New Mexico Chapter...again

Have decided to break up the New Mexico chapter into two or more chapters, and to do something similar with the other sections of the book (not one chapter on New York but two, etc.)

Now all I have to do is rewrite the proposal and the outline to reflect that. And sell the agent on the idea.

Argh. Argh. Argh.

New Mexico Chapter...

Still fighting the New Mexico Chapter. It is now 35 pages long and not half finished. I have to figure out some way of shortening it without losing it in the process. Again, wish me luck.

Professors and Hell: III

A confession….

I am a rationalist. But, there is a deep, dark, infantile part of me that can't quite help believing in magic, and particularly curses. That part of me feels, wholly irrationally, that some people can, somehow, reach through the ether or whatever and harm others…their malevolence projecting across space-time like some toxic radiation.

And I must further confess that the same, childish part of me feels their malice. It feels, or pretends to feel, their hatred, projecting across a higher dimension.

To reassure that childish part of me, I envision a wall constructed there…in that higher dimension…made of some weightless but impenetrable material, not constraining or immobilizing me but psychically opaque to them …existing between them and me and shielding me from their enmity, or even reflecting it back in their direction.

It is, as I say, childish and irrational. But…the child … or the Id…is powerful. If its conception of the universe is not proved by evidence or logic, then at least it can be comforted in moments of distress. Better the Wall than drinking.



*

I wonder, now that you have read about my Wall, and perhaps envisioned it, will your energies add to its strength?

Whether it does or not, if you now wish to also envision my three professors having public diarrhea or otherwise being humiliated and discomforted while in full view of large numbers of people…

Well, feel free. And with my blessing.

Professors and Hell: II

Just re-read the entry from a while back about hell and professors. Should I have followed my own advice in dealing with the committee of that program from which I was forced to leave? Which, I suppose, is another way of asking to what degree did their personal animosity and not their professional concern direct their actions?

At first, I wasn't certain that it had at all. I thought that it had been entirely my fault. (And I am, admittedly, a difficult person at times.)

But then I remembered an interesting incident. The head of the program was a large and billowing man who was a noted authority in a particular field. I'll not identify him, just as I will not name the other two members of my committee, but suffice to say that he was well known and something of a star in the academic world.

I had admired him, at first. I thought he was quite remarkable…though I found his comments on my papers less than useful. He had a great dislike of anything smacking of informality, or indeed of popular culture. Once, when I compared a certain nineteenth century figure to a video game developer he just about took my head off.

But I thought we were on good terms…or at least, functioning professional terms, until my two other committee members sent me a letter telling me that they refused from hence forward to work with me on my Ph.D. Dissertation. On the advice of my mentor at another university, I then sent this man an email saying that I seemed to have inadvertently alienated these two committee members and asking him what was now possible.

He wrote back an angry note in which he said he could not believe that anyone on my committee was refusing to work with me for any personal reason. Rather, he said, I had failed to understand the nature of "genuine scholarship."

Much later, when I had left the program, I began to be a bit suspect of his disinterest. I remembered that in my email to him I had said that I had alienated my other committee members, but I hadn't accused them of any personal animosity. You can be alienated from someone, particularly in a professional setting, yet not hate them as an individual.

Why, then, had he been so quick to assume that was what I meant? Why had he been so eager to defend himself, and the other committee members, from an accusation which I had not actually made?

Maybe… maybe because…because it was true? Because personal animosity WAS part of the equation? Because their treatment of me WAS unfair and unjust, and very personal? And he knew it? And he attacked me before I could raise the possibility? Did he, in other words, protest too much?

The more I've thought about it over these past few years, the more I've wondered if that wasn't exactly the case. Of course I cannot say for certain, much less prove it, but I've begun to suspect my exit from that particular university was as much a product of their personal dislike as it ever was of my failure to practice "true scholarship."

And the source of that dislike? Why they hated me? Well, who can say? But, I'm guessing it was precisely the thing that I found offensive in my own students: that I was not sufficiently deferential. As I admitted before, I can be a difficult person, and I have the habit of saying openly (and with force) what it would be wiser not to say at all—that such-and-such a book is badly written, that so-and-so is a pompous and vapid idiot, that this-or-that idea is politically correct but utterly foolish.

