follow my bliss

my name is michael and i am unemployed.  if admitting you have a problem is the first step toward overcoming it i am more than willing to let it be known.  being unemployed sucks even if i am the recipient of a maximum unemployment benefit every two weeks.  (sincere thanks to my community for your support.)

i have been working awfully hard to find gainful employment.  i have been on numerous interviews but for whatever reason, i just haven't gotten the offer as yet.  i spend my time looking and applying for jobs, taking care of my children, watching movies, staying informed, socializing with my friends, and reading books.  i am about to finish joseph campbell's 'the power of myth,' and like most books i feel like campbell is trying to tell me something but it is difficult to discern the message or perhaps it is just difficult finding a way to implement the message.

campbell is telling me to follow my bliss and i want to.  i want to follow my bliss badly.  recently as i have been unemployed and have had the luxury of free time i have considered what i really want to do with myself.  campbell said that if i am in a career or profession i do not find bliss in then i may be blocked.  he also said, "i think that anyone brought up in an extremely strict, authoritative social situation is unlikely ever to come to the knowledge of himself."

that fits me.  i grew up being told what to do and i was certainly indoctrinated.  first it was my grandfather who said it was his way or the highway.  later it was my uncle who i came to consider my father.  not only did he institute a firm hierarchy within the household in which i was not allowed to question him whatsoever with reprisal found in the strap of a belt, but he also gave me religion.  in the church, a christian fundamentalist church, i was taught to consider the will of god before making any or every decision.  talk about stultifying.  in the air force i was told not to question.  period.  mine was to do.  the spittled direction of my drill sergeant was to inquire as to how high i should jump on my way up.  in other words, do before thinking, or, follow orders before thinking.  at school i was told what to study, when to turn in assignments and what i needed to learn.  in fact when i dropped out of college, or, each time i dropped out of college, i discovered i had a severe authority complex.  i even decided to educate myself by reading the books i wanted to read.  (to give you an idea of the education i ended up with, here's a list of some of the books i chose: tropic of cancer, journey to the end of night, hunger, colossus of maroussi, sexus, plexus, nexus, sextet, henry miller on writing, the satanic verses, shame, the moor's last sigh, the ground beneath her feet, foucault's pendulum, a spy in the house of love, letters to a young poet, immortality, the unbearable lightness of being, laughable loves, the book of laughter and forgetting, things fall apart, don quixote, one hundred years of solitude, lolita, the sailor who fell from grace with the sea, the catcher in the rye, the death of ivan ilyich, the sun also rises, the stranger, the plague, slaughterhouse five, on the road, fahrenheit 451, i, claudius, claudius the god, stranger in a strange land, a confederacy of dunces, atlas shrugged, and many others.  many others including those i was told to read prior to my self education.)

i took exception almost randomly.  i hated cops and bosses.  i despised referees and got kicked out of recreational league basketball games every so often for openly berating them.  i wanted the world to be a meritocracy but of course, it is not.  in concert with my authority complex i came to love justice.  in short i became fiercely independent with absolutely no idea how to be independent.  for this there are consequences.

anyway, the point is not to bemoan all the shit from my childhood that may or may not have affected me and my decisions as an adult.  i am unemployed and i have been working like hell to find my way back into the workforce in the area i have been in for a number of years so as to command the highest wage possible for my family.  is it my bliss?  sadly, no.  it is not my bliss-it's not even close to my bliss, (though to be fair i have found gratifying aspects of it to make it tolerable.) 

what is my bliss?  i like to write.  i blog even, though almost no one reads my blog.  (apologies to my brother who is the only person likely to read it.)  beyond my brother the only persons to ever read my blog are people i might pass it to on occasion but since i do not blog regularly there is little chance of those people reading it on any regular basis.  moreover, it's not a particularly interesting blog.  my writing skills are mediocre-i write for me.  it is essentially just a public journal.  still, i enjoy the process of writing quite a lot and it is bliss for me.  however, i don't necessarily like the idea of turning this bliss into sustenance for fear the act of jotting down my thoughts or attempting a sort of art of the written word could somehow be sullied for me.

