Substitute

I am stress smoking. Himself, unwittingly complicit, moves some wrought iron chairs and a little table from the deck we never use to the front porch. It is a lovely place to sit and smoke. Landmark Theaters, I guess not long after smoking was banned in movie theaters, shot a reminder of this with John Waters. The audience is admonished not to light up as Water's smokes a cigarette ecstatically. I love to smoke, although I think at my height I never smoked more than four or five cigarettes a day and often would go days at a time with none. There is a small percentage of the smoking population that can stop without withdrawal. I have smoked at reunions because I have such a strong association of college and tobacco. I will bum a smoke when someone, who I am interested in hanging with for a bit, is smoking. I confess that, after lecturing them about stopping, I have taken cigarettes from friends of my children.

The first time I am out in the world, after the horrifying 2016 election result, I buy a dozen donuts (vegan-expensive and sawdust-like) and a pack of Camels. I nurse the pack over a couple of weeks. Before the new tax law is enacted, I buy a carton, swearing that these would be the last cigarettes I'd buy. The ten packs last well over a year and I forget where I'd hidden the last pack. It turns up while I am tidying and lasts me about six weeks. After the last cigarette, things are particularly stressful and I break my promise to myself and pick up a couple of packs. When this particularly fraught period inevitably ebbs I will stop, as I have for decades and likely will not smoke again until a college reunion next year. Defending the indefensible, I only smoke a couple of cigs a day which are shamefully pleasurable. And, I am not an idiot, I know that it is better not to smoke than to smoke. While I am uncertain if I will ever weigh what I should, I am self aware enough to know that the current smoking foray is temporary. And if it is or isn't, I don't need anyone to tell me that it's stupid.

Far too long into my relationship with Himself he exploded about hating the smell of cigarettes. I think I went a long time then without smoking. During the particularly stressful years of having two kids in two different schools I smoked a couple cigarettes a day for a few years. The second most enjoyable cigarette is the one after you drop the second kid at school.

I'd expect that the smoking would cease this week when we knew where we stood with troublesome psychiatric-medication-discontinued-for-Jesus tenant but the case is continued. In the meantime the long suffering Housing Department makes yet another inspection, based on Baby Jane's complaint. The only repairman who will still deal with Ms. Non-medicated is an observant Jew so Yom Kippur is out of the question. I inveigle two friends to supervise the visit and wait in the unit upstairs so I can talk to inspector post-inspection. I would not consider entering the unit in a house that I own with tenant present. The inspector and my two friends have an unpleasant experience. We return to court this week. Or are supposed to. I've surrendered now and accept that it might be a long time and/or a lot more money until this is resolved.

The other big event of the week is a job interview for a position that I'd be good at. But there are other applicants with decades more experience so I am not surprised when I am rejected. Sour grapes for sure, I note that there is an almost comically awful schedule. But it would be very satisfying work. I have accepted another position at my home school, a two hour combination ESL/Parenting Class, three early mornings a week.

This week I substitute two days for a four hour advanced ESL class. I adore my 1B students but this is the final class and the students are quite fluent. We correct a grammar exercise. “No, Teacher, it's third conditional.” I've never been a grammarian so I just take it on faith. We have a sophisticated discussion about euthanasia which veers into capital punishment and abortion. Students note that Americans often institutionalize the elderly. A Salvadoran student relates how four generations of her family care for her grandpa lovingly during his final days, describing the closeness and intimacy of the experience. I explain that when my mother was no longer able to care for herself, she was placed in a rest home. They disapprove and then I explain that there were no siblings or other relatives. I worked full time and had two small children. They nod, understandingly. A couple of them can't sanction assisted suicide but most of them believe that it's merciful to end suffering. They talk openly about sensitive subjects. There are strong opinions but they hear each other out with great respect.

There is a reading about right/left brain. For the first time I have a student who is also left handed and she is delighted to learn about all the accomplished left-handers. The article posits that left-brainers are more likely to be good at math and a young man posits that “girls never like math.” The women put him in his place and we talk about messages and expectations.

Teaching Level 6, I am very self conscious about my spelling which is never a problem with 1B. I confess that after teaching four hours, when I return to teach my three hour 1B class, we're working on countable and non-countable and I catch myself having written “potatos” on the board, ala Dan Quayle. We're doing the food chapter. I always bake something because all the pictures of food make everyone hungry but I just can't get up the steam. I'll make them something next week. Unfortunately, brownies are the easiest thing to bake but for some reason, they're never a popular item in an ESL classroom. I notice that a number of folks are bringing snacks from home and nibble and share while we talk about not counting pasta, rice and orange juice.

Celia is one of two older ladies in my ESL 1B class. There are always a couple who've been here forever, speak pretty fluently but only had a few years of elementary school in their home country. She works at a very high end restaurant in Santa Monica. When we talk about our favorite sandwiches, hers is prosciutto with handmade buratta. One night she sports a ten inch burn on her forearm. “Hot grease,” she explains. “And they wouldn't even let me go home. They just gave me a towel.” I find some burn ointment in the dusty first aid kit.

Elsie is one of the best students. She's in her early forties, has never missed a class and always sits in the front row. She helps me cutting things out and stapling materials. This weekend she and her family are going to Phoenix for some sort of NFL game. “AMERICAN football, Teacher.” Her husband will do the driving and they are staying at a hotel. She is worried about missing two days of class but I assure her that she'll catch up. I tell her to send me some pictures.

I arrive at school insanely early to prep for my class but now, after having created so many materials, I am able at least to do all my prep on campus. The morning class will likely require some new materials but as it is mainly a conversation forum, except for the early morning hour, it likely won't be too taxing. I open the door for my evening class and note that from that moment on, I will be on my feet for three hours. It seems daunting but almost every single night, I am surprised at how the time passes quickly. I am keenly aware that this teaching time transports me 100% from my personal stresses and is for the most part, a time of pure happiness.

I blather on more than a bit at the failed job interview, but one thing I say is true. I don't know if I would have the courage to leave my country for a giant city where a different language is spoken. Students from the first class I taught at the school are in Level 3B, halfway through the ESL program. They come to visit and show off their improved English. The Level 6 students are nearly fluent. I teach them the word “tenacity.” It seldom comes up in class but the news in English and Spanish makes it clear day in, and day out, that immigrants are maligned and demonized. Celia returns to the vat of boiling fat, her painful burn wrapped in a towel. And all these students, whose names I will mostly forget when they pass to another class, remind me again and again, that my life is not so hard at all.

I am Trump obsessed, addicted to my own indignation. The TV news is off during hurricanes because all that matters to me is when, and how, all of this will be over and our nation will return to sanity and compassion. I listen to the smart podcast “Pod Save America” religiously. They cite research that TV ads and mailers do little to drive the vote. The best measurable results come from canvassing. Yes, going door to door sounds awful, but the consequence of inaction is far more discomfiting.

There are only seven weekends now before the Midterms and I will be out doing whatever I can in the face of, what I don't think it's hyperbolic to consider, an emergency.

Tomorrow, it's down to Seal Beach to canvas for Harley Rouda, running against the particularly odious Dana Rohrabacher. I hope that the election effectuates a reinforcement of our checks and balances. Perhaps by then too, nearly a year of legal struggles will be resolved. There will be six more hours a week of the blissful hard work of teaching. My cigarettes I think will have run out by then and I hope that I am chill enough to never buy another pack.