Wednesdays with Tom

It’s almost the end of the year and while I should be busy trying to get my shit together, I’m here writing my blog. This is my fourth year of my undergrad, and certainly not my last. For those of you, family and friends, who quip “It’s taking you long! When are you going to finish?” My answer is thus:

None of your fucking business.

With the year almost at a close I’m happy, but the happiness is bittersweet. (wow, that was cheesy and overly-dramatic, just go with it.) I’m going to miss all the friends I’ve made in the Creative Writing Program, as well as all the friends I’ve made in the other classes I’ve taken over the years. Wednesdays with Tom deserves an asterisk, though.

Who could forget The Donnas, those girls inseparable who were blogging before blogging was blog. Or Shakes, that strange character who wore black most days, a binary contrast to his pasty flesh, and who was always ready with an over-explanation of simplistic points accompanied by grossly embellished gesticulations which often elicited many rolling eyes. But above all I will personally miss the opportunity to make snippy comments and somewhat inappropriate jokes.

A few weeks ago we read the play Harlem Duets, a play, if you ever read it, that will forever change your perception of Billy Shakespeare’s Othello. It is a production that combines Jazz music and audio snippets from famous and infamous moments of Black America’s history. During tutorial I practically killed myself trying to hold laughter in at six letters I scrawled on my course kit as our TA Tom talked about OJ Simpson and Othello. The six letters I wrote were: OJELLO. A combination of Othello and OJ.

Amanda looked on, and she too was infected with the giggles. Tom still hadn't noticed. Greg is sitting perpendicular to Amanda and I, and I know Greg always enjoys a good joke. He frequently brings up the comment I made concerning our skin tones during one of the first classes last semester. I called our row, which consisted of Amanda, myself, and Greg, “The Gradation of Melanin*.” White, (Honey) Brown, Black. Har-Har-Har.

I decided, I’ll let Greg in on the Ojello joke. I turn my course kit so that he can read it and I tap it with my pencil to get his attention. He laughs that subdued, reverent chuckle he has. Tom looked at us, a common occurrence in that class, and asked, “What. What’s going on down there?” I folded my face into my hands, the laughter filling my throat as Amanda exclaimed, “OJELLO.”

Amid the laughter of the class, Tom said, “It’s okay to have fun, but you have to let me in on the joke!”

Tom tried to move on from there, but he went in a direction that sent me into a spiral of unabashed laughter. He put forth, while I was still laughing about Ojello mind you, this question: “Can anyone draw a parallel between Michael Jackson and the things we’ve learned about contemporary literature this year?”

I couldn’t help myself.

I blurted out, between sharp stabs of semi-curtailed laughter, “MICHAEL JACKSON IS PASTICHE. HE’S PUT TOGETHER FROM ALL THESE DIFFERENT PARTS.” I think a few people laughed, but I was losing it. I apologized as I sobbed with laughter, wiping my eyes periodically.

Oh, how I’ll miss Wednesdays with Tom.

*Melanin: n. Insoluble pigments that account for the color of e.g. skin. I'd mistakenly called it Melanoma, which is that shit that turns into cancer. So yea, I'm smart, but not that smart.