the wake of having no parental influence from either of the two people who, having come together after some football game, “worked together” in giving me life.

I think I was just secretly a greedy child. I liked attention.

Even if it came at the expense of name calling, as it did that confusing afternoon in which a young boy said something along the lines of “You’re a blah blah blah, and a something else yadda, yadda, yadda, fad.” Or, so, that’s what I thought he was referencing.

It turns out that it wasn’t.

What’s the point, here, you ask?

Last night, while channel surfing, I came across a National Geographic special on intersexed children. It’s much more of a biological occurrence than you might at first think.

I found it both difficult to watch and too engaging not to.

I think I found this to be the case because it’s such a grossly misunderstood occurrence, and not just for intersexed children—for any that are different, be it from Nature or Nurture. My heart bleeds a lot for the infirm, unfortunate, and overlooked. It doesn’t take much to get me “on your side.”

Keeping me there, though, usually involves a free meal, and/or a bottle of Marco Negri.

What disturbed me the most, though, and thus has led me to this discussion of fads, was the story I saw last night of a young seven-year-old boy who told his parents that he was supposed to be a “girl.”

Instead of arguing with him, they said, Fine, OK, you’re a girl. And, living in Japan—they’re an American  military family, no less—they have allowed their son to become their daughter. The child is happy, thoughtful, mannered, and despite the unbearable amount of verbal abuse this child has put himself through at school, seemingly well-rounded.

Perhaps that last comment has you perplexed.

I speak, though, from a place that knows. Because for many, many years of my life my whole purpose of being, my every prayer, was predicated on the off-chance I might go to sleep one night and wake up the next morning, a girl. It reached such a pinnacle of anxiety and self-hatred that two things emerged: a very, very uncomfortable confrontation involving U.L., Salathiel, the late Uncle Jerry, a young Hispanic man named Gabriel, and Uncle Jerry’s unsuspecting next-door neighbors in Pocatello, Idaho; and, an admission to myself of a real truth: I was unhappy in my own skin…and felt very alone.

I used to also pray at night for cancer, instead, because at least that could be removed. Or treated.

Nothing floats with quite the same consistency as truth. It, more than almost anything else in the world, will always rise to the surface, and when it does, it’s about as heavy as a paper plate.

The internal struggle of identity is beyond description, whether it involves the pressure to play sports when you’d rather read, or the precarious balance of being a boy when you really, truly think you’re not one.

I imagine puberty will be a living nightmare for this child.

And I know that psychiatry would argue against such parental white-flagging to what may appear as the misled whim of an adolescent. But, deeper still, is the fact that I believe we’re drawn, as early an age as two or three, perhaps, to the things that shape us. No matter what we do to hide them, pretend they’re Nothings, overlook them as valid, they are there as signposts, warnings, or words of encouragement.

How much easier it would be for all children, who struggle with identity and social placement, if we (as the proverbial outsiders, since it “always happens to someone else,” right?) just took that knowledge in stride. Fads are important barometers, but barometers aren’t meant to be alarming. They’re meant to gauge pressure.

I’m not saying fads force us into being the shape we appear to be born into. Rather, they let us know  what we’re capable of becoming; they’re indicators, decisions, options. And the only thing that has to pass…is the moment, if needed, or the awkwardness of realizing something’s not quite right, even when it doesn’t feel wrong.

Fads are an invitation to the party. They’re gifts of permission. Saying, OK, so you’re a boy who likes dolls. Well, go for it. Ride it out.  

And, though, it’s usually best done in the privacy of your own home; sometimes, you gotta go to Idaho.

I know this is just a theory, but it works…on me.  I just have to recall the things that I found myself most drawn to throughout my childhood to see that the picture I’ve painted for myself was an extremely colorful one, albeit with some really heavy lines and a little too Olan Mills.

It was a piece of art, all the same.

Fads are totems of Identity, our growth as a person.

For my cousin Mikey, in fifth grade, it was a bolo tie or bust.  While I snuck a cameo out of Tigi’s jewelry case and wore it over my breast pocket.  He had the entire Ewok Village; I had an Easy Bake. He collected Garbage Pail Kids cards; I framed the adoption papers of my two Cabbage Patch Kids. He preferred Aerosmith and Poison; I bought every single Amy Grant ever released, as a crossover pop-artist, as well as the one-hit wonder and brief tastemaker that was Karen White. He played in the mud and looked for worms to go fishing. I made mud pies and served them to the ants.

And my family, they had to know. One Christmas, Aunt Ruth gave him an envelope with money in it. To me, she gave a doll that she’d crocheted.

I guess they just assumed it was a phase.

As if.

But, now, it’s not like I didn’t do boy-things. I did. I loved to go fishing; I grew my own vegetables (still do), and on more than once occasion, I’ve aimed and shot a BB gun.

It’s just that as I got older, I was more inclined to buy acid-wash jeans that had BB bullets sewn down the leg in a swoop design. Remember those? That didn’t last for long.

I was an unavoidable totem, too tall and obvious, until the windbreaker made its debut. And everyone had one.

Thank god for the windbreaker, though.

Otherwise, I’d never know how much I didn’t want to fit in.

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Itawamba County’s School Board has decided to cancel the local high school’s prom because one student, a lesbian, wanted to wear a tuxedo and bring her girlfriend as her date.

Of course, the media is licking its chops, I’m sure, over this newest political deep-fried Panic Button. All the more so because it’s straight from the Heart of Dixie, also known as the Buckle of the Bible Belt. It was only a little more than a decade ago, wasn’t it?, when we were splayed across the nation’s newsrooms (again, the culprit being North Mississippi) over school prayer.

Today, it’s a gay girl and the threat of a prom.  (Though, the more serious danger, to me, would be the fact that a high school gym would be filled to the rim with acne, teenagers, and a spiked punch bowl).

I’m a bit confused, to be honest, about all of it. And what I think it boils down to isn’t really politics. It’s personalities…and the fact that change is only OK when it’s already happened; in other words, become tradition.

