Philadelphia Weekly

I'm a continuing education dropout. Knitting, acting, silkscreening, photography, sculpture--I've signed up for a million classes, and I've dropped them all.

It's not that I don't care about self-improvement--far from it. Witness the bottles of vitamins collecting dust on my desk and outdated yoga schedules taped to the walls.

Before it sunk in that I'd dropped so many classes, I thought I had a charming curiosity and enthusiasm. Oh, how I long to stretch my creative legs!

I think that I spread myself too thin and try to stuff so much activity into my waking hours that I can't keep up. Or maybe it's a psychological problem.

If I ever go back to regular sessions with my shrink, I'll ask her about it.

Thing is, I wasn't always an enrichment failure.

Growing up, I loved school. I clearly remember the morning of my first day of kindergarten. I assembled my blue plaid uniform as carefully as a stripper and as solemnly as a monk. When Mom steered me into the bathroom to show me off to Dad, I was smiling so hard my cheeks hurt.

I was intoxicated both by the fumes of lemon-lime Barbasol shaving cream and the idea of entering the privileged world of education, where kids played and learned stuff all day. No longer would I be left behind as my brothers marched out the door swinging lunchboxes packed with sandwiches and juice boxes stored in the "off-guards" bin of the fridge.

I wanted to join them badly. I already liked learning. The ABCs. Telling time. Picking the orange crayon. "This shit's easy," I thought.

Grammar school was a coast. I was even offered to skip a grade and earned the tiny-town equivalent of valedictorian award. But like the most well-intentioned of leftovers, I began to spoil.

I attended a ritzy high school six towns over teeming with overachievers who knew each other's parents and their classmates' GPAs down to the third decimal point. Bitchy bitches and Richie Richs, basically. One kid actually brought in a paycheck written out to his lawyer father for a million dollars. They prattled on excitedly about their fancy colleges, where I imagined they had to marinate in beer for four years until they could officially get hired at the family firm.

When I figured out I was going to state college, I dropped AP physics and picked up study hall and a boyfriend.

College was much better. I worked hard on a custom liberal arts education with gusto, studying medical anthropology, philosophy and women's studies. I couldn't have been more proud when, after graduating, I accepted my first waitressing job.

Yet despite being disappointed by proper education, I continue to seek it out--like love, or Woody Allen movies.

I signed up for acting class at a local theater looking to jog my perspective and do something totally different. Next thing I know, I'm massaging a South Jersey divorcee in a "trust exercise."

I hated everyone in the class, which was the fun part. I'd rush home and excitedly describe my odious classmates' various transgressions, creating character composites for the novel I'm totally going to write someday.

Around the fourth week, the instructor brought in a series of masks and asked us to choose one. We had to strap the musty things to our faces, decide who it was and walk and talk like the mask would. Mine was a guy who lost everything in Vegas looking to get laid and maybe rob someone at 5 a.m.

I hate masks. I didn't go back.

Then there was a sculpture class. The unexpected dangling shlong that I was supposed to be recreating with clay on wire armature didn't bother me, but I didn't go back after just a few attempts to turn a limp penis into art, an unfair proposition if you ask me.