Author and Columnist
2002.01.25 Jenks is a terrible teacher. I do not say this lightly, having worked with many teachers. He is snide and arrogant. When you politely inform him you will not be taking his next class because you are switching majors to graduate on time, he replies with a nasty email about how you will never be a teacher because you once quietly slipped out to use the bathroom during one of his three-hour lectures. Of course, he carbon copies the head of the education department because he is a petty, vindictive man.
As noted, his teaching style involves long lectures that border on reading out of the textbook, which is as bland and juvenile as these things get. I cannot fathom how he got into the field of education.
Had he been a better teacher--had he been someone for whom students are other than nuisances in inquiring about the material--he might have tried to engage the class. He wouldn't have taken one look at you and formed a prejudice, as he did.
He may have improved since then. Maybe these were the actions of an immature teacher with much to learn.
Or maybe he is just an asshole. That's also an option.
He certainly was. I've also dealt with this overly deferential type, who--again--hates the students but will adhere to their nearest colleague's opinion.
Perhaps he is just anxious about speaking in front of a class. These actions read as those of an insecure man.
I want to say you are overreacting to him, but I've encountered so many Jenkses in my years.
If your only means of teaching is pretending to be an authoritarian, you have nothing. Teaching is a human services field, which means you need to work with the people in front of you and become a community. Who would want to be the despot of an introductory education class at a state college?
Inept. She is inept and apathetic to screwing up. She also signs you up for a class you already took because she didn't care enough to look at your schedule, which means you will have to scramble to drop that class and find another that will fit your schedule and requirements.
It would have taken her all of thirty seconds to do it right, and she did it wrong anyway, which seems more like willfulness than ignorance.
You want so badly to be single.
You don't necessarily want it for good reasons, but twenty-one-year-olds should be permitted some bad reasons.
However, I don't think she reappears in this narrative, even if you share two classes.
2002.01.26 It eventually gets a movie!
You are right, though. Why anyone thought the author of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac was the right one for Nickelodeon is anyone's guess.
He could get away with it now, but he hasn't done much with television since. Skimming the internet shows that he has done only a few comics-related things since, which does seem an oversight for reality.
One can still buy Invader Zim merch at Hot Topic, so that may be paying for him to live in a mansion in LA and do nothing. Probably not, but maybe.
Oh, my boy. Oh heavens. Could I ever show you.
I dearly wish Melissa had been able to pursue this longer, that her addiction and mental health could have allowed her reprieve enough. This was the most purposeful I believe she ever was. Had she been able to stay in this field, I wouldn't be too optimistic in saying she might still be here to tell me to stop talking about her.
(Sorry, Ghost Melissa, but I am going to keep analyzing you.)
Oh, she could have been a great guard working in the system where you teach.
That is an accurate scenario. Good job. I have seen fights break out over less.
I regret that recollecting her Glade hallucination stories will become one of the ways posterity (me, in writing) remembers her.
She sure did. Notably, she picked you up in a new (used) car a few weeks after and stated that, owing to her healing burns, she now smelled like McDonald's French fries, which made her crave takeout.
It sure does, as anyone getting dental surgery can attest. I had teeth ripped from my jaw when I was a kid, but the gas made me feel I was floating around the ceiling with Scrooge McDuck.
Taking it as a teenager with a broader context might have been an experience.
I struggle to imagine one can run far after having done an inhalant. It seems like a drug done in repose.
Melissa did once bring you to a house where she said she was picking something up. She huffed, then got back in the car to drive you somewhere, initially going in the wrong direction. More than likely, she drove you places while high on more than cannabis, but this is the only time you were nervous.
Drugs are often about set and setting: mindset and physical setting where one is doing them. I do not necessarily propose that one can have a lovely experience from huffing. However, hallucinating evil suggests that one may have things that weigh on one's conscience.
