Happy one year anniversary to the Chronic Malcontent

It's been almost a year since I started blogging as the Chronic Malcontent. I began with no purpose in mind other than to share my writing and drawings in a public space. A few things have changed. I used to disclose my gender and age. Then I had a birthday and decided I didn't want to think about age anymore. I stopped claiming to be female, too. I've never been particularly attached to being female, and at times I've actually been quite resentful about it. Can you blame me? Considering the way women are treated in many parts of the world, it's not a quality that gladdens my heart. The only thing worse than being a woman is being a man. But I digress.

My fan base has more than tripled. How cool is that? Before you get too impressed, that means instead of just my sister reading my blog, now I also have two friends, maybe more, who regularly check in. Or so they say. Plus a whole lot of people from Russia who apparently drop in by accident. I won't tell you how many visitors I have received during the past year, because you will laugh and say, Why do you bother? For sure I don't get enough visitors to be able to sell ad space to Google. In the world of blogs, I'm not even a blip. It's sort of calming to realize I am just one blog in a sea of blogs, floating in the blogosphere like a baby planet nucleus a billion light years from the next blog. No pressure to perform, because no one knows I exist. Or how to reach me. My anonymity gives me the shelter to share myself with you.

One hundred-and-thirty-some-odd posts later, I can discern some patterns. It seems my musings are usually prompted by an event. Small or large, something happens that resonates with me, something tragic, something funny, something puzzling, and I feel compelled to discuss it. Poke at it. Whine about it. Weep over it. My topics have mostly focused on my endless journey to earn a Ph.D., my adventures teaching at a career college, and my occasional attendance at family events, but I do stray into other areas like an explorer who fears cannibals might be lurking behind the next tree. The overall theme is one of whining, true to the nature of chronic malcontentedness. (Which, by the way, Blogger does not recognize as a real word.)

I've mulled over the end of the world, the impending inevitable earthquake and tsunami, the contents of a bug-out bag, and the collapse of the financial system. My latest itch is the possible demise of the power grid by solar flares. (You can make an aluminum foil-covered box to store your electronic gear in, did you know that? But if the power grid goes down, lotta good it will do ya. And your car will be toast, in case you thought you could escape to the other side of the planet.) Say what you will, there is something comical about our fascination with the end of the world.

I've complained endlessly about higher education. I whine almost daily about my quest to finish the Ph.D. I started back in December of 2005. It's taken a year to beat my concept paper into a condition deemed acceptable for submitting to the Graduate School reviewers. (Still waiting for the verdict.) I whine about the career college I've worked at for the past nine years, how the students don't want to take responsibility for their learning, how I am too burned out to care, how tiring it is to drive 25 miles to Wilsonville in the wee dark hours of pre-dawn winter, how much I despise teaching keyboarding. Waaa, poor me, I have a job.

I've burned my neighbor in effigy for being too noisy. I've mentally trussed her dog to the wall with duct tape for pooping all over the path to my back door. I left the poop on her back step. I really did, I didn't just fantasize about it. I've welcomed spring, I've reveled in summer, I've dreaded fall, and now I'm enduring winter. I've mourned the loss of Davy Jones and 20 kids in Newtown. A lot of life under the bridge during the past year. I'm older, grayer, saggier... I wonder, am I snarkier? Am I more malcontented since I started this blog? Not sure. I'm more self-obsessed, I think. Whenever something happens to me these days, I think about how I can spin it for my next blog post. I'm becoming more conscious about telling the stories of my life.

So, after a year, what do you think? Should I focus on one topic? Sooner or later the dissertation will be behind me. Sooner or later I will leave the chains of keyboarding in the dust. Winter will pass, spring will sneak up on us, and summer will make life worth living again. What is the point of it all? I ask you. No, really, tell me if you know what the point of it all is. Some might say to serve god. Some might say to have fun. Some might say there is no point, no meaning to life except what we give it.

That's all I can think of right now. Looks like I've written myself into a corner. I'll stop now and just say, Happy new year from the Chronic Malcontent.

Merry Christmas and a genderless new year

My mother called me last night and in typical indirect style expressed her desire to go shopping today. “I need some boots,” she said. “Lilly got some nice boots at Nordstrom Rack.”

“That's nice,” I said. After a few moments, I caught on. “Do you want me to take you to Clackamas?”

“Well, I know you are very busy.”

I tried to reassure her that no, actually, I wasn't busy. I was on vacation. It wasn't until I said, “I need to get gas, and I usually get it in Clackamas,” she said, “Oh, really?” like I had just offered her a ticket to the Superbowl. Well, maybe not the Superbowl. Ice Capades, maybe. Anyway, she was thrilled that I had a reason to go to Clackamas, and she would be able to tag along. On the way she told me she didn't feel as comfortable as she used to driving out of her neighborhood. Inwardly I sighed. I can see what is coming. More time spent taking my mother shopping.

Luckily she is a guerilla shopper, like me. Get in, get out. Off we went to Clackamas (yes, the same Clackamas where a shooter killed two people and wounded one before taking his own life at the mall on December 11). We weren't going to the actual mall. We were going to the poor man's mall across the street. Target, Kohl's, Nordstrom Rack... and the career college I work for, but since I am on vacation this week, I did my best not to notice the ugly orange stucco building I'll be slaving in next week.

