mommy

let's start with a platitude.  everyone has a mother.  every creature...  mother's are more common than right arms.  still, not all mothers are present.


this is an ode to my mother.  my mother who was absent.  (she was present for perhaps  1/11th of my life up to the point when she passed.)  my mother missed my early years completely.  incarceration is a bitch for the littlest ones. 


not all mothers enter into it purposely. 


the is an ode to my mother, who at 14 likely landed pregnant by happenstance.  she had no life path carved out and probably did not plan much.  2nd generation americans in los angeles of irish, english, and german ancestry, who became pregnant at 14 tended to let life happen to them and so their socio-economic lot was cast and struggling with masses of humanity was more than statistically probable.  their children were also born into an outlook fat with struggle but so beautiful.  so, so beautiful.


i don't know if everyone else in the world sees the beauty i see.  it is true that adversity builds character and great art often springs forth from it like a delicate, radiant flower climbs out of a crack in the pavement.  (the list of prime examples is unending.)  my perspective is born of struggle and sadness. 


i grew up with four mother figures by the time i was five.  they were wonderfully tender women who gave me love and security.  this ode however, is for my biological mother; tresenia james. 


i don't  know if my mother embraced smack in jail not long after i was born, perhaps sometime after her father had her incarcerated for being incorrigible.  I don't know if at 15 or 16 when she went to jail it was not the most natural thing for a child with an underdeveloped brain to seek the solace of narcotic.  i imagine her at that age partly from how i remember her on heroin at a later age, falling, just floating-falling into a place of comfort, a place where fathers nurture and love, instead of giving up and worse. 


by the time of my earliest memories she was hard.  she had a tattoo on the top of her arm that read, "shorty."  that is who she was to me at first.  every time i saw her, in places like the visiting area at terminal island women's penitentiary off the coast of long beach, everyone called her shorty.  i can remember her even later on the outside, with my aunt, her sister, who was four years her younger, how she was always comfortable everywhere.  outside the liquor store with people lurking in the shadows I recall my aunt expressing apprehension but my mom was in charge of the situation and ventured forth confidently with her jaw set.  my aunt, who by contrast was weightless and playful, was comforted by my mom.  so was i.  my mom was kind of serious.


i guess at some point she saw the limitations of her own life.  i am sure she felt guilty about what she provided for me and what she provided for herself.  i doubt she blamed her father or her family or the world or our species.  i think she may not have reflected at such a level.  self actualization requires some insight and erudition to achieve.


her day to day was probably consumed by the typical thoughts of a teenager.  at times she probably suffered from believing she had somehow caused her circumstances and was worthless for reasons related to how her father treated her, how impotent her mother was relative to my grandpa, and how poorly she understood her environs.  i am sure under the influence of the dope she went places as serene and fantastic as any real destination.  i am sure she felt as soft and pliable and one with the universe as any yogi or ascetic ever.  i know in that haze she forgot.  she forgot her father.  she forgot her child.  she forgot los angeles.  she forgot the love of her mother.  she forgot concepts and values.  she forgot herself and lost in that maze of altered states she walked through moments a totally different person, an entity unfettered by any sense of responsibility or being, perhaps not devoid of love however.


i don't love my mother on what would have been her 63rd birthday because she could not take care of me.  i don't love her because she lived in prisons far and wide.  i don't love her because she gave birth to me, from any sense of obligation or cosmic, genetic connection.  i don't love her because when i showed up at the prison in lexington, kentucky or glendale, arizona or pleasanton, california, i was a rock star.  every incarcerated chola who came across shorty in the joint must have heard of this cherubic child of white and filipino descent, (of a known of. but never encountered father,) because when i walked in those visiting rooms the fucking red, velvet carpet met my feet as prison-made presents showered me with the welcome of my people, my mothers, the girls who were exactly like my mother if of a browner color.  they came to me with smiles and kisses, praising me for being even more profoundly beautiful than the pictures they had seen.  their gifts were knitted or folded or drawn.  they always returned to their visitors as if grudgingly for having to leave the prince to his royal agenda.  i did not love my mother for giving me three colorful years of her life in the apartments of los angeles, bell gardens, hollywood, downtown los angeles.  i did not love her for asking me to steal items from a grocery store or bringing an abusive man into our home, (or rather me, into their home.)  i did not love her for cockroaches or hitchhiking or methadone or a half husky half timber wolf named lobo.  i did not love her for sunset boulevard or a '67 impala.  i did not love her for marijuana at way too young an age but i did and do love her.


i love my mother because she loved me in a way that is now too incomprehensible to know fully.  she loved me in the way she looked at me and the way she spoke to me.  she loved me completely and substantively.  when she comforted me i could sleep.  when she smiled at me i saw nothing else.  i was only capable of giving her love back but my love was that of a child.  i was not disagreeable but still, i had a certain sense of entitlement. she was my entitlement.  silently i demanded some things from her, not all of which she could provide but i saw her strive for those things. 


it may seem unlikely but my mother taught me love.  she gave me all she could, all she had, all she was. 


when she died on a bathroom floor in an apartment in azusa with the mojo pin still stuck in her right arm, i was on the other side of the planet.  a long flight and a day later i met her in a hospital room in glendora. she was on life support and she was not there.  there was no life or love in her.  of her own accord she was motionless.  the rise and fall of her chest belied the stillness of her soft, sunken face.  she could not smile at me in that moment and i had been trained to deal with this.


i did not know what to expect as i flew over the pacific ocean by night sensing the vast expanse below me and within me.  i knew she was on life support but i thought my voice might rouse her and everything would be okay and i would stay by her side forever and help her to overcome this evil comfort she sought so incessantly for 20 years. 


i walked from that room back into the world i knew and accepted the outcome.  when i was asked to go back into the room the next day after the decision had been made i levitated to her bedside and touched her hand.  those who were in the room watched me closely.  i forced two or three salty tears from my eyes and indicated i was ready to go.  back in the waiting room i participated in hugs and tender reminisces of six or eight people, of whom only half of us knew her at all.  then i went with my friends to a mexican restaurant and got drunk on margaritas. 


throughout my childhood i was more or less incapable of crying.  i didn't know why.  i only knew i seemed to accept the facts of the world, not bemoan them.  i was less than for it, too.  later in life when i learned to cry, or came to cry, i came to understand how good it really was.  the love i felt doubled in on itself then multiplied again and again.  i began to feel the weight of the world.  i sensed the nature of sorrow and came to adore it like a lover, to nurture it like an extension of myself and to feel it effortlessly and from instinct. 


if i am in any way special it is because of my perspective.  i love and crave justice like oxygen.  i am of the people because i come from disadvantage and it has always been my life's goal to be a champion for my people.  in many ways i have not lived up to that, perhaps because i am emotionally challenged.  perhaps because i am lazy and indecisive.  still in other ways i do what little i can.  in my work i try to help people assimilate into our crazy, hyper-capitalism.  our utilitarian jobs do not edify people.  they are not about stakeholders-but i try hard to help people understand the forces that play on their lives and find ways to cope and thrive. 


i have worked hard to educate myself in order to be responsible as an adult, responsible to my class, responsible in some way to those who are like me and so much worse off.  i had it good in many ways.  i had an aunt and uncle step in and raise from 11-years-old on.  i would not be a functioning father to my two wonderful children if not for that good fortune.  i am so thankful for all of my mother figures: aunt nancy, lupe, nana, elsie, carmelita, theresa elder, and more.  but my mother, tresenia james, set the bar.  she showed me and gave me love and in spite of her absence and her addiction, it was in those moments when we were together that i learned what everyone should have and know.  i love this metaphor about the wounded oyster.  (it is, after all, the wounded oyster which heals itself with pearl.)  her love as i remember it and feel it deep inside myself is my pearl.  i feel beautiful and i feel a beauty inside me that emanates from her love, so long ago.


you know a mother's love and how profound it is.  you have or had one-and you know.  it is more than circumstances.  it is more than your struggle. 


my mother's love informed my life.  it is the template for what i want in the world, for what i want for everyone.  it was pure and perfect. 


my love for her still, is the best of me.  i am become empathy.  i love.

jeff

There is a guy I kind of love who is, unbeknownst to himself in all likelihood, a racist.  I love him from nostalgia and from knowing his goodness.  Deep in his heart I know he loves. 

Outwardly he hates.  He used to be engaged to be married to my sister and they spent a decade together, a decade in which he was a part of my family and a good father figure to my nephew and niece.  In approaching the subject that is my former brother-(not-quite-)in-law it is important for me to start there, with the fact that I love him.

