tabula rasa

i have a young friend whom i am especially fond of. i like her because we pulled in the same direction for about 27 months. she was absolutely fierce in our common struggle and her motivation was simple. it was cash.

my friend reminds me of the young poet ranier maria rilke wrote letters to. there is a respectful, and casual tone to our relationship. she gives me the chance to be an older voice of wisdom. we discuss her life from time to time, her career, even her family. i try not to give so much advice i sound self important but at the same time i think about where i was at her age and some of the misconceptions i had, and i try to give her a perspective she may not have. this is truly a nice thing for me. by trying to be a giver i receive. i receive the good feeling of being helpful, being a mentor, being relateable...i suppose on some level i think i may really help my young friend. she grew up in the same town i did so we come from the same social caste. i find her familiar.

and so i hang out with her occasionally.  we have lunch or some sushi or even a beer and we talk.  the company of a pretty girl is pleasant and i enjoy our occsional meetings.

the question is what does she get from the friendship? our mutual struggle has ended but i find i want to continue the friendship. i want to be a mentoring influence for her. but what does she get?

over the last couple of years my friend has had a couple of birthdays and i could never figure out what to gift her. she has a work ethic like nobody's business. she likes to make money and wants to make more but from what i can tell all she spends her money on is clothing and food, (and a car payment.)

i have enquired about her passions. what music does she like. (rap-because its funny.) what movies does she like? (whatever is at the cineplex. comedies. in other words, main stream american movies. blech!) does she like art? (in a word? no.) museums? (nope.) travelling? ("i can't travel. i have no money and my boyfriend doesn't have a job.") wine? food? (sushi. so far, that's it.) she is truly so much less than a bud. she is a virtual tabula rasa. she actually considers herself a person of no passions.

i think it's just a matter of time. i would like to push her a little bit to help her curve but i don't really think it is possible. if she and i stay in touch now that our mutual struggle has ended it will be the occasional text message or email. perhaps a meeting for lunch around the holidays or something like that. so it is not and never will be my place to help her find herself. that said i don't believe in human passionlessness. we are by nature passionate. we are opportunists and our opportunities are passions. our survival instinct is a passion. at the other end of the spectrum, (or the other end of maslow's hierarchy of needs,) there is that which is aesthetically pleasing to the most discerning of tastes. movement up that pyramid of needs is rewarding. anyone who has experienced that sort of movement will always testify. on the other hand those who don't know anything about it can't be convinced they are missing out on anything whatsoever. they will scoff at that notion in fact. catch-22.

for now i am comfortable merely chronicling the nature of our reltionship.  i think it will be interesting now to see how she grows and in which direction she goes.

despair

i want to embrace despair. i don't want to run or hide from it. i want to live through it, experience it, see where it leads me.

if i am to achieve satori one day i know it won't come from therapy. after all, who emerges from therapy enlightened? no, i'll take my lot as is. it feels right that i should despair. when i feel weak i am inclined to explore it, and grow.  i know too, it is the opposite to elation and i can only feel the two in equal proportions. 

the anarchy posts

volume 1 - everything you know is wrong

discipline

my essence is at odds with discipline. it is my nature to fight discipline, to avoid it, hide from it, run away from it.  i hate routine and i despise convention. 

conventional wisdom suggests discipline is the cornerstone of success but recently i have wondered if that is an absolute after all.  (perhaps it is in our utilitarian society.)  as for me i am especially undisciplined in some regards and in other ways i am utterly disciplined. 

i don't open my mail in a timely fashion and i am often late paying my bills.  i use an alarm clock but i refuse to get up at the same time everyday.  some days i rise before my alarm.  other days i knock it off and wallow for a spell or return to sleep.  i prefer to be up well before having to go to work in order to protect my lack of routine.  i prefer spontaneity to planning and chaos to order.  (of course, the world is gray and there are examples of all of my maxims turned on their respective heads.)  discipline stifles me, the me i like the most, the curious me, the alert me, the me in motion.

i get my art.  i refuse to let anything: work, relationships, responsibilities, anything whatsoever, interfere with my ability to take in art.  when i have been busiest i still make time to read before bed.  i still keep my netflix queue moving: sugar, days of heaven, my week with marilyn, hugo, melancholia, whatever works, the devil and daniel johnston, flash of genius, stanley kubrick; a life in pictures, i am, and the steady stream of films flows into and through my life like blood only instead of red blood cells and white blood cells and oxygen, the movies give me insight and empathy and knowledge and fulfillment.  i am nurtured through my appreciation.

