The Hustle To Tutor

I wish I were a doctor or a lawyer for my mother.

After my sister died, my mother just wanted me to be happy.

I was writing and performing my own material in New York City and was happy, but was poor. Strippers would tell me how much they made in a night, but I just didn’t think I could do the hustle. When I found out prostitutes in Nevada make less than tenure teachers, I was glad I chose teaching as my day job over stripping in my twenties.

But now I’m not so sure. I watched the documentary, Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer, and realized I’d like to be making $4,000 a client.

Instead, I am hustling to get my students to come to tutoring which is F-R-E-E at our school, but the kids don’t want to stay the hour after school. I’ve been really talking it up lately. Telling them how much I’d be making if I were in the private industry—that those rich parents dole out the dough when it comes to SAT prep.

I think there might be a parallel in my teaching life and my dating life…I can’t give it away for F-R-E-E. Ha, ha. That could get me fired nowadays.

So could saying to a pregnant teen that it’s not too late for an abortion. I said it in my joking manner, not knowing how to react to her teen pregnancy. Yes, I know that is not an option with those Catholics. I told her, “My mom said I’d be taken to the clinic if I got pregnant at your age.” You can’t say those things aloud! “Inappropriate as a teacher” according to another teacher, an administrator and our union rep. Wow. I didn’t know I was in such a conservative environment which would rather have women go back to sticking a hanger up their cooch as opposed to having options for legal abortion.

I watched The Stoning of Soraya M about this woman who is falsely accused of adultery and stoned to death by her husband, her sons, and her father. It really made me appreciate my financial independence. I kept thinking, “Why didn’t this woman just divorce him?” and then realized that was a very white, American view point to have and maybe I missed the point of just how repressed women are in the world and what a misogynistic society we live in.

At tutoring today, my student showed up who is a cross dresser. I love him. I told him how I saw Dan Savage at the LA Festival of Books and told him he needs to watch the “It Gets Better” project when he got home because he had never heard of it. He and his friend had certainly heard of homophobia, but misogyny was a new systematic concept for them, which I was happy to share. I thanked them at the end of the session. Told them getting students at tutoring was a real hustle, but they made it worth it.

So maybe this hustle is a little more meaningful at the end of a session than others.