(Originally published in the Tishman Review online 10/6/2015. You can also link to from “Published Works.”)

I am fifty-six years old and I have gone back to college to get an MFA. The last time I slept in a dorm room was thirty-five years ago, and when I am assigned my room, I fancy myself as a nun might, plodding serenely off to an austere, chilly room in the convent. Nothing could be further from the truth, of course. Dorm rooms may be Spartan, but dorm life is not. Dorm life is noisy, messy, mysterious, and unnatural. For example, there are seven women in my room right now and one of the women is weeping, really and truly weeping. She is also drinking wine straight out of the bottle, which I have only done once in my life, just to see how it felt.

The weeper had a bad workshop today. She is crushed, so she says. Being older than her I doubt it. She doesn’t yet know crushed. Crushed is when you have to tell your children, ages eleven and twelve, that you and their father are getting a divorce. Crushed is a sister with a lupus. Crushed is all four days of Thanksgiving weekend alone.

But I listen and put on my sympathy face. This is something I excel at. Being a Virgo, one of my main attributes is that I empathize with others. People want to tell me everything, even complete strangers, especially complete strangers. They zero in on me with laser-like precision, even on a bus. Even when I stare intently at a fire hydrant and pointedly display body language not conducive to starting up a conversation. Continue reading →