Life, the Universe, & Everything

Lost in Translation

2012-01-11T13:48:00.000-07:00

My son and his Spanish teacher

Parenting is a high-pressure game. I spend long, unhealthy amounts of time thinking of all the ways I'm screwing it up. To me, parenting is a series of decisions you make that transform your pure and perfect little person into someone you won't want around in a few years.

Most of my effort to date has revolved around the simple idea that not everything I think of ought to be said aloud. It's not that I think you shouldn't swear in front of kids, or that kids don't know about (and use) swear words. I just realized that if I wasn't more careful Eli's first word could very well be fuckstick, and even though that would make a hilarious YouTube video I've been trying to use more discipline in my outbursts.

And then there are the things we do as parents that we don't even know are harmful until some scientists point it out:

"...researchers found that at 6 months, the monolingual infants could discriminate between phonetic sounds, whether they were uttered in the language they were used to hearing or in another language not spoken in their homes. By 10 to 12 months, however, monolingual babies were no longer detecting sounds in the second language, only in the language they usually heard."

— Hearing Bilingual: How Babies Sort Out Language. Perri Klass, M.D. Published: October 10, 2011 in the The New York Times

An article like this can really ruin a morning cup of coffee. Eli turned six months old yesterday, and what I hear when I read this is that I'm permanently screwing up my child's brain by only speaking English. I'm already paranoid about vaccines and water systems full of anti-depressants and their effects on his tiny neurons. Now I feel bad we can't afford a maid.

Even though he has yet to learn his first language, I've been feeling a lot of (self-imposed) pressure to teach Eli a second language. I think a lot of this drive comes from feeling guilty. It's well documented that Americans are in last place in knowing other peoples' languages, and that just makes me feel bad, like the rest of the world is looking down on us and thinks we're really spoiled and ignorant. I hate it when I go to a "local" business and the cashiers greet me and then turn to one another and start rolling their eyes and laughing as they chatter in a foreign language because they know I can't understand them.

"Get a load of this guy. We're talking about him right in front of him and he doesn't even know it."

"I know. We could be saying anything, like making fun of his station wagon, and he would have no idea."

"Look at him, trying to understand us while he pretends he's not listening."

"He has dandruff."

And so, if for no other reason than to be able to interject while buying canned beans at the bodega, I decided ¡Mi hijo hablará español o moriré tratando! (courtesy of Babelfish.com). That is when I enlisted the help of Jorge.

Jorge is a stuffed monkey a friend got for us in Japan. I named him Jorge as a joke because he looks like a foreign knockoff of a certain monkey famous among children for his curiosity. He is about the same build as his namesake, but he has these saucer eyes that bore into you with their blankness. He looks like an acid casualty. Eli loves him.

I had the idea that Jorge could help me teach Spanish to Eli because Jorge, as you probably guessed, is Spanish-speaking only. By employing a drug-addled stuffed animal to impart a second language, I figured it would reduce the confusion of switching back and forth between the two. To me this was a simple and beautiful way to convey to my infant son that some people speak one way while others speak another way. Eli will see Jorge and begin to understand that Jorge doesn't speak the same language as Mommy and Daddy. And hopefully he won't only associate Spanish with monkeys, but we can talk about racism later. One thing at a time.

After a few sessions with Jorge, I still believe my idea is good. The only obstacle—and it is a really big obstacle—to my plan is that I don't technically "know" Spanish.

It's not like I'm starting from scratch. I took it in high school, but that was almost 20 years ago, and my teacher was a white guy from Marion, Ohio that we had to call Señor Cheney.

Señor Cheney was ancient, a relic from another era when you could still berate and humiliate your students. I've never met a teacher that hated being in class more than the shiftless potheads I went to school with, but Señor Cheney was at least a tie. He was a humorless and slow-moving man who growled menacingly at us when we did poorly in his lessons, which of course made us want to do poorly. He chain-smoked like a dragon and would come to class five or ten minutes late every day reeking of tobacco. He would conduct twenty or thirty minutes of Spanish and then leave early to do it all over again.

Ironically, his disdain of students and school in general made us like going to his class, if only to see if we could trigger a heart attack.

In his imagination, and perhaps in the days when you were allowed to paddle students, Señor Cheney's classes were conducted entirely in Spanish with the students asking and answering questions fluently and politely. But by the time we got to him there was no such deference, not to mention we'd learned very little Spanish so this was probably not even possible. Rather than apply ourselves, we found it much more rewarding to create nonsensical phrases like por supuesto el sombrero (literally: of course the hat).

Another rule was that each of the students would address one another only with their chosen Spanish names. I chose Paco. For reasons I still cannot fully explain, I got a real kick out of being bellowed at when the teacher wouldn't use my real name.

We also liked to use es muy—which means is very—all the time, for any reason. A typical exchange went like this:

"Señor Cheney, may I go to the bathroom?"

"¡Paco. En Español!"

"Señor Cheney, may I es muy go to the bathroom?

This was unendingly amusing to us, mostly because Señor Cheney's English, when you could get him to break his own rule, was exemplary.

"You peons! You couldn't find your way out of a parking space," he'd fume and we would howl with laughter. "Go ahead and laugh. You sound like a sack full of idiots!"

It was one of my favorite classes ever. I took four years of this. Sadly, my Spanish never sharpened much. Nevertheless, in the great tradition of oral histories, I set out to teach my son what little I know.

...

Even if you can read and understand a language pretty well, trying to have a conversation is another story and you're quickly and keenly aware of the gaps in your fluency. But I saw this coming, so I decided to try to brush up on my Spanish a bit.

The problem with this plan... well, there are several problems with this plan, but the biggest problem with this plan is that learning a new language is hard. I'm 33, and I ingested a lot of substances when I was younger, so my ability to retain even important things like paying the rent on the first of every month, not just some months, is about the ceiling of my capacity.

And maybe you already suspected this but, after a rigorous afternoon of playing a Spanish language app on my phone, I'm starting to believe you can't just cram for a second language and then pass it along to your child. You have to actually know the language and be able to think and understand it.

Another problem is that most Spanish instruction tapes are aimed at people who are planning to travel to a Spanish-speaking country. They're instructive, but most of the lessons skip over conversation to focus on practical phrases like, "Where is the swimming pool?" and "Do you have a kids' menu?" And some of the inclusions and omissions are curious. For example, I can differentiate between a sofa and a couch, or a table and a little table, but if I'm in a foreign country what I really want to know is how to ask directions to the airport and how to spot a prostitute.

Jorge speaks Spanish in this velvety accent that I learned from the tapes Señor Cheney used to play for us. His pronunciation is very good. Sadly, Jorge speaks Spanish only as well as I do, which is about a Kindergarten level. He can greet you and ask how you are doing, he can make small talk about the weather, and he knows a few random nouns, but that's about it.

For now, with the help of a diccionario, I'm focusing on swapping Spanish for the English words we frequently use with Eli, like asking if he's hungry or sleepy. We point at objects, like the dogs, and try to cobble together descriptions of them. I am sure my Spanish isn't very nuanced—I was recently informed by a nurse that the word for ice cream is not, as I assumed, crema fría—but it's fun. I only hope I'm not doing irreversible harm to my son's ability to learn real Spanish. I can see him in class:

"That's es muy not correcto!"

Whatever happens, I feel this is time well-spent. The rhythmic qualities of the romance languages cannot be overstated. To my ear, anything sung in Spanish sounds beautiful and poignant, and Eli really enjoys Jorge's singing because, even with an extremely abbreviated vocabulary, that monkey can craft a catchy tune. Below is his favorite one about boiling water for my morning coffee:

Necesito hacer
agua caliente
para café
para papá.

If that doesn't promote effective brain growth, nothing will.

Live Blogging a Live Birth

2011-07-15T11:17:00.003-06:00

For my wife, who was busy.

July 10, 2011

@ 7:30pm: Oh dear. When Darby stood up to accompany me to dinner her water broke. I guess this is gonna happen. Darby is calling our midwife Jaymi.

8:00pm: The fluid is greenish yellowish. A quick perusal of the web says this is likely Meconium, which is a fancy word for poop.* It’s not necessarily serious, but the baby can aspirate it and this is not good. Jaymi is on the way.

We planned for this moment for months and somehow it has still managed to sneak up on us. We bought medical supplies and special teas and stocked our fridge with Gatorades (which were, apparently, off limits to those who are not with child, as though my thirst might not also need quenching) and all of that seems extremely small when confronted with the fact that a human baby will soon be trying to exit my wife’s body.

I’m not sure what we’re supposed to be doing at this point, but it seems clear we won’t be going for pizza after all. At a loss, I offer Darby a Gatorade and am told to shut up.

8:15pm: Darby is on the can while her fluid drains. I’m sitting in the hallway just outside the can. I was sitting in the living room reading about the American soccer team’s brilliant ouster of Brazil earlier, but then I realized this would seem callous if the midwife walked in.

9:00pm: Jaymi just informed me in sotto voce, “This is going to go fast.” Darby is already 5cm dilated. For the uninitiated and those that don’t use metric, this is about 2 inches and about half the size you need it to be. While that sounds big to me, it also sounds like the baby’s head needs to be only about four inches across to fit comfortably. This seems unlikely. Father’s hat size: 7^5/8inches.

In the time since my last entry the parents were called. I wondered if it was too soon to sound the alarms but I decided it would be better than having the baby while they slept and having them feel like they missed it. Both sets live in the Eastern Time Zone, so they were just about asleep. My father-in-law in particular sounded less than pleased to be answering the phone but he softened somewhat when I told him the news.

I also ran to the corner grocer to buy maxi-pads (I guess there will be some bleeding). Gosh, there are some witty people at our local. The guy in line ahead of me saw that I was carrying only two packages of pads and let me cut in front of him.

“Husbandly duties?” he mused.

“You have no idea,” I said.

The cashier, looking at his watch, then said, “I’ve been there.”

I doubt it but I just laugh politely.

Presently, Darby is barfing her brains out. This is normal. Sadly, the puking started between the time the pizza was ordered and delivered, and the order was not without contention.

“I’m gonna order the pizza.”

“Will you get cheese?”

“Ok. What about—“

“Just. Cheese.” Darby said with a withering look.

Now her pizza is sitting uneaten on the counter. It sure could use some mushrooms or green chile.

9:15pm: “Do you need anything?”

“My Gatorade. It’s on the red thing.”

Fetches it from the brand new hutch. Sweeps water ring away. Hands the drink over.
“I see you didn’t use a coaster…”

“Give me the damn Gatorade.”

I don’t mean to illustrate these events as though Darby is being cruel or unfair. For one thing, I am a terrible smart aleck, a quality that intensifies when I know I am supposed to be serious (alas, we don’t even own any coasters). For another, her body is preparing to expel an infant and this, I imagine, requires a lot of concentration, leaving little room for the appreciation of subtle jesting.

Darby looks very preoccupied, understandably so. She goes from standing, arms akimbo, panting like she just ran a long race, to sitting, stupefied, like a drunken sorority girl with no hope of making it home tonight.

9:30pm: Into the pool. Given that it’s so hot in our apartment and she’s already covered in sweat, I can’t see how laying in a warm water can feel good.

…and it doesn’t, according to sources. Not that I blame her, but she seems pretty unhappy. She just asked when she can start pushing. Jaymi told her her body would start pushing when it is time.

While stroking Darby’s arm I was informed of the unbeknownst-to-me No Touching policy. Calmly, Jaymi informed me that if I am going to touch, stillness would perhaps be preferable to stroking.

“No touching!” Darby repeated.

Next, Jaymi picked up the camera. Between contractions, Darby recedes into what looks like deep relaxation. Her eyes shut and her breaths slow and deepen to a rate a yogi would be proud of. However, the moment she hears the very identifiable sound of a camera strap quietly jangling as it is slowly lifted from a table across the room Darby springs to life.

“No photography!”

“You can always delete them.”

“No photography,” she repeats, flinging her hands outwards.

Jeesh. It’s like we’re at a museum. I wonder what she’ll say about my live journaling…

9:45pm: Darby is having some pretty intense contractions. Her stomach jumps and lurches like one of those fat comedians that can make their flab do The Wave.

I was holding her hand but I wanted to keep writing. Also, it was getting kind of crushy.

10:00pm: I don’t know if Darby is going to remember this real clearly. I’d guess she won’t. But I’d like to just say that she’s doing awesome. The work involved is evident to the guy in the armchair sipping ginger ale. And she may well talk about how difficult this was but, at the risk of oversimplification, she’s kind of making it look easy.

It’s quiet when the grunting subsides. Trying to be a good reporter, I ask Darby what she’s thinking about. “Nothing,” she practically whispers. This seems about right.

10:30pm: The pushing is in full bore. Darby is grunting like a slow-motion replay of women’s tennis. I switch out my writing hand so she can strangulate the left one. This is intense.

Jaymi is sitting calmly on the sofa. Occasionally she will quietly intone encouragements to Darby, but mostly she just watches. And this is fine with me. She does not appear worried, so I’m trying not to worry but I must look a little nervous because she keeps giving me the Thumbs Up.

10:45pm: The things that are happening in this kiddie pool! I think we both believed we’d be soaking our feet in the evenings later this month. Now I’m less sure.

11:00pm: We’re starting to see some head. Jaymi says he’s not gonna have much hair. How is this possible? I trimmed my ears the other day.

I can’t believe the dogs are sleeping through this! I hope the neighbors are too.

This experience is so strange, that you can just make a new person in your own living room. I kind of can’t believe it’s legal, or that you don’t have to notify the authorities.

Jaymi has been continually checking the baby’s heart rate with a Doppler. I feel tremendous relief each time when the whoosh that signifies blood flow is heard.

11:15pm: The belly button is back. It went missing a few months ago. This is little consolation right now, and I don’t mention it, but still, it’s cute.

“How much longer?” Darby wails.

“Until he’s all the way out,” Jaymi says. This seems at once really obvious and incredibly daunting.

As he begins to crown more my pulse rises. I am starting to get the idea of the size of this thing and it just doesn’t look like it’s going to fit.

“It hurts!!” Darby yells. This characterization seems wildly inadequate.

11:23pm: It done! Darby is cradling a short, bald guy. When the head emerged Jaymi had me move around to help catch him. I held his head under the water while Jaymi pulled and twisted him to the left. The shoulders came out suddenly and then the rest of him rushed out too. My heart racing, I held him there for a moment unsure of what to do.

“Hold him up!” Jaymi beams. I hold him up. He’s squishy and grey. His skin feels like a saggy water balloon. I can’t believe this was inside my wife’s tummy.

“Give him to Darby!” Jaymi says, less beamy now. I hand him to Darby who looks exhausted but also greatly relieved.

“Oh my god,” she says, cradling him in her arm. She repeats this several times. She is not even aware we are here anymore. It’s pretty special.

She looks at me and says, “I’d like to call him Elijah.” This is not surprising. It was on the list. But when she says this I agree because, good lord, this is not the time for an argument. I am happy to let her have the final say.

11:30pm: Pending a positive drug test, it’s official. Darby completed a natural birth in just under four hours and I have a son. Full name: Elijah Skywalker Photos. Stats to follow.

July 11, 2011

@ 1:30am: The living room is back to normal. The pool has been emptied, the tarp is gone, the Oriental rug is visible again. Jaymi assesses the baby and reports no irregularities. Eli is 20 inches long with a 13-inch cranial circumference. He weighs 7lbs. 5oz. For being the most beautiful and amazing baby of all time, his measurements are totally average.

Jaymi tells us to get some rest but this seems unlikely. Though we are both tired**, this is way more exciting than anything I can remember. As kids, when we got new Nintendo games I used to set my alarm for 5 a.m. so I would be up before my brother could get to it, and even then I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep.

After some quiet crying in the pool, Eli was dried and swaddled. He is asleep now, breathing in quick shallow sips of air, using his lungs for the first time. He does almost nothing, and we are completely fascinated. We watch him until our eyes grow heavy. We will need our rest. This doesn’t get easier.

…

Special thanks to Jaymi McKay. She was a wonderful and calming influence throughout the pregnancy and, despite what she says, I wouldn’t have been “fine without her.” She helped us accomplish something momentous and made it seem super ordinary. And, after all, it is, but I needed her to reassure me of it.

* Back when I was in art school, one of us posed the question as to whether babies poop in utero. This was before the internet, so we never bothered to research this. Instead my solution was to sing the words Womb Pooper to the tune of Dreamweaver to the delight of no one. There is possibly a video of this which I’m certain will resurface at an inopportune moment.

** I did work a 12 today, and the day before.

My Last Words: A Bedtime Story

2011-05-21T16:11:00.002-06:00

The pictures from our younger days are always so embarrassing

Dear Young Photos,

This might be my final post. Any moment now, according to a certain portion of the Christian community, Judgment Day will be upon us. Had I realized that The End of Times was fast approaching I might not have been so cavalier about my decision to conceive and raise a child. I am so so sorry. In my defense, part of the reason your mother and I were caught unawares is really part and parcel with the eponymous judgment we're possibly about to receive.

See, humans have spent a lot of time and energy trying to understand life. Questions like how did we get here? and what does it mean? have proved particularly vexing. Despite great strides in science to identify ideas like evolution, Big Bangs, and natural selection, our research falls far short of providing a real nice meaty answer. As far as we can tell: before there was nothing, and now there is everything.

So where did everything come from?

In short, a lot of people think it came from God.

The idea of God is complex and has undergone many changes over the years, but the basic idea is always there—God is an invisible and all-powerful boss and you really need to follow His (and in some cases Her, and in some cases Their) rules because, despite being able to build planets and oceans, He/She/They cannot control what we think, and this just irks them to no end.

God's rules are also somewhat in flux depending on who you ask, and this is a real hot-button issue throughout history. Countries invade each other, slaughtering their people, more or less because they disagree about who God is. It happens over and over. The thing is, in all that time no one has ever really turned up any evidence to sway the public once and for all. It's an argument with no end in sight.

Why, you may ask, does God not just appear and set the record straight? Would we not welcome his omniscience into our lives, especially since Oprah is about to go off the air? You would not be the first to wish for this. It would certainly settle a lot of bets.

In God's absence, humans continue to hope and have faith that He/She/They is/are out there, and they organize groups that get together and go over the details of what they think God wants from us. They call them religions.

It's a nice idea really, to look back and discuss ideas, to lay out guidelines for proper interpersonal conduct, to form the foundations of a like-minded community. What I personally do not like is the rigidity of most religions (see above mention of slaughter). Even though there are many religions, often with many overlapping concepts, each religion claims to have the straight poop on God. There is often a subtext of I-am-right-and-you-are-wrong between the groups. But, since no one really knows anything, I find their insistence intolerable and silly. Mostly I avoid the topic and mind my own business.

