I try not to ponder, very often, the irrelevance of a MFA in creative writing. I try not to picture myself emerging at the end of my schooling in my mid-thirties, qualified only for the same soul-suffocating jobs I've worked my entire life. I try not to dwell on the fact that, like a PhD, a MFA is considered a "terminal" degree, a hopeless disease for which I'll spend a few years studying.
Many years ago a MFA may have helped the writer land a college-level teaching position. But those days are long gone. More and more schools are discovering that a graduate writing program can be a dependable source of revenue, and like the algae that spread over my neglected childhood aquarium these programs have proliferated. I counted twenty-six ads for MFA programs in the most recent issue of "Poets and Writers" magazine, each ad promising that aspiring writers such as myself will "find your voice". And with each new program more over-educated writers are let loose upon the choked marketplace.
Publication, along with education, has become the new minimum qualification for college-level teaching jobs. A well-regarded book or two will get you a job faster than any degree.
I don't even know if I'd like teaching. I haven't had the experience. But since teaching is one of the few career paths available to the writer, I often wonder lately if I'd make a helpful presence at the front of a classroom, or if my anxieties about everything I don't know would cause me to jerk about like a demented puppet before the bewildered students.
The other night I dreamt, for the first time, that I was a teacher. Or that I was trying to teach. There's a difference. I dreamt that I was teaching writing to a group of young boys. There were only ten students, proof that it was just a fantasy. About five of them were actually paying attention to me. This seemed like good odds for the situation, so I was working it to the best of my ability.
My agenda for the class was to teach them about adverbs and adjectives. One of the most common pieces of writing advice given out is that strong sentences contain as few of each as possible. A little websurfing brought me to a decent example. First, the bad sentence:
"Making a strange high-pitched noise, the small figure moved very awkwardly away from the dead body of his master."
Then the better sentence: "Squealing, the dwarf stumbled from his master's corpse."
There are exceptions to this rule, of course, but for beginning students it's a pretty safe concept to introduce. In the dream I passed around copies of a book review written by a former student.
"Now what I want you to do," I said, walking among the desks, " is to cut out all of the superfluous words." The few boys who were paying attention to me furrowed their brows. I kept repeating these directions, over-pronouncing "superfluous" as if through careful diction I could impart the meaning. "Cross out all of the words that aren't necessary. Cross out the adjectives and the adverbs." I was warming up, determined to mold this motley gang into a disciplined group of young Hemingways. "We're pruning each sentence like a tree, down to its essence. So if the sentence reads 'The brown dog barked crazily,' then we edit till it reads, simply, 'The dog barked'."
Meanwhile strange events were unfolding. As I wandered among the desks I noticed that the class was changing behind my back. I'd turn to find that more students and desks had sprouted up behind me. And the students themselves were growing older, bit by bit, till the class was comprised almost entirely of adults, some of whom I knew in real life. One second there'd be a half-empty row of fidgeting preadolescents. The next second I'd turn to find the row full of friends and co-workers. Bearbait, dressed smartly in a black shirt, was bent over his desk, pencil in hand, staring at the sheet of paper and its paragraph.
I circled the class like a seasoned pro. But anxieties were devouring me from within. Who was I to teach anything? I was walking a tightrope; with each uncertain step my arms pinwheeled for balance. I paced about with a queasy smile frozen around my words, convinced that if I just kept moving nobody could pin me down as a fraud.
"Superfluous," I repeated.
A few minutes passed like this, the students slashing away at the paragraph before them, the desks filling behind my back with older students. When I had decided that enough time had passed, I asked Bearbait to read his edited paragraph. He reddened slightly and glared at me. I pleaded silently with him. I needed to make him an example. He glanced down at his page and began to read aloud hesitantly. And as he read I realized, with regret, that he had succeeded at the task. He had crossed out all of the adverbs and adjectives. He was not helping. I needed a mistake to demonstrate the principle, but he was giving me none. Until the end, when he read aloud the last sentence; "I enjoyed this excellent book."
