Best Actress in a Supporting Role

I have mastered the art of supporting other people.  I am so good at it, in fact, that I am not the main character in my own life anymore.

When I wake up every day, I force myself out of bed to go spend eight hours in a place where everyone’s needs come before my own.  High school students are fairly high maintenance – hormones and existential crises and all – but I signed on for that job, and I love giving them whatever knowledge and insight and personal assistance I might be able to offer.  But a student told me just yesterday that high school is simply a place where teenagers go so that their parents don’t have to deal with them, and that most students don’t give a shit about what any of their teachers are saying.  I countered with the fact that I still sometimes talk to my former students, so people must be listening, at least sometimes.  I added that if even one or two of my students get something valuable, my time was well spent.  He said, and I quote, “Don’t hold your breath.  No one cares about this shit.”

He’s probably right.  But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to keep supporting my students whenever and however I can.  Otherwise, what’s the point of being a teacher?

I wish this essay about supporting roles was just about my job. 

When I come home, I am again relegated to an ancillary role.  Because I don’t have a love life (or even a social life for that matter) I am the maid, cook, chauffeur, advisor, and organizer.  People in Main Roles do what they want.  Other people revolve around them, instead of the inverse.  Nobody revolves around me.  If my kids need food, I cook.  If they need prodded to fill out college applications, I prod.  If they need help with homework, I try to remember basic algebra or the plot basics of a novel I haven’t read in 10 years.  I support people who are Main Characters. 

I won’t even write about my “husband”, because all of my support in that role has been for naught.  In that role, I am an extra, perhaps with the screen credit of “Field Medic”, because my only role there is triage on a dying plot element.

Back in the day, my head shot (and accompanying resume experience) would have been fairly impressive.  Now?  Not so much.  And the most distressing part is that I might not even be the Best Supporting Actress in this particular role of life.  I can’t seem to figure out how to play this role that I’ve cast myself in.  I have forgotten what the point is.   

When people fall into the Typecast Category, is there any way out?  Why does it take such extraordinary measures to break free of the way other people see us?  How do people even find a way to break out of such a crushing weight of predictability? 

Maybe I’ve fallen into the foreign language category, but I’m still delusionally thinking people understand me. 

On Teaching Persuasion

                                                                             

Give a teenager an opportunity, and they will step up and get weird.  (Thank god.)

Our current public school endeavor is to defend a bad habit.  Most of my students thought of something within the first 10 minutes:  lying, cheating, stealing, procrastinating, being lazy.  Others had to think about it overnight before they came up much more dark topics, like getting drunk, smoking pot, fist fighting, and (I swear I’m not lying here) murder. 

The point of the essay is not to be satiric, something I reminded them of repeatedly, but to actually defend doing something that most people think is bad.  If someone says to you, “you’re being greedy”, they don’t mean it as a compliment.  But greed drives capitalism, so it can’t be all that bad.  Or if someone says, “you’re being selfish”, they don’t mean it endearingly.  But come on, selfishness is sometimes necessary so that people don’t slip into the terrible mode of caring about everyone’s needs before they take care of themselves. 

“Bad” habits are what make people individuals.  I’m not saying we should all pick our noses or gossip or speed in our cars all the time, but people will be people – flaws and all. 

I am a compilation of all my traits – good and bad.  All the bad shit that lives in my psyche contributes to who I am.  Sometimes I’d like to hit RESET and get rid of all my flaws, but if I did that, I would suck at my job, because I wouldn’t be able to relate to the students who are broken and weird and quirky and confused.   I am all of those things too.  With all due respect, I like the deviants more than the brown-nosing rule-followers.  They’re more fun. 

So the next time someone implies that you should or shouldn’t do something, think about YOU.  Be selfish for a second.  If the thing you’re doing is heroin, you should probably stop before you overdose; but if you’re just being you, flaws and all, then fuck ‘em.  Do what you want. 

The Selfish Gene

The teenage mind is so cruel.  So much feeling, and so little concern for the feelings of other people.  As an adult, a parent, it’s so hard to understand how your own child can be so mean, so selfish, so cruel, and then turn around and want something from you the next day, the next minute. 

EVERYONE’S life is hard.  Teenagers don’t have the market on suffering.  We all suffer, some of us more than others.  And when the people who love you show absolute indifference to your suffering, yet want you to acknowledge their own … well, something’s got to give. 

Caring is a two-way street, even when it’s parent and child.  Learning how to give and take is the crux of human relations, and if I haven’t taught my children how to empathize with their own mother, or their own siblings, then how can I possibly expect them to do it with the world at large?

Unfortunately, my children are all pretty good at faking their way through the motions with other people.  OTHER people get the common respect that I don’t get.  Other people, complete strangers, get treated better than their siblings, who can apparently be treated with contempt and disrespect all the time, just because they’re related. 

