My sister came over to cut my hair today. She does that once in a while. While under the electric razor, I made tentative plans for her to come over and dye my hair one month’s hence so that I have no grays. I told her I was again attending the National Conference of Undergraduate Research and, unlike last time, I was going to put forth an effort to not look like the oldest student in attendance. “I don’t want to be the senior senior,” I put it succinctly.

I asked her if she’d heard from our dad or any Floridian relative lately, and she said she hadn’t. “I’m just wondering how Papa’s doing,” I added.

“I think he’s just the same. Still moving along.”

“Man, he just keeps going. I thought he was gonna die back in September.”

“I know, me too. Now it’s getting close to his birthday. He’s gonna be 90.”

After Diane left, I again commented on my grandfather’s unexpected robustness, and Jennifer asked if I had decided whether I will go to his funeral. I reiterated my general distaste for the Sunshine State. Coupling that with our impending vacation there in December, I’m not sure I can stomach two trips there in a single year. After not stepping foot in Florida for over a decade, I’ve just about recovered. All this would suffice in itself, but then there’s the whole matter of how I’ll be treated – if complete shunning can even be considered “treatment.”

“I’ll probably just celebrate his life in my own way,” I concluded. For the moment.

A sudden warming of the weather has arisen Jennifer’s global warming anxieties, but we both had to admit that the higher temperatures, couple with the steadily increasing daylight, has improved our photoperiodic moods. Somewhat.

I cam home from work to yesterday and today to find she had made unexpected progress on a few home improvement projects that have been in the works too long. So that makes me content. I revel in the idea that our home has only gotten better in the time we’ve lived here – a happy converse from our time residing in apartments.

At work yesterday, I looked up at the calendar to confirm the date, and suddenly realized it had been 25 years since I attended a talent show, at a city park, held by a local Witness congregation. It was there that I met so many people that ultimately became my friends. It was also where two of my existing friends – Rhett and Ryan – performed a song of their composing. Rhett having since passed, I emailed Ryan to remind him of this anniversary. Or, rather, to tell him that this was the anniversary of his public display of his song “Balalaika” since, truth be told, there was no way he’d have any recollection of the date of that performance.

So after I got home and contented in the progress Jennifer had made, she said, “So you emailed Ryan some link today?”

“Yeah…how did you know that?”

“Because he posted it online.”

“Well he didn’t write back to me. I kept checking my email to see if he had anything to say about it.”

“Well, he mentioned you in his post. He said something like, ‘Thanks to my friend James for recording this.’ Then he listed all the times him and his brother played live.”

“Oh, we’re still friends?” I asked, half in sarcasm, half in sincerity.

This, then, precipitated a long conversation of what makes a friend, and exactly how long can go by without purposefully interacting with someone before they can be considered no longer in one’s life. This, then, connected to our placid lament that we no longer have any friends, excluding family. And “family” I define as all of her relatives, minus her younger sister, and none of my relatives, minus my younger sister. I told Jennifer that I had only been invited to two social events thus far in 2017 – one friend invited me to lunch and I accepted. Then I said, “But I’ve been invited to two events,” and told her how I had to turn down one of them because I had to attend class. Not to be outdone, Jennifer note that she had only been invited to one social event this year – one that she concocted at my insistence.

Most days lately, Jennifer asks me if I’ve heard about a recent development in the national political scene. There’s a bevy of stuff to discuss: Every day either Trump is doing something stupid, trying to explain something stupid, or experiencing the fallout of something stupid. Every unfurled incident seems to be a step toward impeachment or resignation. And though I agree that his failure is virtually inescapable, it’s unsettling to live in a world where I am looking forward to a Pence presidency.

In the rare case there aren’t any executive branch snafus during a given 24-hour period, Jennifer tells me about the protests around the country. I know about these, usually, but she’s always tied to social media and has a real-time approach to the events. I gave up social media in November, figuring I’d wait until someone noticed. After several weeks and no one noticed, I figured that was typical. I guess I just don’t care what people have for breakfast, and I’m not interested in arguing with people I haven’t seen in twenty years.

So one day, a bunch of constituents showed up at one Senator’s house and demanded he stop acting like a baby. Another day, lawyers set up shop in the airport, hoping to score income from the downtrodden who can’t get back into the country. It goes on and on like that.

Thinking I had some information Jennifer didn’t, I told her someone put up a large “Resist Trump” banner on the foot bridge over I-94. She said another one of our neighbors put up an “All are Welcome Here” sign, and I told her the woman across the street taped an “I Stand With Planned Parenthood” sign in her porch window. “It was too small for me to read it,” I explained, “so I got out the binoculars to see it.”

Jennifer asked if I had seen the “All Are Welcome” mural on the park fence a few blocks away. A few neighbors tied colored rags to the chain link, slowly morphing from one hue to the next unto the three words and a heart icon formed a complete Roy G. Biv rainbow. “It’s kind of a contradiction emblazoning ‘all are welcome’ on a fence,” I said, trying to be smart, “Since a fence, pretty much by definition, is saying someone’s not welcome.”