Oh, but my young child, I can't be let off the hook so simply. The religious groups saw me coming. Built right into their beliefs (in many cases revealed from a source close to God) is the caveat that you kind of have to believe, or at least you are strongly advised to do so. If you do not, it is not taken as an act of free will to bravely question authority. You are not seen as "philosophical" by most. No, there are words for people like me--heretic, infidel, poor lost sheep. And it's not enough to pity or accuse me of wrongdoing. My beliefs cannot be chalked up as confusion or a simple mistake. According to believers, to not believe, Young Photos, is pretty much the worst thing you can ever do. It means if and when Judgment Day arrives we will be in big big trouble.
...

In this country the majority of us are known as Christians. Christians vary in their beliefs, but they all concur that God is a masculine spirit, that he created the Universe in one week, and he lives in a kingdom in the sky called Heaven which is just a really great place. And of course there was the time he caused a virgin to give birth to his son. This man, God's son, is called Jesus Christ.

Jesus, as historical figures go, is fairly important. He is so important that just by being born he caused the western world to reset their calendars to differentiate the dull and terrible time before he was born from the wonderful and enlightened time since his birth. He is so wonderful that his birthday is in many ways an even better holiday than your own. For one thing, some of the most beautiful music ever written was in observance of his birthday. I cannot say the same thing for the off-key mewling that will occur just before you blow out your candles.

It is this Jesus fellow that is the real key to modern Christianity. Before he arrived, God was pretty hands on; he was smiting folks and telling people to murder their first-borns and flooding the planet because he didn't like the direction it was heading. If you read the Old Testament, God is actually pretty terrifying, so it could have been doubly bad when he decided suddenly to have children.

But Jesus turned out to be a pretty cool guy. He preached nonviolence and love and acceptance; he healed the sick and fed the hungry and he even brought a dead person back to life before we knew about CPR. But his real coup de grace is that he let a bunch of Romans nail him to a large wooden pole, an act of selflessness of which we are still feeling the effects.

These effects concern the fate of our souls. The soul is a tricky concept but it is similar to the mind in some ways, the main difference being that it goes on thinking and feeling and stuff after you're dead--an important difference because your mind may only be around for 100 years at most, but your soul goes on forever. Christians believe when you die, if you are Christian, your soul ascends to Heaven where it remains alongside God in eternal ecstasy, while your body is stored in the ground until it is exhumed to make space for condos.

Christians also believe that if you aren't Christian, you cannot get in to Heaven. And let me be clear, there is no wiggle room on this. It's like Costco: you're either a member, or you have to go somewhere else. They don't give you a pass for being a super nice guy and always doing the right thing. You have to believe. Even if you're a fairly good person that was not raised as a Christian, or you're a well-read intellectual sort that asks a lot of questions about literacy and translation, or you're weirded out by the amount of wars and persecutions and molestations that have occurred under the flag of Christianity and can't at this late stage possibly see how it can be real, well, off you go.

And that's really it. It's beautiful in its simplicity (if a bit churlish. After all, why does God—a man that created the Universe—and his relatives need our acceptance so desperately?).

The real bummer is your soul still has to go somewhere. So, instead of going to Heaven, if you're a nonbeliever your soul will go to Hell, which is a place of permanent suffering and torture, again, like Costco.

For obvious reasons, I'm glossing over a lot of things, but the point is that, up until today, we humans have always been able to live out our lives, so to speak. We would have the entirety of our lives to sort of weigh our options and decide whether or not to repent and accept Christ, an act that is effectively stamping our ticket to Heaven or Hell.

What is different about today is that today is (possibly) the cutoff line. A group of Christians believe that Judgment Day has arrived. They believe this because of a prophecy in the Old Testament that says the world shall end several thousand years after The Great Flood, and according to one man's math that day is today. (Of course, he also thought the world was going to end in 1994, but hey, we all make mistakes.)

It is thought that, on Judgment Day, Christ himself will return to Earth to summon the souls of the believers to Heaven, an act known as The Rapture, and imagined by me to resemble the tractor beam that sucks humans into flying saucers. After The Rapture, the rest of the people of Earth (including all the plants, animals, and stuff the believers used to own) will remain here to perish and just make a royal mess of things.

According to an article in the New York Times, "Nonbelievers will endure five months of plagues, quakes, famine, and general torment before the planet's total destruction in October." (Honestly though, minus the Christians, you might just as easily be describing pre-Rapture Earth).
...

As a nonbeliever, it was pretty surprising to find a story about the end of the world on the front page of the paper, especially since I only read elite liberal media.

But what should I think? How am I supposed to know? Is it best to just throw a hail mary to Jesus in the event that The Rapture is real? And, if so, wouldn't he see through it as a feint to save my soul's neck? In other words, isn't it already too late?

At this point, two things can happen. First, the world really could end and I'll be super pissed that I spent my last hours wiping geriatric asses for $9.50 an hour. Second, the world will keep right on chugging, some of the believers will die of embarrassment, and a certain REM song will have enjoyed its best week of airplay in quite some time. (Sing it with me now: Leo-nard-Bern-stein!)

Honestly, I don't think the world is about to end, so I'm not all that concerned. Then again, I do believe the world will end at some point, so maybe today really is the day. All I can do is wait and watch my Facebook feed for updates like Erin has suddenly developed leprosy.

One reason (but certainly not the only reason) I'm not worried is because we've lived through Doomsday prophecies before. On the eve of the new millennium we thought that a massive computer crash was destined to bring about total financial/societal collapse. (This event was known as Y2K, and it amounted to little more than a programming glitch on the scale of a digital clock at Daylight Savings Time. The world didn't even come close to ending, despite the fact that I'd just been dumped by my girlfriend of two years for no discernible reason and really, in a way, wished it would have). These portentious predictions are happening all the time. In fact, if this Doomsday doesn't take there's another one scheduled next year!

So, why do people so desperately want the world to end? Why are they quitting their jobs and spending their life savings to spread the word? And why do they seem so pleased about it?

I think it's an ego thing; these people believe that they're the chosen ones who will witness the destruction of humanity, that they are the last people to live here, like the Earth couldn't possibly go on without them. They don't consider the gajillions of people before that felt the same way. They don't consider that they're just ordinary and the human race will outlast even the memory of them.

Anyway, I hope they approach life with a bit more humility if it turns out they're wrong. Still, there's an outside chance this is it. I confess that I woke up in the middle of the night and, laying there in the dark, became gripped with the fear that they'd been right and the sun had burned out. I was afraid to look at the clock lest it should confirm a late hour without any light. It would be pretty awful. And what really sucks is that here, at last, is the proof I have been hoping for. Finally Christ gives me something I can hang my hat on. Only, by then I've missed the ferry. I will not be allowed to reap the rewards of my convictions. The Real Christians will be gone already, sent to Heaven to laugh and sing and enjoy the heck out of the afterlife, and I'll be here with everyone else trying not to get killed by roving gangs and hoping I freeze to death.

Long story short, my son, the world you are born into may not be such a great place and I can't help but feel responsible. I wish I had planned ahead more thoroughly and considered whether the planet would still be intact on your due date. I am not clear on the policy for entry to Heaven concerning those born after the apocalypse, but it seems unlikely that you'll have the wherewithal to accept Christ at three months. Maybe they make exceptions for tiny babies, even if your soul's brain is still too undeveloped to be able to remember or appreciate how much fun Heaven is.

Goodnight my child. I'll see you in Hell, if not the morning.

An Attempt to Rectify What Is Thus Far a Glaring Omission from the Supposed Record of My Life and the Events Thereof

2011-05-14T23:03:00.001-06:00

Artist's rendering of my first apartment

Two years ago, on April Fools Day, an old friend named Jen decided to play a joke. As her Facebook status she wrote: Jen is pregnant! I admit that I didn't pick up on the joke immediately, and I went on with my day feeling vaguely happy for her while people wrote things like Congrats! or I KNEW it!

Later, back on Facebook, (or more likely still on Facebook), I saw that another more perceptive friend had not been fooled and called her bluff. Jen capitulated and the merriment that accompanies a light-hearted joke was enjoyed by all.

Later still, (and I'm sure by now I had to have logged out of Facebook at least once even though I was back on), I saw that the wave of comments below Jen's post continued to swell. In a space-saving measure, Facebook shows only the two most recent comments beneath a post, and I have noticed more than a few times that subsequent posters will not bother to read through what others are saying on a given topic before they post, leading to duplicate-and-slightly-obvious wisecracks. In this case it meant that Jen's confession had been buried many times over as more and more friends publicly pronounced their well-wishes.

Finally, and with some chagrin, Jen just posted a rebuttal: Jen is NOT pregnant. Jeesh.

Watching it all unravel in somewhat-real time, I found the event to be a humorous lesson in translational ethics, not to mention an authentic example of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. (I doubt that an actual Jen pregnancy is going to be announced on FB due to probable backlash). What I didn't know or even consider at the time is how this harmless prank could actually be very hurtful to some. For one thing, a lot of people, especially older people and kindhearted relatives, don't like to feel they've been manipulated. An outpouring of warmth and flattery towards someone that is fooling you can seem mean, frankly. But the other people I now think of are all the people out there who are trying or have tried to get pregnant and cannot.

Darby started referring to FB as Babybook a while back. As anyone my age can attest, it is now the world's largest repository of baby pictures and birth announcements and status updates of the darnedest things my friends' kids said. We are just at that age when a large majority of our friends are having children. This trend is further skewed by the fact that stay-at-home moms our age are especially prolific users of the book of faces.

It never bothered me I guess. It's not like what I post on FB is any more important or any less self-absorbed. There are those who use it purely as a promotional tool. There are those who actually socialize. There are news junkies and short-form poets and irritating humanitarians. There are smart alecks and cheerleaders and braggarts and self-surveillors (whose phones tell you when they are at Church's Chicken or "ran 2.4 miles and felt good"). In other words, none of it is terribly important, so to criticize new parents for overestimating the level of concern the world has for their children would be cynical AND naive.

Then I read a very sad article a while back about infertile couples and the painful experience of watching everyone but them be able to have children. According to these folks, and for the reasons just stated, Facebook in particular was becoming impossible to bear. No one went so far as to condemn the overzealous new parents. But they found it harder and harder to feel genuine happiness for their friends. Many just stopped logging in because it was a constant reminder of this really difficult thing they were going through. And maybe that sounds selfish, or petty, but I can sympathize.

In 2008, shortly before I realized I’d had enough working in “The Arts” and decided to go back to school, my wife and I decided we were ready to start trying. We were already in our 30s, we were just starting to climb out of a deep debt, and if you’d asked us I think we would have said we were scared and not really ready to be parents. However, we also agreed that we might never feel quote-unquote ready—I don’t know about you, but the massive responsibility that I believe goes into parenting is enough to buckle the knees, especially to a self-centered artist-type who likes to spend uninterrupted periods of time alone listening to the same three Destroyer records—so we’d better get going while we were still young enough to be able. And so, with the vague conviction that we would someday want children we ceased all contraceptive measures.

As you can perhaps tell from the discrepancy between the date of this writing and the date in the previous paragraph, all did not go as planned. Getting pregnant proved to be much more difficult than we were made to believe as horny but somewhat impressionable teenagers. What started out as an exciting new phase in our relationship soon became fraught. With the arrival of each new cycle our fears that something was wrong were harder to keep hidden. It is probably not surprising that Darby took our inabilities harder, felt the failures more acutely and personally. After all, it was her body that seemed to be the problem, or at least it was the barometer of our level of pregnance. To her credit, she did not lose hope. She began to do research. She decided to take command of the situation by attempting to be more methodical.

Based on her research we started to use math. We measured temperatures and calculated luteal phases. We scheduled our 'tries' and did our best to take all the fun out of sex. We eliminated certain things, like caffeine, from our diets because… actually, I don’t really want to get into the scientific and pseudoscientific stuff here. Though having intercourse is fairly straightforward, suffice it to say if you are attempting to get pregnant and you don’t get pregnant like right away, it is assumed by everyone that you’re doing something wrong and therefore not only need but also want a lot of advice. People, whether you’re friends with them or not, and whether you asked for their opinion or not, will unload all sorts of pointers concerning you, your body, and all the poisons you’re naively putting in said body and how you’re never going to get pregnant that way. I suppose it would have been funny if it weren’t so tense and depressing and rife with migraine headaches from caffeine withdrawal.

About this time I started recording the thoughts/feelings/actions my wife and I thought/felt/attempted in our quest to conceive. The writings are a mixture of journal entries to provide chronology and posterity, with longer sections in which I discuss our personal histories, philosophies concerning childrearing, and what, if anything, not having children means from an existential perspective.

My plan, or at least my concept, at this time was to write a book. (I just referred to it as The Project.) I worked steadily and faithfully, covering what became a protracted process. Much of the time the words came easily for me, and as a breathtakingly slow and unproductive writer I was grateful at least for this. And certainly the writing process was a therapeutic means for me to deal with what grew into a very sad period in my marriage. Whatever happened, I kept imagining that at the end of it I would have our story to share. I pictured myself giving it to Darby—who respects my privacy as a writer and therefore knew nothing of The Project—after its completion. As our situation grew direr and our hope supplies ran low, I think I believed The Project would help prove my love to Darby. I thought it would be a way to preserve a feeling of togetherness during a tough time.

And of course I just couldn’t write about anything else most of the time. As someone who typically looks no further than his own field of vision for subjects, a large and painful and life-altering event is hard to ignore.

An obvious drawback to the my-own-life-as-fodder approach to writing is that not everything is or can be public information. At her request, I promised Darby I would not post or say anything about our problem. As an extrovert, I would always rather tell everyone. But she felt it would invite yet more intrusion, so I respected her wish.

This made small talk even more difficult for me than it already is. The question What's new? is at once so innocent and so loaded. We all keep certain details to ourselves as polite society dictates, so we don't expect much from this question. Still, really good conversations arise when someone has a real answer to this question. For example:

"Hey, John. Long time no see. What's new?"

"Well, I had to have a semen analysis yesterday." Or maybe: "I had sex three times this morning and then spent the afternoon reading about adopting a Haitian child."

Instead, for what seemed like a long time, I just said, “Not much,” and I would feel the conversation become dull and we’d both start figuring out a way to end it without seeming as though we are trying to do so.

It’s not that I crave pity or empathy. I just prefer honesty. And I think the awkward scenarios that being a person sometimes entails are what create meaningful connections.

I don’t mean to whine. Not being able to share very private details about you and your wife’s sex life with friends and friends of friends isn’t exactly oppression, but I felt like I had to pretend that this very consuming thing that we thought about all the time didn’t exist, and it just squeezed out all the energy for anything else for a while, so not being about to tell anyone just made me feel really sad.

I don’t know, maybe there’s no getting around the sad part, and that is just how mine manifested. The point is The Project began to take on a very heightened position for the future. I think it came to represent an endpoint. Being able to show The Project to people would mean that we were no longer going through all the stuff I was writing about. It would mean we were happy again and our ordinary lives had returned to us. It would mean that we were still married and in love and thinking about something other than babies and our inability to have them. If I could finish the book I wouldn’t have to think about it anymore. However, as funny and sad and wonderful as I thought The Project was, it soon became clear that it didn’t have an ending.

At first I think I believed the stories of just trying to get pregnant were good enough. But the longer we went without succeeding, the sadder our story got and the less I felt like sharing it. And, as a narrative arc, it had a predictably depressing rhythm. Each new month we would renew our hopes; each new month we would try something else to up our odds; and each new month would end in ever more despair than the previous one had as we edged towards accepting the reality that we just weren't going to be able to conceive.

Certainly this is when I did, thanks in no small part to observations and conversations I had with Darby about infertility, some of my best writing. I even started to accept how this process, and writing about it, could be very positive.

But part of me also couldn't let go. Below is an excerpt from a journal entry that I am particularly fond of for the superstition I seem to believe governs our lives:

Jan. 29, 2010:

Well, here is a confession of sorts. When I had the idea for this book I made an outline of topics I wanted to cover. I thought about the structure of the book—journal entries vs. introspective writing, etc.—and how it might be arranged. Since it was (still is) an ongoing process the ending was as yet undetermined. But I did consider how the ending would impact the story. Like all stories, wouldn’t the reader want resolution? Taking it one step further, would they not want a happy ending? As I looked over my notes I could not help but think how great it would be if we ended up with a child. I actually started to believe that my writing could somehow positively influence the outcome. It would provide an against-all-odds triumph after a disastrous narrative arc in which relationships are tested, emotions laid bare, and hopes are dashed.

And what if we could never get pregnant? I'm not sure what the ending would have been or when I would have understood it as such. Maybe it would have been a reflection on our journey with pithy resignation to our fates. Maybe it would have been open-ended. Maybe a transitory speech about deciding to adopt.

As it happens, we officially gave up trying last year around May. It had been a long time coming. We had tried and failed, hoped and then cried, once a month for two years, and we were both ready for something new. We'd talked about quitting before, but it proved harder than we thought. For one thing there was still nothing medically wrong with Darby as far as anyone knew. For another, I think you'd hate to look back and think that you didn't try everything you could. Because if you did, give up too soon or easily I mean, you'd regret it forever. But I followed Darby's lead. I agreed to keep trying as long as she still wanted to. Finally, she said she was ready for it to stop.

We met with an adoption agency the next month. It was still very painful and Darby sobbed afterwards, but it felt good to have a new direction for our thoughts to go in. Of course, the adoption process has many of its own pitfalls. As with our failed attempts at getting pregnant, adopting a child turned out to be a lot harder than I thought.

A lot of people like to tell you that the adoption process is a great way to get pregnant. We personally know three couples to whom a surprise conception resulted once the papers were signed—in one case the baby was adopted about a month before the mother turned up pregnant. The popular explanation is that the infertility was merely psychosomatic, that the woman was just too stressed to get pregnant, and that by initiating the adoption process she finally relaxed enough for it to work. (To her credit, Darby would bristle at this theory. "It makes it sound like it's just stereotyping women as over-emotional, like 'Oh, sweetie, it's all in your head.' It's so condescending!")

True or not, because of this belief I became paranoid that Darby or I or both of us were only now considering adoption because we secretly believed it would get us pregnant, kind of a last-ditch mental redirect to achieve fertility. Well, I don't think I was the only one. As we started to tell people we were thinking of adopting the replies were often met with knowing glances and stories of how so and so did the same thing and now they have eighteen children of their own. Honestly, I found the unflagging optimism on our behalf exhausting. Not to mention that it made our decision to adopt seem cheap, like it was public knowledge that we didn't really want to adopt and things might still work out for us.

