PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

I went to an all staff meeting today about harassment and offensive behavior. We started things off by completing a quiz (true or false) about the college's general harassment policy. One question was printed as follows: "If a woman dresses properly, she will not be the target of unwanted sexual advances at school or at work." I take several issues with this statement, but mostly, what is meant by "properly?" And why should dress be solely a woman's issue? I see more butt cracks in a single day than most proctologists see in a year.

Another interesting thing I noticed: when the presenter was taking about racial harassment, he felt it necessary to substitute the word "nigger" with "the N word," but in the same sentence felt no reserve outright saying other derogatory words like "chink, spic, gook, and slant eyes." And okay already, easy off the Asian slang. Why not round it out with, "honkey, boche, or wop?"

I'm just sayin.

GO GREYHOUND

I engaged in some high quality boredom sleep on the bus ride home this afternoon. I had finished Marlene Zuk's Sexual Selections: What We Can and Can't Learn about Sex from Animals during the weekend visit. It was the kind of head bobbing, mouth open sleep one should come to expect from such a mode of transport. Really exquisite stuff. Especially after Billy-Bob-Joe-Ray-Red Neck from Arkansas turned his country music down.

When we reached destination downtown, our bus driver with the countenance of a bulldog maneuvered his load through a slight detour around road blocks and throngs of people in rainbow tee-shirts and festive pins, their pockets bursting with free samples of lube. Suddenly, I hear the good ole boy whoopin and hollerin to no one in particular, "Well yew look, there's two girls on top o thaat there bus stand wit no shirt on, titties just flappin all round!" To hear him talk, you would have thought it was Christmas.

BACK HOME

I was surprised to find this inscribed on the side of my parent's garage:

I was surprised because there are not very many people in my parent's hometown, and even less that might refer to themselves as 'niggas.' But, whatever.

PIT PAT AND THE POLICE

Pit Pat once told me that the most powerful and well funded gang in the fine city Chicago is the Chicago Police Department. Once, upon departing an ISO* meeting on his bike, he gave his comrade’s car a friendly rap on the hood and waved goodbye. As he pushed off he noticed almost immediately that he was being tailed by two strangers in an unmarked car. He was in the middle of Pilsen neighborhood, so he decided to try and dodge them. After weaving in and out of various alleyways and parking lots, the guys finally identify themselves as cops, so Pit Pat braked stunned that he had been followed for no apparent reason. The police at this point, more worked up than a pair of pit bulls, thought my bro was trying to evade them, which of course he was, but only before they id themselves as police. They cuffed him, hit him across the face, grabbed him by the back of his helmet and threw him into the back of the car. They charged him with resisting arrest and threw him in jail for the night. When they booked him, they asked him where he was born and he told them, Hong Kong. Of course this made the po-po laugh and play and make racist comments and pretty much live up to the stereotype. They said things like “Oh, I chink I have the wong number!” And when they found his anti-war literature they started getting belligerent again. The worst part of it is that when he confronted them about their unnecessary force and comments, they all banded together and played like it never happened. I was going to say they 'played dumb' in that last sentence, but dumb isn't a game to them. They do that professionally.

* International Socialists Organization

POCKET FULL OF BREAD CRUMBS

On Thursday I am going up north via Greyhound Bus to see my parents and grandparents, who are visiting my folks for the week. Today my mom sent me an email informing me that dad and grandma had it out this morning, over some political/religious debate I'm sure. My father's parents are the only blood relatives whose car wears a pro life bumper sticker. Mom said that it will be nice to have me there for the weekend to 'ease the tension.' She must have confused me with my brother, the ultimate happy distraction. Anyway, I just wrote her back and told her I could smooth things by telling my grandparents that I'm living and having sex with a man that I'm not married to. And sometimes I let him fuck me in the batty.

If you don't hear from me again, it is because I was driven deep, deep into the woods and left there.

SKETCHY SKETCHY

Back to the grind today. I started my math class with a professional and personal introduction. For the latter I told them that I am training to run the Chicago Marathon in October and that I bought new running socks this weekend. And don't you just loooove to put on a brand new pair of socks? Oh hell yeah. That silly comment seemed to break the ice karate style, so I told them to share some random fact about themselves; you know a hobby or something. One guy said he spends most of his time thinking about women. I asked him if he does it in a healthy, respectful way and he said yes. He just thinks about them a lot because he can't figure them out. I invited him to share his findings once his research is complete.

NOTE TO SELF (#1)

Don't make decisions based on assumptions.

FLUMMOXED FINCH

Today was the last day of class. Sometime in the afternoon my student M came into the department office and found me at my desk. He was a little bit more animated than usual and he spoke with a raspy-covert-operation-whisper. Almost right off, I could tell he wasn't about to ask some predictable question about his final exam score or attendance. By the by, I think it’s incredible how we are capable of picking up on subtle human cues before we can verbalize or even straighten them out in our heads. It’s such a visceral thing. All of fifteen seconds while he spoke, my brain pitched question marks in slow motion. So he asks if I’d be interested in having a drink with him this weekend. No biggie for him to ask, I’m sure. But I’m quite befuddled, so I say something like, “Daaaaaaaa, neeeurrrrrr, dddddduuuuuuuuaah,” and shook my head like a drunken Kookaburra. What I meant to say with poise was, “Thank you for asking. I’m very flattered, but I’m going to have to decline as I am currently more pair bonded than a Mourning Dove.”

MAKE NEW FRIENDS BUT KEEP THE OLD, ONE IS SILVER AND THE OTHER'S HISTORY

This morning I ran into my Poet Friend inside a neighborhood art fair booth. It turns out he is a friend of a friend of a cat of a friend of a roommate of a lover. No foxing. What a crazy small world. He was holding a cup of designer coffee and his face was overgrown with dark, wiry fur. I think it is safe to say that we have fallen out of friendship, which is sad because he was one of my oldest friends. I had known him since I was thirteen. And it’s not like we were bosom buddies or anything. We never did each other’s hair or swapped clothes. But shit, keeping track of someone for fourteen years takes work. So it was a little sad when neither he nor I exclaimed, “It’s been too long!” or, “Let’s get together soon!” No, we just coolly nodded and said, “Yea well, see y’around.”

WATCHING PORN IS SEXY

Making your own porn is sexier.

NO MORE TEACHER'S DIRTY LOOKS

I have been teaching at this college for one year. In that time, I have seen one hundred and ninety students. Seven of those students were women. The rest were hooting, knuckle dragging, chest beating, feces throwing simians!

Hahaha! Whooooo. That feels better.

Since this is such a male dominated wilderness, the school decided to assemble a few focus groups for female employees. And it's probably not shocking to you, dear reader, because you are so very clever, that most of the women working here are administrative assistants. Which, isn't that just the quaking epicenter of the issue? Anyways, they are nice ladies with rage eye shadow, and they rarely make a stink face when I help myself to their assorted mint candies, but it must be these very women that planned the focus groups because they were all scheduled in the middle of the freaking day during the last week of classes when all three percent of female instructors were in class, teaching. I arrived seventy minutes late because I was giving a final, but whatever. It’s not like I have a unique experience to contribute to this project. It's not like I’m on the front lines of this boys will be boys bullshit, getting comments on my class evaluations like, “It was a distraction having such a good looking teacher.” But oh! I like this comment even better: "She should teach kindergarten."

Hahaha assholes! Jokes on you! I do teach kindergarten.