I do not love the persona he has embraced in the years since he went his own way.  Our relationship is now defined by our connection on facebook. 

On facebook JEFF POSTS ONLY IN ALL CAPS.

That in itself is sociopathic behavior, which many other facebook friends and acquaintances, (along with myself,) have tried to dissuade Jeff from.  He refuses to change his all caps posting. 

When Jeff and I used to commiserate and commune at family gatherings he was not particularly political.  He seemed to harbor some anger in those days that was not directed at any person or group in particular but revolved around his own hard luck navigating his life and making ends meet.  Occasionally he would engage me on a subject that bothered him and when we disagreed he tended to defer to me perhaps because I put together a more cohesive argument. 

Since Jeff and my sister split Jeff fell on some hard times and eventually left California to join his family transplanted from Ohio in Florida.  He ended up going to trucker school and now he traverses the country in a big rig.  He has become exceedingly political in the last few years and I surmise he is listening to Glen Beck as he drives back and forth across the United States. 

He hates President Obama.  He believes Obama is not a Christian, is not American, and is intent on bringing the USA to its knees in every way.  He disdains anyone and everything that is liberal if strictly on the basis of that thing, person or idea being liberal, left, educated, reasoned or on the side of the masses. 

For me it is easy to dismiss Jeff's, (Beck's,) ideas for any number of reasons.  I know that his views require a suspension of intelligent reason in large part based on mountains of evidence.  (Just today I read yet another article which represents the kind of evidential reason I speak of.  Paul Krugman wrote an article in the New York Times about the economic turnaround in California.  Krugman cites facts, which do not require any faith to be placed in his status as a Nobel Prize winning economist, to understand.  In the big picture what Krugman writes about California is representative of so many facts on record about our country and the world at large.)

Still, Jeff firmly believes that if he can argue a point then that argument has as much merit as any other point of view.  He is immoveable in his beliefs about immigrants ruining this country, the social safety net destroying the American dream and so on.  Jeff is angry.  I assume his personal struggle to survive has created a certain desperation in his psyche which combined with his relative lack of background in critical thinking has left him to own a terribly misguided anger.  Jeff hates.  It starts with Obama and quickly spreads to Hillary, Pelosi, Krugman and anyone else Glen Beck suggests he should hate.

On facebook I participate in a group that often discusses political ideas and news of the day.  Generally the group is liberal or at least dominated by reasonably liberal posters.  Jeff is one of the few dissenters typically and he is wild in his dissent.  He has in ways moved the group from discussing nuances about policies, events and ideas to joining in to show Jeff the folly of his ideas.  At times we have discussed the intricacies of ideas as complex as term limits in meaningful ways.  Some reason that in our corrupt system of favors for favors and big money term limits are an absolute necessity.  Other have suggested that experienced, tenured legislators have value in knowing how to navigate the process to the benefit of society.  I consider this a valuable discussion.  I don't if Jeff even has an opinion about this particular issue.  Rather our group has devolved to some degree as Jeff will often make arguments so lacking in reason others of any stripe are compelled to reason with Jeff about his how arguments err.  Never has this tack born fruit.  Jeff is immoveable. 

Recently Jeff's arguments have become more obvious and hateful.  A friend of mine called me a month ago or so because she wanted me to know immediately that someone had posted on my facebook "wall," such hate-filled rhetoric it made her cry and she could not even finish reading it.  This friend happens to be a young idealist.  She is as filled with love and well meaning as anyone I know.  She was literally appalled and wanted me to know quickly so I could delete Jeff's posts because she thought they might in some way reflect on me and she would never want me to be seen by anyone as in any like Jeff.  I had already read Jeff's posts and I was not moved to delete them, (which is not to say I did not find them disgusting.  What Jeff wrote was thoroughly disgusting.) 

I remember a story I once read about a yogi who described the monks in the monastery he lived in as like so many pebbles in a sack.  He said by living with one another and communing daily, like pebbles they rubbed against one another and the effect was that of polishing the individuals.  I like this metaphor.  It is why I like discussion groups on facebook or elsewhere.  I think it is important for humans to discuss and disagree and reason and gain ground on some agreements perhaps more so in this modern computer age of disconnection.  I am attracted to free and open exchanges of ideas. 


Another good and close friend contacted me a few days after my young idealist friend reached me to say that he had had enough of Jeff's unintelligible, racist rants and that he was going to have to leave the group.  I understood even if I did not want him to leave.  I would prefer my friend had thicker skin. I would he stayed and countered Jeff or ignored him, both responses having the same effect of denouncing Jeff's arguments for what they are, mere tripe.  My friend hoped to persuade me to remove Jeff from the group.  I understood his entreaty but I could not bring myself to move on it, (though it was a real consideration.)

Right around the same time another friend of mine engaged Jeff in an argument that quickly devolved into one of name calling.  My friend is a writer and he fairly eviscerated Jeff with some of the most lewd and disgusting images I have ever read.  In turn Jeff followed suit and basically played the same themes back to my friend but of course, in choosing the same course Jeff revealed his lack of imagination and showed himself the inferior put down artist.  Later my friend returned to the argument and deleted all of his posts. 

Jeff is still my friend on facebook and in truth, I still love him.  I hate his ideas.  I think they represent a serious lack of scholarship and worse, a weak-minded succumbing to the tools of propaganda.  After all Jeff is not a man of means.  He barely scrapes by in his life and yet he espouses ideas and values of the wealthy class. 

Personally I have grown tired of engaging with Jeff.  In the last month I may have commented on something he said once or twice.  Yes, when all that ranting and raving was going on I did jump in near the end and chided Jeff a little, reminding him of the Jeff I once knew who helped raise my nephew and niece and who was not the man of hate he now portrays himself to me.  I don't know if those words had any affect on Jeff whatsoever but he did not respond to them.  For me arguing with Jeff has kind of run its course.  Still, I have chosen not to disassociate myself from Jeff. 

I don't see Jeff changing.  I don't see anything I say changing him in any meaningful way but I do think it is preferable to disagree with Jeff or argue with him on occasion to simply removing him from the discourse.  For me it is important to still love Jeff though I expect the same from no one else. 

the evolution of grief

i guess there is something to this idea that grief comes in stages.  mine is ever-changing.  it is amazing how beautiful a thing it can be, how tender and human and fragile, and how defining.

the night i left my eventual wife's apartment having confirmed her pregnancy and learned of her unwillingness to carry the child to term, i looked into my own eyes on the drive home in my rear view mirror and i saw tiny cracks, micro-crevices, really.  it occurred to me perhaps i had arrived at the threshold of middle aged.  perhaps this is where things turned downhill, when vulnerability set in. 

i was in my little, black, two-seat sports car, with the top off on a winter evening.  the cold did not warrant having the top off but i hadn't realized that when i set out.  i stopped at a traffic light in the left hand turn lane, and a truck pulled up behind me with bright lights set high enough above my trunk that i suddenly had a rectangular spotlight shining on my forehead. 

i looked at my eyes, around my eyes at the lines, mostly at the one line between my eyebrows, that curved like a miniature bolt of lightning upwards.  i had formerly liked this line.  i thought it gave me character, perhaps it imbued me with an air of thoughtfulness i fancied.  now instead of quickly disappearing it was leaving behind a slight crease.

i thought of all she had said to me.  she said she had enjoyed being out and alone recently and that she really liked her apartment.  this was to tell me she was comfortable and intended to go spend a season away from me. 

to that point i had pushed her away plenty in the past, then upon sensing her gaining her footing and making her way without me i would pull her back to me as forcefully as possible.  i employed every bit of guile and charm i could muster.  i preened and paraded like a peacock.  i wrote her poetry exaggerating her every aspect.  i made love like we were on fire.  i sought to impress her at every turn.  i meant to convey generosity and goodness and high ideals always. 

you see i needed that over the top sensation from her and from all the other girls, too.  i am not saying it was okay.  it was tragic.  i say it matter of factly.  i am a product of my conditions and i equated drama and ardor from multiple relationships to real love.  i think what happened, and it is hard to know being so close to all of it, is i had a need to be needed which resulted from my being moved around as a child from family to family and not knowing my mother's love, (or my father.)  i was an agreeable child because i was always on the make, that is, trying to endear myself and make myself super attractive in every way to any and everyone for whatever reason or purpose.  i had very few limitations in this regard.