I grew up straddling generations: mine versus U.L.’s, who tipped his hat to Tigi’s generation which started at the end of the 19^th century. So, I’m well aware of the discrepancies between our two struggling cultures.

I’ve tried valiantly to marry these two competing frames of reference my entire life. I’ve tried to take what’s good about U.L.’s worldview and tie its thin thread of logic around the finger of my own, more liberal perspective.

Because I do not believe they are all that mutually exclusive.

No, they’re a lot more alike than we want to admit. What’s different, you see, isn’t our personal philosophies; it is Us. As individuals.

That’s why politics doesn’t work…and why it does.

Every issue that faces this country, and aside from “hurt feelings” and “recognition” (which, granted, are important in the world of politicizing), there are still far greater things to worry about, I think, than a lesbian in a tuxedo, dancing with her girlfriend.

Even if it’s in Mississippi.

Until the age of eighteen, I spent as much time in my homegrown Southern Baptist church as I did in school. I know all too well the fervor of conviction that guides the decisions most of Mississippi’s religious make.

I used to be just like them. And while there’s a lot of good in being that way, there’s an equal amount of bad in being that way. Which we ignore in the South.

And that’s the problem.

Don’t get me wrong. I believe in Jesus. But, I also believe in Red Bull. And what I mean by that is this: We are all grown-ups. We ought to know important from ridiculous. We ought to be able to distinguish between faith and fact. We ought to have no trouble recognizing progress from protest.

But, as Itawamba proves, we don’t.

What’s at stake here has nothing at all to do with “rules” or “policies.” It’s reputation that we’re worried about. It’s what people will think, what people will say about Us, about Mississippi, what they will say about our “personalities,” as a people, as southerners, and as Christians.

It’s about letting go of what we never questioned because we were afraid that if we did, we might find out that we were wrong. Or, heaven forbid, that there was more than way to answer the question. Because, like it or not, Christian or no, this young girl, this lesbian, is Mississippi, too.

I learned that lesson the hard way, myself.

When I was in college, I saw what my church friends were doing, behind closed doors. Hell, I was doing some of it myself. And I well remember a party I threw at my apartment one weekend in which, I’m certain, several people became pregnant, if not drunk, and high…and all those others things that were so, so “wrong.”

Don’t misunderstand: stupid people do stupid things, and when stupid things are done, there are consequences.

But, that’s not the same thing as morality.

It just leaves the same kind of scar.

In small doses, these friends accepted any number of “social ills” and “misfits.” Much like Jesus did, in his own day. But, there was an interesting correlation: as the number of people grew, the amount of support lessened.

For instance, no one minded that I was gay, at first. When it was just a few of us, hanging out. But, that evening, in my own apartment, when the number of those who had congregated grew into double-digits, and we were sitting around my den playing Truth or Dare, and my “truth” was brought out (because I didn’t think it was that big of a deal; it was old news to me—plus, it was MY APARTMENT), well God Above, you would have thought the world exploded.

I was mortified. I would never do anything to intentionally harm my family’s good name or embarrass myself, but I mean, for the love of God, where was all the support I’d been given, earlier?

Who was the bigger coward: Me, for facing my personality, my own struggles, or the fair-weathers, who were so worried about what “people would think” for befriending a homosexual?

This is why, in my opinion, politics will never truly work; we cannot separate ourselves from our upbringing. It’s why the majority never represents the majority. Because any majority must necessarily be incestuous, and feed on itself. It’s philosophical cannibalism.  When any given Congressman is sitting in his/her office weighing the consequences of their decisions, their upcoming votes, when he/she is all alone and searches within to find the “truth,” what do you think they rely on?

Nine out of ten times, their faith, I believe. Whatever it may be. Currently, the majority of our Congressmen are Christians.

And their internecine struggle forces us all to constantly compromise…which may work on the larger issues: democracy, health care reform, I don’t know…but it never seems to work on the smaller issues, which really aren’t, in retrospect, issues at all. They’re scapegoats.

I mean, really: the entire prom is cancelled because of a tuxedo and a lesbian? 

I can’t even remember if I went to my prom. (I did, but you get the point).

Besides, it was the after-party that needed supervision.

But, let’s stay pragmatic about it, shall we? Let’s make this a “teachable moment.” What is learned by cancelling the prom? What does the student body benefit from this decision?

I can’t think of a single, real thing.

I mean, with school prayer, an actual constitutional right was being re-addressed, that of the separation of church and state. And as much as I believe in God, Jesus, Christianity, the Works, I also recognize the importance of the Separation of Church and State. I believe in that, too.

But, what’s the lesson with this current Mississippi joke of “standing up for what we believe is right?” This cancelled prom?

All I can think of is this: If you’re going to stand up for what you believe in around here, you better make sure it’s on the right foot.

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Amanda was recounting her recent trip to Boston, in which she was finally able to satisfy a small bit of her boundless love for ethnic foods: Cuban, German, Haitian, Indian, to name several.

I guess Boston has everything.

And as you might expect, the conversation stayed focused on the topic of food. That’s what happens when you’re with cultured people, eating cultured things such as Chivda sounds—for the record, I used Reduced Fat Jif, the crunchy kind—until there came the smallest lull, allowing Amanda to confess her exciting dietary adventures.

She’d been a tad antsy, eager to share.

So she did.

“I finally got to eat Ethiopian.”

This, of course, was roundly applauded, and with genuine interest, I began to ask for specifics. What was it like? Was it even real food? Because, aren’t they kind of known as a country without food?

I couldn’t imagine what they authentically ate, and I found it ironic that though the country itself is constantly on the verge of agricultural collapse and starvation, a few of them have managed to come to America and open up a restaurant to cook food for us.

Still, I honestly wanted to know what authentic Ethiopian food was like. I honestly wanted to know every detail about this particular dining experience.

So, she told me, us.