i am in many ways a tragic figure.  i am determined to live a life without regard for money.  currency is of course ubiquitous and so, i deal with money, which is to say i pay my bills and i make an income and i consume and provide for.  i am like bartleby the scrivener however, in my refusal to adapt.  i reject conventions.  i reject the idea that i should be aware of and track every cent i spend.  that sort of mundane exercise sucks the life out of me.  as an alternative it has always been my goal to be a little bit smarter than others around me in order to excel to the affect of gaining slightly more income, enough income to allow for my idiosyncrasies, primary of which being my refusal to be completely aware of the flow of funds through my account.  i reject the idea i should spend my life in the service of money.  i am disappointed at my standard of living being lower than perhaps what i expected growing up.  that said i am comfortable in an apartment.  i have everything i need.  there is an abundance of love in my life.  my children are thriving.  the discipline associated with balancing a checkbook and making my lunch everyday, (as opposed to picking up a sandwich or whatever,) disdaining meeting up with friends for a few beers or not taking the kids out for some pizza is anathema to everything i like about myself.  instead i indulge myself in these ways and i am unable to afford to be a homeowner, (which is a bad joke to begin with since banks own the houses for 20 or 30 years anyway and at the end of it all no one gets to take anything with them.) 

in some ways i am glorious in my singularity.  i am disciplined in how i treat my children and in how i answer their questions.  i never lie.  i have a cousin who is sick and my aunt was telling me all about it the other day and my daughter overheard some of my phone conversation and so as i tucked her into bed she asked me about this illness.  we started talking about kidney stones, the kidneys, vital organs, kidney function, my limited grasp of what a kidney stone actually is, how it passes, what the doctors do for one with kidney stones, and so on.  she asked me if one can die from kidney stones...and then she asked me if i was going to die.  i told her yes, i will be dying some day.  i went on to explain that i will not die until she is an adult and that i likely have another 30-40 years here.  three minutes after i turned out the light she came upon me in the living room with tears streaming down her face.  she said she did not want me or her mommy to die.  i picked her up and set her in my lap and referenced the circle of life from the lion king and let her know that it is natural and that i am comfortable with it but that i promised to do everything possible to be around well into her adult life even to a time when she might become a mommy.  i hugged her tight and i refused to tell her lies.  i know i could have avoided this conversation, deferred it perhaps somehow, but this is not my way.  rather i think it is important for me to hang in there in these tough moments, to look my daughter in the eyes and think hard about my answers and try hard to give her the very best of me.  she was okay, too.  10 minutes later i put her back in bed and she went right to sleep.  recently the principal at her school told me she is the very best student in the school.  she said my daughter makes other students better because of how serious she is about learning and engaging in the various activities and subject matter of a day.  the principal said she did not know what we are doing in our newly broken homes but that for all she could tell my daughter continues to thrive.  if i have to put my finger on what i, or we, may be doing right, i think it is this honesty.  my daughter knows i will always tell her the truth.  she knows there is no santa claus, no easter bunny, no god, no ghosts or goblins and no tooth fairy, (though she has made it clear she would like to believe in fairies of all sorts because she likes them but i know for certain that she knows.) 

i am also messy.  when i am tidy i feel better and i often feel more productive.  that said when someone suggests to me that a messy desk is representative of a messy mind i can't help but frown on them and think them something of a neanderthal.  (did they never see einstein's desk?) 

to those i want to say...  shut up with your maxims.  i suppose all these absolutes and labels help you in some way cope with the world but you're not coping at your best when you take the lazy way out.  challenge yourself, your long held beliefs, your little rules.  try starting from an opposing perspective.

"If in the last few years you haven't discarded a major opinion or acquired a new one, check your pulse, you may be dead."    -Frank Gelett Burgess

i like to change things up.  i try not to do repetitive things the same way each time.  this habit may not be unlike an obsessive compulsive in as much as these are small things i am referring to: the route i drive to a particular destination, the order in which i go about making dinner, or how i clean a room in my home.  i think of routine in the same way i recall the firefighters from fahrenheit 451.  remember how they played cards constantly as if to keep themselves from thinking about what they were doing, their job and the decay in their society?  for me avoiding discipline is in a way like fighting that ability to turn my mind off in that manner.  i like the small challenges and i like variety.  it is my stated goal to be disciplined about challenging discipline, the disciplines i do not value.

in this way everything you know is wrong.  discipline is not good.  it is not bad, either.  the world is gray but in order to see the gray i found i had to be able to shield my eyes from the white and focus on the black to facilitate achieving gray.  embracing the contrarian has been an effective means for achieving balance.

ode to monrovia

oh monrovia, with your majestic mountain facades and slopes reaching down to the people.

