With EZ, entering a classroom at Colby(?) I tell him I have given my 2 week notice at Hem’s and that I’m going back to Tahoe! He seems disappointed, says, “That’s too bad.” I say, “Not really. It was by choice after all.”

The class is creative writing. The room is full, so EZ and I split up and I don’t know where he goes as the class is about to start and I am trying to find a suitable desk (some are empty of students, but hold various articles which lead me to believe they may be previously occupied). 

The floor is littered w/papers + pages and small booklets of all sorts. The teacher announces his name: Michael Demiz, although I know it is Demise and the Michael part is pure coincidence. He has written his name, class # and class title on the board and since we are supposed to copy it, and since I am, of course, unprepared (coming w/o pen or notebook), I grab a likely looking pamphlet from the floor and open it. The pages have already been printed on. I pause to glance at a passage, more to assure myself of the author’s inferiority than anything else. It IS inferior: unimaginative, repetitive, but something rings familiar. Is it my own writing?! From years before?

I thumb through quickly, looking for a blank page but find none. The teacher is stalking the classroom, talking and validating whether his students are following his instructions. I’m searching frantically back through, but the pages which may have been blank have been torn out. I realize that once again I am creating a poor first impression, and that this could determine some important elements (who gets to stay??). Does the teacher actually say my name in relation w/humorous discipline, or does my fear that he will cause me to imagine it so strongly that it feels like truth? I scribble the lines hastily and vertically (rotating the notebook sideways) in the margin of a full + ripped page: Michael Demiz, EN 212, Creative Writing. I wake with my mouth dry and muscles tense. Time to steer. 12:30am.