Apparently, they pile all their food on top of a large table of bread, and you eat everything in sight. Possibly, even the chair and napkin, should you be given one.

And also you use your hands.

I want to say “Gross!” but I wouldn’t mean it. Secretly, germ-conscious as I can be, I would love nothing more than to squish peas through my fingers, or to cup a handful of goat cheese up to my mouth and shove it in, sans-utensils.

But, and chide me later if you consider this misleading in retrospect, the conversation came to a full halt when Amanda replied that the food, the experience, the actual Ethiopian meal was…well, not authentic as much as it was authentic-ish.

Authentic-ish.

The word, in and of itself, isn’t really the issue, but that manmade suffix…is.

Because I hear it all the time.

My students, my friends, passers-by, that ridiculous trollop of a Wal-Mart Associate from last night who insisted on giving me a buggy despite the fact that I even took the time to tell her I was only getting a half-gallon of skim milk…that little -ish is everywhere.

We’ve become a society of opinionated adjective-pushers.

I mean, this, this, it’s becoming an epidemic. Or, epidemic-ish.

And yet, it’s complete and utter genius.

Because its overall purpose, I now see, is to function in daily conversation as a general whitewash. An excuse of non-description by engaging all descriptions. Tacking that –ish onto any and every word known to Man is both answering the question and closing the subject, at the same time.

My grandmother for years harped and nagged about the “ugliness” of people who cursed. Her reason: it negated their ability to find a creative way to express themselves. Instead of describing the pain, the event, the whatever, people would scream out one obscenity or profanity after another. If they’d take the time to think it through, blah, blah, blah…right?

That was my first reaction to this –ish business…until the other night.

Because really, what did I expect? They were Ethiopians living in America. Are they really going to go whole hog on the authenticity of the nutritional habits of their people? I doubt it. How could they? They’d probably be shut down by the FDA. They’ve done what all ethnic and cultural entrepreneurs have done when they emgirate: they Americanized.

Which, in turn, gives rise to the handiness of that little peckerwood of a suffix –ish. Because that was in fact the correct descriptor to her “cuisine experience.” She was eating authentic-ish Ethiopian food.

And the deeper beauty of –ish is that it isn’t relegated only to eating.

No, not by a long shot.

I teach students who appear to be serious-ish about passing, I’ve been in love-ish before, and god knows, I’ve spent a few too many nights, drunk-ish, texting everyone in my phone, even my mother, talking about any number of stupid things from recipes to recalling an old feud between me and a friend over a broken tambourine.

There are even days when I’m thankful for that little –ish.

When I’m just sick-ish instead of having the stomach virus. When I’m sad-ish but my heart’s not broken. When the day’s OK-ish, but it’s not bad.

You know what I’m talking about, and you agree. Don’t you?

At least, sort of-ish?

Yeah, I thought you would…even if -ish just a little.

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I like to think I’m savvy and a smooth operator, most of the time, but I had a bit of a bitter pill to swallow yesterday, when, on my way back from Scooba (perish the thought!), I had to stop and get gas.

This is hardly a new thing for me, but unlike my usual stop-and-gos at the Scooba Junction gas station, I had neglected to look at my gas gauge until I was in Brooksville, about twenty minutes north. I had no choice but to pull in at the only other gas station on Highway 45 between Starkville and Scooba.

I can’t remember the feebly-attempted witty name it had (Kountry Korner, or some other god-awful collective rape of the alphabet), so I shall refer to it as a vortex of evil. But, that’s as far as I’ll go because, oddly enough, I’m not here to talk about the gas station itself, other than this last thing: they overprice Every Thing.

No, what I’m here to talk about is the elderly black man with his walker pumping his own gas, which he somehow did by propping the pump itself in between the upper and lower handles of his walker. He left it there, and got back in his car. 

I swear I need to get a digital camera.

I had finished pumping my gas, at this point, and as I drove away, he looked up at me.

So, I smiled the same smile I’ve been giving all people-I-don’t-know-but-I-want-to-appear-like-a-decent-human-being for years. He returned my smile with a look that was, if I do say so myself, dismissive and impolite.

I need to frame the rest of the story first, though.

No snake eyes for me.

I have a tendency to turn the rearview mirror onto myself when I drive. It’s silly and a bit narcissistic, but it also makes me feel less alone when I’m on the road. I’m not much in the way of this world, but I can be a fun traveling companion.

Also, I like looking at myself.

And, I’m not one bit ashamed to admit it.

I’m not gorgeous, it’s not that, I just like to see someone I respect looking back at me on my sojourns.

I say that to say this (a lovely phrase for so many cliched reasons), when I offered my smile to this man, I was actually able to catch my own reflection of said smile, in the process.

I’d never noticed this before, but as I drove past him, mulling over his look of disapproval, I, for the first time in my entire life, actually saw the smile that I gave him. The same smile I have given to thousands.

And boy was I in for a shock.

What I would have sworn on a stack of Bibles (but only the King James’ ones) was a sweet, how-do-you-do smile was in fact, a smirk.

I saw it, myself. A bona fide, certified smirk.

To be honest, the big one on the bottom scares me.

All this time, all these years, I thought I was giving a kind, acceptable and welcoming smile and instead, what was coming across my face was a holier-than-thou-even-if-there-could-be-a-week-of-Easter-Sundays grimace of sorts.

I looked as if I were a snooty man whose sole purpose was to drive through evil gas stations and through nothing but the sheer force of my facial expression alone moderate comeuppance to others.

I couldn’t believe it. I hated that look on my face, and above all, certainly because I wasn’t snooty.

Or, was I?

Because the little niggling doubt in the back of my mind is that I have a somewhat solid foothold in the belief that there’s a direct line of truthful communication between your subconscious and your face…even your head.

The Japanese hold to a belief that the head will always tell the truth, no matter what the voice is saying, that’s what Makoto told me.

