Pseudo Hookie

I have decided, in my unselfish way, to make you feel better about your life by sharing all of the details of my day playing hookie.

First of all, I woke up overcome with a familiar guilt, one that doesn't let you fully enjoy your freedom and makes you want to get as high as a kite on illegal substances to avoid it. (One day I will tell you about the time I inflicted pain on myself to avoid taking a high school Chemistry test.) Every time I heard a voice on the answering machine I was certain it was the school secretary, fronting for the principal, calling to ask me some detail that I forgot to put in my substitute teacher packet. I am highly attuned to surveillance.

Wanting to assuage the guilt somewhat, I decided to tackle my student loans, which are overdue. The hows and whys, the whens and how much-es, the reasons and the complexities are beyond me. I just want another forebearance. The Fucking Nazi Assholes nice people there say I can't get a teacher shortage deferrment even though I qualify for one with the federal government because my loans are new student loans. I say my loans aren't new, but they say I consolidated my loans with them not long ago, so they are new loans and don't qualify for that deferment. So apparently all of their loans are new and don't qualify for those deferments. How clever of them. (And we all know who "they" are. The evil people.) I would tell you the amount of my student loans, which I am sure would make you feel much better about the state of your finances, but again, my mother's words ring in my head, "Don't tell anyone how much money you make. Don't tell anyone who you voted for. Don't tell anyone what we say in this house."

I did actually drag myself to the doctor in the afternoon and she kindly offered to give me an excuse for the principal (this does feel like high school again) for today too, but as you see I am up, doing my best to keep the country running smoothly and fill those junior high school students heads with fear and loathing. I intend to sit at my desk like the king of the world with them in little busy groups while I grade the 155 essays (so there, Cookie) that I have been expertly procrastinating. (Too sick to correct.)

Well, I am off to the salt mines, as my father used to say. See you later.

Playing Hookey

I am so happy (cough cough) that I decided not to go to work tomorrow. Actually I do have a cold (serious tone) and it has given me the excuse to rest. Puritan work ethic be damned.

My father, who was a barber, never missed a day of work in his life. He opened his shop at 6am and on weekends he put out the "closed" sign at 8pm. In the early morning there would be impatient men sitting in their cars in the parking lot. Sometimes they would wait in the dark an hour or more for my father to appear. They would half-tease him, saying "If you don't need the money, I guess I'll go someplace else."

On Saturday, the busy day, the row of chairs by the wall was full of customers and I was expected to sweep the barbershop floor. My father would step aside as I plowed great prickly heaps of hair around his old barber chair to a small trap door in the floor. I would then ease the pile over the edge where I would watch it slide like a great dark avalanche into the depths of the musty basement.

The men in the shop would kid me, ask if I liked my job and how much did my dad pay me. For the customers' entertainment my dad would flip a dime onto the floor and Alex, his German Shorthair Pointer, would fetch it, picking it up with his teeth and dropping it into my dad's outstretched palm. He would hand me a few pennies and I would fly out the door with my gumballs as the TV blared, the men laughed and the smells of talc and pomade and human hair were, without my knowledge or consent, forever embedded in my memory.

I never miss a good opportunity to play hookie.

The Positives

Due to my dour mood of late, I felt the need to remind myself that there are good things in this fucked-up world, like

1.The Earth
2. Imagination
3. People who put other people first (real democracy)

I often forget to see the positives. When faced with crowds of people I tend to see a species that I don't like very much. Short-sighted, stupid, mean and all trying to crawl to the top and be king of the mountain.

Then once in a while I get a glimpse of something else out there. On a blog, (see Cookie's blog) or on TV, in a book, a piece of art.

Moe and I like to talk about "our trip" to France, and who will be joining us. She always includes Johnny Depp (we agree on that one) or perhaps The Rock, or her latest tattoo artist who (she says) is very cute! I add a couple to the list, like Mark Wahlberg or Robert Downey Jr, but my heart isn't totally there. I would really like to bring perhaps that lead singer from The Counting Crows, or the homeless guy whose camp is in the woods by the river, or maybe Cornel West.