the result was that as a single adult i spent a great deal of time in pursuit of, or rather, gathering, as many admirers as possible.  also, as i progressed through my 20s and into my 30s the pretty girls just got younger and younger.  i rationalized my behavior by telling myself my love relationship would be the most important relationship of my life and therefore getting it right was paramount to my success.  when my behavior became duplicitous i flirted with boundaries.  i played games with words and planted verbal traps. 

i only know i did these things now.  at the time i believed it all.  in retrospect i was pathetic but at the time i was serious.  even the word games.  i would plead for more time or certain understanding, empathy even, believing i was worthy of those things as this could be just the most important relationship ever.  i was convincing, too.  at certain times i may have had some level of involvement with even three girls, one at the end of the cycle where the break-up was taking hold but there was some leeway and i could talk my way back into that relationship if i was so inclined, (which i might be at least often enough to keep that person holding on some,) one in the middle of the cycle, the official girlfriend who i was then in love with and whom i spent a majority of my free time with and who was my regular lover, and one on the front end of the cycle who i might just be flirting with or perhaps exchanging emails.  this was not a formula i employed like some sort of sick don juan but rather it was a cycle i can only now identify. 

now in the late stages of this cycle after a great deal of proverbial water had gone under the bridge, i found my eventual wife wavering in her ardor and devotion for me.  she carried our child, which she would later suggest i had planted purposely when we were both blind drunk, but said she would end it and that she didn't know about us right then but she was going to think about that and try to create some distance from me in order to think clearly. 

i drove home that chilly night slightly devastated.  i had also noticed recently that girls were not looking at me as they once had.  those darling buds of 20-25 were looking at me like i was a contemporary of their fathers, and at 38, i was. actually, i was not devastated, i was stoic.  i remember getting home around 11pm and resolving not to be emotional but rather to know that i still possessed charms and to assume she was not the ideal person for me so i should go to sleep so i could be fresh for work the next day so i could impress and thereby take care of the one constant in my life, my steady job in customer service where somehow i had found enough favor to maintain the position and steadily advance in spite of my unconventional appearance and my occasuional lapses of propriety.

right after my alarm woke me my phone also rang and it was her saying she had a change of heart and that she was ready to go for it with me.  i was perturbed because of my own resolve of the night before and at the same time i showered and drove into work that day in an odd state of euphoria feeling like my life was changing and this was momentous, (which of course, it was.) 

now she is gone.  i mean, she is down the street and we have children so we're in touch but the marriage is over.  the paperwork remains but everyting is else has cleared up. 

i remember now shortly after we were married she would remark on her own wisdom relative to some of her friends for having chosen an older man, (11 years, one month and 22 days,) a man who was ready to settle down.  at the time i took it as an affront.  i thought i was such a great choice that someone in her position could only reasonably assume that older was in and of itself the wisest choice.  i thought she had done so well for herself in me.  i was virtuous, youthful-relatively speaking, intelligent and interesting.  of course all of those assessments were reviewed through my most narcissistic of lenses.  for her part she was making a case for the union because she felt one needed to be made.  i was not the only one in the relationship who practiced self love and she too, poured it on thick.  she considered herself to be exceptionally cute, and she was.  still, her opinion was inflated.  her remark was meant to explain how a fairy of this extreme magnitude of cute could possibly be with someone like me, a slightly older man of average pulchritude, and for her physical beauty was and is king.  whatever is second is so distant in it's relation to this characteristic as to be laughable. 

when we first began discussing separation she proclaimed her virtue by saying she wanted me to be happy.  in fact she thought it would be great if i met a girl closer to my own age to be involved with.  i don't think she said it with malice but it felt malicious.  again she was attacking my physical appearance.  apparently i was very old for her.  in those early days i thought she was simply mistaken as i like hot girls who tend to be younger.  now i don't know.  mature girls seem perfectly attractive.

when my wife said she thought i had practically tricked her into being together i took exception.  i thought that was ludicrous.  now, i am not so sure.  i did see the lines on my face.  i remember that.  i was getting older, indeed my argument to her that night in her apartment had been to state plainly i was getting older and for me it was easy, i was ready to settle down.  no perfect match was ever going to show up.  rather i realized the key was to be committed to working it out and i thought she and i had a substantial foundation on which to build.  she seemed to accept this argument as her own in some regard the next morning. 

i don't know if the accepted stages of grief are in fact my stages of grief.  instead i feel like i am in the bad stage of grief, which actually feels like it is down the line a ways and not really that bad of a stage.  i see so many bad traits in her now.  i don't think she has much in the way of a motherly instinct.  she has enough and she certainly loves her children but she also fancies herself the party, fun girl.  she takes pride in being that and generally needs a lot of reinforcement when she is drinking from those around her to reinforce her indulgent behavior.  sometimes when i look at her face i think she has a porcine quality.  i see the bad in myself too.

one of her reasons for leaving was that she did not think i was doing enough as it related to the daily responsibilities involved in raising children, that is to say; household chores and childcare responsibilities.  while i admitted she did more i attributed what i perceived to be a slight difference to children being somewhat more drawn to their mother than their father, most likely due to temperament.  she said that since she was doing it all anyways she had come to realize that she could do it so she might as well.  ironically, i had once thought i needed to let her feel stranded or alone on a decision from time to time as she seemed so dependent and unwilling to handle basic responsibilities that i knew she was perfectly capable of but she lacked the confidence to do so.  this revelation too, cut me.  it seemed to suggest she had already endured the relationship for a season from some need to have me around to handle life's difficult stuff.  this kind of enraged me at first, (in an earlier stage of grief, perhaps.) 

i see now all of my behaviors which sabotaged this relationship.  i tried to get us to talk and to work on our difficulties but she would not.  i tried to have state of the union discussions but she balked or complained after an hour or so that it was going on for so long.  i tried to proactively suggest we take steps to recreate intimacy betwixt us at which point the reason for our distance would morph from her being angry at me for behaviors from long before we were married to her feeling like her body had changed since she had children and she just did not have any sex drive.  still, in spite of those occasional forays, i did not do enough.  i could have tried harder.  i could have met her where she was but i was too proud.  at the very least i had to have middle and in looking back, i don't think she was ever capable of the middle. 

my grief changed again recently.  it is heavier and feels like a permanent defeat that will consume a fraction of my personality forevermore.  it also feels like it is passing, like a piece of myself that had gone down so low as to be imperceptible to myself is somehow emerging again, floating past the defeat and surfacing anew.  i am still a little angry and sad but i am also found.

Divorce - Final

Today my divorce from Faith is final and I have to do the post mortem.  I felt all the pain all over again in this moment.  It was as if gravity doubled in an instant.  I felt droopy and weighted down.  I wanted to curl up in a fetal position and sleep like a child. 

It was the rejection that hurt the most.  (How superficial is that?)  That is me however.  Faith wanted out.  I wanted out too, but I was unwilling to detonate the bomb.  I relied on the children for cover on this one.  I believed I wanted for them what I had not had and there is certainly some truth to that.  I wanted them to have a functional family.  Mostly what hurt two years ago when we first separated was the idea that someone did not want me.  The rejection was killer for me. 

I grew up with my mother in sundry prisons around the United States.  I visited her now and then but mostly she was absent.  I had just enough of her love to know what I was missing and that hurt like hell.  It made me mad.  I was even angry when as a teenager my Aunt and Uncle took me into their home like their own child and raised me alongside my cousin and I saw up close the love between my Aunt and her real Daughter. I was jealous and felt some rage deep inside. 

I never met or knew my Father, either.  My Uncle was pretty great but I did not have my real Father and it felt like rejection that he was not involved and never came forward, even after we had a 10-minute phone conversation when I was 23, (the only time I ever spoke to him or that he was confronted with me so far as I know.) 

So when Faith said "I think I want out," I retreated to the child's mind I once had.  It did not matter that I had at times longed to be out of this relationship even going so far as to imagine that I could never be the bad guy to tear it apart, opting instead to allow the toxicity of it all to stew so that perhaps she would take on that role.  Of course, there were those moments and then there were the other moments when I fancied we should be together forever and that the difficulties we had in marriage represented a certain threshold for improvement, a vast amount of potential in which we could make a working relationship so much better.  I kidded myself.  There was little working about the relationship. 

When the news came that my divorce was final I felt the rejection all over again.  It was renewed proof that Faith did not want me.  It hurt all over again, perhaps for the wrong reasons.  I had been imagining the arrival of this news and how I might feel celebratory, and I think I do feel some of that, too, but the initial response was all about the rejection.
 