So, I tried it, and it worked. Try it, yourself. Next time you ask someone a question, like, Do you think I look fat in this? Watch their heads. They may say No, but their heads will nod yes. Afterwards, jump down their throats for not telling you the truth.

Time and again, U.L. has said, Be mindful of your face. It’ll often say what you won’t. Head, face, it doesn’t matter. I need to get better acquainted with them both.

The horror is I think I was doing just what U.L. said, yesterday. God knows, I don’t mean half the things I must subconsciously think, but it’s hard to escape an upbringing. It’s hard to get away from your “home culture.” And part of our “home culture” in the Deep South is thinking, to some degree, that we’re a little bit better than other people. At least, those people at the end of the street, right?

And, who knows, maybe I was thinking that yesterday, without realizing it. Offering what I believed was a smile, saying, in effect, Hey, sir, we both get gas at the same place; we’re not so different, after all. But, my mind was apparently saying, I don’t have to use a walker to pump my gas. Ha, ha.

Thus, the smirk.

Would you trust this man?

I’m a bit upset by this. But, my only alternative would be to show my pearly-whites from now ’til kingdom come, and that just won’t do.

I’d look like an idiot.

That’s what I said to Siciliana.

She came back with, ”Yeah, but at least you’d be an honest one.”

Can’t argue with that.

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• How on earth do you wash a Fedora? [and other random thoughts]…
• This is a sappy blog, and it was well overdue.
• Excuse me, did you just call me a fad?

I was comparing the prices of blood pressure monitors, and not for U.L. or a grandmother. I was purchasing one for myself.

It seems I stay in a constant state of Stage 1 Hypertension, according to my third doctor’s appointment in the last month.

This, almost more than anything else, means I am now a bona fide Adult. Nothing says Welcome to Life like high blood pressure.

I brag a lot about how healthy I am, but the truth is I’m only doing that as a means of psyching myself out. I know all too well what lurks in my family’s gene pool: diabetes, heart conditions, depression, cancer, and more mental disorders than are legally allowed by the APA…at least, outside of Canada.

I'd like to introduce you to my little friend.

As much as I love America, and I do love America, I do panic quite easily when I realize that part of this great land of opportunity is knowing that one thing we learn and learn well in elementary school is the meaning of the word plural.

Panic, by the way, is not conducive to lowering high blood pressure.

Here’s what I mean: Unless the LifeSource blood pressure monitor can insert the Netflix DVD of 30 Rock, Season 2, into the DVD player, in addition to helping me keep track of my fluctuating blood pressure, (which changes, the doctor told me, constantly), it really isn’t any different, functionally, than the generic Walgreens brand.

In other words, one type of monitor should be sufficient. Singular, not plural.

Or, so, I would imagine.

Yet, there were no less than two fully stocked shelves dedicated to nothing but competing brands of blood pressure monitors. 

Now, I’m new to medical problems (my own, anyway), and I’ve really not had a plethora of free time to research the reason for so many different BP monitors. I wasn’t aware that one had to do that in order to buy one.

So, I was forced to do my research on-site.

The higher the price of BP monitor, it seems, the more gadgetry is included in the product. Past the $40 mark, you no longer had to manually pump the sleeve; the machine would do it, for you. Also, the people on the box were both more attractive, and dare I say it, looked more assured of an accurate reading than did the people on the BP monitor box I purchased, which came in just under the $35 mark.

So many choices of one simple item.

I’ll be the first to admit it: in this country, we have a love/hate relationship with one of the very cornerstones of our Free Enterprise: choice. This means, essentially, we have a problem with the country itself. I know I do, at least, where Free Enterprise is concerned. My relationship with consumerism is much like I imagine you’d feel after buying yourself a mail-order bride – you know it’s wrong, but at the end of the day, at least you’re not alone in the house. And if you don’t beat them, they’ll even cook you breakfast…I’ve been told.

Don't leave home without them. We're talking about American Healthcare, here.

It didn’t bother me one bit, my choice of BP monitor, until I got home and started to take my blood pressure.

I was consumed (you’ll get the pun later): Did I make the right call? Did I buy the right one?

What if my desire to save a few bucks was compromising my health?  Sure it was $10 more, but what’s $10 for a longer life?  What if the monitor I bought didn’t give me all the information I truly needed to show my doctor, and in the end, as I lay there on the couch, waiting for the ambulance, clutching my chest as the impending infarction (I’ve been waiting a long time to have a reason to use that word) took over my breathing and nerves, and the only voice I recalled as I took a step toward the Light was that nagging one in the back of my mind which sounds a lot like U.L. saying, Don’t you wish you’d gotten the other monitor, the one that recorded clot potential?

The first bullet in the Instructions Manual that comes included with the monitor states: It is recommended that you do not attempt a blood pressure reading when under stress. It is best to be as relaxed as possible.

I almost stood straight up, put the thing back in its box, and returned my monitor to Walgreens, right then.  I was so far under stress, I should have proposed afterwards.

It took me several, long, agonizing minutes, but I realized I’d simply become a victim of consumerism, myself. It’s diagnosable. This is what happens to us, in this country, because there are sometimes, too many choices. That may be fine and well as a necessary component of the American dream but it’s competing with a declining literacy rate. And that’s hardly what they mean by Free Enterprise.

We take the easy way out when we’re faced with too many options. For the sake of argument, let’s say the LifeSource was a much better choice of a BP monitor than the cheap, generic one I bought. Few and far between are the consumers who are going to read about the differences between the two. When all is said and done (and every now and then, read), we almost always go for what’s cheapest.

And if this is a true democracy, then cheapest is all you really need. Basic functions of any BP monitor ought to include, if nothing else, the mere conclusion of This Reading Means You Need A Doctor, or You’re Fine…For Today.

My average, no-frills, run-of-the-Chinese-Factory BP monitor does just this.

I don’t get a lot of joy out of it, though, since I’m already seeing a doctor. (Not socially, mind you).