Jennifer didn’t like the joke, and said that fence is to ensure the children from the local elementary school don’t run off the grounds onto the streets.

“I hope all this stuff amounts to something,” I said.

“It will,” Jennifer said, with uncharacteristic optimism. “The country really isn’t taking this anymore.”

“Well, I wish they would’ve woken up four months ago. People are so like that. They wait until it’s too late, then they try to fix the problem.”

I then drew several parallels to history – the Nazis, of course; Nixon, of course; Bush v. Gore, of course – and point out that most adults don’t even have the wherewithal to recall the important events from the previous summer, much less the previous election cycles or previous decades.

Jennifer said this time it might be different. “There’s social media now. People can find out about everything, right away. And they can travel faster and get information out quickly, and they’re calling out those stupid congressmen who don’t do their jobs. No one’s happy now.”

“Well, some people are happy. Trump supporters are happy – some of my coworkers think he’s Jesus, for Christ’s sake. And all those Bernie-or-Bust supports must be happy. They didn’t get Bernie, but at least they got Bust.”

She did like that joke.

I attended the dinner and toast to graduating seniors.

My attendance was marginally fortuitous and rather abrupt. At 1:00 this afternoon, I learned that tonight’s recording of the cable show was cancelled due to the producer’s illness. Jennifer was out running errands, Owen was at school, and I was home with Isla, who was swiftly recovering from a quick succession of vomiting 36 hours earlier, and Emmett.

When Jennifer came home, Owen in tow, at 4:00, I said, “Would you mind if I went to the dinner at Hamline this evening?” I spun it as a benefit for her, because she wouldn’t have to concern herself with dinner for five. Just four.

Two hours later, I was the first student to arrive. A security officer at the door asked to see my ID. His hands stayed on his belt as I fumbled through my wallet. “I can’t believe I don’t have my license in here. Why isn’t it in here?” Finally, he just held up a hand and said, “It’s okay, sir, you’re good.”

I sat at a table in the back and watched as the other students filed in. One girl sat down right next to me – an odd choice considering I’d never met here before and there were six other chairs around the table. Then, almost as soon as she unzipped her coat, she got back up to get a drink, and I never saw her again. Finally a guy named Hunter sat next to me, and I broached the silence by asking him his major.

Later, the university president congratulated all of us on a job almost accomplished. She said we were the best group of students she’s had the privilege of working with, then added that, no, she doesn’t say that every time. Then I leaned to Hunter and said, “But she does say that every time.” She pointed out that we were the first class to use this very building we were sitting in, which was only true of those who started in 2013, by which time I had already been at the school for four years. She said something about an amendment, too, which I at first thought was a reference to the proposed anti-marriage amendment in 2012, but that was prior to most of these students’ college careers, so it couldn’t have been that. Anyway, the girl sitting in front of me had a big piece of black lint on her otherwise white sweater, so I was a bit distracted.

Then we drank champagne. I clinked glasses with Hunter, and thanked him for keeping me from being completely alone during dinner.

Today is the beginning of the end.

I walked into the classroom this evening – the first day of my final college course – and was immediately deluged with memories of my first day of my first college course.

It was over 17 years ago. I was not warm to the idea of attending college. I hated high school, deeming it the third least-appealing long-term activity I’d ever been forced to participate in – a conferral made all the more easy due to my parents blasé and Janus-faced view of compulsory education. But Jennifer and I – mostly Jennifer, really – reasoned that one of us needed to get some sort of certificate or degree lest we be stuck in low-wage, unsatisfactory jobs from now until Armageddon.

Despite arriving twelve minutes before the start of class time, I breathlessly entered a classroom on the lower level of Century College’s West Campus to find almost every desk taken. I was reduced to sitting in a seat exactly in the middle: two from the front, two from the back, two from the left, and two from the right. I quickly scanned the room as I nervously unzipped my bag and removed a notebook, a pen, and the two textbooks: about 25 students, a fair mix of boys and girls. Some looked about my age – I hoped no one would know that I was the advanced age of 24. There was an obese woman with sweatpants and acne sitting in the front left seat. She looked to be about 41 years old, embarrassingly old to in college, by my estimate.

I sat up and stared at the curly black hair of the young woman in front of me. My heart was beating fast. It had taken my longer than I’d hoped to drive to the campus and then find a parking spot. Should I be doing this? Jehovah’s Witnesses are discouraged from involvement in higher education. And though they’d weakened on that stance over the past half-decade, they still treated it as a last resort, a humiliating endeavor to warily engage only if all else had failed…sort of like begging for change on the streets.

The instructor walked in late. A thirty-something large-boned pregnant woman with taupe pants and long, straight brown hair. “Welcome to the semester,” she said smiling, then passed out a syllabus – a word I’d never heard before – and told us this was Public Speaking 1030, and if we hadn’t signed up for that, we were in the wrong class. One girl meekly got up, clutched her books against her ribs, and ducked out.

