Penultimate

It's the second to last time I'll grade the Regents exams in this job. Penultimate, I say to myself as I get out of my car in the school's parking lot. It's a minute and a half before I'm required to be there. I've gotten good at timing these things so I'm not early or late. Arriving late might lead to discipline and more contact with management. Arriving early would have me here longer than absolutely necessary. Nearly eighteen years on this job I've learned what does and doesn't work out. Penultimate, I say again. Today and again in June, then I'm done.

Inside, maybe waiting to see who shows up when, is the principal, the third in two years, borrowed from another division which he also has to manage. I say hello to him and the vice principal. The vice principal is a guy with whom I get along. I used to work here in the afternoons and he appreciated my ability to take care of things in the classroom, to keep most of the kids from roaming the halls, and to connect with kids. He gives me a hearty good morning and says that Regents grading is down the hall in the usual place. Thanks, I tell him. I say good morning to the principal, calling him by name. He almost nods. Oh well. I go down the hall wondering. Is he stressed out, stretched too think like the rest of us, freaked out by Regents exams? Or is it me? Could be. I'm not exactly beloved by management.

Whatever. I've got Regents exams to grade. I go down to the room and the usuals are there. The scoring leader who wishes I was scoring leader. The guy who has my old job. A couple others who are nice but don't factor much into my thinking. It's really just the scoring leader, the other guy, and me. We know the routine. We've done this together going on nine years. We make it work.

The morning begins as always with waiting. Tests haven't been delivered. Not everyone is here. There's no hurry. We can grade the tests in a few hours and never run late. There's coffee and chit-chat. I wait a few minutes before telling them that I'm on my way out. They look curious, maybe suspicious. I'm not coming back next year, I tell them. The other guy nods. He gets it. He asks what I'm going to do. I smile. I don't know. He nods again. He gets this too. The scoring leader says, you're not really, but changes tracks and says she can't blame me. She laughs and says, but now you'll never be scoring leader! I nod. It's a heavy blow, but I'll bounce back.

Grading the Regents isn't a terribly intellectual activity. It's straightforward and comes down to organization. It takes a full day only because it's poorly organized. The three of us are grading machines by now. The youngsters have to be taught how to grade. There would be more old-timers but management can't hang onto teachers. Most of the teachers we train to grade these things are gone in two or three years. Many years we start if not from scratch close enough to it to slow things down. That and no one listens to how things should be done.

Years ago I wrote a plan for collecting and organizing the exams each of school. It would require an extra five minutes at the school but save us at least an hour. The scoring leader suggested some revisions and took the finished plan to management. It was good stuff and would have also worked for other departments. We sent the plan and never heard back. The scoring leader, a few years back, asked if we should send it again. I probably smiled. I may have laughed. We decided against it.

Once the tests arrive we do the prep work. This is easy for the scoring leader, the other guy, and me, but takes a bit more for the newbies. By the time we are ready to grade I've been in the building ninety minutes and am wondering again why we show up on time. I don't love having my time wasted even when I'm on the clock and getting paid. Then again, I'll do this one more time and be done. The thought doesn't make my complaints disappear but they sure do shrink. I ask the other guy if he's ready. We read most of the essays because we can and it's just easier that way. He says, sure. We're always ready.

The scoring is uneventful. The newbies do their part. We do ours. Once the tests are all graded, I start going through all the test papers checking that we have all bubbled, initialed, and printed our names on every test. I worked through each school's stack of tests, correcting the mistakes, counting to be sure all the exams are here, putting them in order. Once checked, I straighten the stacks and get them set for the scantron. The scoring leader asks again, how are you not the scoring leader? I give her my usual look and she shrugs.

The other guy mentions how detail-oriented I am. The scoring leader says, you're so careful about all the little things. Mr. Organized. I remember the instructions I wrote for this process which were lost in transmission or discarded out of hand. I like systems that work. I know how to create those systems, implement them, and help people own them. I just want to get it going. I'd prefer not to be scoring leader. I'm happy to be of use to her. If I organized the whole thing, she would happily administer it and we would all work more deeply and in more satisfying ways.

