"Who's Your Daddy?"

Back in the 1980s, I did the college gig all traditional-like. Squirming and chafing in Montana, I hit eighteen and began the countdown to flight. When the time came to start college, I viewed the 1,000 miles separating my new campus and my hometown as "a headstart on a life where I don't work in a bowling alley."

1,000 miles away from my high school, I learned to wear scarves and listen to REM and dance to Soul Asylum and subsist on the salad bar and listen to convocations featuring distinguished speakers like that old curmudgeon Garrison Keiller and stalk physics study group sessions in the hope that the word "torque" would ever mean more to me than being the last name of a member of the 1960's faux-musical group The Monkees (Peter Tork) and attend a production of Sam Shepard's True West and climb the water tower about an hour after putting the keg's tap directly into my mouth and,

well,

I think you get the picture.

So I have that experience in my life that represents "college."

However, now I teach at a community college, which often feels more like a move of social justice than a career choice.

Because, you know, there are reasons why students are attending the community college. Certainly, there's convenience; there's affordability; there's the personal touch. Additionally, though, students often find that the community college is a place to go after--or while in the midst of--personal crisis: divorce, job loss, rape, rehab, mental illness. Our students, in short, aren't living their educations. They are tucking their educations in and around their lives, flitting to campus for class and then booking away again the minute the Anatomy & Physiology lab is done, tearing to daycare to pick up the twins.

Thus, community colleges often lack the traditional "college culture." They are commuter campuses, by and large, so our students miss out on the experience of checking their mail for care packages from home or riffling through their roommate's drawers while she's at Abnormal Psych, looking for weepy journals, sex toys, dime bags, packages of Pork Ramen. They pop in to "learn" and jet away to "live." Rarely is there a marriage of the two.

All of this explains why I so love the end-of-term student art show on our campus. For three quick days, the place almost feels like--has the vibe of--a college. When the art show is hung, I feel like shouting to the students, "If you think this is good, you should know places exist where professors take you outside for class in the Spring, and you all sit and lean against trees--YES, there are trees!--and talk about Kierkegaard. And sometimes after class you go play frisbee, and after that someone will play a guitar and sing Cat Stevens off-key. During all of this, you feel more comfortable than you ever have before and simultaneously kind of queerly alone--yet certain that your life will never be more vivid. This, dear community college students, is what you should extrapolate from the art show. Scurry now. Do that. Extrapolate." (then, being where we are, I define "extrapolate")

This semester, the art show was particularly fun because Groomeo has been cashing in on my free credits and taking some art classes, so his work was displayed, too, AND he got to pour glasses of Pepsi at the opening night reception. Me? I got to skip around and clap my happy hands in front of any piece signed "Jocelyn's Husband."



I also got to warm up my snarky sotto voce comments for the dreck that festooned the place. As it turns out, I possess happy hands and sotto voce comments in equal measure, so I went skipping and bitching and mocking and twirling until I was finally forced to collapse back at Groom's Pepsi table and order a double.

Much revived by the carbonation, I headed back out to witness more of "the learning curve made incarnate" that decorated the walls and tables. Of course, personally, my best artistic abilities involve stick figures, sock monkeys, and my own urine, so I couldn't be too condescending.

But.

Come. On.





I. Mean. Really.

And I haven't even included photos of the myriad works featuring Tinkerbells or clay seals playing basketball.

What I learned from my art trolling with the kids was this: five-year-old boys rewy, rewy think paintings of Captain Hook and cigarette-smoking chimpanzees wearing visors are soooooooo cool. I also learned that my husband does a damn good job--so good, even, that when his first assignment in Drawing class this term was to create something on a scratchboard, as a way of learning technique, and the teacher recommended animals as a good subject for this medium, he was able make that untenable assignment sing. Initially, when he came home from class and told me that there might be kitties involved, I recoiled and gasped out, "You mean...create an animal? Like, on purpose? Must you?" Cringing right along with me, Groom said, "Well, textured subjects work well on scratchboard; there's no way to erase, and there's nothing but black and white, and so fluff translates well. But never fear: I'm going to think on it."

For one wild day, he considered doing a picture of a dandelion gone to seed. I was able to get behind him on that notion. I knew the alternative.

But then he decided to listen to his teacher and take this basic assignment and do, yup, something basic. He announced he was going to scratch out a sheep.

Greeting his declaration with more than a minute of silence, I eventually left the room to re-group before returning, resolved, able to tell him my love would withstand this one test, but if he ever painted a unicorn, it would be over, and he'd need to be out by Monday.

Crikey, though, look what he did with the Baa-Baa:


Dude made my jaw drop at a sheep's head. Previously, the closest I had come to this was dropping my trousers in the loo at a pub called The Boar's Head.

With this bowl he threw in Ceramics class, my years of muttering about "this pain-in-the-arse piece-of-crap-we-serve-beets-in" came to an end.



This wall displays three of his 2-D digital designs, one for movement (him on a unicycle), one for radial balance, and one for rhythm. Maybe you all should send me gifts now, so I can send you a little thank-you card, featuring one of these on the front. I like books, espresso, and dangly earrings.

