dudemanflab's Diaryland Diary

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Existential Schwank

I'm at cousin Phoebe's at present, a three-year old house made from the limestone bricks so popular in central Texas. Since her step-daughter is out of town, I get her room, nicely furnished with equestrian memorabilia (she rides) and ribbons. The lamp is lined with a pink feather boa, tinging the white walls and ceiling. I recline on a neon green pillow that says "Angel" in the best pillow cursive I've ever noted.

Dad and I watched a court-murder drama-- can't think of the name--with Anthony Hopkins. A bit flimsy, murder-mystery formulaic, but entertaining. It's good driving with him. He laughed a bit at Taylor Mali, enjoyed Over the Rhine, and hummed along to Tom Petty guitar riffs. We both agree that the Jewish radio station in Carlsbad is hoakum and that the least-interesting state in all America has to be Oklahoma. (That said, why a musical?)

Tonight he asked me what I was getting my master's in. I thought he knew. "English lit" I said.
"Reading and reading."
"And writing."
"Well, what are you going to write about?"
"What I read. Literature students are like bacteria eating a piece of meat on the counter. No we're like flies. We have lives of our own. But we get food from the meat."
"It's a rotten job."

The part about English as a career that scares me is how quickly people file it away. "Teacher, right?"
I mumble, or, confidently cast the affirmative; you can usually tell if they want an answer or already think they know it.

And yet, I really hope for more in life than teaching. I hope for more than reading and writing too.

Not that any of those activities are bad. They seem so general, overstuffed. Like trying to jump in a wading pool already full of kids.

Or maybe I feel like the dry kid perched on the edge of a high dive, having second thoughts about the plunge. With all the potential humility of the twelve steps down crossing the potential thrill of wet embrace, ear popping, skin tensing, eyes open. Before me, the horizon stretches to a point beyond the confines of this pool. We are so small, so few. But then why does the drop seem so vast? The pool is blue and see-through, filled with legs and goggles and splashes. This is the moment to jump that you don't want to jump that jumping can be forgone you must jump that doing anything but jumping--even waiting several seconds longer--would be to show a sign of weakness.

10:21 p.m. - March 16, 2008

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