The other thing about this theory is that it isn't true. Research has shown no significant impact on fertility to prospective adoptive parents. When I asked Darby to explain the perceived, if not actual, prevalence of stories like this she said, "Because it's rare it's more sensational, so it gets repeated. You never hear about the people that don't get struck by lightning." As I thought about this I decided she was right. For the three couples I know that have had this happen there are also three couples I know that have adopted. And there are likely many many more that I just don't know about that didn't want to adopt so it doesn't come up.

We met with the agency. We filled out reams of paperwork. We even told our parents we were going to adopt. For several months we were operating under this impression. Tales of our struggle to conceive were finally surfacing. I got really excited about adopting. Darby mellowed considerably. Life felt fun again.

...

I awoke on my birthday. We were going to go to the Grand Canyon, but it was still very early. Darby was shaking me.

"John."

I'm a pretty heavy sleeper in the mornings.

"John. I'm pregnant."

The words sounded impossible. Please pardon the tired cliché that I thought I was dreaming, but at least in my case I was still in bed and had been, only seconds ago, actually dreaming. But then I remembered, my mind returning, that we had walked to Walgreen's the night before to purchase a pregnancy test. We didn't really, or at least I didn't, think she was pregnant. It was a precaution to the upcoming weekend in which we'd be staying at our friends' cabin with said friends and where we would be consuming copious amount of whiskey and wine and beer. But Darby's period was late. This was nothing new; her period was often erratic. She'd mentioned the tardiness the previous weekend while we were hiking. Five days on, it still hadn't arrived.

Given the fact that we had not been trying, and the fact that we'd been through this before, were old pros at this, I went to bed without another thought. So the words did not elicit much excitement at first. In fact, I didn't know what she was talking about. As my waking life began to solidify around me, the meaning crystallized.

My first thought was about my book. Clearly this was an ending. But I also thought it was too easy, too Hollywood Happy. I thought it would seem schmaltzy. Nothing would be learned (by the reader, or by us). I thought it would be too sad and possibly offensive for all the people that have not been hit by lightning—the very people I felt such a connection with and who I felt I was writing to. By getting pregnant I'd sold out. My book was ruined. And what about the baby we were planning to adopt someday? What would happen to them? In an already overcrowded world full of perfectly good children in need of families, I'd gone and gotten a brand new one like a spoiled yuppie.

The feelings were complex. I was elated, but even just a tiny bit disappointed, as though all the worrying and hoping and writing and brooding and fucking and not masturbating and acupuncture and Clomid and weird sexual positions and pep talks and resentment had all been for nothing. Getting pregnant was actually that easy. It was no story at all. We were going to have a baby, and we hadn't even tried.

I couldn't think of anything to say, so I just smiled sleepily and managed, "Happy birthday."

...

Special thanks to Gail Miller for editing.

Of Mice and Me

2011-02-20T22:18:00.002-07:00

I was going to put "the picture" (you'll see) here, but I can't stomach it, so here's DJ Dangermouse, the only mouse I let in my house.

   Ten years ago I decided to stop killing. Sort of. I wear leather shoes (more comfortable, last longer), I swat flies and crush the powdery hay-colored moths that ruin my suits and sweaters. Otherwise I'm like one of those saints with animals crawling all over them.
            We all draw lines, somewhere, around what we will and will not kill. For a lot of people that line stops at other people. For others it includes them. In my family and the community in which I was raised the safety umbrella protected certain animals—usually small mammals that have been quote-unquote domesticated. My point is what a person deems killable is a personal preference, and debate is pointless. No one can say why we shouldn't eat cat or dog but squirrel and rabbit are food, or why we consume beef and lamb and pig but not horse. It probably all comes down to trial and error and use-value. Still, I have to think we could breed delicious pug meat if we wanted, but I guess it's not a necessity.
            Faced with a confusing argument and a penchant for overempathizing, I opted out and became vegetarian. I decided I didn't know how to sort out food from pets so, except for a few insects that will not stop flying at my face or eating my stuff and who totally started it, I try not to harm anything that has the ability to be afraid.
The reason I am telling you this is because I’ve had to make a fairly glaring exception—one that calls into question my whole belief system. I should have my card revoked. There is blood on my hands, and after a point my claim of vegetarianist practice becomes pure semantics.
The battle between predators and varmints is a storied affair. It is the reason Exterminator is an actual job title. It is the premise of much of the twentieth century’s most beloved animated programs and comic strips. It is a classic underdog tale to which we can all relate as children—the small, vulnerable prey is victimized by an aggressor who he perpetually outwits using guile and improvisation. The predator is a foil, a metaphor for inept technology, bumbling authority, or chaos. Nobody roots for the cat/wolf/coyote/Fudd.
            I noticed something about these shows: they are a singular example in which the protagonist is also the bad guy. It is the predator the camera follows, shifting from scene to scene as we watch them concoct ever more elaborate ploys to attain their goal. And as we age, these agents of violence and hate are who we become. Shedding our ability to feel pity for most other beings, we mature into adults and take our place atop the food chain. The cartoon predators are the stars of the show because they are us.

            As a boy I owned rodents. I had a plucky gerbil named Grapefruit and, after his passing, a hamster whose name I've forgotten, perhaps for the best. I played with them after school, constructing mazes and obstacles from a salvage yard's worth of Legos. I held them and stroked them and tried to take them places in my pockets. I thought of them as my friends.
            I sobbed when Grapefruit killed and ate his companion, my brother's gerbil Starlight, and the litter of pups they'd produced without our knowledge and out of wedlock. It was confusing to a boy. How could something so small and cute inflict so much damage, produce such violent spattering? I still cared for Grapefruit afterwards but, like a prison liaison, I was wary of him too. Little did I know this was just a taste of how much destruction an animal the size of a Matchbox car can inflict.
            When my wife and I moved to Albuquerque we discovered we had mice that first winter. It was a minor annoyance—a bit of poop, some food was nibbled upon—but as long as we were careful to seal things in jars it wasn't a big deal. We stayed true to our peaceful outlook. We cleaned and complained, but it seemed mean to try to hunt and kill another animal just for trying to get by. At the most basic level of need is food, and the mouse was no different than us. We even referred to him as Mouseykins.
            However, our plan failed. The mouse, cut off from food, didn't leave. He played dirty, chewing the plastic edges of our Tupperware, shredding the labels from various oils and vinegars rendering them unidentifiable, even spoiling things that are not so much food as ingredients—red pepper flake, baking powder, dried corn husks, the flaky pages of seaweed used to wrap a sushi roll—and so we began to do a bit of research.
            I am well aware of the mousetrap, the oft-cited quintessential invention, the thing everyone is always trying to improve, which seems to point to just how damaging mouse problems really are. But, unless I'm misunderstanding, I thought the point of the saying was to demonstrate that something very simple and effective need not be improved. Nevertheless, there are all manner of traps on the market, which fall into one of three categories.
            There are, as one expects, the killy spring-loaded kind that crush and pin the mouse to a plank of balsa wood. Then there are so-called No Kill traps meant for catching and subsequent releasing (which doesn't so much solve mouse infestation as delay it for a few days while the mouse recuperates to mount a second wave of attack. That or you find out your neighbors suddenly have a mouse problem). And then there are mouse deterrents.
These are tiny speakers you plug into the wall outlets. They supposedly emit an inaudible (to humans) frequency that is unpleasant enough (to mice) that they will remain out of earshot. Two things about this: (1) unpleasant sounds are not a foolproof deterrent when one is in search of food as evidenced by the existence of Indian restaurants. It amounts to unpleasantness on par with ugly wallpaper, something that radiates and surrounds you but has no direct influence over your appetite. (2) The speakers weren't inaudible. I know this because this is what we tried first. Our landlord had used them in our apartment in Chicago and as far as I know we didn't have mice.
            It took a while for me to pin it down but I had been feeling irritable and distracted. At this time I was spending long days at home studying for school. I was having a particularly unrestful day when I became aware, suddenly, of a slight but very annoying sound. I tried to ignore it for a while but it was one of those things that, once it gains notice, cannot be unnoticed, like seeing a ghost or realizing the girl you're hitting on has herpes.
            Soon I started passing through the apartment attempting to locate the source. It was definitely louder toward the back half of the house, but I wasn't able to think of anything that would produce a whine. Finally I decided it must be coming from outside, maybe a neighbor rehearsing with their noisecore band, and I figured it would eventually cease.
            It did not.
            Pretty soon I became convinced it was in fact coming from inside. More specifically it was coming from the kitchen. I began pressing my ear to various appliances—the toaster, the water heater, the fridge. I even tried sort of shaking the refrigerator, to no effect, until I thought better of it. Don't people die at home in this way; they're found crumpled beneath something heavy? I think I read that more people are killed each year by refrigerators than by sharks. Or maybe that's vending machines—something about their smug silence after they cheat you out of a Snickers provokes a body. At any rate, as a large appliance pitches forward I wonder if there is that slow-motion epiphany, as when you lean too far back in a chair, when you realize you've made an error, and now you are going to be killed by a robotic barista, and you are embarrassed and terrified and, in a way, would have preferred a death at the mouth of a shark since at least that sounds sort of heroic and doesn’t come across as greedy.
            No matter. A closer inspection revealed no sonic difference whatsoever with regards to my proximity to the fridge. Exasperated I whirled about looking for a clue.
            The unblinking red LED of the mouse speaker looked back at me with the same remorseless expression as HAL 9000, its ceaseless gaze all but confessing. Rather than attempt to hide, by having the gall to stare I knew it was guilty. The lady doth protest too much.
            A quick unplugging confirmed my suspicions as the piercing eye extinguished along with the pulsing whine. It wasn't working anyway; our cabinets were still strewn with feces. Into the trash it went.

            Our next step was more forceful. Darby stapled screen mesh into the backs of our cabinets to try to block his entry. We also decided to get some traps. As well-meaning vegetarians we selected the No Kill variety. It was an uncomplicated system—a downward-angled tube that the mouse would enter to retrieve the bait would tilt on its fulcrum, like a teeter-totter, as the mouse traveled through to the back. This action activated a hinged door to swing shut behind, effectively sealing our fuzzy intruder within.
            Well, the Cask of Amontillado this was not. For weeks the trap sat in disuse, yawning. I was reminded of setting traps for our cats when I was a kid, tying a string to a ruler and using it to prop up a laundry basket. As before, I guess I expected quicker results. Not that I blame the mouse. I wouldn't go tunneling at night into a suddenly-appeared cave no matter how "natural" the peanut butter.
            All the while we became more frustrated that our humane attempts to correct the problem were ineffective. We grew weary of wiping and bleaching surfaces and removing rice-sized droppings. To make things worse we'd been tipped off about something called Hantavirus, a rodent-transmitted disease that like melts your lungs or something and is normally only found in third-world countries and New Mexico. Morale was sinking.
            The thing about a mouse problem is it materializes instantly, and the mice are all but invisible. They scavenge at night, leaving behind only crumbs. It's a bit like Santa if Santa crapped every few feet. This means it's hard to know just how bad the problem is. (As a friend put it, "You don't have a mouse, you have ten.") And it can seemingly stop and start. This has been especially true in the warm climate here. The mice move indoors in the winter. The rest of the year we wouldn't hear from them. So we didn't think much of it when the mouse season ended.
            A while later—a few weeks maybe, which tells you how often we clean—I was getting out the cleaning supplies from beneath the sink, when I noticed the mouse trap had been sprung.
            Uh oh.
            The trap wasn't super well designed. It had a few moving parts, but was no more complex than a toilet paper tube. Its incline was scant enough that the peculiar drift in our apartment's foundation—a proud crown that flows steadily downward as one travels south—had activated the trap sans souris in the past. Finally we'd put the trap in the cabinet under the sink because it seemed to be the only place level enough. And, since we clean so infrequently, we promptly forgot about it.
            As I lifted the trap, the consequences of what we'd done set in. The trap had a heft to it that told me it had indeed done its job, only I didn't hear the accompanying scratching and skittering I might have heard if a live mouse was suddenly hoisted in the air inside its lightless sarcophagus.
            I felt awful. In our attempt to spare his life we carelessly inflicted a far more torturous death upon the mouse. He'd starved or died of dehyration. Probably a bit of both. Our naive belief that we were doing the right thing backfired, as they say, big time. We'd been irresponsible, neglecting to hold up our agreement to split duty on the verbs Catch & Release. With a heavy heart I walked to the dumpster and deposited mouse and trap in a single motion, a burial in a sea of trash.

            Back at square one I decided to use the best mousetrap there is. No, not my cat who is so disinterested I am guessing he is either allergic or paid off. I'm referring to myself. Armed with an upside-down plastic bowl, I stalked the little devils, clearing the countertops to provide an unobstructed view.
            I had a few close calls, seeing the mouse scoot under the washing machine or oven. Occasionally I could flush him out with Darby's help as the dogs looked on in puzzlement. Each time I was a bit too slow.
            I noticed my body would react immediately—somewhere in my nerve centers the word mouse! was being transmitted before my wits would settle enough to realize that the bogey had been sighted. I would startle and stagger back a step or two before I could advance on it with my mousin' bowl.
            What made me think a person could catch a mouse anyway? Mice are, by their very nature, elusive and charming. As their pursuers we are clumsy and foolish and far too inept to do anything but injure ourselves. I began to lose hope.
            And then I did the unthinkable.
            From the other room I heard rustling. Creeping like a burglar I entered the kitchen and flipped on the light. The mouse dashed behind the flour jar, which I moved. It dashed along the sink and behind the coffee maker, which I moved. Out of room, at the end of the counter, it dashed under the toaster oven.
            This was fortunate because we were directly below our cabinet of drinking glasses. I slowly reached up and took one, keeping my eyes on the toaster for any attempts to flee. Only, when I moved in for my bounty I saw he had vanished. Our toaster has a good inch of clearance to see underneath. There was poop and stray specks of blackened toast, but nothing so conspicuous as a mammal. I peered through the glass door thinking he might have been able to crawl inside.
            For a moment I imagined turning the toaster on and cooking him out. I pictured the mouse aflame, saying he was so so sorry. War does funny things to a man. But the mouse wasn't in the toaster. Nor was he under it. Sliding it away from the wall revealed nothing. The mouse had some kind of trap door or escape pod I didn't know about.
            Soon my wife came to see what all the crashing and swearing was about.
            "The mouse was right there under the toaster, but it's gone!"
            Naturally my wife bent down to see underneath. Implausibly, she said, "There he is!"
            "What!?"
            She was correct. A mouse matching the description of our suspect had reappeared under the toaster. As I moved to slide the toaster clear, glass cupped confidently overhead, he repeated his clever maneuver. But this time I witnessed what he'd done. He hadn't crawled up into the toaster. He had crawled up into the feet of the toaster—cheap, hollow plastic archways that they are—and was peeking out at me from his snug shelter.
            I grabbed the appliance and held it aloft. The mouse tried to scramble further inside but he had just enough room to hang on. I began to shake the machine as carbonized breadcrumbs rained on the countertop.
            As if appealing to my soft side, the mouse began to let out long, frightened squeaks. To an impartial observer, an enraged man trying to rattle a crying rodent out of a toaster would probably look a little crazy, but we were so close to victory. I kept shaking.
            Suddenly he dropped from the toaster and ran to the corner. Before we could react to contain him he ran (get this) up the wall! I guess I'm not too surprised, but I didn't know mice could scale brick. In a flash he darted into the space between the wall and our dish shelves, his tail disappearing like slurped spaghetti.
            Stunned, we just stood there waiting to see what might happen next. Luckily the mouse was as curious as we were and he appeared again, inches from our faces, his nose sniffing spastically from the gap.
            Thinking quickly I grabbed, of all things, a nearby ruler (only in a house full of artists...) and began shaving it down along the gap, hoping to flush him out. It worked and a moment later he dropped the foot and a half to the counter.
            Ready, for once, the octagonal drinking glass crashed down over the mouse with a satisfying clop. We exhaled, eyes wide, like we'd just reached the end of a long race. Watching him circumnavigate the interior for any weak points I was reminded of the curious and sweet way my pet rodents would play in their plastic labyrinths.
            "He's pretty cute," I said.
            "Isn't he?" Darby agreed.
            For a minute I started to feel sorry that we'd worked so hard to torment such a tiny thing. But we followed through. We walked him a few blocks up the street to an alley known for its extensive catalog of used mattresses, sprouting against the walls of garages like large, flat fungi. I stooped and removed the postcard I'd been holding to the glass bottom and then lifted the glass. The mouse bounced quickly away towards a Tempurpedic as our dogs watched in disgust at our wastefulness.
            "Bye, Mouseykins," I said.
            "Bye, Mouseykins," Darby repeated.

