On Staying in Bed

            

My bed is sublime.  The mattress is a Tempurpedic which is covered by a foamy, soft cover that I just melt into.  The sheets are high thread count cotton, and the quilt is baby-blanket soft and cool.  Four fat pillows float around atop the mattress for cuddling and propping and burying.  I wake up in the morning and think about getting up, then fall back asleep for a bit.  Then again.  Then again.  Getting up has become somewhat of a chore.  I’ve made my bed a bastion of comfort so that I won’t have to get out of it, because there is nothing really to get out of bed for.

                So then my utopian cradle becomes a black hole.  Even after I manage to tear myself out of it, I find myself returning over and over throughout the day, falling into a position of repose, as though I have done something worthy of rest.  When I’m working (obviously) I can’t simply fall back into bed, because I’m at work; but when summer rolls around, and the heat takes the fun out of the outdoors, here I am.  Again and again. 

                I mostly lie in bed and think; I don’t sleep.  Sleeping is too easy and not a thing neurotic people do very well.  No, we like to think about all the things we could or should be doing rather than lying in bed staring at the wall, but the idea of actually doing any of those things is utterly exhausting to me.  What if I had a partner or friend to lie in bed with and plan whatever things people plan?  I could go make a friend, but that’s exhausting.  Where would I look?  Wouldn’t that require getting dressed and getting out of bed?  I could write a book.  If only I had something … a plot, perhaps. 

                In truth, I do a lot of work later in the day:  planning for school and reading books and making notes and plotting things out.  Will I remember all the brilliant insights and nuances once school starts again?  Probably not.  Will the students care about all those little moments of sheer brilliance that Scott Fitzgerald and others have laid out for us?  Not really.  But I can at least enjoy them myself in the interim and delude myself temporarily that I can share them with others.  Perhaps a book club?  Unfortunately, most of the people I know don’t read for pleasure.  A most ridiculous non-habit, if you ask me.  No wonder America is in jeopardy of becoming one of the dumber countries in the world.  Just read one of the more “popular” books of the last few years (Twilight, Hunger Games, Fifty Shades of Gray) – as entertaining as those books may be, they are written at about a fifth grade level.  But I digress…

                If I could only harness my thoughts, organize them in some capacity.  But my bed is too convenient.  It’s always there to absorb me and allow me to drift off into the idleness of thought.  You see, I thought about thinking, and then I moved over to my computer and wrote about thinking, and now I’m going to force myself to get dressed and do a series of things which make me feel as though my life is not a complete waste.  Unfortunately, those things will end up being cleaning or working out, neither of which changes the world.

                One morning, I’m thinking it will happen around 11:11am, an idea will spontaneously sprout into my head, and it will be brilliant.  I will follow it and make it wonderful and then travel the world sharing it with others.  Until then, the cool cotton will call me back to revel in uselessness.            

In Gratis

                Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are token holidays.  Actually, for a non-religious person, all of the holidays are a token.  On the 4^th of July people blow things up, and I guarantee that most kids are NOT thinking about the cost of American independence when they light each fuse.  But Mother’s and Father’s Day are unique because they don’t celebrate an event so much as they attempt to celebrate an IDEA:  “you are appreciated”. 

                The best presents are trivial:  handmade cards, hand-picked flowers, an invitation to lunch.  The present itself is largely irrelevant.  Children are not supposed to present lavish gifts to their parents; it’s the thought that counts.  I realize the propensity to revert to a cliché here, but clichés are sometimes idioms:  self-evident truths.  I don’t care about the gift, but I do pay attention to the effort.  When a child makes no effort to reciprocate generosity or acknowledge sacrifice, the “token” gift becomes symbolic.  It’s no longer just a card; it’s a LACK of a card.  It’s a LACK of acknowledgement.  That means something.

                A birthday falls under the same general category.  A birth is an incredible series of events, in which a mother takes every single bit of energy (both mental and physical) she has, and gives birth to a person.  And who gets celebrated?  Not the person who agonized through labor or worried about the details for nine months.  The child gets celebrated.  The one person who did absolutely nothing but arrive is the one who is showered with gifts and taught to think they did something special.

                All the celebratory things that people do seem so odd to me.  They celebrate Christmas by buying gifts under the guise of Jesus’s birth.  They celebrate Lent by giving up something inane, when they should really being giving up FOOD for 40 days. 

                I want to celebrate, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to create my own celebratory days to acknowledge, because I can’t subscribe to the stupidity of common culture.  I’m not a downer; I’m not a depressive – I’m simply tired of the same old bullshit masquerading as “tradition”.  Celebrations should be spontaneous and revolutionary, not required.  Suggestions welcome. 

Happy Anniversary

                Yesterday was my 15^th wedding anniversary - a big number.  It is the number of years my son has been alive.  It is also the number of rugby players on the field at any given time.  It is also the age of a Hispanic girl’s quinceañera.  It is also the atomic number of phosphorous.  All of these things have about the same merit. 