In other words, I suspect I did not properly pucker before the proffered asses. And this, alas, spelled my demise.

Which means I'm confronted with a disturbing question. How do I tell my own students not to do what I do, but rather tell their professors what they want to hear?

Or, to put it another way, how do I explain that Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf, with all its pettiness and cruelty, is actually terrifyingly understated?

accomplishments

Still working on the book. A while back, I even told my parents about it. I even sent them a couple of chapters to read. They liked them. Or at least said they did.

It was not easy for me to reveal my work to my mom and dad. It is very unlike me. I never show anyone my material, or talk about it, until after it is finished.

But, this time, I didn't do that. This time, I emailed it to them. I suppose it was because they are getting on in years, and a part of me desperately wants them to know that I'm not just fooling around…that I'm really writing something that might be important…that I might, finally, get published. And not just by technical magazines. But published by real publishers that someone other than a few engineers and public relations people might read.

I want to make them proud of me, at last, while they're still here.

There's something sick in that. They already ARE proud of me. Or, so they've told me, anyway.

But, I simply cannot believe them. I cannot believe I deserve their pride. Or anyone's. Least of all my own. My accomplishments seem too few. My failures too many.

As I say, it is sick. Neurotic. But, come, confess, you have felt the same way now and then. We all have.

It is what we feel the moment we realize that aspiration remains as boundless as ever, but life…our own or that of others…is finite.

Copyright © 2010 Michael Jay Tucker

starting work on New Mexico

Tomorrow I plan to start work on my chapter about New Mexico. I'm intimidated. Difficult subject for me in general and, in some ways, I'm still finding my way into this project. Worse, I find myself unmotivated after just finishing long weeks of teaching.

Wish me luck…or at least energy.

professors and hell

8:00 am -- Getting ready for work. A little worried. I have to confront two students on the quality of their work. It is a difficult problem because on one level there is work is just fine. On the other, it is impossible.

Let me explain. Most of my students this term are Chinese. They came to the US for a special three term program which, if they pass it, gets them into a certain American University as a freshman, no questions asked.

These two young women are good students, in their way. But, they come into class and zone out. They do homework for other classes, flirt with the boys, talk to each other…

When they turn in their work, it is usually pretty good. They do halfway decent essays on American history. But, there's the rub. The essays are based entirely on what they learned in high school in China. Everything they write is from a strictly Chinese perspective. In fact, even their exams sound as though they were carefully copied, word for word, from a very Marxist Chinese textbook. Thus, the U.S. Civil War was a clash between progressive elements from the American bourgeoisie and reactionary Southern feudalists. The Cold War was a conflict between Russia and America, in which China was simply a bystander, except when forced to protect itself from U.S. imperialism in the Korean War.

And there's nothing particularly wrong with writing in this way. But, there is nothing of me in it, either. There is no sign that they have heard my lectures, read my notes, or even looked at the assigned readings. It is as though they have somehow been wholly absent from my class.

So, I face the interesting problem of explaining to them that their work is good…but it is also good evidence that they have spent four months ignoring me.

1:00 pm—now back. The students were humble, even contrite, when I talked to them about the problem. I encouraged them to, in future, actually include material from their classes in their homework.

I wonder if they will follow my advice. Alas, they seem to me the sort of person more likely to smile and say yes, while continuing to do exactly what they had done before.

For their sake, I hope I'm wrong. They are about to begin their freshmen year, and, once in "real" college, they will encounter many professors who are far less tolerant than I am.

Simply put, academics are a lot like lovers. They can forgive an honest error. But, ignore them…?

Hell hath no fury.

grading

Summer term is coming to an end. I've graded all the book blue books for one class and about half of them for another. I still have just under 40 research papers to read, and 18 short reports from yet another class.

Students, of course, dread finals and papers and other assignments. But you have no idea how much we, your instructors, share your terror.

he has never heard of the Algonquin Round Table

My editor continues to intrigue me. I discovered that he has never heard of the Algonquin Round Table.

