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November 12-November 18, 2006
November 12, 2006
“ Preston , what's happening, my man?” Barry asks, stepping behind the Front Desk.
I finish signing out the ping pong paddles and a ball for my visitor before turning to him. “Not too much. Quiet day here at the Desk.”
“Well I guess the big hero of Bower Hall needs a day off from disaster.”
I wave my hand. It's been sort of nice hearing people praise me or thank me for what I did Halloween night. But on the other hand it's sort of awkward. It's not as though I did that much—I don't really even know Shelly, and it's not like I've done anything to help her since. And on the other hand, if I did want to take more credit, I have a feeling it wouldn't take much to go from looking like a hero to looking like a jerk, gloating over the sort of thing you just don't gloat about. “It was nothing.”
“Well I'll tell you, most RAs wouldn't have kept that level a head. Which reminds me that I think you should get in on the early decision applications.”
“And now we're back to this.”
“Just putting the idea out there. You've got potential, so I'm just keeping it in your mind.”
“Right. It is tempting—what with the free room and board, and the single and all. But I don't know. It's just a big commitment, you know?”
“I know.” He has a seat at the corner of the desk. “So changing topics for a second, who's the blond I've been seeing with you?”
“Huh?”
“The girl who I saw you with in Bower, and who you were sitting next to at the game Friday.”
“What, you watching me now?”
Barry shrugs. “I've got two eyes. And I like to look out for my old residents.”
“Well the girl's Teri. And we're just friends—co-workers really.”
“Co-workers?”
“She's the Managing Editor at the paper,” I explain, “which means she's second in command there. We were tracking down the story at Bower together.”
“Okay. I'd just say that it looked like you two were getting a little closer than friends.”
“Hardly.”
“Would she say the same thing?”
“What?”
“Would she say there's nothing going on?”
“I don't know why she'd lie.”
“All right,” Barry says with a smile, as someone comes up to the Desk. “I'll let you get back to work. Later, Preston .”November 13, 2006
“So what do you think of something like this?” I ask, rotating my napkin on the center table of the Window office.
“Am I to assume the squiggles represent text and the boxes are photos?” Teri asks.
“For the most part. I've also got boxes for the little rectangles where we'll list the contents of the issue.”
“It doesn't look much different from what we're doing already.”
“Well I'm trying to work in two headlines above the fold,” I say, gesturing with my pen.
“Oh, I didn't get that. I don't know, isn't that going to be kind of busy?”
“A little. But I'm thinking it'll be worth it to balance news more. I mean for example, say something big goes down in student government. Ordinarily, that would probably be our lead story.”
“Right.”
“But a lot of students aren't interested in reading about that. So this way, we can have that on the left side, and remain a credible newspaper, but at the same time have a more fun story on the right side—like something human interest oriented, or an article about a speaker.”
Teri leans high over the napkin, both hands under chin. “It's going to be kind of hard fitting a photo with either story, though—unless it's a really small one.”
“Hmm—I didn't think about that. And I'd want room for a big photo on the top fold.”
“Exactly.”
It strikes me that I appreciate having this conversation. In the past few months I've gotten to know layout pretty well, and it's not exactly an area I could talk freely about with the guys. It makes me feel a certain camaraderie with people from this staff—with Teri.
“Guess it's back to the drawing board,” I say, taking the napkin back and looking down at it.
“It's all right, Preston .” I look up to see her smiling. “I'm sure you'll figure something out.”
November 14, 2006
“I don't believe this,” I say, sitting at the news desk, flipping through the pages of the draft of my paper for Hancock.
“What's that?”
I lift one page, covered in red ink. “Ever heard of Dr. Hancock from the English department?”
“Can't say that I have. I take it he's got something against your writing?”
“She. And the funny thing is that I handed this in as a draft, and it's draft quality writing—typos, some poor sentence structure. But she didn't even mention that stuff.”
Teri walks toward me, leaning over me, a hand on my desk. “So what did she mark?”
“She keeps asking for more examples. Except in places like this,” I flip back to the second page, where a whole paragraph has a red slash through it, next to which she's written “WRONG.”
“Wow, harsh.”
“I just don't get it.” I flip the paper shut and push away from the desk as Teri backs up. “It's not like I'm a bad writer. It's like Hancock's just got it out for me.”