oh monrovia, with your socio-economic stratification, the wealthy protected by hillcrest avenue, (and gates with guards,) the well off elegantly ensconced above foothill boulevard with finely appointed homes and sparkling swimming pools, the middle class comfortably housed above huntington drive in tiny, rented boxes, the strugglers above duarte road walking to the bus stops and beauty parlors and taco stands, the economically almost comically disadvantaged below duarte avenue, peaking through shudders from crack-stained living rooms, summoning policemen by actions or 9-1-1 calls, living under the spectre of the ghetto bird's circling spotlight.

oh monrovia, so refreshingly not the bourgeoisie of arcadia, with their tree-lined suburbs spreading all the way to duarte road and beyond, so utterly devoid of diversity and flavor.

oh monrovia, white with black and brown speckles, i love you. i crave you.

oh monrovia, with your hillside preservation society and your mason's lodge, your trader joe's, your aztec hotel, hyour misplaced parrots, your parades and events hustling down myrtle avenue like a spectacle of 1950s americana. sling those batons young ladies-blow those horns young men!

oh monrovia, your numerous drug stores, pot dealers and meth houses, surely 50% of your inhabitants are well medicated. accepting multiple walgreen's and rite aids, a cvs and an express pharmacy along with the pharmacies housed in supermarkets so conveniently, (as if walgreen's drive by drugs were not enough,) and yet you rejected the family planning clinic post construction? not exactly our shining moment of taking some responsibility for our collective issues in the community of san gabriel valley cities is it?

oh monrovia, so pro business by city decree, welcome aerovironment! oracle! sierra autocars! mt. sierra college! aerotek! paragon at old town & colorado commons! worley-parsons! champion broadband! exelis itt systems! verizon! automobile club! 3m! labcorp! green dot!  pro business reputation secure.

oh monrovia, with your library friends, william monroe rock and mark twain bench. quaint and charming if contrived.

oh monrovia, with your public parks and spaces galore. bless you for that vision, your children are rich.

oh monrovia, your plethora of churches astounds me daily. i imagine visiting the jehovah's witness kingdom hall, (the one on alta vista, not the one at the corner of colorado and ivy,) or the kwan yin temple so pristine, or the first presbyterian, or the first church of the nazarene, or the latter day saints on west lime, or the church of revelation, or the bethel ame church of m-town, or restored life fellowship, or the plasticky calvary chapel making a big splash down on evergreen avenue, or the shiloh african methodist episcopalian, (aint that some distinction,) or the filipino baptist christian church, or restored life fellowship, or immaculate conception, (indeed,) or first indonesian baptist, (why they don't just go worship with the filipinos i have no idea,) or mary knoll sisters home, or foothill unity center, such devotion, but alas i am stifled at the thought of a decision.

oh monrovia, far from arid or jejune you are full of the interesting and colorful. should i live some place where everyone is like me? should i move to silverlake or claremont of santa monica? should i forego my weather and join the beanie brigade of the young and informed in portland or some other northwestern town? or perhaps i should go to angry arizona where the ignorant seem to be experiencing a whiplash backlash to the steady crawl of evolution? maybe i should go to mexico, live hardscrabble, make friends of the vaqueros and get a job in a maquiladora assembling drive shafts for japanese automobiles? or australia... perhaps i should shift my seasons, have a spring and a summer followed by a spring and a summer, see if it alters me in some unfathomable way, makes me somehow brighter, warmer? developing an accent would be interesting, mate. or maybe i should move to nigeria, find a few americans or brits, get a pit bull for protection and really challenge myself in the corrupt and distressed land of chinua achebe?

no-monrovia. i want to visit distant lands and strange climes but i want to continue to live right here in this vibrantly humdrum burg. i want to sit down at the local alehouse next to my republican neighbors and find common ground. i want to greet the mormon missionaries from brazil and canada who arrive at my door with warmth and benevolence. in spite of the semester i spent at the fundamentalist, christian college learning that these people are cultists, my experience has shown zero difference between them and my former classmates. i want to have breakfast at the counter at leroy's astride the aged motorcycle enthusiasts, all decked out in their leather, making bawdy jokes with the familiar waitress as they take their coffee refills. i want to see my children leave monrovia to attend university and i want to watch them return to visit me, fondly recalling their days here at the foot of these brown-green, shadowed mountains in the town straining to be more americana than la crescenta and la verne. i want to see what else develops here in monrovia. i want to chronicle it in my lonesome journal.

oh monrovia, you are perfectly imperfect. i wish you were noisier and less ordered. i wish you required fewer policemen. i wish the renters deeper in the valley had as much influence as the owners on the hillsides. i wish you were slightly less respectable but a bit more renowned. (perhaps the coming film festival will help?)

oh monrovia, i am planning on staying if you will have me, a rather unnoticeable resident shuffling to and fro between the basketball courts and the bars and the supermarket and the gas station and the post office, smiling whenever i am able.