If you haven't heard of it, don't worry. There is no reason why you should. It was a group of writers, wits, critics, and editors who regularly met around a "round table" at the Algonquin hotel in New York in the 1920s. Their number included Dorothy Parker, Alexander Woollcott, Robert Benchley, Franklin Pierce Adams, Heywood Broun, and so on. In their time, they were very famous. Though, today, they tend to be little known. Alas, they wrote and talked about their own times, and…like all those who address their present…sometimes fail to reach their future.

But that HE hadn't heard of them is astonishing. It means that he made it through English classes at several prestigious prep schools, as well as an important American college, and never once had his instructors refer to them. That's unnerving, because they were important. They helped establish the modernist style, and any time you read creative non-fiction today, you read something that was directly affected by the Round Tablers.

Yet, under the direction of his professors, my friend was ignorant of them. Moreover, he was clearly irritated when I mentioned them in my chapter on New York City, as though he suspected me of inventing them, or of wasting the reader's time with someone impossibly obscure.

Concerns me. I wonder who else has been, or will be deleted from the public memory by the academic elite? By Those Who Know Best? Will my children's children be permitted to read Shakespeare, Jane Austin, George Sand, Charles Dickens, Edger Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Henry James, Edith Wharton, George Orwell, William Faulkner, Truman Capote…?

All these were, of course, writers of genius. But they did not address the concerns of full professors (with tenure). Ergo, they are not worthy of study, and shall be cast into the outer darkness, unlamented, and unremembered for all eternity.

just the two of us...

More on the young editor with whom I work…

As a person, I like him very much, and I think he is a talented writer in his own right.
But, in some ways he is the wrong man to work with me. For one thing, he is very young, and like a lot of young people who have recently graduated from the best of American schools, he has been taught to believe that the author has no right to appear in his own works. In other words, the letter "I," is forbidden. To write "I thought," or "I believe," or "I felt," or even "I experienced" is considered most offensive.

Yet, I am at my best when I am most self-referential. At heart, I am a diarist, a journalist (in the original meaning of the word, in the sense of one who keeps a personal journal), and, yes, a blogger.

Thus I am troubled. I fear that if the book gets published, it will actually be inferior to what I write about it…that what follows the title page will be less than what appears here, in Xcargo…to be know only to a few. By, in other words, I who write this, and you …you few and dear …who read it.


*

Actually, on looking at that last sentence, I feel an odd comfort. There are not many people who have read Xcargo from its beginnings as an ezine to its present status as an odd entry in the blogsphere.

There is something pleasant in that. In your presence, my readers, I feel that I am in a very select group…among friends… even something akin to family.

How rare a thing that is. I am grateful.

a million monkeys

You're recall I'm writing a book on American travel. One of the things which troubles me about the process is that my agent has put me to work with a young editor.

This is new for me. I have worked with editors before, but not one employed by an agent. It seems that in the new world of modern book publishing, the publishing company doesn't do much editing. In fact, I'm told that it does very little other than purchase the right to distribute a document that is largely already (as we used to say) "camera ready," that is, ready to go directly to the press.

The model now seems to be rather like that of the movie industry, where "movie companies" basically don't make movies. Rather, they obtain the rights to films that have been produced, created, and even financed by other firms.

I'm not sure this is a good thing. What does it say about us that the corporations that, in theory, determine our literature could (in theory) actually be staffed entirely by illiterates? Or the proverbial million monkeys, picking manuscripts at random?

tests

Just got back from teaching class. It went well enough, but I'm giving them their final blue book exam in the morning. I'm always on edge about that. Sometimes I think I care more about my students doing well on their tests than they do. I know that if they fail my test, then it is because I have failed them. Thus, their F is evidence of my inferiority.

Getting Back

So I'm back. I've been trying to get the time and the energy to post to Xcargo again for ages. But, well, I just haven't had either.

Here's the story: as you know, I am (among other things) a writer. Recently, I've managed to sign with an agent. That's a hard thing to do. It used to be said that it was easier to get a book published than it was to get an agent to represent it. I'm not sure it is still true (book publishing is a very strange business) but, still, I'm delighted that I have finally gotten—as they say—"representation."

I'm working on a book for the agent that is basically a travel essay combined with a popular history of several major regions in the United States. (I'll tell you more about it as time goes on.) She is very optimistic about it. I wish I were as confident.