recently i have considered trying to perform standup comedy.  i am critical of most comedians and i hold the great comedians in the highest esteem. lenny bruce, andy kaufman, dick gregory, richard pryor, george carlin, robin williams, steve martin, woody allen, chris rock,sam kinison, billy crystal, jim carrey, lily tomlin, johnny carson, bill hicks, and  bill maher are like gods to me.  the reason i love comedy is because i find people inescapably entrenched in an idealogy they usually adopted without any sort of critical analysis.  comedy seems to me the only remedy for that ailment.  comedy was crucial to me leaving behind the republican, christian ideas of my youth, you know, the ones foisted upon me by all those who would tell me what to do, what to read, what to think, and not to question.  if not for george carlin reaching me, if not for the lenny bruce movie with dustin hoffman, if not for kaufman and pryor and others pointing out the absurd, i may not have been able to move.  comedy is powerful.  when bruce and carlin discussed words and the power of words the message was plain and clear.  i came to know for certain that words were just words but that ideas held real power.  i came to know that the more you say fuck, the less power it holds.  fuck.  fuck.  fuck.  fuck.  fuck.  it is just a word.  fuck.  it represents a multitude of ideas.  for some it means intercourse.  for others it may represent something far more violent and selfish.  it is not love.  it is fuck.  fuck.  use it in public or in a controlled environment and watch the feathers ruffle.  it is a powerful word.  fuck.  fuck it.  fuck you.  i don't give a flying fuck.  people offended by words are silly and impertinent is what i came to conclude.  when i say fuck my five-year-old son hears fock.  i know because the other day he hit his foot on the coffee table and blurted out "fock!"  subsequently we had a discussion about where he heard that word, (me,) and what it means, (it means he is mad.)  i explained the word is not socially acceptable and so he cannot use it in public ever.  he understood and i haven't heard it since.  in the course of our conversation we both used the word several times.  i wasn't freaked out as if his use of the word had to be stopped post haste as if it meant something about him.  in fact i told him there is a time to use that word, like when he accidentally kicks the coffee table with his bare foot.  (that said we went on to agree we should both exercise greater control so that we do not utter it inadvertently in public.)  but, fuck.  fuck.  are you shocked?  i did not think so but even less with how many times i have written the word here, right?  anyway, the comedians helped me to understand this point.  (fuck-lenny bruce died for trying to make this point.)  for me comedy is a powerful art form.  comedy can help people to change.  so i have wondered recently if comedy could be my bliss.

campbell said it is possible to be so influenced by the ideals and commands of my neighborhood that i might not really know what i really want to or could be.  when i think about what i like to write about, or the comedy i was writing for a would be performance some weeks back, or the movies i tend to enjoy or the books i choose to read, (or my values,) i can see my bliss in there.  my bliss is about justice and hastening change.  my bliss is about defending the powerless.  (why wouldn't it be considering my relative lack of power?) 

i was born into this world by a 14-year-old mother who went on to spend my childhood in various penitentiaries.  my father was a popular boy at school two years her senior who was in absentia for me from day one.  i never met him.  i never had any power.  when i reached the age of making my own decisions, (and in spite of my inability to do so,) i found i was alone.  while i was especially fortunate to have my uncle step in and essentially take over as my father the relationship was and is not of the ilk i could, for example, ask him for a loan.  i was and remain alone, (excepting my children of course.)  the family and friends i have who would help me out if ever a need arose, are not of the means to do much and i don't mean to lament that fact.  i am of the masses and this fact defines me for me. 

i am, however, familiar with those who are unlike me.  i know some who have had certain advantages passed down to them from their forebears.  (i still think born rich is perhaps the most powerful film i have ever seen.)  there are millions upon millions of people who have had it worse than me but still, i see a wealthy world around me with a glut of riches and instead of a reasonable distribution of that wealth or fair access to it i see an elite, wealthy class controlling everything.  had i been born out in the desert somewhere and left to fend for myself i would ultimately discover that i need currency just to have a place to live or else i should go to jail.  i cannot squat on some unused piece of land out in the wilderness.  i am forced to participate in this society.  i am not totally opposed to that idea but i yearn for fairness.  if in fact i was born with certain unalienable rights, (included among those the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,) i want those rights to have meaning.  i want to be free and i want to be free to pursue my own interests.  as it is i am beholden to participate.  i must work.  that particular value is non-negotiable.  i must work.  in spite of my willingness to work very hard at a variety of tasks my ability to choose at what endeavor i will work is limited.  if i participate in such a way as to follow all of the rules by succeeding in school at all levels in order to get into my desired profession it is possible to find and choose my bliss.  however, in this day i would likely have accrued a burdensome debt for my trouble.  is that fair?  i don't think so.  when this country offered free public education even through college, (like most of the countries of europe and even some third world countries like cuba,) when the collective society offered health care to everyone as part and parcel of citizenship, when we sought to rehabilitate instead of simply to incarcerate, we were a more fair and equitable country.  what happened?  our wealthy class used their wealth to change policies.  they have purchased our democracy and they employ vast amounts of propaganda to persuade the regular and poor masses to push forward their agenda, which is basically a set of policies meant to help them to control their money not just for now but forever. 