            Last fall I developed for the first time ever a bout of insomnia. It was terrible. I would go to bed and fall asleep normally. Then I would wake up at two, almost on the button, and lay there until four or five. On the worst night I never did fall asleep again, finally dragging my lukewarm corpse to the shower to get ready to teach America's Youth how to use Photoshop.
            I am still not sure what caused the insomnia. No one ever is. I did a bit of research and even found a NYTimes blog about sleep, but all conclusions, scientific or otherwise, are always met with an outpouring of sleep-deprived anger in the comments section. I tried exercise, eliminating afternoon caffeine, staying up a little later, but there didn't seem to be a pattern. It just happened a few times a week. I would very suddenly be laying in bed awake. And this was no ordinary awake. I was wide awake, vastly gapingly awake. All my senses were frighteningly acute. The light from my tiny digital alarm clock would cast a bright green glow across the entire room, so bright I could see it through my eyelids. My heart would be pounding and my thoughts racing as though I woke midstream. And the music. I would have these songs—vile, merciless songs like Walk Like An Egyptian—playing on a cocaine-fueled loop. I'd wake up with the song already in my head, meaning I was actually dreaming the song. Even if I liked the song, like when it was the same few notes of a nifty Destroyer guitar lick, I didn't like it hundreds of times in a row, and I didn't like it in the middle of the night, and I definitely didn't like it at the volume my mind was playing it. It was so intensely loud. It was like living below an apartment of teenagers. It was like living below a past incarnation of me.
            Needless to say I was becoming unsteady. I could see how insomnia might very easily drive a person to suicide. It got to the point where I was afraid to go to bed.
            I am glad to say that it suddenly stopped and I am back to sleeping 14 hours a day. But the sleeplessness also happened to coincide with another mouse infestation. I was disappointed that my kindness towards the previous one was not repaid with some kind of citywide ban on our apartment. And this new mouse was particularly destructive, wrecking the lid to a nice Pyrex casserole dish we were using to store a worthy treasure, uncooked pasta.
            This mouse was also bolder that the last. I caught him rummaging through our cereals or scuttling across the floor in full daylight. Perhaps our soft reputations had gotten round.
            One night I woke with the same inaudible bang of my autonomic nervous system I always did, nerves blazing, music blaring, pupils dilated. Only this time, over the din of Take On Me, I heard something else. After a few seconds I was certain I could detect the sound of a small animal wading through a bag of cat kibble, like a child in a ball pit. Since the cat was next to me either asleep or feigning sleep, the lazy cuss, I knew what I had to do.
            I slipped into the kitchen and armed myself with my trusty bowl. Positioning myself within range I flicked on the light. All movement stopped as my furry foe realized he'd been discovered. After a beat I reached for the bag of food only to see him dart out from the hole he'd chewed into the back of it.
            The chase was on. Across the countertop he weaved into and behind our stuff—pots, dirty dishes, the composting jar—as I removed them and provoked him to flee further. Then, in a remarkable redux of the last incident, my mark made his way under that impregnable fortress, our toaster.
            This time I swept it quickly to the side before the mouse could find his way into the alcoved feet. He attempted to climb the adjacent brick wall too, but having seen it all before, an old hand at this mousing business, I swatted him back down with the easy grace of a trained fighter. Cornered, he took a look at me and decided to go for broke. He charged me and jumped from the counter, free-falling several feet (the human equivalent of jumping several stories) to the floor where I slammed the bowl down on top of him. CLOP!
            I gasped as I noticed I'd accidentally put the bowl's edge down on his tail and swiftly repositioned it. But I'd gotten him! I am kind of a genius at this.
            As I knelt there congratulating myself at three in the morning on the kitchen floor I sensed a distinct lack of movement. Nervous that this was an escape ploy, playing possum, the old Faint 'n' Flee, I pressed my ear to the floor and slowly raised the bowl's edge, hoping he wouldn't lunge at my face.
            The mouse was on his side, lifeless.
            After removing the bowl completely to confirm it, hesitating to watch for any flicker or contraction, I could see what I had done. Whether it was the fall or the rim of the bowl or a heart attack is not clear. I did know I was starting to rack up a body count.
            Heartbroken I picked him up by the tail and placed him in the trashcan.
            As I crawled back in bed, Darby, who'd been woken up by the Keystone Cops in her kitchen asked me, "Did you get him?"
            I burst into tears. "I'm so tired!" I whimpered. "I accidentally killed him. And I just want to go to sleep."
            She sighed and told me it was okay, but I felt wicked, like a big dangerous animal that can kill without trying, like an Orca or Mike Tyson. I fell asleep curled across her lap, deeply ashamed.

            Which brings us to today. I remember remarking that we'd had little trouble from the mice this winter. Darby had buttressed her initial border fencing with yet more screen, and we'd moved more or less anything that wasn't sealed in glass to the refrigerator.
            With not much to eat we hoped it wouldn't be worth the effort and the mice would stay away. I keep hoping mice use a system of communication, like hobos (or is it hoboes?), leaving markers at the entryway to tell the others Cat, or Bare Cupboard, or Insomniac Butcher, but I guess not. A recent cold snap was followed by a fresh wave of droppings. Lots of them. And, perhaps driven by necessity, the mice managed to scale new heights. We found turds on top of the fridge, in the stove burners, and quite impressively one of them managed to climb onto our wire mesh pot rack and burrow a crater into a loaf of bread.
            At wit's end my pregnant wife decided she was ready to go lethal.

            At the hardware store, faced with so many varieties of traps, my resolve begins to waiver. Like a dictator invading a small, impoverished country, the mice are badly outgunned. We pick up boxes comparing the various contraptions, weighing price against deadliness. We also want it to be fairly painless, if a horrific death in which you are crushed can ever be painless. But there is just no getting around it. All these traps are going to kill one way or the other, and the packaging is no help. As with any other competitive market, each brand of trap trumpets its own greatness. Testimonials floated in electrified word bubbles exclaim, “Eradicates Mice!” or “Guaranteed to Kill!!” I keep looking for the trap that induces a coma and then smothers them with pillows. Where are the adjectives that provide reassurance—words such as restful and compassionate and ticklish? They don’t exist because wimps like me don’t kill mice; they do yoga and see therapists and rearrange their lives to suit this unique and character-building challenge. I am crossing a threshold here, one in which I cannot bring with me my feelings about the value of life. I am entering a warzone where it’s us or them, and death to the enemy is the only goal.
            A box of poison has a cartoon mouse in silhouette assuming the croaked position, eyes exed out thanks to its trusting nature. The trap packaging is more aseptic. They feature pictures or drawings of mice to remind you of just what you're up against, but none of the companies are so macabre as to depict an actual casualty. I suppose an image of a rodent in rigor mortis after it's had its vertebrae snapped by blunt force trauma doesn't put people in a buying mood.
            For the faint of heart there are even traps that do their dirty deeds out of view, enticing the mouse to enter an enclosure, not unlike our badly misnamed No Kill tube, and smashing them in private. I imagine a croquet mallet coming down on their skull as they perch in the dark enjoying a free snack. One of these PG-13 traps is disc-shaped and promises a kill every time, as though mice are actually very durable. I can't tell from the package but I surmise the trap somehow employs rotational force—perhaps after the mouse has poked its head though a hole like those photo backdrops where your face is superimposed over a bodybuilder's built body—so some of the mouse gets twirled while other parts stay put.
            The most gruesome trap we see is a mouse-sized area rug made of flypaper. I cannot imagine waking up to find a frightened rodent glued in place, by now probably praying for death. And unless I'm missing something, the actual deathblow must then be supplied by you, the consumer. Maybe some people would enjoy smiting a live mouse. As I believe I have demonstrated, I am not of this ilk. For one thing, what does one use? A shoe? A brick? (Perhaps for a bit of levity the designers could include a tiny shovel.) And so then how do you, post-bludgeon, get the mouse off the trap? Or is it a single use item, because I have to think even a below average mouse would know to avoid walking across the platform that has a dried mouse foot stuck to it?[1]
            Confused and a bit nauseous, we whittle our choices to the smaller, simpler traps. The most cost-effective ones are the iconic, springy ones made of wood, but some clever designer made a clever decision: the switch that activates the trap is a yellow piece of plastic with several holes drilled in it. That way the mouse will think it’s made of cheese. Just imagine their surprise!
            Another slightly more expensive trap is similar in function to the classic traps, but its aesthetics raise questions. The trap is made of white plastic jaws. When activated, a curved row of pointed fangs slams down onto another row of fangs, much like the chomping of teeth. In truth, it looks more like a very small bear trap than anything you’d need for a mouse. No doubt this design was chosen for those who do not worry about the ethics of killing and want a trap that not only kills but also looks like an awesome monster.
            It kind of works on Darby. She says she is worried that the mousetrap classic won’t work and the mice might survive. She says she’s heard they sometimes only catch their tails. I am torn. On the one hand I’m not sure that the plastic will form a tight enough seal; on the other, if it is as powerful as it looks, I do not want to be cleaning up viscera every morning. I opt to reassure her that the wood and wire ones will be fine.
Incidentally, our traps are called Tom Cats and, as you might have guessed, have a picture of a stalking cat on them. We buy four of them, and when we get home I show them to our real cat in an attempt to shame him.
“If you won’t hunt, what are you?” I ask because cats love rhetoric. “You’re just one more animal eating our food. You’re just a big mouse!”
Seconds after setting the first trap, Darby catches a human thumb in it and I feel we’ve chosen wisely. I go about setting the others.
“Do you think we need four?” I ask.
“We don’t have any idea how many mice there are. We might as well set them all.”
For bait, Darby smears a bit of peanut butter on the plastic cheese platforms, and I start to have a morbid reaction. I think of how perverse it is to commit murder with products called Jif and Skippy.
We set traps in a sort of parallelogram about the kitchen’s perimeter: one in the cupboard, one on the stove, one on the fridge, and one by the washing machine. I go to bed feeling certain I’ll be startled awake in the middle of the night by a clean, bright snap.
It doesn’t happen. Not a creature was stirring. I wake up with my alarm, groggy, at quarter to six. In my liminal state I’ve sort of forgotten about the traps, so it comes as a surprise when I pass through the kitchen toward the light switch to find a mouse right there on my stovetop, his head held fast to the trap’s base, still as a stone.
            I don’t know what I expected, but I’m still surprised it worked. It’s like an act of faith: if I put this crude machine down and go to bed, a mouse will appear.
            I’m afraid to touch it. I don’t want it to be alive. I do this anytime I’m confronted by death. I always think I can see the deceased moving, or trying to move, or thinking about moving. In our church growing up it was standard practice to have an open casket wake. It is also a very yucky standard practice to kiss the deceased goodbye as they ascend to Heaven. When my great great aunt died I followed protocol, not because I was worried about her safe passage, but because I wanted to feel if she was cold or not. She was.
I look at his eyes and they don’t seem glazed at all. He looks like he’s watching, waiting to see what I’m going to do. Instead of reaching for him, I do what I always do when I see something tragic and/or out of the ordinary, I get my camera.
As I’m framing up the most appropriate mise-en-scène and checking my shutter speed I am already thinking of a title. I decide to call it One Way In Which I Am a Hypocrite (Self-portrait As Failed Vegetarian). Satisfied that I’ve properly documented and therefore memorialized the event, I slowly lift the trap. Only it’s stuck. Not that I blame him but I think the mouse might have emptied his bladder one last time and the dried urine has stuck him to the oven. With a bit more strength the fur sort of peels free and I hold the trap above the garbage can.
Freeing—and by freeing I mean getting the severely indented rodent to slide off the trap—the mouse is harder than I suspected. I wish I knew the terminology better so I could explain this more fluently, but the part that actually does the smashing (the smasher?) is almost flush with the base. I have the delicate task of trying to work my fingers underneath it to pry it upwards without actually touching the mouse because that is just gross. Once I get it, the mouse continues to hang from the smasher like a grappling hook, even as I pull it away, so badly is the poor mouse’s skeleton notched. With a slight flick of my wrists the mouse’s body swings outward from the trap and finally lets go, unceremoniously dropping into the wastebasket. I feel bad, but also a sense of relief, like this war is finally over.
As I head toward the bathroom to get in the shower I hear a jingle coming from the laundry room. I am shocked to think that maybe another mouse just triggered the trap in there, right before my ears. Flipping the light switch, I hear another jingle, and suddenly I see the trap, upside-down, tracing along the bottom edge of the washing machine.
I gasp as I realize the mouse, far from dead, has his back leg caught. I reach down to pick up the mouse/trap but as I do he lunges for my fingers. My fears have come true, just as Darby warned, and now I am faced with what to do with a mouse I have trapped, and certainly injured, but not killed. I grasp the trap gingerly with thumb and forefinger so no teeth can reach me and head outside, the mouse squeaking the whole way.
Up close I can see his hind leg is caught at an awkward angle. It’s purple and swollen and he curls back in on himself to try to work it free but his tiny arms are far outmatched by the strength of the spring coil.
On the sidewalk I’m only wearing slippers, but there are plenty of rocks. I have no idea what to do. Turning him loose crippled seems worse than just ending it now. I steady myself and put the mouse-in-the-machine on the cold cement, pinning him in place with my toe as I select an appropriate murder weapon from our xeriscaping.
Buoyed by terra firma, the mouse makes a run for it and frees himself from my clog’s grasp, the trap scraping slowly behind him.
Trying to pin him back in place is harder than it sounds. It requires enough quickness and aim to get a good toehold on the far end of the trap, but not so much force that I’ll just flatten him, which is weird because I’m about to flatten him anyway, but sometimes you have a procedure in your head and it’s hard to improvise if steps are skipped, even when the results will be the same. At last I get him to stick, but I’m starting to reconsider his clemency. If he can move okay on three legs and one trap, he’ll probably be all right. Then again I’m going to be mad if I wake up tomorrow and I find him a second time.
I decide to let him sort it out and I lift the trap off his leg. He scurries off into the shadows of a rosemary bush.
As I pass through the kitchen on the way to the shower I realize I’d better check the other two traps.
Inside the cupboard I see this is turning into a massacre. The third casualty of the morning lays lifeless underneath the trap, his tail snaking out like, well, a snake. I exhale and turn to see the fourth trap atop the fridge. Finally, mercifully, this one is empty. It is, however, triggered, and the peanut butter is gone. I hope that the poor bastard on the stove got to enjoy this first helping unscathed before his demise, but there’s no way to say. Since the trap went off, maybe a fourth mouse managed to escape.
Then I realize all the peanut butter, even on the traps in which there was a kill, is gone. Without seeing them in action it’s hard to know how sensitive they are to the mice, but it seems as though they aren’t so sensitive that they’ll shut the moment the mouse sets paw on them. I picture the mice, as the last atoms of oxygen leave their bodies, reaching for and eating the peanut butter and wondering if it was worth it.
In the shower, I’m a bit shaky. Running the stats I realize this could go on and on. Four traps and they’d all been occupied at some point, meaning there could be dozens of others. I start to wonder if we need more and better traps. I mean, they sort of worked, but there was a 50% misfire rate. Plus I’m not sure if the traps are reusable. Obviously they can be reset, but there has to be at least a whiff of death on them. And if there are others, wouldn’t they have seen what happens when you touch those things? Mice are used in science experiments because they have a capacity to learn. Haven’t I spoiled the ending?
At work I receive the following email from Darby:

Hey, How's your day? I saw all the traps and the trash is out. Thanks for taking it out. Did we get one mouse or four?

            I decide that Darby, who is a lot more sensitive than I am about these matters—so much so that she can’t watch the news because there are far too many stories about dog fighting and accidents at the zoo—doesn’t need to hear the details.
            My response focuses on the positive:

            Let’s put it his way, all the peanut butter got eaten.

            That night I dutifully reapply the bait and lay three traps again. I decide to retire the one that was mouseless, fearing another malfunction would result in another maiming. While I sleep I have dreams in which mice are darting across the surfaces of the kitchen. Dozens of traps have dead mice caught in them, but the survivors barely notice as they scramble past and atop the fallen. I keep opening the traps and resetting them only to catch more mice. It’s like those nature shows where the swarms of swirling fish pour along and over one another while the net closes in on them.
All the mice look the same. Like low-ranking enemy drones in video games, they lack defining characteristics and stream forth without end. Killing them never stems the tide; the only way to stop them is to complete the level—in this case, move to a new apartment.
In the morning it is quiet. The traps sit tensed but empty, and I feel grateful. Still it is not clear whether we got them all the previous day or not. Any remaining mice may well have skirted the death machines. The only way to tell will be to start restocking the counters with the dry goods and keeping an eye out for breaches in the packaging, and of course the appearance of poop.
Despite my feelings, it is hard to argue with the results of the traps. But it frightens me to think of the precision and severity of such a technology; how I can do nothing and mice die; how it takes a fraction of a second; how insignificant it makes them seem, broken like a twig beneath that lashing metal tongue; how they probably never saw it coming and probably took their life for granted; how it’s over before you know what hit you; how I am sorry.

[1] A friend, who has experience with this particular trap, informed me that her husband carries the stuck mouse outside, places it mouseside-down on the pavement, and backs over it with the car. He does not reuse the trap.

Special thanks to Gail Miller for editing and extra mousetrap consultation.

The Value of a Friendship

2010-10-30T14:15:00.000-06:00

(This image was originally used to illustrate an article in the New York Times about people who were deleting their Facebook pages in the face of unpopular changes to the site's privacy settings. The article was sounding a mass exodus and portended the site's inevitable decline. That was over a year ago, or, put another way, millions of new users ago. While this original intention seems hopelessly naive, I feel the image is eerily appropriate for my subject).

Aaron Hacker, a boy I went to school with, killed himself this week. I hadn't been in touch. I only saw him once after we graduated, but he was a regular acquaintance back in the proverbial day.

Of course this is tragic for him, his family, and those who have remained close to him. For me it is merely a time to reflect on someone who was smart and kind and fun, and offer my good thoughts of him into the ether. I am very sorry this happened, but I am not going to pretend we were closer than we were out of guilt or some perverse need to be attached to tragedy or even because I feel I ought to be more broken up about something as significant as the end of someone's life.

I don't mean to sound unsentimental. I have experience with losing a friend to suicide and I know it can be devastating. I only mean to frame it honestly.

Sticking with a long-imagined escape plan, I moved away from Marion, OH when I was 17. I never looked back. Apart from my art teacher, I did not have contact with anyone from high school for ten years. So, in a way, most of the people I went to school with have already died. I will not see them or hang out with them ever again. They are stuck in time, perpetual teenagers, my classmates, my ex-girlfriends, my enemies. They will all eventually die, tragically or naturally, and the more time that passes the less this will sting. Death is always painful in the abstract, but it is only through our proximity to it that we feel this pain acutely. In other words, I felt shock and surprise when I heard about Aaron, but I didn't cry. Indeed the aspects that make his death of note (to me) are his young age, which is always more tragic, and the fact that it came by his own hand, no doubt at the end of a long bout of suffering.
...

A few years ago the gulf between me and my former peers suddenly closed. After a long holdout under the philosophy that I did not need yet another email address, I joined Facebook. I continue to have mixed feelings about it: I do not check my page very often; I do not update my status with any regularity; I most certainly do not need another website to spend hours on. It can feel very wasteful, not to mention voyeuristic, secretly perusing the people of your past from an undisclosed location, reconnecting (but not really) with older, often puffier versions of the people we used to call our friends.

When I joined, I felt Facebook had reached a critical mass. It seemed like the people who were going to sign up had done so and I kept thinking the party was winding down. Years later I can see how wrong I was. Facebook's arms are much longer than they first appeared. My parents, my aunts and uncles, my little cousins, all these people that heretofore had been mostly absent on the internet were suddenly here, posting pictures and commenting on my wall. And of course more and more people I can only scarcely remember or who I haven't thought of since I last saw them keep arriving. At this point I have been so inundated with these shadows that I cannot honestly say all my 'friends' are people I recognize, let alone liked. By the time of this writing, my Facebook page states that I have 304 friends. Wouldn't that be nice?

Still it's not all bad. When I became a member I understood what I was signing on for. I realized that I would once more become visible to a large group of people who had either not been looking for me or else could not find me. Facebook made it not only possible, but socially acceptable to get in touch. Before it would have seemed incredibly creepy to receive an email from someone you haven't seen in twenty years but who used to live near you in elementary school. Now it's no big deal. And this is part of Facebook's appeal (for us older users anyway). Of course it's great for sending messages or invitations to our current networks, be they friends, relatives, or part of our communities, but it's also a way to delve back into our past without overcommitting ourselves. Suddenly we can all check in on the people we haven't wanted to keep in touch with, lest we would have.

