A dream deferred

I was on track to visit Paris in the foreseeable future, and I was stoked. I was studying my French language skills, I was buying guidebooks, and I was scouting Expedia like a sniper on crank. I was in the groove, baby.

Now I'm out of work, and we're lucky to pay bills. Money isn't available to set aside. Language skills are going slack, guidebook's getting dusty, and Expedia can breathe a sigh of relief and stop looking over its shoulder.

I miss the buzz of anticipation. I have said long and often that happiness is having something to look forward to.  It was enough to compel me to all these pleasant endeavors, these happy efforts.

I recently came to realize that I'm still going to Paris, I've just got more time now to study the language, history and art that draws me there, which will inform my trip and expand exponentially my enjoyment of it.

My mindset sloshes to and fro, and I lose sight of valuable nuggets of perspective like this. I really should hold on to it, because it is one of the gobs of light and positivity that helps me stay afloat, so I'm writing it down. Don't wanna lose 'em.

Mornings, and airports

Ugh, mornings are getting rigorous.

Even as I type, I am wolfing down oatmeal and looking at eggs that will also be consumed at a quick pace. I've got laundry in the dryer that wants folding. I got started early so all I have to do is dress and all the other things I have to do before leaving. I tried to get in here to commune with my blog (it really does seem to make me happier), and I have so little time now to do it.

Once I started the new job, I knew ahead of time that the schedule change would present itself in a way that made morning time seem longer than it is, just because being up and moving with purpose at that time was a new event, and the effect would be transitory. Transitory has arrived. I gotta leave in not very long at all.

I still dream of Paris. I don't have much time to do it, but when I can, it gives my brain a pleasant place to reside, to imagine. I had a delicious flashback of walking through an airport, on my way to Paris. What a great feeling that was, in retrospect. Just the bigness of the buildings; the low-level stress "Am I on-time? Yes? Good..." repeat 30 seconds later, constant temporal vigilance); the inundation of other people and yet near-privacy, because they don't know or care what you're doing; and the occasional uniform to either help you along your way, or more prevalent these days, scowl and scream at people who don't line up quickly enough. 12 hours on a plane still sucks, but is worth every minute at the end.

I hope I have the wherewithal to enjoy the airport next time.

Paris, this spring?

I have good reason to hope that I can go back to Paris again, some time this spring. And so I am allowing myself to dream about it again; not that I ever resist "les reves" too feistily, in any event.

I should see when Rick Steves will next publish the latest 2015 Paris book. (Ooh, their next edition comes out this month!  Yeee!)

I should consider day trips outside of Paris. Or longer trips not in Paris. Or trips outside of France, even. In a very real sense, the sun rises and sets for me in Paris. But in other real senses, of course it does not.

Paris, France has captured my heart's attention quite dominantly, but I know there are other countries, cultures and people to be discovered, explored and enjoyed. I wonder if I will see wisdom in selecting one of them instead, by the time I put my money down.

I ponder it occasionally.

One thing I would like to do better than I ever have before is to connect with people abroad. And it troubles me when I speak this goal aloud and people look at me funny. Is it so incredible that I might want to have conversations and make contacts in another place? Am I the weird one in this exchange? Am I just not expressing my desire correctly?

I feel like my expectations are fairly realistic, at least for someone who wants to do something they haven't tried before. And yet many people I've mentioned it to, online or in person, get that "back away and don't make eye contact" vibe going when I mention it.

I admit some naivete: on my last trip I chatted up a restaurant worker and the front desk guy at my hotel, and exchanged email addresses with them. I sent a few emails after my 2010 trip, of course unanswered. My naivete was in being surprised at this. I should have been slightly more cynical in my expectations. Imagining being a service worker in a major city, it's easy to foresee not giving two shits about the customers on a personal level, beyond serving them as well as you can, day-to-day. And they were kind and helpful in that regard, I am glad of that.

I guess it reaches back to my own desire to connect in general. I thought I was rid of this burdensome pull, but as my last trip to Paris taught me, I am not. Paris always seems to have something to teach me.

I shake my head when I follow these thoughts into their tunnels, to draw my awareness back to open ground. Only so much progress can be made at a time, spelunking these possibilities and the warrens in which they reside.

Speaking of tunnels - did I mention I want to see the catacombs of Paris on my next trip? I have started reading the most wonderful book, "Parisians." It artfully tells stories, old and new, of residents of Paris form their point of view in history. I have read the first few chapters, including perspectives from Napoleon, an underground engineer (whose name escapes me at the moment, and escapes most common history, according to the book's narration), and the doomed flight from the royal grounds by Louis and Marie Antoinette. They sure made it sound like Marie Antoinette's spoiled bungling cost the entire campaign its success. But they are just the types of stories that bring life to places and times in such an iconic city. I have also enjoyed "Is Paris Burning?" a historical account told in a dramatic and narrative style. I like this style much better than some dull and dry accounts I have tried to read. Non-fiction is a lot more fun and digestible when it dresses in a few of the trappings of fiction.

Another item that has enhanced my long-distance mooning over the City of Lights is Google Earth. The ability to zoom digitally over the city (with the "3D Building" option on, of course!) makes something within me squeal with delight. Twirling the Eiffel Tower or Arc de Triomphe on the screen as if on your fingertip dazzles my little brain in a most wonderful way.

