I had a professor once who looked like a demented fat hairy leprechaun. Instead of a pot of gold he carried around a cup of coffee and a piece of chalk. He was an art instructor. We were learning how to draw. He gave one lecture I will never forget. He stood in front of the class and said, "How many different kinds of lines are there?" We were quiet. It seemed, as Jung said of mathematics, like "a question to trap peasants." But he was oddly insistent. HOW MANY DIFFERENT KINDS OF LINES ARE THERE? I think he repeated the question about 25 times that dreadful hour. Answers were posed: many? only one? the simple distance between two points? fat ones skinny ones curvy ones? colorful ones? With every attempt to answer he grew more frantic, "How Many Different Kinds Of Lines Are There"? He slammed his chalk around on the board drawing points and connecting them with lines. I get nervous thinking about it. It scared me to death. And I draw well enough to be confident.

This is an allegory of my childhood. I am smart enough and terrified. Certain my answers are wrong. Trapped with a raving madman.

I was tracked in first grade. They put me in the Learning Disabled class. And I am LD. And they put my brother in Gifted and Talented. And they never told the LD kids they were LD. In the 70s getting tracked into LD meant you were left to drool alone in a corner with the black boys, who were left there because they are black, while the GT kids got busy with nails and string and all manner of fascinating projects. How I waited for someone to hand me nails and string. My brother even wrote, illustrated, and BOUND his own book in GT. I think it was about a kid who was eaten by a shark. I admire the feel of the fabric binding in my mind to this day. I can remember saving up story ideas for the day when I, too, would get to write a book in school. That day was never to come, my friends.

Instead I spent my days, all 12 long years of them (in my wealthy liberal highly regarded nationally ranked school system) with my head on my desk, staring at the clock, and praying to the Holy Mother Of God to make the day go faster so I could please go home. There I was at least free to stare at the tv. Staring being my principal activity. It was clearly what was expected of me. It was clearly the thing I was born to do. In high school I took this staring to the next level by getting high and staring into the darkness while listening to my records. Hey man, is that staring without seeing or seeing without staring or seeing in the darkness? ooooooooo....

Oddly, staring became my salvation. I went mute, for all practical purposes. By the time I was twenty, my shy silence was dressed up by my long blond hair and my figure. I now looked pretty while I was busy staring quietly. And I had time to notice, about 12 years of time, that the answers in my head, the quips, and the jokes, were the same answers and quips and jokes that all the smart people were saying out loud. When they talked others laughed or nodded thoughtfully. If I tried saying something out loud, I sputtered. People looked pained or disappointed and turned away. Still, there are those who like silent pretty people. And having friends gives you confidence. Building confidence was my other salvation.

I was healed of all this about an hour before I started blogging. I guess that took 35 years. I was 5 when they put me in first grade. Why am I healed? I am healed because I now know the answer to the question. How many different lines are there? Listen up you fuzzy headed freak. There are as many different lines as there are dollars you are getting paid for this "lecture." Make your point or go detox. You are wasting my time here.

Wonder why I homeschool? I live to put hammers in the hands of children. I gave my children good sharp scissors when they were three. I think blunt scissors are for blunted "teachers." I think school rooms are poorly disguised jail cells. Wonder why so many of those black boys ended up in jail? Clearly, it was what was expected of them.
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