A few times it has been downright thrilling to see someone I'd all but forgotten about. Filled with nostalgia we will send a flurry of emails catching up on the last decade, like Cliffs Notes of our adult lives. Other times I can see that I am more excited than they are about our encounter (inquiries into how they've been were ignored, a fact that while not exactly perturbing does make me wonder why they signed up in the first place). Still other times I have found myself unable to friend people with whom I was absolutely not friendly with when we actually knew each other. It always makes me feel a little petty, turning down a request that requires so little of me, being friends in name only, but I have a long memory and some people just weren't very nice to me. I realize others may well feel this way about me, but to the best of my knowledge no one has denied a request from me. Perhaps they merely shrugged and accepted my request, hard feelings be damned. If so, I applaud them. They are clearly better humans than me.

As a facebooker, I am not very solicitous. I do not make a point of declining friends even if the label friend is an exaggeration, but I also do not make a point of collecting the acceptances of everyone I recognize. I am aware of the tenuousness of what a friend is in this new era. Generally speaking, I will wait to be invited by others if they were not someone I considered an actual friend. But this creates a wide net with strange gaps in it. There are quite a few people I see online who are no more or less old friends than many of those whose invitations I have already accepted. The only difference is that sometimes I seem to be in a more gregarious mood and I will suddenly initiate contact. Sometimes it comes down to a single instance in which this person and I shared a laugh. And sometimes a person, although never anything but friendly, represents nothing more than an innocuous position in my mind. They are probably perfectly good people, and I wish no ill will toward them. But in my book they are neutral. And how sad it sounds to say that. How small and selfish my life feels that it does not, or cannot, include everyone to a meaningful extent.

In this way, Facebook both succeeds and fails. By centralizing (I refer to it as the hallway of the internet) our online presence, it makes our interactions far more orderly and simple. Like the high school hallway, information can spread like a forest fire, irreparably and instantaneously. But its potential as a means to connect is somewhat displaced by virtue of how the internet works. Its passivity is a primary reason for its popularity. We can reconnect with all these people because we don't have to do anything; we just look. And once the initial curiosity of how my old classmates are doing—whether they've gained weight, or are still hot, or finally came out of the closet—there is no lasting interest. I do not continue to reach out to them. I saw them, and that ought to be enough for at least another decade, if not the rest of my life, or the rest of theirs, as the case may be.

So, Facebook really is just a big keg party. It's a perpetual reunion with everyone you've ever met. You can come and go as you please, but I'm not sure how much it helps anyone. Its promise of interconnectivity is either false or else just better suited to those of us who are excellent self-promoters. The rest of us are probably just as isolated as we were before we created our profiles. In Aaron's case, his page says he had 206 friends. If that were true I have to think he'd still be alive.

Although I had not so much as heard Aaron's name for several years, I learned of his death the very next day, (on Facebook). Part of this may be attributed to the somewhat sensational nature of his death (suicide is always going to prompt more gossip than other untimely ends), but I was also struck by the rapidity with which information now travels. It came across the wire with the speed a breaking news story previously reserved for celebrities*. That a person from my own social sphere, with whom I am not in contact, can die on the other side of the country and I can hear about it within a few hours is a breathtaking collapse of the old means of communication, such as telephones or even mass emails.
...

I can't remember the last time I thought about Aaron, but if I had known he was on Facebook I likely would have been friends with him too. He would probably have ranked among the dozens I do not communicate with beyond our initial invitations.

Ostensibly, Facebook provides the possibility of second chances to reach out to the people around us. But for a litany of reasons, all perfectly good, we do not. We allow our cursory greetings and terse exchanges to stand in for relationships. In a way this makes it all worse. It would arguably be better to remain oblivious. By expanding our consciousness to include those we had nearly forgotten we risk being consumed by the multiplication of grief in all those deaths, or else we risk being spread so thin that death no longer affects us at all. Even had I been friends with Aaron via the new internet, he would not have risen above the status of Somebody That I Used to Know.

His page is still up. I don't know what the official Facebook policy is for the deceased. Perhaps the family can request it be removed. Or maybe it will just languish, frozen in a state of nonupdatedness like those who abandon their pages.

Intellectually, I know there is probably nothing I could have done to prevent this. Still, a natural part of suicide is the feeling that the survivors might have done more. When a person decides to end their own life once cannot help but feel that it reflects badly on them for not being more, what?, awake? generous? psychic?

When my friend Sarah killed herself, over a decade ago now, I kept waiting for a letter to arrive in my parents' mailbox. I desperately wanted one more time to hear from her. I felt I was owed an explanation. I felt cheated out of the intimacy we shared, like she'd hung up on me and never called back and then moved away. I felt like I'd tried to be her friend but it wasn't enough. I felt guilt like I've never known, and there was no way to make it stop since she left without a word to anyone. All of a sudden she was just gone, and the idea that it was her choice was hard to forgive.

Aaron's last status update was over two months ago. As someone who has gone through this, I keep wishing one more update would appear for all those who feel his loss more deeply than I do. And perhaps as much for him as for my friend Sarah I want it to be true. I want it to say Aaron Hacker is at peace now.

* I once read that news of Lincoln's assassination did not reach the West for many weeks. However, I read this as a handwritten note in the margin of a text, so the validity is questionable, but it is a vivid anecdote nonetheless.

A Distant 2nd

2010-08-29T19:44:00.001-06:00

Can you hear me now? Good!

I'm next on the list. If one more person out of the 48 current students has a change of heart or mind, I will take their place and begin nursing college in one week. If not, well, someone has to miss the cut off.

People keep reassuring me someone will drop out. My friend Amanda said, "Don't you think at least one of them enrolled just so they could get financial aid?" Perhaps. In the meantime, while I wait and hope for an unforeseen illness or injurious assault on one of my would-be classmates, I still have to proceed as though I am starting, that way if one of the current students falls, ill or otherwise, I will be ready.

For starters, last week I had to go to the College of Nursing's orientation. I spent the weeks leading up to the orientation hatching plans on how to eliminate my competition—intimidation, bribery, tragic stories of my sickly children who may not live if I don't become a nurse soon. There was a time in my life when such things would not have been out of the question. I was not above a bit of badmouthing or backstabbing to get the girl, (sorry, Jeremy). But in the end I decided to leave this up to fate.

At the orientation we were congratulated, encouraged, fed, and fingerprinted. It was weird to mingle among all the real students. I felt like an imposter. I felt compelled to admit, "My name is John, but I'm just an alternate." Prior to this day I had felt proud of what I'd achieved. Suddenly I was looking at 48 students who had not only achieved it too, but had done it better. I came in 49th place out of 48. It made me feel a little ashamed, like I wasn't quite good enough to get in, but I still could if one of the real ones dies. I decided to keep my status to myself mostly.

The problem is, as was the goal of orientation, I ended up meeting a lot of the students. We talked about our fears and expectations. It was a bonding experience. Everyone was excited and nervous and just looking forward to getting on with it. Only, I had to leave that day unsure if I would see any of them again. They are all going to go on together, regardless of what happens to me, and it made me not only jealous but also sad. I'd known I wasn't officially in. I already had my sights set on January. But then they let me show up and get treated like an incoming student, only to turn me back around and expect me to wait for four more months.

As if that wasn't bad enough, I had to spend my weekend studying. Starting tomorrow I have to attend a four-day intensive that preps the incoming students for clinical work. You see, I am expected to keep up, school-wise, with the other students until I am officially omitted from the program.

The studying isn't so bad. Most of it covers skills that I have already acquired through my job, much of it obvious. The freaky part is the DVD that came with the manual. On this DVD are step-by-step tutorials on how to do things like make a bed or give someone an enema. Not that I'm squeamish or embarrassed by the more personal topics, but I was surprised to see that the makers of the videos elected to use real people, as opposed to medical dummies. And they don't cut around the icky parts either. Need your vagina cleaned? Well let's see it!

As I watched I got to thinking about the people involved. Are these real nurses? Are these real patients? If not, are they professional models, and if so, what was their agent thinking? Perhaps they are real patients who have agreed to play a critical role in health care education. In any case, I just can't imagine signing on to have my body prodded in front of a video crew on a set that looks suspiciously like it might double as a hospital in porno films. To say nothing of the production quality. I don't think it's asking too much to do a second take on the segment about penis cleaning since, in the first one, the 'patient' got an erection. (Granted it wasn't a rager, but it was definitely hovering when the male nurse let go and stopped rubbing it. Who knows, maybe that was the best take?) My point is, shouldn't an instructional video show proper technique and leave out the inevitable variables that will arise (pardon the pun) on the job? In other words, if we are not supposed to arouse our male patients when cleaning them, this confusing detail should not be included; if we are, this ought to be made clearer, (if only to explain my low scores on patient evaluations).

Obviously I am focusing on the highlights. Most of the videos are as bland as they sound—handwashing, aspetic technique, assisting with meals—covering things I do everyday at work. I can only pray it will get more exciting when I go to class tomorrow to practice our new skills*, hopefully, on dummies.

And then I wait, perhaps for a few days, perhaps for a few months. Either way I am really doing this. I have taken the education thus far very seriously, but it has only been recently that the decision to change careers seemed concrete, that I would one day really be a nurse. As I watched the video nurses roll their patients to their sides to apply ointments or remove catheters I thought, "That's going to be me someday."

* The punchline to all of this is that the nurses don't do any of this stuff we're studying. I do it. The techs do it. In a pinch, I'm sure the nurses have to help bathe or clean patients, but for the most part they administer meds and do specialized wound care. They just don't have time to give 10-minute back rubs or do range-of-motion (ROM) exercises. That's what the assisting staff is for.

You & I: An Introduction

2010-07-11T22:19:00.002-06:00

My new job at the hospital has provided me with plenty of material, and plenty of time in which to write. I have begun to compose vignettes based on my experiences with my patients which I hope will become a longer collection. For now, here is an excerpt from what I have been working on. I am not sure how it fits in with the rest of the pieces since it is not specifically about one patient, but I am thinking it could serve as a prologue by introducing my role and filling in the general details of my days since, as you can imagine, a lot of them are very similar and have me performing the same few tasks over and over.

Because this is (I hope) a longer endeavor, I am trying not to get too bogged down in editing, etc. and just allowing myself to write. Thus, I consider this a first draft. In other words, comments are encouraged.

(Excerpted from as yet untitled project John refers to as 'Inpatients')

Even though I spend twelve consecutive hours feeding you, cleaning you, and talking to you, you are probably not going to remember me. I am what is known as a sitter, and the reason I am here is because you need more help than is typically available to a hospital patient. I have been called here, literally, to sit at your bedside for my entire shift. I am not allowed to leave you unattended for any reason, even if the reason is that you don’t want me here. If I need to use the bathroom or make a phone call, I must wait for someone to relieve me. I can read, or watch television with you. I can converse with you (unless you have been placed on suicide watch, in which case we must both silently suffer, pretending everything is all right and that you didn’t try to end your own life). If you are awake and alert I usually end up speaking to you. I record your vital signs at regular intervals. I pay attention to what is being said to and by you when you interact with other medical staff so that I can provide correct information later, if needed.

The reason you need a sitter is that you likely have impaired cerebral function, or you are just too incapacitated to do anything. More often than not your report says you have dementia, which is too general a term to be helpful. Sometimes you cannot remember your own birthday; sometimes you don’t appear to have anything wrong with your memory at all.

My main task is to ensure your comfort and safety, but this can be tricky because I am not permitted to physically restrain you. If you attempt to get out of bed or rip the tubes from your body I can only use diversionary tactics. Usually you are confused and need to be reoriented. I try to distract you by asking a series of simple questions like Do you know where you are? or Can you tell me what year it is? Sometimes I ask you these things over and over, each time you wake up.

Often you are considered a fall risk. You can’t really stand on your own but continually try to get out of bed. (Unfortunately, this determination is often made after you have already fallen.) A lot of times you are detoxing. You came to the hospital with injuries, such as broken bones from a car accident, and during the course of your stay you began to exhibit symptoms of withdrawal from drugs or alcohol. When this happens you become delirious, and it is far worse than your initial injuries. You sweat and yell and believe you are being held prisoner by scientists who are performing experiments on you. You are kept at the hospital until this subsides. You leave clean but, despite what I tell you, and what you tell me, a lot of times you go right back to using.

Sometimes you threaten me, or try to harm me, and I have to pretend not to be afraid. I still have to make sure that you are safe. I have learned to control my face and my voice. I have taught myself to seem brave.

If you continue to pose a threat, to yourself or me, I am allowed to call security and have you restrained. I can, under the supervision of a nurse, place foam cuffs at your wrists and ankles and tether you to your bed. We also have to call your family to tell them you have been restrained. So far I have never wielded this power, but sometimes you are already restrained when I arrive. If you are calm I ask the nurse if I may untie you because I cannot imagine how this must feel. If you are not calm I have to sit here and pretend I can’t hear you pleading.

I am the lowest rung on the patient care ladder. I am not allowed to give you medicine or, in some cases, help you out of bed, even though you need to have a bowel movement and you just cannot bring yourself to go in the bedpan. Unless you already have a cup in the room I am even not allowed to bring you water; I have to ask a tech to do it for me. I understand that you will see me as useless and this will make me feel like I’m failing you.

I will almost never know the answers to your questions. They don’t tell me anything beyond what I need to know to take care of you. I don’t know your husband, or where he is, or if he is even still alive. I don’t know when you will get to go home. I try to be positive, but I am constantly worried I will give you false hope.

We both say things we don’t mean. I speak to you with more patience and understanding than I feel or am able to muster with my wife and dogs. You would probably feel ashamed if you knew how you were acting, at least part of the time.

You do not understand puns or sarcasm or any of the other elusive ways of speaking I employ with great frequency, so I don’t use them. I am direct and attentive. I try not to deceive you, but sometimes, for instance if you have failed a psych evaluation and were deemed unfit to decide your own treatment, I am not allowed to tell you everything I know.

You won’t always know what I am doing here. If you even know you’re in a hospital, you won’t necessarily understand that I work here. You won’t know why I am washing you or spoon-feeding you. You won’t understand why I am asking you to pee into a container or why I then measure it. Sometimes you think I’ve just wandered into your room and decided to spend the whole day with you, in which case you think I’m very strange, or a pervert, or just terribly lonely. Sometimes this doesn’t seem to bother you and you are happy for the company. Sometimes you offer me part of your meal and my heart sort of breaks at your kindness. I don’t know how to make you understand just what the hell is going on.

I have been trained in CPR, so if your heart stops beating I can manually supply oxygen to your brain in an attempt to stave off brain death. Other than that I am kind of making this up as I go. I was not provided with a manual on how to be a good sitter. I was given two weeks of training in which I worked with another sitter, observing when I didn’t know what to do, and performing under their supervision when I did. Beyond that I just try to be the kind of good person that no one really is.

I try not to laugh at you, but sometimes the things you say are genuinely funny. I also try not to cry in front of you, and so far I never have, but if your family visits and you no longer recognize them it is far sadder than any book or movie. I am given the impossible twin tasks of preserving your dignity and changing your soiled pants for you. I swear to you that I do not enjoy touching your private parts, but I understand why you look so uncomfortable when I do. I try not to talk to you as though you are a child, even if you are a child. I will tell you my name or where you are as many times as you ask.

I try not to pity you, but occasionally I feel really sorry for you, or me, or both of us. You make me mad, and hurt my feelings sometimes. Despite my best intentions, you call me terrible things. You telephone your family and make accusations that I can only pray they don’t believe, lest I should be thrown in prison. I feel anger at your petulance, but I say nothing. I don’t always want to sit here with you, but I feel guilty when I think like this. I try to remember that as hard as my day might seem, yours is worse.

At the end of my shift I go out in to the hall and give my report to the next sitter. If you were kind or confused, I tell them that. If you were hungry or had diarrhea I tell them that. If you swore at me or lied to me, I tell them that too. And then I say goodbye to you. Sometimes you say thank you. Sometimes you don’t even notice. Sometimes you seem genuinely sad to see me go, and on these days I am glad to come back to work the following day. But usually you just say farewell with the same measured hesitation you’ve used throughout the day. I leave you with the next sitter as a new wave of confusion washes across your face. You have already forgotten about me, but it will be a long time before I forget about you.

Almost Famous: Armando Galarraga’s Perfect Game*

2010-06-06T13:45:00.004-06:00

Will you go safe with me? I mean out. Will you go out with me?

Last Wednesday, June 2, 2010, Armando Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers made baseball history. He retired 27 batters in a row without allowing so much as a single or a walk. This feat is known as a ‘perfect game,’ and is among the most rare occurrences in baseball, with Galarraga being only the 21st in history to do so. The problem is, Galarraga wasn’t given credit for his perfect game. On what would have been the 27th and final out of the game, first base umpire Jim Joyce called Cleveland Indian’s shortstop Jason Donald safe. Replays show that the play wasn’t even close enough to be considered bang-bang. Donald was out, as they say, by a mile. Unfortunately, baseball doesn’t rely upon video replay except in order to verify home runs. And so, despite what the Tigers players, the Tigers fans, the broadcasters, the other umpires, the entire television audience, and even Donald who seemed to know Galarraga had been robbed, saw, Joyce’s call is the only one that counts.

For his part, Galarraga has behaved admirably. From the moment the call occurred and Galarraga’s chance at perfection was taken away from him, he didn’t yell or argue or hop up and down in Joyce’s face. He actually smiled. No doubt he was in shock. His look betrays a feeling of disbelief, as if to say, ‘You aren’t really going to do this to me, are you?’ But that was it. He was forced to pitch to one more batter, whom he retired to finish what is in the books as a complete game one-hitter.

Joyce too has acted professionally, apologizing to Galarraga, admitting he was wrong, and even shedding tears for costing a young man a chance to go down in history.

It’s odd to think an umpire would feel pressured, that the weight of a situation might get the better of them, but that seems to be what happened. Afterwards Joyce referred to it as ‘the biggest call of [his] career.’ I never thought of it that way before, but it makes sense that umpires, who are baseball fans like any of us, would feel nervous about witnessing history and would consider it a huge deal to be part of a perfect game. What can one do but feel sorry for both Galarraga and Joyce?

Even without the perfect game, history was made. At least for now, Galarraga will be remembered for falling victim to what some journalists have deemed ‘the worst call ever.’ That the perfect game was lost on a botched call is bad enough. That the call occurred on what would have been the final out of the game is heartbreaking.

