The summer before I was first hired as a teacher, I took on a job cleaning in a movie theater. Prospects then were not good for finding a classroom in time for school to start. During my interview, the manager of the theater asked how long I planned on being around, saying that people usually didn’t stick around in that job for too long and it was inconvenient to keep training new hires whenever someone left. I told him that since school was starting in a matter of weeks and I had no leads at all, the chances were very good I’d be around for awhile.
It was a great job for an introvert in a lot of ways. I usually worked sometime between midnight and 5:00 AM, depending on how long it took each night. I only had to clean the theaters, and I was literally the only person in the entire establishment that time of night (or morning). All I really had to do was use a modified leaf blower to send all the trash to the front of the auditorium, shovel it into a huge rolling trash barrel, and then mop the rows so they weren’t sticky the next morning. The trash was easy, even if everything smelled like stale popcorn and too much sugar, and working with the leaf blower was even kind of fun. I was more of a night owl then than I am now, so the hours were an easy adjustment.
It didn’t last, though. Two weeks before the school year was scheduled to start, I was hired for my first teaching job at the school where I still am. When I called my boss at the theater to let him know I was going to be moving on, he asked if there was any chance I’d think about staying on for some hours. I was a little stunned he even asked. I said no thanks, but I thought, "Dude. Really? This isn’t just a different paycheck, this is beginning my career. This is what I went to college for. This is my dream. So I’m sorry, but I’m not going to be able to put my whole world into this new beginning and continue mopping your floors. Not many people ever get the chance to trade in a job for a dream."
In the twenty-three years that followed, it’s fair to say there have been instances when being a teacher defined who I was as much as it was what I did for a living. Even today, as much as the profession has changed, especially in the past ten years (and, in my opinion, not for the better in every single way), there is still much about it I love. It wasn’t that long ago that I was perfectly content with the idea of just moving on year to year like everyone else I know, waiting for that one year when I would know for sure that it was time to leave the classroom behind me and wander gracefully into whatever retirement had in store. But things are a little different now. Because even though there are still a healthy number of years between right now and when that scenario would be a realistic consideration, there’s a tiny gnawing starting up that makes me wonder if I really want to wait that long.
Ever since I began working with my agent last spring, there’s been a certain amount of speculation about what that change would mean for my teaching career. Mostly it’s been a lot of hyperbolic jokes, both coming from other people and from me, all about overnight fame and extravagant riches, miles of autograph lines, movie deals, the works. One friend of mine even had my framed autograph hanging on the wall behind her desk for months (maybe she still does) and of course I misspelled her name when I signed it. It’s all a fun fantasy to play with.
The truth is different, however. Getting an agent or selling a manuscript is not a golden pass to a new tax bracket and a collection of Newbery Medals. In fact, things still feel as up in the air as they ever have. (Side note, to highlight exactly how new everything still feels -- I mentioned a couple of posts back that I was reading the book The Shark Curtain, written by Chris Scofield, another one of Carrie’s clients. Knowing some of the back story of the work Carrie put into selling such an artfully written book makes me wonder exactly how my little middle grade manuscript and I even made it on her list. I’m seriously not fishing for compliments in saying that; The Shark Curtain is just THAT well-written. I'm stunned I can claim any kind of tenuous connection to it at all.)
So what does the future even look like? I know for certain that I still have some solid years of teaching ahead of me. But maybe...two, three, or four books, or anywhere from five to ten years down the road, and all the best possible things manage to align in the best possible ways?
To live a life as a working writer is my dream now. And while it isn’t exactly accurate to compare teaching to trying to separate Coca-Cola-epoxied popcorn seeds from a concrete theater floor (teaching is MUCH harder), I’ll say that if the chance comes along in a way that makes doing so a reasonable and viable decision, I would certainly think about at least taking a sabbatical to focus on writing for a time. And if that worked out?
As happy as I am to have the job that I have, not many people ever get the chance to trade in a job for a dream.
Friday, May 15, 2015
Thursday, May 14, 2015
Day 14: Happier Birthday Remembrances
Today would have been my sister Erin’s 44th birthday. Since I’d rather think about happier times than what it’s like to have her birthday without her, here’s a story about an earlier celebration.