What we need to focus on, in my opinion, is a BP monitor that doesn’t make you feel your arm is about to fall off. Those cuffs mean business, let me tell you.

But, then, so does this economy.

We strive to offer the consumer whatever he or she needs. For instance, after struggling, and hard, against the ridiculous desire I had to suddenly purchase a Snuggie, leopard-print, I browsed a few other products in my search for the aisle where the blood pressure monitors were located.

He doesn't really look that warm, does he?

I found them, in the back, by the pharmacy, a few shelves above the DNA Paternity Home Test.

You heard me: a DNA Paternity Home Test.

At least I didn’t need to buy that, but I will say, as a form of mea culpa, I was glad I lived in a country that could give Maury Povich a job, while at the same time, giving us all an affordable reason to fire him.

That is, after all, what makes America, America.

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* The full, real title is I’ve never had a mullet, and other Things I Feel I Have the Right to Brag About and also Things I Cannot Stand. Just, you know, FYI.

You should know that what follows is a) a partial list only, and b) they’re not in any particular order of Cannot Stand vs. Brag. I would say to put your Big Boy Panties on and read carefully, but it’s odd how similar the things I can’t stand and the things I want to brag about actually are.

I’m not sure what that says about me, but anyway – to be safe – how about I don’t say anything about your panties. No need to tip the scales against me…

This is the very face of irony. And its finger.

Just enjoy the read.

• I will not eat food while wearing a jacket.
• I’ve never been bitten by a rattlesnake.
• Pudding, Cool Whip, and/or meringue, formless foods that try to make you think they can stand alone.
• I cannot, cannot, cannot abide a haircut where they “wet your hair” instead of rinsing it, fully.
• I hate talking on the phone.
• I have good teeth.
• People who pass gas and are proud of it.
• I don’t like people who don’t use turn signals, myself included.
• I rarely get sick.
• Animals like me.
• I’m a very good driver.
• I can listen to a song I like on repeat way, way longer than you can.
• I do not appreciate tardy people, and I tell them that.
• I cook well.
• Interestingly, I can give myself a fever.
• I disapprove of people who smack.
• I am, for the most part, actually clever.
• I’ve been featured on the back cover of The Dramatist three times.
• Spandex.
• I frown on poor penmanship.
• People who say “kewl.”
• I’ve never broken any bones…well, not my own. (Please see the next bulleted point).
• Once, I got so mad at this boy, at some Christian Bible camp I had to go to, that I wished and wished he’d get hurt. And he did, he broke his collar bone.
• I dreamed once that a man was going to drown, and he did.
• Meetings. Meetings. Meetings. And talk of future meetings.
• I am routinely complimented on my penmanship. FYI.
• Truckers.
• I learned Hebrew when I was four.
• I’ve never had a mullet.
• But, I have eyelashes of jealous, enviable length.
• No one in my family has ever baby talked the babies.
• I wrote my first poem when I was eleven.
• People who prefer not to use deodorant.
• 4-way stops.
• Answering the phone. (Please see the fifth bulleted point, above).
• Lying.
• I only have original art in my house.
• I’m more than likely the reincarnation of either Truman Capote, Noel Coward, or Oscar Wilde. I’m just saying. Because that’s like, totally something to brag about.
• Fedoras and scarves.
• My cat, Aristophanes, is part-bobcat.
• Church cantatas that include handbells. 
• My legs.
• Hang nails.
• I have a brother who is half-Iranian, a second brother and sister who are half-Polish, and a third brother who is half-Cherokee, between my parents. On top of that, as you might have guessed, we’re all half-siblings. Now, add on top of that this: the Iranian brother is Muslim, but our mother comes from a Jewish family, which makes us Jewish, so I feel certain war will eventually break out between us. Talk about a conflict of interest.
• I was once ranked third in the state in Men’s singles tennis.
• My brother who is half-Iranian is also an up-and-coming rap artist, in Las Vegas, by the way. I thought you should know that.
• I have an autographed book by Eudora Welty, who was a friend of my mother’s.
• Screaming, and any variation of it.
• Proselytizers.
• Mississippi is no longer the fattest state in the nation.
• My grandmother once made me stop the car and get out, to help a turtle get across the road. That’s the stock I come from.
• Billy Hull, who lived down the road from me, was once the longest-serving County Supervisor in the United States. He held the record until he died.
• My cousin, Lucy, was a second-alternate for the 1996 Olympic gymnastics team, behind Amanda Borden.
• My Uncle Oscar started Morrison’s Cafeterias.
• My Nana is deaf in the same ear as Caesar.
• Feet.
• I was Little Mr. Winston County in 1983.
• Fred Phelps.
• I won the Mississippi State Horticulture award in 1994, even though I didn’t climb the tree like everyone else at the week-long camp did to retrieve a sample of blighted mistletoe.
• Boogers.
• People who end all of their sentences as if they’re asking questions.
• I’ve never gotten pregnant.
• I almost met Harper Lee.
• I can play the piano by ear, if the piano is out of tune like U.L’s.
• Oh, and get this, U.L. had a brother who was a dwarf, named Ran.
• I saved a young boy from drowning when I was fifteen.
• Coffee.
• I know the world’s greatest drummer. No lie.
• That being said, the world’s foremost banjo player is from my hometown.
• My mother dated Marty Stuart, years ago.
• Pumpkin pie.
• I once sang a note, and held it for a minute and twenty-eight seconds. But, only once.
• Even people who hate me, like me.
• Sweating in work clothes.
• Computers that are slow.
• I once got stung by twelve yellow jackets, at the same time. Three on the face, alone. And lived to tell it.
• I used to make my own books of poetry from discarded gift boxes and wood glue, which I for years thought was more durable than normal glue. They fell apart, though, after about five reads.
• One of my neighbors, growing up, had a pet monkey that did not like curtains, or his daughter.
• My Aunt Sally lived to be 100; my Uncle Pat, 102.
• I am the Cat Whisperer.
• People who pepper their conversations with French. How gauche.
• My blog is an app on someone’s iPhone.
• Rude children.
• Waking up.

