Cooler than You: Stupid Things I Say and Do

 Sitting an ocean away, on another summer of work via escapism (or is that vice versa), I've finally slowed down to process the past year.  The threats to unalive me from students, my resignation from there, my words being taken out of context (perhaps purposefully) in my day-to-day life and not even personally, to a three-word text, and being back together two weeks later, to being ghosted in the cold squalls of mid-February.  My head still spins at it all, especially with how busy I've been this year.  Though, as these things go, dreams and missed ones cross the mind's eye.  I'm still numb and waking up from the emotional coma.  It's not the emotional coma of 2020-1, but it hits different without a coherent definition or design.     While in France, I found a sense of peace one day.  I was so at ease and comfortable while kayaking that when someone asked where I was from, I answered something else.  Girls on the kayak away respon...

Last Year. There's a reason I went radio silent more often than not.  Let's just say six + rounds of prednisone, numerous ER ventures, a case of fucking elephant face, a damned surgery that makes me a matter for the colonies . . . I give you this. When the revolution comes, I’ll find myself in the colonies.* This assertion I am certain—as if being a college professor, a writer, or a divorcee wasn’t enough— the loss of an ovary certainly sealed my fate in the metaphorical stone. As to how I’d survive those colonies, I am uncertain, but as I wander through my life, I find myself accessing the carnage and the pain left in the proverbial wake I stop and stare. The pain of my ovaries began when I was young, and as the story goes, it has marched on with the beat of a drummer outplaying his companions, always calling out the show and demanding attention. Within the picture, 25 years ago (when I was 16 and young and fresh with plenty of dreams still unformed) I woke up w...