The aftermath has set off a debate about whether baseball ought to incorporate the use of instant replay to prevent this from happening again. It’s also been suggested that Commissioner Bud Selig overturn the call, nullifying Donald’s hit and the ensuing at-bat and crediting Galarraga with perfection. Frankly I don’t like either of those options. I have another idea—just call it a perfect game anyway.

Over the years the asterisk has been used in MLB record books as a way to differentiate how players’ stats are a reflection of changes in the game. Most famously, Roger Maris’ single-season record of 61 home runs bore this mark because it took Maris 162 games to accomplish what Babe Ruth did in 154.

In 2007, the asterisk was again brought into the public discourse, again concerning a home run, when Barry Bonds slugged number 756 to break the all-time record. The ball was purchased by Mark Ecko and subsequently branded with a red asterisk—a reflection of his belief that Bonds’ had cheated through his alleged steroid use. (It should be noted that Ecko’s actions were not sanctioned by MLB, which had the good sense to distance itself from this spectacle).

An asterisk is typically employed in a text to reflect a word or a number that requires further explanation—in these cases the longer season and the use of steroids respectively. It is used to single out what is viewed as anomalous. By definition, the asterisk usage in both cases is correct. However, I dislike the negative connotation of its denotation. These examples demonstrate what may be termed ‘the asterisk notion,’ that is, by placing the mark next to these statistics the reader is led to believe that they are invalid, that although they may sit atop the list they are not fully recognized as such. In baseball, the asterisk is applied punitively.

Eventually Maris’ asterisk was removed like an ugly mole, but not before he died no doubt believing his accomplishment was never taken seriously as the record. (The fact that it was removed would seem to indicate an admission of guilt on the part of MLB).

However, rather than a way to suggest perceived inferiority, the asterisk has the potential to simply clarify a statistical aberration. I can see how the asterisk might be used to right a wrong, in this instance to award Galarraga his unusual perfect game.

The reason this will work is it doesn’t involve overturning any calls on the part of Selig—a move that many would see as overstepping his authority. And since Joyce has admitted he was wrong, that the out ought to have been recorded, there can be no controversy as to whether the call was made for the sake of history. In his words, he “lost that kid a perfect game.” Lastly, because Galarraga went on to record the final out unscathed he should not be denied his accomplishment due to what amounts to a mistake, especially since the outcome of the game was otherwise unaffected.

With Maris’ home runs, or Bob Gibson’s stellar ERA in 1968, there is a context one can consider that leads us to conclude the worthiness of these feats. It’s true that Ruth hit his home runs in fewer games than Maris. It’s true that Gibson was throwing from an elevated mound during what is now referred to as a ‘golden age of pitching.’ But these details should not stand in the way of what the players achieved. The players’ feats should not be demoted or invalidated for the simple fact that the game and its rules change. The players are the products of their environment. It is our job as students of baseball to know the stories, to understand the contexts, and to argue about who was better than whom. In short, it should not be spelled out for us through the use of accusatory symbols that defame a person's season or career.

So, my proposal is this: list Armando Galarraga as the 21st pitcher in history to throw a perfect game, but leave the asterisk out of it. What Galarraga accomplished should stand on its own with out the tainting effects on an asterisk. Instead the asterisk could go in the box score in order to explain the 'hit' on the books for Jason Donald. So what if it's not, strictly speaking, exactly like every other perfect game? An umpire's mistake should not be able to undo what Galarraga clearly did. Decades from now it won't be anything more than a good trivia question.

Q: How many batters did Armando Galarraga face en route to pitching a perfect game?
A: 28

If Joyce, and everyone else, can see that he was wrong, what is the sense in pretending he wasn’t? In my view, and Jim Joyce’s, Armando Galarraga faced 28 batters and retired them all. All, that is, except one who reached on an umpire’s error*.

* A baseball statistic defined as a play in which (a) an umpire incorrectly interprets the outcome and (b) admits to doing so. Introduced in 2010 after Jim Joyce’s controversial call resulted in the loss of a perfect game bid by Armando Galarraga. The incident also led to a rule change in which the officiating crew was allowed to confer on and overturn close plays. Abbreviated E-U.

The Midnight Train to Georgia

2010-05-24T00:18:00.004-06:00

The Hyundai Santa Fe: It's not just for tourists either

Despite my thin credentials, I have been telling people I’m a writer for years. I admit it is a bit of a white lie. I write things, but like someone who never actually took karate but who watches a lot of martial arts movies*, I am more or less self-taught and largely untested. This doesn’t mean I don’t work hard at it or take the craft seriously. Indeed, as someone who spent six years and six figures on his arts education, I am quite used to the idea that working in isolation and without an audience can be very fulfilling, if not exactly lucrative.

It is a clichéd thing to say that I have been writing since I was a little boy, but that’s how it is. After my parents bought an old typewriter at a garage sale, my brother and I sat at a desk and composed one-page stories about going to public school. Eventually the heavy, ribboned machine gave way to an Apple IIc and a dot matrix printer, and finally an electric Brother typewriter that had been left behind by my college-attending sister, on which I penned my first and final attempt at a hip-hop song, a masterpiece I modestly titled “Rad Rap.” Unfortunately, I have since forgotten the lyrics, but I can tell you that its subject was Nintendo games, and how awesome they are, and how awesome I am at them.

I am also a sporadic keeper of journals, and I still have them even though rereading them shatters many myths I maintain about how different I am now and how much I’ve matured, etc, etc. In point of fact, they are valuable only because they illustrate to me just how little I’ve evolved since I was in high school. They definitely don’t help me to learn from my mistakes. I’m surprised to see that I have, at times, made the same resolution to act a certain way in subsequent entries, clearly disregarding my own advice from the prior entries. I think the only reason I bother with them is so that I do not repeat the mistake of writing something like, say, my only rap song ever on a loose leaf of paper that is certain to get lost. A bound book is a more complete, more painful, and therefore more truthful retelling of a lifetime.

I don’t know what compels a person to sit down and string together words or why they continue doing it into their 30s. I can only offer that it makes me feel good about myself. Obviously, I wish I had more discipline. Like any craft, to be a good writer you must put in the hours to get a good product, but sitting down to write when I’m not feeling inspired, staring a blank page, is a very ominous feeling. One of my favorite quotes, attributed to Dorothy Parker, goes, “I hate to write, but I love having written.” Of course, she committed suicide, so maybe she should have gotten gone to culinary school or something.

I write, primarily, to keep myself from going insane. I actually feel lucky if I get even one comment below a post, so I don’t feel that I am just shouting down an empty hallway, but you’ll also notice that I continue to post even when I don’t. In the truest sense, I write for myself.

It came as a surprise when, last summer, even though my publishing record at the time was one unsolicited art review, a catalog essay for the show I curated, and this blog, I found myself in the peculiar position of being offered money to write. With little hesitation, I agreed that I would sell out, and I’ve been writing a weekly column of art criticism ever since.

…

About a month ago I accepted a job at a hospital. It's not a great job, but it is providing me with much needed experience, not to mention insight, for my future career. In almost every way this is a positive step. The most significant drawback is that I no longer had adequate time to write my column.

When I took the job I thought I'd be able to keep writing, but after a few weeks I was exhausted and not feeling satisfied with some things I wrote. After a lot of consideration, I made the decision to resign from my post, and this Wednesday I will revert back to my original form as an unpublished nobody.

I’m saddened to let go of something that was so validating for a writer, not to mention a job that kept me very attuned to the local art scene. Then again, I’m looking forward to the option of spending weekends with my wife.

It’s funny to think about now, but when I was offered the job it felt like I’d won the lottery. Of course, when you factor in the 3-hour commute, self-employment taxes, and the abysmal weather they get up there, it was a lot less lottery-like. Still, I felt like I’d been discovered. I had worked hard, writing for an audience of friends and family, and I was reaping the rewards for being so fucking clever. It was a real rags-to-slightly-nicer-rags story.

I have been writing weekly reviews about Santa Fe galleries for 10 months now and, as with most any job, I’ve had mixed feelings on the matter. There was a feeling of euphoria, but the positives, initially, were far overshadowed by the paralyzing insecurity I experienced.

Despite my 10-strong readership of this blog, I had never really written for an audience, and it kind of freaked me out. Suddenly I had an editor who could change what I’d written and take out the words I so carefully put in**. Suddenly I had a deadline to meet, so I couldn’t just write when I felt like it (on average, once every 3-9 weeks). Suddenly there was the prospect that someone might tell me that my writing sucks.

All of these things happened, but none of them were as bad as I feared. After a while I stopped worrying about the audience so much. My editor gave me pointers. I even learned a few things, like subject-verb agreement, that were probably covered back in high school. I met all my deadlines, and never had to do a rewrite.

I did have a couple embarrassing moments, like the time I misquoted another article, or the time I joked about a gallery not really being closed despite a huge flood that shut it down for several weeks. But most of what I wrote was my opinion, so it couldn’t be fact-checked.

However, being a critic was sometimes a heavy task. No doubt I am expected to have a vested interest in the subjects I write about, not to mention a certain level of expertise. Well, my involvement in the art world is at times tenuous, and I’m not just being modest when I say a master’s degree doesn’t guarantee that I have any idea what to say about a large majority of the artwork I see.

Since I was free to cover any shows I wished, my approach was intuitive. I would keep going to galleries until I found something I thought I could write about. I found it was easiest to write about shows I enjoyed. It was also fairly easy to write about shows that, for one reason or another, offended me. Though, in the latter case, I would often feel very guilty and uneasy afterward. I was acutely aware (in my imagination) of the hurt feelings I’d caused, because I have experienced them firsthand with my own attempts at exhibiting.

It's a strange proposal, art criticism. I know a lot of art is therapy, and I think it's a worthy endeavor, but I'm not so sappy that I believe all art is important or transcendent. It's been commodified and over-marketed like anything else. In a place like Santa Fe, it can be just one more way to make a buck. Ignoring a large portion of the Southwestern-influenced tourist market, I tried to seek out the shows that mixed technical proficiency with personal philosophy. Whatever the motives the maker has, in the end it is difficult to ignore the fact that I am criticizing them.

On the worst days, my role as a critic just struck me as mean. I usually tried to avoid meeting the artists because I found it was much harder to be critical of someone if I could picture their face. It was even worse if I'd had any kind of discussion about the work. Standing there, listening to an artist stammer about why they did what they did, I would be composing my article in my head. I could sense their hopefulness, and maybe even their fear, about how I would respond. Something about this exchange seemed dishonest, like I should have said to them, "I'm really sorry, but you're full of crap." Although, I see that wouldn't have made them feel any better about the ensuing review.

I guess I wish there was enough good art around to only write positive pieces, but there just isn't. I had the tough task of calling it like I saw it. I think it would be a disservice to always tell everyone they're doing a great job. Upon reflection, I think any artist would know that wasn't true, but it doesn't make me feel any less sorry about it. I didn't accept the job to create enemies, but it's part of the deal.

Of course, I'm not sure I made a lot friends either.

Freelancing is a lonely endeavor. Working alone with almost no feedback produces in me a dangling feeling. The time between when I submit my draft and when it is approved seems to last forever and interferes with my ability to concentrate on anything else. I would fall asleep worrying about how my review would be received. I pictured a mob amassing to have me barred from entering town. God forbid I get an angry letter to the editor. For someone who criticizes others, I have awfully thin skin.

Then there is the matter of what I’ve written. I have no doubt that this job has had, will continue to have, a positive effect on my writing. If nothing else, it was a lot of good practice. Most of the challenges I faced were actually the biggest benefits. For one thing, I’ve gotten much better at sticking to the point. And I’ve gotten faster. But as I name these developments, I can also think of myriad ways in which my writing did not improve.

For one thing, I’ve learned that writing can be forced, that I can find ways to eat up space to suit my word count. Verily, I can babble on and on in a most uninspiring way. I don’t think it needs to be said that all stories are not equal, and a one-size-fits-all approach can be detrimental.

For that matter, there wasn’t always something I wanted to write about. There were weeks in which I left for Albuquerque wondering what I was going to do, how I was going to get an entire page out of what I’d just seen.

Furthermore, though writing my columns is no longer an arduous ordeal that takes two days, I’m not convinced that practice made perfect. Even if it has gotten easier to hit my word count, I would guess my work became less interesting as my neuroses waned. At first I would spend hours and hours on the opening, trying to find an ‘angle’ (that’s what reporters talk about, right?) Most of the time it stemmed from a personal story or an unrelated observation. The point is, I felt a personal connection to what I’d written. Working so hard and for so long ensured that I had been thorough. By the time I went to bed I could almost recite the entire column. In short, I felt a strong sense of accomplishment.

At some point I stopped doing this and just started right in with the artwork. While this may be chalked up to a more direct approach to journalism, an argument could be made that the pieces suffered from a lack of imagination. By leaving myself out of the story, my job got a lot easier. It may only be natural that I should get faster and more efficient, but if a task is starting to seem too easy, how do you know if you’re doing a good job? I hypothesize that if you don’t feel challenged, you aren’t. Isn’t it the struggle and eventual resolution that signifies satisfaction?

Anyway, a little time off and a bit of distance to reflect may provide me with a more accurate assessment of any lasting effects. In the short term, I can say I feel thankful for the opportunity to be published, that I still wish to be a writer, and that I am no closer to understanding art than I had been before.

When I took the job I’d never wanted to be an art critic. Now that I’ve done the job, I suppose I still don’t. Nevertheless, I was extremely lucky to be given this opportunity. The editors took a substantial risk by hiring someone they barely know, not to mention the shoes I attempted to fill were quite large. Zane Fischer, who hired me and who had been the art critic, is well-known and well-regarded in the community. I do not think it is a stretch to say he was probably the most prominent art critic in the state of New Mexico.

To the Santa Fe Reporter I would like to say thank you, and good luck. And to those of you who read my column, thank you as well. I received a lot of praise for the work I did, and I only hope that I was fair and insightful, if a bit stodgy with regards to abstraction, which is stupid and gutless.

Signing off,
John

…

* I actually said this once. My argument was that I had taught myself to play guitar by listening to others do it, therefore, due to repeated viewings of a certain quartet of adolescent reptiles, (or are they amphibians?) I must also know ninjutsu. I guess now that I’m a pacifist, the point has been rendered moot.

** Not that it’s a huge deal, but I contend that saying something “seems” like a good idea is vastly different than saying it “is” a good idea.

Disoriented

2010-05-14T23:23:00.000-06:00

What's the most you ever lost on a coin toss?

I have orientation at the hospital in the morning. I am trying to set my alarm for 5:45 a.m., but the 'minute' button stopped working so I can't nuance the time. My options are 5:00 or 6:00.

I wake at 5:45 anyway, before my alarm goes off. That is so fucking eerie. What else am I hyper aware of when I'm sleeping?

Getting dressed takes forever. I have like six pairs of tan dress socks, but here in the dark bedroom I can't find a match. I keep holding the lightest ones up to my face and squinting, like that’s going to help.

As I stand in front of my closet I wonder if Makayla will be there today. Makayla is a beautiful girl I rode the elevator with last week. We have a lot in common. It turns out, she and I were both going to get tested for tuberculosis at the same time. I didn't actually talk to her; I just heard her say her name was Makayla when she signed in. Not that it matters, but I think she was kind of into me.

The dress code is 'business casual,' which, for men, means I don't need a tie but I do have to wear a big ugly watch and brown shoes. I end up wearing a pair of Brooks Brothers khakis I inherited. Even though I've never worn them before, they are stained.

I arrive with about 5 minutes to spare, so I go to the bathroom to check on my hair. Biking after a shower is a wild card. Sometimes it sort of looks fashionably tousled, like Johnny Depp's or Han Solo's, but usually I end up looking like a handicapped child whose mom cuts his hair.

For some reason there is no mirror in the bathroom. I feel the contours of my locks and decide not to mess with it too much. I'm sure it's fine.

The orientation is held in one of those huge carpeted conference rooms. I am one of about 40 new hires but I get there in time to sit at a table by myself. I hate sitting down at occupied tables because then you're forced to say 'hello' and make eye contact and stuff, and I didn't go into health care to meet people.

At each seat is a blank tent card and a marker for us to write our names. There are two video projections showing identical slides of corporate information, set to music. For instance, did you know that UNM HSC is rated one of the Top 50 hospitals in the U.S., in which there are 50 states.

As more people arrive, we are instructed to eat the free breakfast in the chafing dishes. There is bacon AND sausage, eggs, french toast, and a fruit salad. I wonder if making an egg sandwich out of french toast would be viewed as piggish?

While in line I notice people looking at me, but this isn't unusual. As long as I don't smile I'm almost always one of the best-looking people in the room. I have movie star looks except in the face.

The power-point soundtrack is playing Chariots of Fire and I feel determined to get my breakfast like a winner.

I sit and eat my scrambled eggs and fruit with a weak cup of coffee. This is when Jennifer arrives. Jennifer is the orientator or whatever, a fact made obvious by the rainbow floral lei she is wearing. She also has a salmon-colored mesh thing that she keeps tied over her shoulders. I believe this is known as a shawl, but it looks like a crazy person's cape to me. Jennifer is peppy, which is her job I suppose. She looks at my name card and then nonchalantly works it into our conversation. "So, John, did you bike here today?" My hair must look worse than I thought.

For the first hour we mostly sit around and wait to meet with a recruiter. The meeting consists of filling out forms, handing in our clean TB tests, and being fingerprinted. While waiting, my table eventually fills up with Serena from Ghana, Eduardo, who is still pretty much asleep, and Brenda, who definitely mistook my 'good morning' for a pass at her. Maybe I shouldn't have wriggled my eyebrows.

The power point asks us to guess the annual budget for the hospital. Apparently it is $650 million. And just think, $9 of that will go to me every hour.

Makayla arrives about half an hour late. She is wearing a Pink University hoodie. It's seems men and women agree: sexy underwear and a college education is an attractive mix.

In front of us is a packet that sort of reiterates what we will cover once we've all signed in with our recruiters. Among the packet is a crossword, a word find, and a maze. Not that I'm great at them but this is unequivocally the most difficult crossword I've ever worked on. It is all about the hospital and requires you to look up the answers in the packet (which is cheating) or to already know a bunch of stuff about the hospital you've just been hired into. I couldn't even get a single answer. To make matters worse I couldn't do the word find or the maze because I couldn't find any crayons.

Chariots of Fire is playing again. I feel its power is being wasted. Why isn't anyone doing anything inspiring?

Where did I get these pants? They make it look like I have a gigantic boner. On the other hand, if I do get a boner it probably won't register.

A joke from the power point: "Did you take the patient's temperature?" "Why? Is it missing?"

After meeting with my recruiter I have to go get an ID badge. I only caught a quick glimpse at the computer screen but my hair forms a weird horn coming off one side. It looks kind of cool, but I think it would be more appropriate if I were a character in a Japanese cartoon.