I've had these thoughts every time. Think Charlie Brown trusting that Lucy won't pull the football away. And every time I end up on my back with Lucy looking down calling me a blockhead. Rats.

I had a thought this time that we should list the schools on the white board and cross off each section that's done. It would help us track where we're at and what needs doing, saving us from searching for what comes next. I mention it to the group and they agree we should do that in June. Then I think, one last time, man, and you're free. It's a good feeling. I lean back. The tests are graded but we have some more waiting time. The system is backed up somewhere down the line. That's fine. It's early and we'll be out soon enough. I think penultimate again, repeating it in my head, counting the letters. Six consonants and five vowels, eleven letters in all. This penultimate time is almost over. Next time will be the last. By then I'll be days from my last in this job. I suppose such a thing just has to be called the ultimate. It sure is starting to feel that way.

Middle Of The Pack

I've read a lot of writing this weekend and am happy to report that some of it sucked. Most of it was great — Dani Shapiro, Debbie Urbanski, Henry Wismayer, a couple of friends writing email and letters — and taught me things I need to know, but some of the writers (all of whom I'll refrain from naming) did terrible work. I'd like to believe they meant well but it was as if they didn't understand anything about writing for an audience. Some truly awful stuff.

The saying of which has me self-conscious about writing this. Nothing like setting myself up for a fall.

My point isn't to revel in how bad those pieces were or complain about them getting published. I'm not ready to be that envious yet. I've got time to indulge deeply in that deadly sin. I'm petty but not about that sort of thing.

I'm happy to have encountered all that suckage because it places me in the middle of the spectrum. I've always known there are writers with abilities so advanced they are indistinguishable from magic. Their work sometimes leaves me wondering what the hell I'm playing at in this business, but mostly I accept that there are gods walking among us. Reading the tripe I've been served this weekend I smile because, hey, I write less terribly than that. Score!

The middle is a good place. It gives me hope of moving up. It reminds me where I've come from. And being the middle sure beats the crap out of even thinking that I'm on the bottom.

I'll keep reading the best stuff I can find, but once in a while the worst writing is music to my ears and ego. I say, bring on the crap!

Middle Of The Road

The thing about Sound Garden is that the workers seem pretty hip or grundgy or whatever it is that I'm not. (I am many things but cool is not close to being one of them.) The workers are friendly unlike record stores of old where you ran the risk of bullying and derision if you bought top forty or, God forbid, smooth jazz. (I cringe thinking what the guys at Spectrum Records must have thought of me in the eighties when I brought Spyro Gyra to the counter.) It's good that the Sound Garden folks are kind because this fifty-year-old brought the middle of the road to the counter.

I bought a used copy of Supertramp's Even In The Quietest Of Moments... and a new copy of Paul McCartney's Tug Of War both of which are very good albums but neither of which is genius or cool. They are albums from my past — I owned both on record and then on CD — and listening to them today has felt good on all sorts of levels not entirely about the sound.

The guy who rang up the sale was nothing but smiles.

The Supertramp album is good but frustrating. Everything Roger Hodgson wrote for it is good or great. In fact, every good song on the album is his. The frustrating thing is that Roger Davies wrote almost half the songs. Imagine Lennon and McCartney if one of them couldn't write well. Hodgson's "Fool's Overture" might be the best song the band ever recorded and his "Give A Little Bit" is one of their most catchy and enduring.

Then there's Roger Davies' "Lover Boy." I'm not going to even start on that one. Oy.

McCartney's album doesn't have Lennon of course but he brings Stevie Wonder along instead and gets a hit out of it with "Ebony And Ivory" a tune I could do without. The thing about this album is that although there aren't many songs on it that stand out as great, there is something about the album as a whole that works on me and that's why it works better on vinyl than streamed. Brush the record, drop the needle, and it's likely that you're there for the whole side at least and in my case I'm pretty much guaranteed to flip it and catch side two.

I should say that there are three excellent songs on there: "Tug Of War," "Take It Away," and "Wanderlust." I'm also a total sucker to "Here Today" a song all about his relationship with John Lennon.

