DumbFunnery

My Utopia

(I wrote this today, 3/4/2010.)

I’m at work, but I’m not on work time because I’m in a lovely program where I work for the company for free, outside my 40 hours a week. Currently I’m on a telecon. The ‘major players’ are together in one room on the east coast, and someone they hadn’t seen in a while showed up so they’re all catching up. Punch me in the face. (One of the big wigs just said, “yeah they’re building us this in their free time!” I hate you.)

So I’m dreaming about what if this was true (remember, it’s a dream world, so I’m much more impressive there than in reality, to quote a Hemingway line from one of his books – “I want to be me, only much, much better. And have you love me.”):

(And I enjoy my job, but it’s fun to have my own little mental island to escape to.)

I wake up, it’s about 630, and I slip out of bed quietly so I won’t wake up the old ball and chain. My dog, a husky named possibly Fitz or Hemmy (short for Fitzgerald or Hemingway, two of my favorite authors), gets up at the sound of my getting up.

We go for a jog four mornings a week during the summertime. In the winter, we settle for a walk.

It’s May, and where we are in northern Arizona, it’s cool in the mornings. I get my running clothes on, grab the leash, and my dog and I are off to the races.

When I get back home my wife is awake. We eat cereal while watching morning news. We scoff and make fun of the obvious faux sympathy practiced by the news anchors/actors. Even though we do this every morning, it brings us easy amusement.

I say goodbye to the wife and dog – my two best friends, one of them prettier than the other (huskies are so pretty, so I can’t say for sure who will be prettier even in my utopia world).

I head to school, it’s the last week of classes and the kids are itching to be done with everything – but they have to get through finals first.

The 8th graders are even more excited than the 7th graders to be done – because they won’t just be done with school that year, they’ll be done with middle school.

I look forward to class – not because all of my students are smart, but because they all want to learn. They all have, at the very least, desire. And, the classes and I get along swimmingly.

For example, one day a 7th grade class had vowed not to speak the entire period. When they came in I started my usual small talk with them, seeing how so-and-so’s baseball game went, and how so-and-so enjoyed the movie they told me they were going to watch the night before. Nothing. The kids are giving me nothing. At some point I realize what they’ve done – the silence pact.

I decide it’s game on.

I teach the entire pre-algebra lecture without saying a word. The kids are desperate to say something, I’m desperate to say something – but hell if I’m not stubborn. Kids come up and point at things violently to demonstrate confusion. I pretend to not understand, then finally explain. Explanation 1, explanation 2, explanation 3, ahaaaaaa! The last group who hadn’t been getting it has their eyes light up – they get it now.

[I worked at a summer program, and a math teacher there told this story. Well, I made some small changes. I thought it was a great, and true, story by that teacher though.]

I am one excellent middle school math teacher.

I’m cool, but I still get them to learn. I transition between a joke and an aha faster than anyone. My students’ younger siblings have heard about me, and they can’t wait to have me despite the fact that my class isn’t easy breezy.

During lunch I check my email quickly – I’ve got one from my literary agent confirming some dates for my annual summer book tour.

I miss living near a city, but I make up for it during that trip when I get to visit quite a few cities.

The plan for that particular summer is that I’ll be driving east to Savannah, Georgia, stopping at various cities along the way. From Savannah I’ll head north, staying mostly coastal but sometimes heading inland. I read at small bookshops, big bookshops, and even a weird fans house (she makes the best cookies, but I think she’s in love with my wife). The previous summer I went westward ho, so east was the choice for that summer.

I forward the email to the old ball and chain, my sister and my mom. Each of them will be joining me at various points during the tour. My wife for the drive east. My mom and dad in the south. My sister in the north. We have big plans to make side trips for various reasons. It’ll be a long summer with a lot of miles, but I’ll get to read things I’ve read to people, and people enjoy it, which brings me extreme joy.

Along the trip I also reunite with some old friends from the places I’ve lived. It’s good catching up one-on-one, and we repeat the same stories that we’ve already heard and told. I get made fun of for the obvious origins of ‘fictional’ stories that I’ve written about in my various published (yes, published) books.

Plus, I make money, which as a guy who loves money, I love. Teachers make squat compared to my old ‘career’ as an engineer.

*

Well, there you have it, my utopia. Will that happen? It could, which is nice. But who knows if I’d enjoy a different job more than my current one. Or if I’d be a good teacher. Or if I’ll get published. Or if I’ll get a husky. Or married. Or have a wife who would be cool with me naming my dog after a womanizer like Hemingway.

But – this phone meeting is dumb, and to quote another Hemingway book (a famous line),

“Isn’t it pretty to think so?”

(Oh, and somewhere along the way I would get really good at carpentry, painting, the piano, and the guitar. Easy peasy, right?)