Coming Through the Wry

Astral Facts, September 2011

Astral: (Theosophy) Consisting of, belonging to, or designating, a kind of supersensible substance alleged to be next above the tangible world in refinement; as, astral spirits; astral bodies of persons; astral current.

Coming Through the Wry

September has come and is about gone with changes to adapt to, which really is nothing new. In an article I read recently, the author noted that ethics and morality are personal issues, but they don’t have any meaning until the individual is involved in some kind of relationship.

For example, on campus we’ve moved the faculty and staff along with offices, work space, and classrooms related to five general disciplines occupying five smaller buildings into a centralized single building. Adaptation is coming at many levels of personal sacrifice for the greater good. For instance, I can no longer select the temperature or strength of the water when I wash my hands in the restrooms. I have to hold my hands under the spout and the flow automatically comes at an intensity and a lukewarm temperature deigned to be “ideal” in our one-size-fits-all (even if it doesn’t) brave new world.

Another interesting aspect is the cutback on classroom support, with the reduced number of custodial staff not required to clean the white boards during the night. Thus, we now have extra green towels and water spray bottles in each classroom so the last one out can “prep” the room for the new dawn that is surely coming.

I’ve found these very handy since I teach in three separate classrooms this quarter. I am able to use my “down time” prior to each of my classes to thoroughly “whitewash” the boards prior to each of the classes on a daily basis, removing the vestiges of profundity unearthed in the previous 23 hours. We have these sliding boards, with two overlapping layers (four board surface sections), and I often find interesting messages hidden away between layers. Of course, the additional side boards can be cleaned on a “need to go” basis.

It’s funny how history tends to be circular or recyclable, for I’m reminded of the halcyon days of my youth when I shared a house with three other guys in my post BA days. I was using my English degree very effectively by reading and critically interpreting map directions and road signs while driving a frozen food delivery truck. Another of my housemates (Pat) was doing accounting for a record company, his friend Don was collecting unemployment from a warehouse job at Sears, and Don’s younger brother Steven was a student at the UW. We shared a little place at 51st and Wallingford.

We decided to take turns doing meal duty. Each person would have total control one day: buy the groceries, prepare the meal, and clean up afterward – each contributing according to means, ability, and opportunity. My turn was Monday, Pat had Tuesday, Steven on Wednesday, and Don on Thursday. Four single guys on our own – we figured it was individual responsibilities on Fri, Sat, & Sundays. What a nice plan! Except…...

Pat and I would fulfill our responsibilities, but on Wednesday Steven prepared the meal (usually something cheap, easy, and messy – like mac& cheese or frozen lasagna), and then he ran upstairs to study. So the other three of us would put our dirty plates and stuff in the sink with the rest of the mess and wait for Stephen to clean up. Something that never happened. He just added his dishes to the mess when he finished studying.

So Don would cook on Thursday and just add to the mess left by Stephen. Since Stephen hadn’t cleaned up, Don didn’t feel he should be responsible for pre-existing conditions (not his brother’s keeper or something like that). Then Friday and Saturday the accumulation continued to accumulate. Pat and I never really discussed the situation except to share our disappointment that Don wasn’t making his younger brother be responsible. It wasn’t our job to confront either one about this.

Finally, on Sunday either Pat or I would have reached the breaking point, and one of us would wash up the mess in the sink and clean the kitchen to start the new week all fresh again. I’m not sure how long this would have lasted, but after four months Don’s unemployment ran out and he moved back to Wenatchee to get his old job in the cannery and I got accepted to go to Afghanistan in the Peace Corps.

I’m sure there must be a lesson or moral there somewhere. Somehow this seemed reminiscent of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Blithedale Romance, where it seemed like all the main character did was complain that the others weren’t doing their fair share. I don’t know why we had to read this in class back then or how any of this makes sense, but I’ve got to go clean some whiteboards – no time to think about it.


Walter Lowe
Astral Facts is a monthly presentation of Humanities Science, produced in the bowels of the Humanities Science offices.