I'm a woman, Phenomenally.

Maya Angelou died today. The world has lost an amazing voice and a great inspiration to writers and artists everywhere. I read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings when I was in sixth grade, and became hooked on Angelou’s memoirs. I suspected that maybe my teachers and parents were unfamiliar with the content—did they know that Angelou had been a sex worker? Did they know her writing was so frank and honest? For an adolescent girl, her writing and attitude were a revelation. She discussed so many topics without shame, subject matter that I could not bring myself to form questions about, let alone the courage to ask.

At about the same time that I began to read Angelou, my life changed dramatically. My father, who had worked on the road closing furniture stores for years, quit his job and moved back home. My mother subsequently became pregnant with my third and final brother. I was in middle school, with all the social, psychological, and physiological changes which that entails. There was no more recess, more homework, dances I was not allowed to attend, three-way calls—everything at school and home was different. Not to mention, of course, the changes of the body and mind of a person who is neither teenager nor child.

At the time, I had three things that kept me going: reading, writing, and acting. The old music teacher retired, and the new music teacher formed a Drama Club, something which had previously existed only in high school. I was thrilled—and for my first performance, I chose “Phenomenal Woman.” I owned the stage as I strutted and repeated her words, “Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. /I’m not cute or built fit a fashion model’s size.” Already, at thirteen, I had learned to hate my thighs, to be uncomfortable with my skin and flesh. I might not have believed Angelou’s words about myself, but when I acted out her poem, I tried desperately to channel her strength.

One of the most powerful portions of Angelou’s story was her discussion of her first writing group. She sought to dazzle them, to show how amazing she was. I wanted the same thing: I wanted to be complimented and loved for my writing. Instead, she was brought back down to normal size, and a group member recommended she start with a short story, and not a novel. She was told that it would be a challenge, and she scoffed. She learned, however, how challenging the form could be. As a young writer, I marveled at how she presented the experience, as well as what I had in store for myself.

Angelou was scheduled to read in Erie when I was in high school, but cancelled due to ill health. In high school and college, I fell in love with new writers and poets, less in love with her work as I once had been. But the lessons I learned from her work: self-acceptance, transforming difficulties to art, and not being ashamed—these are lessons I continue to learn, and her work is an excellent teacher.

My beautiful new niece. For her sake, may we all strive to be as strong as Maya Angelou and be the cause of great change.

You Don't Know What You Don't Know

Five classes, all new to me, four different schools, in five different campuses. 74.5 miles between the two furthest. Twenty-two hours of driving a week. Fourteen weeks. 85 students. A bazillion essays. And I did it. I finished. I really did.

This past semester, Spring 2014, was one of the most challenging I have ever had, but also one of the most incredible. As a result of dedicating so much time to prep, classroom, and driving, I have not had a lot of time to do my own writing. Now that the semester has ended and all the grades are submitted, I have decided to take the time to reflect upon what I have learned from my students.

Lesson 1: Students Need to Know That Their Professor Cares

My most challenging class was a remedial college writing class. The class was difficult simply because it was remedial. The latest studies show that by college age, classroom instruction in grammar has very little impact, and I have used this as an excuse for years not to cover much grammar during lecture. Further, I rarely mark grammatical errors on my students’ essays because I save comments for the content. Too many comments written by the professor just frustrates students and they quit reading and do not take in any of the recommendations for improvements. However, this class needed grammar lessons.

I have heard that Tim O’Brien, author of the highly anthologized short story “The Things They Carried” does not move past the level of paragraph in his workshops, but this is because he goes in-depth. I did not move past the level of paragraph because my students did not know how to write a complete sentence. They needed to be told what the definition of a sentence is. The class did not even begin with essays, but with paragraphs. This is how you write a topic sentence. Make sure that every idea is connected. Etc, etc, etc. For the first month of their writing, if it wasn’t a sentence fragment, it was a run-on. What’s a fragment? I asked them. What’s a run-on? They had the same old grammar phobia that all students seem to have. What’s a noun? Give me an example. Find the verb in this sentence.

At first, I felt like I was completely out of my league. I was a tee ball player showing up at an NCAA practice for a big ten baseball team. And so, I did what I always do: I made them work harder. They were required to write weekly paragraphs, and each week, I made the print out the paragraphs, we marked them up together, they edited and reprinted. I would not accept them until they were virtually perfect. We read published texts and we examined the sentences. What is a verb? What is the verb in this sentence? What is the subject? What part of speech must a subject have? I had many rules for our classroom, but one of the most important was: I don’t know is not an answer. At first, every answer was a guess, and ended with a question mark. If it was correct, I asked why; if it was incorrect, I asked why.