ours is a utilitarian society and there are not many children who grow up wanting to be grocery store clerks or garbage men, honorable professions as they may be.  the point is we all have to participate, unless of course we are wealthy.  i knew someone whose grandfather drew some famous cartoons back in the '50s and '60s.  the cartoons provided such a level of wealth that neither the person i knew nor his father have ever worked.  they work on cars, making hotrods, but it is not a money-making venture in any respect.  i have known a few wealthy people and of course i have known of many wealthy persons.  my observation is that those who have no need whatsoever to pursue a living because they have been given a substantial amount of wealth do not make for good, contributing members of society.  (again, see born rich for several examples.)  in any case this is my perspective and from whence it comes. 

campbell said if i don't listen to the demands of my heart, (if i don't pursue my bliss,) i risk a schizophrenic crackup.  he said i would be off centered.  he said there are countless people who have stopped listening to themselves but rather listen to their neighbors to learn what they ought to do, how they ought to behave, and what the values are they should live for. 

i don't feel like i can reach my bliss.  it feels too far far away.  i feel too old to even think about my bliss.  entertaining thoughts of my bliss feels expensive.  i love joseph campbell and am grateful for learning what i am learning from him.  (by the way he also told me i should read multiple books by an author rather then perhaps the best work of so many in order to really gain something from the voice by getting closer to knowing what he or she was going through or from whence he came.  i like that idea.  it makes sense and is in contrast to what i have done excepting a few beloved writers.)  even this exercise has helped me to understand that my bliss lies in working to overcome the ignorance and darkness of the world, to uplift the masses and create more equitable societies.  still, i don't know how to do that and survive, and provide for my family.  i need to get back to customer service.

big change

i was thinking about an acquaintance of mine who in many ways i detest. i like him though, too. he is the type of person who when conversations turn political he immediately chimes in with what i will call the right wing mantra. it is almost comical how quickly, easily and innocently, (really,) he will state his case.

"lower taxes on the super wealthy is the only way to stimulate the economy."

"we have to invest in military defense funding or someone will come kick our ass."

"the war on drugs is necessary to maintain the moral fiber of our country."

that is the kind of crap this acquaintance will spew at the slightest provocation. it is at once maddening and endearing.

i was him once, too. i was a young republican. i was a conservative christian. i was a zealot of the first order in as much as i considered evangelizing my highest priority. politically, i voted for reagan and considered him the very best of governors. this is why i want to see where this acquaintance is in 10 years.

will he still be republican?

i could not be more diametrically opposite today from who i was back then in terms of values and political views. in those days i hated sin and cared mostly about the souls of men for eternity. today i care about people, large and small, far and wide, and their lives here in earth, (which is to say the conditions in which they live and their overall quality of life.) in those days if a politician professed his belief in jesus and pursued policies that seemed decent and righteous, i supported him. today if a politician fights for the people and takes positions that would lift the quality of life for the masses, i am for him.

when i was a young man i would speak to a liberal from time to time and there were times when i thought i discerned a certain smugness. today it seems like that smugness was really just how someone comes across when they are right. in any case i argued. i always felt like right was on my side, god's side. i had very little doubt, (until when my doubt grew.)

so i can't help but wonder if the day will come when this acquaintance too, will wake from his slumber and discover the truth. as it is he seems to hold his views out of altruism, which is to say he is a true believer. (i have no indication he is christian or in any way religious.) he believes tax cuts for the rich help america and all of her people. he believes labor unions are passe and corporations can be trusted to check themselves. he believes a number of ridiculous things that any sincere study should help one overcome but of course, too often what happens with most people is we become ideologues and we do not rise to the challenge of embracing change, real change, the kind of change that forces us to admit, "damn, yesterday i was something of an idiot." in fact if i get any credit in life thus far it is probably for this one thing. it was not easy and it certainly was not overnight. i resisted. but in time i changed completely. from zealot to agnostic, republican to progressive liberal, (ahh the labels sometimes just fail,) certain to uncertain, uninterested in real introspection, capable of it if still lazy too often, and the list goes on and on.

