Intermezzo

Hello, Everyone,

Well, today I’m supposed to be giving you “To New Mexico 3,” a.k.a., the next installment of our adventures in the Land of Enchantment. I’m just sure you’re finding them fascinating. Really, really fascinating. Downright compelling, even. You betcha. So stop snoring. And going face down into your keyboard. It distracts from the vast dignity of this situation.

Where was I? Oh, yes. I was going to write #3, but, here’s the thing, I’m running out of time. Over the next two weeks I’ve got to grade forty blue book exams, plus another forty papers, file my grades for two classes, prep another class for its first blue book exam, prepare for another class that begins two weeks from yesterday, write the syllabus for a third class that starts in July, and, oh, yes, edit between three and six chapters (depending) of a technical manual. I’m doing that last on a freelance basis. Great fun. So long as you like prose that reads sorta as follows: “The lesser wingnut of the self-steering Autopilot developmental impact environment for Closed or Semi-Open projects being restructured for OS2 compliance is probably the most important virtual fastener in the programmer’s quiver.”

I kid you not.

Still, I suppose it could be worse. I could be reading Postmodern historical theory. Or income tax forms. Or memos on torture from lawyers from the former Bush administration. This is better. But, then, so’s waterboarding.

Anyway, so I’m establishing a new kind of Xcargo. It’s called an “Intermezzo.” I call it that because is sounds much classier than, “A couple of paragraphs that I dashed off at high speed so I’ve actually got something to post at the end of the week but that’s Okay because you won’t read ‘em anyway.” Besides, it requires 31 fewer words. And in this day of resource scarcity and declining expectations it’s important for us all to conserve where we can. I think it’s very Green of me. And I ought to be proud. For being green. And I’m not even hung over. Which is when I’m usually puce. Or is that pucing? Whatever.

Oh, and there’s another reason for me to have Intermezzos. That’s because I like to have Martha, my wife, read my column before I post. She catches the occasional typo, and the rather more frequent descent into total incoherence. And when I say, “total,” I mean TOTAL. No halfway incoherent for me. No sir. When I do a job, I do it well. And incoherence is something I’m really good at. Why, I could get an advanced degree in pure gibberish. Goes along with the Ph.D. I didn’t get last year. And worth just about the same thing.

But, anyway, I like to have Martha read my material so that if I mention her in the text, she isn’t surprised when it goes live on the Blog or goes out via email. And that, in turn, cuts down on the possibility of her being insulted and taking after me with a baseball bat. Or a meat cleaver. I hate those. Terrible headaches afterwards. And, so, by showing her my text before hand she can inform me, gently, lovingly, and tenderly exactly where I’ve gone wrong. And then whack me with a frying pan. Which is much softer than a meat cleaver. Though it is, admittedly, stereotypical, but one must always applaud the maintenance of fine old traditions.

But, you see, the thing of it is that now and then Martha is as busy as, or busier than I am. She barely has time to breathe, much less go over my interminable prose. And I’m reluctant to ask her do so when she’s already flat out taking care of twenty-seven other tasks at once. For one, I hate to make her cry. For another, I worry about that frying pan. It’s getting some serious dints. Poor thing.

So, that’s why I’m introducing today the Intermezzo. It’s a shorter form of Xcargo which may be only be a couple paragraphs long but which I’ll be able to write and post in the limited time I’ve got, and with a relatively limited number of errors if Martha’s unable to read ‘em before hand. It’ll be sort of like Depth Charges, but one at a time rather than all at once.

Ergo, in future, you can look forward to Intermezzos on politics, science, philosophy, world events, art, music, literature, and other good stuff like that about which I know pretty much nothing at all. But, hey, that never seems to stop anybody else. So why should I get left out? I mean, really.

Right, so, next week, I’ll be back with a New Mexico if I’ve got time, or an Intermezzo if I don’t. But, one way or another, I shall return.

In the meantime, though, go check out my newest little venture: The Compleat Kick Ass Guide to Writing In College. You can find it at:

http://stores.lulu.com/compleatkickassguide

This is a little ebook that provides a few tips and tricks about how to survive the questionable joys of writing for university professors, instructors, lecturers and others of that ilk. And, speaking from the perspective of being one, I can assure you that some of us are very ilk indeed.