On my way back to the conference room I stop in another bathroom. Still no mirrors! What a joyless place.

Makayla plays with her hair constantly. She flips it over one shoulder, then twists it up behind her head only to let it drop once more. There is a captivated young man sitting behind her but she is way out of his league. He actually saw me watching him watch her at one point. I sort of laughed and looked away, so now he's keeping his eye out for me. He probably thinks I'm into him. Love triangles are so messy.

Every so often Jennifer likes to take a break and go around the room for introductions. Personally I don't see the point in trying to remember the names of 45 people I will never see again. To make it more fun, Jennifer insists we tell her what high school we attended so she can guess the mascot. One woman, who is from the Philippines, asks what a mascot is. I explain that they are symbols that represent your school and they are usually animals that can kill a person. She nods uncomprehendingly.

One of the topics we cover is what to do if we encounter a suspicious package. Jennifer tells us a story about leaving her (fake) suspicious package in the conference room while everyone went on break. Of course, a janitor entered to clear away some of the food and discovered the package. By the time Jennifer returned the bomb squad had arrived. To prevent this from happening again she has written "Training Aid" on the package. So, again, if you want to plant a real bomb at the hospital you should write 'training aid' and no one will mess with it.

At one point, Jennifer calls on Serena from Ghana. Serena handles the question fine but then she leans over and, looking frightened, asks how does zat wooman knew ma name. I show Serena the name card she filled out about an hour ago and she laughs. Africans.

Jesus, Makayla is fascinated by her own hair.

I'm getting nervous about how corporate this whole event feels, with its blend of overused props and jokes and unengaging speakers. At one point Jennifer does a weird dance to a hip hop song. Everyone laughs but me. I'm looking around to see if Michael Scott will be making an appearance.

The CFO of the hospital is telling us about the money side of things. She says we might notice that some things may look a little worn, like chairs or tables, but that the money is being spent in the right places. I ponder asking about the mirrors. I just don't think I can go 12 hours without checking for nostril stray hairs.

After you've introduced yourself and Jennifer has guessed your mascot you are given a "door prize." Mine is a stress doll of a brown-skinned nurse whose sex is indeterminate. I think it's a woman, but it could also be Javier Bardem.

As an exercise we are told to write down out favorite qualities about the places of business we frequent related to their customer service. I wonder where we're going with this... No one at my table seems to want to do it so I take charge. I grab a scented marker and write down 'instructive.' We go around the table and choose adjectives that sum up our feelings and I write them down. One of the girls from another table laughs when I post ours. Apparently my handwriting is too tidy, or my column too straight. Whichever it is, she calls me a 'Type A personality,' a label I find inaccurate and patently unfair. I'm easy going and cooperative. She doesn't know a thing about me. Who does that fucking whore think she is anyway?

Speaking of handwriting, I see Makayla's name card. Her letters are large loopy shapes, like a child's attempt at cursive. Around them she's doodled designs and patterns using every marker available to her. It is the most elaborate name tag I've ever seen. I decide we should probably break up. She's just not the person I thought she was.

As we are dismissed I see my former rival lingering by Makayla's table. I nod at him and hop on my bike to head home, my hair blowing wildly in the wind.

Sophomoritis

2010-05-01T10:12:00.001-06:00

If Joltin' Joe had just quit when he reached 44, his streak would have been tied by Charlie Hustle

Like DiMaggio, Ripken, and Hershiser before me, my streak is over. Final grade for Pharmacology: 89.25%. In other words, I am no longer a straight-A student.

Last year I began my 7th year of college. I wasn't a great student in the first 6 years, but that was eons ago. I decided to make it count this time. Besides, I would need a 4.0 in my sciences if I wanted to be accepted into the nursing program at UNM. It was literally my only chance. So I busted my hump. I stayed home and studied and read and memorized and turned everything in on time. I became the exceptional student I never was and it felt good.

So, how did this happen? Well, I got accepted into my program at UNM a few weeks ago. I am an alternate for the fall semester, (also known as a fallternate). At the very least, I will begin in January. As someone who never had a science background, this is stupendous news. I am very proud of the work I did, and it puts me on track to complete nursing college a whole year ahead of schedule.

The drawback is that I let my guard down. I didn't sprint to the end of the race. I jogged the last lap, and now I'm paying for it.

None of it matters of course. They're not going to revoke their offer. I am still going to do this the way I wanted to do it. But I feel like I let someone down. I didn't show tenacity. I kind of gave up, and I knew it too. I got a low grade on my previous test because I didn't work hard. I didn't put the time in. It forced me to have to get an almost perfect score on my final exam, and I couldn't do it. I got an A on the final, but it wasn't enough. In other words, I got what I deserved. I earned that B.

I'm not telling you this for your pity. I'm not being melodramatic. I am only stating the hard truth that I am not among the elite 4.0 students anymore, and no matter how hard I fight I will never get there again. Math is funny that way...

One final to go and I don't plan to make the same mistake. Heading into the next phase of education, this may have been a good wake-up call. Now I remember how it feels to underperform. Now I will stay hungry. Time to start a new streak.

The Searchers

2010-04-07T14:11:00.001-06:00

Sketch for poster:

LOST DOG

Answers to the name Newton, or Tron Tron, or Tronathan. Or Bobon.

Actually, we mostly call him Buddy.

Last seen in Old Town, fleeing in terror.

Even though it is technically against the law, Newton likes to be off the leash. He is very fast (I call him rocket dog) and he gets restless and obnoxious if he isn’t given a chance to sprint around for a bit.

His favorite game is an oldie—fetch—but he seems to love it more than any dog I’ve ever seen. For example, after each fetch he gallantly trots to my left, past me, and takes a wide turn, a victory lap of sorts, before stopping at my feet. I get the sense that he is extremely proud, every time, that although I threw the ball very far, he was able, all by himself, to track it down and return it quite easily. He is eager to prove this to me again, to show me how futile it is to throw the ball since he will only bring it right back, ad nauseum. In this matter, I am powerless against him. In. My. Face.

The best time for a game of fetch is early in the morning. It is usually quiet at the park, even on weekends, before 8 or 9, so we don’t have to worry about the old people who use the stupid workout machines they installed last year and which the dogs like to piss on. Sometimes we can play for 15 or 20 minutes without seeing another living thing. Life truly is grand.

This Saturday, even though I am hungover, I get up early, grab a tennis ball (Newton’s preferred object of pursuit) and head over to the park. It is a beautiful morning, crisp and yellow, our first sunny morning in a few days. I withdraw the ball from my pocket, cock my arm, and fire a long, arcing toss.

Newton gets an excellent jump on the ball. He is a born outfielder. I’ve studied his technique and it’s solid. He begins by watching the ball out of my hand to determine the approximate direction. He is careful about this, never breaking too soon. You can get a lot of dogs to chase nothing with a good pump fake, but not Newton. Hang onto the ball and he’ll just stare at you like you’re stupid, like you forgot the most important part.

Once you let go of the ball, he turns and breaks for the other end of the park, all the while keeping his eyes up for the ball to enter his field of vision. Once he locates it, he adjusts his route and overtakes it, usually by the second bounce. I’ve tried to exceed his range, but even my strongest throws cannot elude him for more than three hops. It is as though he can accelerate to meet the demands of the throw, running ¾ speed until the target is sighted, and then speeding up to make a clean kill.

At his best he reaches the ball mid-hop so that he can take a graceful forward lunge and snap the ball from the middle of air. You can tell he is pumped when he does this too. He bucks his head about the way athletes sometimes pump their fists.

On this particular day, our game ends suddenly. I let loose a throw and Newton runs it down easily, but as he turns a wide semi-circle back around to face me he suddenly drops the ball. It literally falls right out of his mouth the way people in movies drop their pipes when they’re stunned. His mouth, now empty, hangs agape.

I start to laugh at the comical, cartoonish way he does this (he is a fantastic physical comedian, always) but I notice something is wrong. His piercing yellow eyes are fixed beyond me, over my shoulder and to my left. It is like he can see something falling from the sky.

I’ve never known a dog to spend so much time looking up. Newton constantly keeps his eyes peeled for any danger from above. Ceiling fans, street lamps, nothing escapes his notice. Last year, after the Fourth of July, he was so jumpy he actually barked at the moon.

In this case, he is right; something is there. I turn around to see a hot air balloon appearing behind the rooftop of the museum across the street. It is only about 100 yards away, clearly aiming to land right in the middle of the grassy park where we stand.

Newton starts freaking out. He scrambles back and forth, all the while retreating slightly. He growls, as he too is convinced that the balloon is closing in on us. I call for him, but of course I am closer to the balloon and he is just not going to risk a head-on attack. His route begins to veer wider and further back until he starts to ascend the small hill that marks the edge of the park and the beginning of the street.

I am pursuing him by now, but he makes no indication whatsoever that he can hear me calling. He won’t take his eyes off the thing. I’m getting scared. He looks like he is going to back right into the road. He’ll never know what hit him.

I take off running. It is clear he is not going to come to me—he is too frightened—but I don’t want to make him feel that he is being trapped or forced to face the terrible sky demon, so I take a slightly curved path to get to him, all the while reassuring him and asking him to come to me.

Suddenly, the balloon lets out a ghastly roar, the release of flames, which of course make Newton panic. I turn to see the balloon once more. It is very close now, just across the park.

I know from experience that a balloon is nothing to be afraid of, but at this moment it is very easy to see why someone who has never seen one might feel compelled to retreat. To my dog, who is just not very brave to begin with, the balloon must look gigantic. It is probably the biggest thing he’s ever seen, and it is coming right for him. The fact that it roars and breathes fire doesn’t help. It sounds like a fucking lion. And then there’s the deceptively swift way that balloons move, with no discernible effort. They just loom, enormous, all the while getting nearer and nearer, like a monstrous jellyfish.

I can see this is getting dangerous. I don’t know what to do. I feel like screaming Stop! Go back! You’re scaring my dog! But I know this is silly. It’s not that easy to just change directions in a balloon. Besides, I am the one breaking the law.

As Newton reaches and finally steps out into the street, I scream. This seems to snap him out of his trance momentarily because he looks at me, but only for a second. The next moment he is back to watching the rainbow-colored angel of death. Realizing he’s run out of room, he decides to just go for it. With his tail down, he takes off down the street, back the way we came, and turns the corner in a dead run. Gone.

I am in pursuit, for all the good it does me. I used to be fast when I was a young man. I used to outrun everyone on my baseball team. But human speed is nothing to dog speed. Even as I crash along the park sidewalk I can feel how slow I am, how pathetic I must look to the idiots in their flying contraption, chasing a dog that has already disappeared. By the time I reach the corner, he isn’t in view.

I continue around the next corner, hoping he has turned and is retracing the route home, the same walk we’ve done hundreds of times before. I know I am on the right track when I round the second corner to find another man walking toward me with his dog, looking back over his shoulder to where Newton has likely just been. Seeing me hot on his heels, the man must have realized the situation. Again, Newton is nowhere to be seen so I assume he has turned yet again, faithfully reversing our usual course. The park is only a half-mile from our house, but I am already too out of breath to ask the man if he’d seen which way my dog went. It is either keep running or stop and talk, but not both. Luckily the man makes it clear he is not going to help.

“What a nightmare!” he says, admonishing me for not taking better care of my wild cur. Sadly, I am too winded to utter a nice good morning fuck you! so I keep on my dismal pace, chasing a dog I can’t even see.

At the next corner, which is then a straight shot to our house, the trail goes cold. I turn around to see if he has gone the other direction. Nothing. For all I know he is already home, but I can’t see him from here. I start home, praying he will come into view. I am gasping for air by now. My lungs burn from the chilly morning. I bellow his name across the neighborhood, trying not to sound mad or scary.

By the time I reach my house, it is clear he hasn’t come home. He left the park so quickly it seems incomprehensible that he had a plan in mind. Honestly, I don’t think he got beyond Shit! Run!

I am panicked and out of breath as I wake Darby.
“Newton’s gone!”
“What?” she says, the denial of the trauma already kicking in.
“He ran away!”
Darby leaps from bed and dresses quickly. I grab my messenger bag and tell her I am going back out on bicycle. She goes on foot with our other dog, Josie.

I return to the last known place of his whereabouts, several blocks up at the corner where I’d seen the man and his dog. I call to Newton, trying to ride swiftly but not so fast that I won’t see him if he is in someone’s yard. I make circles around the area, trying to take different routes into and out of our street.
It is as I bike a few blocks further from the park, the direction I’d seen him go, when I realize how much distance he could have traveled by now. I have foolishly been navigating our neighborhood, a small section of homes located between 12th and 19th, but there is no reason a dog would conform to this artificial boundary, a concept of real estate. My throat grows full as I realized he might have just as easily kept running straight, right out of our neighborhood and onto Lomas, one of the busiest roads in town. I go forth toward the heavy traffic at the end of the street.

As I cross the wide boulevard I almost can’t look, so fearful am I that I will see my poor pup lying lifeless in the road. Thankfully, there is nothing, no sign of commotion. The bad news is, I still have no idea where Newton has gone. I continue away from our neighborhood, figuring Darby will find him if he stuck close. I need to expand my search.

I can only imagine how far he will run before he stops. Maybe he is still running… Will he run until he gets tired? Will he run for a bit and look over his shoulder to see if he is safe? Will he stop if he realizes he is lost? Will he feel ashamed that he defied me? Is he scared?

I suppose none of it matters, but it only complicates my frustration as I search, knowing I have no idea what, if any, plan Newton hatched while in evasive action.

I am such an asshole. I shouldn’t have let him off the leash. I know it makes him very happy, but he’s just too unpredictable.

Still coming up empty, I head for the bike path along the river. Newton and I regularly walk or jog there, and the river is one of his favorite places. I hope he might have realized his proximity to it while fleeing. Perhaps he caught of whiff of the old Rio Grande. Dogs have great noses, right? They can smell a river a mile away. Then again, if they have such hot noses, why do they have to jam it down into things to get the scent? No matter. I enter the path and keep scanning the patchy cottonwood forest for my dog.

When something is lost, I have noticed a sudden perceptual shift in scale. Whereas, before, my thoughts did not extend beyond what I could see, when something is missing the world becomes a large and complex place. I can picture it unfolding all around me. I imagine the areas I know are there that I can’t yet get to. I can picture the yards, and the garages and all the places I've seen but never been to. It gives the impression that I am very small, and the thing I am searching for is smaller still, so the odds that that thing and I will ever be reunited again are very unlikely. All at once the world seems big and empty and unbelievably cruel.

Newton is not, as far as I can see, on the bike path or in the surrounding woods. My legs feel like acid as I pedal back toward my house. It’s been 15 minutes since he ran off. We might never see him again. I haven’t eaten breakfast and my head feels light.

My god! I will have to spend the whole weekend looking for my dog. I won’t be able to write my column. I’ll get fired. Fuck. I don’t have a good picture for the LOST posters. I’m a photographer. Why don’t I have any good pictures?

I should offer a reward. How much? We’re so broke. Do people actually look harder if there’s money involved? Maybe, but they’re probably not the kind of people I like to hang around with.

He’s chipped, right? At least he has his collar. But it still has our old phone number on it. Fuck!

Someone will find him. He’s so sweet. Someone will call him and they’ll take him home and they’ll get in touch with us. Or will they? What if they like him and they realize that I am a total fuckup that doesn’t deserve a dog? Why should they give him back? What was he doing running loose in the first place?

I let out a sob.

Cut it out. Hold it together. You can cry later. You need to look for your dog.

He’d been such a drag to train. It was awful. Wit’s end I tell you. I made so many jokes about getting rid of him. People will think I did this on purpose! They’ll say they saw it coming. They’ll tell me not to get another dog because I’m too irresponsible.

He’d finally started to grow up a little. He was becoming such a good boy, so loyal and eager to please. I don’t want to do it all over again. I don’t want a new dog. I want my dog.

I feel compelled to circle back to the house. Maybe Darby found him. It seems unlikely, but I don’t have a better idea. I continue to call for him.

About a block from my house I have a clear view of our front porch. There, hiding by the mailbox, is Newton. He is sitting, waiting to be let inside, a sheepish expression on his face. I call his name and he turns and meets me as I coast up our walk. His head hangs low and he wags his tail in his apologetic manner. He believes he is in trouble. He pants heavily.

I hop from my bike and greet him warmly.

“Hey buddy! You’re a good boy! Good job, buddy! Thank you for coming home! Thank you! Thank god! Never again! I’ll never let go of you again.”

We put Newton’s leash on and get in the car to go look for the rest of the search party.

An Apology to My Former Fans

2010-03-25T09:40:00.003-06:00

Wow! My first day back on coffee and I'm already sitting at my desk. Ok, let me say that I am so so so so sorry. I know it's been almost two months since I last wrote. I can make lots of excuses, some of them good, but the fact is I just haven't been working very hard on my literary career. A lot has happened though. I have much to tell you. And I will. I had a nice trip to Ohio. I suddenly developed insomnia. I misplaced a family member. I got a new job. There are lots of stories. I just need to get through this week. This week is awful. And I need to quit checking my Facebook. I can always tell how uninspired I am because it is in direct proportion to how fascinating Facebook becomes. I'll never truly be well until I delete my profile.

Look. I detect the pattern too. I write for a while. I have things to say. And then I take a sudden hiatus with no explanation. It's murder on my readership numbers. Who wants to follow a semi-annual blog? I know I need to regularize. I also know that I make promises every so often to increase my efforts, but I think we both know that is not going to happen. I'm just not that kind of blogger. My life isn't that interesting, and I'm not going to pretend it is just for the sake of writing. That's what diaries are for.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know I am thinking of you. Your patience is a thing of wonder.

A League of Your Own

2010-02-03T08:06:00.000-07:00

Are you crying? Oh, no wait. That's me.

Dear Whole Foods,

Before today, I considered you a good friend. I enjoyed spending time with you. I sought out your companionship over that of other stores. You taught me new things about my eating habits. Mostly, I just thought you were cool.

One day, I woke up and I realized something as sudden and unstoppable as a sneeze. My epiphany? I had fallen in love. When I had to shop elsewhere, I felt the nausea of guilt and betrayal; walking the aisles of these inferior stores was joyless. I knew there was only one store I ever wanted to shop at again.

Realizing my feelings had grown, I took action. I laid it on the line in an attempt to foster something deeper and more meaningful. I applied for a job so I could be with you every day.

