Tag: rant

My Writing is Awful and I’m Awful

Pavowski7 Comments

Seriously, what the hell made me think this is something I could do in the first place?

What started as an exciting adventure, a fun foray into a sunlight- and flower-filled valley where things are hunky and dory and smell like candy and everything feels like soft velvet for some reason is turning to ash.  The beautiful butterflies are turning into bloodsucking bats.  The fragrant flowers are a thicket of thorny thistles.  The brilliant, redeeming sun is covered over with clouds the color of sick and despair.

This, on the day after I had a really quite lovely session of writing.  Words came easy, metaphors bloomed like so many daisies, the story was clear, and now the path is filled with bear traps.  And bears.  Who are surprisingly good at avoiding traps.

Do all writers suffer these vicious mood swings?  These vertigo-inducing changes in perspective and confidence and certainty?  I am trying hard to remember that it’s okay if the first draft sucks, that anything and everything can be changed in the edit — lead can be turned to gold, nonsensical plot turns into natural progressions, sharknado into sandwiches — but damned if the howler monkey of doubt isn’t getting the better of me today.

I’m trying to find ways to downplay this sense of dread and inadequacy.  Trying to find parallels so that I can convince myself that it’s not so bad, that tomorrow is another day and that Future Me is a capable chap who can right all the wrongs I’m putting on the page.  Like…

This might be like stage fright, where I’ve spent weeks learning lines and blocking and running scenes with my fellow actors and now on the eve of performance I look out past the footlights into the sea of waiting faces like so many piranhas with their gleaming teeth and I freeze up and forget my lines.  Except this is not stage fright.  There is no pivotal performance, no impending moment at which I must either demonstrate everything I’ve worked for or be revealed as a fraud and a charlatan (bonus points, self, for using the word “charlatan”).  No, I have as much time as it takes to get this story right before I put it out there into the world.  Hmm.  That feels better.

No, rather this is like I’m a chef who’s studied for years and years and souffle’d lots of things that get baked into souffles and fricasee’d lots of things that get fricasee’d, whatever the hell a fricasee is.  So then I make this monstrously big fricasee souffle except it’s actually made of dogsharknado because I ran out of other ingredients and this big food critic is coming into the restaurant tonight and he’s going to review my dogsharknado fricasee souffle and it’s going to be awful, really the worst thing ever, but I had to serve him SOMETHING, didn’t I?  Except, no, there is no food critic except myself, and I have time to go to the grocery store and get more ingredients instead of serving up hot fricaseed dogsharknado on a plate.  Okay, yeah, that’s better, too.

Even here, on the blarg, where there are virtually — no, scratch that — LITERALLY no requirements or standards except that I remain more or less honest and attempt to amuse myself, I am feeling overwhelmed by feelings of inadequacy and self-deprecation.  That last post was boring, I didn’t use enough colorful descriptions, I’m just describing things as they are, nobody’s going to care to read it, I’m even boring myself to tears.  I didn’t even post 1000 words — THIS POST ISN’T EVEN 1000 WORDS — WHERE HAVE ALL MY WORDS GONE?  Except, wait a minute, the blarg is for me and me alone, to help me deal with these roadblocks: if people who are not me read it and enjoy it, that’s just a bonus.  If I’m being truthful and letting the writer-flag fly, as it were, then the blarg is serving its purpose.  Okay, yeah, I’m actually feeling much better.

All this will be better in the morning.  It will.  The draft will be finished in two weeks.  I can do anything for two weeks.  Even, perhaps, steer this storm-shattered ship to safety (alliteration x5, bonus points whee!)

Yeah, it’s feeling much better now.

What Day Is It, Even? (Or, a teacher’s ode to Summertime)

Pavowski1 Comment

I mentioned several posts ago how babies are basically localized black-holes that wander through your house and crash into your coffee table, sucking up space-time and stuffing stale Cheerios in their mouths, those slobbery, germy little event horizons.  So time has no meaning in my house at all right now.  Basically, if it’s daylight out, we try to remember to eat and wash the stale sweat off ourselves.  If it’s dark out, we try to put the kids in their beds so that we can put ourselves in our beds.