So, until next time…

Onward and upward.

mjt




Copyright © 2009 Michael Jay Tucker

To New Mexico #2

Okay, everybody. This week we get to Lyndon Baines Johnson, traffic jams, toxic fogs, mutant margaritas, and, of course, how Martha didn’t whack me with a tire iron, though, God knows, she had reason.

And that’s before we get off the ground…

*

So, anyway, you’ll recall from last time that we were on our way to visit my parents in New Mexico. You may also recall that we’re on a super-tight, super-crunched, super-unforgiving schedule. We absolutely, positively, 200% have to be able to leave on Friday morning and be back on Wednesday so that I could teach on Thursday, and both of us could teach on Friday, and Martha could get to the Tufts graduation on Sunday morning, and both of us could get to our son David’s graduation on Sunday afternoon and if anything, anything AT ALL, should go wrong and delay us…we’re in deep-doo-doo with a side order of Oh-Freaking-Farpdoodles on toast.

Right. So, comes the Thursday before we leave and I have to teach a class in U.S. History at Cambridge College. Which is in … get ready… Cambridge. Surprise, surprise. You didn’t expect that, now did you? Thought not. So, little lesson for you. Next time, be on your toes.

Anyway, it’s in Cambridge. The one in America. Not the other one. Which has punts and guys who wear funny hats. And it’s a kind of boat. I mean the punts. Not the hats. And besides, that other Cambridge is in England. And nobody wants to confuse our Cambridge with their Cambridge. No siree. Because you never know where that kind of thing will stop. Why, next thing you know, you’ve got people with funny accents saying things like “Tally-ho.” Scary, isn’t it?

Where was I? Oh, yes. So, Cambridge College is just up the street from Harvard. But I like Cambridge College better. For one thing, I got a part-time job there. If I sent a vita to Harvard, well, you could hear them laughing clear to Cleveland. Though, truth to be told, I’m not entirely sure I would want to teach at Harvard, even if I could.

You see, Cambridge College teaches people who want to get a degree, gain one or more skills, and actually go out into the world and do something. Where-as Harvard…let’s just say that it is a school with a rather different clientele. I’m not saying that Harvard students aren’t scholarly, or energetic, or intelligent. But, sometimes, on occasion, at least among some of them…I feel that they are not on a journey, precisely. They have already arrived.

Anyway, I was doing a class in American history at Cambridge College. It was a good class and I liked the students, but it met at exactly 4:10 and ran to 6:30 pm. So, Martha and I had a plan. We’d get packed after we got home and then we’d drive down to Cambridge together. We live in a little town called Winchester, which is a really great place if you don’t mind suburban. Which is not to knock suburbs. I mean, hell, John Cheever made a career outta ‘em. If I could only find a bit more blatant corruption and decadence around here I’d be a happy man. So, for heaven’s sake, you guys, come up with a few dozen wife-swapping, Satan-worshipping, drug-using, alcoholic embezzlers. I’m counting on you. There are bestsellers to be written.

But, anyway, so the plan was we’d drive down, she’d drop me off, I’d go teach my class, and she’d park and go have a coffee at a local coffee shop. I’d meet her there and we’d drive over to the hotel near the airport where we would spend the night before catching the plane in the morning.

Great plan. Couldn’t be simpler. Sure fire. Idiot proof. Right?

Well. Er. Ah. Depends on the idiot. I, for instance, am a top of the line idiot. Major. Massive. I mean, the idiot proofing that I can’t unproof hasn’t been invented yet. So there, too.

Martha drops me off and I go teach my class about Lyndon Baines Johnson, the Great Society, Vietnam, and a whole bunch of other stuff that happened in the 1960s and 1970s. (I’m teaching American history from the Revolution to the 1990s. Makes for some symmetry. You got George III on one hand and George W. on the other. Kinda like bookends, you know? Or those salt and pepper shakers in the shape of Tiki Heads you got for your mother when you were eight and didn’t know better. Lot of similarities but with fewer holes in the foreheads. )

Martha, meanwhile, goes off to park.

