Humphrey's Responses

First: how do I feel about spring?

I don't really like spring.  Spring in Oregon is a terrible tease: "Here, have some nice warm weather!  That's right, winter is over!  The flowers are coming up, the sun is coming out -- oh wait, did I forget to mention that two solid months of rain?  My bad."  Stupid spring.  Spring is also allergy season, and while I don't suffer very much myself, both my wife and my dog have some pretty severe pollen allergies, so I have an itchy dog and a sniffly wife for months, and both of them are saddened by this, and there's nothing I can do to fix it, which drives me nuts.

I also don't like Spring Break (Check my other blog if you want to know why), and spring is also the season when we get our longest period without any days off, between Spring Break and Memorial Day, AND it's when everybody is feeling burnt out and antsy, and so people get more annoying, and I'm more easily annoyed.  I hate that.

I prefer summer, socially, because that's when I don't have to work and I get to read books and write my book; I like fall in terms of weather, because I like cool better than either cold or hot, dry rather than rainy and muddy, and I love when the trees turn colors and the leaves fall, and because fall has my favorite holidays -- Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Talk Like a Pirate Day.  If I could have a fall when I didn't have to go back to school, everything would be glorious.


Now: what does my life lack?  My life lacks very little, honestly; I love my family, I love my day-to-day activities, I feel extremely lucky to live where I do and when I do in grand historical terms.  I think the thing I lack most is respect.  I don't think I have earned respect as a writer, because I am a complete failure when it comes to publication; I think I'm good enough to get that respect, but I haven't because nobody really knows how good I am, other than my family.  I don't think I get all the respect I deserve as a teacher, though most people are fine, because there are some people who don't have any idea how hard I work or how successful I am or why it matters, and they treat me shabbily because of it.  My biggest issues with this are those who lie to me, and those who insult me.

What do I lack in myself?  I lack audacity.  I should sometimes tell people what I really think of them. I should be more willing to throw myself to the lions of the writing world, in order to get myself published.  I should be willing to be shameless in my self-promotion.  But I'm too quiet/passive/afraid to do these things, and so I don't get what I want.  My fault.

My biggest obstacle?  The way in which our society worships youth and beauty, sex and drugs and rock 'n'roll, and power and wealth -- but not art.  I shouldn't have to sell my art, I should simply be able to present it and be compensated for that art.  My wife shouldn't have to compete with computer graphics just because they are faster --she creates real art, not a wash of pixels.  Upper division language arts, like this class, should be about admiring and appreciating literature as an art form -- not passing standardized tests and writing blase essays.

Stupid Philistine world.