Will Michelle accompany me on my trip? Will James, our nephew? Will I go it solo and become my own hero for the year? Will we or I go somewhere unParisian? Will it all fall apart and remind me that tomorrow is promised to no one as it has in the past? It's all wide open at this point. It seems like anything is possible. I like that feeling.

Job life, in my head

Mornings are a lot busier these days. Coffee is still a necessity, and the time to drink it is a carefully guarded luxury.

Man, I hate the learning curve. Everybody knows all the ins and outs I'm trying to comprehend, and they watch as I stumble over the simplest details. Makes you feel like a fool. It ties directly into the stress center of my brain, and I'm building quite a case of anxiety over it. It is a challenge to route all this effort and concern somewhere, if not positive, at least not harmful. I get so frustrated not to be up to speed right away.

I'm a good worker and a natural helper. I hope I get on top of the technical specifics quickly and start spinning dog shit into gold. I like being a benefit, and this company seems nice enough; I'd like to show them what I can do.

What I really need to do is get control of how I view my job, my self, and my satisfaction level between the two. Right now my buttons become too easily pushed and I too quickly become pushed to the wall, in my head. I need some compartmentalization. I don't think most other people get this flustered and head right to DEFCON 5. In the past this trait has served me by allowing me to push harder and perform when I didn't want to. But older Me doesn't have the infrastructure anymore to burn oil to get through a problem; it doesn't feel like a struggle followed by a win anymore. It just feels like struggle. Bah.

My boss communicates and works in a way that presents a lot of chaos, and a demand that it get sorted out. I think I've described it this way before, but it feels like a bomb going off, with the expectation that one catch all the pieces. I had this feeling at the pool company I worked for, and it burned like acid for months, until I stumbled dumbly into each answer, little by little. It could have been so much less traumatic, but the training wasn't there. There is a similar dynamic at the current place, where the gulf between what I know and what they think I need to be taught is wide. I feel like it could be getting done better, and a smoother, more-productive start could be had.

Ah well. Such are the joys of life. At worst, I suppose, the hand will come to be placed on my shoulder, and the boss will announce "it's not working out..." There, that is the base of my fear, or at least it should be, and it's not so frightening. No, my stress is tied to something deeper in my brain, something murkier and less apparent than losing a recently-acquired job. I should find and cut this troublesome connection.

I tried meditating again this morning. I spent five minutes in a quiet room, focusing on my breath. I try it now and then, but I know that a constant, disciplined habit is the path to improvement there, as with so much in my undisciplined life. But it was good for what it was. I would love to reap the benefits of a more controlled brain. Wouldn't that be something!

I suppose it's one of the reasons I'm trying to stick with this blog again; it seems like I had more clarity or least a more-flexible mind back when I was blogging. As if this is a form of meditation itself. Anyway, I like doing it. But time is so limited these days...

Hoo

Hoo boy.

The new job is going fine, but it's an adjustment. I feel like the learning curve is too obtuse, but it always feels that way.

I am relearning one important thing: how valuable my time is! Not only in that I get paid to spend it somewhere, but also how little of it there is left before and after the workday. Hoo boy.

Good luck getting laundry, dishes, lawn care done. Eating, ironing work clothes, and what is this "recreation" again? I feel like I've heard of it before...

Gotta go...

Back on the chain gang

Well, I messed up and got employed again. It looks like a pretty good job, good but not great, like all the positions I end up into. A new place to hate and hope I never leave. People have a pretty dumb idea of how to live, and I can't help but join them until I figure out a better way.

Yesterday was my first day. It went pretty well, as far as I can tell.

I thought I had more to say about it, but it's slow in emerging. Plus, I feel my old familiar fears creeping back: do I say this, do I say that? I rarely set out to be provocative or hurtful, but left to my own devices I often find a way to say something someone wishes they didn't hear. Ah, it's good to be me.

I had a comedy adventure scheduled for tonight, supposed to go to Berkeley and see some public access television get made, but that's off. C'est la vie, mon ami.

I continue to push for an open mike opportunity nearby. I am in contact with one venue, and the owner seems to be swaying in indecisiveness. His default fallback is a callback: "Call me tomorrow," he says, every day this week. I don't want my impatience to spoil what could be a good thing, but chasing him is not my new hobby. We'll see who surrenders first. I am slightly proud of myself for blogging about the pursuit, which I've been wanting to do for a while.

All this also means that my already-somewhat-neglected video series on local comics is still on the back burner, but the front burner just got a whole lot bigger, so who knows when that will get done. I hope to make it a priority, stop being so precious about it, and just some stuff done and published before the lateness of the project becomes embarrassing in itself.

Finally, I continue to dream my dream of Paris. I hope and expect to return to the City of Lights this spring. Employment can only help, one would think.

Until next time, my friends.

Sick on my 43rd birthday

My birthday was last week.

Man, I had tons of fun stuff in my head I wanted to do: wine-soaked visits with friends, dinner out at a bistro nearby with Louisiana-, quasi-French-based food, comedy night out in a big city...

But the Monday before my little day, I came down with a stomach flu that kicked my ass right in its gut, and still lingers today. I tell you, I went down HARD. Fever, shakes, aches, and a diarrhea that made me feel like I had spent time drinking Mexican water with African mosquitoes. So, so painful. And it wouldn't quit! I have a hard time taking to bed, but I have learned that it is the only way.

