13 May 2026
Sitting in my office while both the Spanish band and the Shredder band rehearse for the concert tonight. It's a beautiful metaphor.
Where was I?
Hold please.
Right.
My country hates me.
That was about it.
Scene.
I just took a Nyquil, and I hope to sleep through the band concert. No Disrespect. But I'm old. Have I mentioned that?
I'm 60.
My colleages in performing arts are collectively my age.
Their relationships with the kids are weird to me. We were all on the stage after setting up for something last fall, and the instrumental teacher's phone rang. Weirdly, he's 30 and answers his phone. Didn't text.
His side of the coversation consisted of ordering two different meals from two different fast food places, with specific drink requests, depending on which one the kid on the other line was going to for lunch.
The choir teacher was laughing encouragingly, as she's had the same experience, and I was dead quiet.
I never give kids my phone number.
Unless you are my stage manager or we're going to New York on a tour, I never give kids my number.
I'm now the old teacher. I'm now JK-the guy who was the theatre teacher when I started at Littleton.
Oh my god....
I passed out. Hold on.
Wait. I have to lie down.
Gray hair. Bad knees. Jokes nobody gets. More experience and education about theatre than these kids could possibly ever absorb.
Old OLD old old oldoldoldoldoldoldoldoldoldoldoldold and irrelevent.
Not as bad as the reanimated corpses in Washington. Still young by that standard.
But most teachers have retired by my age. I only have 23 years in, and the country is burning and gas is $5 a gallon so I'm not retiring. Ever.
I wish to have a choice. I can die here; I've rebuilt this department and I can keep going and die at the light board or quietly choke on a DayQuil in my office. Or I can cut loose, sell the house, move to the western slope and die working at Luv's truck stop.
None of this was planned. Because I thought I was going to die in a fiery nuclear apocolypse at 20. Since the Federal Center was obviously a first strike target, I figured I'd take a lawn chair down at the 30 minute warning and catch the last rays.
That did not happen.
Clearly, as I'm whining at you right now.
My colleagues are perfectly nice, but they don't get me. I'm the same age as their parents. And I do not fit in, which was fine when I was younger and pretty, "quirky" was acceptable. Now I'm just an old crone with a colored headband around my neck, which is the Gen X version of a scrunci on my wrist. You never know when it's going up in my hair, or around my turkey neck. And it isn't cute. Because they know I'm hiding my neck. I used scarves at Littleton, very "Theatre Teacher Chic", but not those scarves are too bulky and hot and itchy because I Am The Fuck Sixty.
I've only once had a real team mate. At Litteton my work wife was the person who had my job before I was hired, but took a full time lang arts position. She did my tech. It was great. She made us badges with "Carl" and "Lenny" from the Simpsons.
It is the only time in my life I felt like I had a colleague. I felt like I belonged.
The choir and band guys had bonded---they were the long term teachers who had come in together and fought the same battles, and I was the small dog that followed them around hoping they would pet me and say "And I will love hin and keep him and call him George". My eventual flame out seventeen years later caused them undue stress, and while one still stays in touch via facebook, the other does not. We were colleagues. Work colleagues. That was all.
The two kids here... I need a nick name for them...The Twins (they both have dark hair and are 30)...are stupid close. Laugh. Inside jokes. Help with set up and strike. Share kids.
Do they know how rare that is? Do they know how lucky they are?
Does it matter?
Nothing matters. Nothing happens. Nobody comes.
We sit posting angry emojis on social media while our country burns around us.
That was out there. Must be time to go.
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