"A ha!" I cried out in spite of myself. I took his mistake and ran for it. "What word needs to be cut in that last sentence, class?" Bearbait blushed again and I turned away from his reproach. The class was quiet, but I felt a palpable energy from them, a hunger of sorts. Each of them toed the line of their uncertainty. I turned slowly, scanning the class. And now every desk was occupied. It was standing room only. They watched me expectantly, their numbers increasing with each of my deliberate steps. And I realized, with a start, that underneath my nerves something thrummed, something threadbare yet alive. I turned, withholding the answer for another second, pride tearing through my desperate disguise.
7:13 PM | link
Tuesday, June 22, 2004
The other day, while waiting at Burgermeister for my to-go order, I picked up the local gay rag, paging through it distractedly. And there among the ubiquitous phone sex ads was something a little different:
"HUSBAND WANTED!
We represent a handsome GWM HIV-, age 51, 6'0" with brown hair and eyes with a muscular build. As a physician in San Francisco, he loves travel, good food, volunteering, independent films and dogs. He's looking for a man in his 30's to 40's, slim, energetic, and adventurous. Are you warm, caring and spiritually aware? If you enjoy watching pro football that's a plus! Respond to Ad Code 2663. (Never a charge to respond - FREE).
Find him at:
GAY MILLIONAIRES CLUB
Free memberships to exceptional men ages 21-35.
www.gaymillionairesclub.com"
Yeah, right. Like he actually volunteers.
We are now officially as lame as straight people. Yay, team.
3:10 AM | link
Monday, June 21, 2004
I had a dream last night that Jennie started blogging again, which gave me mixed feelings as I had told her (in real life) that I wanted to write a sort of tribute now that she's gone and retired with such grace. And by blogging again she would subvert the power of this tribute. But I'd get over it eventually because she'd be writing again and it would make me happy. Which is not the point, really, because sometimes people figure out when to leave the party and I'll admit that I've rarely been one of those people. Usually I'm the last to join the party, if I ever leave the house at all.
And my first few attempts at a tribute turned out mawkish, like I'd shoplifted a really bad Hallmark card and tried to pass it off as original. And that wouldn't do. Because Jennie is never mawkish, which is one of the things I love about her, that I can be all dramatic and sentimental in a late-night e-mail and she'll write back and delicately put all my drama in perspective.
I didn't know what to write. So I spent an entire day last week going through her archives and culling some of my favorite bits, because rather than telling you how great she is I'd rather just show you. I could paste thousands of her words here but instead I'll just paste a couple of things and then recommend that you check out certain posts, such as the one about a preadolescent Dungeons and Dragons game where the half-elven ranger paladin and the thief and the mage-warrior ended up in a gang-bang. Which sounds horny and offensive but then it takes a turn and she'll write a line that devastates you: "I kiss her gently until she wakes up and bandage her wounds."
And you should really read the post about the other life she imagines for herself, a life that both creeped me out and exhilarated me because I had imagined something similar.
And you should read the post about a day in New York one year after 9/11. And the one about dharma talks and yummy muffins. And you should DEFINITELY read the one about the locker room confrontation. Seriously.
And I love it when she describes New York:
It happens mostly on the subway, or anytime I'm physically in transition. When my head is silent (never silent. I pray 24/7) and I am in the massive throbbing heart of New York travelling from point A to B. The emotion is kindness. What I'm describing is the bassline of the city's hum. The fugue on to which the counterpoint of the city rests. I tend to feel it more in the cold months when everybody is wrapped in wools and overcoats and snuggle together on the trains. when everyone is a fire worth standing next to. During spring and summer it has a more erotic tinge to it, but it's still the same thing. It's kindness. Get safely to where you are going. You can see the animal looks of hurt or stalk returning as everyone files out on to the street. The agoraphobes in many. god, alone again under the sky.