Mom pawed through the racks at the Rack. She found some Uggs but decided the $169.95 price exceeded her budget, so we walked a few doors down to Payless Shoes. She sat on a bench, and I fetched boots for her to try on. The sales clerk, an older gal wearing all black, scurried by us. “These are all on sale!” she trilled merrily.

Mom tried on several boots and settled on a pair of black suede calf-high boots (man-made materials, made in China, $34.99 on sale), and we went up to the cash register. The sales clerk helped her navigate the credit card machine. “Now just swipe your card, honey!” I turned away to look at slippers, not wanting to see the train wreck as my mother poked at the little credit card screen with the corner of her credit card.

The door bell rang. Someone came in. I wasn't paying attention. I heard the sales clerk say, “Can I help you, sir? Sir?” It took a moment to realize she was talking to me. I turned around. The clerk said, “Ma'am.” I said, “I'm with her,” pointing at my mother. The clerk finished the transaction, red-faced. She said something inane about the doorbell that made me think she was trying to make amends for mislabeling my gender. I ignored her discomfort and waited for my mother by the door.

It's not the first time in my life I have been mistaken for a man. When I was a hippie-wannabe teenager with long straight hair and a flat chest, someone asked me, “Are you a boy or a girl?” It's true sometimes I wear my hair quite short, but it seems odd to me that people would have so much trouble identifying my gender, because I have an undeniably female figure. By that I mean, hips. I have hips. But I hide my shape with big jackets. And that is what happened today. I was wearing an over-sized black wool men's jacket with broad shoulders and a black cap over my very short hair. Most likely, she saw my bare neck and broad shoulders from the back, and leaped to the conclusion that I was male. Maybe she was a tiny bit frightened, wondering how I got from the door to the slipper aisle so quickly. Maybe she thought I might have a weapon hidden under my big black jacket.

We left and went over to Target, where I bought a stainless steel omelette pan (on sale). Then we were done. I took her home. Later while I was steaming a piece of salmon in my new omelette pan, I thought about gender and how annoying it is that we have pronouns to differentiate the sexes. He, she. Him, her. Hers, his. Why can't there be just one word? We managed to make Ms. politically correct. Why can't we do it with He/she and his/her? Some other languages have gender-neutral pronouns, and I guess some folks have suggested some English alternatives that have yet to catch on.

I'm not a linguist. Most days I feel barely literate. What would it take to change the way we use gender-specific language? Maybe a society that is based on gender equality? That might be a good place to start.

I survived the family gathering

Merry Effing Christmas from the Chronic Malcontent. I spent the day in the tub, recovering from a sugar high. Last night was the paternal annual family gathering. You know how I feel about families. And gatherings. My siblings hung me out to dry. My brother and his girlfriend opted out with conveniently contracted head colds. My older brother, who lives in Seaside, Oregon, was ostensibly blocked by rain and snow. My sister had the best excuse: She is in Munich, where it is apparently 50° and sunny, learning how to sprechen deutsch with her British boyfriend. Likely story.

So it was just me, escorting the maternal parental unit to the party. The evening was cold and damp, but not raining, not icy. Just a typical chilly Portland Christmas. I parked across the street and helped her over the curbs. Mom wore her best Christmas sweatshirt and jeans and chugged up the wet concrete steps to the front door like a little locomotive. She's by far the oldest of the clan, the last of a generation, but you can't call her the matriarch of that family, since we are related to them by marriage. We are all that is left of my father's presence, and once my mother is gone, I'm sure they will forget all about us. At least the children will. The grandchildren never knew us.

I've come to realize raising families has a lot in common with working retail. Parents are the sales associates, going through the daily obligations of birthing, rearing, and launching children. Merchandise in, merchandise out. You price them, front and face them, and send them out into the world and what do you have to show for it? You track sales against costs and hope you net a profit. But you can never win. It's never done, as long as there is breath left in the body.

I remember holiday gatherings on other Christmas eves. My father's mother had a lot of siblings, so there were tons of cousins and second cousins. With so many people, it's not surprising something went wrong. Somewhere back in the foggy history there was an argument. People chose up sides. My mother is the bridge between what is left of the factions. I wonder if anyone remembers what they were fighting about.

I went to the party with the intention of going off my strict no-sugar diet. I didn't just fall off the wagon, I jumped off, lay down on the ground, and let the wheels of epicurean indulgence crush me to a pulp. My cousin Anne makes a particularly luscious type of cookie. I'll pass on the fudge, just give me those deceptively simple little white wafers with the creme filling. I ate three. Plus some other crap. And a few swallows of a Chardonnay to really put paid to the debacle. Meanwhile, three children under the age of five jumped around and screamed like fiends. The teenage generation huddled together on the couch, watching an iPad or something, coming up occasionally to forage. The 40-something generation sprawled in chairs, exhausted from watching their little jumping brats, too dazed from alcohol and sugar to do more than mutter lame attempts to connect: Hi, how are you? What was your name, again? I grazed the dessert table. People left me alone.