She was turning...sixteen? Seventeen? One of those upper teen years. I’m thinking sixteen because she would have been old enough to work at our dad’s drugstore, but probably not old enough yet to drive on her own. She had to work on her birthday that year, which was on a Saturday, and would have had to ride home with our dad. This became part of an important plan.
Saturdays at the drugstore were long, slow, boring death marches. She was planning on going out with one of her friends after work to celebrate her birthday, probably with a movie or something because there was little else for wholesome youth to do back in the sub-suburban wasteland in which we lived back in the 1980s. Little did Erin realize she would not be going out that night. Instead, a group of her friends had come together to arrange a surprise party, back at our house. We lived about eight miles from the middle of nowhere, dead center between two towns that could barely sustain respective populations robust enough to merit being mentioned in the same breath as outer-tier Minneapolis suburbs. Because of this, it took anyone we knew at least twenty minutes to get to our house, and that was only if they were familiar enough with the maze of dirt roads that had be navigated to find it.
Dad was in on the plan when it became a surprise party. He was supposed to take his time driving home after work that night to build up her frustration; after all, she had just put in a ten-hour day and was primed for some birthday shenanigans, so the party ringleaders thought it would be even funnier if she was cranked up a tiny bit more when the surprise hit. He took it a step further than necessary though, and went out of his way to meander through a car lot on the edge of town to window shop new models instead of just taking the most direct route home. Our dad has always been a car guy and this had been a habit of his since we were young children. While he casually rolled through the lot, Erin just stewed, too angry to say anything because she knew she’d explode and wouldn’t be able to pull back once she cut loose.
Back at our house, her friends had been arriving in plenty of time. All of their cars had been moved at least a street away to make sure she wouldn’t see or recognize any of them when she and our dad finally made it home. Everyone who had been invited was down in the basement waiting quietly, growing increasingly curious about what was taking them so long. When the car finally pulled into the driveway, it had to be a good half-hour later than the usual drive time back from the store would have been.
Erin came in seething, silent and angry. Somehow our mother steered her into the basement -- I don’t remember for sure, but I think the manufactured reason had something to do with a shirt she wanted to wear that night being down in the laundry room. When she threw open the basement door and flicked on the lights, all of her friends were there waiting, yelled surprise, and BAM, at the same moment she was smacked in the face with a pie crust filled with whipped cream. The friend who had the idea for the pie got her so hard and so perfectly square in the face that her nose put a dent in the bottom of the pie tin. We actually had photographic proof of this afterward. Erin scaled back from DEFCON 1 almost immediately once she figured out what was going on, and all of the girlfriends filled our basement with a huge party for the rest of the night.
I hope whatever birthdays might be worth for her now, she’s having a great time tonight.
She was turning...sixteen? Seventeen? One of those upper teen years. I’m thinking sixteen because she would have been old enough to work at our dad’s drugstore, but probably not old enough yet to drive on her own. She had to work on her birthday that year, which was on a Saturday, and would have had to ride home with our dad. This became part of an important plan.
Saturdays at the drugstore were long, slow, boring death marches. She was planning on going out with one of her friends after work to celebrate her birthday, probably with a movie or something because there was little else for wholesome youth to do back in the sub-suburban wasteland in which we lived back in the 1980s. Little did Erin realize she would not be going out that night. Instead, a group of her friends had come together to arrange a surprise party, back at our house. We lived about eight miles from the middle of nowhere, dead center between two towns that could barely sustain respective populations robust enough to merit being mentioned in the same breath as outer-tier Minneapolis suburbs. Because of this, it took anyone we knew at least twenty minutes to get to our house, and that was only if they were familiar enough with the maze of dirt roads that had be navigated to find it.
Dad was in on the plan when it became a surprise party. He was supposed to take his time driving home after work that night to build up her frustration; after all, she had just put in a ten-hour day and was primed for some birthday shenanigans, so the party ringleaders thought it would be even funnier if she was cranked up a tiny bit more when the surprise hit. He took it a step further than necessary though, and went out of his way to meander through a car lot on the edge of town to window shop new models instead of just taking the most direct route home. Our dad has always been a car guy and this had been a habit of his since we were young children. While he casually rolled through the lot, Erin just stewed, too angry to say anything because she knew she’d explode and wouldn’t be able to pull back once she cut loose.
