Here Comes Tuesday

I like my job. Most days I really like my job. Teaching provides me the opportunity to interact with more than one hundred people each day. To talk, connect, debate, argue (everything's an argument), share, listen. [I had a conversation with a friend a few days ago about two different people: those who listen and those who wait to talk; for most of my life I've been waiting to talk--sometimes not even waiting really--but now I think I'm a listener--I strive to be a listener--everyone should strive for that. I try to push my thoughts (sometimes intentionally antithetical to my true beliefs about readin', writin', and livin') onto my students, just to elicit responses--to throw ideas about the room. But I listen, too. I used to be terrible with names--such a common expression: "I'm just terrible with names." No. You don't listen. Just listen and repeat. If you can't pay attention when someone's telling you a name, then you'll never get around to listening. This is one damn-long parenthetical, and I hadn't intended on didacticism, but this is where it's ended up. AndnowIchoosetoendthisheredigression. Wa. Bam.] Back to original thought: I like teaching. Me get to talk 'bout books. Me get to shoot shit. I never long for Fridays, nor do I dread Mondays. Well, Mondays can be somewhat tough to swallow--but nothing like when I was a student. Damn. Mondays s-u-c-k-e-d. And I loathed Sundays just because they preceded Mondays. They were like swallowing that regimental broom, bristles forward, that Henry Fleming talks about in The Red Badge of Courage. Don't mistake the literary allusion for adoration of Crane's overwritten (my opinion) book, but that analogy rocks. Walk up to a sword swallower and hand him a broom, bristles forward: Swallow this! Not gonna happen. Yes, so I like my job, but vacation kicks my job's ass any day. It is in the last lonely hours of a vacation when I dream of independent wealth. Not extravagant wealth. Just the ability to putz about on a daily basis. To read, to write, to listen (to music and people), to talk, to fiddle with stuff in the garage, to loaf, to be with my family. I few months ago I saw this piece on CBS Sunday Morning about idleness: Doing Nothing. Tom Lutz wrote a book about slacking. I listened to him talk about it on the program, but I haven't read the book. I have this problem about starting books, and I've already started too many to add this one to the pile. Perhaps someone else will read it and tell me about it. Well, the Monday after vacation is just about over. Here comes Tuesday.