my acquaintance is a young man. he seems to be the kind of fellow who embraces the community of life, which is to say he enjoys the social nature of human beings. i was always like that. i wonder if that is what helped me move beyond the things of my youth and if in turn it will help my friend to embrace some change as it were.

the anarchy posts II

volume 1 - everything you know is wrong

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher
a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts,
build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders,
cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for
insects.
-robert a. heinlein

specialization

i don't specialize. specialization is anathema to my essence. in our utilitarian society i could easily consider this aversion to be a curse or berate myself for not conforming, (or worse,) but i prefer to embrace this quality. the world seems to require specialization. i abhor it. i prefer variety.

specialization is for insects, heinlein said, and he was right. humans are wonderfully complex, unique and interesting creatures. we were meant to do all those things heinlein mentioned and a million-trillion more.

we all have just one life and while we live in a utilitarian society, which demands some amount of specialization for survival, it is still unnatural to our species to focus on just a few disciplines. moreover, when an employer demands specialization, they degrade the human experience. 

in a factory environment it is easy to see the value in specialization.  a piece of machinery is fairly complicated and accomplishes an important task in the fabrication process over and over and over. it makes sense to have a person operate that machine so that man and machine become as one and achieve maximum productivity, (particularly on the investment that is the machine.)  there are certain human beings who can thrive in that environment.  those obsessive compulsives who enjoy repetition and live in their own inner worlds are perhaps best suited for this type of employment.  that person however, is a slim minority.  what would be ideal for most humans in a factory setting would be if the employer trained and offered skills in several possibly related tasks which could be rotated.  in that way the stakeholder in the business, (the factory worker,) works and lives in a few environments, stays trained and up to date on developments in multiple disciplines and in turn has a higher quality of life from the challenge and the variety which in itself nurtures focus or at least meets the human psyche where it naturally thrives.  where would you rather work?  in the same place every day on the same piece of equipment doing the same task repetitively ad nauseum?  or the living, breathing factory wherein you are truly part of a team, rotating through a variety of tasks, competing on several levels most importantly with some other factory somewhere which manufactures the same final product, challenging yourself to do a good job and staying current on all aspects of your employment? 

variety represents control and humans prefer to control their own lives as much as possible.  it is likely true that most crime is enacted either in order to exert control or as a result of decreased or diminished control.  in this way variety represents better human health. 

after all of the education that culminated in high school graduation i went to live on campus at a four-year university and while i was irresponsible and i was bored and i was unfocused and undisciplined and i preferred socializing to organized learning, the real reason i failed after just two semesters was because i did not want anything to do with the specialization of settling into a career. not only did it frighten me, it made me numb.  my young life had been marked by the constant institution of structure and order and in escaping childhood i hoped and expected to be able to increase my control and spend a season exploring my natural compulsions to learn and experience sans a grand plan.  it made dropping out of college a natural and easy choice. it felt like loosening the chains and emerging to the first sweet droplets of freedom.  still, one needs currency just to survive, to say nothing of partaking of life in leaps and gulps and wide-eyed, symphonies and feasts of interest and engagement and fascination.

it is natural that employment should be at odds to some degree with the human condition, (voltaire be damned.)  some discipline is certainly good.  (and as i have mentioned numerous times, balance is the one quality that should be sought above all others and in heaping portions.) 

i went into the air force for four years and learned the skill of firefighting. i enjoyed learning how to fight fire and how to give advanced first aid and emergency care. i felt like i was living when i learned how to climb ladders and tie knots in the air force fire academy. when i manned a handline going into a fully involved structural blaze and encountered a wall of flames behind a door my crew had knocked down with an axe and widened my stream of water to cover the door and thereby kept the smoke and flames at bay, my life and my days seemed to crackle with electric, human energy. when i gave first aid to dead babies or murdered stepfathers or crashed motorcyclists, i transcended firefighting and what it is or was to be a firefighter. at other times when my fellow firefighters seemed like caricatures, living for vacations at the river, drinking way too much and practicing infidelity in, (or outside of,) their relationships, when exercises droned on with role playing any number of firefighting or hazmat scenarios, or when hours in the station bent into days and weeks wasted watching tv and polishing trucks and waiting, waiting, waiting for something to shake me from my somnambulence, i became utterly clear i was not ready to settle into a career as a firefighter. 