Right at the moment, I'm doing my research on the American Southwest, one of the areas I'm going to be writing about. It isn't going to be easy for me. I grew up, of course, in Albuquerque, and that city (along with Santa Fe) will play a major role in the chapter. And, frankly, I have mixed feelings about the place. It was the town in which I experienced a very unhappy adolescence—and before that a not terribly much more pleasant childhood.

Oh, I love Albuquerque …in my way… and there are parts of the city that are beautiful and fine. Yet, I cannot escape the fact that it is also the place where I spent a lot of time being lonely, or bored, or afraid, or sick…or some combination of all those things at once.

I suppose, in a way, it is a little bit like being the child of some very lovely, very gentle mother…who, now and then, exploded into murderous fury. A woman not evil, but subject to a kind of unhappy madness…

One can never forget the loveliness and the gentility. But, neither, can one escape the memory of the madness.

Copyright © 2010 Michael Jay Tucker

"Stupid is as stupid does"

Hi, Everyone,

So, like everyone else in the known universe, I've been watching with horrified fascination while oil spills out into the Gulf, creating what could be the single worst environmental disaster of the decade. And, also like everyone else in the known universe, I've been watching with a similar sick fascination while everyone involved points the finger at everyone else. The government says it was the fault of British Petroleum…who says that it was the fault of the company that actually owned the rig, Transocean…who says that it was the fault of a contractor…specifically Halliburton.

It is the last one that's most interesting, of course. Halliburton is the company that used to be headed up by Dick Cheney (i.e., the power behind the Dubya's tottering throne). It was also the company that then went eagerly overseas, remaining incorporated in America but shifting most of its management functions to the United Arab Emirates…a move which made economic sense, but which was a PR disaster. It looked for all the world as if the company were wearing a huge sign that read, "F*ck you, America."

And now Halliburton is involved in an incident which may make the Exxon Valdez look like a tea party…and I'm not talking about the kind where Sarah Palin provides the opening remarks.

So, the question we have to ask, is this just bad luck? Could any company possibly be so often in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or is the company really part of a satanic conspiracy to degrade the environment and overthrow democracy?

Naturally, that's not really a question. There is no satanic conspiracy to degrade the environment and overthrow democracy. Halliburton has just been unlucky.

In other words, it is the corporate analog of Forrest Gump's evil twin. On steroids. With oil rigs.


Onward and upward.



Copyright © 2010 Michael Jay Tucker

New Mexico #10

New Mexico #10! (It's finally over)


Hello, Everyone,

Well, believe it or not, really and truly, I'm going to get back to doing Xcargo. What's more, I'm even going to try to finish the New Mexico series I started way back last year.

No. Really. Would I lie to you…?

Okay, don't answer that one.

But, this time …at least…I'm gonna be almost halfway truthful. Which is a rare thing in this life. Think politics. So, enjoy it while you can. It's rare thing. Supplies are limited. Operators are standing by.


*

Okay, you'll recall that we went to visit my parents last spring. You'll recall, too, that they live in New Mexico. They're getting on a bit, now, but they're hale and healthy. Though…it's a good idea for us to check in now and then.

Now, there are a bunch of complicating factors in all this. First, Martha and I both teach. That means we have a pretty narrow window during which we can travel. Specifically, we had about a week between when the spring classes we taught ended and the summer classes we taught began.

Oh, but there's more. Not only did we have to get back in time to teach, we also had to be back in Massachusetts no later than the evening of Saturday, 16 May. That was because on Sunday morning, 17 May, Tufts University had its graduation. And Martha teaches at Tufts. And it is a command performance for Tufts faculty members to be at the students' graduation. Or else heads would roll. Okay, so maybe they don't really roll. I'm told the ears get in the way. So, maybe, just bounce.

But, still more complications. Our son, David Tillman, was ALSO graduating from his college…the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in downtown Boston…ALSO on Sunday, 17 May, but in the afternoon.

And we are damn certain we're not going to miss our kid's graduation.

So, let's get this clear, shall we? If we miss a connection, or if we are delayed, or if anything goes even slightly wrong…

All hell breaks lose.