and when i leave you monrovia, my last words will likely rue the fact that methodist hospital is in arcadia, when i would have preferred to cease right here in m-town.

lost but recalled (occasionally)

i lost a girl recently. not under the couch or in the next town but rather, we parted ways. and so i am currently without a girl, which is regrettable but not sad.

just two nights ago i found a girl. not much transpired beyond the two of us making eye contact and in turn, my introducing myself and making some small talk. the girl has a tiny face. it is symmetrical and pleasing in every way but it seemed compact, like all the parts, the veiled eyes that seemed to hide behind a smokescreen of patience, the nose of a fairy so reminiscent of other fairies i have known, the full, fruity lips, efficiently scrunched together so as to consider the eye muscle effort involved in gazing upon her. when we spoke, as she smiled, her face came to life and a rush of joy surged through me like an orgasm. i could feel it wending its way up my torso towards my face and i had to combat it so she would not see and instantly recognize the pleasure she gave me with that smile. i wondered how freely she gives that smile. in case it was a trap or just to hide my hand i resisted the urge to let my brow fall backwards and a smile purse my own lips, the effect of which would have been instant recognition of my regard and ardor for her. no, instead i feigned a smile which completely belied all that and i continued on with the discussion. this girl had been sitting, chatting with a man who happened to leave briefly, which was when i took the opportunity to engage her. she seemed utterly unencumbered in as much as she was light as a wind blown leaf, unpretentious, open, honest, and in no way needy. ours was a casual flirtation if a flirtation at all but it was of the sort that propels me forward.

there is another girl with whom dinner has been discussed. she is a sweet girl, too, with the most perfect ass ever. she is eastern european and gives that sense that she would be at home in any costume. she is a sandy blonde and could as easily look the california beach bunny or the ukrainian harlot, the midwestern farmer's daughter or the french professional with her spectacles lending her an air of academia. when i think of this girl and our dinner plans i am awash with wonder and anticipation. i don't have to fulfill it, either. it is the wonder itself, the anticipation itself, that moves me forward. i am enjoying the possibilities. i am enjoying the possibilities immensely.

there is still another girl who shows me every kindness. she is not needy but she has sent a clear signal that she would be interested in exploring a different sort of relationship and i admire her will to get that out there without pretense and leave it like that. at the moment i am not interested and so perhaps it will never occur between us but we have a solid friendship which will endure no matter. i know she is okay with it staying as it is. i am not quite ready to get involved with anyone anyway, so it is best to be cautious with an old friend.

the girl i lost makes me sad but it is not regrettable that we parted ways. i have found i think of her occasionally. she was so interesting in the season we enjoyed together. she claimed to enjoy sex. she even said she liked anal sex though she needed a glass of wine or two to relax just right for it. she was however a follower at best in bed. she seemed to derive some pleasure from the act. she was giving in as much as she opened her body up to me. she could even initiate if passively. and her body was something. her figure was far better than the supermodels of parisian runways. there was not one area on her which anyone could reasonably call fat but her body was pure human. (i suppose it still is, actually, wherever it is.) the curves were full and round and in just the right places and proportions. the area of her lower back where her sides spread out into hips made me catch my breath. on the occasion when i do think of her it is easy to recall her lower back and the feel of her skin, like satin to the sensitive, puffy tips of my fingers, with the hint of a golden hue. i suppose she liked sex for the closeness it created and for that feeling of being connected. i don't think she was so carnal as to savor the pleasure and abandonment of it all, but then perhaps she was different with other men.

i loved her-make no mistake about it. but when i lose a girl i know how to move on. it's not like when i was a boy, so heartbroken and demure. i used to wallow in the misery, lamenting the loss of this one girl who seemed to hold the secret to my happiness, writing lonely poems of loss and despair, (and listening to the smiths all day.)

this girl i lost was probably too good for me, anyway. she is after all a freaking beauty of the first order. she is smart and funny, inquisitive and curious and articulate. she is worldly, which i mean as high praise. so many people on this planet are somnambulistic, dead while alive. she is not that and so, no wonder my original affection. when we were together i was good with her. i could have spent a thousand years with her, truly, but things changed. i thought she had a certain, uncommon inner strength i am always interested in finding. i thought she was so strong as to allow me to be weak. this is to say, i thought i could show her my weaknesses and my insecurities and she would not be put off. i mean, if confidence is sexy then i get it that a lack of confidence is off putting? hmmmm... insecurity is not sexy in any case. still, to achieve real communion with another person it's best to explore all sides and surely all human beings, even the sleepwalkers, have insecurities. i am not indicting this girl of being regular. she is far from that. there is however a plateau, a rarefied air sort of place where the person i want to associate with lives. i want a girl who is an artist of the mind. i could care less if she paints or draws or sings or writes or composes or directs or dances, though it is absolutely imperative that she appreciates.

