Happy Things and Depressing Things

Today I had a bad runny nose. I don't know why such a simple problem can make you feel like digging yourself a grave and lying down for a little eternal slumber, but it does.

I talked at length about my poems for Poetry Out Loud today with my ninth grade English teacher who is a really god coach for these kinds of things. She had some very valuable insights, things to work on, etc. Hopefully I'm in line to win the school competition. That's my only wish. Regional, states, yeah I'd like to win them if I could, but all I really want to do is move beyond the school competition.

I decided to change my third poem. My third poem only becomes important if and when I win at the school competition, which only requires two poems, it's not until regional you have to have three. Nonetheless I have been obsessing about it nonstop, and I've settled on Self Employed, by David Ignatow. It's probably one of my favorite poems ever, the problem is it's very short and rather odd. But I really connect with it, and my teacher agreed that I communicate it well. It came down to either that or Why I Am Not a Painter. Painter was the "safer" choice, longer, more familiar, maybe a little more accessible. But Self Employed won out, I mean please, that poem is me.

Self-Employed

By David Ignatow

For Harvey Shapiro

I stand and listen, head bowed,
to my inner complaint.
Persons passing by think
I am searching for a lost coin.
You’re fired, I yell inside
after an especially bad episode.
I’m letting you go without notice
or terminal pay. You just lost
another chance to make good.
But then I watch myself standing at the exit,
depressed and about to leave,
and wave myself back in wearily,
for who else could I get in my place
to do the job in dark, airless conditions?


I hope I win just so I get to perform this poem for an audience. In other news, the more I think about and recite When You Are Old, the more I fall in love with it. It's such a beautiful, striking poem. Unrequited love. Never has there been a sadder theme. Also, when I first read Dressing My Daughters, I thought maybe it was about a man whose wife had died. When I read it again I decided it didn't have to be and I was taking too much from it. But when I recited it this afternoon, my teacher assumed the same thing without questioning it, and it's all because of that one line, "How would she connect these bony valves and stubborn eyelets?" There are many reasons the father might be forced to play this role, the mother might be running an errand, or cooking breakfast. But something about it just gives the impression that he's doing this because she is no longer there, he now has to play both parts of a mother and a father. It adds another layer to the poem which really I don't think will really make a difference in how I recite it (maybe make certain lines a little sadder), but it's good to know other people's impressions.

Knight Life is the school TV studio program which I've been in since tenth grade, we put on the morning news show during homeroom, a live Monday evening show, and cover other school events like concerts and sports games. At certain times the club can seem a little more like a cult, we have a green room (like every tv studio, it's the place people sit and chill before the show) where we eat lunch and have study hall, and go whenever we're skipping class. This year the cult level has been kept to a minimum, I don't know why, I think the people in it just aren't as cool. Anyway, funny things happen sometimes, during shows, during study hall, there are stories, it's fun. Where am I going with this, you ask?

There have been a lot of staff changes in the program. Mr. Fox is the very old teacher who runs the whole studio, he's great. Then there's his assistant, who had an accident at the beginning of the school year (VCR fell on her head, got to watch that) and suffered a concussion and who's still not back yet. Then there is another employee of the audio/video department, a man who basically sits in his office all day waiting for somebody to need a TV in their room or a new projector, or can't figure out how to plug something in. This man was much beloved by everybody in KL (old, senile, and the local Salvation Army for hall passes and I.D. lanyards), but lately he also had some sort of medical condition and decided to call it quits. He's been replaced by this guy, who I got to talk to today for the first time. My talk with him is why I'm now writing about Knight Life in my blog.

I was the only one in the green room ninth period, and I was there because of the poetry practice after school (otherwise I would have left after eighth). This guy happened to be around as well, and since I was there, he started regaling me with stories of when he was in Reading High School, as a student in Knight Life. This guy does not seem very intelligent. He's a really young guy, probably graduated high school in like 2003. He talked with a kind of urban drawl and wore big baggy jeans (despite being a professional full-time employee at a high school). I'm sure if he went to college he dropped out, or just barely graduated. He's now stuck with a loser dead-end job that he'll probably have for the rest of his life, if he doesn't do anything to lose it.

I say we "talked", but I didn't really say much. He told me about the time he hit another kid in the crotch with a tennis ball while they were taping a basketball game. He pointed out which of the ratty old pieces of furniture in the green room had been there when he was a student, and how many students are supposed to have had sex on them. The more he talked, the sadder I got. Here was this man, with presumably no other talents to speak of, nothing notable about him whatsoever, who got four years, just four years, of living in a group where he was excepted, where he was at least semi-important. Four years of fond, random, stupid memories of antics with other students that dozens or hundreds of kids have had before him, and dozens or hundreds more will have after him. But that's all he gets. That's all he has. For the rest of his life, he will have that brief bright spot to look back on as he grinds away at a pointless job in a concrete, windowless "office" (where he does no paperwork and has no computer). His only pastime will be seeing how bad the auditorium gets before they finally fix it up, keeping track of teachers leaving and coming and dieing, and telling students like me about how much fun he had in Knight Life.

Maybe this is only temporary for him and I don't know it. Maybe he's an amazing painter and is only doing this to support his career as an artist. I really, strongly doubt it. Anyway, this isn't the only adult I know who can't seem to grow up, to get past high school. Many people return and keep returning despite having graduated years ago. They find some reason to come back, like helping out with band or school show or something. But they're not just helping, these activities are all they have. These are mainly people with no real futures to speak of, but man, high school sure was a blast.

I find this class of people very depressing. I know I'd rather step on a land mine than step foot in my high school again after I graduate, so I won't be one of them, but I still think of these people sometimes. Hopefully I'm wrong and some of them do go on to do something with their lives.

This afternoon I was with Rachel, which was great. She's leaving on Saturday, I'm sad but only a little. I have a lot to look forward to.

I talked school show over with my mother. She won't be upset if I decide not to do it, I have so much else I want to do this semester music-wise and she understands that. She wonders if I should try out at all, but the thing is I should do it if they really need me for a certain part. I just don't think they do. I'm going to see who all is trying out at the audition sign-ups in two weeks. That will make a difference.

Logic came today. =D Get ready for music that will blast your socks off so hard you won't... be able to find them... again. =(

_Dr. M