I have this grudging urge to "tough" these things out, and to avoid taking pills as if they represent some sort of threat on their own. How backwards of me, especially considering the other things I put in my body on a daily basis, including sugar, salt, fat, pot, beer, etc. Yeah, it's a real temple.

So I've learned that the fastest way back to whistling through life is often dedicated rest, the careful application of over-the-counter pharmaceuticals and plenty of liquids.

Even so, this thing was tough to shake. It stomped right on through my birthday like it wasn't even there, and kept going, right up until yesterday when the clouds began to part. I am starting to feel like my old self again, although I still have a gnawing pain in the right side of my chubby gut and a cough that reminds me all is not quite right yet. But I can eat solid food again, and I don't want to cry when I go to the bathroom. These are good signs. For most of the week, I could barely withstand more than broth and a few crackers. To celebrate, I ate some spicy Mexican-style food my wife put together, because I am a slow learner.

I hate getting sick. I hate the randomness of it, catching it from a stranger I didn't want to meet, shaking his grubby, mucus-encrusted hand out of an outdated, forced social construct that suits no one's needs (and yet if I somehow refuse to shake hands, *I'm* the weirdo). And of course, I hate the illness itself, with its insidious effects, working to destroy (or at least sabotage) you from the inside out. Bah!

And yet there are always things to be thankful for. Being temporarily ill can help put a few new bricks in the wall of your immune system, or so I am led to believe. I did also enjoy on some level the chance to lay flat on my back for days at a time and root through television shows and Facebook updates, activities I am no stranger to but to which sickness gave me the unfettered and guilt-free access. I was often too sick to really indulge in these in any pleasant way, but still...

But the thing I have come to appreciate more is the break it gives my body and mind from the bad habits that I am otherwise nearly powerless to shake; the little contracts I have made between my body and my immediate surroundings that creep in and build up silently and incrementally, much like the cold symptoms themselves. Habits like overeating, drinking too frequently (although I have become very workmanlike in my ability to moderate the quantity) and ingesting the pot. These are things I would like to abate and rethink, but they acquire a momentum of their own and I struggle not to walk in the ruts I have so laboriously worn for myself. I have picked up these coping mechanisms along the way in life to deal with stresses and pains that crop up that can break something important within you, or at least threaten to. But when the pains subside, the mechanisms endure and remain. One of life's little tricks, sometimes a little cruel.

Having your body call these time-outs (in its shit-stained, painful way) is otherwise just the tonic that I need to break the cycle and let them go until the habits are no longer habitual. I can eat a normally-portioned meal, because I am no longer so recently "disciplined" to gorge; more so, I am grateful to contemplate solid food at all, so I appreciate it. I am not so programmed to reach for a beer because hey, it's noon, and by golly this life is worth "celebrating."

I am mindful that these habits can and will creep back in. I've done it before, being in a good place with these things, and watched myself slip back into their waiting, grody arms. But right now, I have at least got them on the other side of the door, and that is a great thing.

I suspect that I would be sharper without their daily influence. I like to think that one drink, one puff, one brownie does not a brain destroy. One of any of these does little real harm. But like waves crashing on a beach, I can easily imagine that one applied after another and another on a regular basis would eventually erode the most impregnable fortress. And my creative and mental fortresses aren't looking too impregnable these days. My game could certainly be tighter. There are projects and just little endeavors that lay untouched, and my motivation could be more robust. Great things lay out there, waiting simply to be picked up and smooshed and formed into something other people will somewhat appreciate.

...

Anyway, I think that is what I came to say. Have a good day out there.

Facebook killed the blog star

I deactivated my Facebook account last night.

Unlike most decisions I make, this one was on the spur of the moment. It had been a long day, a long week and a long year for Facebooking. It had also been a long, trying day personally, and I suppose I was fed up.

The main reason that it felt right was the "lurkers." Lurkers is a term for people who rarely share of themselves in any way on social media. Rather, they watch others and sometimes kibbitz and judge quietly from the sidelines. Always spectators and never players, they have no skin in the game, and I find them cowardly in this way.

One reason I joined Facebook was to share with others and keep in touch, with text, images and videos. I enjoy sharing my thoughts and ideas, my occasional creative works, and promoting friends' comedy shows or other interests that benefit from additional eyeballs.

When others only consume and never contribute, it chaps me, as you can tell. I had an incident months ago where I posted a rather stylistic and amusing short essay about how shitty my commute was. I made the mistake of including an unnecessary reference to mother-in-laws, and it wasn't long before a lurking in-law fired up the switchboard to make sure eeeeverybody got a good look at the big bad words I had written, causing strife and woe to all around.

I could have been a lot more charitable in my writing, and I should have been more careful about others' feelings. I freely admit, I shot myself in the foot on that one. It is not in my nature to bash an otherwise innocent bystander. On the other hand, I consider nearly everything I put down on paper or electronic papyrus to be an exercise in creative writing, to one degree or another. And for it to blow up in my face rubbed me the wrong way.

The things that tweaked it for me was that none of these people even post pictures of their cat, much less discussions, family photos, messages, etc. So in the equation between me and them, I was carrying all the downside. Fuck that.