appreciation is a wonderful thing; it makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.- voltaire

she should not be subject to the common bugaboos. when i suggested she nurse me back to health or when i complained about my difficulties in this world, i thought she would catalogue those things, share positive reinforcement, and move on. we had known each other for an awfully long time and there was little in the way of unfamiliar territory between us. i thought she knew...you know? i thought she knew about me. i thought she knew that i could not adapt to this world but rather i want to destroy it wholly.

she seemed to become interested in adapting, in acquiring materials and having an admirable career. she parroted something i had said to her a decade earlier once recently when she said she had learned about herself that she could be in love with almost anyone. when i said that one time, way back when, i meant that seeing the good in others came quite naturally to me and i loved the good in others. what she meant was that love was secondary to her, that she had mapped out a road for herself and the primary thing she needed to find in another was someone for whom that road map was agreeable or even complementary. she craved comfort and she expressed that by focusing on her career and her fitness and other things to the effect of relegating our relationship, this love oriented relationship, to a secondary status. for me that was backwards even for a season and so, i lost a girl.

i don't want to forget her, either. when i think back on the few significant lovers i have known, i think i remember what is most important to me about them and about the relationship. i don't think of them often but when i do it is important to me i recall what pleased me about them and our association.

this girl i lost had a lust for life that is unfortunately uncommon. she wanted to know everything and everyone and she wanted to try everything and experience everything. she liked drugs. she enjoyed experimenting with them and seeing how she responded to them. and she did appreciate. she liked the great writers, the great bands, singers, the warrior artists who wielded their media like a samurai. this was her greatest quality, her ability to appreciate, (hence why i was surprised when...)

i remember, too, the last time we were close how she had her back to me and she turned rolling onto her back and her left breast came over the top of her torso like a clustered army driving over a hilly plain. it was full and round and pliable and with a perfectly sized, brown aereola atop it. i remember this about her and i hope to remember it forever. it is a catalogued image for me. she was physically perfect in that moment and many others. she was more roundly feminine, more sensuous and erotic than any statue, photo, painting or written passage ever. ever. period. she also had a contemplative aspect. she could cast her eyes downwards and her face would become angelic, like a melancholy, introspective seraphim, her face framed by an a-frame of soft, black hair, her eyes like two upside down crescents of dark lashes, her nose a fixed object the rest of her face was built around and her imperfect mouth, lips slightly asymmetrical betraying her own sense of confidence and security.

i hope this lost girl reorders her world and puts love back on the plateau it should dwell on. i hope she finds a man with whom she can have a relationship for the ages. it is my last purposeful thought of and for her. otherwise, i don't plan on recalling her often. i am patiently pleased to consider the future.

life, or, the strangely uncomfortable place i find myself in spite of liking myself

there is within me a compulsion to apologize both to myself and for myself. i have reached that point in life when dreams become pointless, when reality sets in like a condition, like arthritis. it's wake-up time and i am left with questions.

did i learn anything? can i change the aspects of myself i am uncomfortable with? is it too late? am i what others perceive me to be? what do others perceive me to be? (here's a brief interlude of how others perceive me, or rather, how i perceive others to perceive me.)

my wife sees me as older and thereby unattractive. she could hardly be more disappointed by me or about me. she thinks she was hoodwinked into having babies with me and since she is 11 years my junior she has found herself at a point in life where she feels like a vibrant flower wilting away in a gray garden. (and so we have separated.) my wife loves me for our children and for our time together but she has no idea how to nurture any sort of passion either betwixt us or towards me. i haven't helped that situation. this relationship has changed into one of loving parents who will come together from time to time for events related to our children and as friends of a sort. nothing more.

my dad sees me as outside of christ. he has been born again as a zealot of the first order and so he sees the entire world through a god-colored prism. while he can discuss sports or politics or the weather from time to time without expressing something mystical or jesus related, there is no doubt he is always thinking in those terms. he considers me an atheist as he is unwilling to make a distinction between agnosticism and atheism, (which is fine by me.) it came to my attention recently that he considers my plight as unemployed and looking for work to be a desperate situation as i am outside of christ. apparently he suggested to another family member that my ostracization from his beloved savior is at the root of my unemployment. if only i would turn from my wicked disbelief and embrace the jesus of my father things would turn around for me, (seems to be his position.) i suppose we have a mutual disappointment if not in then at least about one another.

by and large i am perceived as a middle-aged man without a job, with two small children, who drinks too much, who is going through a divorce and who lives in an apartment. none of these perceptions are wrong but how did i get here?

i am middle-aged because i was born in 1965. there is nothing i can do about that. for the most part i am healthy. i have put on some weight but not so much anyone would think of me as obese. my belly is mostly unnoticeable to others and i still hike and play basketball on sundays.

