The next day Julian was over at Blue Ridge teaching Lit 2. He went back to his usual lesson plan and let Amy take the day off. He got an email from Susan Morgenthaler, the Division head, requesting a meeting. He scheduled it with her administrative assistant for the hour after his class ended. In that hour, he obliterated all traces of his old blog, and wrote few bleats on his anonymous new one. He then sauntered down to Susan\u2019s office. Her door was open. He poked a head in.
\n\u201cHi Susan, are you ready for me?\u201d
\nShe shut her laptop and swiveled around in her chair.
\n\t\u201cYes, Julian. Shut the door, will you?\u201d
\nUh-oh. He shut the door.
\n\t\u201cYou wanted to see me about something?\u201d
\n\t\u201cI did. Thanks for taking the time. Have a seat.\u201d
\nHe sat.
\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s come to my attention that you shared with your students a blog.\u201d
\n\t\u201cI did. Are we not allowed to share blogs with students?\u201d
\n\t\u201cI have to say, \u2018it depends on the blog.\u2019\u201d
\nShe \u2018had to say.\u2019
\n\t\u201cI shared a blog by a woman I thought was writing well, and in a way that might reach the students.\u201d
\n\t\u201cOne of the students complained about it.\u201d
\n\t\u201cWhich one?\u201d
\n\t\u201cBecause of confidentiality, I can\u2019t tell you.\u201d
\n\t\u201cWhat can you tell me?\u201d
\n\t\u201cI can tell you that you have to take your blog down, and that you can\u2019t use that woman\u2019s blog in your classes.\u201d
\n\t\u201cSo much for freedom of speech.\u201d
\n\t\u201cYou can say what you like, but you can\u2019t say it and work for me.\u201d
\n\t\u201cAre you threatening to fire me?\u201d
\n\t\u201cIf you don\u2019t do as I have asked, I will fire you.\u201d
\nJulian was very tempted to say, \u2018if you fire me for sharing a blog, I will sue you for breach of contract re: academic freedom, but then he remembered the last departed faculty member who had tried that and been rendered homeless. He hit the pause button.
\n\t\u201cOK, I don\u2019t want to be fired. I\u2019ll comply. Is that it, is that all you have to say to me?\u201d
\n\t\u201cNot quite. I want to add that I think this does not reflect well on the institution. I think that Dana deserves better.\u201d
\nThere is blinking in the mind\u2019s eye at this. The sisterhood has taken over the ivory tower for sure.
\n\t\u201cI think that\u2019s two separate things, surely. I\u2019d be tempted to go to bat for the validity of the writing on that blog as not being detrimental to the institution. The idea that my relationship with my wife has been taken up in connection with what you consider to be a dismissible offense, which I consider a personal matter: how is that germane?\u201d
\n\t\u201cIt is my duty to maintain academic integrity. That blog was by some unknown twenty something. It\u2019s not considered literature by anybody. As for Professor Feminita, she is a respected member of my faculty. That which damages her or her reputation is of concern to me. I am charged with mentoring my faculty.\u201d
\n\t\u201cWhat about me? Are you mentoring me?\u201d
\n\t\u201cI consider this to be mentoring. You apparently can\u2019t tell the difference between literature and un-academic casual writing. You also can\u2019t tell the difference between setting a good example for the students by your personal behavior and demonstrating a lack of self-discipline.\u201d
\n\t\u201cDon\u2019t you think I\u2019d have to go a bit farther down the road to adultery than reading a stranger\u2019s blog? Have you never read some dude\u2019s blog? You do realize that the woman is anonymous, writing under a pseudonym.\u201d
\n\t\u201cThat doesn\u2019t matter. It\u2019s the perception of the students that you have a crush on her. It bothers them.\u201d
\n\t\u201cDid they tell you that?\u201d
\n\t\u201cYes, one of them did.\u201d
\n\t\u201cWhich one?\u201d
\n\t\u201cI can\u2019t tell you that without breaching her confidentiality.\u201d
\n\t\u201cSo, it was one of the girls.\u201d
\n\t\u201cYes.\u201d
\n\t\u201cCan you tell me exactly what she said?\u201d
\n\t\u201cI can tell you that she sat where you are sitting now and told me that you had showed her class a blog by a pretty young woman, and that it was her impression the writing wasn\u2019t worth discussing and that you appeared to be \u2018all crazy about her.\u2019\u201d
\n\t\u201cThat was her exact wording? \u2018All crazy about her?\u2019\u201d
\n\t\u201cVerbatim.\u201d
\n\t\u201cWas it only the one student?\u201d
\n\t\u201cSo far. I can\u2019t let it go any farther.\u201d
\n\t\u201cIsn\u2019t it possible that this student feels jealous?\u201d
\n\t\u201cBeg pardon?\u201d
\n\t\u201cYou know, these women get crushes themselves.\u201d
\nJulian reddened. This was seat of the pants flying. It seemed to him that to censure him for showing the students \u2018Amy Tells All\u2019 because one student detected an attraction between Julian and the anonymous blogger was worthy of a riposte. It seemed to him that a female (or male) student\u2026any student\u2026that felt an attachment to a teacher might get confused and blur the lines that the teacher student relationship was structured around. It happened roughly once a semester. It hadn\u2019t so far made it to Susan\u2019s office. As he sat before the boss taking the heat, he had to take a moment now and reflect on his feeling about \u201cAmy Lissa.\u201d Perhaps the sisterhood had it right. Perhaps he had, in fact, developed more than an affinity for some good writing. He insisted, to himself, that he could tell good writing from bad and not be swayed by physical attraction. The physical attraction was a fact, and he knew it. Perhaps he\u2019d just drop it and move on. There was nothing to be gained by this battle, and much could be lost. He didn\u2019t want to lose his source of income.