*


So, we have a nice visit with my parents over the course of a week. Then, it is time for us to head back to Boston. Ergo, one bright morning, we head off to the Albuquerque airport…shed several tears saying good-by…endure the attentions of some particularly hostile Homeland Security types…stumble through a full-body scanner… that malfunctions…twice…think MRI machine with hiccups…and then find ourselves on the plane.

Well, we think, that wasn't TOO bad. Should be home in no time, we decide. Probably won't be a bit of bother, we conclude.

Then…

We wait.


*

And wait.


*


And wait. And wait. And wait…


*


See a theme developing here?


*


Someday. When it is all done and said. When I'm dead. And have been for several years…

They're going to invent a super-futuristic train like the ones they used to have pictures of in Popular Mechanics Magazine when I was a kid. The kind that flash through big plastic tubes. At hypersonic speeds. And get you from Santa Fe to Boston in half an hour. Tops. And there's a free lunch.

You betcha. They will.

And, to repeat, I'll be dead at the time.

BECAUSE I will have had a brain aneurism while sitting on A GODAMN PLANE IN SOME FREAKING AIRPORT …


*

I heard later it was something to do with weather someplace else in the country. Or maybe it was a mechanical problem. Or maybe it was gnomes in the jet air intake manifolds. That’s probably the most sensible explanation. But, I really couldn't say. All I know is that we sat there wilting like lettuce on a flab burger in a microwave while pilots cursed, passengers went ballistic, and the stewardi developed that frozen-faced botox smile that comes just before you consider jumping face forward into a document shredder because it would hurt less than living.

So…

I'll spare you the next few hours. Suffice to say that finally we get into the air. Then, after an uneventful flight (well, except for the turbulence…and the overcrowding…and $7.50 snack packs…and the really, Really, REALLY lousy in-flight movie) we arrived at another city where we were supposed to get our connecting flight.

Now, understand, we'd already missed our FIRST connecting flight, but they'd rebooked us a second connecting flight. Which, we figured, we could catch without a problem because there was a 30 minute gap between the time we landed and the time we were supposed to take off again.

So…we "deplaned" (thank you George Carlin), wrestled our luggage into motion, and headed off to our next gate. And, wonder of wonder! It turns out to be only a few yard away.

We arrive at our next gate. Martha sends me off to get coffee since we've got a bit of time and we settle down until they call our seat numbers.

And…

Then we notice something.

"Say," Martha says.

"Yes?" I answer, because I'm good that way.

"Have you looked out the window?"

"Um," I say, intelligently.

"Have you noticed that there doesn't seem to be a PLANE out there?"

"Eh," I say, insightfully.

"So, maybe," she continues, "you might like to, that is, check at the desk."

"Uh," I conclude.

"As in NOW," she adds.

"Er…okay."

So I trotted up to the desk, where a couple of women in company uniforms were sorting large piles of little bits of paper and diligently ignoring me. They clearly planned to finish the first activity in short order…but continue the other to the end of time. Maybe longer. But, by pretending to be about to have a major psychotic episode, I eventually managed to get their attention.

"Oh," they told me. "There was a gate change. Your plane is now at…" and then they named a gate that was another terminal on the other side of the airport.

"Urk," I said.

"We suggest," they said, "that you start running."


*

Okay, insert here a slapstick comedy of the two of us, dashing through the terminal, luggage going in all directions, coffee cups flying, scattering other passengers, knocking over little old ladies, running baggage carts off the road, going the wrong way, doing a U-turn, running back the other way, knocking over the same little old ladies…

I'd describe it in more detail, but, really, words fail me.

*

Further complication: at this particular airport, transportation between the various terminals is provided by an automated little "people mover." It is kind of like a trolley car crossed with an elevator that happens to go sideways as the result of an unfortunate inner-ear condition.

So, that means we have to catch the People Mover or we're not going anywhere. And, amazingly enough, we actually do find a station and we actually do catch one of the little People Mover trains and it actually is moving in the right direction.

We check the time. We can JUST make it.

I look at Martha. She looks at me. "Whew," we say.

And then …


*

It was between Terminal A and Terminal B…

Almost exactly half way between them, to be exact.

And that …

Was when…

We came to a complete halt.


*


There was a crunching noise. Then a kind of tinkle. Then a grinding sound. Then a lurch. Then a bump. Then…

Nothing.