The marriage was textbook bad but I loved that girl.  I spent so much of the last 15-16 years of my life involved with her.  We have remarkable children.  I owe Faith something.  I owe it to her to balance my values when I speak of her.  I need to tell my story and I think it is important to expose not cover up.  I also respect my now ex-wife and am certain the divorce is our shared responsibility.
 
I have regrets.  Its a laundry list, really.  I regret the earliest boundaries I set up in that relationship.  I laid claim to certain territories that were unassailable in our relationship and those places became wounds that festered and diseased. More than anything I regret my response to her harsh nature. 

The early years for us were a whirlwind of partying and sex.  We were in love for two or three years and somewhere late in that time I had affairs with others and we became on again off again and Faith was injured deeply.  I was naively duplicitous at that time.  I believed my own lies.  I thought I was searching for some kind of perfect love, my perfect match.  I thought this was the biggest concern in my life and I was a fool.  It is ironic when we finally decided to be together and to have a child that my argument in favor had evolved to one of suggesting successful relationships were that way because people worked at them.  I decided to commit to this relationship and in truth I did in some ways.  I stopped seeking out other lovers.  That was no small thing for me in those days.  That my behavior changed helped convince me of the authenticity of our love. 

When I committed to her however, she turned off.  I had thought at times the intensity of her love was not so much a con but still a sort of case in favor of.  Prior to her pregnancy with Terra and our moving in together finally, Faith was as passionate a lover as I could imagine.  When we settled in and nested a dark rain cloud moved in front of the sun of our affections for good.  It was pregnancy.  It was her body post pregnancy.  It was another pregnancy.  It was her body post another pregnancy.  It was the IUD.  It was chemical changes.  Until finally it was over. 

And my biggest regret is my response to that winter that overcame our love.  As an insecure, emotional child, I matched the affections she withheld from me by returning in kind.  If I was committed to working on that relationship to make it work, to help it work, I would have behaved differently.  I would have loved when I felt unloved.  I would have talked about it but not like a petulant child who has had his favorite toy taken away but as a lover and partner in life who wants to add to the other person's life.  I should have wanted her to be happier.  If I had behaved differently perhaps the arctic frost of our dismay could have melted.  I was selfish instead.  It was about me and my ego.  I was hurt and if she was going to behave that way, remove the love from our lives, then in my eternal quest for balance, (my highest value,) I was obligated to refrain from affection as well. 

Every once in a great while I used to try to sit down with Faith and talk about us.  I suggested a few times we should have a "state of the union," conversation every New Year's Day to talk about where we were, how we felt, what we wanted, and how we could improve.  Yes, yearly was just about how often I wanted to work on this thing.  The other 364 days I just wanted to be injured and passive aggressive perhaps so that I could have my old life back.

I am a toad, you know.  In some ways.  At the same time I can forgive myself, too.  I had no examples of really good, functioning relationships growing up.  I am conditioned and while I do strive to be a better me, I am imperfect, (like a toad, I suppose.)

Now it is time to move forward.  Faith and I have children to raise.  We will be connected through them for many years to come and it is to us to set examples.  When the relationship was falling apart outwardly and we sought therapy briefly, how to go through a divorce in the best possible way for the children became the essence of our therapy.  We spent no time talking about how the relationship might improve.  Have we followed through on any of that planning?  It is hard to know.  I know we try. 

I hope Faith finds love again.  I want her to have it good.  I think she is a better mother when she is happy and while I worry about who might end up being around my kids, if someone came along and made her happy I know Terra and Mark would benefit greatly. 

I don't know if I want to find love again.  I know I love and I know I am best when I love.  I certainly like the idea of giving to someone selflessly as one does when they are in love.  Presently I am comfortable with just working on getting better at what I have going on in my life.  I want to be better as a Father, as an employee and as a Manager, as a friend, and as a person. 

kobe the blight

i continue to swim upstream on this one, against the great minds of the game and virtually every tom, dick and harry laker fan on the street but i insist kobe bean bryant is by far the most overrated professional sports player ever.  recently slam magazine proclaimed kobe is no longer mr clutch in the eyes of the league's general managers.  more to the point bryant ranks 38th over the last three years in clutch shooting, (this in spite of the fact that he gets more opportunities than even durant and james who have to share occasional opportunities with messers. wade and westbrook.) 

kobe is certainly a great basketball talent.  what does he do well.  he is a great pull up jump shooter.  from mid-range he is among the very best ever if not the best.  he is an excellent defender in the half court set.  (his transition defense sometimes makes me queasy.)  he is as fundamentally sound as one can be in terms of the compulsories: dribbling, shooting, defending, rebounding, jumping and so on. 

that said my biggest complaint about kobe as an avowed laker fan is not the poor clutch performance, which i have grown accustomed to.  rather it is his obtuse nature, which manifests as a low basketball i.q.  in concert with that complaint is the public adoration of bryant and his lofty reputation, which is perhaps more reminiscent of the emperor wearing no clothes than any other real life example in my lifetime. 

kobe always wanted to be great and i believe all those who say he has an incredible work ethic.  certainly his shot bears that out.  when he came into the league the lakers had acquired him in a trade that was something of a gamble but it made all the sense in the world.  the thing was he could have been the next michael jordan.  his arrival to the lakers bench in the '96-'97 season was always colored by that storyline.  with a slightly different build but considerably ahead of jordan in terms of maturity, (having entered the league at 18,) bryant's every made shot was the young kobe bryant poster waiting to be made.  when he bricked those shots in utah in the playoffs that rookie campaign he was forgiven for being 18.  even i thought hey, great experience for the young pup.  someday he'll make those.

that day never came.  kobe has five championships as a laker but i would submit that he never, ever made the big or important clutch shot.  one could correctly say he drew the defense's attention as he has been the lakers offensive focal point certainly during these last two lakers championships when he won the mvp award both times, (undeservedly, in my opinion,) but he never hit the shot.  that distinction belongs to the likes of ron artest,(yes, that is the one where kobe looked all hurt after the game at not getting the glory,) ron artest, (bryant shot 25% from the field and 54% from the line in that game 7,) brian shaw, robert horry, ron harper from the baseline against portland, and so on.

here are kobe's top 10 clutch shots.  (the first four occur in january, january, december, december and one in april as the regular season wound down.) 
more, here is one writer's top 20 nba playoff clutch shots of all-time, which includes a few lakers and one soon-to-be laker but no kobe bryant.  anyway, as it turns out others have made the case about kobe's undeserved clutch reputation, thank god.  (the great thing about that piece is in how it admits when kobe has been clutch, clearly clutch, was when he hit late pull up jumpers that weren't from a ridiculously lucky range.  one of those i recall vividly and he deserved the praise, the other occurred while i was getting married so i missed it.  lesson learned-don't confuse priorities.)

the laker's threepeat at the outset of the century relied on a number of contributors with shaq being key.  after being unseated by san antonio when the lakers lost to detroit a year later and the demise of the shaq and kobe lakers was imminent basketball enthusiasts seemed to enjoy engaging in the debate over who was more important to all that winning.  clearly shaq was more responsible and those who took his side always won the debate hands down.  that said mitch kupchak did the right thing in keeping the younger kobe bryant who still had that huge upside.  having won three championships without being the main guy, (though he had averaged 22, 28 and 25 in those regular seasons and 21, 29 and 26 in those playoffs,) it figured kobe would become an elite scorer and perhaps the gold standard in the association. 

in some ways that did come to pass.  kobe's average jumped to 30 ppg the first year after the threepeat when the lakers missed the playoffs.  the following year when they were back in the finals his average dipped back to 24.  the next year with shaq gone it spiked up to 35 ppg and he won the first of his two scoring titles along with the following year when he scored 32 ppg.  these two laker teams were dismal.

the storyline preceding shaq's departure was all about whose team it was, an ugly byproduct of david stern's marketing money grab in which the individual was made greater than the team even to the detriment of the game's rules and referring integrity.  with shaq gone bryant seemed to determine to make the lakers his and initially he professed to expect the lakers to continue to be as competetive as the league's top teams.  as shaq and wade won in miami, and as duncan and parker and ginobili won in san  antonio, billups and hamilton in detroit, and eventually pierce, garnett and allen in boston, it became increasingly clear a guy like kobe could not win sans shaq or a shaq.  enter pau gasol. 

