Incognito

There's a student from my department who works at the rock-climbing gym, and she is going to be taking one of my classes in the fall. I feel awkward about this.

Maybe I should wear a pair of Groucho Marx glasses so she will think she is encountering a different person with wild curly hair at the gym than she is in the classroom. Or perhaps I should adopt an accent. I can do a plausible Scottish accent, and then I will just seem to be a visiting Scot. With Groucho Marx glasses. I hear all the Scots are wearing Groucho Marx glasses these days. Especially for rock-climbing.

Recently I was talking to one of my boys about his reluctance to try new physical activities, and I mentioned an old post in which I said, "Why do I even have a category called Fitness? It would be more accurate to call it 'Jamie Fears That People Will Point And Laugh If She Does Hard Things But Surprise! They Do Not Point Or Laugh.'" This would be an unwieldy name for a blog category, but we believe in accuracy here at Light and Momentary.

My office is right across the street from the student fitness center, and a membership there only costs me $8 per week. But I don't usually have an active membership there, because I feel self-conscious about working out in a place where I am certain to run into my students. Do I wear a bathing suit to class? Absolutely not. Do I want to encounter students in my bathing suit? Absoluteli-est not. 

This is me being unreasonable, I know. She is probably a friendly helpful student, like the rest of the staff at the rock-climbing gym. She is unlikely to point or laugh, or post stealth videos of me being clumsy on YouTube. And yet I still feel the edges of my soul curling in a bit when I think about it -- like, this is the place where I go to do fun hard things with my kids, to strive and fail and strive again. It is not a place where I ever don my professional persona, and I like it that way.

So maybe I will don some Groucho Marx glasses instead.