One might point out that I could simply block them, and I did. But still, the social stinginess still rankled. Not everyone has a need to express and be heard like I do, I get that. But holding back to such a perfect degree just seems wrong.

I've made much of this one incident, but it seems to be a common and recurring through-line in many Facebook interactions, and it's a recurrence I can live without.

When I write, it is right in my wheelhouse to choose cheeky, ribald turns of phrase, as well as topics. I playfully push the envelope, it's just how I like to do it. Lately it seems that even my more innocuous little jabs had pinched others' toes and caused the hurting of butts. While it is also in my nature to smile through these little dust-ups and recommend that others suck it up and recall that "names will never hurt you," I don't seek to hurt others, and it gets tiring explaining myself and apologizing.

Another reason I'm happy to be away from it is that Facebook is a seductive time-suck. All day, every day, if you see me hypnotized by my phone, it would be to catch up on my Facebook timeline, a list of goings-on for people and organizations I have some or no interest in. Now that I am "free" of this constant and willing distraction, I realize how much time I had given to it. It is not a frivolous amount. I find myself looking for and finding worthier endeavors in its place.

Finally, as I have long suspected, Facebook's Status Update made it easy to jot down the brief ideas that crossed my mind, but it sort of discouraged long-form thoughts like those I used to post here. While my creativity's waning may not have been fully due to Facebook's influence, I am certain it didn't help. I hope to see some contemplative wordiness return to this space. And extended journaling like this can be very helpful in luring the Muse down from the mountaintop, and that would be most welcome indeed!

One regret that set in within one day is that I won't be so easily able to track and promote friends' comedy shows. There may be other ways to achieve this, but Facebook's interface did make it convenient most of the time.  Ah, well.

One final regret worth noting is that Facebook's interface made it easy to share my creative works with those within and without my social circle, including drawings, videos and written works. I can and probably will turn to my website and YouTube accounts to display my brain's wares, but I will likely miss FB's utility there. On the other hand, I still have a Tumblr account somewhere. While I may be trading one social media platform for another, I am glad for the opportunity to shake things up a bit, and I am hopeful that the change will being welcome new exchanges.

I am encouraged by the fact that this is more than I've written in a good long while already. Let's hope it's a trend that continues.

A new start:started.

So last week I stopped going to work.

The last few years have seen work and its demands intrude farther and farther into our lives. If it isn't the hours spent working, it's the hours spent getting there and back, and the money it takes to maintain a vehicle, make sure the child is supervised: all the little details that every working family encounters and combats. 

That's all fine, but at some point, the machine you're building takes on a life of its own, creates its own demands, and you start doing things for the machine's sake. I was throwing all of my energy at things I didn't want at all. There was no time left in my day (or night) for fun, for relaxation, for reflection, for love. Nothing but eat, drive, work, drive, housework, sleep insufficiently in quality and quantity, REPEAT.

As a creature of habit, I get in a nice comfy rut, and brother, do I ever stay there. It's a strength, and a flaw. I've stuck with bad jobs and bad women for just this reason. So maybe you can see how difficult it is for me to declare "Fuck this!" and step off the trolley. With my habits and lifestyle reaching ever-more detrimental patterns, I truly believe that something awful would have happened, and soon. Physical event, car accident, mental event. I was red-lining on several fronts, and my commitment to routine was carrying me happily to an early destruction.  It wasn't just the 90-mile commute to my most-recent job - that was just the capper.

Even the previous job before that, at the campground in Avery, CA, I felt I was on the wrong track. Some people think I'm smart, but I'd be a lot smarter if I stopped and looked around more often to see where I'm headed. I felt things closing in but did nothing about it. Further committing to plans I didn't really want to be a part of, I was giving my life away.  This course correction I've made last week could have been more drastic, but I'll settle for this, what seems to be an enormous step back in the right direction. 

At a minimum, it is a break, for which I am hugely grateful and in dire need.  It is also an opportunity to embrace parts of me that I imagine to exist: creative thoughts, ideas, needs, passions, impulses, motivations, desires. God, I hope they're not just imaginary.

So last week was about housework (as will all weeks in the foreseeable future, but none so needful as last's). I threw myself at all the labor needed to push back the tide of filth that had worked its way into every corner of our formerly-nice house. The shit was truly disgusting and embarrassing. I was ashamed to be a part of it, and I wouldn't let me kid spend the night in someone else's home if it looked like that. And yet I let my kid spend every night there. My only excuse was that there was no time to spend making it better. And I knew it was literally true: I spent spare minutes and hours just to keep the place no worse than the unfit-for-human-life condition it was in.

So last week I dug in and started moving, organizing, cleaning, keeping house on a more-aggressive level. I cleaned a bathroom, cleared debris from the dining table and reclaimed 2/3 of the once-ample counter space in the kitchen. We can now set groceries down on something other than the floor when we return from the store. A start.

This week though, I have to start making good on the promises and fantasies that clouded my windshield for the last two years of my "supercommute," the name of the daily, merciless trek to work lasting (much) more than an hour each way. Every day and night I promised myself I would exercise, planned to write and perform comedy, and work with some forms of visual arts, if ever I was given the time and grace to do so.