At one point toward the end of the evening, I wandered into the kitchen and found four adults (one my mother), all wearing Christmas red, standing apart from one another, not talking, not moving, except for their jaws, slowly chewing brownies, fudge, and chocolate. Their eyes were distant. Were they getting ready to share some philosophical epiphany on the nature of the chemical relationship between fat and sugar? They were in the zone. Some zone, anyway. My entrance didn't break the spell. I had to say something before anyone woke up and responded. I wanted to take a picture, but no camera could have caught the eeriness of the scene.

We left before the white elephant game began. Thank god. As we staggered out into the frosty night, I wonder if others would go away feeling like they missed out on something. All that work, the shopping, the baking, the buying, the wrapping... demolished in the space of a few hours. What will the kids remember? How fun it was to jump on the couch with the cousins. How tense and anxious the adults were at the beginning of the party, and how strangely morose or maudlin they were by the end of the night. What will the adults remember? How much work it was. How annoying the kids were. How great it felt to sink into a glass of Chardonnay and a mouthful of chocolate. How wonderful it is that this horrible season only comes once a year.

Many happy returns on the last day of the world

I don't consider myself a Christian. That means I am not inclined to be cheery during the Christmas season. In fact I can hardly stand it. There's no other time of the year that is so pervasive, intrusive, and all-around annoying. (Did you think I would have something good to say about Christmas? Hey, I'm the chronic malcontent; I have nothing good to say about anything.) I lay low and try to hibernate through the season, emerging during the dog days before New Years to re-stock my fridge and re-new the wards on my apartment. Wards? You know, the juju rituals I do to keep away the sights, sounds, and smells of the Christmas season. It works. Come over and you will see no twinkly lights festooning the place, no dead evergreen wilting in a pot of fetid water, hear no Andy Williams or Bing Crosby crooning on the radio, and smell no stinky mulberry candles guttering in the corners. This is a yuletide free zone. Vive le grinch.

Here's something maybe you can help me understand. Yesterday at work, I ran into a teacher I don't know well. She's an energetic adjunct, one of those who takes her job way too seriously (in my opinion). She speaks in exclamation marks. I can't come close to matching her energy. It's exhausting to be around her for a rabid introvert like me.

She rushed off the elevator, dragging her wheely-bag behind her. “Hi! Merry Christmas!” she caroled at me as she trundled by on her way to the office.

I grunted something, heading for the stairs. Suddenly she stopped and turned back. I could practically see her brain whirring as she tried to calculate whether or not she should speak. It took probably a full second for her to say, “Oh, hey! I have something for you!”

I stopped. She dug into her wheely-bag and came up with an object wrapped in white tissue paper and tied with gold ribbon. I could feel my face pulling sideways into a kayla maroney.

“Oh, really, not necessary...” I began. She thrust the thing into my hand.

My brain leaped off the cliff: I don't even know you, why are you doing this, it's probably a candle, I don't need more crap, who can I regift this to?, I didn't get her anything, I didn't get anyone anything, I'm such a scrooge, everyone is drinking mulled cider and they didn't invite me, bah humbug, I don't care, I hate Christmas. Eventually I pulled my lips back into a grimace, said thank you, and went on my way.

After class, I opened the thing, mildly curious, a little apprehensive, and found a clear glass candle holder with an etched inscription: You have a special place in my heart. 

What? Really? Who knew I meant so much to her? I pictured her scanning the shelves at Michael's Art Store, muttering to herself: What can I give my colleagues to make them feel special and appreciated during these dark times? Really? Naw. I don't believe it for one second. She probably got a deal on those etched candle holders. Why didn't she put a candle in there, is what I want to know. If I really had such a special place in her heart and all.

The other thing that perplexes me about this season is the whole Christmas card thing. Some of the coolest people send the lamest cards. I don't want to think that my cool edgy friends are actually closet Christians. Is that too harsh? Maybe they are so cool and edgy that their cards are actually intended to be ironic commentaries on our sad reliance upon organized religion. Maybe I'm not cool and edgy enough to get the joke. I fear in the case of one particular card (nativity scene), my erstwhile cool and edgy friend has gone over to the dark side: she's handwritten a quote into the card, something about how hard it is to keep the season holy. Whatever.

On another card, a girl with with glittery angel wings holds a little gift in her hands (and the glitter is rubbing off all over everything on my desk). On another card, glittery fir trees hold up an enormous star and a huge fat white bird—I guess that is the white dove of peace? I can't ask the person who sent it to me, because I can't read the signature on the card. Two holiday cards sport a snowman theme: charming. But isn't it a tiny bit creepy to imagine snow creatures dressed up in human clothes coming to life? Brrrr. One friend sent a card with a photo of her and her husband. They look happy. I love that it might actually be true. My favorite card is from my colleague Sheryl (not her real name). The card has a picture of a stoic old white-haired gal who is clearly not impressed by the season. The message says: It's Christmas. Try to contain your enthusiasm. Now that's a Christmas card for a chronic malcontent!

Looking at all these cards spread out in front of me, even the one with a goofy nativity scene on the front, is making me realize that even the chronic malcontent has friends. Awwww. It's been a rough couple weeks for everyone. In this holiday season of mixed feelings, I confess I am grateful for simple things: friends, oatmeal bath salts, and the fact that the world appears to have survived another day. I'm thankful for the footwarmer I made myself out of an old pillow case and some white rice (just say microwave!).

