An eventful subway ride:

In a (black) part of the city, the conductor stops the train and gets on the intercom, to tell a guy that he can't have a dog on the train, but then the (kind of husky) (neck tattooed) (black) guy walks up towards the front of the train and says it's a seeing eye dog and "call the ADA, call the ADA," but the conductor says he can't have that dog on the train and he can't go anywhere till they leave and he's called the police.

So, we're stopped like ten minutes, and one other passenger says that they think the dog is a pit bull, and then the guy gives in and leaves and the doors close and we go.

I also had texted my one (middle aged) (lesbian) coworker that I was going to be late, and she texted back that Mercury in retrograde was starting to have effects a little early.

Later on that same trip, on a different line in the (white) part of the city, this (late teens) (skinny) (white) kid with glasses and a big bright yellow reflective vest gets on the train, and he kind of howls every once in a while, and when he talks to himself or on the phone, you can tell from the way that he talks that he's disabled, and a time or two he goes to the center of the car and hops up and down, and at one point he holds up his iPhone and listens to children's music on loud, and sometimes he sits with his one leg pulled up and his shoe on the seat next to him.

At one point, too, he also calls his mom on speakerphone, and she has to go, and after that he calls some airline to ask what airports are closest to the Wisconsin Dells.

At another point right before I get off at my stop, I realize that he might not realize where he's walking but his family is trying to make him independent, so they have a reflective vest on him.

I tried not to stare. 

A dream of my grandmother.

The other week I dreamnt:

I'm with my (Hungarian) grandmother, and her English is fluent, and we're talking about how her life intersected with the currents of modern European history, like what she thought about the leaders of the Hungarian Revolution in '56...

And then my alarm rings, and I wake up, and I'm so angry, since I hadn't seen her in forever, since she died years ago.

And then, we were never able to really talk.

. . .

Another dream of clocks.

The other week, I dreamnt -

My alarm goes off, but I want to sleep for another hour.

So, I reach over, and I put the alarm to ring an hour later.

. . .

Later, I wake up, and it's after noon, and my alarm had rung at ten-thirty like I had set it to ring, and I realize that the alarm must have rung in real life, but the rest of it must have been a dream, since I never really set the alarm to ring again later in real life.

That is, my real life triggered a mundane dream continuing my life in a plausible way.

How weird.

A dream of a monster.

The other week I dreamnt -

I'm in a very ordinary house on the first floor, in this area where there's like a kitchen and a dining room and whatnot all together.

And, in the middle of the island / wall there's a fridge, but there's an oddly large bit of space between the actual fridge and the wooden posts, about maybe a foot or two on all sides, and through them out of the corner of my eye, as I'm walking to go talk with someone in the dining room, I see an incredibly squat and pale gray discolored unclothed short man, who's watching me malevolently, his eyes never moving, but instead following me around all the time as he's standing in this place where he's trying to hide and he doesn't think I can see him.

I then raise his presence with the woman I'm going to go talk with, and she says that everyone has one of these it's a something and you're not supposed to see them so pretend not to see it if it knows you see it it will pursue you endlessly just don't provoke it, just call the police and have them come shoot it instead and put it down, you should call the police now, and as she says this, her voice is steady but there's a clear note of major anxiety behind it.

As soon as she's almost done saying all that, though, the creature moves incredibly quickly and incredibly low-to-the-ground out and from around the island and towards me, and next thing I know I'm fleeing it but not fast enough as she screams, "Oh no!", and all of a sudden I know it's too late and that I've triggered it and that the end is near...

. . .

I then wake up, terrified.

A reflection on "white ethnics" of my city.

Oftentimes, political commentary talks about "changing cities" and acts like there's the "white ethnics" from late 19th/early 20th c. Catholic European immigration and then there's the hipsters and whatnot, when really there's this kind of overlap a bit between the two culturally.

For one thing, there's always been gays and lesbians among the "white ethnics," it's just not always been talked about publicly so much, but now that it has been talked about nationally, the mainstream view among them is actually support for gay marriage and whatnot.

(Seriously, the ground on that has changed that fast!)

For another thing, if you look at microbreweries and coffee shops and shit like that, a lot of owners and employees and patrons are "white ethnics," too.

A big chunk of them, especially those mid-50s on younger, are changing along with the rest of American society in a lot of political and a ton of general taste ways, to the point where they want a hamburger from a brewpub and a craft IPA to go drink outside on a patio just like the yuppie bros do and whatnot.

I'm serious, here.  There's something to the "changing cities" distinction, but it's not as cleancut as people make it out to be.

My last day of teaching, for the indefinite future.

So, the other week was my last day of teaching for the foreseeable future.

I had lined up seminars back-to-back for nine hours straights since I had wanted to minimize commutes and I have to hold down other jobs, but unlike the other few times that term where I did that, this day I woke up sick.

So, all day I had a headache and a mild sore throat, and I was just out-of-it.

When I was going over paper outlines that students brought to class and I had to quickly analyze spontaneously, I tried like usual to think through what would be the most helpful overall process point to point out for long-term student learning, but often I just found myself staring at the student drafts and drawing a blank.

So, I just said a few things that popped into my head, while thinking to myself, "That's good enough."

At times, I almost felt like the malfeasant tenured faculty who had been on my committee, just shooting from the hip and acting authoritative, and I realized how easy it is to fall into that pattern.

I actually did feel a bit like a fake, though I also didn't care all that much, since it's not like I'm getting a living wage or am even in a career path through this job, so why should I care all that much; I'm there, I said something, it's good enough, if they want me to be conscientious, give me some respect and basic job stability and a modest income, it's not all that much.

Overall, it was just *sad*.  Not at all what I signed up for, when I thought I was signing up to be an educator.

Everyone does get sick and instructors do have bad days, but this was just something else, and it was just a big let-down, a sad and quiet goodbye to over a decade of my life that I'm not all that sorry to see pass.

I'm a good teacher, too. 

But, that just doesn't matter.

It's like I've said to my mother and to various friends, "F*ck this nonsense, I have better sh*t to do with my time."

Honestly.

As I've also said, it's only sad when you think of how it might be, not in terms of how the actual job is, since it's complete and utter bullshit.

A tale of a local bartender.

So, the one local "Wings and Rings" is sometimes called "Wings and Kings" by the (white) locals, because of all the people of color who go there.

And, the bartender there is a (young) (pretty flamboyant) (black) (gay) dude.

When I was putting in facetime in local bars the other week, then, we were chit-chatting, and he said that as (white) locals have started to sometimes go there, they've gotten kind of protective of him, and they've told him that if he ever has any problems with people, to let them know, and they'd take care of it for him.

"Have you ever had any problems?", I was like.

"No," he was like, which was kind of interesting in itself, because that means that they all assume that the neighborhood is somehow worse or more prejudiced than it is.