So here I am now, sitting at a quietly-noisy coffee shop with my son, tapping out the longest blog post in a while, just to limber up my creaking fingers, and loosen up my creakier mind. One of the purposes of this blog is to leave little landmarks along my journey, but if nothing else, I hope this has warmed up the old Thinkin' Machine.

Gotta be a good thing.

Yard sales 5/18/13

My son and I went to a few yard sales today.

I have come to regard garage sales and yard sales as one of the great joys of the changing seasons, on par with the blustery broken clouds and winds of fall, the snows of winter (in some areas, rarely mine), or the buds and birds of spring.

I think it connects my frugal nature with my love of variety quite nicely. Add to that that I have taught my son to enjoy it as much as me, and you've got a pleasant family component that is also rare enough in my day-to-day.

ANYHOO.

My son and I found a fairly sparse number of yard sales to review, with NONE of them advertised on Craigslist.org. Unusual!

But the ones we found were remarkably high quality, with very few of them simply piles of clothes and dirty baby toys, or similarly weirdly bare offerings. Today was great because there were the novelty of choices that make garage sales fun. And the deals couldn't have been better.

The crown jewel of my purchases today was a $30.00 Compaq Presario laptop that has a firewire port! Huzzah! Up until now, I haven't had a way to offload video from my Canon camcorder, as my previous firewire-enabled laptop for the job finally failed. Looks like I found an affordable way out of that, at least for now. So happy.

Here's Poppa Rickie

It's been about a week since Michelle's Dad Ken (aka Poppa Rickie) moved in with us. He's got a little trailer he stays in, and it's his own space.

He helps a lot outside, and spring is a good time to have an energetic outdoor-doer. We all make an effort to get along and so we do. It's an adjustment, but not a big one. It's nice to have him around.

I was looking through one of those big coffee table books on Paris which I had recently scored at a local estate sale, and I took some satisfaction at showing him the image of the topless dancers in the Red Light district. With very little prodding I blabbed on and on about the history of the Eiffel Tower in a nusthell, and he and Michelle and I had such a good conversation I felt like they were doing me a favor, and maybe they were. I enjoyed it in any event.

Death of the Easter Bunny

My son is eight years old now, (nine later this year) and he has been making good use of his burgeoning frontal lobe, applying logic to long-held beliefs. I couldn't be happier. I hope he continues the trend for all his days. But his newfound fact-finding culminated this year in doubt at the existence of a favorite spring harbinger: the Easter Bunny.

I don't know if he saw the goodies hidden in his parents' closet or if there was some other evidentiary loose thread to prompt his suspicion, but a day or two before Easter Sunday the kid was all questions; mainly, one big one: "Is Momma the Easter Bunny?"

I did what any unprepared coward would do: I stalled for time.

"What if she were, son?"

"I'd be sad. But I'd rather know."

We talked a little longer and I felt around inside his head to see just how much damage I'd do if I told him that the Easter bunny had tattoos and kissed Daddy goodnight at the end of every day.  After further review, I found that the "sad" part outweighed the "I'd rather know" part, and he seemed more reluctant for the unvarnished truth than he did originally.  So, and with both of us becoming weary of a conversation where one doesn't quite know what he's talking about and the other won't talk about what he knows, I offered the limpest-wristed confirmation that: "Yeah son, your mom's totally not the Easter bunny," complete with a sarcastic and defeated delivery, my lack of sincerity itself a clue.

My uncertain choice to flaccidly continue the lie for juuuust a little longer was proven the right one when my son eagerly snapped up the confirmation and let the whole mess go.

One sacred cow, rescued.

As it turns out, the cow was massacred just as sloppily not twelve hours later, when my wife set her alarm for 5:30 a.m. I knew as soon as we awakened that we were treading on thin ice. As soon as we stirred, our still-new Mastiff puppy "Kaos" sensed movement and start to fret and jostle, not ten feet from my son's sleeping head. With the spring sun already tickling the edges of the sky, it didn't take much for my son to rouse.  That, plus the fact that our house's layout demanded that we either creep directly past his bedside or climb out the second-story window, I "could smell what the Rock was cookin'."

Sure enough, one of us tried to slip by with a ridiculously large and colorful Easter basket, and the other with a plastic grocery bag full of eggs, my son piped up in the darkness: "Whatcha doin'?"

"Go back to sleep!" Came the slightly harsh reply, attitude borne of guilt.  But the little monster was not to be swatted away so easily. In fact, the persistent (dare I say "spoiled?" You better fucking believe I do) early-riser was so indignant and cranky about the whole thing (and about not being allowed to collect eggs sooner than planned, while Momma and Daddy still futilely clinged to hopes of returning to bed), that we threatened to tell the Easter Bunny to forget the whole thing, and meant it! I think part of his obstinacy was rooted in his disbelief that we had such powerful connections that we could cancel our reservations with His Egginess at such a late date.

After ten cold, dewy minutes of egg dropping, we were still finishing up the furtive task when the front door of the house opened, and there again, was my enterprising, curious young boy.  Again, we shooed him back to bed a little more stridently than would otherwise be called for, but there were secrets to be kept. Dark, difficult-to-explain secrets.

The task finally done, we "sneaked" back into the house, only to face a disillusioned and skeptical child who reminded me that the ladder to his bunk bad sits next to the window, out of which he looked when climbing back into bed. And what did he see?