Everybody on the little train looked at each other. Then we looked out the window. We were on a kind of bridge arcing between the two terminals and over the highway. The ground was about three stories below us.

It was about then that we noticed the buzzards. They seemed to be circling the airport. Directly above our little car. And they were smiling. And putting out condiments.


*

Again, I'll spare you all the details. Just repeat the section about being stuck on the tarmac at Albuquerque. Except make it a little shorter. And there aren't any pilots or stewardi. Because the People Mover is automated. And that means there's no one to complain to…or to tell that you're stuck…which means that you wonder if anyone is ever going to notice that you're trapped and you'll end up eating each other...that is, if the buzzards referenced above don't get their first…

*


After a rather long time, the People Mover started, well, moving people again. We arrived at our station, scrambled out, and finally arrived at our gate. There, a charmingly snotty woman told us we were late, and that the plane had left a long time ago, and that since it hadn't been the airline's fault that we were delayed, she really didn't need to put us another plane…

It was then that I stopped pretending to have a psychotic episode and started working on having a real one. They told me later it was quite colorful. Literally. I turned green with purple polka dots and pink stripes. I couldn't say myself. I blacked out after growing the third eye and the second horn.

But it did get us on another plane.


*

Okay, long story short, we finally get home at about three in the morning. We drive home, fall into bed, and go to sleep.

Now, a sort time later, along comes Sunday morning and the day of the two graduations. Martha goes off to hers at Tufts and comes back a little after noon. We then get ready and head out to David's.

Further complication: David's school is downtown. We live in the 'burbs. This means that if we took the car, we'd have to drive in, find parking, pay for parking, and otherwise deal with a lot of difficulties. So, logically, we decided to "take the T."

The "T" is the Boston-area subway and transit system. It ranges from buses to full-fledged trains and is almost always…almost ALWAYS…quite reliable. The trains and buses and subway cars just keep on running…regularly as clockwork. Most of the time.

So, you know, of course, that there'd be NO problem with our taking the subway into town.

Right?

*

It is two hours later.

We are in a subway train. We are underground. We are not moving.

Martha has started rhythmically pounding her head into the window beside us. Which is a nice change. Before, she'd been pounding MY head into the window beside us.

Today, of all days, was the day that the T had an electrical problem.

A word of advice…should you travel…and should you travel with us…do not do so if the trip involves any kind of mechanical conveyance.

Unless, of course, you are the sort of individual who greatly enjoys IRS audits and/or rubbing your teeth on the sidewalk.


*

We finally get out at a station and charge upstairs. We are several stops short of where we want to be, but we figure that we'll never get to David's graduation if we stay on the train. "We'll get a cab," I say, cheerfully, doing my best to Maintain A Positive Attitude. And Be a Good Husband. And prevent Martha from slaughtering me where I stand. "We'll be there in no time."

Except…

Except…

To "get a cab" you have to first "find" a cab.

And on that particular day, every taxi in the greater Boston area, plus Brookline and associated communities, had recently invested in a Klingon cloaking device of the highest quality.

"We'll be there in no time," I say, again, while Martha sizes up available walls for potential head banging. Whether mine or hers, I leave to your imagination.

*

Finally…thank God!...we got a cab. Of course, I had to leap into traffic and drag it back to the curb with my teeth, but we got it.

Then, we're off. The chatty little driver told us all about traffic in Boston and how the streets are weird and the pedestrians are all nuts but, not to worry, he was a trained professional.

Oh, he added, and by the way, for our convenience, we could now pay for the trip with our credit card using the newly installed reader in the back of the cab.

We looked and, sure enough, there's a reader in place. And, since we may need cash to pay for dinner, I figured, what the heck? I'll use it.

We arrived at the theater where David's graduation was about to happen. I ran my card through the reader and…

"It's not going through," the driver said.

"What?" I said, as we 're about to bolt out the door.

"It's not going through." He pointed at a terminal he has in the front. It shows lines and numbers and arrows, all moving and twitching, but none of 'em going any place in particular.

"What does that mean?" I said.

"I don't know," he said. "They just installed this thing yesterday."