Melissa retroactively decided this little girl was her unborn child, put in her by one of her friends (who did not love her or necessarily even like her, but who avidly cheated on his girlfriend with Melissa, who had no qualms with any kink). Once, the girl pointed at Melissa's abdomen and said, "I'll see you in nine months." Melissa's body was no place for life, as a surprise miscarriage attested.
The little girl did not return after that.
What equipment? Melissa's Handycam? I don't think you have anything else.
You mean you were resigned, and your attempts to get Emily to leave you for what you had written did not bear fruit.
You should have been in the driver's seat of you life, not merely sitting in the passenger's seat until a woman took the wheel.
One of the reasons I took to my spouse--though they are closer to a soulmate than anyone I've met--is that I realized I finally had found someone who wanted to follow me and collaborate rather than lead me around by the ear. One young woman leading you to another young woman--though I do not contest what you've said here--is not the same as leading your life. If Jen taught you to draw and you discovered an appreciation of comics such that you ended up working for Marvel, that would be an experience you might not otherwise have had. Falling in love with a different woman is an experience you have in spades.
Kate led you to some quality books, but none changed your life. Because of her, you spent two weeks camping around Cape Cod and Nova Scotia, which were incredible (though more in retrospect) and which you might not have otherwise done. It didn't change your life, but the latter provided a chapter in one of your books.
Emily will bring you places. She will introduce you to people. She is to credit or blame your accepting your first, though unsuitable, teaching position. She is the first woman with whom you live. (As my partner is nonbinary, we could say she is the only one.)
I cannot be as fatalistic as you. I do not think anyone is meant to be in your life. You make meaning with them, but it doesn't come from destiny, and it doesn't even come from Kurt Vonnegut. You work to build your life with these people. It is easier to construct when there are people there who want that with you.
And I would have met my wife six months early if I had arrived at a Unitarian church ten minutes before.
But I didn't.
And I might not have met them at all if I hadn't forced myself into going to a peace drumming despite wanting to sulk at home.
My wife feels like destiny. Touching her hand for the first time was a revelation, was ecstacy. If I believed in fate, it would be to justify how powerfully I felt I needed to be with me, despite my logic. It wasn't meant to be beyond infatuation. We built our meaning together. I can speak to the idea of spirit guides and Higher Selves, but it was more practical. I found someone who was ready to build a destiny with me because I was finally ready for that. If it had not been then, I cannot say it would have been better--I suspect it would not approach what we have--but neither of us would have been alone long if we didn't want to be.
I am trying to love you, buddy, but this sucks. Be a better person and end things with Emily because continually doing this is toxic.
You have selective amnesia--something that does not afflict me in retrospect--and you take what you are given.
However, let it not be said that you are afflicted by selective amnesia with Emily. Instead, as noted before, it is cowardice.
You never thought she was anything like a soulmate. You would have been much happier with her if she were not your lover. Some romantic gloss should exist when you are in a relationship, and you lack this with Emily.
I understand the importance of not standing in someone's way. However, you rehearse different breakup speeches with her with such regularity that you should record one and play it back to her to save breath.
Let's see what we have.
Jenks, I believe, is not a free-thinking human being.
He is, for point of reference, the man who folded like a cheap card table when my advisor felt the need to gamble with my future out of spite. His lack of spine and a developed brain causes him to slouch like an annelid on a fishing line.
He did not espouse an original thought for the entire duration of the class and when he smiled, it was like a skittish lower case "v."
He gave us a brief break during this three hour class and said, "I want you all back here at 2:27 by my watch," and never said what his watch read.
Owing to my advisor screwing with my classes, I could not give my old boss my schedule on time. Do you see how perfectly evil she is?!
I noticed a girl across the room frequently glancing over at me.
And, "Well, they did get cancelled." is not a reason.
Invader Zim is getting cancelled in eight more episodes. Zim, which now populates half a wall in Hot Topic. Zim, which has a large following. Why? Because it is not a kids' show and the station tried to act as though it was.