 

                Yesterday was another marital milestone.  It was the one year anniversary of the last time I had sex. 

                Partially, this abstinence is by choice.  I don’t want to sleep with my husband.  I don’t mean to sound rude, but even the old lady next door asked me today if my husband knew how ridiculous he looked with his beard and his fat belly.I also don't have sex with people I don't talk to, so that sort of counts him out, since he's never home.  Regardless of what I say here, I sound either bitchy or just frigid.  I am neither and both.  I have gone beyond the point of caring, which is obviously not good. 

                I know the celibacy anniversary date only because we went to concert last year on our anniversary, and I often use the ticket stub as a bookmark.  When I told him about it yesterday, he said (and I quote) “it feels more like five years.”  That’s it.  That’s all he said.  I don’t even know what that means.  It makes me want to vomit.  

                I need a new love life.  Maybe if I had a husband who cared about me and spent time with me, I wouldn’t be publishing this kind of personal baggage on the internet via a blog, but he doesn’t read it anyway.  He doesn’t care what I do, as long as I raise his children and pretend to listen to him when he’s home (which is very, very rarely).  

                I’m ready to be done and move on.  I’ve told him that, and he doesn’t argue, so … I guess that’s that.  The anniversary, then, is one of new freedom to pursue myself again rather than trying to resuscitate a corpse.  That renewal is both personally invigorating and deeply sad.

Times I Should Have Died (in no particular order)

• ·         I was at a frat party at Kearney State.  (Yes, I am old enough that it was called Kearney State.)  I believe the name of the party was The Great Escape – annual summer party when people came back to get stupid all weekend.  My friends and I were doing so some stuff upstairs and chilling on a balcony connected to the room.  I was sitting on the edge of the balcony hanging on to a boy and laughing.  I went downstairs to get a beer from the keg on the porch in the backyard.  I filled my cup, sat in a chair, looked up and that boy and some other girl fall off the balcony where I was two minutes before.  They landed on the concrete porch about 10 feet away from me.  It was vile.
• ·         Car Crash.  Broke the windshield with my head when I was about 12.  And then again with a drunk driver when I was 19.  Total number of car crashes:  a lot, but five when the car was completely totaled.  (I was driving in only two of them.)
• ·         Concussions.  Four that should have been medically monitored; none of which were – even when I was a child.  My parents didn’t know how bad it was and that I was seeing double for days.  One of the car crashes/concussions was when I was drunk (not driving) and went through the windshield.  Taken by ambulance to the hospital, got freaked out that I would get in trouble or something (obviously not thinking rationally) and snuck out of the ER and id in the parking lot until my friend’s boyfriend found me. 

o   Another concussion was at a party in Lincoln (UNL – boo) and I stole a stack of drink tickets from the bar and proceeded to drink about 25 White Russians.  A friend told me how impressed he was when I fell over in the parking lot without even trying to stop myself.  Head first of the concrete.  I puked all the way home and all night.  I overheard my roommate tell her boyfriend that I was puking just to get attention and that he should ignore me. 

• ·         Alcohol Poisoning.  I don’t even want to think about how many times I did this to myself, but waking up without knowing where you are or how you got there are both bad.  I have also woken up covered in vomit.  I believe that’s called aspirating when you die from it (Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Elvis Presley ...) It happens, but for some reason not to me.
• ·         Drug Overdose.  See above.  Why did my friend’s heart explode when he did half an eight-ball of cocaine and mine didn’t?  Luck?  Fate?  Predetermination?  I don’t know.
• ·         Drunk Driving.  Sadly, I did it.  I was generally the one who got volunteered for such things (usually in other people’s cars, for some reason).  I drove into a tree once.  No one noticed, even after I sat there for quite a while, so I put it in reverse and drove away. 

o   Does this count as drunk driving?  Someone ELSE was driving drunk, and I didn’t like him, so I jumped out of the back of his pick-up while it was moving.  Something I’ve actually done three times to get out of a car I didn’t want to be in anymore. 

o   Coming back from a concert in Kansas City, my driver was tripping on acid and fell asleep at the wheel.  Which one is worse?  Him falling asleep or me riding with someone who was tripping on acid?

• ·         Another whole category should be near-rape experiences.
• ·         There are probably more, but this is depressing me.

Actually, now that I think about it, most of the near-death (or should-have-been death) experiences have to do with drugs and alcohol.  Nancy Reagan said it best, “just say no.”  Or at least don’t use and drive, and get some better friends than I had.  Turns out that the people you hang around with are a direct reflection of you.  

