It's been a few months, I know. My excitement at establishing a rhythm in my writing, providing incisive (if problematic) commentary on current events waned after a couple of weeks it seems, only to be replaced by a combination of confusion and frustration as to why I am not writing, and what is keeping me from doing it. And then I start thinking about it more and more, and my frustration grows, and instead of writing I'm stuck in my own head trying t--

You know what? Let's not draw too deeply from that particular Freudian well, ok?

And why should we, right? Things have certainly not improved since we last saw one another: police violence against African Americans is escalating, with the cold-blooded murder of George Floyd a couple months ago, the attempted murder of Jacob Blake just the other day in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and everything in between. 

"How can this continue to happen?", the kind person in the back of your mind and heart might be saying. You may fall deeper into despair with every report of police violence, and you may worry for yourselves, your friends, or your children when they (we) take to the streets to protest. It can be scary. And frankly, as violence escalates amid a Federal reaction that actively encourages police brutality rather than deny its existence*, we all have a right to be scared. 



And not to pile on, but we also have to think about our current pandemic reality, and how that affects the ways in which we as people relate to one another. Yes, you see the picture-- I am talking about masks; but I am also talking about communication. 
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I may be dating myself here, or maybe I am just a lover of classic movies from the early to mid-nineties, but I really enjoyed watching The Mask. Once you get over the exaggerated physical comedy and problematic accents of Jim Carrey in this role, you start thinking about the Mask itself, and what you realize about halfway through the movie is that the power of the Mask is that it turns you into an all-powerful caricature of who you really are on the inside. When you put on "the mask," rather than hiding who you really are (as masks do), it does the opposite, and shows it to the world. And of course, along with it, a lot of fart jokes and impromptu musical numbers, which to my mind explains its relatively short life on VHS, DVD, or video over the past 25 years, only remaining on the shelves of folks who have a lizard or alien fetish. 

Anyway, unlike Jim Carrey's "mask" in 1994, the masks we wear today actually drive us deeper into ourselves. Combine that with the recent shelter-in-place, quarantine, working remotely from home, and the inevitable zoom meetings that are supposed to take the place of human interaction, and it becomes clear that our isolation from the public sphere (to whatever degree) has turned us into actual isolationists. The world/country/city/neighborhood had already been on edge for years, but now, whatever fractured sense of community that had been holding us together is now about to break. All of those moments of kindness, humanity, or connection that people once had in public has been replaced by tension, suspicion, and fear. And we react to our tension, suspicion, and fear by not only returning to the places we feel safe, but also into mindsets that offer us the security that human interaction once offered. 

Soon, not being able to know your neighbor will turn into not wanting to know your neighbor; violations of the six foot rule will turn into a social norm rather than a health precaution. And worst of all, we will stop losing the ability to empathize with the people we encounter in our daily lives-- or just as bad, no one will be able to recognize empathy, even when it is right in front of them. This is incredibly sad, but it is also dangerous. 

George Floyd, Jacob Blake-- these are just the latest in what can safely be counted as tens of thousands of lynchings of African Americans that have occurred in the past century, and they are all connected. Perhaps some things have changed politically and socially, but the violence and its foundations in greed, wealth, and white supremacy remain the same. The wounds remain open, but we heal in small ways by being present for one another, showing each other our pain, our wounds, tending to them-- tending to one another, sometimes in ways that are not perceptible for years, or generations. And we also heal by sharing our willingness to fight against racial violence that has been embedded in over 400 years of white supremacy-- a racist system awards privilege and entitlement unearned by the folks who hold it. We need to be able to show one another that we are in this fight together. 

But we can't show each other right now. Because if we take off our masks, we might die. 

I'm not gonna lie; there are no easy solutions to this. Living in a pandemic means that we have to stop the transmission of the virus, and to do that, we need masks. We wear the masks, and instead of being our best inner selves, like Jim Carrey, by default we can be perceived by others as all of the worst things that others think of us, even if we don't want to be. 

My concern is that between the pandemic and (legitimate) social unrest, there will be a rise in violence, both from the state and its citizenry. The current isolationism we are experiencing is not geographical, it is more individualized. We won't be seeing north versus south, because our isolation is occurring in our homes, our social spheres, and our minds. So how will the violent divide play out? My best guess is that the violence will be confusing, and not easily identified for what it is. Mistakes in identifying so-called "enemies" will be commonplace, and as a mentioned earlier, people will revert into spaces in which they feel safe, and comfortable, which in the outside world will cause a certain amount of chaos. In this chaos I am proposing, I suspect that a strong leader may point to all of this and suggest that we need someone strong to bring "law and order" back to America. Yes, predictably, fear is what I believe will re-elect the current White House resident, even if it is mobilized in a way that we don't yet recognize. And ultimately, his winning strategy is going to be taking advantage of our collective fear of COVID-19, him, and most of all, one another. 

