Last night I got a call from L, a lady my mom used to go to church with. I used to go to church with my mom, too, therefore… She’s cool. She’s a librarian at C High. They got a grant for a remedial reading program. The first teacher quit after one day. She said she wouldn’t teach those blankety-blank kids; they don’t want to learn. Suddenly they were in dire need of a teacher. L thought of me. I was flattered. Little did she know she was inviting a recovering crack addict in to teach America’s youth. That’s more than enough to disqualify me for the position, but I’m no threat. Furthermore, I think I’d be pretty good it. Also disqualifying me is the fact that I’m not credentialed in any way, shape or form. L thought that might not be required given the non-standard nature of the program. I did teach Expository & Argumentative Writing, Technical Writing & Business Communication, Beginning Fiction Writing, and Intermediate Fiction Writing at the University of Florida with full autonomy over my syllabi. I got good reviews generally. More importantly, I have enthusiasm for the subject, relate well to the age group, and wouldn’t quit on them.

But did I want the job? That was a tough one. I told L that it was intriguing but that I’d have to sleep on it and mull it over in the morning. I definitely definitely need the money and the experience could be good for my rehabilitation as well as my resume and even be a fun get-me-back-into-the-world kind of thing. On the other hand, I’ve just barely got my daily necessaries in place and chugged up some momentum and rhythm. Still I don’t get done what I want to; I’ve packed enough necessaries in a day that the progress in any one of them is slow. And those things are the things I’ve deemed most important, the core of my long term recovery, and the things that must come before all else, as good as those things are. I think about what I’ve read, seen, and heard by and about successful people who have pinpoint laser focus and sacrifice all other good to accomplish their dreams. So by the time I got home from the dog park this morning, I was thinking it’s tempting but with five periods a day and prep time, it’s just too disruptive. I’ll have to pass.

Then my mom asked me what I’d decided. Cunning and coniving bastard that I am, I told her I’d decided to take it. That was partly for laughs (mine, of course) and partly to see her reaction, tease out her real feelings about it, because she’s very good about letting her children make their own decisions and supporting them even when those decisions aren’t the ones she would make. “Really?” she said. “I thought you’d be so good at that.”

That little bit of flattery, plus my realization that it would only be 2 1/2 months before the school year ended, afterwhich I could jump back in to fulltime my recovery & writing program. With money being my biggest stressor right now, this would be away to relieve that pressure in a (time-)contained way. At the very least, I’d go in to meet with people and find out more about it. So I called L. I told her I wanted to come in and explore it further with her people. I told her that I had no interview clothes. She said not to worry about it. So I showed up with dangley fringed pants and a shirt I just couldn’t bring myself to tuck in. I didn’t want the job that bad.

Turned out they thought they had somebody for the position—I think; their speech patterns were like Welsh crop circles to me—but they were cranking up a semi-weekly 2-hour after school reading tutoring block to overlap the day program. Total of four hours. Well, that solves the disruption problem. Won’t solve my financial problems, but it strikes me as a best-of-all-worlds compromise. I told them that indeed I was interested, and they seemed happy to bring me on in that capacity, but there’s still the little problem of my credentials, more specifically my lack thereof. They think that because I’ll be working under the direction of a faculty member with a reading endorsement, I’ll be acceptable to the district oracle. Next week is spring break, but I expect to hear back toward the end of it.