late

11, it's 11 am, it's 11 am Saturday and I'm not teaching anything. I'm
sitting in my office drinking terrible coffee because nobody showed up
to my 10:30 class. Really it's just three students anyway but they
were all so enthusiastic and excited I'm amazed nobody's here.

Every time the office door opens I think it's going to be one of them,
which would be really awful. Really really awful. Apologizing and me:
don't worry about it. In my head: because I get to sit here. Of
course. As if I'm going to be upset that you spared me having to pace
around and scrawl on a board, inking my fingers every time I touch a
concept.

Worst-case scenario, which happens all too often: one person will show
up 15 minutes late. By now I've settled back into my office and yes,
really I should say that's it, it's over, go home. But usually I will
say okay, let's go. And then we go down to the room. And then, 30
minutes later, someone else will show up. This is at the 45-minute
mark, remember. And the class is an hour max. So then shit gets
awkward. Do you rehash? Cut losses and carry on? A mess. Better for
everyone to stay home.

Saturday morning courses are incredibly popular before they
start--people clamoring for the open seats, let me in, I work all the
time, it's awful, I run prayer meetings at church, give blood, I'm an
active vigilante, and then by the second or third week they're dead
out. Maybe this speaks to my ability to string together interesting
lectures. But in my defense, the course subject is remedial grammar.
Its backbone is composed of commas and semicolons. How exciting can it
be for anyone?

. . .

I have got myself into this terrible dilemma. I have signed up for a
5k race in which my office will have a team. I signed up because the
race begins about a block from my front door and will involve free
beer. The problem is that I went running through our neighborhood last
night and it was terrible. Legs aching and chest a balloon filled with
cold air. And weird: strange people on cell phones on the street,
people strolling slowly alone through shadows on the edges of parks.
Sprinklers kicking water into the 9 pm air.

. . .

I am putting together a writing project set in Des Moines. The main
character doesn't have a car and is walking and I've been estimating
distances and times with what I thought was some pretty stretchy
creative license but just now I started Google Mapsing estimates for
walking time and it's really not that unrealistic that you could walk
across the entire fucking city. Merle Hay to the Capitol Complex: just
over two hours. Wes's old apartment to the airport: an hour forty.

This shit is amazing. Why did we even own vehicles? I challenge you
all to drive your cars into the river beneath the Court Ave bridge and
get locomoting everywhere.