I saw Cornel West on Book TV(C-SPAN2) a couple of days ago, talking about his book Democracy Matters. He is so out of the ordinary and not afraid to be unconventional. He calls us all out - to be different, unselfish, unresting in our critique of ourselves, educated to the workings of oppression, in dialogue about the hard stuff. He is putting himself on the line, and that is good.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude have planned an installation called "The Gates Project" in Central Park , NYC. It looks beautiful. I imagine the walk through it could be a life-altering event. A journey. An opportunity to change perspective, see things in a new way. This is what art can do. I plan to make a pilgrimage there in February.

Today I have hope for this fucked-up world.

Thanksgiving

How beautiful my world is today! I cannot resist it. May your day bring a sense of wonder.

The Day Before

On the day before Thanksgiving my brain welcomes old familiar melancholy thoughts. I want to get drunk as a skunk and pass out in the gutter. Or something like it. What I am covering up with these thoughts may never be known.

Could it have something to do with my father's anger? Or my mother's complicity? Or maybe it is my great grandmother, who witnessed the atrocities of her William in bleak Wisconsin winters .

Holidays are pauses in the mindless white noise of daily life. I like to drive in the quiet, alone down deserted city streets. I sometimes walk at dusk past houses with candle-lit tables. Perhaps I stumble, or vomit before a house with tasteful, understated decorations.

The leaves, jumping laughing whooping stirring up a frenzy of joy with the strong winds, have left the trees.

I am sorry, world. I am White.

I can now stop cumpulsively studying every car on the road, which is a relief. I bought a car last week, and I didn't even fall down at the dealership (see "Bench Whore Man Frog"). I did my research. I compared emissions statistics, spent hours on the internet comparing invoice prices, poured over consumer reviews, looked at safety standards. Finally I found the car I wanted at a suburban dealership about 100 miles from my home. They had a 2004 Honda Civic in stock, and I knew it was the best price I would find.

I was surprised at the easy manner of the salesman when I called, and I made an appointment with him for that night to test drive the car (I went with a "ready check" in hand, intending to buy it that night). The salesman, Bob, went to the same college as Auggie, so there was some easy familiarity there. But when he found out I grew up in a town famous for its' many prisons, his comments grew very "white" indeed. He found out I had a son named Huckleberry. "Are you SERIOUS?!" He wanted to know if Huck was black, (HaHa) and "did I have an affair with a guard? No, if Huck was black, it must have been a con!" (HAHA).

I make no excuses for myself or my race. White people, if they are aware of their environment, know that they make compromises every day. They ignore or participate in small remarks, a sideways glance, subtle body language. Racism is everywhere, but perhaps more covert, more clever, more insidious than before.

I had to make a split-second decision. Would I call Bob out? Would I say, "I would appreciate it if you would not make racist comments in my presence?" Would I risk losing my great deal on the car if I had to carry it further and walk out?

I smiled.

An Asian father and son were sitting at an adjacent table. The son interpreted for his father and the saleswoman, and there was animated discussion. Bob looked at me conspiratorially and began mocking their conversation. Modulating his words Jerry Lewisesque, he performed his "whiteness" for me. His modern minstrel show. I was in the "white club." I was trusted. I was taken care of. I was safe with him. I was a "good girl." I got a good deal on the car.

I remember as a child sitting at my father's feet in front of the TV as he watched the Friday Night Prizefights, listening to him drunkenly rail against the "goddamn apes," listening to his anger and hatred. And later there was the panic in our town during the Detroit Riots of 1967. Rumors were in the wind, and white men, our fathers, were out in the streets with guns, preparing for roving bands of blacks to invade our town.

I was a teenager when it occurred to me that my father was a racist person, but I was an adult before I realized that I am a racist person. I wasn't encouraged to critique much of anything, especially my family. I certainly wasn't taught to analyze power hierarchies, especially in relation to race.

Bob walked me out to my new car, kindly showed me all the workings. He treated me respectfully, but made sure to gently mock my jerky start during our test drive with the manual transmission. I laughed. This could have been a kid I went to high school with. I remembered that one of my teenage friends drove us around in a big Chrysler that we called "The Nigger Boat."