No happy ending this time, except to say that all of this does not mean we stop fighting. We never stop fighting, and we never stop being who we are, finding better ways to communicate, finding ways to come together-- it is possible, but it will be a challenge. I hope we are up to it, because we only have a few months. 

*Who would have thought that politicians saying, "police brutality is bad, in those rare moments that it happens," would be "the good ole' days?" We are truly living in a surrealist nightmare worse than anything even himself Dalí could cook up. 

I'm still relatively new to the position in which I sit, which is to say I've been here five or six years. Being among the rare full time instructors at a California Community College there were many things to which I had to adjust, and the surprises I encountered came in many forms. On the one hand, I had to navigate a world in which I had healthcare, a consistent wage, and a host of responsibilities that full-time faculty typically have (which, to be fair, some shrug off)-- all responsibilities that I never had in my former life as an adjunct/part time faculty member. On the other hand-- and this one has taken some time-- I had to finally arrive at the realization that all of my ideas to bring positive change to an institution (campus, district, call it what you will) entrenched in dysfunction was also the goal of at least two generations of full-time faculty before me. In fact, to think that I (or my generation of faculty) would be the one(s) to change this dysfunction is pretty arrogant, right? It runs deeeeeeep. 
I don't want to assign archetypes to the faculty hailing from the generation(s) before me-- although that would be a lot of fun but would most likely reveal my A. Nonny(mous) identity*-- instead, I will say that in a short few years (say, five or six) as full-time faculty member at a community college, I can see that the faculty before me were once as excited, ambitious, creative, naive, and oblivious to hurdles as I once was. However, after years of being short-circuited or otherwise stymied by administrators (or colleagues!) resistant to change, they became apathetic. But I have ideas; great ideas! Of course, they did too. And much like their ideas for positive change, mine have become a far away dream that I once had, and I forget a little bit more of that dream everyday. Along the way, I become the faculty member I never thought I would be: well,  apathetic.  
Not long ago, at a festive gathering of like-minded and not-yet-jaded colleagues, we discussed bringing a coffee shop to campus. Coffee, bagels, muffins...you know, all the stuff that you see at a coffee shop. We went so far as to plan a location on campus, discuss who we might talk to in order to put this plan into action, and formulate a pitch for administration. Sadly, as with so many things, life/work got in the way, and most of us ended up being too busy to see it through. It was disappointing, sure, but at the time it was understandable. We were still on the tenure track, we had many courses to teach, committee upon which to serve, and familial obligations. But we all agreed it was a good idea. 

Fast forward to the present day: we actually have a coffee shop on campus, they are struggling (before the coronavirus), and yet I never went there once. I may have considered it once, but I didn't go, and I don't imagine I ever will. I worry this means I don't care as much about my institution as I once did; I also worry that it means I care about my job less than I once did-- because in a state where community college full-time faculty are roughly 35%-40% of the entire body of faculty, I realize that I pretty much hit the lottery when it comes to job security and a decent wage. I'm a cynic, I always have been, but I romanticized this job. I like most of my students, and I like most of my colleagues. I just thought it would be a bit better than a cross between working at a college and the Department of Motor Vehicles.

*hey, if you want to help me pay for this shit to be password protected, let me know, at [email protected]

I'm not one to complain, nor am I one to celebrate, but I must say that the current pandemic that we seem to be experiencing (a virus that was obviously engineered by the Norwegians to boost international sales of lutefisk) is nothing if not exciting and thought-provoking. 

I can hardly imagine what it must have been like in 1918, the last time there was a pandemic, but I know for sure that they had neither television, nor the internet. Shit, radio was still pretty new back then, wasn't it? You probably had three choices: 
1) Stay at home
2) Go out and get sick
3) Read
It is a testament to the American resistance to education and intelligence that the Spanish flu killed about 650,000 Americans. "Hhmmm...Golly-- should I go out and possibly catch influenza that will likely kill me, or...read?" Americans, not to mention people throughout Europe made their decision, it seems. 
Today, as a similar pandemic weaves its way through American culture and immune systems, we are not so hampered by the limited choices that dogged our geographical and generational forebears. Today, we have a wealth of activities and practical and social activities and amenities that make staying at home for prolonged periods of time not only possible, but potentially enjoyable. For a while, at least. 