Last night, on my way over to the triangle building on 14th, there was a guy sitting on the church steps talking to someone urgently, fiercely. He was talking to a banana. Phoning someone or whatever from a banana. Do you see the extremes we do? Anything that works. Make contact, please. Save yourself.
And this one:
Dad, after his *Near Death Experience* (the "*" approximates twee new age flute music), 1 whole week later or so; I have been getting nonstop chat calls from dad. At work. On my celly. On the subway. In the bathroom. Before bed. In the Morning. After work, During Dinner. Conversations are him talking at me about his daily routine, bandage changing, doctor's visits, phone calls he has received, who called, when they called, phone calls NOT received, and when said cretins didn't call. movies he's watched, things he's thought about "it was almost my time; i feel like I have a new lease", a recap in detail of the fateful day, the days up to the operation, final thoughts before he went under general anesthetic.
He DOES have a wife, I think. Still. Maybe? yes. I'm sure of it.
Up shot: he is keeping TABS and TABULATIONS on who "gives a shit". I apparently didn't call "enough" and Dad gets the Voice. The plaintive, whiney, aggressively castigating Voice. "It hurt my feelings that Grandma, your brothers, whoever, whover called and you just didn't give a shit. I ALMOST DIED."
No, you didn't almost die. You had a staff infection that was IMMEDIATELY taken care of. You got ALL SORTS OF ATTENTION. AND YES, I CARE OF COURSE I CARE YOU BIG OX. He's my dad. I care, believe me.
I yelled at my brother "I called LOTS."
(pause)
"He's making such a big deal about it. I had a SOFTBALL IN MY ASS."
What it actually was, was an unfortunate incident in Jamaica, where I obliviously sat on an unlaminated boat and got fiberglass slivers all in my butt. They got infected. I had a horrible softball size pus boil on my butt. and that was just the largest. there were many. I went to the hospital thinking I would never get my ass back.
I yell at my brother out the window "They cut me like a COW."
And the one that sort of wrecked me for the day:
I was coming home from work and there was a young woman, about 27 but she looked 14. It was a large empty car and when we got on she took a seat right next to me. She wasn't particularly noticeable for any reason, in fact if you scanned around the car she would have blended in with the drab mauves and oranges. She was real hunched and felt... tired. exhausted. She was like a little bird. I was totally preoccupied and couldn't think past "why is she sitting on top of me" which she practically was. There was nothing sexual about it; it was more one of those moments when you flash annoyance when someone comes a little too far into your hula hoop. so i switched seats to the other side of the car. She looked heartbroken. I mean when i really focused on her she looked so frail. I felt so bad for adding to her shitty day that I started crying. I can be so cruel it's mind-boggling.
And finally, this one:
...sara got into the truck with ranger bob on lonely highway 21. it was only 15 or so minutes but it irrevocably changed me. take nothing for granted. not the stars, not the dog sitting next to you, not the soft sounds outside and down below on the river, not the horses nickering when i went out to see if they were okay, and especially not the girl who disappeared around the bend and into an unknown night.
Earlier in the day, we had gone up the trail to fix the water system, we found a frog who had gotten caught in the drain mesh, halved almost. He was struggling to get out and weak and disoriented. We spent half an hour gently getting him out. Little things. the way we ride together, up through the logging roads and the hills beyond the creek... the way she rides is beautiful.
take nothing for granted. Not the feeling, that creeps up so quietly, so finally, as the deep comfort of life all around, cradling me. Not the feeling that two horses needed care and calming and speaking to in low voices. In the deepest part of my worst fears, that's life too. Love is even in the black high darkness of a cool night, in phobic terror, That Malcolm was even more flipped out by Sara's sudden disappearance than I was, and in the deafening sentience of the darkness. I could almost hear the soft, low chuckle of whatever: silly girl, so this is lonliness. I hope that explains something. if nothing else, maybe something about me. Oh, of course we were going to get back to Boise, all of us together, and we did by 9 o'clock the next morning after Ben came by at 4:30 in the morning in the marrakesh express van, with tofu pups and cheese and water and coffee and most importantly, again at 7 am with 4 spare tires... but if you listen, like I was forced to, for the 15 minutes that Sara was somewhere else where i didn't know and couldn't get to, you can hear the sounds of the world, and they fill you and hold you and even tell a joke or two. and it tells you in no uncertain terms what your heart is and who (the stars, sara, the river, the animals, the people who helped us, the world) you serve.