i worked in a bookstore for a few years.  the first two years went by in a blink of an eye.  every week i discovered a new author.  in spite of low wages i was allowed to take home stripped books or borrow hardcover books sans the dust jacket and i got an employee discount on the books that did not fit into either of those categories.  during those years i lapped up the works of henry miller, (and his favorites which he so graciously shared with me; his reader: blaise cendrars, knut hamsun, and the inimitable louis-ferdinand celine,) milan kundera, albert camus, umberto eco, salman rushdie, ernest hemingway, fyodor dostoyevsky, and leo tolstoy.  i nibbled at the ideas of rousseau, keynes, nietzsche, adam smith and chomsky.  i inhaled biographies of my heroes and icons.  eventually, through no fault of the writers, the book store ran its course for me but it was a wonderful time. 

i worked for two years as a laborer and carpenter apprentice. i felt the exhileration of demolishing structures. when i hammered away at an edifice i could feel my own muscles flexing unto impact and the feel of destruction radiating from hammer's head through my angry right arm into my heart which ached to destroy as all human hearts do.  i learned architectural principles, how to hammer bags and bags of 16-penny nails, how to screw risers so they would not squeak, how to roll trusses and stack roofs and how to build things.  it was like learning how to be physically human.  i would never have any interest in lifting weights in order to increase strength but increasing strength in order to accomplish more at work or be more skilled was instinctive.  walking on one-and-three-quarter inch wide pieces of wood set 16 inches apart 12 to 25 feet above ground was a skill worth learning.  after 10 hours of working with wood i would often go to the park to play basketball for 90 minutes and my body was a finely tuned machine.  had i made a career in construction my body today would be beaten up and worn down and i still need it for perhaps another 40 years so that was not a viable career. 

eventually i found my way into a call center where i was tasked with giving good customer service, which as a member not only of the proletariat but also of that distinct class therein which is naturally inclined to subservience, came quite easy to me.  supporting an organization and providing customer service was like common sense to me.  it wasn't that it required not thinking but rather that the principles employed were natural to me and what i had done representing myself to that point in life every day.  in that call center i was promoted to a point where i made a living wage.  i dropped out of school again, which is my greatest failure.  i got comfortable and became absorbed in the act of finding or settling upon a mate.  still, initially it was fascinating practicing and discerning the components of customer service.  i became a trainer and as such i was able to dissect all aspects of what we did.  i broke down the idea of empathy, compartmentalized it into addressing it in the past, present and future, and trained others on first how to think about it and second how to deliver it successfully.  similarly i broke down my own ergonomics training to understand why the ideal positions were ideal, what repetetive stress injuries and cumulative trauma disorders were in plain language so i could deliver my own training of, to and for the people.  customer service is another way of saying how to win friends and influence people and in that way it is a life skill, hence why and how i was able to stay involved in that field for many years, (even if i refused to apply the principles of the same for so many years to my personal life like the proverbial south going oxe.)  moreover by moving from agent to lead to trainer to supervisor to account manager to manager i have been able to create my own variety.

this is a tough day and age in terms of utilitarianism.  it is the order of the day.  specialization is heralded as the culmination of human thought on productivity.  that conclusion is without regard for the stakeholder in any business who is the employee, (or worker.)  rather, the stakeholder is just another commodity representative of another part of the productivity equation neither more nor less than the machine itself.  forthat reason workers should always seek variety and diversity.  ultimately society needs to adapt work to the needs of the human stakeholder in such a way it blends and seeks balance between the production and serving the man, mankind and our various societies. 

everything you know is wrong.  specialization is for insects and does not serve the individual, which by turn does not serve society.

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.

dancing

i was always a dancer. still, last night at the hollywood bowl, dancing in a time warp with a throng of 40-somethings bopping and contorting to the tunes of berlin, the fixx, the b-52s and human league, i couldn't help but recall my dancing past.

specifically, i remembered my friend, katie d's den, in claremont. her parents weekended in carlsbad and so, the party started midday on fridays and extended typically to monday mornings, when we would all shuffle home and ultimately to school where many of us would reconvene to work on a college newspaper. the weekends and nights at kathryn's were beer-drenched and clouded by a haze of ganja. conversations in the back yard around the pool were extensions of english literature classes and weeknight poetry readings in random coffee houses. my mexican friends always praised garcia lorca, neruda and borges while the colombians and those white kids from the inland empire just wanted to talk about sepultura or ozzy, or metallica.

