Leigh is at the bar, talking to a friend.
The first thing I will do is not drink. All of these solipsist heartfelt monologue rantings for women apparently require alcohol or Neil Simon or both. Ever see The Eight Reindeer Monologues? They're all sots, and I'm not British ,nor is the play, but that's a great word. "Sot". I like British words. Like...Bill Murray in Scrooged says "The Jews taught me a great word: Schmuck". Which is not a British word, but I love those words too. Yiddish words. Like tchotchkes Which aren't even spelled like they sound, because why would they be? Also, why are they described as "bric a brac"? Is it 1972? Am I standing in front of marbled mirrors with a sunburst clock on the wall? Screw that noise, they're tchotchkes. Even today, in 2022 almost 2023: Tchotchkes. You know what I mean? Little kick knacks...wait, lemme look it up, "Tchotchke: small object that is decorative rather than strictly functional; a trinket". Little ceramic or plastic figurines lined up on a forgotten bookshelf, or behind beveled glass in the china cabinet. Or in the oven. I love that some people use their oven to store such things. I feel like I saw that in a movie once. Maybe not. Wait! I think it was my friend Briggs in Houston. I think she used her oven for tchotchkes, which is where I learned the word. She said they were like knick knacks, but I looked it up. They're cooler.
I am like those tchotchkes. I'm a teacher, one of thousands, up on shelves, forced to face forward and show ourselves and hide what we really feel. Easily replaced when we break---or melt, clearly someone turned on the oven unaware that it was housing us--OK, but, honestly, though, just the young ones can be replaced. Target has My Little Ponies, but it's difficult to locate a ceramic owl salt shaker your mom made in the class she took to keep from losing her mind when you were a child.--Sorry, did I lose you? What's an example of a tchotchke? Miniature ornate canisters, or teeny tiny tea cups. Like your grandma smuggled from the old country. You get me? Tchotchkes. I lost you again. A knick knack, which should be the same thing, but is not. A knick knack is defined as "worthless". Nicely done. Americans took a lovely Yiddish word for cool, small, things and made them worthless. Why do I care? Are you still listening? I love words.
Who cares. Now it's a soliloquy. You can stay here or go to the bathroom, but Immma keep talking. I will continue to sit in this public place and speak to an empty bar stool because it is 2022 about to be 2023, I am a 20 year veteran teacher and nobody listens to me, anyway, so I may as well sit here and talk and not drink. We can speak nonsense while completely sober, friends, stick around.
Carrie Fisher wrote this great line in her book. I love it. I will never forget it. I never understood it until Covid, until I had to teach theatre online. She wrote "Sometimes I feel like something on the bottom of somebody's shoe. And it isn't even anybody interesting." Do you get that? Like, do you get that? I thought you went to the bathroom. Like, did you go the bathroom and I missed it? HI. Welcome back? Or thanks for staying. Like, whatever applies.
I have no idea where "like" is coming from, I'm a sober adult and I blasted that word out of rotation back when I was still acting. Before I taught. And the word "like" lives on my speech rubrics because Stop Saying 'Like'. Say what you mean. Stop hedging and sighing and demonstrating your fear of being heard. Speak up. Speak Out. You Matter. I yell All Of The Things at students. All of the lies. I tell them they matter. I tell them people care. I tell them to stand up for themselves.
To be fair, this break I've returned to binging shows. and on The Good Place there was a vendor called "Joannie Loves Tchatchkie" and I feel like I'm the only one who got it. This way I can work that in. Also Timothy Olyphant is on that episode, and I watched Santa Clarita Diet over Thanksgiving break and he's funny. Connections! I'm good at that.
You know that meme with the dog and everything is on fire? I think it's a dog. It's a dog. And it is already absurd, as the mustard colored canine is sitting on a kitchen chair. He is wearing a porkpie hat and has a coffee on the table. Absurd. Dogs don't drink coffee. And everything around him is on fire...hmmm, absurd yet I am identifying...and he is saying "This is fine". That meme became The Meme Of The Covid Debacle. I think everyone identifies with it. I do. That meme should become a tchotchke. I would put it in my china cabinet behind beveled glass, next to the Christmas plate I made in first grade, featuring a very long mustard colored dog, with misspelled "Merry Chirstmas" burned forever in the plastic. And those are my tchotchkes. My knick knack bric a brack paddywacks. Because the definition of "bric a brac" is "small and useless objects of little value". Not as cool as a tchotchke. Not as bad as a knick knack. Words are fun. Am I a trinket or useless? Am I bric a brac that labors under the delusion of a better life as a tchotchke?
I teach kids to stand up for themselves and to speak clearly, so that when they are attacked, they can properly defend themselves. It won't matter, we all know that. Nobody Cares. Our world has turned to Beckett's posit: Nothing Happens. Nobody Comes. We are living the absurdist nightmare. Stuck in God's China Cabinet. Welcome to education. For those of us still stuck.
Those who got out of education-.the very young and those who started young -jelly! I started late. I'm 57 and only 20 years in. They don't tell you when you sign up that you have to put in at least 30 years for PERA to pay off. We sat quietly at the kitchen table in our porkpie hats, grateful that someone has offered us coffee. Then they lit everything on fire. I may have lost my grip on the metaphor so to be clear: everyone in my situation is trapped. Trapped in the nightmare. But it's fine. I'm fine. I have a job. That's what they tell us. Be happy you have a job. So I am. I have a job.
Actually...might I have a glass of wine please? I'm fine.
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