Broadly speaking, we can mark television, the internet, and video games as activities that give us the illusion of living in the world without missing a beat. But when I think about the true upside of the pandemic, I am talking about the humor it has produced through the production of memes. memes are basically jokes that use visuals and occasionally non sequiturs to amuse us and express the absurdity of our own reactions to what health care workers are calling a global health emergency:
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And yet, at the same time, relatively tight confinement can create tension between family members, husbands, wives, partners, roommates, siblings, and so on. Professionally, the same annoyances bordering on frustration that turns into anger become commonplace. For my part, you already know how I feel about zoom meetings ("You Know What? Fuck Zoom."). The anger mixes with humor as well: 

But as always, dear reader, I do not look to the past, nor do I sit complacently in the present, awaiting my fate. Instead, I think about the future. What lies ahead of us over the next one, two, four years? I know what doesn't: good television. 

We're pretty much fucked. The pandemic is keeping you and I confined to our homes, but you know who else it is confining? Jeffrey Wright, one of the principal actors in Westworld. As Bernard in the HBO television series Westworld (I know, "it's not TV." Anyway...), Jeffrey Wright is among the many actors who, through this television series, prompts viewers to ask themselves about how technology is on a path to shift our understandings of consciousness, and whether the history of humanity as traditionally defined by the organic substances that make up our bodies is one that will be outpaced by the combination of physical technology and artificial intelligence. Bernard, for example,  can turn himself on and off like a computer and run diagnostics, but is that really so different from going under anesthesia for a biopsy?  My point is, it no longer fucking matters, because season four of Westworld is not going to happen until at least 20-fucking-24. So, you know...shit.
Will there be a fourth season of Ozark? Sure, you can count me among those who hope there will never be one, but if you are among the folks who long for a drama set in the southern midwest that is basically a cross between Dexter and Deliverance, then guess what? You're pretty much screwed, too. Homeland? No. Mandolarian? Nope. The Good Doctor? Hell no. 

Ok, I get it-- the flaw in my argument is that 90% of television these days is derivative garbage. But even that garbage is better than what we will be left with, which I suspect will be a flood of reality TV shows that are light on artful production, and long on gossip, obviously contrived conflict, and people with no talent whatsoever. And of course, people who are rich enough to believe that they are talented singers even though the notion of drinking bleach is more attractive that subjecting one's ears to the noise that some of these entitled pricks exude. 

And that will be our lives for three years. 

If anything kills TV, it is going to be the inevitable reboots of Survivor and Joe Millionaire, both of which will make a ton of money for network executives (on the backs of unwitting and frankly idiotic attention hogs), and they will likely forget that there are alternatives to making someone catch and cook a lizard over an open fire while nude on a desert island. 

The only hope, as we look towards the true apocalypse-- the collective forgetting of good entertainment-- is that the masses will be forced to return to what was once central to cultures all over the world, producing in its wake an intelligent, thoughtful, and well-spoken population with an expansive vocabulary derived from years of dedicated concentration on understanding the world around them not through moving pictures, but by words on a page. It could be the true intellectual renaissance that the world has been waiting for, one in which patience and thoughtfulness characterize human interactions, and critical thinking derived from the systematic collection of material through reading can be the benchmar---

Oh yeah. Audiobooks. 

Fuck it. We're fucked. 

We're all at least a few weeks into teaching completely online, and institutionally , it is every bit the mess that we all thought it would be. Some faculty are adjusting well, others are adjusting in a hurry, and others...well, they're adjusting themselves. I'm sympathetic, though it's tough to maintain such an attitude when assisting colleagues unfamiliar with LMS technology usually means spending a solid 20 minutes getting them to focus their laptop camera somewhere other than their own laps. I will say that it is a big ask to get faculty unfamiliar with new-fangled technology like the internet to jump into it with only two weeks prep time at the most. They grumble, but they do it, and I think it's a testament to their dedication to their students.

Here's my advice, for computer-literate and illiterate teachers alike: don't give a shit. I stopped giving a shit, and things are going great! My students are happy, I'm happy, and frankly anyone else who has a problem with that can go suck a butt. The bottom line is that students and faculty-- of all levels of teaching and learning-- are experiencing something that hasn't been experienced for about a hundred years, if you're into the historical comparison thing.

College transfer destinations will not look askance at student transcripts with a P/NP on them. No, they'll see it, they'll look at the semester in which it was granted, and say, "oh yeah, GLOBAL FUCKING PANDEMIC. ok," and move on. Right now, I swear to all that is holy, the worst thing we can do is try hard, especially for people new to remote learning/teaching. In our current context, trying your hardest is basically like having one of those rigged carnival games in your living room, and you're required to play it nonstop for 10 hours a day. I don't know about you, but after about 15 minutes of trying to get that fucking ring around the fucking coke bottle, I want to go to the booth next door and grab a dart and stab myself or the person next to me, whoever's closest. 

So don't worry about your class, worry about your roommates/family. Because I promise you: if you haven't thought about killing them, they are definitely thinking about killing you. Your time is better spent learning how to make a tourniquet with your cellphone charger.