kathryn was a chameleon. as gregarious as girls get she was our hostess and also the magnet that brought these disparate cliques together. in addition to the colombians and the white, long-haired inland empire rockers, and the baldwin park contingent who travelled like coyotes to anyplace that held even the slightest promise of barley pops, there were kathryn's claremont friends, the children of the liberal, academic elite, with their perfect skin and brilliant white teeth. (surprisingly, they were largely unpretentious and open.)

i remember the various friday routes to kathryn's. sometimes kathryn and jose and i would just end school with a quick drive in the car to inconspicuously smoke pot. once stoned we would part ways with a plan to meet up later at friar tuck's or the hi-brow for drinks.

friar tuck's was a bright bar with well lit pool tables and there was always a war between those who wanted to hear country and western tunes and those who wanted to hear classic rock. after a few pitchers my mexi-friends and i would wade out into the parking lot to smoke a quick bowl and make our way across route 66 to the hi-brow. if friar tuck's attracted a consistently nascar oriented crowd, the hi-brow drew strictly from the local cluster of liberal arts colleges.

the hi-brow was low lit to begin with and even darker after our arrival as we would often unscrew a few light bulbs or pull the plug on an occasional neon. it was about mood there. gone were the patriotic country songs from across the highway in favor of otis redding and marvin gaye and the pixies and ween. no pool tables, just 16 square feet of hardwood dance floor and a waist high juke box. if i made it to that dance floor it would have been at the very end and it would have represented my arrival at a certain altered state, a sublime buzz in which i could groove on the dance floor without caring if my friends were making fun. they were all too cool to dance. not the girls, just the guys. occasionally gabe would get out there but pep, (jose, or popstar,) and fidel and uncle manual and bear and juice and all my friends from aztlan would decline to dance on the grounds that it simply wasn't cool to do so. their glances as i swayed back and forth to one of those mid-tempo dave mathews songs of the time, surrounded by chicks, mostly adhered to the hips of would be dance-floor harlots but when their eyes met mine their gazes belied a sense of jealousy.

at last call after several distinct groups had met up we all looked at one another and wondered where we could go next and always there was kathryn offering her house. we would caravan the couple of blocks sometimes running into 7-11 to pick up some beer and once in that spacious back yard we drank and smoked more without hint of inhibition and we laughed and talked into the wee hours. occasionally some people hooked up and found places to unleash their new found ardor for one another. otherwise people dropped off by turns, finding a place to curl up or having a ride arrive until at the end two or three heroic figures would see signs of daylight haunting the atmosphere and agree to go sleep somewhere for a while.

'round 11 or noon of the next day those who remained would end up out back smoking cigarettes and discussing the previous evenings events. at some point kathryn would feed the stragglers who had nowhere else to go, (this was a nearly exclusively guy club, save katie d herself,) and we would strip down to underwear or perhaps a pair of her dad's shorts and hit the pool for the majority of the afternoon. in the evening we might barbecue and start calling people to come on over to kathryn's or meet us at some party or nearby bar, and weekend days would bend into nights and snap back into quiet afternoons that would end up right back there in kathryn's back yard, possibly in the jacuzzi, under the cover of night with nirvana or sepultura or maybe jeff buckley seeping through the windows and sliding glass doors of the den to our ears poolside. the conversations about raymond carver and the buk and juan rulfo would commence without missing a pulse only to be dropped for comparisons of bob dylan and leonard cohen or passionate pleas on the corruption and dishonesty in the american justice system around consensual crimes.

last night i remembered a time when kathryn's friends, jackie and shannon and others, came out back to implore me to come dancing, (in the den of course.) i was acting cool and weakly declining when one of them, (kathryn or jackie, i think,) told the guys i was hanging out with to, "stop discouraging michael. "he is a dancer-let him dance," they implored. that was enough for me. i got up and went into the house to get my groove on. as usual it was me and about five or six girls and i had no complaints.

dancing was always good to me. the moves never made any sense really-there was no discipline or learned steps involved. but feeling the beat always came naturally to me and the idea that i should get out on a dance floor, perhaps with strangers, often with hotties, in public places, and bop to the beat and shake my ass and flail about a bit as if immune to ridicule or criticism, well, that always felt like good health to me. i could sense the stress slip away from me with the inhibition. the bounce in my stomach felt like a connection to my ancestors in caves around fires, or to my species, so naturally attuned to music.

it felt that way last night, too. half of the crowd jumped up for the b-52s and grooved while the other half of the 40-somethings stayed seated, sipping their glasses of wine, enjoying the flashback evening with slightly more reserve. as for me, i had to get up. i had to just dance there in front of my seat. it felt good. it was good.