BANANA BREAD

As I was biking in to work today, I watched a homeless man under the highway overpass set his cardboard sign down for a moment to enjoy a bit of food wrapped in tinfoil. He turned to look at me on my bike, resting at the red light, and offered me a slice of home made banana bread. Isn't that insanely generous?

Thanks dude, but you otter keep it for yourself.

WHAT'S UP PUDDLEGLUM?

I just talked to my da on the telephone. He told me that an entire life dedicated to environmental and social justice can be negated by one Wal-Mart commerical.

CLEAN UP LOUISIANA

I had this student in my morning class, K. I liked him. Partly because he reminded me of a PhD student I used to know named Andy, someone I had a corpus callosum crush on, and party because he just seemed like a genuine person.

He had decent attendance for a 7:30 a.m. class but about seven weeks into the quarter I stopped seeing him. The other day he came into class after everyone had left, with a blue slip for me to sign. I was surprised that he wanted to drop the class since he was doing so well. He told me was withdrawing from all of his classes this quarter. He had that whole brave face thing about him, so I didn’t press for details why. But when I told him that I was sorry he was leaving and that the class would miss him, he produced a half laugh mixed with a look of regret and said, “Yea well, I gotta go clean up Louisiana.”

Somehow, I knew exactly what he was talking about.

A DUATHLON WEEKEND

I traveled about one hundred miles south along the Mississippi River on Friday afternoon for a weekend of country cycling. Between Saturday and Sunday we, my companion and I, covered just over eighty miles on bicycles. We also hiked up two bluffs overlooking the river and enjoyed one mango colored sunset on the way home.

Me sleepy.

MORE LATER

In less than one hour I'm leaving this urban scene for country roads.

Let's talk Monday.

TWENTY PUSH-UPS AT THE GYM

DUDE: Wow, that was a lot of push ups. For a girl.

WREN: And that was a sophisticated sentence. For a monkey.

ANOTHER SUICIDE ATTEMPT

Why the fuck can't my mom be normal?

MY HEART IS A BELL JAR

Press your ear against it.
You can hear the void inside.

ANOTHER FIRST, FOR ME

I caught a student cheating on a quiz this week. That was a first for me. He was seated in the front row and I saw him suspiciously peaking at the floor. I wanted to investigate so I walked the length of the classroom and sure enough, his review sheet lay in plain view at his feet. He sort of hastily kicked it away under the desk as I passed by, like it was an old friend from high school that ended up getting into the wrong crowd and now he was now trying to dissociate from it and all of the immoral things it represented. When he handed his quiz in, I was made dizzy by his darting eyes.

The following day I handed the quizzes back, graded. I handed them all back, save one. When I excused the class he didn’t ask me for his quiz. Instead he tried to slip out of the classroom unnoticed. But I called his ass back in.

I waited for the other students to leave before I gave him back his test. I told him that I saw what he was doing yesterday. He didn’t deny it. I told him that cheating could get him expelled from school, easy. He didn't say anything. I told him that I gave him a zero on the quiz and I truly hope he makes a better decision next time. He mumbled something inaudible and then slunk out of the room like a mollusk, an annelid, a protozoan. You get the idea, some kind of invertebrate.

ROLL YOUR SLEEVES UP PAST YOUR ELBOW

Life is so messy.

GARNISH ME WITH A SPRIG OF PARSLEY AND CALL ME DONE

Lately, my brain has been doing a fantastic impersonation of an over-seasoned cup of soup.

SIMPLY THE BEST

I walked into my office this morning to find a single, black cigarette on my desk. I turned around puzzled, looking for the generous benefactor. Prada waved groggily from his desk across the room. I walked over to thank him.

PRADA: It’s fabulous tobacco.

WREN: Oh?

PRADA: Yeah, it’ll be the best you’ve ever had.

WREN: *Smiles*

PRADA: How many men have said that to you in your life?

WREN: ...
WREN: Not nearly enough.

PROCRASTINATION

Today before swimming laps I took a hot shower.

And stared at my feet.
For, like, twenty minutes.
Confounded by my own inertia.

I LOVE MY JOB

I love my job, honor bright. It makes me crazy-busy and I am not paid enough, but there are other things about it that I value. And although I have been known to complain about it at times, I love the demographic (mainly young white suburban males). I love that I get to challenge them about various environmental, political and social issues. I honestly feel privileged to be the one that gets to crack their world view open a little, so it can grow.

So yeah, I love my job. But I don't always love the place I work. You see, the development team at this fine college is involved in a campaign to raise three zillion dollars for 'student success.' Of course, they know the instructors at this school are absolutely rolling in it, so that is who they are targeting for donations. They have sprinkled us with fliers and emails. They have attempted to hypnotize us at both inter and intra departmental meetings. They have even developed strategies to shame us into donating. It seems they have done everything shy of calling our grandmothers up at two in the morning, breathing heavy with so much meaning, into the telephone.