i have two small children. i started late in life and became a father at 39. i am so happy i became a father and i think i am relatively good at it.

i do drink too much. i don't drink at all on 50%of my days as i have my children on those days. of the other 50% and considering i am currently unemployed, i likely drink beers 75% of tat time. on weekdays i often find myself working on my career status, combing the internet job boards, applying for various positions in the realm of customer service management, or touching up my cover letter. i am adept at this now and so I can thoroughly review indeed.com, careerbuilder.com, monster.com, and craigslist and apply for anything new there in two hours, (more or less.) my apartment has been remodeled recently and so i have spent substantial time getting everything back in order on a daily basis. after that, (on days i do not have my kids,) i find myself antsy. i'm reading joseph campbell's 'the power of myth,' currently, so i might pick that up. i check in with facebook. i have been writing a couple of different stories, (autobiographical fiction, really.) i am more connected to the news of the world than ever. (i watched an incredible documentary the other night on the uprising in bahrain; "screaming in the dark.") i read firedoglake and alternet and talkingpointsmemo. i have been cooking a lot and have recently concocted a couple of variations of napa cabbage soup that turned out fantastic. still, i have plenty of time. so later in evenings i sometimes gravitate to my local pub, where sports are always on, the food is good, the beer is cold and the girls who deliver it could hardly be more cute. sometimes they post their lunch specials on facebook and i see those and it makes me want to go there midday for a couple of beers, just to get out and be around people, a few of who are friendly faces i know because they work there but who are always pleasant towards me. money is tight for me these days so sometimes when i think about going to the pub i realize i should go during happy hour in order to save a few bucks. happy hour is four to six, (or all day mondays or 9-midnight on thursdays.) sometimes i drink a little too much which causes me to want to drink a lot too much. i wake up regretting my behavior, even if i realize it hasn't hurt anyone. it costs me money i don't really have to spend, (which again is regrettable,) but i can work up only so much self loathing for that.

i am going through a divorce. it was never my intention and i did not drive us to this point. i wish it wasn't happening. i would rather work on it with my wife, get some counseling and see if we could figure out how to love each other again. (when i say i did not drive us to this point i mean only that she initiated it. i am equally responsible for the feelings we have between us. i did not take good care of the relationship. at some point in time i found her difficult and i thought she turned off the affection in our midst and my response was filled with pride as i hardened myself and withheld from her all i thought was being withheld from me. in retrospect i think i was an ass, [which isn't to forgive her behavior.]) life separated from my spouse and from my children half of the time, (which because of my unemployment has actually accounted for substantially more time with my kids and the best season i have ever spent with them,) is harder. in addition to the uneasiness of not having a partner in life, (a kindred best friend, a lover, an intimate of the first order,) and the loneliness of children removed, (nights alone in contrast to the better part of a decade in which i would often pad down the hallway in the darkened silence of the early morning to ensure blankets covered little bodies susceptible to cold, or in which my youngest still makes his way to my bed around 3:30am when he is with me,) the financial strain is considerable.

i live in an apartment, the apartment my wife and children have lived in these last eight years, (and prior to that i lived across a courtyard in the same 6-unit community.) i am inclined to apologize for that because people my age are supposed to have found their ways to the purchase of a home by my age. in my 20s and even my 30s home ownership did not seem feasible and so i wrote it off as yet another thing that was wrong with my society, our collective perceptions about home ownership and the declining standard of living and all. i did not save whatsoever during those 20 years. i lived life to the fullest but i did not plan or prepare in any way beyond establishing a retirement account. then i had a family and the economy tanked. just before things went bad when everyone was buying a house or refinancing one, my wife and i considered getting into a mortgage. however, for the last five years we have been spending roughly $15,000 on our children's education. i stand by every cent i have spent there in spite of the fact i love paying for public education through my taxes and never imagined my children would be in private schools but things happen. when my daughter was three and we needed to find a pre-school for her, after visiting a few montesorri schools, we preferred the buddhist school with the vegetarian kitchen and the mandarin language program. now my daughter is in the 2nd grade and she is fluent in mandarin and my son is following the same path. our goal is to keep them in that school through the fifth grade in spite of financial pressure, (and recently the people at the school have been cooperative and more in that endeavor.) so, i live in an apartment, quite comfortably, (which is something i could not say when my wife and i were together as she was always discontented by our dwelling and lack of home ownership,) but i apologize for it all the same.