The instructor was quick to point out that, as per the schedule, we would be giving our first speech in class starting next Tuesday. “That’s right, you’ll be up here in front of the class one week from now.” She added that, for this first speech, she would be asking for volunteers to present in the order we’d like, but that if no one raised their hand, she’d randomly pick students. In short, I had to be ready next Tuesday. Either I’d have to raise my hand and present, or I’d risk being called on.

After the second day of class, that Thursday, I still hadn’t come up with a suitable topic to go with the persuasive speech I was slated to deliver.

I sat in front of my desktop computer for a long time, constantly walking away to work on my homework from History and Chemistry, my other two courses that semester.

By Monday night, I had a skeleton of a speech, but I didn’t want to give it. “I just want to quit,” I whined to Jennifer, “This is too stressful. Nana’s right, I’m not smart enough to do a good job.” This was a reference to my paternal grandmother. She rolled her eyes and said “Of course” when I was in elementary school and I was getting such good grades there was talk of me skipping a grade. But then, mid-way through my first year of Junior High School, I gave up. Well, sort of. I committed myself to never failing any classes, and either doing all the work or ensuring my parents wouldn’t find out that I hadn’t done all the work. But that was it. I wasn’t going to expend any effort or time on any classwork I didn’t assuredly enjoy. And that, as it turns out, was hardly anything outside of wood shop or videography.

Nana often compared me to Amy, my straight-A cousin who was a mere 60 days my senior. “Amy called me from Florida yesterday,” Nana said, sitting in her rocking chair that was, as always, turned to face the television. “She got all A’s in school again.”

“I could do that,” I said.

“Well then why don’t you, Jimmy?”

“Because I don’t care.”

“Hm.” She looked at me over her glasses. “I think if you could do it, you would do it.”

“I would if I cared.”

But maybe, after all, she was right. Unlike junior high and senior high, I had deliberately chosen to attend Century College. More than that, I was paying for it.

“You’re not quitting!” Jennifer yelled. “We arranged too many things in our life to make it so you can go to college. And now you’re gonna do it.”

“Fine.”

“What’s wrong with your speech? Let’s hear it.”

“Right now? You want me to give it to you?”

“Yeah right now. You’re supposed to practice it out loud, right?’

“Yeah.”

“Then do it.”

So, there in the living room of our tiny apartment, I got up from the floor and stood in front of the coffee table. Jennifer sat on the futon and listened to my speech about Why Humans Should Explore Mars. I cringed as I spoke each forced line. I kept looking up from my note card with it’s assigned limit of 30 words and staring at Jennifer, my eyes pleading with her to let this be done. During each protracted, unnatural pause, I gave a belabored sigh, sighing that seventh through eleventh grade had already proven sufficiently that formal schooling was bunk, so why this delayed, tertiary blip on my life? When it was done, deflated, I sat back on the floor with my elbows on the table.

“What was wrong with that?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just not very good.”

Jennifer said it was, but she was wrong. If someone walked into my Toastmasters Club this week and gave the exact same presentation in the exact same way, I would think it’s a good thing they’re in Toastmasters because, damn, they suck.

The next morning, I didn’t raise my hand at first. As I told Jennifer the night before, I wanted to hear at least one other speech before I gave mine, to establish a baseline.

The old woman in her 40s went first. And she did…pretty well, actually. Then I raised my hand, but the instructor call on the redhead who appeared smartly dressed for the occasion. She did really well. Then it was my turn.

Then I relaxed, and it was only over the rest of that class period and the next two days of class that my confidence rose. One guy just didn’t prepare. The instructor called on him, and he said he wasn’t ready. “Well, you’re supposed to be ready,” she gently reminded him. She then asked if he wanted to stand up and say what he had so far, or if he wanted a zero. He got up an delivered a laughable quasi-speech on the importance of Tupac Shakur. It wasn’t persuasive. “Tupac was very important to the rap scene,” the student said, “he made good music that people still listen to today, even though he got killed.”

Then another student tried to persuade us that there should be stricter control over teachers due to the pervasiveness of child abuse between teachers and students, and cited one example of a high school gym teacher in California who molested 1.4 million students over his 30-year tenure. I spent the rest of his speech calculating the ridiculousness of that number so that, when it was time for Q&A, I was able to raise my hand and ask clarification. Actually, he called on the girl sitting to my left first, and she said, “Are you sure about that number?” His eyes grew wide and he nodded deliberately, saying, “I know, isn’t that terrible?” Then I was able to call out, “What? Did he have the kids line up so he could molest one a minute for three years?” He didn’t understand, but it got a good laugh out of most of the class. The teacher covered her mouth with the back of her hand, stifling a giggle.

On the way out of class that day, I received my grade for the presentation. Ninety percent; the lowest I received of the five speeches I gave in that class.

I didn’t quit. And now I’m here.