The guy who is heading this campaign called me at the beginning of fall quarter to ask me if I'd like to give. He told me how they had set some asinine goal to get 100% participation from each department. Unfortunately, he called the same week I realized I was getting $200 less per pay check due to a "mistake" where I was told I had been "overpaid" for "prep time." Needless to say, I wasn't in a philanthropic mood. I explained to him the Plight of the Adjunct Instructor, but I think he has since forgotten, because he sent another email last week. The following letter is my response.

Jim,

I appreciate you taking the time to send me a personal email about The College's campaign. Perhaps you don’t remember, but I spoke to you on the phone several months ago. At that time, I thought I made it clear to you my situation here as an adjunct instructor. I have no health benefits, I have no job security, and as of fall quarter 2006, I am technically paid only for those hours spent in the classroom. This quarter, that sums up to about twenty-seven teaching hours/week. Of course, I can’t get all of my grading and lesson planning completed while I’m in the classroom instructing! So in actuality, I put in about forty to fifty hours/week. I am physically in the building at least forty hours each week and on most nights and weekends I put in a total of five to ten hours of work/week.

I have heard you talk about this campaign and how it will directly contribute to student success. I am asking you to consider the overtime I invest each week as my personal contribution to student success. I would even argue that the time I spend with them is even more direct than monetary contributions. But if you would like to break it down to dollars, this is what it looks like: I am contracted to work 27 hours a week. It is standard practice that for every three hours of class, I should get one hour of prep time. So let’s say I am paid for 36 hours a week (HR would tell you this is included in my hourly paycheck). This means I’m putting in four to nine hours of overtime each week. According to my contract, I’m supposed to be paid $25 for each hour of overtime, but things like curriculum improvement and grading assignments are not considered official overtime. But I still put the time in, even if I don’t get paid for it. That means I’m not collecting some $100 to $225 a week. Over a single quarter, that comes to $1200 to $2700. Please consider that my contribution to The College.

I feel like I already give more than is expected for this job. But I do it and I do it happily because I love teaching and I love teaching at this institution. While I think it is unfortunate that my dedication to this college goes unnoticed and unappreciated by those outside of my department, I think it is very regrettable that I am being compared to people that don’t have to pay $300 every time they need to see a doctor. I have over ninety students this quarter and I do the very best I can to give each one the attention they deserve. This is why I don’t feel bad about not contributing in the way you are suggesting. The fact remains, I am contributing. I hope this makes sense to you. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or if you wish to chat more about this. Thank you for your time and have a great day yourself!

Winter Wren

TUESDAY EVENING

I just got off the phone with my brother Pit Pat. It's awesome because we used to hate each other. I mean, seriously. I'm talking about some really wicked, seething rancor. We were a regular pair of beta fish. My folks had to do everything they could to keep us from scratching each other's eyes out when we were kids. One night, when they were out he tried to strangle me with the Nintendo cord.

True story.

As the younger sibling, it's essentially my duty to blame on him: He was an asshole. But now we are great friends and I find that I can confide in him things I can't talk to any other family members about. Plus it's great because we come from the same background. I can say things like, "do you remember the time we were going to go out and see a movie about the Smurfs at the North Shore Theater, but then mom and dad ended up getting into a huge fight and mom broke a beer bottle over the kitchen table and threatened to cut dad with it and we were left out on the back porch with our winter coats on for like, an hour, shaking from the cold and the noise while they fought something awful?" And he'll say, "Yeah."

That's really special.

MONDAY MORNING

I'm supposed to be awake now.

...

In theory, at least.

ND IMAGE #7

BISON DOODIE.

ND IMAGE #6

A SWEET PIECE OF BISON ASS, THIS.

ND IMAGE #5

THAT'S OUR MAN, TEDDY R. IN BLACKFACE NO LESS.

ND IMAGE #4

HERE'S ME, POINTING AT THE PREVIOUS NIGHT'S CAMPSITE OVERLOOKING THE LITTLE MO RIVER

ND IMAGE #3

CATTLE ON THE PRAIRIE

ND IMAGE #2

THE ONE AND ONLY PLANNED PARENTHOOD BUILDING IN NORTH DAKOTA. HA-HA! JUST KIDDING! THEY DON'T BELIEVE IN CONTRACEPTION IN NORTH DAKOTA.

ND IMAGE #1

Over Easter Weekend, I took a trip to Theodore Roosevelt National Park which can be found on the western boarder of North Dakota. It was so Amazing! Really, capital road trip. Since I can't seem to put so much as two words together this week, I'm going to feed you pictures instead. I hope you enjoy them.



BIG BAD BLUE STEM