I had to fire someone this morning. It was weird. And it's hard to fire professors, ya know? It's supposed to be hard, cz for instance I taught a story by Dorothy Allison today, and I had my students swear. It made them really uncomfortable. It made them giddy. It made them laugh. The nuns, I let them off the hook. One said in a deep Vietnamese accent, "It is hard enough to hear ok?" Then I told them to feel outrage, remember something deeply unfair to them - everyone has that, that they're carrying, right? I know they have, a handful are from Africa, one whose face is scarred systematically, who told me of caring for a 13-year-old boy whose rotting body was not yet dead when his family abondoned him to the church ; one got chased out of Serbia by formerly friendly neighbors; one has stopped cutting herself but her mom still hates it that she's gay . . . I told them to sit there and feel really angry, not miffed but gut-furious, to feel empathy for themselves. Then they found it harder to swear, because they'd grown somber. So then it made more sense that the author swears on every page, to make us laugh but it's also a kind of bravery to be able to swear and make others laugh about things that aren't funny. It's a kind of power.

It's very important that I not be subject to being fired for teaching what I choose, as I see fit.

I have to review other profs to help decide if they will get that protection for life, tenure, or not. I have to help decide: No. The man I said "No" to is outraged. He'll have at least one year to change my mind. He can't fathom having to try that hard. And that's why he got fired. Because you can't commit to something for life that's merely good enough, that serves some expedient purpose (it pays the bills) whose removal (you inherit some money) would render the doing of it meaningless for you. If you're in something for life and it could be meaningless that easily to you, then it's meaningless to you right now. I mean, I can see having found yourself in that situation, but not on purpose. There should definitely be a law against marrying what you don't love at all, against valuing your Life on scales of expedience, against committing to what is good enough and thereby consigning yourself forever to Being merely good enough as well. I'd have said Yes if he loved his life and was worse at doing it; I could only say No to his loveless competence.