\n\t\u201cJulian?\u201d
\n\t\u201cYes, Susan?\u201d
\n\t\u201cYou zoned out on me.\u201d
\n\t\u201cI was\u2026 thinking about whether I should\u2026 seek a formal\u2026\u201d
\n\t\u201cIf you think you\u2019re going to tie up my faculty and myself over this matter, let me set you straight. You do it, and I\u2019ll have you removed for cause. You haven\u2019t been to a faculty meeting in months. You\u2019re unprepared for classes by all accounts. You\u2019re spending your time writing who knows what, which never sees the light of day. You\u2019re derelict in your duty.\u201d
\n\t\u201cYou\u2019re a bit too zealous in pursuit of yours,\u201d he muttered.
\n\t\u201cI have no idea what you\u2019re talking about. I want you to stop using that woman\u2019s blog in your class, and I want you to make amends with your wife straight away. Is that clear?\u201d
\n\t\u201cYou want me to \u2018make amends\u2019 how?\u201d
\n\t\u201cI want you to buy her some flowers.\u201d
\nThis is intolerable. But he must tolerate it.
\n\t\u201cOK. Is that it?\u201d
\n\t\u201cThat\u2019s it.\u201d
\nHis next sentence should have been,
\n\t\u201cI quit.\u201d
\nBut it wasn\u2019t. He loved Dana, and if this were the soup she wanted to swim in, he\u2019d swim. He needed the gig, pitiful though it now became in his new found shackles.
\n\t\u201cIf that\u2019s it, then, that\u2019s it.\u201d
\n\t\u201cYou mean you\u2019ll comply with my request?\u201d
\n\t\u201cI\u2019ll not use \u201cAmy Tells All\u201d in a class henceforward.\u201d
\n\t\u201cThere is one more thing.\u201d
\n\t\u201cFlowers for Feminita?\u201d
\nAt this Susan smiled. She had been triumphant, she felt. Julian was a huge problem and this was a minor victory, but a victory nevertheless.
\n\t\u201cNo. As I said earlier, I also I need you to take down that blog.\u201d
\n\t\u201cWhich blog?\u201d
\n\t\u201cYour blog.\u201d
\n\t\u201cYou can\u2019t be doing that sort of personal writing while a member of the faculty at Blue Ridge.\u201d
\n\t\u201cNo personal writing.\u201d
\n\t\u201cYou need to be an academic, all of the time. We pay you to be that. It needs to be your mode at all times. You have too much bad language, hearsay, invasion of privacy, misuse of copyright material, self-disclosure\u2026\u201d
\n\t\u201c\u2026Self-disclosure?\u201d
\n\t\u201cDo we really need to know who you were bonking twenty or thirty years ago?\u201d
\nHe was now, he felt, purple in the face.
\n\t\u201cOk, ok. I\u2019ll take the blog down. If I have to silence my voice to suit your mission to keep my job, I\u2019ll do it.\u201d
\n\t\u201cThanks, Julian. And yeah, I really do think flowers for Dana would be a good idea.\u201d
\nHe rose from the low sofa, Susan\u2019s un-cushioned and uncomfortable setee. He looked around to see if he\u2019d brought anything in with him that he needed to remember to take back out, other than bits of his battered soul. He walked to the door and opened it. He walked out into the corridor, not looking back. He left her office door open. She had an open door policy, except when administering spankings. <\/p>\n
In the faculty lounge, he encountered Itsy and Pinky, his secret names for two other members of the teaching staff. Itsy, the smaller of the two women, was Clarabel Choate, who taught creative writing. She should know. Pinky, the overweight and porcine Gina Helfhaus was an adjunct media and technology instructor. She should know better. She helped the students build their web sites, including blogs and wikis. How they hated wikis!