It’s not easy to park in the area around Harvard University. Technically, it is known as Harvard Square, and it is chock-o-block full of shops and restaurants and other trendy places that attract people with very large checkbooks. This means that there’s also lots of cars there, and they all fight for the relatively limited numbers of spaces available. You can, if you are unlucky, spend a whole evening going around, and around, and around…finding nothing. I regard it as metaphorical. Sort of like my time in that doctorial program. But with fewer chances of road rage.

But, because Martha is Martha, and she finds parking lots while the rest of us are still stuck behind that garbage truck that mysteriously materialized just as we headed up the one way street, she finds spaces just exactly three feet away from the front door of wherever she wants to be. It’s quite obnoxious, really. I tell her to stop showing off. She doesn’t listen. She so rarely does. And a very good thing, too. I mean, considering the source.

And, furthermore, on the day in question she finds a lot in less time than it takes me to sneeze. ‘Course, with a nose like mine, that’s a complex process and tends to take a while longer than for normal people. I mean, just getting the sinus strain gauges up and running can take the better part of fifteen minutes. And we won’t even talk about how long it takes to get the shockwave dampeners and the muzzle flash suppressors screwed onto the nostrils. I mean, heck, I’ve been known to sneeze on Tuesday and not get any results before the following Friday.

So, anyway, Martha is driving in Harvard Square and she sees a guy pulling out of a parking lot. Great, she thinks, and she pulls over and lets him leave the lot. She notices … oh!...that as the guy’s car pulls out, there seems to be a greenish fog behind him. Poor fellow (she thinks), his car is over-heating. He might have a problem. There might be a repair issue. He ought to go to a garage. Because, of course, everyone knows that you should regularly check the oil and coolant in your automobile. And if you don’t do that, well, then, you could get into trouble. And what kind of twit wouldn’t have their car on a Regular Program Of Preventative Maintenance?

And he pulls out. She pulls in. Then, she notices something else. To wit, the fog? It’s still there. In fact, it’s getting thicker. And deeper. And smellier. And it wasn’t coming from the car ahead of her at all.

No.

It was…however… coming from . . . OUR car.

It is at this moment that my beloved wife realized EXACTLY what kind of twit wouldn’t have their car on a Regular Program Of Preventative Maintenance.

My kind.

And now I must (alas) report an unfortunate failing in my wife. I must, with deep sadness, explain that she has the habit of holding me responsible for my own actions. And for no other good reason than that I did them. And at at fault. And thoroughly to blame for the whole situation. Which is very unfair of her, I think. I mean, really, once that sort of thing gets started, where do we stop? We might have to end up holding people accountable. Which heaven knows would be a mistake. Why, if we did that, whole presidential administrations would be unworkable. And several CEOs of large corporations would be in jail instead of on beaches in tax haven countries with underage sexual partners in very little clothing. Why, it would be the end of civilization as we know it.

So, anyway, Martha gets parked and realizes that yes, indeed, my radiator is boiling over. I’d been meaning to flush the thing and/or top it off for quite some time. But. Well. You know. One thing led to another. And then a third. And two the seventh plus or minus the square root of pi. And, er, that is, I never did it.

Right, she says, sitting in the car, watching it boil.

She reaches down and hits the button that supposed to pop the hood. Then she heads out and goes to see if she can fix things. Only, when she gets to the front of the car, the hood doesn’t quiet open. You see, when the designers of this particular vehicle invested their brain cells, they put ‘em in places like the engine and safety. But the hood? Well, that’s another matter. Not a neuron got spent.

So, to open the hood, you actually have to wiggle your fingers in under the lip of the the thing and find a concealed clasp that can only be reached by a mutant orangutan with index fingers the length of a Mashie Niblick. This task is made particularly amusing, for orangutans and others, because, of course, the engine is hot. And, so, you’re having a wonderful time getting scalded while you’re also NOT getting the hood open.

Martha tries, and tries, and tries, but can’t get it open. So, she asks a guy on the street if he can figure it out. He tries, and tries, and tries, but he can’t get it open, so he asks another guy on the street, who tries, and then asks… well, let’s just say it was quite a party when it was all done. I understand they were just getting ready to call out for pizza when the hood got bored and popped open all by itself.

Okay, so now Martha had access to the radiator. The question was what to do about it. As you may or may not have guessed, getting a gallon of anti-freeze in Harvard Yard is not necessarily an easy thing. Oh, tons other stuff you can get. Miniskirts, microbrews, monographs, those, sure. But not anti-freeze. This is because no one in Harvard Square ever has car problems. Just a need for drunken Ph.D.s in miniskirts. Which is a terrifying thought, when you consider it.