Both art and a good philosophy.

I’d like to continue but, ironically, another thing I can’t stand is writing. Who’d’ve thunk it? I’m driven to write, though, I can’t ignore that, but I still find it painful and grueling.  Probably because it’s such a raw craft, makes me vulnerable…or better yet, makes me think and feel that I’m vulnerable.

Which reminds me…

•  Being vulnerable, you know, and stupid things like that.

Oh, and, one last thing…

•  I’ve held a baby gopher turtle. I bet you haven’t.

I know that makes you jealous, the baby gopher turtle part, and I’m sorry for that. I would be too, I mean, come on! It was a baby gopher turtle! You’ve probably never even heard of a gopher turtle, in the first place…raise your hands if you have.

I didn’t see a single hand go up.

Ok, I’m done. That’s all for now.

So…go on and have a good one.

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I wish I were this easy to erase, sometimes.

I like God, let me just say that, upfront. I even like Jesus. I don’t know when the last time was that I spoke to the Holy Ghost, but I promise he knows my name. And that you spell it with a “K.”

I happen to believe in all three of them. A lot. That’s my choice, I know. I know all about choices…I grew up Southern Baptist. Every sermon ended with a “choice.” But, given the alternative, I still would say my faith has a firm undertow despite not being “allowed” in the Kingdom, so to speak.

Faith, to me, has always been a personal, quiet, private, and sexless thing.

However, I’m older now and I recognize not just the weight of a decision, but I also see the advantages of understanding that there are more than two sides to every question; there have to be, even though we don’t like admitting that to ourselves because it’s too foreign a concept. That third+ side I’m referring to is the subject of today’s blog: witnessing – its power and its aggravation.

Witnessing is something every Southern Baptist learns, almost as rote, at any early age, like ducks to water, or crocodiles to minnows. I grew up believing that it had a very real place in every American life, and I’m sure, in its way, it does.  But, it isn’t all black and white…sometimes, it’s gray.

Much like the color of my office building.

I know I don’t lead by example all that often. I do try, but I don’t always succeed. If I did, I’d have led myself a lot further from home than a mere 60 miles south…and to a community college in Mississippi.

The problem, just one of many (and I’m only talking of problems today), of teaching at a community college is realizing exactly how much that community pervades within the college itself. That shadow of influence is, nonetheless, what gives each community college its own distinctive flare, its idiosyncracies, its memory base.

Yet, it also creates a great deal of dissonance, when the community college is, as a whole, tasked to become more “cutting edge.”

A community college, you see, necessarily serves two masters: its President and its surrounding towns.

I have no problem with religion, though I am going through a phase that seems somewhat anti-organizational. But that doesn’t mean I’m faithless, or without morals. I just happen to believe, quite stringently, in the separation of church and state. That’s what Big Colleges do. I was reminded today, though, that I wasn’t at a Big College, anymore.

Believe me, I said, That hasn’t escaped my attention.

But, I didn’t quite realize how deeply that statement’s roots truly went. No one around here has any intentions of digging even the top quarter-inch of those roots up, either. They cannot be allowed to see the sun. And, listen, that right there is an invaluable lesson that ought to somehow be explained in depth at Orientation for New Faculty.

First, look like me, but then, always stay behind me. Oh, and welcome.

For the third time in as many days, I’ve had a visitor in my office. Someone I have known since childhood, someone I love and respect, but this person has been consistently “dropping by” to encourage me to attend Fellowship at the chapel held each Monday at noon on the hour, among other well-wishes. Most of which are greatly appreciated and needed.

I teach until 12:15, but that doesn’t matter, I was told, I should just come late. So long as I come. That much was strongly encouraged and expected.

I forgot about it, today. And, right at 1:00, there they were at my office door. A look of bemused disppointment in the eye. Ironically, yesterday, on the way to Nana’s, Amanda and I had an entire Biblical discussion about Peter and the Number 3.

We concluded it made him more humanly symbolic of accepting the vitality of the Trinity in the day-to-day. I really wish I could make that make sense here. But, no such luck.  My 3 was just plain aggravating, day after day after day.

Last week’s visit nearly ended in prayer, (during Convocation, the entire staff prayed before each session and lunch – which is touching and also disturbing), but today’s visit came with a gift: a Bible to put on my desk, from the Gideons, to serve as a silent witness. All I had to do was just leave it laying around, was the suggestion.

I’m embarrassed at myself that this gift bothered me. That’s almost as difficult for me to admit to as it is to say I’m an alcoholic (except sometimes)…or gay, every now and again.

Why, I had to ask myself when she left, did it bother me so much to have a Bible on my desk? Why was I so frustrated and put-out by her constantly inviting me to the Chapel for worship? Why was I aggravated at her asking if I’d mind doing the Seven Stations of the Cross at Easter, on campus? Why, why, why?

(I figured if I didn’t get this out now, it’d merely fester and create a scar).

Am I merely a heathen, now? Is that what this heartburn is indicating?

For whatever reason, though, I’m very upset by this insistent behavior. And it’s irritating to me no end. This is not a person I feel I can say no to. And, so, I’ve decided that what I’ve entered, what I’ve been cast into, is a silent, polite, Battle of Wills.

I don’t want to be affiliated with any organization other than the one I came here for: theatre. I don’t want to conform, or be molded, I am a whole person, as is. (How do I get that on my contract?) I simply want the opportunity to prove myself, without being bound to anyone else.

And that’s sort of the crux of the issue. Because I think what’s bothering me is that I feel like I’m not quite an adult yet…the reminders of church, or witnessing, routine attendance, church-influenced theatre, it’s all set me back. It’s instantly made me feel like an adolescent, not the least of which is because this is someone I’ve known since adolescence.

I think despite her good intentions, all it does is make me feel like a kid again. And that tends to rebellion. It’s the opposite of responsibility in my mind. 