Bob told me to say nice things about him when Honda calls to ask about my experience with him. I replied, "Sure! This is the best car-buying experience I have ever had!" which was true, sadly.

Now, my mind freed from studying cars on the road (The Ford Focus sedan has its' back end raised, like a bitch in heat...most cars are boring...people want cars that kill other people, not themselves, which is a whole other blog...white over-done suburban women love the Lexus SUV, which separates them literally and figuratively from the rabble) I can move on to other issues, like student loan debt, divorce, or hypothyroidism. So many things to figure out.

My complicity in regard to racism is the issue that dwarfs all others. I writhe under the memory of Bob's ignorance and my silence when facing him. I am paralysed sometimes between anti-racist beliefs and the seduction and comfort of being taken care of. I damage myself with my duplicity. I struggle with self-hate. I get up and begin again.

Going Native

I like to include Tim O'Brien's short story, "The Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong" when I teach short stories to my 9th graders. "She was crazy!" they say at the end of it.

The story is set during the Vietnam War and is about a soldier named Mark Fossie who figures out a way to bring his girlfriend, Mary Ann, to Vietnam. Mary Ann shows up in a pink sweater and culottes, girlish and subservient to her boyfriend. The other guys in camp like her too, but as days go by she begins to be attracted to the world outside the medical compound. She learns to use weapons and she isn't afraid to get her hands bloody when wounded soldiers are flown in. She chops off her hair, pays no attention to hygiene, stops wearing make-up, loses her "feminine" behaviors (giggling, averting her eyes when men are present) and begins hanging out with the crazy Green Berets whose camp is near the edge of the compound. Mark Fossie loses it when Mary Ann begins to go out on ambush with the "greenies", and attempts to set her straight, but Mary Ann goes off for longer and longer periods of time. She eventually walks away for good. She becomes more crazy than the greenies, blending in with the landscape of Vietnam, more of a risk taker than any of the men in the story.

I like the story because it raises all sorts of questions for student research like, What is the difference between men and women mentally? Are we different because of nature or nurture? What is war really like? What does war do to people? Why don't we let women fight in combat? Why haven't women had the same rights as men in the history of the US? What is the difference between mens' and womens' body language? What was it like for women in the 50's and early 60's? Who decides what clothing women should wear? (I like to tell them about the time I was kicked out of high school when I was their age for wearing culottes.) Are all people in the world basically the same? (A question Mary Ann asked Mark when she wanted to go out of the compound to visit the local village and he was trying to make her understand the danger involved.)

It feels so much like we are regressing back to the 1950's. I don't want to live there. Girls see no connection between abortion and a woman having control over her own body. They are dismissive of feminism and a lot of them have the same attributes as Mary Ann when she arrived in Vietnam. They are so ready to defer to white men.

The white president and his mostly white cabinet don't look all that different than they did in the 50's. Cheney and Rumsfeld are straight out of that era. It's scary. And the majority of people want that.

But I think I like the story mostly because I can relate to Mary Ann, who is ready to walk away, to give up her life, to risk it all. I continually feel the stress of conforming to the place where I was born.

I have forsaken My house,
I have abandoned My inheritance;
I have given the beloved of My soul
Into the land of her enemies.

My inheritance has become to Me
Like a lion in the forest;
She has roared against me;
Therefore I have come to hate her.

Jeremiah 12:7-9

It's all about love. That's why I hate everybody.

It has been very difficult lately to practice my newfound Buddhist techniques, especially the practice of not reacting to things. I realize I have been carried through life on a tide of reactions, mine and others'. Trying to gently move away from that is like telling a gorilla that has taken over your living room to sit down. I torture myself with overthinking. I cling to that.

After Parent/Teacher Conferences (See "The Vortex of Hell") when parents transferred their student out of my classroom, I beat myself up because I wasn't doing enough. I wasn't satisfying every parent, delighting every student, bringing out every student's potential. I hated myself for not being able to do the impossible: please everyone.