Back at our house, her friends had been arriving in plenty of time. All of their cars had been moved at least a street away to make sure she wouldn’t see or recognize any of them when she and our dad finally made it home. Everyone who had been invited was down in the basement waiting quietly, growing increasingly curious about what was taking them so long. When the car finally pulled into the driveway, it had to be a good half-hour later than the usual drive time back from the store would have been.
Erin came in seething, silent and angry. Somehow our mother steered her into the basement -- I don’t remember for sure, but I think the manufactured reason had something to do with a shirt she wanted to wear that night being down in the laundry room. When she threw open the basement door and flicked on the lights, all of her friends were there waiting, yelled surprise, and BAM, at the same moment she was smacked in the face with a pie crust filled with whipped cream. The friend who had the idea for the pie got her so hard and so perfectly square in the face that her nose put a dent in the bottom of the pie tin. We actually had photographic proof of this afterward. Erin scaled back from DEFCON 1 almost immediately once she figured out what was going on, and all of the girlfriends filled our basement with a huge party for the rest of the night.
I hope whatever birthdays might be worth for her now, she’s having a great time tonight.
Wednesday, May 13, 2015
Day 13: Five Digits, and Maybe (?) a Contest
If you're reading this post the night it's published, there's a very real possibility you could wind up being the 10,000th person to read anything posted here on "What I Did on My Summer Vacation." As I write this post the count is only 18 hits shy of that number, so with a new post going up this evening it could easily happen tonight. In fact, you should scroll down the page right now to see what number is on the hit counter. If it says 10,000, congratulations! You're the one. In fact, if you do see the hit counter at 10,000, I really hope you'll tell me. I'd love to know who the person was that helped the blog reach that milestone.
I started writing this nearly six years ago, with the only intention being that it would hopefully keep my writing muscles fresh. For some perspective, that makes this blog older than the original draft I wrote of Following Infinity, which was completed during NaNoWriMo of 2009. It would probably freak me out a little to stop and think how much my introverted self has revealed here with all of the things I've shared and all of the stories I've told. I think if anyone really wanted to know me well, they'd just have to set aside a few hours and browse the archive to see what topics I chose to write about and what I had to say about them.
Right now 10,000 seems like a ridiculous number when put in the perspective of how many times my writing has been read by people, even as a total of different posts over so many years. There are easily blogs out there that have much more traffic and probably tally up those kind of numbers in a matter of months, but I know I'll be proud all the same the first time I check and see my hit counter has ticked north of five digits.
So to celebrate, let's have an informal little contest. If the person who reaches that magic number thinks to check and lets me know they were the one, I will grant them one blog-related wish. I'm not putting a lot of parameters on exactly what that means, so this wish will have to be something within reason. But if I even hear from Person #10,000, the two of us can work out what that would be. Maybe a topic request, or a background change...granted, there aren't a lot of directions to do with this, but I'll keep the offer out there all the same.
Okay. It's just past 6:00, CST. Let's find out if it's going to happen tonight.
I started writing this nearly six years ago, with the only intention being that it would hopefully keep my writing muscles fresh. For some perspective, that makes this blog older than the original draft I wrote of Following Infinity, which was completed during NaNoWriMo of 2009. It would probably freak me out a little to stop and think how much my introverted self has revealed here with all of the things I've shared and all of the stories I've told. I think if anyone really wanted to know me well, they'd just have to set aside a few hours and browse the archive to see what topics I chose to write about and what I had to say about them.
Right now 10,000 seems like a ridiculous number when put in the perspective of how many times my writing has been read by people, even as a total of different posts over so many years. There are easily blogs out there that have much more traffic and probably tally up those kind of numbers in a matter of months, but I know I'll be proud all the same the first time I check and see my hit counter has ticked north of five digits.
So to celebrate, let's have an informal little contest. If the person who reaches that magic number thinks to check and lets me know they were the one, I will grant them one blog-related wish. I'm not putting a lot of parameters on exactly what that means, so this wish will have to be something within reason. But if I even hear from Person #10,000, the two of us can work out what that would be. Maybe a topic request, or a background change...granted, there aren't a lot of directions to do with this, but I'll keep the offer out there all the same.
Okay. It's just past 6:00, CST. Let's find out if it's going to happen tonight.
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