The point being that there’s no anti-freeze to be found. But, Martha’s a resourceful woman and shortly discovers a gallon of distilled water at a local shop that offers such items chiefly as a means of cooling high powered, turbo-assisted, fuel-injected hyper-spatial super-bongs (but in a very scholarly way, of course). This she pours into the radiator and it stops steaming. It does go Weeee! and afterwards has a severe attack of the munchies. But it stops steaming.

Martha, however, is only getting started steaming.

Meanwhile, I’m back in my class, blissfully ignorant of the facts. As I am of so many things. It’s a long standing policy of mine. What you know can’t hurt you. Or, rather, it can, but at least you don’t worry about it before hand. And afterwards you can say it was a Learning Experience. I lie a lot.

Where was I? Oh, yes, so I’m finishing my lecture on LBJ and the Great Society and how the most liberal and compassionate president of the second half of the twentieth century yet managed to somehow get involved in the Vietnam War. Truth be told, he only inherited it, but he did keep it, and that made all the difference in this tragic world of ours.

So, I conclude my lecture and all the students go filing out with the looks of vague but total incomprehension that I so often produce in my students. Good to know I inspire them.

Then, I gather up my books and head down to the cafe. Strangely, Martha isn’t there. That’s odd, I think. But, I add, she’s probably just busy shopping and forgot the time. Found something interesting. Time just slips away. You know how women are when they get to shopping. Ha. Ha. Ha.

I look up. She’s coming through the door. I plan to tease her about her shopping. Ha. Hee. Ho.

She looks at me. I look at her. I see her expression.

Ha. Ha. Ha . . . whimper.

“You,” she says, as the comes to the table, “are going to buy me the biggest margarita on the East Coast.”

Oh, I say. Right, I add. Salt or no salt?

“With…freaking … out.”

Okay, I say, in a wee small voice.

Truth to be told, Martha is remarkably controlled about the whole business. She never once suggests what anyone else in such a situation would be perfectly justified in suggesting. Like, where exactly to put the steering wheel and how many degrees to turn it after. Oh, and here’s fun ideas about what to do with the break pedal.

Anyway, we gather up our kith and caboodle, and head off for the hotel.

Which is when the fun part starts.

Yeah. Fun. You betcha. Just a barrel of monkeys.

But that’s for next time.

Onward and upward.








Copyright © 2009 Michael Jay Tucker

To New Mexico #1

Okay, folks, fasten your seat belts, put on your crash helmets, say a brief prayer, and get yourself fixed. As we used to say in the Old Country. Don’t worry. It’s not like what they do with dogs.

No. Today, I’m going to start the tale of our recent trip to New Mexico. And back. And a load o’stuff in ‘tween.

Heaps of fun.

You just wait and see.

*

So, here’s the thing: my parents are now getting on in years. Oh, they’re still hale and healthy and all that, but they are in what we so commonly and so hypocritically refer to as Their Golden Years. Though, come to think it, why not copper, zinc, or Yttrium? I’ve never known. In fact, truth be told, as it is so rarely, I’ve never no known what a Yttrium is, or how many Yitts are in a Rium and whether they’re better with mustard or sauerkraut.

But, anyway, now and then, we need to go visit my parents. This provides the opportunity for a number of things to happen, such as: a) we get to check on them, b) they get to check on us, c) Martha gets a bit of vacation, and d) I get to decide, once again, that my parents are wonderful people… who deserved a lot better kid than the piece of rotten dorf-burger that I am and it was a horrible accident of fate that I got born to them and didn’t get hatched as frog-specific toe nail fungus in Love Canal. And this is after several years of therapy. And enough Prozac to pulverize a pachyderm. Ah, Medical Science. Sigmund Freud would be proud.

Anyway, so we ought to go visit. The kicker? They are in New Mexico. We are in New England.

No problem, you say. You just get on a plane and go, right?

Well, sorta right. But there are a couple of other complications. First, both Martha and I teach. Most of my classes (in writing, as a rule) are online. So I can do those anywhere. But, this Spring and Summer I was also doing a U.S. history course that met in person and on Thursday afternoons and ran from four to six.