I have become my mother. That was obvious to me last week when I couldn't reach AJ, alone in New York City for a few days while Moe was in Michigan. I lost it. My mind raced with visions of AJ dead on the pavement, no ID, or worse yet, in a hospital without ID, no way for the staff to contact us. I remember Dolly, my mother, waiting up while I caroused with my high school friends until 3 am, worried, wringing her hands at every siren she heard.

Last night I had a dream that "evil" was in our house in the form of a skeleton digging it's way through the ceiling to "get" us. Huck was a baby, a big baby wrapped in a blanket, and so good natured. I saw him in my dream clearly again, so loveable and accepting and generous to me, even as an infant. He was weak, and a girl held him. I knew there was something wrong with him, but I was trying to deal with the skeleton problem, somehow figure it out and take control, protect everyone in the house. But I was called back because Huck was getting worse. He wasn't fussing or demanding, but simply smiling up at me, and at peace, but I knew he was dying, and I gathered him in my arms and rested his head on my shoulder.

God!

These painful visions, these scary dreams are showing me where I need to work. They point me toward my fears. "Evil", or death, or loneliness are all human conditions that everyone faces. We all learn to cope with these common fears one way or another.

My mother wrapped herself in the cocoon of the small town where she was born, and never left it. She kept her mind on the everyday things of life and pretended everything was OK. A teenager in deep pain, I would ask her questions about life and death, about the prejudice around me, about the church and God, and she would say, "Why do you always philosophize so much, MJ? Quit asking so many questions. Can't you just be happy?"

But I couldn't be happy with the backdrop with which I lived. I couldn't accept inequality. I railed against the heirarchical nature of school. I was pissed that some people lived on the "other side of the tracks". I wanted my mother to question these things, too.

I drove through the darkness after Parent/Teacher Conferences talking to Huck on my cell phone. He commiserated with me as I derided myself and the system. It feels like we are living in such a hateful environment in the US right now. People are so cruel. People are so rude. Maybe it is my profession. Students have a sense of entitlement. An anti-social streak. We are so privileged, driving our SUV's and buying our bells and trinkets. We feel that we deserve them. We can start wars for them. We can kill civilians for them. We can do this in the name of Christianity and by God we can kill our sons and daughters for them too.

Miserable, I asked, "Huck, why are people so hateful? Why is it so hard to find kindness and tolerance?"

"I know, Mom. It's all about love. That's why I hate everybody."

Bench Whore Man Frog

"Things had turned around, and now it was the palefaces who were being taken in with beads and trinkets."
-Charles Portis

Auggie the irreproachable is lately warming to recreational profanity. Perhaps his resolve has weakened with repeated exposure to my shamelessly degenerate cussing. I, MJ, created the infamous practice of Recreational Profanity and Huck and I practice it religiously. We are novices, though, when compared to AJ, who is the master of profane whippings (see "Three Kickass Females IM"). Auggie, who has held back, perhaps grasping for some sort of moral grounding in a family gone awry, has been timidly gathering momentum in the art of vurgarity. He has taken to saying "hell!" occasionally, which we always reward with hearty slaps on the back. Today was a day of note, however. Auggie graduated from simple adolescent blaspheming to genuine creative recreational profanity. Today he happily called me a Bench Whore Man Frog.

Hunched over my computer, I was studiously comparing invoice prices of a 2005 Honda Civic on Autobytel, cars.com, Kelly Blue Book and Edmunds.com while simultaneously debating in my head whether it was a good idea to subtract 2-3% of the MSRP from the invoice price when I make an offer because of dealer holdbacks. What about dealer incentives, destination charges, tax, factory to dealer incentives, estimated market price and should I deal with a fleet manager? Not to mention base prices, wholesale, LOANS! , auto safety, credit reports, interest rates and what about moon roofs?

What is the difference between a moon roof and a sun roof? It was dizzying.