Some years ago I strung some dinky white lights around a favorite painting. One moment. Please stand by. Ok, I'm back. In honor of this blog, I just turned them on. They don't blink, but in my dark cave of a workspace, they do look rather festive. Now for the... how do you say it, the coup de grace? No, that's a deathblow, not quite what I'm looking for. Fois de gras? No, isn't that some kind of liver pate? Coup d'etat? No, no overthrows going on here. How about...the piece de resistance! (Spoken with all the appropriate glottal mucus. And sorry all the accents are missing. It's too hard to go look them all up, it's all I can do to remember the code for the Fahrenheit degree symbol.) What was I saying? Oh yeah: the penultimate, The Christmas Stick.

The Christmas Stick is an old dead stick stuck in a vase of rocks and hung with a few old faded ornaments. It spends the year gathering dust on a high shelf in my kitchen. It's jolly in a rather sparse, dusty sort of way. I put it by the string of little white lights. Hmm. It's a Chronic Malcontent Christmas.

Thanks for the cards. Thanks for the gifts. Thanks for shaming me into a holiday mood. But don't get your hopes up. I donated all my disposable income to charity. You won't be getting any cards or presents from me this year. Merry ho ho ho to you, too.

Trudging into the future

Part of me is frozen in time, stuck forever in the horrific events of Friday, December 14. Just like a part of me is still caught in the destruction of September 11, 2001. Another part of me got torn away when my dad died. And a little more when my cat died. Maybe that is what brings us down in the end, the little pieces of our soul that get caught and torn away by tragic events. How much shredding can one soul take?

The rest of me, what is left of me, moves on. It's hard to believe, because the part of me that thinks and feels seems frozen in time, but the rest of me is still trudging doggedly into the future. In between my moments of despair, I have moments where I find myself suddenly humming. Or smiling. How can I hold both despair and acceptance in my mind at the same time? It seems impossible.

So, now you get to hear from the part of me that is moving on.

Good news. A small milestone has been reached. My concept paper, thrashed into submission, has apparently received thumbs up from my faceless nameless dissertation committee. My dissertation chairperson emailed me today to say she has sent my concept paper to the Graduate School reviewers. This is not a formality. This is serious. They have the power to kick me out of the program, send me home empty-handed, no consolation prize after seven years and $45,000. I can't worry about any of that. I hope it is approved, because I'm embarrassed to admit, I'm really sick of this leg of this endless journey.

Although the next leg of the journey is the dissertation proposal, just more torture at a deeper level. The concept paper was toothpicks under the fingernails. Now it will be the rack and hot branding irons. I know what you are thinking. How can I complain about such a luxury problem? I'm alive, after all. No argument. But whining is what I do. I'm chronically malcontented.

Speaking of malcontentedness, today I made the trek to Wilsonville in an early morning rainstorm. December, ho hum. I arrived on time as the sky was lightening in the east. I dutifully arranged the tables and wrote the chapter notes on the whiteboard. Then I waited for my four students. One showed up. Gina (not her real name) and I had a nice discussion for two hours, but I worry about the missing students. It's only the second week of school.

When students are absent, I always give them the benefit of the doubt. I don't automatically assume they were too tired from partying the night before to get out of their cozy warm beds. They could be sick. Their child could be sick. They could be snowed in—some places in the hinterburbs got snow last night. Hell, I don't know. They didn't call in to the school as they are required to do. They could be lying dead by the side of the freeway. Ugh, cancel that thought. I'd feel pretty bad if I complained about their attendance when come to find out they are dead.

I don't know, should I even joke about people being dead? It doesn't seem all that funny anymore, does it. It's only funny if it isn't happening. Or if you don't really think about the reality of death. Once it happens, once you really think about it, death casts a dismal pall over everything. Death isn't all that funny. People die all the time. But you don't expect it to be a bunch of little kids. Maybe in Syria, but not in America. Although why I assume we should be exempt is a fallacy worth examining in some future blog post.

This week I feel like I'm moving through a dark fog. My emotions have flatlined. Even my relief at hearing the hopeful news about my concept paper hardly registers on the emotions scale. The best I can muster right now is a heavy sigh.

Adopt an introvert, save the world

We all know people who tend to be quiet, maybe even a little shy. They don't exactly skulk around the periphery of our social gatherings, but they are far from center stage. These folks are happier behind the camera rather than posing in front. They don't just not seek out the limelight, they actively avoid it. They make excellent audience members. They are often the first to arrive at a party (to avoid the crush), and always the first to leave (to escape the crush). These people are introverts.

Introverts thrive in the unkempt fringes of the social garden. They wither when brought into crowded rooms. If you want to bag an introvert, you must meet her in her preferred element. You must approach cautiously, making as little noise as possible, and you must be alone. It might seem like a lot of work, but it's worth it; introverts make loyal and devoted friends, as long as you don't make them go to concerts or ballgames with you.