Worse than the battle of knowledge and skill was their work ethic. They did not hand in work. They did not come to class. They did not do the reading. I tried to motivate them in every way that I could: praise when they did what they should, extra credit, gentle teasing, quizzes, pulpit speeches, stories of personal experience in which I worked very hard or failed myself because I did not work hard enough. And still, attendance was lousy. I cannot teach you if you’re not here, I said again and again. Come even if you don’t have the work. Come even if you’re late. I might give you a hard time, but I’m going to be glad that you are there. And so will you. I did everything except stand on my head and spit wooden nickels.

The last week, when I was collecting their paragraphs, one student looked very upset. “Wait,” she said, “aren’t you going to tell me what’s wrong with it?”

“No,” I told her, “it’s the last class. From here on out, it’s up to you.”

“Give mine back,” she said, and began to mark it up.

“Me, too,” a chorus of voices said, until I had handed back every paper. I smiled. It was the first suggestion that they actually cared.

On the last day of class before the final, we were reviewing an essay called “How to Make It in College Now That You’re Here” by Brian O’Keeney. One of my students, who hated to read out loud but grumblingly did so every class, read, “Many of us never did much studying in high school; most of the learning we did took place in the classroom. College, however, is a lot different. You’re really on your own when it comes to passing your courses. In fact, sometimes you’ll feel as if nobody cares if you make it or not.” She paused. “Boy, is that true.”

“Hey!” I objected. “Do you know how much intestinal distress and sleepless night y’all have caused me?”

“Well, you care,” she said. “And my study skills professor. But that’s it.”

“Is she right? Do you agree?”

“Yes,” they said, each naming one other professor who cared.

“The rest are just here to pick up a paycheck,” another girl said.

“If they’re here for the money, they’re definitely in the wrong place. Trust me, if I didn’t love teaching, I wouldn’t be here.” And of course, they wanted to know how much I was paid, and of course I did not tell them. But it struck me that all along, when I was trying so darned hard to get the best work out of them, to push them to just put in a bit more effort, they already were. They were giving me the absolute best that they knew how. Further, as I racked my brain on how I could encourage them, I’d already found the secret: they knew that I was invested in them and wanted them to succeed.

Old Reliable Got Me Through Another Semester

Part of me felt really good about what I had accomplished over the semester. But part of me also felt really sad. The effort that they had put in was the best that they could do. For whatever reason, be it personal, financial, or simply learned habits, they were not able to give any more. Perhaps worse was that these students felt uncared for by their professors. Maybe their professors did care, but did not know how to show it. But some of them might just be checked out. And if that’s where you are at, you should not be teaching.

When I read the finals from the class, all of the students had made progress. There were significantly more grammatically correct sentences than on the first-day writing sample. Many more were on topic and able to develop a single idea and argument. I had taken a few pictures of them on my phone on the day when they were complaining about the lack of love from professors. I had taken the pictures because I knew that I would miss them. 

I'm Kind of over Being Told to Put My Hands in the Air

When I was the age for reading comic books, I had no interest in them. Instead, I read what I considered to be real books, with the occasional Archie or Katie Keene (a comic about a model which also included a paper doll in every issue). At the time, I was no book snob, and read high literature, children’s chapter books, and mysteries with the same avidity. But comic books—they had pictures, and that meant that they were not serious.

It was not until I was in college that I developed an interest in comics, and but not because I had any interest in the comics themselves. Another long held obsession, Tori Amos, led me to them. Amos, whose career was only made possible by the alternative music movement of the 90s, wrote surreal lyrics, played piano expressively, and sang breathily. Amos happened to be friends with Neil Gaiman, and even mentioned him in her lyrics. Gaiman, in turn, loosely based his Sandman character, Delirium, on Amos. Amos was invited to write the introduction to the collected volume Death: The High Cost of Living.