Melissa asked me to pretend to be an emotionally disturbed child so she could practice her skills in calming and helping the child really acknowledge the problem. I felt a little strange doing this, as I didn't actually know how an emotionally disturbed child would act.
Melissa, as you might know, works taking care of emotionally troubled children at a group home.
Anyway, she was practicing her technique on me because she is being tested in a few days. If she succeeds, as I think she will, in knowing all the new holds, techniques, and methods, she may get a promotion.
In less than ten minutes, she diffused the imaginary situation wherein I had milk spilled on me by a kid and thus punched him.
Afterward, she proceeded to share with me wisdom about Glade hallucinations.
My best friend exploded. She suffered burns all over her body, as did the other occupants of the car.
What most people, myself included, don't realize about huffing Glade is that it renders one unconscious.
one of Melissa's friends thought that he swallowed a firecracker. Logically, he ran, full speed, to a stream to drink water to put it out. However, in the water, there was a bass monster. So this boy ran a mile, non-stop, before they found him. Even once they did, he wouldn't speak.
She stated that her hallucinations seemed to be evil, for the most part. For example, there were these little people that followed everyone around trying to get them to make wishes. She never did.
One day, the little girl that was always present in Melissa's hallucinations (not a negative figure at all, this is the hallucination that tried to warn Melissa to get out of the car before it exploded) stated, quite logically, that the little people were from the Devil by virtue that they wanted people to ask for things and these people certainly weren't asking God, so who do you suppose they were asking?
We decided to go to Pine Bush, as should come as no surprise. We didn't bring equipment, as we didn't rule it necessary. We weren't looking for proof, we just hoping to see something.
As we were headed out the door, Melissa asked why my journal contained less fretting about my relationship with M. Did this mean that I was more secure, or merely that I hadn't included any misgivings? I pondered this briefly before answering that I wouldn't, necessarily, say that I was more secure in my relationship with M, but merely that I thought less about it.
However, that didn't stop me from discussing small to not so small issues I have had with M while we drove up.
I have this distinct feeling that M may already be crying reading that much, as she does read the journal.
Her infidelity and finally falling for someone else is what frees you both.
And, audience, as they are personal (by which I mean, her life and issues, not mine) I am ruling them off-limits.
Don't bring them up then.
Or bring them up in total so I can dissect them properly.
Melissa did not know how to counsel me, if indeed that is what I needed. It was just nice to talk these things out.
I am struggling with therapy because, even in that milieu, I cannot open up in this way. I do not have the sort of friends with whom I can discuss most things, fearing their reaction and knowing how tenuous your remaining relationships are.
I had spoken a bit about them with Eileen, so she seemed to be of the opinion that I should be alone for a while during this tumultuous period in my life.
No kidding. Aside from Emily, who wouldn't tell you this?
However, she acknowledge the inherent problem in losing a girl like M, with whom I work very well, just to sit in reflective solitude.
You do not have a right to keep Emily in reserve because you are not ready.
Months and months in, you are not ready to be in a relationship.
Serendipitously, we stumble upon an excellent viewing spot where we can actually park. It even has legal parking.
There is an almost officially designated viewing spot now, in part to keep paranormal lookyloos from parking on the side of the street.
2002.02.05
Sunday, M and I almost broke up.
Almost the correct sentence aside from one word.
And I did initiate the conversation that spawned this, so one would be inclined to think I would be the person to know what was going on.
I am trying to love you but you do not always make this easy for me.
You began with confidence but crumbled because you would rather sacrifice yourself than make someone you care about sad.
This does not make you a good person.
Break up with her in reality other than writing.
You spent seven years failing to break up with her.
Seven years.
Do you see how complex these "relationship" things can be? Anyway, the end result is, I believe, that she and I are mostly friends. 80% best friend, if one wishes to quantify. Which suits me just fine.
They are less complicated than you make them.