For The Teachers

Teachers are as varied a group as any profession in terms of age, race, creed, and ability.  Some teachers are missionaries; the profession is their calling in life.  Some teachers couldn’t decide what to do after three years of undergrad school, so they chose the “easiest” major they could find (with the built-in summer vacation).  Some teachers never got over their “glory days” of high school, so they teach because they don’t know how to move on.  Some teachers don’t like kids, so they become teachers to control and dominate them.  Some teachers are passionate; some teachers sit behind a desk and surf YouTube.  It takes all kinds.   Obviously, society needs more of the first kind, and none of the second. 

I asked my students a while ago to write a brief example of questionable teaching they had encountered at some point.  Here are some of their examples:  (in their words, anonymously)

·         Learning in Chemistry class how farting into matches lands you with burns on your anus is not a great way to spend class time.

·         Freshman year, I had a teacher who didn’t teach and would always text and talk to people on his phone in class.  One day we were having a discussion in class and the teacher’s cell phone rang, so he answered it and started starting to someone.  The class started talking too, because the teacher wasn’t teaching, so he stepped out of the room and said to the person, “sorry, these kids are being too fucking loud”.

·         In Art class, I was told “in the world of art, you will fail every time”.  I still took Arts classes every year, but I never really tried to make good art again. 

·         A substitute teacher came in and said we couldn’t use electronics in class because they are distracting.  She actually took away a kid’s calculator (in a math class) when we were supposed to be using them.

·         My history teacher gave us a test and then when he handed it back to us, I raised my hand to ask a question on one that I missed.  He told me that he was not answering questions because questions led to arguments and he was not in the mood.  I didn’t want to argue.  I just wanted to understand.  But that wasn’t an option. 

·         Teachers ruin education because they are not open to other views.  They are stuck in their own mind sets, and unless students learn to play along and give the teachers what they want, the students won’t get good grades.  

·         My little brother had a teacher that didn’t like him in first grade and gave him no positive feedback EVER and refused to acknowledge that he was capable of doing anything “right” or “well”.  Now he hates school and doesn’t try.

·         When I get my English papers back and there is nothing but negative comments about what I did WRONG, I feel like I’m doing nothing RIGHT.

·         When the teacher doesn’t agree with you, you’re wrong.  Always.  Debating with the teacher means you’re “argumentative” or “disrespectful” rather than meaning you’re smart and have your own opinion.  And once you argue even a tiny point with certain teachers, you’re labeled as “that kid” and your grades go down.

·         My teachers always used to tell me what to think.  Now when they ask to think for myself, I don’t like it.  Nobody taught me how to think, just how to remember stupid shit.

·         In most of my classes, I can get an A without learning anything. 

·         When my teachers don’t care, I don’t care.  And a lot of them don’t care.

·         My music teacher told my class that we didn’t deserve an education, and all we’re capable of is writing raps and smoking pot and hooking up in the janitor’s closet.

·         This year I had a teacher who couldn’t control the class and didn’t understand her subject.  She flirted and was buddy-buddy with a bunch of seniors.  She was too busy socializing and being a senior again to be our teacher. 

·         I used to love history.  But now all we do is read the textbook and fill out worksheets.  Now history sucks. 

·         A lot of the “teachers” who coach sports could care less about anything but their team.   (And their “student-athletes” get better grades than they deserve.)

·         I have taken four years of foreign language, and I can’t speak it.  I guess foreign language classes are more about getting into college than about actually learning how to communicate with people.

·         I didn’t understand a concept in class, so I asked the teacher for help.  His response:  “you’re Asian.  You should know it.”  I never asked another question.

·         Some teachers expect the students to know things they don’t even know themselves and then get mad when they’re asked to explain.  It’s not MY job to teach; it’s my job to learn. 

·         Teachers should not spoon-feed their students every sentence and what it means in a book.  If kids are treated like dumbasses, they will act like dumbasses.  Most of the time, I don’t even have to read the book, because the teacher will just tell us everything we need to know before the test.

·         Most teachers have favorite students.  We can tell.  It sucks.

·         My elementary P.E. teacher called me fat and lazy because I was chubby and couldn’t run the mile under 10 minutes.

·         Someone stole the answer key to our science test and gave a bunch of people the answers, and even though the teacher knew about it, she didn’t do anything, because it would have meant more work for her. 

·         My teacher once told me that my parents must be horrible role models because of the way I turned out. 

·         Last year, my English teacher spent more time yelling at the troublesome students than teaching.  I learned nothing, so now I’m behind people who had a better teacher.

·         My P.E. teacher blasts Christian music over the loudspeakers when we’re working out.  This is a public school, not church.  

I’m going to ask all my classes every year to do this.  I haven’t included them all, and I didn’t make the assignment mandatory (for what it’s worth).  I’m just going to put a “Comments” Box at the front of the year and encourage them to call me out if I do something that merits a list like this. 

              Being a full-time student for 13 years is a huge pain in the ass.  I remember how much I wanted out.  But teachers have the opportunity to make school suck less and mean more.  I intend to try.