Erin Goodmentor

As John Buccigross claims to love all 30 NHL teams, I would have been happy with any of our mentors this year. While Bucci pretends parity with his love, I can't. Erin has my undivided mentee-love. She's helped me in every teaching "problem" I've had this year with champine advice. I haven't had huge problems, or that many for that matter, but she came through each and every time I needed her to.

Like today, for instance--O as if you didn't smell an example coming--she helped me with the fundamentals of grading-grading, capital-G Grade-for-semester. Before being soothed and petted and cooed to by Erin, I'd look down at my gradebook with all the checks, underlined checks, circled checks, dotted checks, checks of all derivatives in wrong boxes, columns of boxes that should have some sort of check, boxes with a letter grade over percent grade next to other letter/percent grades for revisions... It's enough to make a guy poo a bit. Gradebook Turtleheading. As if the confusion in the gradebook were a massive hand wrapped around my torso, squeezing enough to make stuff come out.

Erin can see this in my eyes as I start off. "Well..." Look down at grade book. "I guess..." Back up to Erin. "Ya see the thing..." Gradebook. "The dotted checks, well they..." And she's smiling! The fuck?

From early August up to about 11:50am today, grading was vaporous--depth-perception defiant like looking through chainlink fences--as profound as profundity gets. Do you hit or hug someone who can explain profundities with a few choice words?

"S'ok, man. Just do this... [poof!] That's what I do."

If the resulting look I gave her were three words, they'd be, "Oh. Well, duh."

I'm sure I'd mentee-love any of our mentors. They've all been wonderful friends and helpful vets. But I only have one mentor, and she gets hugs.

Mace...out