Who
My dad was in town this week. What I want to remember is the man who reeled in a stingray on the Berkeley Pier; beer and Irish whiskey at Kezar watching the Giants/Dodgers, and the UEFA Championship; the bar was deep brown and polished; he explained to me that Caltrans sold the old section of the Bay Bridge to a city in Brazil where it'll span a river; we stepped into a doorway to avoid the wind; I had a feeling the question he would ask Murch would be strange and I was ready to jump any motherfucker that scoffed.
What
Tell me about your nights.
I always want to write this entry. One of my lightbulbs is out. I feel left.
Where
I've got pictures on my bulletin board of friends and family, some including me and some not, and no two are from the same city. The pictures are in Hales Corners, Chicago, San Francisco, Hong Kong, Boston, Seattle, Palo Alto, and Portland. This weekend I put on my desk a picture of Michelle driving a motorbike in Thailand, wearing a pink helmet and smiling. I was on the back of the bike, and it's the best picture. She's so happy, but she kept getting nervous when cars would pass. I didn't have a frame so I propped the picture between two rocks.
Why do I travel so much? There are things to learn everywhere, and to learn them where you already are, where things are familiar, must require greater attention, perception of subtlety, right? Is travelling a way to gain perspective, a new angle on myself? Is it a distraction, a delay in real hard work? Is it the best work?
"It is so much more difficult to get nearer to home than farther that most people become travellers." -James Richardson
When
I don't know, sometime in the last week, I've been reading Hemingway's short stories, and I've had trouble continuing because there's something fucking depressing about them, there's something there I'm not ready to face. Is there anything you can't face? Hemingway, he killed himself in 1961 with a gun he bought from Abercrombie and Fitch. This was when it was an outdoors store.
Why
You seem agitated recently.
Yeah, I mean, I've kind of decided to stop giving reasons for everything. People ask me questions and I need to have a reason for everything and I'm sick of it; I mean not my students but friends, peers, and... abstract questions.-- you know what I mean? Adam asks me, why don't you take your own advice? and I give an answer that's probably logical and articulate and clear with analogies and everything, but it's fucking fluff, it's pretty but it's an opiate not the truth, whatever that is, and it makes me sick; I'm using punctuation all wrong here (am I speaking?)
Isn't it unavoidable to have reasons?
Sure, but articulating them? Rick asked me once, he said "stop saying 'I don't know,'" but I don't fucking know. Particulary, I don't even know what my point is anymore...
Tell everyone about Brittney and Ivan.
I can't get this out of my head. Brittney is a student who failed my class first semester and has turned herself around. She got a C third quarter and was working on a B. She had a paper due on Thursday, she turned it in but had to leave to see her brother in the hospital. He'd been shot, couldn't breathe. Ivan's mother, his only parent, died recently. What do I do? Or maybe more to the point, can I do anything? I must not know their lives at all. I don't know what to do. But I'm working.
Do you think that maybe you focus on those things because they're so jarring, but they are really just things that happen and you shouldn't make a deal out of it any more than you would anything bad in the lives of your students?
Yeah... I mean, those cases grab my attention because they're extreme. But I know what you mean. I'm probably misdirecting my attention. I have a job to do and should continue to plan lessons, etc. That's my role in helping them. They're not my children. Though I did buy Ivan a binder for my class, but that was the right thing to do.
You bought new shoes recently.
Yes. And a sweater.
Why?
Are you kidding? I've been wearing the same shoes for six years. The sweater was a luxury, but I wanted a thick sweater for the city. I wear it to work, too.
Isn't life amazing?
Extremely.
My dad was in town this week. What I want to remember is the man who reeled in a stingray on the Berkeley Pier; beer and Irish whiskey at Kezar watching the Giants/Dodgers, and the UEFA Championship; the bar was deep brown and polished; he explained to me that Caltrans sold the old section of the Bay Bridge to a city in Brazil where it'll span a river; we stepped into a doorway to avoid the wind; I had a feeling the question he would ask Murch would be strange and I was ready to jump any motherfucker that scoffed.
What
Tell me about your nights.
I always want to write this entry. One of my lightbulbs is out. I feel left.
Where
I've got pictures on my bulletin board of friends and family, some including me and some not, and no two are from the same city. The pictures are in Hales Corners, Chicago, San Francisco, Hong Kong, Boston, Seattle, Palo Alto, and Portland. This weekend I put on my desk a picture of Michelle driving a motorbike in Thailand, wearing a pink helmet and smiling. I was on the back of the bike, and it's the best picture. She's so happy, but she kept getting nervous when cars would pass. I didn't have a frame so I propped the picture between two rocks.
Why do I travel so much? There are things to learn everywhere, and to learn them where you already are, where things are familiar, must require greater attention, perception of subtlety, right? Is travelling a way to gain perspective, a new angle on myself? Is it a distraction, a delay in real hard work? Is it the best work?
"It is so much more difficult to get nearer to home than farther that most people become travellers." -James Richardson
When
I don't know, sometime in the last week, I've been reading Hemingway's short stories, and I've had trouble continuing because there's something fucking depressing about them, there's something there I'm not ready to face. Is there anything you can't face? Hemingway, he killed himself in 1961 with a gun he bought from Abercrombie and Fitch. This was when it was an outdoors store.
Why
You seem agitated recently.
Yeah, I mean, I've kind of decided to stop giving reasons for everything. People ask me questions and I need to have a reason for everything and I'm sick of it; I mean not my students but friends, peers, and... abstract questions.-- you know what I mean? Adam asks me, why don't you take your own advice? and I give an answer that's probably logical and articulate and clear with analogies and everything, but it's fucking fluff, it's pretty but it's an opiate not the truth, whatever that is, and it makes me sick; I'm using punctuation all wrong here (am I speaking?)
Isn't it unavoidable to have reasons?
Sure, but articulating them? Rick asked me once, he said "stop saying 'I don't know,'" but I don't fucking know. Particulary, I don't even know what my point is anymore...
Tell everyone about Brittney and Ivan.
I can't get this out of my head. Brittney is a student who failed my class first semester and has turned herself around. She got a C third quarter and was working on a B. She had a paper due on Thursday, she turned it in but had to leave to see her brother in the hospital. He'd been shot, couldn't breathe. Ivan's mother, his only parent, died recently. What do I do? Or maybe more to the point, can I do anything? I must not know their lives at all. I don't know what to do. But I'm working.
Do you think that maybe you focus on those things because they're so jarring, but they are really just things that happen and you shouldn't make a deal out of it any more than you would anything bad in the lives of your students?
Yeah... I mean, those cases grab my attention because they're extreme. But I know what you mean. I'm probably misdirecting my attention. I have a job to do and should continue to plan lessons, etc. That's my role in helping them. They're not my children. Though I did buy Ivan a binder for my class, but that was the right thing to do.
You bought new shoes recently.
Yes. And a sweater.
Why?
Are you kidding? I've been wearing the same shoes for six years. The sweater was a luxury, but I wanted a thick sweater for the city. I wear it to work, too.
Isn't life amazing?
Extremely.
posted by DB at 9:32 PM
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