gasol had been a monster in memphis.  in seven years in memphis gasol had averaged about 19 ppg and 8-9 rpg.  the offense ran through him but like kobe he was rather alone in tennessee.  he arrived at the trade deadline and propelled the lakers, who had kobe and a lamar odom in his prime, a solid derek fisher, and the emerging andrew bynum and trevor ariza, into the finals where they lost to the celtics.  gasol's numbers remained about the same except in rebounds where he increased his numbers by about two per game. 

unlike kobe, gasol is as unselfish a player as exists on the planet.  when he is surrounded by like-minded guys, as he is every four years on the spanish national team, he wins mvp awards and the basketball is lovely.  it is a team game after all.  sans gasol, of course kobe would not have won the last two championships.  then again it is unlikely the lakers would have won those last two championships without artest who seemed, in contrast to kobe, to rise to the occasion. 

i wish kobe was a different player, a smart player, a charismatic player, a humble player.  i would love to root for him.  i wish he had become the player i thought he would develop into all those years but it did not happen.  in the 2008-09 playoffs in the series against the nuggets, kobe played the best basketball of his entire career.  there have been glimpses of that level from time to time since then but that series in particular, he was unselfish and the lakers looked crazy good.  recently as the lakers have fumbled through a star-studded letdown of epic proportions kobe has been an enigma.  as capable as ever he has seemed driven by his ego.  it is after all, "his team," and the rest of the lakers, the coaching staff, the management and the city at large must recognize his brilliance or else.  as the lakers tumbled down the standings with kobe accompanied by perhaps the league's two best big men, bryant continued to assert his dominance.  early in the season he led in the scoring race as the lakers led in disappointment.  later as his scoring production dropped off but his assist production spiked, the lakers began running off small streaks of wins, which culminated in a national tv audience win over okc, them of the gaudy record and probably the best player in the game in kevin durant.  (durant was cited as the guy who eclipsed bryant in the estimation of league general managers as best clutch scorer.) 

kobe dropped out of the scoring title hunt but the lakers crept back into playoff contention.  then came the loss in boston the other night.  the lakers were blown out.  kobe had 27 points but zero assists. why do the lakers suck?  even with gasol out they lineup with bryant, howard, nash, world peace and antawn jamison.  that is a lot of (old,) talent.  those five are complemented by earl clark, steve blake, and perhaps one or two other guys who aren't named chris duhon who are worthy of a little time on the floor.  that team should be competetive.  add gasol and they should be beastly.  however, that does not account for kobe's ego, his propensity for turning the ball over, (15th all time, typically top 7 in in the league season over season,) the vacuous effect he has on his team's offense, which is derived from his ego: other players know the deal.  kobe's reputation precedes the idea of playing with the lakers and so everyone knows their ego must take a backseat.  that matters even if the guy is a low ego guy to begin with because it is a team game. 

while talking heads slobber all over the great kobe bryant, night after night kobe goes out there and scores his 25 points a game and protects his image.  when he is in a giving mode, (or mood,) the lakers tend to win.  when his short attention span pulls the entire team back down to the mentality of getting the ball to kobe and clearing out, (because you know, he is the self proclaimed best one-on-one player of all time,) kobe often faces double teams and fails and the lakers fail right along with him. 

as this season circles the drain i am hopeful someone named buss or kupchak will come to their senses and reward kobe with a great opportunity to win his 6th nba title, elsewhere.  if only they could trade him, you know, one of those four team deals in which the lakers get 3 first round picks from teams on the brink of the lottery, somehow...  i know, i know...

still, let howard go to brooklyn or wherever. he is good but he is not that good, not as good as gasol.  let nash retire with dignity.  perhaps a playoff contender could use his services?  put meeks and company out their and bite the bullet and rebuild.  there is no shame in rebuilding and the way to do it is around a great young talent. 

kobe, for his part, won five championships as a laker.  he will always be a laker and he will be beloved in los angeles, (if not by me.)  he is a supremely talented player, though his ego is ridiculous and he has always lacked a certain intuition for the game.  two more examples.  ever seen him play against dwayne wade?  wade owns him-always has.  i always grimace when the lakers play the heat and i see wade guarding kobe out around the perimeter forcing kobe to take three-pointers.  i always know the worst thing that can heppen is for kobe to hit one or two.  the lakers are in trouble for sure when that happens.  i remember once when the lakers actually bea the heat and wade said after the game how they had gotten what they wanted, for kobe to shoot the threes, but it just did not work out that time.  that was rare, indeed.  another example, have you ever heard kobe speak italian.  he claims to be able to.  he lived there for a number of years.  all i have ever heard of it is a few  stock phrases.  i don't believe he speaks italian.  maybe i am wrong but it is just like kobe to let us all believe he really is fluent, because you know, he is just so all around brilliant and all, but i have never seen him just stand there on camera or on the microphone and have an italian conversation with gallinari.  if kobe is fluent in italian, the i guess i am fluent in japanese, portuguese, armenian and spanish.  yeah, i lived in japan for two years, like kobe in italy i lived amidst an enclave of americans but still, if you'll believe i am fluent in japanese, i won't tell.  i mean, come on. konichiwa, genki desuka and domo arigato already.  what's it going to take for you to believe me?

reunited feels so good

i experienced a reunion of sorts recently with a bunch of girls i once worked with, and by once i mean like 250 days a year for eons.  they were like earth incarnate each and every one of them.  i love one quality in particular my old friends possess, a sense of being utterly natural and of the earth while at the same time being imbued with a certain sophisticated, adult sensibility that is peculiar to mommys and large families and survivors and girly-girls who are lovers to the core. 

a friend of mine has been doing stand up comedy.  she is a natural.  our friendship has perhaps deteriorated recently as she is friends with my soon-to-be ex-wife but i got nothing but fondness for her so when she announced her performance at the ice house in pasadena i knew i would attend.  and in some way i knew i would be seeing a bunch of these former friends from that place i toiled in.  i have to tell you about them but i will invert this pyramid and tell you we all ran into each other there and we had drinks and watched our friend perform and hung out a bit afterwards, and a couple of days later i wrote them a group note on facebook because though we do not much interact on fb we are friends there.  so this was the note i sent them.

dear ladies of water,
i didn't know how much i missed you and many others from my past life hocking bottled water in the name of all that is healthy and youthful until this past weekend. what a joy to see you all and have some time to chat. life has all these twists and turns but i have thought of you guys several times since saturday night and so i thought i would just send a group message to say i absolutely adore you, i think of you every so often and always fondly, and i hope whenever we see each other we do as we did on saturday, just pick up where we left off, laughing and ranting and drinking and grooving and talking and smoking and going on and on and all that raging against the dying of the light. hopefully lilly will keep gigging her comedy thing and she will cause us more opportunities, (try to hit my weekend lj,) but if not you girls are still #1 with me and i wish you all the best. thank you for making my month. (terry, let's do lunch one day soon. let me know when?)
ciao bellas.

the note was from my heart.  i miss these girls and so many others.  i miss that mentor i had.  i miss the cuban girl, the classy one who made wealthy girls seem like cretins.  i missed the filipino lady i said hi to more mornings than you can count.  i missed the tall, fun-loving guy who had big plans to escape to virginia but his real escape was from the responsibility of real friendship.  i miss the girl who taught me a handful of phrases in farsi.  i miss big john.  i miss the girl who would cry when she spoke of her daughter.  i miss the gay man who shared my political perspective.  i miss the black girls and all their references, which kept me on my toes.  i miss the tough guy who cried.  i even miss the small people, the ones who created strife or assumed too much.  i miss the ones who flirted with me and the others who tenderly ensured i would never cross a line from devotion to theirs.  i miss the kids who respected my words and asked my advice.  i miss the french guy who helped me learn an important lesson.  i miss my friends the monsters from east los with their homogenous lingo, their humble perspective and their incessant need for altered states. 

of these girls i made a point of catching up with my friend terry, who is 74 but really 24, (still.)  her free spirit and liveliness is beyond most girls one-quarter her age.  she is such a treat to be around and i am already trying to see her again soon. 

the comedienne was also an unexpected delight.  i used to try to help her work out her act but then when the chasm of divorce hit my family she landed across the divide and when i wasn't looking she went on stage and did it.  she became the "hood mom," and the people could be heard guffawing on so many youtube videos it was amazing.  she was always funny but now she is polished funny, with structure and purpose. 

it was great to see the girl from the nice team.  we were co-captains once and i guess she has carried the mantle on without me.  spurn the sea of mean, good girl.  spurn it.