During the holidays, introverts do their best to follow the social norms. Because of social pressure, introverts will show up to family gatherings. They will dress up, bring presents, and gamely put on a happy face for as long as they can. They may even look like they are enjoying themselves. You may see the introvert reclining on the couch between Aunt Ida and Aunt Oda, laughing his head off. You may see her carrying on a lively conversation with Uncles Red and Redder, smiling like she's having the time of her life. Especially if she has been drinking. But you should be aware that inside every introvert is a silent people alarm. When it goes off, the introvert starts to sweat. He will leap off the couch like he was goosed. If you blink, you will miss her as she is gliding out the door.

Don't take it personally. It's not that they don't like you. One at a time, you are just fine with the introvert. It's the group of you that is overwhelming to the introvert—the noisy, boisterous, endlessly talking, space-encroaching, energy-sucking group of you.

Introverts like to believe they are special. They go to great lengths to be unique. They may dress strangely. They may speak oddly. They really are exotic creatures. Try to accept them as they are, whatever that happens to be today. Long hair, green hair, no hair... tattoos, piercings, plaid pants, whatever it is, try to avoid showing your distaste or amusement. Whatever you do, don't ridicule them in front of the crowd.

Here's the thing about introverts. They are unpredictable. You may think you know them, but you really don't. They are skilled at presenting a socially acceptable facade. If you snarkily comment on their weird garb, they may laugh with you, but you won't know that inside, underneath that facade, they may be plotting your downfall. They may be planning revenge. They may have mapped the building and blocked the exits. They are exotic creatures, but sometimes exotic creatures have sharp teeth and deadly nails.

So, when you attend your holiday socials this year, pay attention to the family members who are quietly reading a book or watching TV in another room. Watch especially for the ones who are torturing the cat or the three-year-old nephew when no one is looking. Introverts are easy to miss. Observe discreetly, though, so you don't send them running for the exit. And if they need professional help, for god's sake, make sure they get it.

Don't ban guns, ban people

The fragility and unpredictability of life hits home this week, with the Oregon mall shooting and now the mass shooting at a Connecticut elementary school. I'm struggling to process these tragedies, as many people are doing right now. Reading the comments section of the online news articles illuminates some fundamental philosophical differences in the solutions people propose.

Some folks say we should ban guns. That is the obvious first thought, isn't it? At the first mention of banning assault weapons, people shout, “Guns don't kill people, people kill people!” Well, duh. But it seems like banning guns might be a good first step. Or would have been a good first step. Now, of course, it is too late. In this modern age, every other teenager and half the pre-teens already have or in five minutes can get their mitts on the assault weapons of their choice. Barn door, horses, etc. Strengthening a ban on assault weapons may help 20 years down the road, as current models jam, melt, or get turned into lampbases and as new middle-schoolers have a harder time getting access. We may not have 20 years left at the rate we are going. I wish we could go back to cap guns.

I chuckle at the argument from the rabid gun supporters who say, “Cars kill people! Maybe we should ban cars!” Actually, I think the idea has some merit. I would gladly give up my car if my neighbors would give up their assault rifles. Hey, what if we all drove two-wheeled cars? Besides being super fun, we'd probably wreak a lot less havoc if we decided to jump the curb and mow down pedestrians on an urban sidewalk.

Well, we all know the problem isn't caused by cars or guns. The problem is crazy people. And stupid people. The stupid people leave their guns laying around for their stupid children to find and blow their stupid heads off. The stupid people fail to lock up their guns, so their stupid children find the guns and take them to school, where they accidentally on purpose blow away their friends and enemies. Stupid people let their crazy friends borrow their guns. The answer is simple. Ban stupid people and their stupid children.

But that is only part of the story. What to do about the crazy people? The crazy people sometimes look like non-crazy people. And what is crazy to one person might be perfectly rational to another. Just like defining stupid, defining crazy is hard until the person in question pulls a Columbine. Then it's easy to say, he was crazy. And his family was stupid. (If, of course, his family survives, which is often not the case.) So what do we do?

Ban people. It's the only solution. If crazy people and stupid people are the problem, and if they are walking hidden among us, there's no hope for society as we have fashioned it. From now on, to minimize the current pressure on crazy people, we should no longer be allowed to congregate in groups, so we present less of a tempting target. We should all stop talking about our fear of being randomly cut down in our shoes. Crazies feed on fear. The media should be silenced; crazies feed on publicity. And finally, we should not be allowed to propagate. Procreate. Whatever the word is. Because people are the problem.

The end.

Of course you know I'm being my usual snarky chronically malcontented self, right? I love people. Even the stupid ones. Even the crazy ones. Even as I weep for the dead, I pray for the souls of the living. And vice versa.

The surreal night off

What a surreal night. I got news from my dissertation chair that she's sending my revised concept paper on to the committee for the second time, and if they approve it, she'll forward the paper to the Graduate School for approval. Or rejection, as the case may be. I'm hopeful.

At the same time I get this good news, I am at home because classes were cancelled for this evening. There was a shooting at the shopping mall across the street from our Clackamas campus, so the entire area is on lockdown right now. The freeway, the buses, the MAX train line, all are shut down.

My new phone arrived today in the mail: A cordless phone with a second handset and an answering machine. I've been answering machine-less for a week, which isn't really so bad. I rather like being incommunicado. So with mixed feelings, after my mid-day nap, I opened up the box and got the system installed. Three minutes after I hooked it up, all the phones in my apartment started ringing. Loudly. And my cell phone started buzzing. That is how I knew that something was going down. Something to do with work. Something bad.