Martha, meanwhile, teaches at Tufts and has lots and lots classes and she can’t miss most of ‘em.

Ah, but there’s more. Martha also needs to be back from New Mexico in time to go to the Tufts graduation on Sunday, 17 May. You see, she’s faculty. And students (and their families, who pay bills) like to see faculty now and then. Preferably in caps and gowns. Makes ‘em seem so terribly learned. Little do they know. Ha. Chortle. Laugh. Etc., etc., and, of course, etc.

But, don’t tune out now, further complications are on the way. And in full living technocolor. I have to be back in town on Thursday, 14 May, to teach the last session of that U.S. History course that meets on Thursday. AND, the next morning, Friday, 15 May, at nine in the morning, I have to be downtown at Northeastern where I’m beginning a new class. Specifically, I’m doing another U.S. class, this time to fifteen Chinese exchange students. Many of whom speak very little English. But no stones tossed. My entire knowledge of Chinese boils down to “Ni hao,” which, I gather, means “hello.” At least that’s what it says on the Internet. For all I know it really means, “My left ear closely resembles a cod fish kissing a leprechaun.” Couldn’t say for sure. But it might explain some of the looks I get.

Anyway…but, we’ve still got a couple more wrinkles in the warf and woof. You remember I said that Martha had to be at Tufts on Sunday, 17 May? Well, that’s in the morning. In the afternoon, our own son, David Tillman Tucker, is ALSO graduating from college. He’s getting his Batchelor’s from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA), and it’s been a long time coming, and we’ll be damned if we miss seeing him get his diploma. Well, actually, they don’t get diplomas at the SMFA graduation ceremony. They get flowers. Which, when you think about it, is sort of what you’d expect from an art school. That or a nice set of watercolors. And a brush. Or a chisel. With a cute little two ton block of marble. One to a grad. Be fun to watch ‘em carry it.

Okay, so, there you have the temporal parameters. But, there are spacial ones as well. We’re leaving from Boston’s Logan airport. That’s not something without its own challenges. Parking is expensive and there may not be any of it. Security is tight (the 9-11 attackers came from here, you’ll recall) which means lines are long. But, that, of course, is assuming that you can get to the airport in the first place. You see, Logan is basically on the same highway that leads in from the North into Boston proper. That means that the road is always, Always, ALWAYS crowded. Basically, at any one time you have one of three options: 1) bumper-to-bumper, 2) gridlocked, and 3)Bang Your Head Repeatedly With The Door So You’ll Be Unconscious And The Pain Will Go Away. (That’s one of my personal favs.)

Such being the case, it is usually easiest for us to drive to a hotel near the airport, stay the night, park the car in one of the long term lots around the area, and take a shuttle bus to ‘port in the morning. This is particularly true if it’s an early flight. At some ghastly hour. Say, three or four in the morning. Which it always is because God, in his wisdom, degreed on the eighth day of Creation that no plane shall leave Logan for Albuquerque save for at the most inconvenient times humanly (or inhumanly) possible. It’s a trial and a test for the faithful by which we shall prove our worthiness of heaven.

So, we’ve made reservations at just such a hotel.

Okay, but, now, let’s go over all this again. Let’s get it down so we’ve got it, as it were, straight.

We have to:

*Go to Albuquerque,

*BUT, we can’t leave until after six on 7 May,

*AND we have to be back no later than 13 May

*BECAUSE I have to teach a class on 14 May

*AND I have to start a new class on 15 May,

*AND Martha has to be at Tufts graduation on the morning of 17 May,

*BUT we BOTH have to be in downtown Boston that afternoon for our son’s graduation.

Got all that?

Now, you may have noticed that in all the above there ain’t much room for error. A slip up here, a slip up there, and the whole thing goes down like …well…like a bushel of bowling pins on the wrong end of a wrecking ball.

So…

Shall we have some foreshadowing here? Okay. Here it comes.

Gee. Golly. What’s that we just heard in the distance?

Why, it sounded for all the world like Godzilla and King Kong slamin’ down a couple o’ spares at the Smash & Crash Bowladrome.

Wonder what that means…

Onward and upward.




Copyright © 2009 Michael Jay Tucker