there were others, others i had not shared so much with but with whom i was still utterly familiar.  we practiced warmth on this night.  we took a photograph.  we clinked glasses and laughed and talked and sang into the early morning.  (mea culpa neighbors-i apologize for being so youthful.)

it is ironic how surprised i am at the experiences of age.  i might have learned...  these moments keep happening to me, moments when i experience the joy of reminiscence or nostalgia or what the portuguese call; saudades, moments unknown by the younger me who reveled in the new, physical, colorful, blazing characteristics of life, moments which are born atop those previous times and memories because they are of nuance and subtlety, the tricks and subterfuge of memory and the certainty of sense and sensibility and feeling.  yeah man, the body deteriorates slowly and over time.  this used to worry me because i did not see myself staying interested in large swathes of life into mine middle age but alas here i am and i  am finding it, the interest and the interesting, the moments of joy and the moments of new, that which i can savor and ponder and on which i can be sustained.

various thoughts on vital subjects

a dispatch from my life. 

i have quiet nights recently.  on this one i am thinking of a high school friend i am told will likely pass away within the next day or two.  cancer.  i have a lot of high and wild ideas about cancer, about life really, about the unknown.  i have these notions about universal flow and karma, this sense there is balance in the world, it is always in the motion of balancing.  i think somehow i have some ideas about my own end, which diseases can't get near me and which ones i am likely to succumb to.  cancer. 

i haven't really been in touch with this person since high school but we were casual friends in a small, private high school setting.  she was easily the sweetest girl in my class.  her face was angelic.  i think she was the head cheerleader and her dad was a doctor but this girl was without even a hint of pretense.  i adored her on the down low because i was unclear in those days about who i was or who i would become and she seemed my polar opposite in that regard.  she was self assured like a girl who has a large and balanced perspective and as a result spends a great deal of time giggling at so much around her.

rilke said it was to love the questions and i can do that right now.  i wonder about death.  is it random who gets what disease?  how are actuaries so good at what they do?  are there tables and books full of science that algorithm our diets and our environments in order to one day pinpoint the time's of our demise?  does one's character and persona and outlook and yea, karma, play a role?

i have met a few people in life who were twisted to such a degree from what might be called normal or healthy human behavior or thought, or stasis, i think they were out of balance with the universe and so dark forces were at play.  it occurred to me those people might die prematurely as a result of what they allowed to become of their minds.  it also occurred to me they might transfer that karma somehow, the sins of the father might be visited on the son or the spouse might project the darkness onto their other half, unawares and unsuspecting but open by ignorance and their own choices. 

is this just me being like what i otherwise despise, creating my own fanciful religion with vague, under-explored ideas about justice?  or could there be something to it?

i love that passage from emerson about human character publishing itself evermore.  it does.  it is.  always and constantly.

there is an acquaintance of mine who supposes to be a nice person.  she adheres to some basic tenets of a formerly more active christian belief system and lifestyle she has fashioned into that which is most convenient.  ghandi rightly said religion without sacrifice was dangerous.  this acquaintance is not in any way unique.  i have a bevy of friends and acquaintances who hold certain beliefs but sacrifice so little for their religion in fact that they do not even attend church, (and i mean, like, ever.)  they claim to be christians but they seek to distance themselves from a certain mainstream christianity because they find it in any number of ways unsavory or wrong-headed.  convenience is the law they keep.  i diverge...

still, human character does publish itself evermore.  show me someone with a mean face, one where the lines are bunched up around the eyes in ways that tend towards scowl, and i'll show you someone who is or has been unhappy.  show me someone who is fat in any degree and i will show you someone who lacks self discipline in some proportionate degree.  show me someone who is socially inept and i will show you someone who does not value the realm of the social as much as the norm.  show me someone who doesn't read and i will show you someone who lacks insight.

my acquaintance is anxious to find the right man and get married and have children and get on with her life.  she is feeling a bit old by comparison to her friends.  she works out and eats right.  she purchased breast implants.  she attends the salon regularly and likes to get out for some occasional night life.  i think this acquaintance's character is publishing away.  she is working overtime to attract men physically.  intellectually she is something of a blank slate.  she has a few semi-formed ideas about morality and the superstitious or magical.  ultimately however i think she is a hot mess.  she is anxious which is anathema to achievement, or peace.  when i am anxious i try to figure out what is wrong with me.  (i am only sometimes successful-ahh cruel fate!)  she will find a man who likes her for who and what she is physically and we know that is temporal.  that relationship will not last, right?  my acquaintance needs balance.

the point is i think there is more at play than the idea that the cancer was random, or the heart disease was genetic, or the addiction was learned. 

what is important to me?  right action is important to me.  avoiding the pitfalls of karma is important to me.  whenever i rebuff bad behavior i think it is my nature to do so and there is a clear benefit to my being that is good karma, that is good health, good luck in some ways.  i know that the world will conspire on my behalf when i am open and honest.

when i was a 10-year-old kid and this man who was married to my mom hit me like he might have hit another grown man in a bar fight. in response there was an urge within me to become angry, truly angry.  angry in a deep seeded way, in a dark way.  even at that age i had this idea that i could get angrier and angrier and i could nurture that dark feeling in my stomach and hold it there so that i could explode later, transform myself into a terrible person, able perhaps to beat someone down with fists and feet or weapons.  i remember turning from that.  i remember knowing that i had to protect the kindness within myself, that it was important for me to not get so angry because acting on such a thing would result in a downward spiral, one in which the first act of mean violence would plant a seed of regret inside me that would grow and demand more terror to tamp it down.  if i reached that point i knew i would also have to create a world view for myself in which i somehow justified my actions.  i'd have this dark world view of absurdism or some such thing, one in which my evil actions were justified by some god or other man made notion, or the belief that all of humanity was somehow irredeemable and therefore it was to the strongest to take and pillory. 

my friend from high school is dying and nine days ago her husband posted in an online journal that life was still hard but that they were all expecting to turn a corner soon and the hope was that she would be cancer free by christmas.  that nine days ago and now i hear she has only a day or two?  (that's a question i don't love.)  the husband was thanking everyone for caring and praying.  he was actively and publicly believing in some combination of a miracle and results from an alternative treatment method that seemed to hold so much hope.  i don't know how i feel about that.

should he put on that positive, faith-based persona?  is that healthy?  or, should he be a bit more realistic and pragmatic about it?  should he admit where my old friend is in the scope of her illness and relative to her death for all to see and read?  should he encourage her to say all she has to say before she leaves because what else is there beyond human relationships.  fix them.  transform them.  nurture them.  build someone up.  profess your love in spite of this horrible condition that is death.  make peace with the idea that life and death are opposite sides of the same stone and death is meant to be bitter in proportion to how much we loved life. 

death always turns into a sermon.  i stopped by a friend's house today and he informed me on the funeral he had attended yesterday.  a friend of his from high school had a sudden heart attack and died at 43 or thereabouts.  the little flyer from the event sat on his coffee table adorned with an eagle soaring above a mountain and the words of a bible verse.

when i die, please, no bible or jesus or moral bullshit.  get together and say nice things about me.  (it would be in such bad form to discuss my many foibles.)  have drinks and feel free to shed a tear that you won't get to hang out with me again and in the process form greater friendships and tighter bonds with each other.  after all what else is there in a world with cancer? 

election day

An election is a moral horror, as bad as a battle except for the blood; a mud bath for every soul concerned in it. - George Bernard Shaw, 1856
- 1950

294 days

yesterday i was anxious.  later i was relieved.  tomorrow i will be nervous and hopeful.  today i am grateful-so, so grateful. 

being unemployed feels like being accused of a crime.  for the last nine-and-one-half months i have been standing trial for the crime of being incompetent, unstable, (emotionally and professionally,) lazy, discontented, stupid, unlucky and an infidel.  i'll admit it up front and i'll proclaim it loudly for all the world to hear. i don't think there's any shame in it.  i'm sensitive. 

i'm sensitive because i grew up without my mother and never knowing my father.  at my age it feels like an excuse to even bring facts such as these up but there is a reason i am sensitive and that reason dates back to the '70s and beyond.

what happened to me, how i became unemployed is a long story.  the short version is i up and resigned from a job in direct defiance of a long term plan i had in place.  sans an undergraduate degree and employed in the same place for 12 years i meant to stay put and continue to rise through the ranks.  i aggressively changed that plan when i felt like i had been at the place too long, when i felt like i had enough confidence that i could succeed elsewhere without a degree to declare my competency, when my wife was working in the same place as me and at the same level, and when a new boss seemed to see me as just another of so many quarreling children on the team, i resigned to take a job at a start-up company.  what?  me worry?