my brother perceives me as a good brother, someone he trusts and who is his best friend outside of his adult son and his wife. perhaps he finds me rigid in my disbelief as he seems not to believe but then he attends church on holy days like easter. (maybe he is just keeping the peace at home or maybe he views it as some sort of superstitious insurance policy.) i know he loves me as i love him and there is something to be said for that kind of mutual regard. in spite of a few disagreements we have managed to avoid the pitfalls brothers sometimes fall into, the cold wars of pride and pity, (similar to what has transpired between my wife and myself.) as much as i wish we were closer, i would enjoy it if we spent more time with each other than the two days a quarter we likely average these days, i understand the physical distance is real and that just to get those eight days per year takes effort on both of our parts. ultimately i am not sure how he perceives me. i know he would love to help me gain employment if he could and i don't know if he thinks i have either been a screw-up for allowing myself to become unemployed or what but all in all he is not the judgmental type.

my children perceive me as a good dad if sometimes strict. we have loving relationships, (between myself and each of them-their relationship is tenuous at best.) my daughter, at seven, has become increasingly class conscious. she doesn't quite understand money, (which could be difficult for her as it has never been of my strengths,) but she goes to school with primarily affluent children and so she is aware that they live in nice, large houses while we live in an apartment. she makes comments about money from time to time that concern me because i don't want it to be something she worries about, nor do i want it to become any sort of primary motivating force for her.

many people, like my sister or my step brothers, view me as something of a curiosity. i think they find me abrasive because i am apt to challenge them on certain things. for example if my sister posts a quote by ronald reagan on her facebook about freedom and how we have to protect it if we want to keep it, as if we have a monopoly on freedom here in america and everywhere else in the world they live bleak, imprisoned lives totally devoid of american exceptionalism, i can't help but say something. i might comment on our declining standard of living or school systems. i might suggest we would have more freedom if we had maintained our factories at home instead of abroad. i might suggest the greater disparity between our upper and lower classes the more indebted, (thereby less free,) the majority of us become. moreover i might comment on reagan's pivotal role in the decline of our manufacturing base or how modern republican policies screw the 99%. in this way i am regarded as a nuisance at least. (that is likely exactly how my sister would view me relative to these types of things.) for others, for one of my step brothers who has taken exception to the certainty i portray when i comment on things, (particularly related to god or church,) i am considered offensive. how dare i confront in such a manner as to suggest his belief system is a sham. (to his credit he is not a judgmental person,) but it is completely lost on him that his beliefs and the beliefs associated with the church he attends condemn me as an unbeliever to eternity in a place of hell-fire and brimstone where i will forever pull my own hair out and gnash my teeth while my skin burns off of my skeleton over and over and over ad nauseum until, until, well, until nothing, eternity just means it keeps going on and on. that hellish outcome compared to me challenging his beliefs for a moment in time, while standing around in the back yard at some family gathering or another, seems fair at least. in fact my values are different. i like to be challenged on virtually everything. i think that serves me. i think it makes me a better person and a better father. (i am highly inclined to share brief maxims with my children. "imagine." "question authority." [or everything, really.]

it is interesting to consider how others view me. i imagine my mother-in-law has a certain perception i can't quite define. i know she likes me. i think of my former boss and i imagine he thinks something happened to me and i changed and became disrespectful, (which to me is just the epitome of a lack of self perception.) i guess the parents of the children my kids go to school with think me quite the oddity. maybe they think i am irresponsible for becoming unemployed. they likely they think i am just strange when they see me daily picking up or dropping off my little ones in some rock and roll t-shirt and with the che guevara tattoo on my calf. they probably think i should grow up or that i am regretful i tattooed a communist on my leg. (nothing could be further from the truth.) many people in my life seem to think i am sad and lonely and they're not far from the truth even if i think they're mistaken. i have some sadness and i am lonely at times. after all life is hard but what i value above all else is balance and while i know i am not perfectly balanced i do think i am in a constant flux teetering back and forth across the level, always avoiding tipping points.

is it strange that i care how others perceive me? should i? what i can tell you is that i know i can't help it. i am one of those people who needs to be loved, like a superstar actor, by all. as much as i know that is impossible, i can't help that compulsion and i am bothered when i have strife in my life or when i feel like i am being misperceived. for example, on the drinking thing, i think there are those who think i am either a drunk or an alcoholic. that bothers me. i get drunk and one can say to my detriment but at some point that is a values question and while i have regrets about not saving money and not being a homeowner, i can't draw that line from my compulsion to drink to my somehow being a bad person because i have not found my way to home ownership in this society and this economy and this lifetime in this place. (does that make sense?) when i get drunk my normal personality is amplified. i do not do things i regret. i am not rude to people. i don't do it alone, ever. i stick to beer outside of an occasional celebratory shot of the hard stuff. i learned a long time ago that hard liquor is the devil, at least in any excess. so when a friend or someone makes a comment such as, (recently a friend said to me regarding the huge lottery prize that was up for grabs,) if i were to win that lottery i would likely but my local karaoke bar, i know the friend did not in any way mean to insult but i can't help but feel somehow misunderstood. i enjoy camaraderie. for me beers is that. it satisfies something i long for, or the act of engaging over beers at least gets me closer to something i am always looking for in the realm of camaraderie.

