I know amazing people…
…and this one is the most amazing. And this person is having a tough time doing Teach For America. And it sounds awful.
We used to write one another letters when I was still an idealist, a promising student and athlete (ha) who refused to realize his full potential, before I decided to wear myself down and aim pretty low. And before I retconned for myself a jaded pessimism born of a thousand retroactively perceived slights. My letters were, upon retrospection, complete shit. They were hackneyed and full of contrived witticism because (and remember this now) I only seem smart if you are easily fooled. And this person is nobody’s fool. Her letters had unifying themes, and would return to carefully chosen phrases that would gain meaning upon each subsequent use. Her letters would tell stories with points and mine would ramble on about stupid. fucking. bike. rides.
Our correspondence recommenced recently which occasioned my reviewing previous correspondence. I made the same stupid joke four and a half years ago as I did in my most recent letter. For style I went with my old standby “harried in the manner of Quentin Tarantino explicating the homoerotic undercurrents of Top Gun.” Again, I wrote the same way back then. I’m doing it now too in my head, but I’m editing as many of the asides, expletives, and conversational interjections that I can bear to excise.
I did once write something that was well received by a very many people. Upon further inspection it was a self-serving plea for social clemency. It was awful. It makes my head hurt when I think about it. I have a former acquaintance who styles herself a poet/artist/something or other who is currently actively trying to ruin her life. She fucking loved this one supposedly well written thing I did. That puts to bed any doubt I had that it is terrible and possibly dangerous.
This former correspondent of course continues to astound with her writing. As she should because that is the way the universe had ought to work. And she will continue to teach and bear a the brunt of a remorseless pack of defiantly ignorant jackals. And that will suck and leave scars deep in her brain that some will call character and others a cauliflower ear. That is the way this is going to play out. I am not saying that I have faith in her; I think faith is a pretty stupid word, frankly. But I cannot ken a universe in which this amazing person fails at this sort of thing. And as long as she does that and
- Mallory keeps kicking poems like this and
- James keeps taking photos like this and
- JT keeps writing Hackintosh drivers like this and
- Carley keeps teaching people how to make their own underpants (why again is that your main thing, Carley?) like this and
- Rahde keeps cooking with pseudopredatory street people and writing about it like this then