it was pollyannish of me.  i assumed everything would work out somehow.  i was perfectly aware the company could fail but i soldiered on hoping i could make a difference and we would conquer the world of english language learning.  two months after i left elliot spitzer wrote a dark op-ed in the new york times foreshadowing a financial meltdown of epic proportions.  eight months later the world economy was in the tank.  12 months after that i was laid off, (affected in the third round of such layoffs.) 

seven months later i went to work for an ignorant, boorish man.  i knew it was not the right place for me, considering my personal philosophy.  still, for about my first year in his employ that small business owner showered me with great angel tickets, gift cards and glowing introductions all in addition to my salary.  he bought my truck and thereby relieved me of the burden of automobile insurance, gas expenses, and mechanical outlays.  i was favored.  around the one year mark the relationship strained.  he expected me to manage the entire business while spending 4-8 hours every day listening to him pontificate on best business practices as he saw them and other sundry items and complimenting him his brilliance and insight.  i faked it in the first year but slowly, (and surely,) i lost that ability.  i should have left his employ much sooner than i did but finding and securing jobs is not of my strengths. 

i interviewed for a job last september that was especially attractive to me.  however, i did not land it.  i was looking but i was not finding and in early december push came  to shove and i was laid off, (or resigned depending on how you interpret the events of december 5th.)  the first morning i woke up without a job i was worried but still felt like a champ.  i did not have to go to a job any longer wherein people were treated like material commodities to be used up and left by the wayside whenever they crossed management.  i did not have to go and espouse and enforce policies and philosophies that are and were at odds with how i believe business should be run in order to thrive.  i did try to promote discussions of these things and to shed light on my perspective, though it was difficult because people who talk constantly never listen.

throughout the entire time i was unemployed i never faltered in knowing i did the right thing by refusing  to work for that person any longer.  it is not that he is an evil or bad person.  it is merely that we are at odds in just about every way imaginable other than the fact that we both craved success.  my lot was untenable because i had to go about pursuing that success by a manner i found obtuse, unproductive and often times demeaning. 

i filed for unemployment and had no problem securing the maximum benefit of $900 every two weeks.  i am grateful to the american taxpayers for providing this safety net.  it was not enough to live on.  i have two children in private school and thankfully i was able to keep them in their school uninterrupted but it was not easy.  (i'll return to all the people i owe thanks to momentarily.)

i don't know who if anyone looked at me as incompetent.  i am sure it happened.  people judge other people in snaps. 

this person is unemployed?  what a loser.  let me now talk to him and see if there is some way i can take advantage of him since he must be a dullard.  (i have to explain this is not particularly indicative of my world view but i know these people exist and i am sure i came in contact with them.) 

there was a mom of one of the kid's classmates whom i spoke to shortly after terminating employment who reacted to what i was telling her as if i was an irresponsible jerk.  she did  not come right out and say anything so direct but she feigned an exasperated gasp of questioning as to how i could conceivably let that relationship get to the point of the employment terminating so suddenly.  she had not walked in my shoes and she certainly did not know the extraordinary circumstances that working in that environment represented.  she did not see the line of good people leave that place prior to me, some in fits of rage, others as coolly as a harvard business book, still others with a quiet reserved dignity.

at times i thought any number of persons might have just thought i was in some way unstable.  after all i had left a job i had been at for 12 years.  in fact i am not the most stable person.  the values represented by our society as it lives and breathes everyday are certainly not aligned with my values.  that said i think that is true of the majority of us.  so when i say i am unstable, i do not mean in an especially abnormal way.  it's a crazy world and i am an insane man.

i am not lazy but when i was an adolescent my parents did label me as the lazy kid in the family.  years later i realized i had to fight that stigma by telling myself i was not lazy.  i do have a certain yearning for efficiency.  sometimes i will combine projects, which can look like laziness.  still, in most of my work places i have been praised for my work ethic.  i can remember the first times i heard that and not believing it.  that is how insidious the idea of laziness was inside of me.  moreover i think this is the thing many people fear about the unemployed.  they go to work every day and they work hard and they see the money in numbers on their paycheck that they never get because it is paid in taxes for so many things including the social safety net that is unemployment insurance.  personally i have paid into that fund for 30 years so i know i need not feel guilty for taking advantage of it. 

i had a friend admit to me recently that she was milking unemployment as she worked on her 2nd novel.  she hoped to be published and find her way into a career of letters. however, a short time later she got a job offer and snapped it up.  from what i can tell she is happier than she has been in some time, writing news stories for a small local paper.  and that is the myth about the unemployed.  by and large they are not taking advantage of the program.  they may suffer any number of maladies.  they may be short on self confidence or initiative.  they may be plagued by alcoholism and addiction.  they may be slow, obtuse or socially inept.  they may even nervously tell you at a reunion of sorts that they are taking advantage of the system, which is merely yet another veiled form of guilt.  ultimately the unemployed have one thing in common with one another, their self esteem suffers as a consequence of being unemployed and not having an income.  i fought that everyday over the last 294 days.

was i or am i discontented?  sure, in some regards.  ours is a utilitarian society.  like most human beings i would rather earn my living doing something that nourishes me in deep, meaningful ways.  in my career i have sought ways to build creativity into my roles in order to increase my happiness.  as a trainer i savored the seasons of creating training, drawing flip charts and assembling powerpoints.  in the classroom i enjoyed diverging from the subject matter on occasion to keep everyone refreshed and engaged.  these things can help sustain me through tasks like listening to customer service calls and scoring them in order to subsequently coach someone on their performance, or taking a call myself from an angry customer.

regarding the indictment of being stupid i am fairly secure that my friends and family do not see me in this way.  strangers are another story.  a few months ago i joined a club in order to improve myself and in large part because i have had spare time being unemployed.  in a small group i was asked what i do for a living and i confessed to being unemployed.  a short time later, with only golden intentions, i was informed of a job fair for entry level csr's that would be happening in the coming days.  the person reminded me that i should dress up and bring a resume.  (did i have a resume?)  this stranger was not in any way being rude.  she did not know me from adam and perhaps she imbued me as an unemployed person with certain qualities she either found familiar or that she associated with people my age who find themselves unemployed.  in any case i am not stupid but it is yet another possibility which i was inclined to defend myself from even if i did not follow through and defend myself.

was it forrest gump who said lucky is as lucky does?  (perhaps that one should have been used in the previous graph?)  well, we make our own luck, right?  luck is the residue of skill.  so if i am unlucky at having become unemployed it is natural for me to take that on as yet another fault i need to clear from my own internal hard wiring.  maybe i was unlucky at having found my last employer but at the time it felt like great fortune after having been unemployed for a brief season previously. 

as an avowed agnostic and someone who is prone to just call myself an atheist, (because i like those people,) i do have certain people in my life who profess to know things about me mystically.  there were those who claimed i needed jesus to help me find a job.  others merely stated that this was all part of god's plan for me.  i guess i was meant to suffer my way back to a perfect state of fear and subjectivity.  so i confess, i am an infidel in as much as i am not a believer.  my unemployment, however, may have been a result of any number of things none of which are my disbelief.

so it is that this dreary season has come to an end.  i am employed and i have a start date two weeks from today.  this morning i received a call from the recruiter letting me know my background check was completed and that she will be in touch with me next week with the particulars I'll need for my first day of work. hooray!

it has been bleak.  as i was prone to tell friends and family throughout this process i believed my resume did a great job.  i had many interviews over the last 294 days.  i feel sure my interview skills betrayed me.  one of my first interviews was with a booming shoe company on the westside.  the manager there, i was told, really liked me but did not believe my lack of e-commerce experience could serve in the role i interviewed for.  the call center was so impacted with service levels completely in contrast to anything resembling good service so she needed someone with that specific experience who could get up and running quickly.  i had been found for the position by a recruiter who worked closely with that company and let me know later that the manager said she would like to revisit bringing me in as a quality assurance and training manager a few months down the road.  that was encouraging but never materialized.  at the end of it all i wasn't sure i wanted to drive to marina del rey everyday to work, anyways.  traffic...