"Well," I said, "I'm sure it will go through in a minute, and we're in a terrible hurry, so…"

He looked at me. He didn't exactly snarl. It was more subtle than that. It was more your basic unspoken, non-verbal response which says, louder than words, "If you think you're going to stiff me for the fare when your d*man fake credit card doesn't work out, well, you're even stupider than you look. And that's saying something."

"Ah," I said. "Er," I added.

It seemed insightful.


*

"Okay," I say. "Martha, why you don't go in and watch the ceremony. I'll stay here and we'll work this out."

She looks at me for a half a moment, and then, uneasily, leaves the cab. I remain sitting there while the little terminal thing on the driver's dash blinks and flashes and makes cute little grinding noises. Sort of like the sound the Tin Woodman's head made when he was thinking very, very hard. Or maybe that was George W. Bush. Hard to tell. I get them mixed up all the time.

Just then, the driver looked up and says, "Oh." He hits something on the side the terminal. It goes "ca-chunk," and then, with a burp, prints out a receipt. "There you go,"

I stagger out into the sunlight. "Okay," I think. "We're home free." I head up the steps into the theater. In the lobby, I find myself confronting a nice lady with a frozen smile.

"Ticket," she says. "Please," she adds, after a second.

"Ticket?" I say.

"Ticket," she agrees.

"As in the little piece of paper that lets you get into the graduation?"

"Exactly,"

"As in the little piece of paper which is in my wife's purse and she's already inside?"

"Uh-huh,"

"Oh," I say, in a very small voice.


*


Just then, a miracle occurred.

The nice lady with the frozen smile was called aside by an usher with some problem or other. I was, therefore, able to sneak in. God will surely smite me for my transgression. But, heck, it was worth it. And what's a few decades in Purgatory between friends? I'm particularly looking forward to the boiling oil and hot pinchers. I understand they're very stimulating.

So, finally, after everything, I went up the top floor of the theater, and after a bit of searching, found Martha. We sat down and waited.

Then…


*

We heard his name.

And there…there!...he was.

He crossed the stage. He approached the podium. A man and woman greeted him. They gave him a single white flower…his school's version of a diploma. He took it. He turned. He faced the audience briefly. Did he see us? I don't know. But we saw him.

Oh, Lord, did we see him.

And then he walked across the stage and vanished into the wings.

Martha held my hand.

I held hers.

We did not move…for a very long time.


*

We met David afterwards and went for dinner at a Thai restaurant he knew—name of '"Chilli Duck," no less. Martha took a picture of him standing in front of the restaurant. It shows this astonishingly handsome young man, casually dressed, a flower in one hand.

Where did the little boy go? The one used to be?

Well, if I look hard enough, I can still see him. I always will be able to. It is the special talent of parents.


*

Afterwards, we went home. Magically and maddeningly, the trip was smooth as silk. The trains ran perfectly. The car started right away. There were no more delays. It was as though the tension had drained from the universe, and we were simply carried along with the current of things. We arrived at the house and, a little later, slept without dreams.

And that's pretty much the end of this story.

In a way, it is also the end of yet another, larger story—that is, the part of our life that spanned our son's education and very young manhood. He will always be with us. We will always be with him. He may go to graduate school. He may not. But, one way or another, these things will be different from what came before.

And we will be different…the three of us.

We will change, in little ways or big, but we will change.

I wonder who we will become.


*

Well…

I can't tell the future. I can't say what David will choose to become. I can't say when, or indeed, if I will get the full time teaching job. I can't say when Martha will or won't decide to leave her university. I can't say what my parents' future will be.

But there are some things I know will be true.

We will hold fast to one another. We will love one another. No matter what…no matter what the train…no matter where it carries us.

We will hold fast.

Forever.


*

Onward and upward.




Copyright © 2010 Michael Jay Tucker

"I'm tired...sooooo tired...." insert depressing music here

Hello, Everyone,

So, what can I say, I'm still not posting here very much. Mea Culpa. I'm so sorry. And feel free to whack me with a big stick when you get a chance.

And I wish I had a good excuse…like, maybe that I'd been kidnapped by aliens or hit by a blimp. But, alas, 'tis not the case. I've just been plain busy. I've got this book project I'm working on…a kind of a history-travel book about several cities…I just finished a 76 page chapter on Boston.