I don’t know the key to parenting.  I think all parents try to fake their way through the process of parenting, HOPING that their kids will turn out to be decent, critical thinking human beings.  Maybe that’s all we can hope for – that our kids are empathetic and kind and smart. 

I know my kids have potential that far exceeds what they put forth every day, but that was true of me too when I was younger.  I wish there was a magic, applicable formula to assist my children in the process of growing up, but there is no such thing. 

Carry on.  Try to inspire.  Try to be kind. 

And then, just breathe.  

Tailor Made

 To tailor:  to fashion or adapt to a particular taste, purpose, or need.

Here is the essence of rhetoric:  to tailor your words to fit a specific audience’s specific taste, purpose, or need.  This tailoring is the crux of language.  In order to write, a person must know to whom they are writing and what the purpose of his or her writing is.  Why is it important?  Because (besides body language) the only form of expression and communication people have is … words. 

Unless a person is writing words is diary form, there is an audience.  And let’s not kid ourselves, even a diary is sometimes read by other people.  (Diary of Anne Frank… and a hundred other examples here)  When a person puts words to paper (or words to twitter or facebook or Instagram or reddit, or whatever) other people are going to read those words.  If you have a diary, and (god forbid) you die, your parents, friends, and significant others are going to read your diary.  Other people will read the words you write.  Even if you are speaking, chances are, other people are listening.  They might remember, record, or even screen-shot your words. 

Listen: 

Be careful.  People are listening.

Every person who hears or reads any words has a personal filter, through which they interpret those words.  It doesn’t matter what your intent was, if other people don’t understand what you are saying.  The ultimate objective is to be heard in the way which you intended to be heard.  When a writer of anything (fiction, nonfiction, tweets, posts, instant messages, or emails) writes something, the sole objective is to be heard in the manner in which they are speaking.  So very often, communication is misinterpreted.  We may have the most genuine of intentions, but if our tone is ambiguous, the recipient doesn’t know exactly what we mean to say.  Obviously, language is extremely important.  Sometimes, we can fool other people simply by the way we look (professional, cute, sexy, indifferent), but the bottom line with language is that when an individual cannot present themselves in person, we are left with the impression their words leave us. 

Never underestimate the power of words.

Think about all of the things you have read, and consider how those things affected you.  How does a “twitter war” get started?  With words.  Somebody says something argumentative or ambiguous or hateful, and the volley ensues.  Back and forth – he said, she said.  The words, the language, snowballs into gossip and confrontations and hearsay.  Very likely, no one wins in a twitter war, because no one is really listening.  They puke their words onto a social medium and think it’s done. 

Listen:

It’s never done.

Everything a person says or does in America 2015 is likely to be heard, repeated, and judged.  Never think that you are simply spewing words into cyberspace, because other people are out there, bored out of their skulls, looking for something to retweet or repost.  The unseen minions are working overtime.

This may sound Big Brother-ish, but it’s plain and simple truth.  What a person puts on the internet in 2015 will forever remain a part of the internet until death do us part.  Words are irrevocable.  Even if those words are said in the sanctity of a break up in your basement, the person to who you said those words will remember what you said and how you said it and how it made them feel.

Be careful. 

With language comes power.

Death and Taxes

Obviously, I didn't die this morning, or I wouldn't be posting on this blog right now.

My reward for having my heart NOT explode was completing the FAFSA just now.  I'm not going to lie, I made myself a mimosa before I even logged on to the computer, because I figure filling out any government document requires at least a champagne cocktail to make the process less agitating.

College ranting ensues ...

My child has been accepted to every school he has applied to, except the University of Chicago (where he was wait listed), and those pretentious bastards at UC can (in the words of the late Kurt Vonnegut) go take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut.

But as anyone who is trying to go to college (or trying to put someone through college) knows, getting accepted is the easy part.  It's PAYING for college that's a huge pain in the ass.  Every college has mailed us some wildly hyperbolic scholarship announcement with its acceptance letter, declaring how much money he has been awarded, based on his "exceptional academic achievement" or "superior leadership skills", yet none of them comes even close to paying full tuition.  The last letter was from the University of Oregon, which proclaimed a "$36,000 Summit Scholarship ... recognizing students who have reached the peak of high school achievement" !  The "peak"??  Jesus H.  I hope he can do better than what was expected of him in high school ...  Anyway, it breaks down to $9,000 per year - of the $32,000 yearly tuition.  So, yeah.  Not helpful.

And right now, he is down at Creighton, sucking up to the College of Business Administration, because they gave him a similar (though more substantial) scholarship for business and leadership.  Today and tomorrow is a competition for a bigger tuition prize.

I wonder, should he just start doing a circus act to  get their attention and money??  Light himself on fire in front of the chapel?  Because I don't have any prominent Omaha business connections - I chose to be a teacher.  My connections are all 16 years old.