You know damned well what he saw: his two lying parents dropping plastic eggs full of money and candy and a basket with his favorite new video game ("Luigi 3D for the Nintendo 3DS" or some shit like that, a forty dollar value by itself) in the front yard. My little toe-tapping darling was surprisingly hostile for someone who just found out his parents are way more generous than previously thought.

But soon he was over it and happily collecting eggs and money and sugar and plastic grass and singing our praises in a sugar-rush that will likely entwine with our benevolent betrayal in the catacombs of his child mind, and take years of psychotherapy to untangle.

Ah, parenthood. Good luck defusing this little brain-bomb, Dr. Quackenstein.

Confessions of a hopeless fuck-up

They always tell you: "Do your best."  The advice is less forthcoming when your best sucks.

I've got this job. There are some things that suck about it, but it's a good job. The people are fair and nice, and that alone is pretty rare, and makes me want to do well.

The thing is, I keep fucking up.  For a while there, I had good reasons to fuck up - not excuses, but real, verifiable causes that a conscientious person could identify and correct. Things like insufficient sleep, lack of training, inexperience and trying to work quickly at the expense of  of working thoroughly. 

One by one, I have corrected those problems, and things have improved.  But not enough.

I make stupid, rookie mistakes.  People hand me paperwork with obvious errors and my signature on it, just bigger than life. And I look at it, and it's like it's someone else's work. I remember handling it, but I don't remember skipping or duplicating or fucking up whatever got fucked up BUT THERE IT IS. And I am powerless to excuse or redeem it. All I can do is accept it, and promise to do better, knowing I probably won't.

It's all compounded for the worse that I am currently the main breadwinner at Casa de Loser; times aren't all that plush WITH me working. If I fuck this gig up, it's gonna get ugly and fast.  That pressure is the final turn of the screw, and there were times last year when I really thought I was going to succumb to it. I really felt like a mental, physical or emotional component was going to just give out, and shit would get real. All I could do was trudge miserably ahead and keep showing up as long as they'd let me. 

I'm a big boy, and I know that it's just a job. But I've tried not giving a whit of a fuck about my job, and it doesn't suit me. I can't get the math right. When I try not to care, I'm really good at it, and it shows. And it's unsustainable. It's not long before I speak and behave as if I really don't care, and at that point I may as well just quit and get on with it.

On the other hand, I have managed to disconnect some of the gnawing shame associated with tripping over my dick on a regular basis, and it's a good thing. Being a witless fuckup is pretty painful, if you don't handle it properly (and I don't).  I have somehow managed to step back from the sting of failure, and while I still want very badly to do well, the cascading anxiety of relentless, ridiculous mistakes has become a little bit removed. All I can do is patiently surmise: "Well, they'll either fire me, or they won't." I don't exactly look forward to that, but I have to say I have learned to look on the bright side of that eventuality and recognize the good that comes from change.

But I'd much rather do well and enjoy the benefits of a secure position that pays the bills. And I would really like to enjoy the well-being that comes from competence and a job well done. That is much more my speed, and while I'm capable of it (in theory), I miss it.

The blank canvas

I found this picture on Facebook, and I like its message a lot. 

I like it because it speaks to the huge, hideous cramp I've had in my creative muscles for (egads) a couple of years now. As much as I've lost the impish little voice that was always on standby to connect two strange things in the background and present them to the foreground, my problem has also been laziness and a fear of "putting brush to canvas," in any artistic sense, including this blog or comedy.  My only outlet has been Facebook; while that is an outlet and serves my social needs, Daddy likes to go on and ON, and I need a long-form format to air my things out.

I digress (which is kind of the point, isn't it?).

I think somewhere along the way I let the mild fear of writing something, anything, that  might be met with disappointment turned into a reflexive aversion to writing anything at all, possibly corrupting the whole creative process.

I read on and off a book called :"Art & Fear - Observations on the Perils and Rewards of Artmaking." Right up my alley, you might say. Mostly and so far, it is encouragement to brace against all the fears an artist might have, about relevance, quality, skill, all of those bugaboos. I was hoping for something a little deeper, but then again I'm not done with the book yet, am I?

Anyway, in that book they point out that after the first stroke of the paint brush or pen, the potential of a work  narrows and with each successive stroke it stops being a possibility and starts becoming whatever it's going to be. 

I thought about that during my last drawing or two, resisting as I always do the temptation to quit in the face of my real and perceived inabilities and lack of skill. I would be preparing to draw a face, an intimidating task for noobs like me.  And it reminded me of watching boxing:

I used to watch the "sweet science" on television, and occasionally I'd watch a fight where one fighter would seem to become so afraid of a counterpunch (or perhaps he was injured or exhausted, but it looked like hesitancy to me) that he  wouldn't throw a single blow for minutes on end! I would become so frustrated that I would shout at the television:"Dammit man, it's a fight! You're gonna have to hit him at some point!"

It's the same with creative works. At some point, you have to create SOMETHING, even if it sucks.  I  found that once I started in on the face I wanted to create, it worked out well enough, certainly not as bad as the fears in my head had convinced me it would be.