“What do you mean?”
“She's just this whole thing about feminism. She turns everything we read into something about the oppression or the empowerment of women. And no matter what, the things a guy says in class are wrong.”
“So what are you going to do?”
I lean back, my hands on my head. “Guess I'm going to try to catch her in her office hours. At least then she can't say I'm not trying.” I look back down at the top page. “Guess I'm glad I turned in a draft first.”November 15, 2006
“So what can I do for you, Preston ?” Hancock asks I step into her office. She sits behind a big oak desk, looking at her nails as I set down my coat and bag.
“Well, I wanted to talk to you about the draft I handed in the other day,” I say, pulling out a chair and having a seat. “I just had some questions.”
“So did I.”
I smile, a little nervous. She doesn't smile back. I get the paper from my bag and lay it down on the table. “I guess it's just that you marked a lot of things here. And while some of it's valid, I think that for some of this, you were really just looking at different issues.”
“Different issues?”
“It's like—I'm not sure we're disagreeing. It's more like we're talking—or writing—about different topics. Like on page three—”
“ Preston , tell me what you thought of the book?”
“Elsa's Town?”
“That is the book you wrote about.”
I shift in my chair. “Well, I thought it was interesting. Like I wrote, I thought it was really different the way that women assumed so many traditionally masculine roles—the construction worker, the police officer, the judge, and so on.”
“Did you like the book?”
“Did I like it?” I shrug. “I don't know. I mean, it wasn't my favorite book—”
“ Preston , quite frankly, I think you're full of crap.”
“Excuse me?”
“Tell me what you really thought about the book.”
“All right. I guess I didn't like it.”
“And why is that?”
“I guess—I understand that the book was trying to invert the old standards. The characters are all women, and it shows how one-sided old books were, where all of the characters were men, or even more contemporary books where men are the central characters. But, ultimately, this book is no better than the books it's criticizing. Because it's just silly how gimmicky it is.”
“Gimmicky?”
“All the characters are women at the expense of the plot. The author spends so much time justifying that it's women, and creating situations where there are no men that she keeps the plot from ever evolving into anything interesting.”
Hancock smiles. “I'm glad that you said that. So now that you're being honest with me, I want you to write honestly.”
“Well it's not gonna make much of a paper if I just write about what a bad book it was.”
“I agree, and that's not what I'm asking you to do,” she says, crossing her legs. “I want you to stop pretending the book's something it isn't, and acting like you find it insightful. I want you to try reading it again, to see what else you can get from it. I want you to think about what more might be at stake in the book.”
“So you want me to rewrite the paper?”
“It's your grade,” she says, taking off her glasses and blowing on a lens. “I'd suggest you give it some thought.”November 16, 2006
“Is it normal to have celery in chicken salad?” Chang asks, lifting a piece of bread and looking at the contents of his sandwich at our table in The Lighthouse. “Did I just miss the memo on that?”
“I think it's pretty standard. Like, it's not in everyone's recipe, but it's not unusual.”
Chang shakes his head. “It's not bad. Just haven't had it like this before. But I'm sorry, you were saying?”
“Not much more to say. Hancock's making me rewrite my paper, and so I've got a little less than a week to figure out what she wants to hear, and make it a coherent essay.”
“That blows, man.”
“Tell me about it.”
“So hey, do you know if the Eskimos are home this weekend?”
“Nah, away game. Mike was complaining because it's someplace that's like five hours away.” I take a bite from my pastrami sandwich. “Speaking of the Eskimos and all, it's funny. I was talking to my old RA Barry the other day, and he saw us at the game.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. And the funny part was that he thought Teri was my girlfriend.”
“Is that right?”
“Yeah, you believe that?”
“She's not a bad looking girl. I wouldn't knock it.”
“That's not the point. I mean, she's one of my bosses at the paper.”
“But you guys are friends too, right?”
“Well yeah.”
Chang smiles. “I can sort of see where your RA was coming from. I mean, you spent all that time with her staking out the dorm, and all that time with her in the office. Then she's coming to basketball games with you, and you're always talking about stuff you guys did.”
“We spend a lot of time together. And like I just said—we're friends, and we happen to both work on the paper.”
“I'm not accusing you of anything,” Chang says, taking a bite of his sandwich. “I'm just saying that I can see where someone would make the mistake.”November 17, 2006
“What's happening, Preston ?” Dave says popping his head in my room.