If you want her as a best friend, you can have her as one. You need to stop pretending you are her boyfriend because you are not. Someone who is her boyfriend doesn't keep vacillating--and you never get too far in wanting to be with her.
I am passionate and certainly attracted to the opposite sex. I just largely feel this attraction in the pit of my stomach and lips. I want to kiss and caress. But sex?
You want to avoid sex--specifically with Emily--because it implies you have to be in a long-term, committed relationship.
You don't dislike sex. You dislike your relationship, but you cannot process this healthily.
If some strange gamine, unrelated to anyone you know, flirted with you in earnest and stole a kiss, you would not struggle to be sexually attracted. You would also break up with Emily within a day with only faint qualms. She would be better off.
Which suits me just fine.
It does not.
M has asked me to not delve deeper into the contents of the conversation or the process whereby we arrived at the decision to be mostly friends, because she fears it will make her burst into fresh tears.
Wow, it sounds like you are also not being a great friend right now.
So, you are at least somewhat attempting the "I see you as a friend; It's me, not you" gambit (though it is also her, to be honest--just because you are unhealthy for her does not imply she isn't as bad for you). You won't keep to this, but you tried.
It would have been unfair to everyone, but I dearly wish some classmate had shoved you against the wall and kissed you so you could project on them instead. Then, they would break up with you after a few weeks so you could be alone, but it would be long enough for you to break with Emily. Alternatively, someone could kiss Emily, but I do not think she would dump you. While you would blab to the internet about being kissed, I suspect Emily wouldn't tell you it had happened and might not discourage further kisses. (She may have been kissed and not told you. I wouldn't know.)
You felt tricked into a relationship with her because you wanted to get away from Kate, Emily is an extraordinary person, and you don't know how to not be someone's boyfriend. You feel forced into sexual interactions with Emily because she manipulates you, so you do not feel sexually attracted out of trauma. You never allowed yourself to stand on your feet and figure out what you want outside of being with a woman.
I am choosing to honor this at the expense of a richer narrative, dearest readers. So deal.
No, I shan't.
Emily confessed that, ever since she had been a wee baby, she wanted to be an actress and she still did. Which, from most people, would deserve a compassionate hug. However, Emily not only went to a performing arts high school, had starred in an off-Broadway production of The Who's Tommy as Tommy, was good friends with Christina Ricci before she decided to become a sex symbol (to which Emily invariable reminds me, "she once cried because the other girls found out she wore Garfield underwear"), but had an impressive number of "connections."
Without being too specific, nowadays, I would have found the solidity behind all these claims and linked them.
Let's go with the Christina Ricci one. Ricci is two years younger than Emily. She attended the Professional Children's School, around twenty miles from where Emily grew up (though these miles go into the City, so that could take an hour of driving). Emily's father worked at the New School, which was three miles (and about half an hour of travel) from the Professional Children's School, which could have justified her attendance. Given that Ricci hit it big in 1990's Mermaids, followed by 1991's Addams Family, her classmates would have remembered her--at least well enough to have an underroos story, even if they were not in the same grade.
So, it's plausible.
So, I looked at her and queried, "If this is what you want to be doing, why aren't you?"
Honestly, it would have been worth a shot. Emily was intelligent, talented, and charismatic. To the degree you can support her, you would have encouraged this dream.
The true answer might have been that she had one overarching passion to martial arts. Everything else was subordinate. Though she might have done well with "blackbelt" next to her headshot, she would rather have been breaking boards than singing atop them.
I don't know who ever told her she wasn't great, but I wish whoever they were, they fostered her gift so her problem could be with the theater department rather than the women's studies department.
I could not point them all out in a lineup. I am sure many people doubted Emily in her presence, which led to her never feeling good enough despite all her talent.
It is not that she lacks confidence but security.
I was very much digging on the actress playing Little Sally, until I realized that she was the voice of Mrs. Pepper on Blue's Clues. Then less so. But only a little.
Spencer Kayden, the aforementioned actress, is not a wildly different character model from my wife.