It is the time of year for resolutions, for reflection and the will to improve.  Some years I resolve to improve and some years I don't, but I always hold the idea firmly in mind at the dawn of a new year. The usual suspects leap to mind: weight loss, learn a new skill, etc. But I'm thinking more about the underpinnings of such urges.  If nothing else, it's a more profound form of useless navel-gazing, so that's a comfort!

But with at least as many wishes and shortcomings as ever to address, and fewer and fewer years in which to do it, the bells toll more insistently, and from a nearer distance.

Which is a damned wordy way to say that true perniciousness of my laziness is becoming more and more clear, and that I am happier when I'm creating something. I think my favorite part is the planning stage, in my head and to some degree on paper or digital form.  It has all the delicious, invigorating potential of the blank canvas, and less of the intimidation. All the ideas line up in my head magically, like pennies in your palm. And all things seem possible. That is exhilarating!

Somehow that eventually spirals into a recursive loop of anxiety, where fear and inaction feed each other, and I've convinced myself, in miserable fashion, that doing nothing is bettter than doing something. I can smell the stink of that mindset even now, and I hate it.

I hope that I can keep the bright light of this motivating notion resident in my head long enough to redevelop good habits and revivie the imp, reawaken the Muse. I miss that bitch.  I used to write and draw and say such pretty things, and gave myself such joy.  It's a very sad and fearful prospect that I might not be able to do those things again.

And I damn well reject the notion.  Let's go dirty up some canvases, and make some mistakes!

The last few months

The last few months have been some of the most thrilling, frightening and profound experiences of my life. And also the most private, so it is maddening not to be at liberty to chronicle them in what used to be my usual, open fashion.

One of the chief purposes for this blog is to drop breadcrumbs along my path for later review. Details great and small are always magnified in value after they've been worn smooth by the flow of the river of time, especially when they would have otherwise been lost to that submergence.  So it is of mixed value to blog about something without blogging thoroughly about it. Ah, Forced Imperfection, a close relative to Submission to Pragmatism, my old friend; how I recognize and welcome you still. Without you, I'd never get anything done.

But that's how it must be! In any event, I am grateful to be at a keyboard and hammering out anything at all. I've missed it.

Anyway: I can say that in the last several months I have had the opportunity to turn around and sandblast my relationship with my wife, scraping and gouging out a lot of sediment that had settled unhelpfully into the natural crevices that exist in our relationship. Things like laziness, ignorance, and mistaken impressions that breed mistaken actions and inactions like bacteria.

Blasting these malignant processes has made all the more room for communication, thoughtfulness and love to flourish anew. I get flowery when thinking and talking about it for the obvious reasons. But I am mindful not to overstate things. We're not perfect, but we are oh, so much better than before. I can now see my way clear to how deleterious my thought processes have been, and I'm proud to say I've done away with some of them. Certainly many remain, but when I think back to not long ago I can really appreciate the improvement. And so can my wife.

We are more giving, more trusting, more romantic, more adventurous and more fun than we have ever been. I am able to let go of the negative more now (thank Christ, because even now cynicism is a shadowy malevolence to me; the improvement was sorely needed). Just a few days ago, I wrapped up in a few hours a shitty mood that would normally have swept away an entire evening, and brought my lover's average mood to new lows. (Now there is a ticker worth keeping an eye on!) With my work schedule, evenings are that much shorter and therefore more precious. To be able to win them back and increase their positivity is a lifesaver.

I have faced the fear of lost intimacy and realized that there's no reason for it. What a freedom! All I had to fear was fear itself, as a wise man said. And that fear threatened to take things from me that weren't otherwise endangered! What a deadly combination, negativity and imagination, as another wise man said.  As it is, I'd be better off with neither than with both, but I have managed to shrink the power of the correct one, and am much the better for it.

Anyway, to sum up: emotionally, things are vastly better these days. Appreciation has gained new and profound status in my life, and I am able to look upon the landscape of my life and pick out all the good that is gleaming there, when not long ago so much looked dull and gray. What happiness had laid in wait for me.

Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" is a good song

It may cost me my Man Card, but there, I said it.

"Born This Way" is a song that espouses a good self-image. As someone who lets doubt fill any and all mental voids, I can attest that people are better off seeking a different normal.

It can be hard to see past the legions of homosexual, assless-chap-wearing fans and the chrome, conical breastplates, but it's worth the effort to do so.

And "don't be a drag, just be a queen" is funny. Positive message AND a little humor? That kinda shit makes new fans.

Commut-ication

(wrote this in my car during my commute)

I've been watching, feeling and thinking about mortality a lot these days. A lot even for me, and I've always kept a wary eye on that marker.

A big part of it is media, and the awareness it sustains that time marches on. Celebrities make a fair meter. It dazzles my primate brain to see someone who is "here with us" one day topple over the Great Horizon the next. I'm thrilled to have survived long enough to have a grown nephew who looks at me quizzically when I mention popular shows or artists no longer in existence. He looks at me like the dog does when I juggle. By simple extrapolation I know that there were artists before my time whom I'll never know or appreciate, although I'm making a few small efforts to broaden my musical appreciation.

Beyond the pop, I think of my mother, and now my brother, lost to the pantheon of memory and infinity. Now that my temporary blessing/curse of invulnerability to loneliness has dispersed, I am left with all too-keen an understanding of the need for human contact and interaction, with none of the social skills necessary to make it happen, and a wife who loves me but doesn't understand my need for communication to foster intimacy, nor harbors the communicative skills to make that happen.

