fandomhigh | Creative Problem Solving, Tuesday, period 3

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Creative Problem Solving, Tuesday, period 3

"We're wiped out. We were dealing with children smaller than you all week." Parker was wearing pajamas with flying pigs. Appropriately.

Eliot: was not wearing pajamas. Just some very comfy clothes. ". . . weekend. It just seemed like a week."

"That. Right." So they hadn't remembered they'd had a class to teach until very, very recently.

"So I'm sure some of you have had someone tell you that they hope someday you have a kid just like you so you know what it feels like. And some of you probably found out what that feels like this weekend." Eliot was looking a little haggard around the edges. "So today. . . . Nap. Draw quietly. Play with legos. Do yoga. Whatever you do to relax and recover."

Parker got an obstinate expression. "There's cartoons. I'm watching cartoons." She added, "If you want more of a class, create it and solve the problem yourself."

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Eliot filed that smile away, and tried to work out how much older than Kathy Nick was. Was this something he was going to have to worry about?

. . . Not that it mattered what he thought about it. Ugh, he was still in 'dad' mode, wasn't he.

"Honestly, none of 'em are really that important, grand scheme," Eliot said. "It's just about havin' fun, makin' memories. And 'I left to go fight crime' is a better story than most."

Only maybe if Nick ever looked back? And so far, he hadn't given any indication he was likely to.

"Well, it's still something I'd really like to do," Kathy said. "It was exciting, seeing myself up for prom queen, even if I knew it was a longshot. Senior prom is the one you're supposed to remember for the rest of your life or whatever. Even if it's not as glamorous as the movies make it out to be, I'm still looking forward to it."

"That's a good way to look at it," Eliot said. "'Cause trust me on this: you're going to have way better things to remember the rest of your life."

"That's my plan," Kathy said. "It's part of why I love being Banzai so much. That's what taught me to really live, you know? Take risks, run wild, be bright and colorful and bouncy."

She thought at seventeen she'd learned how to really live. That was adorable.

"You're lucky," Eliot said. "A lot of people never figure out how to do that."

It was a lot compared to how she'd spent her first sixteen years, quiet, mousy, and generally overlooked.

"Maybe you can teach that class next," she suggested. "I bet you and Ms. Parker would be good at it."

"What, living?" Eliot shook his head. "That ain't really something you teach."

"No, but..." Kathy tried to figure out how to put it. "That there are worse things in the world than taking risks. That even when you fail, you can get back up and try again. Stuff like that. It'd be nice, if that was the sort of thing that people taught in school, instead of assuming that you'll pick it up on the way."

Oooor that peoples' parents would cover that. Just saying.

Eliot thought about that for a bit. "That's . . . also not really something you teach. Other than by settin' you kids up to fail." Which was just mean.

"I guess so," Kathy said. "But at least you don't mind when we don't do perfectly in class, so long as we try. That's not nothing, you know."

"I guess not. You didn't get a lot of that at your old school?" Or, more likely, she was missing it at home.

Kathy shrugged, the kind of shrug that said, 'I know the answer, I just don't want to give it right now.'

"It's important to stay competitive. The world doesn't wait on losers."

"It doesn't," Eliot agreed. "It ain't too kind to those that burn out, though, either."

"Doesn't being a burnout mean you couldn't hack it in the first place?" Kathy asked, caught between knowing that was the truth and being worried it was.

"No. Burnin' out means you weren't properly balanced. You don't blame a car's engine for fryin' if it didn't have enough oil."

"So burning out means you were unbalanced?"

NOT HELPING ELIOT.

"What?" Why was she looking at him like that? "No, not -- mentally. Like your life." He was explaining this badly. "Look, okay. There was a time when literally all I did was work." He was most definitely not going to go into the details of what that work was. "And I thought that was great, you know, I was a success, top of my field. Respected." Well, feared. "But not havin' anything else going on started makin' me sloppy. Not connectin' with other people made me cold. The parts of me I liked were disappearin', getting swallowed up by the job. If I'da kept going like that? I wouldn't be here. I'd be dead in a ditch somewhere."

Ditch, unmarked mass grave, one of those.

"What I'm tryin' to say is you gotta have more goin' on in your life than just workin' to be successful. You gotta have . . . hobbies. That kinda thing."

"I do!" Kathy protested, likely shocking Eliot by making this personal rather than generalized. "I read comics and play video games and gymnastics. And, y'know, patrol cities by rooftops."

Her parents approved of exactly one of those hobbies. Mostly. Though it would be better if she'd performed better in meets, let's be real.

Well, at least comics probably didn't have any "I have to be the BEST at this" pressure? Maybe?

"That's . . . good." He really wasn't explaining this properly. "D'ya ever just -- relax?"

Edited 2015-04-15 14:49 (UTC)

"I do yoga, I read, I watch terrible sci-fi movies?"

She just did some of those things more rarely than she did others!

Eliot nodded. "Okay. Just -- remember you're seventeen, okay? You don't haveta be conquerin' the world, just yet."

Kathy smiled at him. "I don't want to conquer the world. I want to change it."

Eliot smiled back a little ruefully. "That doesn't change my point."

"Maybe I don't," she conceded. "But who should I trust to do it for me while I'm waiting to grow up?"

"The last generation of Kathys?" Eliot suggested. "The ones that are graduatin' from college now and layin' the groundwork for ya?"

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Creative Problem Solving, Tuesday, period 3

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