Where Quietest Moments can be challenging to listen to straight through because there are songs I'd rather skip, Tug Of War grows through complete listenings. Or maybe "Fool's Overture" sounds even better after getting through "From Now On" which is actually the best of the Davies tunes. There's a lot to consider. I should go back and listen again. Now, which one to put on first?

Diagnoses & Cures

For as long as I have known her, my wife's eyes have itched. In college I remember her enjoying a good eye rub the way a dog enjoys a belly rub for as long as you'll give it. There were times when her groans of pleasure as she rubbed her eyes were almost obscene. Her eyes, almost always behind glasses or capped in contact lenses, have never been kind to her though I've always found them lovely, penetrating, and warm.

Lately though her eyes just hurt. Something has been really wrong. After rubbing she clenches them closed, grits her teeth, and shakes her fists, pain radiating from the sockets. Often, reaching to rub them, she catches herself and its as if she's tying herself to the mast. Must not rub, she tells herself. The pain and burning go on and on.

We had a snow day this week. She and I are paid to teach and did the usual dance of having a surprise day off. I sat down to write (trying to write my way out of teaching) and she grabbed her phone, called the eye doctor, and asked for an emergency appointment. They had one that morning and she took it, got ready and went out into the horrible cold.

She has long figured she's allergic but a downside to living in Syracuse is that we don't have the best doctors. So far no one had determine that she is allergic to anything. But just look at the skin all around my eyes! she says. The doctors shrug and leave her worrying that she's making it all up, that she's weak, or that this is just bad luck. She knows it's not make believe but hasn't found any help.

At the appointment, the eye doctor figured it out: contact lenses. She is allergic to the contacts she has worn nearly every day. They've aggravated her condition like tearing at a scab every day. The doctor prescribed drops, daily (disposable) lenses, and a return in a few weeks. We picked up the prescription at Wegmans and she started on the drops right away.

Oh my God, she said. My eyes don't itch. They don't hurt.

There weren't the moans of her eye rubbing days, but the relief and wonder were a magic to behold. One trip to the right doctor, a few drops, and already relief. So simple yet so elusive.

---

I have taught in the same school system since 2001 and felt it to be the wrong place at least since 2006. Sunday through Thursday nights I get maybe five hours sleep and wake often, sometimes restlessly shifting from two until four in the morning when I finally get up to write. I wear a nightguard at night because I have ground my teeth down measurably. Since September I have gained up to fourteen pounds. I've seen my therapist every two weeks for more than a decade because I feel anxious and removed from real contentment and balance. I sink regularly into depression, sometimes for weeks.

I feel these things except when school is on break. Summer, I'm a healthy man. Christmas, February, and April breaks I'm a happy man. On the weekend I'm almost happy and healthy but the school week looms large and I cannot come all the way down from anxiety. This seemed like regular life.

My new dentist mentioned my grinding. I asked, "any ideas what I can do about it?" He said, "reduce stress?" I rolled my eyes and, now that I think of it, clenched my jaw. I'm clenching now. A previous dentist suggested a glass of whiskey before bed. There doesn't seem to be enough bourbon in all of Kentucky.

No amount of rubbing makes it any better.

Two weeks ago, writing an assignment from a book, I decided to quit my job. It won't take effect for a few months, but I won't go back next school year. I felt better. Suddenly. Measurably. That feeling surprised me enough I stopped writing and sank warmly into that feeling. The clouds parted. Blue sky. Sunshine. Warmth.

I told my wife and kids. I told my brother and mother. I told friends. I told colleagues at school. This is it, I said. I revised my resignation letter. Each mention of my plan was frightening but leavening. I felt myself rising, buoyed up toward the surface. I ordered business cards to hand out at my next writing conference and will no longer introduce myself as a public school teacher affiliated with that job. Every step felt like a release, a benediction, a healing.

Oh my God, I think. I'm not filled with dread. I don't hurt.

Friday night I read Dani Shapiro's Devotion until I was tired enough to turn out the light. My wife dropped medicine into her eyes. "How does it feel?" I asked. She said, "it burns a little, but the relief—" she shook her head and smiled. I closed my eyes. My thoughts drifted away. I was quiet. The night was still. I slept through the night and rose Saturday morning ready to write, feeling no pain.