And I've got papers to grade. And classes to teach. And freelance gigs to find. And I'm still looking for a full time job. And…oh, yes, there are those voodoo dolls I'm doing for use on a certain millionaire investment bankers ..and maybe a certain dissertation committee…or ex-committee, as the case may be. And those are just taking far more time and effort than I'd expected.

So, I haven't been posting here.

But, not to worry, because, you see, if I were posting here on a regular basis, and telling you all about my life, all I'd be saying would be, "Cripes, I'm overworked, underpaid, unappreciated, disrespected, overtaxed, under-medicated, hyper-tense, humiliated, and, by the way, I'm so tired that when I travel the airlines charge me extra for the bags under my eyes."

So…when you feel the need to hear from me, well, just go look in the mirror.

If you are in any way like 99.9% of us today, you'll get exactly the same message…and you won't even have to boot up your computer.

Talk about efficiency.

Onward and upward.


Copyright © 2010 Michael Jay Tucker

Wonders of Wall Street

Hi, everyone,

Well, I'm still not posting here as often as I'd hoped. And I still haven't completed my last entry on the New Mexico series from the summer.

But, like I said before, things are complicated. I'm working on four different book projects, teaching three classes, doing some freelance, and, occasionally, just as an exercise in futility, looking for additional jobs.

Which brings me to my topic for the evening. I've been fascinated by the way that the financial establishment has responded to the economic meltdown…which, by the way, was almost entirely its fault. The bankers and gurus and Wall Street wonders all plunged us into hell, and we've had to pull them …and us… out of the abyss with tons of money and lots of effort.

And, by the way, to keep the system running, all us normal people had to take major hits…which is why so many of us are out of work, and many more of us are under-employed, and we none of us are really happy about it.

The kinky thing? Go talk to some of the people who aren't working, and you'll probably find they blame themselves. God damnit, we say, if only we'd been smarter or worked harder or whatever, then we'd still have a pay check.

Which, of course, is absurb…because we didn't have anything to do with the crisis.

But, the people who did get us into this mess? The bankers and gurus and Wall Street wonders? The people who put us on the unemployment lines and destroyed a lot of lives and careers? The people who were at fault?

How do they feel about it?

Why they're just happy as a clam, thanks, and they're taking big money bonuses at tax payer expense and "economizing" by going to St. Tropez for only six weeks this year.

So…

To help me deal with my feelings regarding these people, I have made a little clay figure to represent them. See it?

Now, here's my response to their behavior.

SQUISH!

There we go. I feel much better.

Don't you?

Onward and upward.


Copyright © 2010 Michael Jay Tucker

It's my birthday and I'll kvetch if I wanna

Hi, Everyone,

Sorry I've been so lax about doing my Xcargo blog postings. But, well, things have just been fantastically complicated over the last few weeks. I've had classes to teach, lectures to prepare, taxes to get ready... I threw my back act. And I had a bout of something called "benign positional vertigo," which is perfectly harmless, but you feel sorta like Dorothy in the tornado except Toto bailed out for a Dramamine someplace back around Nebraska.

But, today, I simply have to start posting again. And I've got reason. It's my birthday. And I'm now fifty-three years old.

Which means I'm not 22 years old any more. And I have to wear reading glasses. And I'm taking Lipitor, and folic acid, and high blood pressure meds, and baby aspirin …once a day.

So, let's celebrate. Ready?

Whoop-de-freaking-doo.

Onward and upward.







Copyright © 2010 Michael Jay Tucker

Scott Brown

Hello, Everyone,

Well, first of all, sorry I've been out of touch. Things got a bit hairy for a while and I wasn't able to get to my Xcargo-ing.

But, now, I’m back from New Mexico and I'm ready for my first ever posting for 2010.

Specifically, what I want to talk about today is the recent election by which my home state, Massachusetts, selected Scot Brown, lawyer and former nude model, to fill the Senate seat formerly held by the late Ted Kennedy.

I know that some of you have asked for my reaction to this development. And, therefore, today, I'm going to try to give you that.

So, my reaction is…

ARGH !!!!!

I think that sums it up well, don't you?

Onward and upward.


Copyright © 2010 Michael Jay Tucker

Off To New Mexico