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Authors: Theo Pauline Nestor
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nothing to
do with them and certainly could not in good conscience rec-
ommend anyone else to endure such an uninspired use of time
and money. I had gotten through college—it would seem, now
that I felt forced to locate the source of my “success”—mostly by
taking courses that created an enormous voltage of excitement
within me and by dragging myself through the requirements
that didn’t. But that could never be a recommended route, could
it? “So, kids, go for The History of Modern Art and the Harlem
Renaissance literature classes and feel free to leave your math
requirements to your final year. Then load yourself up on caf-
feine—diet pil s, if you have to—the mornings of those classes
and somehow just force your brain to focus on what is being said
in the class. Somehow, do the assignments, survive the tests. Yes,
you’ll get a D, but it’s not your major, so no biggie, right?”
Yes, my own absolute lack of method and structure as a stu-
dent was one of my major problems with the prospect of teach-
ing Success Skil s, but something more fueled my resistance,
something that I now realized—so late, too late!—would cer-
tainly undermine not only my ability to teach this course but
my ability to teach anything .
It dawned on me that I had no faith in my own intelligence.
I looked in the mirror and, like the anorexic who can’t seem to
5 9
WritingIsMyDrink_i-xiv-1-258_1p.indd 59
6/7/13 8:19 AM
T h e o P a u l i n e N e s t o r
connect the dropping number on the scale and the reality of her
own body, could never seem to connect my academic achieve-
ments and my intelligence. Every success seemed like a fluke;
every paper that received an A just seemed like another lucky
break—maybe because I knew how much anxiety each of those
papers had cost me, how much rolling on the floor and gnash-
ing of teeth. If I were truly intelligent, I guess I’d always figured, I would have just whipped them out.
But now I was supposed to be a professor. Good grief! Let
the impostor syndrome begin.
My one remaining hope for preparing the Success Skil s
course was to badger the previous instructor before she fled for
California. B. was headed to Stanford to pursue a master’s in
education. A Caucasian woman with a degree in Chinese lan-
guages from Yale, B. appeared to suffer from no intellectual an-
orexia whatsoever. She was the Anti-Theo. She seemed to have
taught the classes here in her sleep; the rest of her time had been devoted to doing whatever she liked, which included running
a dude ranch with the guy who’d lured her to Utah. Unlike me,
who felt lucky to have this job—to have any job that wasn’t wait-
ressing—B. had just filled a short gap here. For a woman as bold,
entitled, and outspoken as B., this was a pit stop on the mighty
speedway that stretches between Yale and Stanford.
B. talked fast, referencing everything from Alexis de Toc-
queville to MTV to jokes about blow jobs. I had mixed feelings
about her; she was Glenda, the feminist good witch, and I knew
when she left, there’d be no one here who’d understand who I
was and how I’d come to be following this yellow brick road.
At the same time, I wanted her gone, gone, gone . We were a bit 6 0
WritingIsMyDrink_i-xiv-1-258_1p.indd 60
6/7/13 8:19 AM
W r i t i n g i s M y D r i n k
like astronauts who’d both traveled off course and run into each
other in a far-flung galaxy. You couldn’t help but marvel that
we were here together in Utah, a state with no measurable rev-
erence or even need for the Professional Woman. But she was
Neil Armstrong, and I was one of those guys back in the ship
you can’t remember the name of, if you ever knew it. Being in a
staff meeting with B. dropping by was like finding a photo of a
babelicious woman among your boyfriend’s papers and having
him shrug and say, “Just an old girlfriend.” I wanted not only
to extinguish her, I also wanted to
do with them and certainly could not in good conscience rec-
ommend anyone else to endure such an uninspired use of time
and money. I had gotten through college—it would seem, now
that I felt forced to locate the source of my “success”—mostly by
taking courses that created an enormous voltage of excitement
within me and by dragging myself through the requirements
that didn’t. But that could never be a recommended route, could
it? “So, kids, go for The History of Modern Art and the Harlem
Renaissance literature classes and feel free to leave your math
requirements to your final year. Then load yourself up on caf-
feine—diet pil s, if you have to—the mornings of those classes
and somehow just force your brain to focus on what is being said
in the class. Somehow, do the assignments, survive the tests. Yes,
you’ll get a D, but it’s not your major, so no biggie, right?”
Yes, my own absolute lack of method and structure as a stu-
dent was one of my major problems with the prospect of teach-
ing Success Skil s, but something more fueled my resistance,
something that I now realized—so late, too late!—would cer-
tainly undermine not only my ability to teach this course but
my ability to teach anything .
It dawned on me that I had no faith in my own intelligence.
I looked in the mirror and, like the anorexic who can’t seem to
5 9
WritingIsMyDrink_i-xiv-1-258_1p.indd 59
6/7/13 8:19 AM
T h e o P a u l i n e N e s t o r
connect the dropping number on the scale and the reality of her
own body, could never seem to connect my academic achieve-
ments and my intelligence. Every success seemed like a fluke;
every paper that received an A just seemed like another lucky
break—maybe because I knew how much anxiety each of those
papers had cost me, how much rolling on the floor and gnash-
ing of teeth. If I were truly intelligent, I guess I’d always figured, I would have just whipped them out.
But now I was supposed to be a professor. Good grief! Let
the impostor syndrome begin.
My one remaining hope for preparing the Success Skil s
course was to badger the previous instructor before she fled for
California. B. was headed to Stanford to pursue a master’s in
education. A Caucasian woman with a degree in Chinese lan-
guages from Yale, B. appeared to suffer from no intellectual an-
orexia whatsoever. She was the Anti-Theo. She seemed to have
taught the classes here in her sleep; the rest of her time had been devoted to doing whatever she liked, which included running
a dude ranch with the guy who’d lured her to Utah. Unlike me,
who felt lucky to have this job—to have any job that wasn’t wait-
ressing—B. had just filled a short gap here. For a woman as bold,
entitled, and outspoken as B., this was a pit stop on the mighty
speedway that stretches between Yale and Stanford.
B. talked fast, referencing everything from Alexis de Toc-
queville to MTV to jokes about blow jobs. I had mixed feelings
about her; she was Glenda, the feminist good witch, and I knew
when she left, there’d be no one here who’d understand who I
was and how I’d come to be following this yellow brick road.
At the same time, I wanted her gone, gone, gone . We were a bit 6 0
WritingIsMyDrink_i-xiv-1-258_1p.indd 60
6/7/13 8:19 AM
W r i t i n g i s M y D r i n k
like astronauts who’d both traveled off course and run into each
other in a far-flung galaxy. You couldn’t help but marvel that
we were here together in Utah, a state with no measurable rev-
erence or even need for the Professional Woman. But she was
Neil Armstrong, and I was one of those guys back in the ship
you can’t remember the name of, if you ever knew it. Being in a
staff meeting with B. dropping by was like finding a photo of a
babelicious woman among your boyfriend’s papers and having
him shrug and say, “Just an old girlfriend.” I wanted not only
to extinguish her, I also wanted to
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