Once, when I bought my first car, I was so rattled and out of my element at the dealership that I walked out in the night air to catch my breath and fell off a curb. Flat on my stomach. I exhaled a loud grunt, hitting hard in the silent parking lot, which was lit-up like a football field. Trying to be nonchalant, I quickly clambered to my feet, hoping no one inside that huge plate glass building noticed. I jolted in shock around the car lot for a couple of minutes trying to collect myself, and headed back inside, trying to summon some acting tips from all those Meryl Streep movies that might give me some semblance of dignity.

Inside, all of the salespeople compassionately diverted their eyes as I hurried, like a prisoner of war, to the office where I would put my hand to paper and sell my soul. Steven, unaware of my predicament and typically unattuned to my distress signals, was confidently bantering with the salesman, and as I sat beside him, I noticed that my jeans were torn, gaping open across my knee. Blood and pebbles were imbedded in the scraped and torn skin. I tried to pull my long wool coat over my leg, but it fell away as I reached for the clipboard. It was my time to sign. Through my panic I felt the humiliation of a high interest rate and felt the inherent condescension of being at a car dealership and felt the stinging and raw burning of my knee and hands.

Car dealerships are like the government - totally male and totally clueless. Why don't they just reveal the big price secrets so they don't have such an unfair advantage that pisses everybody off? Their secrecy about pricing creates distrust. Why don't they hire more women?

I take the pen and notice that my stiff fingers are scraped and bleeding. I inconspicuously wipe my hand on my lap, but smudges of blood appear on the paper as I sign the highlighted places. Feeling like I've been in a car wreck, I laugh manically and pass the clipboard back to Steven, who looks at me quizzically.

A few minutes later my new car with the manual transmission jerks violently into the street. I am shocked and horrified by the color, which looked so different in the brochure. I drive home in a daze, unaware of the streets or of turning, or of time.

At that time in my life I didn't have the joy of recreational profanity as a balancing influence. I was trying hard to be a competent and participatory citizen in our great capitalist democracy. Now I turn away. Now I open my coat. Now I watch you twist and turn, saying you can't sell the car for that price, that you paid more for the car than what I offered, and I watch you as you watch me participate in my own oppression and attach myself to that trinket that you control.

You fucking asshole.

The Vortex of Hell

I have been in the vortex of hell and I know its' name:
Parent-Teacher Conferences.

In a dream last night hundreds of souls flooded through the junior high school. Circling. Looking. Desiring. Teachers, holding their gavels, sat at tables around the circumference of the gymnasium. They faced inward as parents slowly filed by, searching for the one to set them free.

A boy lives in a campground with his mother and three younger sisters. He can't always do his homework because the trailer is so small and the little girls need the lights turned out early. Their car broke down and as they waited for help they witnessed a crime.

A mother rushes up to a table, eyes bulging, gnashing her teeth. Her son is not on the honor roll.

The professionals saunter around, green eyes shining. They wear their job title like smudged lipstick, and occasionally experience vertigo as their minds cover gnawing thoughts with layers of diplomas and degrees. "My daughter did badly on the test because it was too easy!" the mother shrieks. Their daughter cannot be average.

A boy, distraught, begs for mercy. "I didn't have any missing assignments! You made a mistake! You have to call my mother and tell her! She will come down hard on me! You have to call her!" Men carry him away, and he does not struggle.

Children of the damned roll on the floor through the legs of the crowd while they wait for their turn at junior high.

And the principal and vice principal mingle and boast, laugh and turn. They catch one table empty, take a backward glance, spin and watch. The weight of constant surveillance bends their bones into organic shapes that will become future sculptures on the beaches of the apocalypse.

A boy whispers in my ear. And smiles.

A teacher believes the country will be taken down from within.

A 13 year old girl holds her bald baby, eyes darting around the crowd.

AJ calls and she is crying. Hurrying home in the pouring rain, she saw someone hit by a car on the dark empty streets of New York City. A deafening blow, and he is thrown through the air, landing at her feet on the wet pavement, unable to move, screaming for his girlfriend. The man who hit him sits in his van, silently watching before he drives away.

In my dream I wake up suddenly without my phone. The mother is mad at her son. The professionals are planning plans for the future. One hundred people are getting married in white dresses in a park. The kids eat ice cream. Birds fly overhead.