\n\t\u201cJulian! Making a rare appearance in here these days?\u201d said Clara.
\n\t\u201cIn here after getting scolded by the boss.\u201d
\n\t\u201cOh, yeah. We heard about the blog thing,\u201d said Gina.
\n\t\u201cYou want the gossip, hot off the press?\u201d
\n\t\u201cOnly if you need to share, Jules,\u201d said Itsy.
\n\t\u201cHmm. Since I got into trouble for sharing, maybe I\u2019d better pass. On the other hand, I\u2019d like to know what the buzz is from this side of the Division.\u201d
\n\t\u201cHa! The buzz is that the faculty was appalled by the lack of judgment. I read it and I thought it was pretty entertaining. It had some rough stuff in it, though. You know, the stuff about masturbation and whatnot,\u201d said Pinky.
\n\t\u201cMasturbation? I guess I\u2019ve fallen behind \u2018Amy.\u2019 Last I read she was \u2018a cat among the birds.\u2019\u201d
\n\t\u201cYeah, the paw poem,\u201d said Clare. \u201cI read it. I also thought the explication was self-referentially, existentially charming. On first blush, it\u2019s a bauble. But beneath the surface it\u2019s alarming.\u201d
\n\t\u201cI noticed it created quite a stir among the students, both men and women,\u201d said Pinky. I was in the restroom, and I overheard two women talking about it at the washstand. I don\u2019t remember the exact. Over the running water, I caught \u2018Amy this and Amy that.\u2019\u201d
\n\t\u201cDitto,\u201d said Itsy. \u201cThat\u2019s the buzz. You got \u2018em going. Way to go.\u201d
\n\t\u201cYou must be on to something,\u201d said Pinkus.
\n\t\u201cI\u2019m off it,\u201d said Julian.
\n\t\u201cOh. You mean she banned it,\u201d said Gina the Pink, nodding her head at the door to the hall that led to the chair\u2019s lair.
\n\t\u201cThat and she went after my personal blog. I think she basically threatened to dooce me.\u201d
\n\t\u201cDooce?\u201d The women spoke in chorus.
\n\t\u201cYeah, she threatened to fire me if I didn\u2019t take down my blog.\u201d
\n\t\u201cI\u2019ve never looked at your blog,\u201d said Clara.
\n\t\u201cThat seems extreme to me. Wrong, somehow\u2026,\u201d said Gina.
\n\t\u201cI don\u2019t have a lot of time for extracurricular reading, either, Julian. You must have hit Susan\u2019s buttons somehow. But as for that other thing, the woman\u2019s blog, I think the faculty, not necessarily myself, mind you, but Sam and Shannon, and perhaps your wife, they were in full chatter mode. I heard them discussing it as not literature. Then, there was apparently an upset student,\u201d said the itsy Clare.<\/p>\n
Julian towered over Clarabel. She came up to his chin. He looked down at her and opened his palms. <\/p>\n
\t\u201cNone of us are safe from the accusations of students. They get to say whatever they like, and we have no recourse in this Division. I cannot learn what my accuser actually said. I just get a paraphrase, other than \u2018all crazy about her.\u2019 I can\u2019t learn the person\u2019s name and respond. It puts an artificial barrier between my class and I, because now every one of those women in there is suspect. \u201c
\n\t\u201cWe didn\u2019t think it was an accusation. We thought it was more like she was going to bat for Dana. The woman accused you, you know, of cheating on your wife.\u201d Pinky Gina was sympathetic to this take. Her philandering husband had cheated on her. She often bitched and moaned about men, and their alleged inability to keep it zipped. At the same time, she bemoaned that fact that she wasn\u2019t getting any these days. <\/p>\n
Julian sat in the old ratty couch. The women remained standing. As he sank in to the upholstery he no longer towered, he cowered. <\/p>\n
\t\u201cIt\u2019s a very Clintonian form of adultery, then. \u2018I did not have sex with that woman, that Amy Lissa, I don\u2019t even know where or who she is, exactly.\u201d
\n\t\u201cThe students love your wife so much, she has so much respect around here among all of us, that I guess we look out for her,\u201c said Pinky.
