so u know that feeling where u just feel like a total fraud like every single day? u get up and u put on the blazer and u go to the office and u look at these performance reviews and u think who even is this person... i mean i’ve been doing this for twenty years now... teaching these kids about the greats and the classics and all that... and people look at u like u have all the answers because u have the title and the office with the big window but inside ur just like... empty? or maybe just bored? idk... it’s like i’m playing a part and i’m so tired of the script... u know? every sunday i drive way out... like thirty minutes past the city limits to this little hole in the wall cafe where the coffee tastes like dirt and the chairs are all wobbly... u know the kind? i do it because i can’t be THAT guy in my own neighborhood... i can’t have a student or a colleague or some parent see me sitting there... and i always have this copy of a really prestigious literary journal... the kind with the thick paper and the tiny font that nobody actually reads... it looks really impressive on the table... it’s like my shield or something... people see it and they think oh look at that intellectual man... he’s probably thinking about something very important... but inside... tucked right into the middle of those poems no one actually understands... i have this magazine... u know the ones with the neon yellow headlines about who’s cheating on who and which starlet is losing too much weight... it’s so trashy... it’s like... total garbage... and i just sit there for two hours and devour it... i read about the breakups and the plastic surgery and the secret babies and who wore it better... and it’s the only time all week i feel like i’m not being graded on my intellect... it’s like my brain finally stops screaming at me to be profound... i just want to know if that actor really did leave his wife for the nanny... i really do... my kids are gone now... out of the house and living their own lives and they think their dad is this pillar of the community or whatever... and my mom is in that home and she doesn’t even know who i am half the time but when she does she’s asking about my tenure or if i’m writing that new book yet... god the book... i haven’t written a sentence of real work in six months... but i can tell u exactly which reality tv star is feuding with her sister... it’s pathetic right? it feels pathetic when i say it out loud... like i’ve wasted all this education just to care about people who don't even know i exist... i keep thinking about the office politics... like if the dean saw me... if he saw me looking at a picture of a celebrity’s beach body instead of grading those senior thesis papers... i’d be a joke... he’s always talking about 'academic excellence' and 'maintaining the standards' and i’m just nodding along while thinking about whether that one singer really did get a nose job... u just start to wonder if u ever really liked the deep stuff or if u just did it because u were supposed to... because that’s what a 'smart' person does... u climb the ladder and u realize the view is just more of the same... last week this girl walked in... i thought she was one of mine... from the intro to lit class... my heart just stopped... i literally felt my stomach drop into my shoes and i slammed the journal shut so hard i spilled my lukewarm latte everywhere... i was shaking... just sitting there with my hands trembling over the cover of this 'high-brow' magazine... it turned out it wasn't her but the fear was so REAL... like i was hiding a crime or something... it’s just paper and ink but it felt like i was holding a bomb that would blow up my whole life... i had to leave after that... i didn't even finish the article about the secret wedding... sometimes u just want to be stupid... u know? like just for an hour... u spend your whole life making sure ur resume looks perfect and ur kids go to the right schools and u take care of ur parents while they fade away... and ur just tired... so tired of being the smart one or the responsible one... i look in the mirror and i see all these new lines on my face and i think... i’ve spent forty years reading 'important' things and for what? i still feel like a kid hiding a comic book under the covers... i’m fifty years old and i’m terrified of someone seeing me read a tabloid... it’s ridiculous... i don’t even know why i’m typing this... it’s 2am and i have to be up in five hours to go talk about Milton and the fall of man... and i’m sitting here thinking about that cafe... and how i’m gonna go back this sunday... i already bought the new issue... tucked it under my car seat so my wife won't see it... she’d think i was having a breakdown or something... maybe i am? i don’t know... it’s just... u ever feel like u just need one thing that’s just yours even if it’s literal trash? something that doesn't require u to be 'on' or 'expert' or 'accomplished' or whatever... it’s the smell of the newsprint... that cheap ink that gets on your fingers... it feels more real than the leather-bound books in my office... and i hate that... i really do... i should be better than this... i’m supposed to be the one who knows better... but i’m just... i’m just some guy who likes gossip... and it’s so lonely... just sitting there in a costume... being someone everyone expects u to be while u hide the real u inside a fake cover... i’m gonna go to sleep now... tomorrow i have to go back to being the professor... and i’ll do it... but i’ll be thinking about sunday... idk... it’s just a lot...