#ami rants

writing this because i think people talk a lot about lip and fiona 'turning into' frank as the seasons go on because they inherit his alcoholism, yet that doesn't really capture the exact nature of their character arcs and isn't entirely fair to them as individuals.

i personally think the fact that they inherit his addiction issues make their stories so interesting because alcoholism doesn't manifest in their characters/story arcs the same way it does in frank's. also, the fact that they actually want to recover (and do!) makes them so fundamentally different from him that it's astounding.

not saying that they don't inherit frank's anger, or his cleverness, or etc., but i don't think their inheritance of his alcoholism is a 1-to-1 comparison and that's narratively important!!! (restricting my english major analysis to under the cut).

Why?

Cause some people get tired of you and will drop your ass like a bad habbit. And that's okay. Sometimes that happens, in real life and online. Some long-distance/online relationships work and blossom and have happy endings/reunions/meetings!

And sometimes they just want attention without owing anyone. Sometimes YOU just want attention without owing anyone.

my professor talks about how earlier in the semester, a student came up to him asking to speak after class. how he pulled up a chair, offered the kid some tea while they chatted. how the fourteen year old girl asked him in detail what, if she disclosed anything, my professor would have to tell and to whom as a mandatory reporter. how my professor told her. how the kid said never mind and left after being told that if she disclosed any parental abuse, he would have to report it to the school social worker and she would get dcfs involved. how my professor spent his prep period fighting tears. how he talked to the guidance counselor anyway out of concern and nothing happened nothing happened nothing happened.

i'm in my education class.

a classmate, on the verge of tears, recounts a harrowing experience in which their little sister survived a school shooting. how their sixteen year old baby sister was texting the family group chat while it was happening, repeating, i love you, i'm sorry, i love you i love you i love you and how they had to pull over on the way to their parents' house to cry and throw up and hyperventilate on the phone with police who couldn't say anything other than we're on it, we know, we're trying. how the kids got the rest of the week off. how they went back to school eight days later and no administrators told them or their families or the community anything. how the kids had panic attacks at every fire alarm or slammed door for the rest of the year, and nothing happened nothing happened nothing happened.

i'm in my education class.

we read legislature about nation-wide book bannings and the knee-jerk backlash against critical race theory and the fact that educators in my state can't even call a student by a nickname anymore without parent validation, much less pronouns. about the queer kids, the trans kids, the kids of color, the marginalized kids, who are being institutionally harmed by practices we are forced to adopt, lest we get stripped of our licensure. we read about how current curricula doesn't just silence voices, it crushes them. about how everything we've been doing is wrong. how we aren't allowed to change it unless we give up our livelihoods. or get lucky with a good principal. or sacrifice things we didn't ever think we'd have to sacrifice when we were starry eyed and seventeen and dreaming of getting accepted into a university that was gonna teach us how to be good at this. good to my kids. a good teacher. but none of that happened. nothing happened nothing happened nothing happened.

i'm in my education class.

i remember the lockdowns and the bomb threats and the fear. huddled against the wall, my phone on the other side of the room so i couldn't say goodbye if it was real. i remember the guidance counselor's blank face, the teachers who never reported anything. the abuse at home no one ever found out about until i was all grown up and out of the house. i remember the callousness of readings, the isolation of never being the standard. feeling lost and hurt and misunderstood.

and i'm tired. and i'm scared. and i'm devastated that in a few short months, i'm going to be in a classroom with thirty children looking at me for what to do. and i want to serve them. what if i fail?

my classmate says well what are we supposed to do? we can't just not go into the classroom. we're teachers.

i'm in my education class.

but like. people in the city are people too. they are poor too. people in the city are happy in their city. people in the city have small business and robust communities who all try to help each other through things. people in the city have culture. and family. and history. and legacy. and love. so much love. not everyone cares about the shit rich city people in rich-city-people-media care about. in fact, only the rich-city-people care about that shit, and they're not even the majority in these spaces. typically it's poor immigrants and poc looking for opportunity and a happy life. sometimes they find it.

idk i love shameless's depiction of the city i love the el train i love the neighbors who help a struggling young family steal milk and get telephone access and love them so much. i love the wandering dogs i love the boys sharing a bike i love them all walking each other to school. i love fiona going to debbie's school events and lip tutoring in the slightly nicer area nearby i love ian working in the local tiny convenience store. i love the community that is forged by these struggling young people who don't have a built-in community handed to them. who have had to make a family out of what little they had.

he wasn't good to me. he was the kind of man who didn’t listen when i said "no," touched me when i was sick and delirious and didn't want to be touched, didn't care to know me beyond the version of me he had in his head, treated me like i was just another side character in the grand bildungsroman of his life. which is... bad. i'm learning that it's bad. i'm learning to come to terms with the fact that he hurt me, perhaps irreparably. he changed me.

but i miss him. he was funny. he had the best kermit impression in the world. he felt a deep connection to birds; the first animal he ever had to bury was a sparrow he found dead in his backyard. he was nice. be bought me the most beautiful flowers. he always offered to hold my hand because my fingers were always cold. even when it was winter and he didn't have gloves and i did. he'd still cover my whole hand in his so mine would stay protected from the cold.

he liked joyce and shelley and faulkner and adichie. he liked house of leaves and old japanese indie games and the song can i call you rose. he could always talk his way out of a bind. he stood up for other people, even if he didn't do it in all the right ways. he rode his bike across the state and told me he loved me while lying, half delirious, in a cornfield in the middle of nowhere.

and i miss him. i miss the lines around his mouth when he smiled. i miss the softness of his hands. i miss getting pictures of the sunrise while i was just falling asleep. i miss long texts that always ended with a little saturn emoji and new poems in my inbox every week. i miss his smell - sandalwood and honey and oud, like a candle i once smelled crouched on a grocery store floor. i miss walking with him by the river, the way he first laughed when i was frightened by geese, then shielded me from them.

he has a job downtown now, and a dog named kevin. he lives in a brand new apartment i've never seen. i don't know how his grandparents are doing, or his elderly neighbor back home. or the fish in the stream by his father’s house. or his cat. i haven't heard a silly poem about a pelican in months.