\n\t\u201cThat\u2019s true, you know. It\u2019s a small town, a small school, we are maybe a bit too much into each other\u2019s lives.\u201d
\n\t\u201cClare, I think you are, maybe a bit. Clytemnestra can take care of herself.\u201d
\n\t\u201cWe don\u2019t want to see Agamemnon making her miserable. We\u2019re the chorus in this play.\u201d
\n\t\u201cGood one, Clare. Very good. Go sing in some other Lysistrata.\u201d
\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s only a paper boner,\u201d said Gina. \u201cSorry. I couldn\u2019t resist.\u201d
\n\t\u201cHeh. It\u2019s you two I\u2019ll miss if I get shitcanned.\u201d<\/p>\n
He got up, grabbed his coat, and headed for home. It was the start of his blogging day, his writing life. That life was his real life. But first, he was dying to see what Amy Lissa had to say about masturbation. He wondered if it might not drive him to, in fact, masturbate.<\/p>\n
The next time he met with Lit 1, they wanted to know if they could talk more about Amy.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cNope, we can\u2019t. I have to formally apologize for sharing that blog with you. It was wrong of me, or so I have been informed.\u201d
\n\t\u201cWrong of you?\u201d
\n\t\u201cYeah, what was so wrong about it?\u201d
\n\t\u201cFor once we liked it.\u201d
\n\t\u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d said Julian. \u201cI\u2019m delighted that you \u2018liked it\u2019 for a change, but remember \u2018I liked it\u2019 is a banned response.\u201d
\n\t\u201cSo Susan banned the blog?\u201d
\n\t\u201cShe banned both blogs!\u201d
\n\t\u201cWhat? She banned your blog too?\u201d
\n\t\u201cYep.\u201d
\n\t\u201cWell that sucks.\u201d
\n\t\u201cSucks. Perhaps you can find a more\u2026\u201d
\n\t\u201cAcademic?\u201d
\n\t\u201cYes, Dave, that\u2019s the word I was looking for.\u201d
\n\t\u201cIt is most certainly an unfortunate circumstance that the powers that be have compromised your right to freedom of expression…\u201d
\n\t\u201cVery good, Monica. You seem to have more to say.\u201d
\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s just that if we can\u2019t talk about Amy, we\u2019ll have no \u2018professorial experience\u2019 to guide us as we worry about the woman\u2019s fate.\u201d<\/p>\n
He shrugged. <\/p>\n
\t\u201cYou can go to the counselor if your heads get too bent out of shape. But I can\u2019t spend any more class time on it. \u201c<\/p>\n
As he went right back to \u201cCatcher in the Rye,\u201d and \u201cThe Secret of My Success,\u201d he did so with his old zeal back. Amy\u2019s effect on his mind was considerable. She whispered in his ear of a nearby world and in words that conjured up an affinity that was attached to serious allure. He saw both the fragility, but also the steel. She was complex and she had him by the intellectual balls. So when he spoke to his class of Bukowski, he could do it with a heightened sense of imagination regarding aging postal worker poets whose beer belly was part of his attraction. Bukowski never lacked for female company, so far as he knew. \u201cCatcher in the Rye,\u201d with its salty language, liberally larded with obscenity and \u2018adult\u2019 themes also sailed a bit swifter on Amy\u2019s breeze. It helped to know that there was, just a few hours west, a muse that called out. If she called out for help, he felt, he\u2019d hear it. Perhaps Monica, from her perch in the front row, tuned in as she was to the dog whistle of battery and abuse, would whisper in his ear in time, cluing him in. The problem was, he did not know who she was, exactly, or exactly where he should go to help her (other than the Bald Eagle Airfield northwest of Parkersburg), or where exactly he should send the police.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The next day Julian was over at Blue Ridge teaching Lit 2. He went back to his usual lesson plan and let Amy take the day off. He got an email from Susan Morgenthaler, the Division head, requesting a meeting. He scheduled it with her administrative assistant for the hour after his class ended. In that hour, he obliterated all traces of his old blog, and wrote few bleats on his anonymous new one. He then sauntered down to Susan\u2019s office. Her door was open. He poked a head in. \u201cHi Susan, are you ready for me?\u201d She shut her laptop and swiveled around in her chair. \u201cYes, Julian. Shut the door, will you?\u201d Uh-oh. He shut the door. \u201cYou wanted to see me about something?\u201d \u201cI did. Thanks for taking the time. Have a seat.\u201d He sat. \u201cIt\u2019s come to my attention that you shared with your students a blog.\u201d \u201cI did. Are we not allowed to share blogs with students?\u201d \u201cI have to say, \u2018it depends on the blog.\u2019\u201d She \u2018had to say.\u2019 \u201cI shared a blog by a woman I thought was writing well, and in a way that might reach the students.\u201d \u201cOne of the students…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chapters","comments-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ken-beck.com\/bloggers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}