Maybe you can see now, what I was up against, trying to describe how I felt about Jennie's site. I came to it like a desperate, dusty pilgrim to a shrine off the trail. On whose walls were written words; mysterious, ecstatic, and wholly original. And sometimes they confounded me, and sometimes they gave me comfort.
And the day I pored through her archives reminded me, sometimes, of past conversations.
jennie: what did people do at work before the internet?
michael: that's when they were photo-copying their butts.
No, seriously. It can be lovely, seeing yourself set down in memory. Jennie is the friend who says things about you that you remember for the rest of your life. The friend who describes you in a way you want to live up to. Which is a selfish thing, on my part. But sometimes it's like that, we like the people who make us feel more important than we fear we are; important like we secretly hope we are.
And sometimes when I write I imagine specific people, and I write for them. Because I want them to like what I'm writing, because what they think matters to me. And Jennie is one of them. Or rather, the one I imagine most often.
And if I've written something here that sounds like a really bad Hallmark card then I offer my apology. Some people I can't articulate. I could never do them justice. Some people, I just give up, and I thank my lucky stars. Make contact. Save yourself.
5:23 PM | link
Thursday, June 10, 2004
Last week at a restaurant I saw some graffiti in the bathroom. It read:
If one does not love too much, then one does not love enough.
Underneath someone else had scrawled Shut Up.
Thank you, I thought.
Tonight I came home to find several e-mails waiting for me. I think it must mean something (I don't know what) that I rarely get e-mails from people disagreeing with something I've written, or being just plain rude. It probably just means that I write more about personal and not political issues.
Interestingly enough, I wrote a much longer draft of yesterday's post, a draft that dealt more with the Reagan/AIDS issue that is currently raging through blogdom. Between sentences I was surfing, reading other bloggers' opinions, other editorials, other message boards. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that I've never seen such a heated debate (that's the polite word). Seems like Reagan's death has pulled scabs off old wounds, wounds that never healed quite right.
It's easy to stay within my little blog-buddy circle and think that most bloggers have similar political beliefs as I do. But that's such a fallacy. Just a little Googling of Reagan and AIDS will prove otherwise. After reading so many articulate opinions on either side of the debate, I got a little overwhelmed, and confused. And in the end I think it's fair to say that I was a coward, and I deleted most of my post and quoted someone else.
Obviously some of the people who e-mailed me tonight disagreed with Michael Bronski, the man I quoted. Some people thought it was rude (or undemocratic, even) for me not to have comments enabled on my site, where they could tell me what they thought of my indirect opinions. A couple of people called me names. One person questioned the veracity of my relationship with Alfredo, the guy in Nicaragua who was killed. Which was strange, as that had nothing to do with my point (which was that Reagan broke the law and was not, in my book, a hero). But it still stung.
Here's the thing about comments: I used to have them. And I used to love them. I checked them constantly, and I gauged the worth of that day's writing by the response I got. Or the lack of response. Then I started to have technical problems with the comments, and I went through a few weeks of trying various applications with mixed results. But I think the final straw came when I posted this rather long, very heartfelt story that I had poured much of my energy and emotional self into. And later I checked the comments where someone had written "Oh my God! I USED TO LIVE IN MINNESOTA TOO!!!"
That was it. That was when I realized that I had comments for all the wrong reasons.