Why can’t I just get to grow up? Saying No would really come in handy today, huh?

It also feels, to be honest, quite invasive. I see her and I feel instantly less holy, less genuine…you know Southern Baptists have always put so much stock in social standing and faith-based convictions and above all, they have mastered, far more than my Jewish side of the family has, the Art of Likable Guilt. (By likable, I merely mean it’s couched so sweetly and comes often from an elder which makes it nearly impossible to refute…at least publicly). Truth is, I don’t feel like a Southern Baptist anymore…I don’t agree with that denomination, and trying to separate from it has been a little like what I’d imagine squealing on the Mafia would be like.

Helen: housewife and heathen. And a Pisces.

I hate it. I hate that entire feeling. It’s like a residue that can’t be scraped from the stucco. And so now, I’m sitting here feeling awful about feeling this way…wondering when I became an evil person who turned so far from his upbringing that he can’t even see his own shadow anymore. I just hate it.

I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it.

How do you grow up when you’re done growing?

Answer me that…while I say a little prayer.

*Amen*

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Do you hear what I hear?

Now, you may not believe this, but I really do try very hard to be nice, to be kind, to be a friend, to be polite, etc. It’s just that I have a great deal of trouble sometimes in doing anything even remotely nice, or kind, or friendly, or polite, etc.

And sometimes, it’s not even really my fault. It isn’t.

It’s just that I’m, every now and again, a tiny beat behind the music.  I’m not even sure I hear any music, so God bless my poor little drummer. Of course, I don’t hear very well, either, and I know that doesn’t help. And if I don’t have my glasses on, I can’t hear anything, period.

That’s not always the bother of it, though.

Most people don’t really say anything worth hearing, anyway, right. You pass by someone on the street, you ask them how they’re doing, but you do not expect them to actually answer you.

But, sometimes, they do. That’s how I missed lunch today. Me and My Big Mouth, asking how people are doing, feigning interest about your wife’s Mexican cornbread recipe. (Ok, ok, that actually did interest me, but just not at that moment). Invariably, talking about recipes always leads to politics. At that point, I excused myself and went to the bathroom. And then I realized that the bathroom was two halls away from the lounge, and so why go to the bathroom, I thought. Just leave the whole building.

So, I did.

We really don’t expect to engage in conversation when you’re just passing by. I mean, the Holy Covenant of Passer-By Conversation is that there isn’t one. It’s a nod of the head; it’s a Fine, How are you?, the typical blatant lie, and then you keep walking.  And that’s a little odd, isn’t it?  (What a sad commentary on our culture – though I’m guilty of it, myself. I just don’t always like to talk to people, I can’t help it). Now, though, I’m thinking I might spend a day next week, being That Guy.

However, my belief is unchanging: A rote thing shouldn’t be a spoken thing. (That, my friends, is an example of half rhyme. Look for it, look for it).

I much prefer (and greatly enjoy more) the Eavesdrop, or the ED. I love hearing bits and snippets of other conversations. They’re a small bit of amusement in my otherwise routine world: the world of Academia. Though, my ivory tower is more like mortar with a chaser of stucco.

But, it’s worth it, if I keep having ED weeks like this one.

I’ve heard the most wonderful and random things this past week on campus. So, let me share, re-share, or overshare, them again, with you. Oh, and forgive the skewed timeline. Once you set foot in Scooba, well — I don’t have an appropriate analogy to put here. Sorry.

I think one of my favorite, favorite ED’s was Monday afternoon.

Two girls were walking down the hall, and the one in the red shirt turned to the one in the redder shirt and asked, “What do you do with your hair, at night?” This is a classic example of what I’m terming the Downtown Dekalb Barbie Syndrome: same shades of red, same purses, same flip-flops (don’t get me started on flip-flops), same use of a Bump-It, and lots and lots of bracelets.

I'd rather not ask, to be honest.

It’s a shame I’ll never know what her response was. But, I was running a little late. (I like to think she washed it and then ironed it before going to bed. Maybe, also, she let her mother brush it for her…with a Bible).

Day before yesterday, I had to drive to my Comp. class; it’s on the other side of the campus, a.k.a. two buildings down. In the parking lot, a young man (in boots and bona fide Wranglers) was telling his buddy (in camo, John Deere cap included) that this weekend they were “going to the river, so don’t be late and this time bring an extra roll of toilet paper and the good skillet.”

I choose not to imagine the correlation between the two, though I feel pretty sure it’s Downtown Dekalb Barbie Syndrome-free.

This morning, I passed by two adults rehashing some apparent budget meeting in which this comment was made (though I’m not sure to what reference): “And I said, Well, excuse me, I didn’t know you had a copyright on the bow tie.”

I’ve decided that probably the only thing left for me to do is to continue to record these delicious bits of dialogue and turn them into a full-fledged play. It won’t make sense, and that’ll be the point. I think I’ll call it Learning How To Scooba Dive.

See what I did there? I used a pun. (Don’t worry the numbness goes away after a few minutes).

Kidding, aside (like, just put it on the desk, by the scissors), I came back from my Comp. I class, with a different pep in my step, and an untied shoelace which almost created an awkward run-in, literally, with the College Algebra professor who was coming in the door, not looking where she was going. Fortunately, the Coke machine caught my stumble and saved the day. Go Coke.

An A+ paper is just a text away.

I’d, at the last minute, decided to embrace this changing culture, and the evolving language issues specifically (because, I have to be honest, I can’t understand what half of my Comp. I students are saying to me. I do try, though, but what can I say? I have van Gogh’s ear for hearing), and so, I assigned my students’ first writing assignment: a brief mini-narrative “Essay, Yousay, We All Say, Essay.”

The catch is that the entire paper must be written in SMS-Texting code. Straight off the cell phone’s keypad.

I’m intrigued to see what they come up with. They certainly got interested, though. Which kinda scares me a little.