The robot voice said: There has been a shooting at the Clackamas Town Center Mall. I turned on the radio, but they didn't know much. I called the campus. Our perky receptionist said they knew about the shooting, and they were all leaving. Oh, and by the way, night classes are cancelled. A few minutes later all my phones rang again. Another robot: Classes at the Clackamas campus are cancelled. Lucky me, I got the news just before I left for work.

Unfortunately, my unexpected night off comes at a cost: three dead (one the shooter) and one seriously wounded. Some apparently random gunman with a semi-automatic rifle opened fire in the mall. He shot three people and then took his own life. The mall is lit up like a Christmas tree. I'm glad I'm not there. I'm glad I'm watching the aftermath unfold on the local news channels. I'm warm, I'm dry, I'm alive. I was never in danger, but I cried a little bit listening to the stories of the witnesses.

We see this kind of violence on the news all the time. Until it comes close to home, we always imagine it happens to someone else, someplace else. It is bizarre to recognize the location, the buildings, and know that I've been there, I've shopped there, I've eaten in that food court. If I ever go back to that mall, I'll walk the marble floors and wonder, is this where that woman died? Is this where the shooter walked? This event will ripple out into the community as stories get shared. It will take on a larger life.

Random violence is like an earthquake: unpredictable, uncontrollable. You can't avoid it by being a good person, hanging out with good people, living a clean life. It can get you anywhere, random violence. No one is safe. Children, old people, nice people, anyone can be cut down. The feather of death brushes by us all the time, doesn't it? On Thursday when I go back to work, I will drive by the mall and feel a little sick. I'll pray to whatever deity I may subscribe to that day to keep us all safe from random insanity. If I live through the day, I hope I remember to be grateful.

A reflection on the sordid reality of a career college teacher's schedule

My work life is lived in chunks of time. Day to day, week to week, term to term. Year to year. I suppose most people live on some kind of schedule, unless they are retired and can drift through their days according to their own sense of time. My idea of the perfect life has always been to be master of my own time, to live liberated from the obligation of an externally imposed schedule. It's not surprising. From childhood we mind the clock. We rebel at first, don't we? But eventually we learn to accept and even embrace the clock. We lose our personal sense of rhythm and march with the throng to the same boring beat.

Even though I work in the for-profit career college sector, generally considered the bottom feeder of higher education, I still benefit from its nebulous association with academia. That is, I am lucky enough to work (mostly) a 4-day week, Monday through Thursday, with most Fridays off (the sacred teacher prep day). Except when we make up holidays, but that's another story. It's fantastic working a four-day week. Two days a week I work just 3 to 6 hours and have the rest of the day off. How cool is that?

The trade-off is, the other two days a week I work a split shift. That means I essentially have two work days in one. I get up, fix breakfast, and go to work for six hours. Then I go home, go to bed, get up, fix dinner, and go to work for five more hours. So it's like I work six days a week. And then I have a 3-day weekend to catch up on my sleep, my homework, my laundry, my relationships. You might say, wow, if you love your job, that is a great schedule. On the other hand, if you are tired and burned out, it is an endless grind. Guess which category I fall into.

The long days are grueling, especially if I have to be teaching the whole time. The hours telescope into eternity. There are few things more bleak than sitting in a dim computer lab at 10:15 on a winter night waiting for my one or two students to figure out how to save their work and eject the flashdrives they will lose tomorrow. The short days are deceptively liberating. I always assume I will have time to run errands, see friends, go shopping, have some fun, but I'm always too tired to do much beyond the essentials: buy food. The short days are for recuperation and resting up for the next 14-hour day.

As a consequence of this unbalanced work schedule, I've learned to sleep in chunks of time during the week. Six hours at night, two hours during the day. I make up the deficit on the weekend. The schedule drives my meal times, too. I eat twice a day, before work and between work. I get hungry sometimes, while I'm sitting in that computer lab. I try not to think about it.

Day after day, week after week, I follow the lopsided schedule, showing up for a 10-week term. After nine years, I'm just starting to understand the arc of a term. Ten weeks, 20 days, a few inches forward, a few more grams of knowledge shoved into their rigid and weary minds. After every term I'm left with a few memorable moments to carry with me: a card from the student who cried during the first week of the term, thanking me for helping her believe in herself enough to not give up. A new graduate, walking with a bit of a swagger and tossing back a huge grin over her shoulder as she shouldered her backpack one last time. Little moments, big moments.

It's not enough to inspire me to stop whining. I try to notice and embrace those special moments, but they don't motivate me. They just make me tired. Those little shining moments aren't enough payoff for all the hours spent sitting in a lab with only one student, or listening to a student tell me why he can't turn in his assignment today, or discovering that a cabal of paralegals cheated on their keyboarding transcriptions. All the hours on-stage, all the hours when I should have been sleeping, all the hours spent crafting creative assignments for students who had the nerve to catch up on their sleep during my classes... why should I bother to care? Said the burned out teacher.