But that’s life as a new (repeat) parent.  (As soon as I typed “repeat” before parent, just there, it immediately struck me that the phrase was not so very different from “repeat offender.”  Which is horribly apt.  Parents of multiple children should be referred to as repeat offenders: obviously they didn’t learn their lesson the first time around and they need to go into the penalty box again.  The penalty box filled with poop, urine, vomit and tears.)  I’m down with that.  Trouble is, I’m also a teacher, and for teachers, a similar phenomenon takes place annually.Read More »

Matriculate This

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Here we are, the last day of school.

Not for all of you, I understand.  Many of you no doubt left school behind many years ago and never looked back.  Me, I got sucked back in and am now helping (?) today’s students to leave school in their rear view mirrors.  High school at least.

It’s a weird feeling.  I’ve been a teacher for three years before this year, but this is my first time teaching students who are actually graduating and actually leaving conventional schooling behind.  But don’t worry, I’m not going to wax rhapsodic or philosophic or catatonic about the joys and mysteries of teaching.

Rather, inspired by a colleague of mine, I’m going to share a letter I’m writing to a student.  Not a specific student.  But rather, I’m writing to that student.  That student that every teacher knows, that student who, in fact, everybody in the building knows, and whom we are not allowed to tell what we actually think of him (or her).

Again, I don’t feel this way for 99% of my students. This one is special.

Buckle up.

Psst.  Hey.  You.  Yeah, you.  I need to tell you something.

You’re graduating today, and that’s fantastic.  Really, I’m happy for you, and that’s not facetiery.  Yes, I just made that word up.  If you can’t figure out what it means, maybe you need to take my class again.  Anyway, hand to my heart, I’m happy for you.  But not for the reason you think.

No, I’m happy because it means I’m done with you.  I know, I know.  You’re done with me, too, and you’re done with all of your teachers and blah, blah, blah.  But I just want you to understand the depths of my feelings on the matter.  See, you think you know about hating somebody.  You’re, what, eighteen years old?  And you think you hate this teacher or that ex-friend or whoever for something they “did” to you.  But you don’t know what that word means.  I’m over thirty.  I’ve lived through enough situations to know the many subtle levels, the onion-peels of unpleasantry that can stink up a relationship between two people.  I know about dislike, about frustration, about disappointment, about mistrust, I know about shock and betrayal, I know about that thing you get with people where you can’t quite put your finger on it but man, does that person grate your nerves, and what I feel for you is none of those things.  Or, maybe to be more fair, it’s all of those things, and the English language just sadly does not have the proper Word for all of that yet.

What I have for you is an adult hatred, and I’m a little embarrassed to say that, because it feels like a failing on my part.  I shouldn’t feel this way about a young person.  I shouldn’t let the actions of somebody with enough experience to fill a teacup get the better of my emotions, but you’ve done it, and for that I suppose you deserve some sort of commendation.

You’ve lied.  I know it and you know it.  You’ve lied to me, to your parents, to your other teachers, probably to the administrators too, about matters great and small, significant and shallow, for ends as lofty as getting extra time on an assignment and as pitiful as running to the restroom.

You’ve cheated.  I know it and you know it.  You’re not as smart as the grade you’ve earned, and I know that you have no idea what half of the words on that last Macbeth quiz even meant, but somehow you aced it and I just can’t prove otherwise.

You’ve manipulated.  I know it and you know it.  All the people you lied to, you lied to manipulate.  Whether to gain some bizarre psychological advantage or whether to just make yourself feel fancy, you managed to convince me to do something I didn’t want to do, whether it was letting you out of class or turning in an assignment late. 

You’ve disappointed me.  You had (have) so much potential, but it’s wasted in you right now, it really is.  You’ve had so many opportunities to do the right thing and chosen the other way, had so many chances to redeem yourself with me and let me down.  I just can’t take it anymore.