When I learned about Delirium, I agreed to go to the comic book store with my brother, who started collecting at the age of five, and flipped through a volume of Sandman looking for Delirium. Knowing nothing about the series, I did not know that Delirium did not figure prominently in every issue, and I was disappointed when I could not find an image of her. In addition, I did not find the illustrations appealing, and so did not brother taking one home with me. Later, my parents tracked down a Delirium T-shirt with an image that resembled Amos a good deal and also gave me copy of Death: The High Cost of Living as Christmas presents.

Amos’s introduction was beautiful, but I also found the story intriguing. Death is cheery and sweet, unlike her human companion. Her human companion is a typical teenage boy, disaffected and unhappy with his experiences. The story is dark and brilliant full of hope. It came to me at a point in my life when I particularly needed it, and I was grateful and surprised that comic books could contain such emotionally moving content. At the time, I did not desire to pursue the Sandman series, as it was Death I was in love with, and I knew that she was not the star of the other comics.

It wasn’t until my stint at Borders that I picked Sandman back up. I was in graduate school, reading lots and lots of poetry, writing lots and lots of poetry, with little time for any other reading. In addition, while there was downtime at work, it wasn’t possible to read anything of substance, because a good book would distract from a customer who might need assistance. So, I tried sneaking Preludes & Nocturnes to the information desk, and decided to buy it so that I could take it home and have it for my own. By this time, the series had long been completed, and I knew that there was a finite number of books to read. With great self-control, I spaced out the purchasing and reading of the compilations, until they were done, and I had fallen hopelessly in love with Gaiman.

Sandman tells the story of immortal icons of Dream, Death, Delirium, Desire, Despair, and Destiny. All are siblings and all are involved in the lives of mortals, to varying degrees and with varying amounts of empathy. The plot encompasses Shakespeare, myths, and history, and explores political, emotional, and ethical topics. As imaginary as the characters are, they become real in a way I had not experienced since James and the Giant Peach. Magic. Gaiman allows magic to return.

It was not until my second run of graduate school that I begun to consume graphic novels with a voracious hunger. I had moved to Oxford, Mississippi, where I knew no one, and where I found myself experiencing a culture shock worse than I felt the summer I spent in Prague. Searching for a friendly face, I found Gaiman’s The Books of Magic at the public library. In fact, while the library itself was not terribly impressive (I had been spoiled by enormous libraries in Pittsburgh), the graphic novel selection was extensive. And so, in an effort to distract myself from loneliness, I read all the books by Gaiman, and then everything that looked like a literary type book, and then anything that looked fantastic, but stopped short of superheroes. But I made flesh and blood friends, and comics were not always a necessity. Then, a few laters, when I found myself in the midst of a devastating break up and temporary bout of unemployment, I returned to comic books, this time discovering superheroes. It was not as bad as I thought it was going to be, and I was fascinated by how different interpretations of Batman could be.

For me, comic books offer popcorn reading, a relief from the intensity of reading literature and grading papers. I do not have to analyze (as much—I can never turn it off) and I find myself more forgiving of poor dialogue and plotlines. Though, I must admit, that more I read, the more I find myself aware of poor technique. However, I still feel that I am doing something frivolous, and it feels both comforting and relaxing. Now, I have series I have followed for years, such as Fables and Unwritten, as well as series I followed from the beginning, like Saga. I still wait for the collected volumes to come out, instead of purchasing monthlies, because it feels more satisfying, but I might yet come around to the phenomena of individual issues, as I did buy the first issue of Sandman: Overture.

Have comic books informed my own writing? Surely. Everything I experience, see, and hear influences my writing. And I still harbor a dream that I will write my own comic book someday. As to why comic books are so good at offering me comfort, I don’t yet know, but I continue to question. Question—always question. When we quit questioning, we are surely dead.

Pay no attention to the girl behind the book.

Nonsense and Other Chewy Delectables

Fall 2013: the semester I taught five classes, with four different preps, at three different universities. Pretty impressive, if I do say so. But there are some—well—side effects. For example, since I spend the majority of my waking hours (and sometimes even in my sleep) reading student essays and Literature (“L” capitalized purposefully) for my classes, I have an even greater taste for comic books. In fact, I am completely caught up with all of my current favorites Saga, Unwritten, Fables, and Justice League Dark. And I needed something to read.

Fine. I admit it: I am a comic book junkie.