“Working on this paper.”
“By which you mean you want come out and drink with us?”
Chang pops in. “Yeah Presto, open at the Theta Delta house. Put the paper on hold.”
“Don't think I can tonight, guys,” I say leaning back, stretching. “Have a long way to go on this thing.”
“Boo.”
“Ah, let him be,” Dave says. “We're still on for tomorrow night, though, right? Poker with the band?”
“Yeah,” I nod. “I'll be there.”
In a minute they're off, and I'm back to work. First I try tweaking what I had before, but each time I look at the draft Hancock marked up, I just get discouraged, so I toss it. I try reading little excerpts from the book, jotting down notes. It isn't adding up to anything, though, and I end up tearing pages from my notebook and crumpling them up to toss them in the trash.
I think about what Hancock said about trying to figure out what's at stake in the novel. It's just not an especially good story. Hancock loves it, and I don't, and I'm confident it's a result of every character being a woman. It just makes the whole thing so contrived, because the author spends half her time justifying why a character is a woman, and how she ended up in her non-traditional role.
The writing's good enough. It all flows and there are some good descriptions and symbolism. And it's interesting that, despite everyone being a woman, there isn't any direct reference to feminism. It's a story of a woman who works in construction by trade, then suffers from post-partum depression and kills her daughter. That and the story of the judge, trying to make amends with her own mother after a falling out connected to her decision to pursue law. In the end, the book does have some interesting things to say about family, and justice, and the circularity of lives. It would be so much stronger if it didn't bog itself down with the absence of men.
Hancock told me to think about what more might be at stake. I scan my room, looking for some indication of the kind of thing she might mean. Glancing at my DVDs I spy my Lord of the Rings set. I remember reading some critical analysis of the Tolkien books one time, and how it criticized the lack of women. I laughed it off at the time. It's such a broad story, with so much going on, and I wondered how someone could get hung up on the gender issue.
Something clicks.
The plot of Elsa's Town may have been more natural with men in it. But then, you could probably say the same for Lord of the Rings, and more people probably would say it if the story was first coming out today. I think of the progression, and look back to Shakespearean theater, and how men played the roles of women, and how absurd that seems to people these days. But despite the casting, those productions were probably good, just the same as The Lord of the Rings books were pretty good.
I wonder if I'd think Elsa's Town was so bad if all the characters were men. I wonder if I would have noticed.
I start to write.November 18, 2006
“Ah, what the fuck, I'll see you,” Tony says, putting in all but a couple of his chips—probably just enough to match the big blind next hand.
Dave lays down his cards—flush in clubs with an ace kicker. All Tony's got is the pair of sevens in his hand.
Tony breaks out laughing as Dave rakes in the pot. Tony's not a member of the band. Bud, the bassist, introduced him as a groupie, and from what I can gather he helps set up the stage for The Axis sometimes. The guy reeks of weed, and he's been betting stupidly all night.
I've got to say that I'm not overly impressed with the band, at least on a personal level. Lenny, the big drummer, doesn't speak any more this time than the last time I ran into him. He's not a bad card player, but I don't think I hear him say a thing all night. Bud's cracking jokes all the time—some bad, some busting balls, and most of them inside jokes. Dave explains some of them, but for the most part they just roll on, most of the people laughing, the others, like me, out in the cold. Nick a guitar player, laughs at just about everything. He's probably the best card player in the group, calling the hands as the cards fall down. There are a few girls here too—a couple playing at the start, before they seem to lose interest and join the others on the sidelines.
Tony picks up his chips awkwardly slides them Dave's way. “Here, bleed me dry. My head's not in the game tonight.”
“You sure?”
Tony waves his hand and laughs as he joins the girls. They seem to laugh a little less as he joins them, but he's laughing to make up for them all. Before long, he's lighting up in plain sight, and passing a joint among them, making him a little more popular. One of the girls tries to hand it to Nick, who waves him off. “No thanks, sugar. Gotta focus on the cards for now.”
She offers it to Dave who looks at her, then glances at me. “Na, I'll pass too.”
Bud's the only one who takes her up on it, taking a long drag before he sends it behind him, back to Tony. The longer I stay, the less sure I am I want to be here. I go on playing nonetheless.