You’ve betrayed me.  Thanks to your lies, there was a time when I had your back and you didn’t know it.  A time when I put myself out there for you and stuck up for you, and you made me feel like a fool for it.

All of that’s bad enough, but you know what the worst part is?  The fact that you think it’s cool.  Even today, you came up to me and talked to me like we were old pals, you had the nerve to ask me a favor.  Pardon me for laughing in your face.  I just couldn’t help myself.

But all of that Sharknado between you and me?  It’s okay.  I’m angry with you, I’m furious with myself for letting you get the better of me, but it’s okay, because it’s passing.  Like a kidney stone, I’m pissing you out to flush you.  And when you cross that stage, we are done.

All of it means nothing.  The lies you told, the disappointments, the betrayals of trust, it’s all like so many mosquitoes trapped in amber.  Because you’re going into the real world now.  And when you try that Sharknado in the real world, it’s going to rebound on you harder than you can ever imagine.  You’re going to say the wrong thing to the wrong guy and get your asgard punched through a wall.  You’ll try to manipulate your boss at work and you’ll get fired in a heartbeat.  You’ll cheat your boss or you’ll cheat your wife or your friend and you’ll lose your job or your relationship or your last friend.  The world is not high school, and it’s going to be a rude awakening for you.

If I could torpedo one kid, if I could wave a wand and stop you from graduating, if I could blow up your life and your plans, I would do it.  I’d stand with my finger over the button, watching you squirm, beg, and plead, and I’d push it with relish and gusto.  But I can’t and I won’t.  Not for the reasons you think; not because I’m afraid of losing my job, not because I don’t have the authority.  It’s because I have integrity.  I know that’s another word you don’t understand because you don’t have it and can’t even conceive of it.  But it means I have a sense of personal responsibility, I have a sense of right and wrong, I have care and concern for the way my actions affect the world around me.  By whatever crooked means, by whatever disingenuous contrivance, you have earned your graduation and I wouldn’t stand in its way.  I can watch you go, safe in the knowledge that even though you won this round, your comeuppance is not far off.  Don’t know that word either?  Yeah, I thought not.

But there’s one last thing I want you to know.  As you look around yourself on this day, you’ll notice a lot of your classmates smiling, laughing, crying.  You might smile and laugh too, but not for the same reasons.  See, this has all been one big joke for you, and now it’s over, and the crowd is going home and going on with their lives, and you’ll have nobody left to tell your jokes to.  But if you look my way, you might just see me smile back for you one last time.  And that smile will be genuine.  Because this is the last time I have to see you.  And that fills me with a buoyant, radiant joy.

Have a nice life.

I feel better. Happier programming will return tomorrow. And in all seriousness, congrats to the class of 2014. I’ll miss most of you.

The ToeBags (or, Why Vibram FiveFingers Aren’t Evil) (or, There Is No Miracle Pill)

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If you’re anything of a running nerd like me, you’re probably aware that Vibram has received some dubious press of late, vis-a-vis a class-action lawsuit that went against them a few weeks back.  They are one purveyor — probably the biggest — of those barefoot-style shoes, the ones that look like fancy socks.  (My wife and I call them the Toe-Bags.)  They’re cashing in, hard, on the minimalist trend that’s coursing through the running community like an electric shock through Frankenstein’s monster.

Toe-Bags. Little bags for your toes.
Toe-Bags. Little bags for your toes.

Apparently Vibram made some claims about things their non-shoes can do without proper science to back it up.  And that’s not cool.  Sorry, if you’re selling a thing, it’s not okay to tell me that your thing can turn me into the ubermensch, make me able to leap tall buildings and sharknado like that, when it does none of those things.  If you’re doing that, as a company, shame on you.

However.

Vibram’s guilt in this goes only so far.  Read More »

Why Does It Have To Be Said? (Look After Your Kid, for God’s Sakes)

Pavowski1 Comment

You don’t go to an auto mechanic and then ask them to repair your back porch.  You don’t hire an interior decorator and then ask them to write your dissertation.  You don’t hire an exterminator and ask him to bake you a pie.  So why do people think that every place they go is in the childcare business?

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