In my teenage years, when my mom was still alive, she would get so lonely, trapped in the house by her illness and feebleness. Sometimes I would spend some time with her, but her illness was hard to witness, and I was a not-unusually self-centered teenager with a head full of madness and my own problems. I wouldn't mind spending some time to keep her company these days, and she could do the same for me.

I'm grateful that I get the chance to wake up every day and take another shitty run at life, although I feel that I'm still doing it incorrectly after thousands of chances to get it right. I am still baffled that so many people mortgage their souls to a full-time job, and yet I haven't discovered an attractive alternative. Then again, I haven't really put the time and research into it, have I?

Usually by this point I would write: "Maybe someday," but once past life's halfway marker, phrases like that don't come as cheaply or wistfully as they used to. If "someday" doesn't come with an earnest plan, you might as well use the word "never."

I look forward to the day I can converse with my son as one man to another, and I hope I do things right enough in between that he'll still talk to me when we get there. Wouldn't that be something.

I don't know what to tell you about my daughter. The whole story between me and her has been an epic case study in poor planning and human apathy, and we quite obviously don't know what to say to each other, and haven't since she was four, it seems. Our entire relationship has wobbled on a knife's edge for years, with neither of us wanting to sever it, nor do we know how to improve it. It all smacks of failure and disillusionment and regret; what a mess.

Who writes these things in a place like this? Someone with nowhere else to turn. Words seep out of me like tears, or pus, a natural by-product of life. The lack of an interlocutor is beside the point, like complaining to a geyser that "all this water could be put to some use, you know."

Saturday night high

I performed at a comedy show in Manteca last Saturday night. It was great.

I was on a line-up with Chris Teicheira (I'm always a little proud of myself when I spell his name right), Dan Wilson, and headlining: Joe Klocek.  I respect all three of them for their comedic skills an experience, and I wanted to do well. And so I did!

I did my best, anyway, and came off all right. Comics sometimes throw around the words "killed" and "destroyed" when they simply did an able job, and held up their end of the bargain. It makes me slightly uncomfortable, so I strain to avoid the superfluous.  But I understand it: even a moderate showing can mainline those laughs (that you created!) so hotly into your veins that you feel like you blew the roof off the joint, when calmly reviewing the video later clearly shows otherwise.

All the comics (those performing, and those attending but not performing) were really cool/pleasant/friendly, and it was a great feeling. What a night!

Oh, the places you'll go

We get some flyover traffic here, being roughly due east of San Francisco. I like to watch the planes come in and out, and I marvel at where they could be coming from, and where they might go. I remember the direction we took to Paris more or less, and when one follows anything I can deliberately fantasize is a similar track, my brain flows with a mixed vision of my experienced there, my next visit, and all the imagined lives of the millions of people it could be on that plane. Boggles my mind.

My world is finite, and yet so infinite!

Gay marriage

It's strange; during a life when there are two (or many more) sides to every story, and nothing is simple, some confusing issues have presented themselves in some pretty binary ways. What a relief to my brain, a brain that can never seem to find a handle by which to wrangle things.

Gay marriage is one of those things.

With all the arms, legs, finger, toes and other appendages this issue displays, reasonable people can always find something about which to disagree. Religion, social norms, love, civil rights,
the very definition of social institutions; what a varied gumbo of discourse awaits the dumb bunny who thinks he can make sense of it all.

I say that having been on both sides of the issue in my head. Like President Obama, my thoughts on the issue "evolve." And I think you, him and I all are aware what a flimsy state of affairs that is. But then again, if you're not sure, you're not sure. It smacks of a shortcut to profess a position on these things if you're not certain where you stand. Unfortunately, there's very little room for uncertainty on any issue under the sun, especially in politics. Also unfortunately, some things are too complicated to find an easy handle.

Yeah yeah yeah, life's complicated. There a point to be made here, Tom?

Why yes, voice of cynicism and impatience, there is. My point is that with all the swirling, logical distractions that get kicked up in the debate about gay marriage, the thing I keep circling back to, the one question that seems to be the key to the whole thing for each person is this: do you think a gay person's idea of love is any different or lesser than heterosexual love? Is their idea of love any less genuine than yours?

Because if you agree that it is equal to your own genuine, fallible, brilliant, crazy, breathtaking, fluctuating heart's cry, then it's a very short and direct path to "granting" "them" the same rights and responsibilities that "we" have. Sorry for all the quotes, but it's amazing how quickly the terminology of division presents itself, with "them, they, us, we, their and our" all slicing up a pie that in reality is big enough for everybody, and I'm not comfortable with it.

But yeah, it always comes back to that for me. If it's real, then you've got to admit that gay marriage is just as valid as hetero, and following that truth where it leads.

If not, then no. But good luck shoving that rock up that particular hill. You try to look these people (see, I'm doing it again) in the eye and tell them that what they call love isn't as good as what you call it. I wanna be there for that, because sparks are gonna FLY son! You start chipping away at that load-bearing pillar of self, and you're not very far from denying someone's entire validity as an entity in a much larger sense, and even the weakest among us will fight that with the utmost ferocity.

What do you think?