For the most part the seniors have stopped coming to school, although there are officially three weeks of classes left. This morning in first block I won twelve dollars playing dice against the five kids who showed up for my Film Studies class. That's twelve dollars represented by paper squares, not twelve dollars in cash. I know these shady characters; they're not going to pay up. But sometimes they bring me coffee when they're late so I won't mark it on their attendance records. I'm a horrible teacher, I really am.
This is how I accidentally get mixed in with the cool crowd once in awhile. I have a history of this kind of mistaken identity; although I have a few things in common with the genuinely cool, these things are illusions, and cannot be sustained. Or, in psychological terms, the fact that one suffers from Impostor Syndrome does not mean that one isn't a fraud.
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Last night as I was falling asleep with Shawn's hand on my hip beneath the blanket, he said, This hipbone makes a good handle. And I dreamed of myself with hipbone handles, perfect half circles like the handles on a sugar bowl, perfect for lifting and for pouring. On this side of the veil my hipbones are more useful for steering than for pouring, but my mind liked the idea. Still likes the idea of hipbones like handles.
I dream a lot. Sometimes I dream more, I suspect, than I live.
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4 comments:
My boss's favorite animal is the elephant.
I found an old black-and-white photograph of a little girl hugging an elephant. The child had long curly hair like my boss.
I took the picture to her and told her that it was a photo from her childhood that had just turned up.
She told me how much she loved the picture.
I said, "And that's you in the picture, isn't it?"
But she just shook her head and said, "No, it's not me."
She's a psychologist. Is that why she won't be the girl in the picture?
Dixie:
You are the only person I know who makes it possible to pretend for more than a fleeting moment.
When I first pretended with you I felt scared that you would abruptly turn real and make me feel stupid for pretending. But you didn't; you showed me that real and pretend are almost the same.
And until one knows that it's safe to pretend, pretending is very, very scary. Seriously. So maybe she doesn't know you well enough yet.
I think I like steering hipbones better.
And I like that's what you honed in on.
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