Gaudy Explosions

I don’t think I’ve had a year of so much change since 1998, when I joined the Army. On April 4th last year I started school again for the umpteenth time, and made up lost ground in a hurry. Three quarters at South Seattle College got me an Associate’s degree, a frightening (for me) comfort with the Modern Language Association and its writing format, and frightening (for you) comfort with poetry. Recall (as I reminded you of too often) that my English Comp teacher asked to use my Voter ID paper in her future classes. My only fear – recognized after giddily saying that OF COURSE YOU CAN MY GOD – is that she’s been giving it the full Maddow ever since. Putting my calmly dispassionate support for voter ID on the screen and ripping into as prescribed therapy for post-election PTSD. But hey, she wouldn’t do that if it wasn’t good.

I love, too, that we lived through THE ELECTION. The last great tragedy that occurred in my life – the last “where were you when” event – was the Space Shuttle Challenger blowing up in 5^th grade. What was her name – Krista McCullough? I think so. Wrong! Krista McCauliffe. The teachers wheeled little CRT sets on carts into our classrooms, turned the dials and adjusted the antennae until one of the 4 channels came through. I wonder, with THE ELECTION, how many classrooms had their flat-screened LCD panels drawing satellite signals of pre- and post-election coverage into classrooms. The anticipation beforehand, the buildup, and the moment of recognition that the carnage was real. I can’t imagine a condition by which anyone would have enjoyed watching the space shuttle separate into flaming debris after launch. But if you were a Trump voter watching the election unfold, seeing that gaudy, expensive, billionaire’s toy rocket to the stars come apart on its ascent on November 8^th was as satisfying as hearing the words “no cancer.”

Two months before that, I quit drinking. It’s as if I knew how important sobriety would be on November 8^th – the last thing you want to be in a riot is drunk. This is my first and last post on the subject, because no matter how you spin it there isn’t a drinker in the world who wants to hear a single word from a non-drinker about not drinking. There is no mission, no outreach, no hope that you might be getting through to someone. There’s no place for that sanctimony among friends. The problem is that most non-drinkers use that sanctimony to fuel their sobriety, as if smugness is how they quit, and more smugness is how they stay quit. That’s not mine. I will make one blanket statement, and move on: I quit because it’s better this way. Everything is. Not hyperbole. Everything important is better, and I am better at it. Would it be the same for you? Yes.

Poetry. One of the things at which I have gotten better. Much better, and still going. Thank you Michael G. Hickey and South Seattle College.  I have submitted a packet of poetry to The Iowa Review, arguably as prestigious a literary publication as there is. I’m sure nothing will be selected, but that’s not even the point. Two other times, I have been selected. The aforementioned Mike Hickey submitted two of my poems to a competition at which I won an honorable mention (and money!). Thanks, Mr. Hickey! And Fragments, the literary magazine at Seattle University, is going to publish another of my poems. But you know all this. What you may not know is what I think about it: I think I am doing things right.

And now I’m studying creative writing at Seattle University, though I haven’t taken any creative writing classes. So far it’s much more like creative reading, and that’s fine with me. I’ll write more, submit more, read more (sometimes out loud) and hopefully get published again soon.

Carry on, now. Facebook told me that I am turning zero, and that “That’s all for today.” Imma just try to live up to that.