Northwestern accepted him, but offered no scholarships.  It's $65,500 per year.  ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME??   I don't care how cool Northwestern is or what a nuanced, progressive, substantial kind of university they have over there in Evanston, NOTHING is worth $65.000, unless it's real estate.  And of course, once you've seen the campus, and seen how incredibly cool it is, you want to go there.  They get you with the little things.  None of that matters for us, of course, because I can't afford such a debaucherous expenditure, but apparently a lot of people can, because Northwestern turns people away every single year.

What is the point here?  (Good question.)  College is necessary, but not everyone can afford it.  So because colleges charge such exorbitant rates to attend, they create a defining class system in the United States.  Those who CAN, and those who CAN'T afford to mortgage their entire futures on loans which MAY or MAY NOT pay off in future job opportunities and salaries get separated more and more with each graduating class.

As a teacher, I have to be the catalyst for changing this horribly broken and predatory system.  How?  I don't know.  But I'm open to suggestions... In the meantime, I'll keep getting my students excited and prepared for a future they probably can't afford.

Heart Rhythms

I woke up this morning to a tachycardic heart beat.  My heart is beating so fast that I can barely work this keyboard in the phone, bc my whole body moves with my heart.  I'm dizzy and nauseous and faint.  I just want it to stop.
This has happened before.  I'm not sure what causes it, but it definitely feels like impending death.  It WILL be death if it doesn't stop.
When it happens I have to think about how long I can stand it before I head to the emergency room.  I don't want to go to the hospital, bc it will cost about $2000 - I know from experience.
I also don't want to tell anyone in my house until it's absolutely necessary, bc I don't want to freak them out.  But I am very freaked out.  My heart feels like it's going to explode. 
What's maybe even worse is right now, when my heart has been beating so fast for about a half hour now,  and my heartbeat gets faint.   I can't feel it as well in my carotid.   I worry, which probably isn't helpful to a chaotic heart.
If this is the time - if I die this morning ...

Sorry, I don't have an end to that sentence.  I'm going to nestle with my daughter while she sleeps. 
Be kind.

Teaching (Plus 8 Other Jobs)

                I am a teacher.  I am a parent.  I am a coach.  These three things rarely conflict, but they always intersect.   With one of my kids attending the high school where I teach and another one attending our feeder junior high, it’s quite impossible for the worlds not to collide.  Most of the time, I don’t even think about it; I don’t think my kids are mortified by my presence in their school district, nor am I embarrassed by their (sometimes outrageous) personalities in my place of work.  So the whole thing is kind of symbiotic; I like it. 

                One of the many overlaps is sports-related.  I could go on a very long (and tedious) rant about that whole shit-fest right now, but I won’t.  Here’s what I want to talk about:  TIME. 

                Simply driving my kids to their various sporting events and then sitting on my ass for hours at a time is exhausting.  I realize that I’m not actually doing physical activity during these sporting events, but there is something intrinsically draining about sitting on a metal bench and cheering on a bunch of teenagers with a ball. 

                Anyway, I digress.  Yesterday, I took my 13-year-old to three basketball games (she plays for four different teams), and then all the feeder teams were invited to watch the varsity girls’ basketball game, followed by a pizza party.  Fun stuff, right?  I actually dropped my child off at the high school, went home, felt like an asshole for not attending the “party”, and drove back to the school.  I watched the varsity girls’ game, and then everyone ate pizza, and then we watched the boys’ varsity game.  Sum total for the day = about 10 hours. 

                That’s not my point, though.  I had children, so I don’t get to complain about their activities.

                My point is that when we went to the high school basketball games and the pizza party (in the cafeteria, so, at the high school) I saw about 30 other teachers there.  They were taking tickets when I walked in the door, they were supervising the different games happening in the building, they were coming back from other games/tournaments/events with their extracurricular events, they were selling concessions, they were sponsoring their cheerleaders/dance team/step squad members, and they were supporting their own kids, who happened to be playing in those games. 

                Bottom line:  being a teacher means that you are sucked into the vortex of high school almost all day, all the time.  A lot of those teachers were doing the extra hours simply because it pays well, and they don’t make enough actually educating people to pay their bills and/or get ahead.  We don’t get to just go home at the end of the day and leave work at work, because the very nature of our job requires more than just showing up 9-5.

                The guy who coached the varsity girls’ basketball team tonight, for example, didn’t just spend an hour at the school during that game.  He spends five days a week running practice, and dozens of hours every week watching film in order to coach properly.  And then he’s got to do the bro-huddle bullshit that comes with any coaching position, where he kisses the asses of the principals and the athletic director and the athletes’ parents. 

                On and on and on … until teachers spend one too many days on a bus, missing their OWN children’s activities, and then they quit out of utter frustration and exhaustion.  Our current public school system model sucks.  No other jobs requires that kind of personal sacrifice for such mediocre pay.   And if a person wants a teaching job (especially in high school), they will commit to sponsoring a club or sport.  Period. 

                Well done, America.  Way to have your priorities straight.