Here's Girl, viewing her pappy's self-portrait. The instructor took his photo, off of which this drawing was based, on a particularly greasy-headed hat-hair day, which means I now get to tell him all the time that he has a seriously ginormous forehead. I'm tempted to get him all steamed up and fry an egg on it.


Cutting in closer to that portrait, I find my happy clapping hands coming out again.

I mean, look. He's just nice (...even though I'm not quite sure where his eyelashes went; did they never grow back after the bacon grease fire of 2005?).

Seventeen years ago, His Groomishness graduated from a pricey place that offered up the traditional campus experience. Now he's mixing it up a little and making me all shivery.

Indeed. Every night, I get to hop into bed with those peepers--those kind eyes that have staked out residual territory just below the ginormous forehead of a community college student.

"Birkebeiner, Redux"

Tomorrow, North America's largest cross-country ski race, The American Birkebeiner, will be held, despite--as I may have mentioned once or twice--a general lack of snow in the region. Race organizers have abbreviated the course, and only the elite athletes will actually be skiing a competitive, timed race, but, heck, such decisions have salvaged the thing.

Meteorological word has it, too, that The Big One is on the way, so all skiiers tomorrow, whether timed or not, may benefit from a dumpage of new snow.

For this big weekend, I'm going to recycle a post from some months back, when only one person read my blog instead of the large masses of seventeen who now do; it features my favorite Birkie story.

Here ya go:


Let me tell you the tale of an old college acquaintance--let's call him Joe-O. Now Joe-O is a character in and of himself; he's strident about leaving the smallest "footprint" he can on the planet, to the point that he only buys in bulk, composts everything, and, if he does create some small amount of garbage, he just burns it every few weeks. When he lived 30 miles from his job, that was not enough to make him drive a car...instead, he viewed the 60-mile daily bicycle commute as an opportunity for fitness. In addition to biking, Joe-O is a fan of all silent sports, cross-country skiing, in particular. For more than a decade now, he's been into ski racing, with his season capped off by racing the American Birkebeiner, held in the Cable/Hayward, Wisconsin, area every February.

Many of you are doubtlessly acquainted with the Birkie, and some of you may have skiied it yourselves. You would then know that upwards of 10,000 skiers participate, and because of the heaps of steaming humanity standing on slippery pointed boards with sharp sticks in their hands, the race start takes place in "waves." That means that it's not a mass start, but rather large groups (each one a wave) begin the race in staggered fashion, every few minutes. The waves are also seeded, which means that the elite American and international skiers are put into the First Wave, and then successive waves are populated by skiers who have achieved certain times in previous races. The sum effect of these waves is that the best skiers start first, the next best skiers start second, and so on, all the way back to the final wave, which is populated by 85-year-old-retired pastors, 8-year-old Boy Scouts, and women in labor.

For old Joe-O, the first year he entered the Birkie, he had no race record and, therefore, was seeded in the last wave. This was a bit frustrating to Joe-O because he had proven himself to be a gifted skier, but he knew he had to rack up a tremendous race time this first year, in order to improve his start position for the following year. With skill and strategy, he knew he would, with a good race, be starting in one of the first few waves in successive years.

So he took his place on the course, having been up late the night before waxing his skis perfectly for the conditions, and now he was primed, waiting for the starting gun, the Eye of the Tiger glinting in his gaze.

And then.

And.

Then.

He, well...He...how shall I say it discreetly? He felt a sudden, undeniable, overwhelming need to void his intestinal regions.And, naturally, with 9,999 other jittery and nervous racers feeling the same way, the line at the port-a-johns was not short. Suffice it to say, by the time Joe-O got back to the start line, his wave--the last wave--had already started. He could still begin the race, but his shot at a stellar time, one that would move him up in future years, had gone down the drain with his intestinal evacuation.

Here is the crux of my story, so stop slouching and pay attention: Joe-O took a moment to huff and stomp and mutter, and then he regrouped and came up with Plan B (this moment is also known as acceptance that Some Things Cannot Be Changed). His plan was this: since he was going to be the caboose in this train of 10,000 skiers, he would make the most of it--the sheer amount of detritus left behind by all those participants could be a windfall for Joe-O. He would, quite simply, forget about racing and, instead, pick up every discarded item he could find along the course: water bottles, ski poles, hats, mittens, fanny packs, and the like. Why, he'd never have to buy another cheap pair of UV-blocking sunglasses again, after this day! He'd never again have to invest in safety pins, or fleece neck gaiters, or half-eaten bags of gummy bears!

Hours later, after covering the 50K course as a lurching stop-and-start scavenger, Joe-O crossed the finish line; his one-piece lycra racing suit had been transformed into a bulging crap-carrier. Early on, he'd realized he couldn't carry all the loot in his hands, so he'd unzipped the front of his suit and started stuffing in every wayward item he encountered, until, at the end, he looked like a red Michelin Man staggering away from a particularly fruitful rummage sale (one that didn't happen to have any bags for customers).

What do we learn from Joe-O and his "let's make espresso out of chicory" approach to the race? First, it ain't over 'til it's over, so continue to hang in there until the bloody, or junk-filled, end. Second, even if the race isn't shaping up as you'd hoped, with the right attitude, you can reap unexpected rewards. Third, don't shove a broken sharp metal ski pole tip so far down into your ski suit that you nearly become a soprano (or, more correctly, a castrato).