Tomorrow is the first day of the new term. I must leave by 6:30 a.m. to drive the 25 miles to Wilsonville in rush hour traffic to get to my first class by 7:50. I'm not well-loved in Wilsonville. (Chronic malcontents tend to be pot-stirring troublemakers. And burned out teachers tend to lack compassion for slackers.) I don't care. My hope is that by this time next year I will be someplace else doing something else (hopefully someplace and something better). I refuse to give up on the dream of creating a new relationship with time. In the meantime, I live for my next nap.

Bring me the head of the baby jesus

The end of the term at the career college coincided with some other curious occurrences, prompting me to ask, is it odd, or is it gawd? Ha. That's only funny because it rhymes. I am not really much of a believer. But I wonder, is it human nature to look for interconnection in a series of events? I say yes. From there it is one short step to asking the universe for a sign. I'm not that far gone. Yet.

The end of the term doesn't necessarily precipitate odd occurrences. But when it comes to student behavior, the end of the term can bring the perplexing. For example, two students failed to show up for finals. One was sick, I heard, but what happened to the other? Not a word. For all I know, she's dead in the bushes outside the front door, surrounded by the scattered soggy pages of her 10-key math practice test. We'll find her weary bones next spring, long after we've forgotten her name. It is confounding to me that a student trudges through ten weeks and then bails on the last day. Is it failure to launch again? I'm always confounded when students choose to miss a class, but to miss the final, and not even call? That is beyond bizarre in my world. I suppose in the world of a student who is afraid to leave school, it makes perfect sense.


Speaking of being afraid to leave school, my dissertation chairperson sent me three comments from the faceless, nameless committee. First, he/she/it/they asked me to add some clarity on the problem statement. Spell it out: The problem is... Be specific—make it easy for these weary reviewers to locate the problem. (In other words, don't expect them to think much.) Second, please add more subheads to the literature review section, to make it easier to read. No problem. I had lots of friendly subheadings in there, originally, but a comment from the chairperson led me to believe I wasn't following the template, so I took them out. Easy fix. And third, do I need all three subgroups (faculty, students, and administrators?) Here is where I want to whimper a little. My original draft, the one that was rejected from the Graduate School reviewers, was dinged for using only one group and not justifying why. Now I have three groups, and they want to know could I get by with one. Read my lips.

After I fume a little, I need to prepare a reasoned response to that comment. That is my task for this weekend, what is left of it. My hope is to be able to upload the revised concept paper by Sunday night. I don't think I'll have much time next week to work on it, with the new term starting. I spent today grading papers and posting final grades. It was edging close to 4:30 pm, the witching hour when the worker bees at the career college begin to shut the place down to go home, so I got little done in preparation for Monday morning. I need to do my course calendars and print assignments. A little advice for you wannabe educators: You gotta come in guns blazing on day one, armed with stacks of policies, assignments, and forms, else they will yawn and sink into a stupor for the rest of the term.

Last week I had a great schedule for next term. However, I've learned from hard experience to never get attached to a schedule. It unraveled, and now I'm going back to Wilsonville two mornings a week to teach a management class with four students and a marketing class with two students. Really? All that exorbitant gas consumption for six students? Teaching early classes means I must leave an hour early to drive the 25 miles in rush hour traffic. That means I must set the alarm for 5:15 a.m., not my best time on any morning, but definitely not after I've been working till 10:20 p.m. the night before. The theme of this new term will be sleep-deprivation.

And to top it all off, get this: Dave Brubeck died on Wednesday, so I had to listen to Take Five 20 times in one day. On Thursday Fitz got shot over and over in slow motion. And someone stole the head of the baby jesus! So what's the interconnection between students failing to show up, schedules turning to shite, reviewers making annoying comments on my concept paper, the death of a jazz legend, a TV show character, and the baby jesus? I don't know. Maybe you can figure it out. My enneagram type is 5: The Observer. That means I just sit back and watch you do all the work. So get busy.

I've caught myself a few times trying to work up a head of resentment at the schedule, the students, the life, but I just don't have the energy for it. Then someone steals the head of the baby jesus, and life is hilariously worth living again. Besides, anger solves nothing. I'm not a slave, right? I'm a volunteer. Until I'm ready to leave this sinking career college ship, I'm choosing to bail its dark and stinky hold. And daydream of what comes next. (Sleep. Lots of sleep.) I just hope I don't  crash my Focus somewhere on the dark and lonely stretch of I-205 between Oregon City and Wilsonville, where you sometimes see deer legs poking stiffly up out of the ditch. If that happens, I can only hope they find me before spring.

Don't try that: Try this!

Winter is about slogging through. Winter is two steps back for every tiny step forward. Winter is sniffles, frigid feet, fogged spectacles, and layers of stifling fleece. I'm already whining and we haven't even had a proper freeze yet. The temperature gadget on my computer desktop says it is 52° in the Rose City today. But with the damp sinus, chill bone factor, I would rate it ten degrees colder. And wetter.

I'm just pissed off because I stepped in dog poop this morning as I bravely lugged my laundry to the basement. Drat that wretched little neighbor! And her accursed dog, too! Dang it, I'm starting to sound like the Wicked Witch of the West. Grrrrrrr. Where is my book of spells? Maybe I can cause her to fall out of bed every morning at 4:00 a.m.