So I had a coupon from Barnes & Noble*, so I thought I would try the second spinoff series from Fables, even though the first spinoff series, Jack of Fables, was not only painfully awful, but also painfully sexist. So, I was prepared for Fairest: Wide Awake from Bill Willingham and Matthew Sturges, in that it is supposed to be about the female characters of Fables to also be sexist and painfully terrible. The first volume, which features Briar Rose, Snow Queen, Beauty, and introduces Hadeon, the evil fairy who cursed Briar Rose to die in the first place, is not as bad as I had feared.

The story, thank goodness, is not overly sexist. The gifts which Briar Rose is given by the fairies are not unchanged from the original story: beauty, grace, kindness, all traits specifically associated with women, and not with power or men. But, fine, there is only so much that can be manipulated from the original story. And, of course, there are lots of skinny women with big boobs, but you can’t expect for the artists to switch that up, when the male readers have expectations and needs from their comics. Fine. But the tellers of the stories are predominately male. First, there is the Imp, Jonah, who, though not human, is drawn to be male. He orchestrates the first two-thirds of the book, convincing Ali-Baba to pursue Briar Rose, on the promise of riches, and then to confront the Snow Queen. As Jonah seems to be Ali-Baba’s helper, the story belongs more to him than to Briar Rose, who does not choose who wakes her and also has no guarantee on the true love that is supposedly needed to wake her.

The female characters, though they are not necessarily the main players, do have some agency. The Snow Queen, after being under the control of Geppetto for much too long, has finally broken free from his influence, and as Jonah points out, now gets to choose what kind of character she is going to be. At the same time that he is encouraging and manipulating the Snow Queen, Jonah manages to attract the attention of Hadeon, the evil fairy who is simply evil and has no intention to be anything else, and shows just this by picking a fight with the Snow Queen for no other reason than that she can. So, ultimately, the story points out that women have the opportunity to break out of their type casting (although it might mean stepping right into another unoriginal role), and also discusses love in a more realistic, albeit also pessimistic, way.

Following the main story is a short about Beast chasing a beautiful and deadly woman. Though she harms many men, he cannot bring himself to hurt her, just as she seems to have no control over her desire to lure in men with her looks and then to murder them, with great pleasure.

In conclusion (as I cannot get my students to quit writing)**, I will probably read the next volume, but I do not expect the same greatness as the first story line of Fables.

*Don’t fret—I still frequent Labyrinth, the local independent bookstore, and Fallout Shelter, my comic book dealer in Highland Park. 

**I kid—my students are pretty freaking awesome. 

For Your Viewing Pleasure: Cat in a Box. Nothing to do with Fairest, really, but she's pretty cute.

We're All Stars Now...in the Dope Show

Well, nerds, it is time to welcome another to your rank. To induct a green, yet eager geekling. Yes, I am ready. Since I am not able to go to the Clarion Writing Program this summer, as I had hoped, and since Neil Gaimen told me, in no uncertain terms that I must go next year, then I will spend this time learning the ways of the science fiction and fantasy writer.

I just finished The Illustrated Man, Ray Bradbury’s brilliant collection of short stories which predict and undo humanity. Take, for example, “Marionettes, Inc,” about an underground company who make robotic clones for their clients, and which ends with a horrible truth about marriage—no one is telling the truth.

Several of the stories I had seen before, either in written form or as filmstrips in Mrs. Dunn’s seventh grade Language Arts class. Mrs. Dunn had an affinity for dark short stories with twist endings, and somewhere she had found a trove of filmstrips, as well, some of them based on Bradbury’s stories. I vividly remember “Zero Hour,” in which a mother slowly realizes that what she and all the other adults had assumed was a game is actually a plot by aliens to invade the earth. The children, empowered by the terrestrials, will also rid the planet of all adults—mainly, their parents. It was, I believe, my introduction to creepy children in horror films.

Several of the stories are quite scary. “The Veldt,” for example, also features parents who underestimate not only their children, but also the power of technology. Set in a future world in which our homes are completely automatic and do everything for us, two distant and complacent parents begin to worry for the health of their children. They decide that the source of the children’s odd behavior is the enormous interactive television in their playroom. As of late, the set has been trained to an African veldt, complete with menacing lions. It turns out, much to the parents’ chagrin, that the television has more power than just a hold over their children.

Bradbury stories do not have happy endings. They do not, with few exceptions, show the goodness in humanity. One of the exceptions is “The Other Foot” about a community of African Americans who have been moved to Mars, and they are waiting for the first white man to arrive. The community becomes a crowd becomes a mob. They plan to put whitey on the back of the bus and make him shoe shine boy. They even show up to the rocket landing with ropes for a lynching. Unlike so many of the other stories, no one dies.