It was painful, for awhile, to live without them, to not have them to check in on, to not have them as validation for my efforts. But eventually I came to appreciate the simplicity of my site. And I appreciated that having to respond by e-mail made the conversations I had with others more interesting and insightful. It may be more honest to say that I'm probably just a control freak, and I don't want inane comments tainting my precious site. Sorry, folks, this is a Cheerocracy.
Maybe it is undemocratic of me to express my opinion without letting others comment. But frankly this whole issue illustrates why I am drawn more and more to books, where the author has the space and the time to create a little world, or an extended argument, books that allow for depth of detail and insight rare in the Land of Short Attention Spans. Books that deal with ambiguity. With the author's own weaknesses or questionable motives. I'm just so tired of everyone on the Internet always being so RIGHT. Myself included. I hate writing short posts, which is where I almost always falter on my soapbox, or soak in my own pretentious sentimentality. I write short posts so that people won't think I've quit blogging. So they'll keep reading. Which is fucked up. Yesterday's post didn't do justice to the thoughts and feelings I really have about Reagan and AIDS. After all, I wrote my undergraduate thesis on the "Sociological Effects of AIDS on Gay Men", back in 1993 (when I was a tad precocious. Unlike today). So a few sentences won't work. I'm beginning to realize that I'm not particularly well-suited to the Internet, as much as I love its freedom.
Here I am, back on the soapbox. Time to climb down and get some sleep. Nite, Johnboy.
12:25 AM | link
Tuesday, June 08, 2004
My students ask me how all of this could have happened. They are all smart, they understand politics, they understand the fear of AIDS, they understand how complicated and confusing history and life can be. But they cannot understand such indifference, even when politically motivated. I told one of my students that the most memorable Reagan AIDS moment for me was at the 1986 centenary rededication of the Statue of Liberty. The Reagans were there sitting next to French President Francois Mitterand and his wife, Danielle. Bob Hope was on stage entertaining the all-star audience. In the middle of a series of one-liners Hope quipped, "I just heard that the Statue of Liberty has AIDS but she doesn't know if she got it from the mouth of the Hudson or the Staten Island Fairy." As the television camera panned the audience, the Mitterands looked appalled. The Reagans were laughing. -Michael Bronski, The Truth About Reagan and AIDS
My first reaction, upon hearing of Reagan's death on Saturday, was oh great, now we have to hear about how wonderful he was for the next month.
Of course my resentment against Reagan is personal. His administration secretly sold arms to Iran and used the money to fund the Contras in Nicaragua, an army that was extremely unpopular in that country. I know everyone's sick of hearing it, but I visited Nicaragua a couple of times in high school, which is where I had my first crush, a 17 year old boy who was later killed by the Contras. I don't think "hero" when I hear Reagan's name. On the contrary, he makes my stomach turn.
8:12 PM | link
Some vacation photos here. With maybe some stories to follow.
I tend to have one or two close friendships, rather than a wide circle. More than one or two and I begin to feel a little too spread thin. But for those one or two friendships I'll devote myself wholeheartedly. This tendency of mine to put all my eggs in one basket has its serious disadvantages; during times of conflict, for example, which are bound to happen when one focuses so intently on another. Or worse, when one of us moves away. My best buddy Brian moved down to L.A. yesterday, and I'm more than a little bummed. I won't have our Monday and Friday and Saturday and the occasional Sunday nights to look forward to anymore. I'm a creature of habit, more than I care to admit, and those conversations over a cheap dinner in the Castro sustained me over the last year and a half. I know I'm moving to New York in a couple of months, and I know we'll stay friends, but I've got that stupid Bananarama song "Cruel Summer" in my head. The flipside to the disadvantages, of course, is that such a good friendship pays off enormous dividends. Brian is like a brother to me, such that for once the words fail me.
Most of the time I'm damn excited about the life headed my way. But every day I get a glimpse of it, the enormity of the change, and I think oh my God...
12:16 AM | link