what do i wish i could do more than anything in the world? organize people around ideas. am i able to do that? do i have any skills in that regard? unfortunately the answer seems to be negative. and so i love to get together in bars and try to sway others to my way of thinking. this is as close to the essence of me as i can think to get.

it is odd waking up in mid-life and realizing i am not a writer and prospects don't look good, (from any standpoint.) my growth as a writer retarded in the mid-90s and ceased altogether at some point in time. i do not have an undergraduate degree, which to me seems like a real problem. beautiful girls are only for glancing at nowadays, and that only slyly lest i be labelled a perv. what have i done with myself? nothing great. that said, i am dignified. i am honest in my everyday dealings with others. i am mostly healthy in my perspective. i work hard to be a good father.

i feel like i have been a disappointment to some people. i am not referring to my parents or family members for the most part. at times in my life, (say, 15 years ago or thereabouts,) i used to find people occasionally gravitating towards me. i did not why. i didn;t understand the phenomenon though as time went on i started to realize they might have been impressed with me. i think maybe they thought i was capable of something great and so they were attracted to me and perhaps i purposefully gave them that impression? i think this could be true to some slight degree even of my wife. i think they thought i talked pretty, (which is to say i was articulate and passionate about what i believed in.) this combo along with my world view, my need to help others, to educate and challenge others, may have been what created this persona that attracted a few others and left me feeling hollow for having disappointed them by ending up in the here and now, working class and fairly impotent in the grand scope of things. (it is worth mentioning that i always aspired to the working class. these are my people and i am of them and i consider this the class to be a part of.)

can i change the aspects of myself i am uncomfortable with? i think i am always trying but the question begs an examination of what aspects leave me cold. i would like to grow a beard, (even though i am almost incapable of such a thing.) i don't think a beard works however, for someone looking for a job. i would like to be in better shape and i have struggled on that front. i have written out detailed schedules for my day including various workout regimens and i have found myself deviating only slightly at first then moreso each day until the structure ends up seeming like a joke and i return to merely trying to exercise more in a vague and casual way, (which means playing basketball on sunday mornings.) i will keep working on it however. fitness points to a larger issue however, which is how much discipline i have in my life. i need more discipline. i want to be disciplined about exercise and about writing and reading. i also want to be more frugal by extinguishing my impulse to get out among the people with beer more often than i currently do. i also want to be better about engendering good will. if nepotism is the only way to get a job, (and it's not,) then i am in a world of hurt. i have always wanted to be hired based on merit but that is a hard thing to do for everyone involved. in any case i want to be able to endear myself to others without doing it purposely or in a disingenuous way as if to gain. a little help getting a job, (a good job that pays well and challenges me to improve on my skills,) would be awesome. beyond not having gainful employment there is little about myself i am uncomfortable with.

i have learned much in this season. i know divorce is not the end of the world. i guess it doesn't matter what others think even though that goes against my deepest-seated insecurities. i should have worked harder to find another job while i was still employed at my last one but that is not how things worked out and it's time to stop feeling bad about that. the fact is i removed myself from a toxic situation and i feel great about that everyday.

so, i apologize to those i have disappointed. and i apologize to myself for screwing up my undergraduate degree and for being imperfect overall. i apologize too, to those who view me with pity. i apologize in advance to my children for my imperfections and for the things i will do which you will remember one day unfavorably. i am human. i apologize to any future love interests that i am not more handsome with a long golden mane of hair and rock, hard abs. i apologize to all authority figures for questioning you and secretly berating you behind your back, especially referees, linesmen, judges, umpires and law enforcement. (i can't help my severe authority complex. had you lived my childhood you would likely understand.) i apologize to those who from a distance think they are better than me. i am always trying to be a better me. i apologize to my wife for not being a better leader within our marriage. i still love you but like you i am not willing to tarry on in the manner we have grown accustomed to. i am sorry too, i do not have the slightest idea of how to bridge the gap that exists there. (I will certainly do better in the future if there is another one day.) i apologize to my dad and his wife for being so throughly disenchanted with their religiosity. i apologize to my friends for being so disinterested in the trivialities germaine to our lives instead always wanting to discuss big ideas and the issues of our day. i apologize to my last employer for being completely unable to communicate with you. since i did not have anything nice to say i found i could not say anything at all. i know i am missing many others i would like to apologize to so i will just say as a means of ending this long and winding rant, i'm sorry.