When I was a little seventh grader, it was the year I read Roots and The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Both books, though they had horrible and violent scenes, ended with the message that we, as a nation, can grow and become more accepting and kinder to each other. They suggested that we will not ultimately destroy each other, but will, instead, find love. Not so with The Illustrated Man, in which, even when the tattooed man of the title seeks to find peace with his wife, he ultimately destroys their marriage. I was able to appreciate the stories in The Illustrated Man better than I did when I first encountered them at the age of twelve. And yet, there is still a part of me that cries out that people are good! We are good! Most of the time we will do the right thing! Perhaps.

If Bradbury can cause the cynic in me to rebel and believe in the goodness of people, perhaps his writing can encourage at least the fear of our evil capabilities in his readers. And if we fear, we are aware, and can change. The ending, unlike a Bradbury story, is not inevitable.

The Cocker Spaniel from Beyond the Grave

My Inheritance

The day before yesterday, in a pre-Valentimes package, the memento from my dead grandmother’s belongings arrived in the mail: a porcelain cocker spaniel figurine. The choice is well-meaning, as I have a beautiful cocker spaniel, the indestructible old-man-pup, Boogie. It’s cute. Sure, it’s cute. But it does not remind me of her.

Grandma was not shy to tell you why she loved me: my smart mouth. And she loved my smart mouth because she had one, too. She was forthright and funny, and if she hurt people's feelings once in awhile, well, maybe she helped make them stronger for it. When you have eight children, like Grandma did, you have to have a sense of humor. My mom is the oldest, and the youngest is nearly twenty years behind her. That’s not just a lot of kids, that’s a long time spent raising them.

She and Grandpa didn’t have an easy time financially, so she worked. Up until she moved out of the house they lived in for as long as I could remember, she worked part-time cleaning houses. Caryn Kadavy, figure skater, was among her clients. She was of the ilk that does not enjoy being idle, but she was not shy about telling you you could serve yourself. One Thanksgiving, as the pumpkin pie and Cool Whip were brought out, she asked if anyone would like ice cream to go with it. When we all refused, she said, “Good. I don’t have any ice cream anyway.” She did, however, go out of her way to be sure she had all of our favorite treats when we visited, including an entire bag of Doritos reserved for my younger brother.

Unfortunately, Grandma and I were not close. When I was little, we visited on major holidays and her birthday. When I was older, and moved down South, I didn’t see her for five years. When I decided to convert to Judaism, it was not something I ever discussed with her, though when I did see her again, and had a coffee at the restaurant while everyone else ate, it was explained that I was “on a diet” and later, my parents must have been more forthright, because sometime during the year before she died, she called me, and we had a brief chat. “Are you still on that diet?” she asked. And I knew that she meant keeping kosher, the Jewish diet according to Torah restrictions. And in fact, I was. I had converted the winter before. When I said yes, she said, “Good for you.” And that was the end of it.

When I brought home a Jewish boyfriend, she was welcoming, and did not even blink an eye at his yarmulke. In fact, she sent me a card simply to tell me how much she liked him.

And of all the amazing things that my grandmother did, that was the most precious to me. It was not easy for my family when I converted, and it could not have been easy for her. There were years when she attended church nearly every day, and she did her best to raise my mother, aunts, and uncles to be good Catholics. For her to offer her blessing was a real act of chesed.

I could tell you, of course, of some of Grandma’s less stellar moments, but in the end, it seems unnecessary. I am beginning to understand how death washes out the lighter stains and brings us closer, at least in the memories of those still on earth, to Gan Eden. More importantly for those still in this world, holding onto the old hurts committed by the dead does not do the departed any good, nor does it serve us. They cannot give us the satisfaction of an apology, and gripping the hurt just continues to hurt. Likewise, guilt for our own action or inaction. We cannot change the past, only the present and future. Learn from your errors and do better to those still close to you.

So, instead of a critical memory, I will celebrate my grandmother by telling a story, which is now part of family lore. One of my aunts had taken my grandmother and her two boisterous sisters out for a drink. Having enjoyed themselves perhaps a bit more than they should have, they began to flirt with the bartender. When he did not show the interest they thought their attention deserved, they began to pelt him with peanuts.