i had a friend early on who tried to help me get my foot in the door with a great company in downtown los angeles.  this was a preferred company to be sure.  i had already interviewed with a recruiter who took no more than three days to get back to me and let me know they were looking for someone with more e-commerce experience.  my friend sent my resume to a high level contact he had who forwarded it to the head of the customer service department, (copying my friend who in turn forwarded to me,) and suggesting i came  highly recommended and she should review the resume ahead of possibly bringing me in for an interview.  that interview never materialized.  i guess i wasn't right. 

i interviewed twice for a job with an online printing company.  the human resources manager made no bones about the fact that she just thought i was perfect for the position.  she said she would be getting back to me with an interview date with the cfo who was back east that particular week.  the next week she never contacted me.  when i finally reached her she informed me they had filled the position.  three weeks later she called me back to ask if i was still interested.  i was.  i interviewed with the cfo who told me they had hired someone who worked for one week then quit because she had gotten a job with a really good company in downtown los angeles.  (yeah, i feel certain it was that position.)  so, he said, they had returned to the process and i was the first person to come in of what he expected to be many.  i can't be sure why i wasn't right for that job but they never called me again and i knew it was going that way when i left his office.  i felt like i was perhaps too strong a personality for him.  i have distinct ideas about what constitutes good customer service, how it should be delivered and how an organization can achieve this.  perhaps he wanted someone more mold-able. 

i interviewed in el segundo with an online makeup company.  the manager explained to me in the interview that she had lost her manager to a booming shoe company just up the coast.  (yes, i believe it was that booming shoe company.)  i think the question i got tangled up in was about how i, as a man, could lead a customer service team dealing with something so distinctly feminine in nature.  i remember saying my wife had strong feelings about makeup and i remember the manager responding by saying every woman has strong feelings about makeup.  i think that was it.  i thought i did well otherwise but i think i was disqualified for that position on the basis of that one moment in the interview. 

i interviewed for a dental group in south gate.  i thought i had a good shot at that position but the manager called me the very next day and let know he appreciated me coming in but that i would not be moving forward in the process.  this is yet another thing for which the unemployed need thick skin.  rejection.  i was rejected for all of these positions.  i was not good enough.  in spite of the fact i take great care to be informed in my area, i work hard to be a professional and to ensure i will be more than competitive in the work place, in spite of the fact i am articulate, knowledgeable, personable and computer and industry savvy, i was rejected about every three to four weeks for the past 294 days.  in case you don't know let me tell you something about this one particular point.  it fucking sucks.  more, it fucking sucks the self esteem out of your heart like a parasite.

a friend contacted me about a position with a really good company in glendale.  she had me jump through about 18,000 hoops then one week later she called to let me know they did not think my experience was right for the job.  she had also called me a few weeks earlier about a temporary contract position with an aerospace company.  (yeah, who knew those jobs still existed?)  on that occasion also my experience was unacceptable. 

there's more.  several more but those are perhaps the ones that have stayed with me a bit.  the job i landed is closely aligned with my experience.  the manager who interviewed me first exemplified my values.  she said to me her job is to ensure the csr's outside her office on the floor have good reason to get up and come into work.  she asked me about my philosophy for managing csr's and i told her i thought it was an especially stressful job, that these representatives have to be accountable to someone directly on the phone for maybe 2-5 minutes at a time with working breaks of another couple of minutes between such periods.  in the course of these calls the customer expects them to be empathetic, to genuinely care, to be an expert on the business of the company, to take responsibility for whatever has occurred and to fashion a solution in mere seconds.  i explained to that manager that in this role i think it is my job to help them be better and better at being all of these things to the customer and also to support them with tools to increase their rate of success.  that interview for me became a discussion.  we talked for about an hour and i was treated with the respect perhaps due a thoughtful and motivated person in the industry with 15-plus years experience.  she made it clear to me our customer service philosophies were in harmony, (if not unison.) 

next i interviewed with would be peers and as with a company down in cerritos i was worried i had perhaps been a bit too articulate and ambitious.  one of my recruiters had also suggested to me ahead of an interview with the booming shoe company that i was a strong personality and that could work against me on occasion.  still, she recommended me rolling the dice and being me.  in cerritos i felt certain it cost me but in retrospect i did not need to be at that telcom.  working with insecure people who are perhaps more interested in their personal career plight than in just working hard toward the company's objectives and thereby coloring their workplace reputation is less than ideal for me.  according the my human resources contact i was a unanimous choice in a lengthy process that included many candidates.  i could not be more pleased or optimistic about my new position.  in addition to matching up with a company that is vastly similar to the company i spent nearly 12 years with the people i have already been in contact with and who interviewed me reflect glowingly on the company.  (yes, in some part because they chose me.  you see-i am working on my self esteem?)

so it is that i am grateful.  i need to call these people and send out notes but here is a quick laundry list of those who helped me get through this mean season.

first and foremost my children helped me to persevere.  they were very much aware of the fact that daddy did not have a job but they were still just themselves everyday.  they smiled at me everyday.  recently mark said to me out of the blue as he walked up to me and hugged me, "best dad ever."  he's five.  man, i smiled for about an hour over that one. 

thanks to my friend gabe de la rosa who recommended me to that great company in downtown la.  thanks to my friend brian lamp who checked in on me every few weeks to let me know about places he had been looking for me and who always asked how i was doing and what irons i had in the fire.  thanks to a former associate who presented me to that aerospace company and to glendale's best online, diy legal eagles to no avail, and to my friend charles, who i once had the extreme bad fortune of having to terminate from my employ, who checked in at that glendale company on my behalf as he worked there for several years.  thanks to my best buddy steve who listened to my interview stories and got mad on my behalf i was not getting hired.  thanks to my mother-in-law and sisters and brother-in-law who always treated me with respect and dignity in spite of the fact my wife and i separated and i became unemployed within one month of one another.  the occasional babysitting was also appreciated.  thanks to henry and monique who always expressed disbelief when i did not get the job.  i told mo i needed an appointment with her before all of my interviews because she made me feel like a champ.  thanks to a former mentor and manager who has been helpful and instructive several times in the recently rocky course of my career; jeanie. she along with 10 other people responded positively to a plea for endorsements i made through linkedin.com and endorsed me.  along with jeanie i owe thanks to: david from my firefighting days, joe, stella and sarah who i worked with at the water company, vicky, rafael, jose and trina from the english language company, (for having spent less than two years there i met the best people,) and greg and ashley who i worked with most recently and who represent special endorsements for me because they come from that bad employer i had and they are two people who preceded me out the door both in an especially unhappy manner.  (moreover, both of these people are especially impressive people in the workplace.  it is hard to imagine how a company can succeed when it bleeds good people like these but then again, a consultant once suggested to me in a very wink-wink fashion in that very workplace that sometimes businesses succeed in spite of their owners.)  linkedin has a tool for requesting these endorsements and this was something i used only recently, as my desperation grew, so as you can imagine i was truly touched when they began coming in.  Jeanie responded practically immediately.  Joe wrote a glowing endorsement.  Ashley showed real caring and asked me to keep her up to date.  (note to self; call ashley when done writing.)  if any of these people every needed someone to testify to the pure golden quality of their individual characters, i will be first in line.

thanks also to my ex who expressed genuine happiness when she learned i had gotten the job and who was also considerate when i first became unemployed.  (we'll always have the sizzler.)  thanks to david and pete who kept me sane on a daily basis, who commiserated with me and agreed with my notions about the process and how vapid my previous employer was.  thanks to lily who adjusted my resume, cover letter and nearly my linkedin account too.  thanks to my brother and sara.  thanks to my dad and carol.  thanks to todd and chris.  thanks to the people at my kid's school who understood and gave us a discount for a season.  thanks to ashley who gave me discounted haircuts and gave terra the cutest doo ever.  thanks to dominique who accepted me last week ahead of my 2nd interview on short notice to tidy up my don draper haircut.  thanks to destiney, amy jean, tanya, alicia, joel, john, mary, wolf and perhaps most of all stephanie, all good people formerly employed in that horrific place, (of whom stephanie tells me i am the, "best boss ever," every time i contact her, well, both times i contacted her first for info and second to see if she was interested in a job i had been contacted about.)  thanks too, to linda, kathryn, bill, eddie, shane, steve, chris, mike, scott, jessica, sylvia, chad, mike, jesse, jesse, ruben, felix, rob, tami, lisa, rodney, dee2, katie and all of my friends and acquaintances who helped me feel normal and worth a damn during this time when it was easy to feel sorry for myself or less than.  i know it's not an academy award, this getting employed moment in time, but it's been hard and i love my people and think the world of them.