Last night I politely knocked on the wall at 12:30 a.m., hoping she would hear it and stop her incessant pounding. Her dog barked like a fiend on the other side of the wall. Maybe I can rig up something to knock on the wall every hour during the night. Her dog will drive her insane. No evil spells needed.

It's finals week at the career college. What, again, I can hear you saying. Didn't you just complain about finals week? Yep. That was ten short weeks ago. And here we are again. Most students have kept up with the workload. They are cruising into this last week with a smug look on their faces, especially the ones who are graduating: the proud soon-to-be owners of an Associates of Applied Science degree in blablabla. Others, however, are freaking out. I actually had to fill out a drop form on a student last week: one week to go and she apparently has bailed. I recognize the syndrome. I'm guessing she suffers from the I'm too scared to graduate and face the world syndrome. Failure to launch. I predict she'll either quit school and get a job at McDonald's, or she'll come back next term and take the class over again. And quite possibly bail one week before the end.

I get it. School is a safe oasis in a big scary world. I'm the last person to judge. Haven't I spent the last seven years in graduate school? Don't I complain every other post about how terrified I am at the prospect of finishing? Is not one of my biggest fears the fear that I will sabotage my years of effort, waste my $50,000 investment, by quitting just before the finish line? Is not my second biggest fear the fear that, despite all this higher education, I will remain unemployable?

Wreckage of the future again, I know. You can't trust a Magic 8 Ball, that's for sure. Nor a horoscope. Nor a weather forecast. But one thing I know: it's great to have plastic shoes that can hose off with water. If that is all I have learned from my day of whining, well, maybe that's enough.

Seems like I've been here before

Have you ever driven on a freeway at night in rainy fog and felt like you were not moving at all, or felt like you might just possibly be at home in bed dreaming you were driving on a freeway at night in rainy fog? I believe the term for this phenomenon is spatial disorientation. It happened to me a few years ago when I was on my way to the company holiday party. I had no idea where I was going—a golf course country club I'd never heard of before—so it was easy to get confused. Confusion was just a heartbeat away from imagining I wasn't really driving a car at all. It seemed possible that at any moment I would awaken to find myself at home in bed. Or upside down, hanging from my seat belt, bleeding from my nose and mouth.

It was a disconcerting feeling to not be sure if I was where I seemed to be. I steered my car over to the slow lane and slapped my face a few times to see if pain would help reality reassert itself. I made it to the party late and sat at an empty table near the door. The entire evening took on a surreal quality. The windows were fogged with condensation. The golf course was inky blackness. The food was generic catered. People I worked with every day were wearing sequins, mini-skirts, and clouds of perfume. I won three gift baskets. Eventually I knew I would have to drive home. The thought was both worrying and exciting.

Obviously I made it home. The experience has remained with me, though. Now I understand how pilots crash planes. Reality changes when you have no reference points to gauge your speed. Dreams start to seem more real than real life.

On Wednesday I visited my naturopath, the maniacal fiend who masquerades as a doctor. He loves me, and not just for the check I write without complaint. He can try things on me that might make some squeamish. In my gullible ignorance I don't know when to say no. This time he dosed me with nux vomica (for the food poisoning, thanks a lot, Trader Joe). Then he took me to the closet, bade me lie on the (heated) bed, and stuck needles in my shins and my belly. He threw a thermal blanket over me, cranked up the heat, and let me cook for 20 minutes. Once I got used to the idea of having a needle in my stomach, I relaxed. Some part of me exited my body and drifted happily around in some alternate reality somewhere, until his knock on the door brought me back with an unpleasant thump. Bam.

After I visit the naturopath, I always feel compelled to take a nap before heading off to the career college for night classes. During my nap, I dreamed I was in Los Angeles, trying to find my apartment. I went to the apartment I used to live in, totally confused. Everything looked familiar, but weird, like it was ten years later. When I came out of the apartment, I couldn't find my car. Dude! After walking the streets for awhile, looking for my Ford Focus, I gave up and I enlisted my dad to drive me around West Hollywood in one of his big American cars. It was great to see him again, even though he didn't have much to say, as usual. My sister was in the back seat, helpfully steering the car whenever Dad wanted to lean out the window for a closer look down some palm-tree lined avenue. It was great fun tooling around in the smoggy sunshine, despite the fact that we never did find my car. Thanks for the ride, Dad.

When I woke up, I was disoriented. The room was hot. My brain was foggy. I wondered if that dream was a portent of the dementia to come. It doesn't seem so impossible to imagine a time when I drive to the store and can't find my way home. Or I park my car at the mall and forget where I parked it. How do you hold water in your hands? A GPS would be the trail of crumbs leading me home, but what if I don't recognize the place when I get there?

Welcome to my week. As I wait for word from the committee on the status of my dissertation concept paper, the cracks in my carefully built facade are becoming apparent. To fight off entropy and discontent, today I braved the rain and crowds to purchase a new toilet seat. Merry ho ho to me. (My car was waiting for me where I parked it.) When I got home, I installed the new seat and tested it out. We have lift off! Chalk up one for me, one small blow against disorder, chaos, and crumbling reality.