My grandmother and her sisters were kicked out of the bar. She was over the age of eighty at the time. May we all live to see such feistiness. 

Ardys Moniot

Affliction, All Stars, and Adult Rebellion

As I was getting ready for Yom Kippur and already an hour behind schedule, I realized that I had exactly one non-leather shoe. The other one is snoozing contentedly somewhere in Memphis. They were separated during Tisha A’Bav, when I was still wearing one shoe and one boot. Interestingly enough, the shoe that made it was the boot shoe. Huh.

Since I was running behind to get to Highland Park and very much desiring to get there in time to eat before the fast began, I decided to jump on New Jersey Intrastate Highway 1 and jump off at the first place where I might be likely to find non-leather shoes. Which was how I found myself dashing into Target, desperately looking looking for the footwear. Now, although I don’t consider myself a shoe person—I don’t love to go shoe shopping and I don’t spend a lot of money on shoes—I still don’t like to wear ugly shoes. And, to make the non-leather thing more difficult, the only fashion tip my mother ever gave me was to never wear sneakers with a dress. Even when I was wearing a boot, I found flats (or nearly flats) to wear because I could not bring myself to wear sneakers.

But then I saw them: black Converse All Stars. My last pair of Converse was in high school, and the orthopedist threw them in the garbage for me. He took one, bent it in half, and said, “You know what these are? Caca. You know what caca is? It’s what we Italians say instead of shit.” Away went my beautiful rebel sneakers, my one nod to rock and roll clothes.

Here they were again, staring me in the eye with the pristine white star blinking in the perfect black material. Material—just cloth. And rubber soles with rubber toes. Which meant no leather. In less than five minutes, I picked up the shoes, confirmed with a sales person that they were all rubber and cloth, found socks and insoles (to silence the voice of the podiatrist), paid, and was out the door.

I silenced my mother’s voice, too. Converse are not sneakers, exactly, certainly not tennis shoes. They might not be dress shoes, but I could get away with wearing them with a dress. I did still have a small question in my mind, though, because the point of not wearing leather is that you are to afflict yourself on Yom Kippur, to fast and also feel uncomfortable. Were the shoes with the insoles too comfortable?

It turned out that they were not uncomfortable, but the podiatrist was still right—they weren’t the best for my feet. During the Amidah, my feet fell asleep. And my toes were a bit pinched because of the room that the insoles took up. However, I made it through, prayed fervently, and drove home after breaking the fast.

In the morning, the brand new Converse All Stars were again staring at me, sticking out from under my bed. They had not been cheap and it would be a shame if there were only used twice a year. How could that be fair?

Again, I was thinking of high school, how they made me feel like a rebel, even though they were wildly popular among certain groups. Could I wear sneakers with a dress? Was I too old for the rebel shoes?

For me, this is a question of not only fashion, but propriety. I felt disdain in college when I saw newly divorced women putting on baby tees with Diva written in rhinestones. Once, I commented to my sister that she ought to shoot me in the neck if I was still wearing Emily the Strange t-shirts when I was thirty. Yes, I judged the women who dressed too young harshly. What I wondered was, didn’t they know that that super pink pink was not for them? That it did nothing for their hair or complexion? That they looked older, not younger? Harsh judgment from a girl not even in her twenties.

No, I don’t wear Emily the Strange t-shirts anymore, or t-shirts at all. I shop in the women’s section, wear dresses, and cover myself well. But I do have affectations—I have allowed my hair to grow out, and I wear a flower barrette to keep it out of my face. Would the sneakers be too much?

Perhaps I had judged those women too harshly. Perhaps they deserved to allow themselves to dress like the youth for a moment, to flaunt their bodies. After all, they were coming out of the worst of it, from marriages in which they were not appreciated and probably rarely felt attractive. If clothing made them feel rejuvenated, wonderful. Down the road, maybe they would allow themselves to find a middle ground between the juniors section and the garbage bag shaped dresses they wore during their marriages.

I decided that today, I would wear my rebel shoes, with a purple cotton dress. At the copier, a woman confronted me. “Are you a student?” she asked. Before I could answer, she pushed me out of the way and made her copies.

Are the sneakers too young for me? Maybe. Probably. But I get to be a fashion rebel again, and atone for the judging I did many years ago, by in turn, being judged myself. So, shoot me in the neck, if need be. At least I’ll be wearing cute shoes.