Am I giving in? Giving up? Or, am I cutting edge?

I’ll let you know.

I’m sure blood is to be had, either way. If not for the assignment, in and of itself, or from the random tidbits of ED-ing I do…I’m sure my luck has been pressed…and so…

…first thing on Tuesday, I’m bound to get a papercut.

Just you watch.

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They taste about the same, don't worry.

So, the other day I was in Piggly Wiggly (or as U.L. calls it, The Pig) to purchase an eggplant, and while fondling the produce, legally – i.e., all fruits and vegetables were at least 18 days or older – I overheard two people, down by the locally grown peanuts bin (the peanuts were locally grown, not the bin – it was cardboard) discussing the stupid behavior of one of their other friends…I imagined the friend was the topic of conversation as the result of some weekend revelry.

One said, “And I was like, God, this is stupid. You’re being so eighth grade about it. Grow up.”

The other said, “Yeah, she needs to grow up.”

The banter didn’t register much higher on the Good Ways to Converse Chart.  Then again, maybe they weren’t people. Maybe they were kids.

I selected my eggplant, it weighed 1.3 pounds which was good enough for my experimental ragout (this is the correct way to spell this word, FYI, not ragu). And unlike Aggy’s pronouncement, it’s way more than just plain spaghetti sauce.

As I put the eggplant in my basket, I had this thought: What the heck has happened to people that eighth grade should be so maligned? I can’t tell you how often I hear people refer to bad behavior, or misjudgment, or rudeness, and so forth and so on, as “being eighth grade” of them.

Personally, I loved eighth grade. Seventh grade (and even fourth) for me were the ones that were, for lack of a better term, stinky.

Yet, in my rather unusual circles of socialization (both from strangerous people and those I know well), time and again, I hear eighth grade used as the butt of all things petty and ridiculous. By the way, strangerous is another word I made up. Sorry.

I guess it’s because, for the majority of us, eighth grade is the peak of hormonal shifting?

I really don’t know.

So, on the drive back to my house, I thought long and hard about my eighth grade year.  Actually, eighth grade pretty much dominated my thinking right on through to what, if I do say so myself (another confusing parenthetical), was a delicious ragout. NOTE: I’d forgotten to purchase chickpeas, and so if you’re interested in knowing what I substituted for them, I’ll just go right ahead and tell you: black-eyed peas.

(They were a delicious replacement).

So, for me, eighth grade, was not a bad year. I mean, not school-wide, publicly…personally, though, I can see a resemblance between the approach to unruly behavior in eighth grade as well as those of us entering our 30s – a.k.a Real Life.

For time’s sake, let’s take advantage of the concept of Summary, here, in discussing my eighth grade year: sexually confused the entire time (that’s not really faded, yet); I’d just returned from trying to live with my father in Germany (that’s not really faded yet, either); I was playing tennis; I was not doing well in Math, though, we were still learning to write checks in class, for some reason – how obsolete; I was in T.A.G, which stood for talented and gifted – we got to skip a whole day of class each week to do smarter things like leave the school and eat at Pizza Hut, a cultural field trip of sorts; I made fun of Band People; I knew a white girl named LaShara; I had headaches constantly; started shaving for real, my whole body; wanted to be a girl, really badly; brought my lunch, almost everyday; was a librarian’s assistant which basically involved a two-voiced woman (reverse tracheotomy) who made me re-bind books and regaled me with stories of the two natural disasters she’d survived, one on the Coast and the other in Kansas; I had serious dreams like the time I dreamed a teacher’s father drowned and then he did, Firestarter, anyone?; also, my sister taught at the same school which I’m sure had a lot to do with tempering my behavior.

You can't travel the world without a good spine.

So, you see, it was an interesting time to be in school. Avoiding truancy, but still, when in the middle of statewide standardized testing, looking out the window and wishing with all your heart that you were the guy on the lawnmower, because at any minute, he could decide enough was enough and stop, and have some Gatorade or something.

Despite the relatively low-key eighth grade year that I had, one thing affected all of us (maybe it was the heat, or the lack of uniforms) – Understanding Our Bodies and Emotions.

Oh, god, I mean any little thing was magnified a 1000% during junior high, depending on when you cut through the chrysalis.

Anger was a big one for me. We’ve never been the best of friends, as it is. As a matter of fact, anger has kept me from being truly close to a lot of people, I’m afraid. And I know myself well: my kind of anger isn’t a palpable one; it’s deeply seeded and hidden behind a great deal of social politics.

And humor.

I think, sometimes, it’s a lot easier to fool people than befriend them. Because I come from a school of thought where distance is a necessity. But, it takes less effort to hide in plain view, to hide right out in public than to shut every door and window.

That reads a lot sadder than it actually is. It’s not that I hate people; I try very hard to do the right thing. I try very hard to live the Golden Rule. But, there’s not a lot of reciprocation, these days.

And so, what are you left to do but to step back, as often as you can, and take a survey. What’s really important about living, not just about Life. 

I did that recently, post-argument, with a very close friend, a best friend, even, and I was glad that after the dust settled, we realized that we’d accidentally put a lot of “Importance” on things that were, honestly, a bit on the “Petty” side.

I think people do that a lot, because, whether or not you want to believe this, the Deep South is a rather repressed society. We don’t know how to argue; we know only how to acquiesce. We worry about keeping the peace, not establishing it. Unless you’re U.L. who just worries himself right through a fairly good heart, for his age.

You know, they really ought to teach this stuff in Civics. (If they still taught Civics, that is). Or Home Ec. (Again, if it hadn’t gone the way of the abacus).

The beginning of the end.

And, I guess, though I didn’t know it then, that this is something I learned in eighth grade, and I think it’s a good thing to know, to have learned: How to Argue; How to Fight; and How to Recognize the Difference.  Those are forms of Mercy, after all.

Yeah, that and How to Write a Check, those are, like, the two things I learned in eighth grade.

And to tell the truth, I kinda miss it.

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