end times

I walk my usual circles around the gym. One of my students throws baskets, missing most of them, grabbing the ball, going again against no one. Another student wanted to talk to me about how fast his heart had beat that day, and how he was scared of having a heart attack. I did not […]

Hope that they

“Okay, so you’re talking out, time to go to a buddy room,” I said, even as I said it thinking, wait, what? I work with the most high-maintenance kids. The kids kicked out of regular school, but not messed up enough to be hospitalized. And mostly I like it a lot, except when all of […]

adopting

What does anxiety go with? Animal print? Obviously it goes with your cat dying, your parent being diagnosed with a terrible illness, and getting a new boss. …but it also goes with a whole week off work! A great birthday party! A new baby! My dad had a multiples-of-five birthday, and two of my siblings […]

clean up

This is a tragedy. I didn’t want to buy a car. Under late capitalism, what single person clinging to the lower middle class would? When I moved back to the midwest, my dad had an extra car he had inherited, so he gave me that car to drive. Yes, I was in my forties, and […]