We Could Use You

            “So, what are you up to these days?  Writing?”  “How’s the writing?”  “When are you going to let me read your work?”  “How are your children’s books coming along?” 
            I wish I could move away someplace where the people don’t know me and won’t ask me about what I’m writing these days which sounds stupid but the thing is that I’m sick of having multiple people each day remind me of what an utter failure lazy asshole I am to be wasting my time not writing and instead doing other things like watching ridiculously mind-numbing soap operas that basically turn my mind off and allow me to breathe and not be me for a while and just melt into the bed with my cat who loves me because I feed her and pet her and let her drag her ass on the carpet and lets me love her anyway when really she’s the one doing me a favor by not asking me “How’s the novel coming?”  because there is no fucking novel and instead just looks at me with love—or possibly boredom.

            “Why don’t you work for us and get credentialed?”  the other teachers—the real ones—ask me and I just shrug and say “Oh, well, I actually want to teach at the college level,” which I do but the real answer is a huge hells no because I don’t want to be enslaved by a principal and hovering parents and kids who could give two shits about me and on top of that have all of my time and energy and social life sucked out of me so I can make a sad thankless living as a teacher that no one respects and dig into my hole-ridden pockets again to spend MORE time at school after spending two years in grad school and four years in college with NO breaks in between to rest my dizzy head and slurred words and sound like an incompetent imbecile who is just plain stuck right back living with her parents at 25 after her lame ass roommate bagged himself a girlfriend from the internet who is just as ugly and bloody dull as him but will put up with it because she just graduated from college and has no where else to crash so hey why not kick me out of the apartment—someone who paid rent—so Mr. Loser can have sex with a live girl.

            Sure why not go back to school?  Yes of course Person-I-just-know-the-name-of-but-otherwise-don’t-REALLY-know I WILL go back to school and take out another loan from whoever Sallie Mae’s cousin is this third time for school so I can be even MORE in debt and waste MORE of my youth in a classroom—this time NOT getting paid for it like I do when I’m subbing because I would be shadowing a teacher.  Okay, you convinced me. 

            But at least now, when they ask “How’s the writing coming?” I can say, “Fine, thanks.  In fact, I wrote about you.”  They’ll love that.  And when they say, “Oh, really?”  I’ll say yeah your “thoughtful” questions that are only asked to show how great you are to remember that I’m a writer and am not just a sub only make me feel worse about myself because maybe I am just a substitute teacher and what’s so wrong about that?  I like what I do, and am thanked dearly for it by many people who make me feel like  I’m a hero everyday and a welcomed guest to break up the mediocrity that consumes most people’s lives whereas I get to be an honors chemistry teacher kindergarten teacher art instructor physical education and photography teacher all in the same week without having to remember students’ names but they remember me—and fondly—although no one really knows me except unfortunately that I’m a writer so when they see me this person who only magically appears one day and then disappears into a bottle the next and won’t come back until the bottle that she lives in is rubbed they ask, “So, how’s the writing going?”  “Have you applied to work at any junior colleges yet?”  “How is your search for an agent coming together?”  “Have you given any thought to earning a teaching credential?  We could use you.”

A-Train grew up in the teeny, safe city of Thousand Oaks, California.  She is a substitute teacher who is often mistaken for a student—even by students.  Andrea is an MFA graduate from the Creative Writing Program at Antioch University Los Angeles.  She is shy about her writing and hardly ever shares it with anyone.  This is her first step forward in changing that.

SHELFLIFEMAGAZINE : issue #006