Over the past year I made several attempts to woo you, all the while still being a good friend, never letting your indecisiveness affect my feelings. At first you were coquettish, informing me my sporadic advances were "under review." Occasionally you would deal me a harsh blow, as when I was told I was "not selected" for an interview as a part-time cashier (a cashier!). But I never gave up. I felt if you would just let your guard down and be brave in the face of commitment, I could show you how important you are to me.

When you called me last week, it was one of the happiest days in recent memory. It reminded me of a Hollywood movie in which the love interest realizes the person they’d been looking for has been in front of them all along. I‘d waited patiently, stood by while you made mistakes. Through your errors, you’d learned what devotion really was. At long last, you would take a chance on me. I vowed to seize the opportunity. Together at last!

This morning was our interview (our first date!) and I bore my soul. Perhaps I should not have. A gradual admission of my desires may have served me better. Instead, I confessed to my enduring hopes. I admitted my wish for us to be together. I even used the L-word.

The rendezvous was not without awkwardness, but this is to be expected after so much anticipation. Still, I left with a good feeling. I had been frank and forthright. I had made a strong case for myself. Of course, I was disappointed that you did not embrace me right then and there, opting instead to keep me at arms’ length while you considered the situation, but I honestly felt optimistic about our future together.

Only a short time later, the telephone rang. It was you. You sounded good, happy. However you told me, in a remorseless tone, that you had decided not to continue seeing me. You were interested in someone else that “better suited [your] needs at this time,” whatever that means. You were brief, and to the point, and I give you credit for not leaving me waiting. Still, the knife had been quick to cut. Before I even knew what hit me, it was over. I shed actual tears as I sat there, going over the possibilities of what went wrong.

Had I come on too strong? Perhaps my repeated overtures ground down your perception of my self-worth? Maybe you prefer a hunt, and I was too much of a possum? At any rate, I did know this—the innocence was gone, evaporated. What once was a harmless flirtation between friends, (one of whom suggests they might make a good couple, the other laughs, blushing), became something dangerous and volatile. I do not blame you for your feelings, but the rosy days of our past will remain there.

So what of our friendship now? We didn't discuss it. I suppose you think we can just go back to the way things were, as though none of this mattered. Maybe you can, but it will be some time before I can look at you without anger. Each time I see a new employee that you have willingly chosen, I will know them as my rival.

Faulkner wrote, "Between grief and nothing, I choose grief," for at least in grief there is closure. Knowing I am not worthy of you, I am given a much-needed respite from the ceaseless ache that is wishing. That said, something was crushed today, irreversibly damaged. I know I am complicit in these dealings and their aftermath. After all, it was I who asked for them, and I who did not live up to their expectations. But I hope you will share some of the blame too, for it was you who decided, after so much time, to risk my feelings in this way. Did you not feel hesitation, knowing what was at stake? Was it not obvious that your feelings were disproportionate to mine, and could only result in rejection? My question to you is thus: why now? Could you not have spared me the ugly reality of the truth, allowing me to continue in the near-bliss of our friendship? Perhaps, were it between grief and nothing, I would acquiesce to Faulkner's wisdom. Yet it was not nothing, for I had dreams.

Rhoid Rage

2010-01-25T07:21:00.004-07:00

Pictured: Slang for asshole

WARNING: The following includes what some may consider "too much information," specifically regarding my anatomy. I apologize. I have tried to keep it PG by using childish euphemisms and not being too visceral, but if you have a weak stomach perhaps this would be a good one to skip.

Consider yourself warned.

...

I'm only 31, but apparently that isn't too young to start having old man problems. The issue began last Friday. Darby and I were having a typical evening at home, staying up until almost 2 a.m. sewing/teaching me to sew,* when I started feeling a little sore on my bottom, particularly with the window-rattling flatus I was periodically experiencing. It didn't seem like a big deal at the time—we'd had Indian food for dinner and, being vegetarians, we are extremely gassy anyway—but there was a distinct stinging sensation down there as I prepared for bed.

I didn't sleep well at all. I woke up several times from the discomfort, and I could see that I hadn't moved all night. By morning I felt exhausted and was fairly certain my symptoms were more than the average bout of excess methane.

At first I tried to ignore it, even believing I might not have to tell Darby. However, it didn't take long for her to deduce something was wrong. For one thing, I was extremely edgy, bellowing at the dogs for walking through the piles I'd just made while sweeping the floors. The other giveaway was that I couldn't sit. I was just pacing and doing random chores to keep busy.

At one point Darby asked how I was doing, and I meekly admitted that I had something wrong on my butt. She sympathized and said pimples on one's butt can be very uncomfortable. I explained this wasn't a pimple, and described the location more accurately.

Until the moment Darby used the word "hemorrhoid," I was still in denial about it. It seemed impossible that it could happen to me, a regular guy. Granted, it's not a subject that comes up too often with my friends, but as far as I knew, I was too young and healthy for this to be happening. I thought it might just be an irritation or an allergy or something that would magically go away if I ignored it. And maybe it would've, but it turns out it's not that easy to ignore what feels like an intermittent pinch of pliers on your anus.

It's a cliché to feel embarrassed buying certain things in public, but I figure cashiers have seen it all. Once I was buying only a single, muscular cucumber, while the guy directly behind me was buying only a can of Redi-Whip. The cashier also noticed this and looked at both of us, trying to decide why we were paying separately. As I was paying, the urge to say something like, "Honey, I'll be in the car," was overwhelming, but I held it together.

Another instance of potential humiliation was the first time I bought condoms. They were locked away in a glass case, to prevent people from having sex through mortification I guess. In order to purchase them I had to first ask an employee to unlock them for me. Of course, the person I asked did not have a key to the case so they actually got onto the phone/loudspeaker rig and broadcast that "Jennie" was "needed at the condoms."

This stuff never bothers me. I figure I'll probably never see any of these people again. And even if I do, I'm just not all that concerned about the opinions of Walgreen's employees. Until now. Suddenly the prospect of standing in line with a tube of Western Family Ointment at nine in the morning seemed profoundly upsetting. Even laying the item on the conveyor belt seemed to be inviting too much scrutiny, so I just held it label-down against my thigh.

For obvious reasons, I went to the closest store possible. The problem with this decision is that I will see these people again. I see them all the time. The cashier was kind. She quickly scanned the item, flicked it into a bag and sent me on my way. Normally, she is extremely friendly, but I noticed she didn't look me in the eyes. From now on I will be that boy who has something wrong with his ass.

Even though Darby and I have been married for six years and have been through our share of embarrassing moments of intimacy, the act of going into the bathroom to apply the ointment was also singularly shameful. There is just something about knowing my wife knows I am, at this moment, smearing gel onto my butt hole that I found upsetting.

Again, I would like to apologize for the graphic nature of this story, but this was not even the worst part. No, the worst part was the actual application of the medicine because it is at this point that I first meet my new friend, the hemorrhoid.

I don't know what I thought a hemorrhoid was, or how it should look and feel, but I guess I expected it to be more like a small sore, something more akin to a nostril zit or some such ailment that causes a disproportionate amount of pain for its size. And perhaps some hemorrhoids are. Honestly, my knowledge of them is limited. What I do know is the thing that was now protruding from my pooper was quite a bit larger than I was expecting, and it definitely didn't want me rubbing anything onto it. Upon locating it, I audibly gasped.

I didn't get a mirror or anything, I'm not a weirdo, but if I had to guess I'd say my sphincter had assumed the shape of a coiled snake that had recently ingested a cow. And as with my real-life encounters with snakes, I got out of there as quickly as possible.

It's odd to feel so repelled by a part of one's own body. Even without swollen lumps, we use paper barriers in order to clean our butts, rather than just rinsing with soap and water like every other part. We are conditioned from an early age to think this is an unclean place, yet we let our dogs on the sofa and they don't even wear pants. Even the subject is taboo, as evidenced by the face you are likely making while reading this.

The worst part is, I am still not sure what brought this on. It was very sudden, and was not the result of anything irregular. I spent most of that day going over everything I've ingested in the past few days, becoming increasingly paranoid I had created an accidental, and therefore repeatable, combination of hemorrhoid-inducing foods. Was it the new green tea? The two bowls of granola? The flax meal in the granola? The ratatouille I made? Eggplant always gives me trouble...

Fortunately, after what was a fairly long day of hanging out of the couch, I think I am going to live. The ointment works (sort of), and my discomfort is slightly lessened. I even managed to go to a friend's house this evening, and they never once asked about strange postures or wincing.

Living with hemorrhoids is not so different from being a normal person, except I have to sit down and stand up more slowly, and every once in a while I get a shooting pain in my ass. The tricky part will be tomorrow when I have to go to school (obviously I won't be able to bike) and sit through two lectures on un-upholstered chairs. Wish me luck. I'll let you know how it goes. Or perhaps not.

* I don't know what it is about so-called woman's work that I enjoy so much. I think my estrogen levels must be too high from all the tofu and art school. I still like football and other guy stuff, but I noticed I tend to get weepy when Brett Favre retires every year.

Hunter/Gatherer

2010-01-20T20:35:00.010-07:00

Why isn't "hero" a job anymore? I would save princesses all damn day.

Unless I get accepted to the University, (and I probably won't), I will be waiting for the next two years to begin my actual nursing school. It's not a sure thing. I might get in. But if I were a betting man I'd say no.

I am attempting to enter what they call the "second degree option," a program specifically suited for art school burnouts who want to start a new career but don't want to take English Composition I again. This means I can transfer my credits from my first trip through college and just jump right in with the juniors (and by jump right in I mean I had to take 16 credits worth of biology courses). This is great because it means I can get a bachelor's degree in the same amount of time it would take to get an associates degree at my current school (and that's not counting the two year waiting list). Unfortunately, it looks pretty bleak.

The problem is with my grades. You see, I wasn't always a straight-A student. I got a fair amount of B's, and there were even a few C's my freshman year while I adjusted to life out on my own, juggling homework and copious amounts of drugs.

C's were never acceptable to my parents. After my first grade card the following conversation took place:

Mom: "You shouldn't be getting a C in Art History."
Me: "What could my grades in Art History matter in the long run?"
Mom: "You never know. You might not always want to be an artist."
Me: "I would rather die than not be an artist!"

I did eventually learn to be a good student. At some point I just got sick of being told my art was shitty and I started spending more time on it. As for the history classes, I just stopped taking them.

My cumulative GPA at the time of my application will be just above a 3.6. This isn't terrible, but the fact is it might not be good enough. A lot of it will depend on who else applies. They only accept 8 people per semester to do the second degree option. If I'm not one of them, I'm not exactly going to be surprised. And it's nice to know that so many of the people entering my field are huge nerds. Of course, what this means really is if I don't get in I will have two years to kill, and I have started to plan accordingly.

...

Job hunting is one of my least favorite activities. There is something so humbling and artificial about all of it, from the way I feel I am supposed to dress* to the way I am suddenly forced to answer questions that don't have right answers. At these moments, it is as though I am watching myself on a video and I can see what a jerk I am being made to look like. It all feels like a test to see if I will play along. Usually I do, but I come across as so awkward or milquetoast that I wouldn't hire me either. And there are the times when I decide to inject a little humor, you know, to liven up the interview process. I've heard that you want them to remember you when you walk out the door, but I'm not clear on how to accomplish this. I'm not very tall. I have ordinary clothing. I don't wear cologne. The only thing I really have is a sense of humor, one which I have learned through trial and error is quite strange.

The thing is, even though I know this, I can't always contain it. Sometimes, when I'm put in a situation that calls for seriousness and good manners, I can feel something diabolical swelling inside my chest, like an hysterical laugh in the middle of church, and I say something I don't fully understand. Once I was asked what type of animal I would be. In a low growl, I said I was an animal. Another time I was asked which position I was applying for, at a restaurant mind you.

I answered, "I don't know... Bounty Hunter?" The guy look at me like I was crazy, and I think he was onto something. He repeated the words Bounty Hunter very matter-of-factly.

"Yeah," I said, my initial enthusiasm quickly receding. "Do you have those? No? Okay then, cashier I guess." As I left I thought I could hear the shredding of an application.

There was a time when finding a job was extremely simple. I would go to a place where a girl I liked worked. I would fill out an application, which probably didn't take long because I had no prior experience. I would get an interview, to which I would dress nicer than I ever would again for that job, and suddenly I would be offered a job. At one point I had a perfect track record—I had been hired for every job I'd ever interviewed for, and I don't remember doing anything special to prepare besides laying off the weed for the afternoon. I can't figure out what I've lost in the time between when I was a greasy high-schooler with no goals and now, where I have had a dozen jobs, earned two college degrees, and I don't wear sandals to the interview. Whatever it is, they all pick up on it immediately. I never get offered jobs anymore.

To date, I've applied four times to Whole Foods, the stupid jerks. I go to the store and I can see who they're hiring instead of me. Usually it's more teenagers with filthy hair and no experience. One thing I have noticed is that their employees tend to have odd names, like Maverick, or Yessiree, which is why on my most recent application I wrote John "D'Brickashaw" Photos.

Based on a bit of advice from a former employee, I also tried to pull a fast one.

The application is an annoyingly complex process that has to be done entirely online. In a way this is good because I can not get the job without even leaving the house. But there is also no way to tell if anyone is actually reading my résumé. With this in mind, I put on a tie, drove to the store, and asked to speak to the manager. I calmly explained that when I had pasted my info in the text box it looked all jacked up and silly, and here was a copy of my properly formatted résumé on ivory stock, to which they replied, "Let me get the Team Leader."

Andrea, the Team Leader, was friendly, but I could also see she felt like I was either too stupid to use the online form or too pushy to follow the rules. She asked why I wanted to work at Whole Foods, like it's a lifestyle decision or something. I told her I loved Whole Foods, particularly the bakery to which I was applying, and in fact had made a pie only the night before.

"What kind?" she asked.

For some reason when I said "apple" it sounded so obvious that she probably thought I was lying about baking it in the first place. She thanked me for coming in.

If I don't get hired at a grocery store it won't be so bad. What I'm really hoping for is a job at a hospital. Unfortunately, even the most rudimentary positions require either some kind of certification or prior experience, and this means yet more school. Still, I applied for 7 different jobs at various hospitals—everything from housekeeping to outpatient aide. I even wrote a nice cover letter outlining my plan to become a nurse and my desire to work in the field. I felt I was convincingly assertive yet humble and eager. I made it clear that I would accept any position offered, but still no word.

I've also applied to a local coffee chain, a national coffee chain, and the hippie grocery store where you have to be a "member." Frankly, I don't see how any of these places are going to hire me either. Even as I fill in my work history, I can see that there is nothing I'm putting down that is going to convince the manager I would make a good barista since I haven't already been a barista.

Some of the applications ask more personal questions, such as "are there any accomplishments or awards you would like us to consider?" What on Earth do people write? If they'd truly achieved something worthwhile they probably wouldn't be looking for work at a coffee shop. And even if they have, how would it carry over?

I could write, "I once beat The Legend of Zelda in one sitting. I also defeated Contra** without losing a single man. And I can jump over the hood of a car." I honestly think these things are impressive, but they aren't going to demonstrate my prowess with giving people correct change, as though people use cash anymore.

Alas, I'm back to surfing Craig's List, but that is truly a dismal place these days. I did find a job post titled "Stable Help" that required "some experience with horses," this way the person they hire won't be frightened by the amount of poop. I never really wanted to muck stalls again, having done that throughout highschool for my pony, Thunder. I taught at one of the most prestigious art schools in the country. I earned a master's degree when I was 23. But I guess you can't escape your past. I'm just a shit-shoveler after all. I'll probably call tomorrow.

* Actually for someone who has never held a job that required ties, I own a pretty solid collection. I just feel stupid walking into Starbucks dressed up and holding my application. It's so obvious to everyone that you are hoping to get hired at Starbucks. It's like asking someone out in public, and they say they have to think about it.

** That means I could beat it without using UUDDLRLRBASelectStart, suckas! Interesting side note: my little brother once went Trick or Treating as a "Contra Man" (his words, which he had to repeat at every door). He wasn't allowed to go shirtless though, which is fine because he probably weighed 60 pounds. Instead he carried a laser gun, wore a red bandana, and a beige top. I went as a football player, which was also met with some confusion when it was pointed out that there was no team called the Michigan Rams.

I Saved Latin. What Did You Ever Do?

2009-12-30T08:10:00.013-07:00

2000-2009: Worked on my new movie, "Dances with Wolves in Space"

This past decade constitutes the latter 33% of my life. It felt long and difficult, but also breathtakingly brief depending on how I focus the time line. I made some life-altering decisions, faced demons (the psychological kind, not the cool ones), and in many ways it was just as formative a time as childhood. Certainly I continue to work through some of the changes that took place. If you care, here is a rundown of my post-college life:

2000
The new decade started without a bang. The world waited for the unseen havoc of Y2K to topple governments and financial districts,* whiskey bottles in hand. I remember feeling worried, but I do not remember making any preparations besides dressing like the narrator in Fight Club, you know, in case.

Of course, nothing happened and I stayed out all night dressed like a waiter and feeling sorry for myself since I had been dumped a few days prior by my girlfriend of several years.

Things improved. I completed my undergraduate program on time; my girlfriend took me back; most notably I got into graduate school at the Art Institute of Chicago. For the first time in my life I would leave the cold, damp arms of Ohio.

I arrived in Chicago with my parents towing a horse-trailer full of my stuff. I had about 40 dollars. Fortunately, the city was good to me. I enrolled in courses called "French Cinema: Nouvelle Vague" and "The History of Whiteness," and began to see exactly how little I understood about anything.

I met Leah, (my roommate at the time), who is a wonderful friend and who I don't think ever charged me for utilities. I also met Darby, a tough-looking gal who took me to some thrift stores. By November, my already-fragile relationship with my then-current girlfriend had disintegrated like a bong rip. I began dating Darby, and my crush was total.

2001
Completing the remainder of my first year of grad school went off without incident. The big event occurred on June 1 when Darby and I moved our collective belongings to an apartment on the far north side where we planned to co-habitate.

The very next day Darby and I boarded a plane for England. We spent three weeks shuttling between cities all over Europe. If there were feelings of nervousness about our domestic plans, I think an extended vacation was a good way to shelve them. Fortunately the trip seemed to solidify our relationship, and I still refer to it as our honeymoon.

Not long afterward I began working at a veterinary hospital. I mentioned wanting to get a cat, so Darby wasn't too upset when I came home with two. Besides, they hid under the bed for about three days. When they came out she could see we had two of the fattest, nappiest cats that ever lived. However, it's mean to criticize orphans.

Very shortly after this, Darby's beloved dog Mable died. Mable was the sweetest dog, but she also viewed me very much as an interloper, specifically as it pertained to who was allowed to sleep in the bed and who had to sleep on the floor. Still, it was a tragic day for our family and as intelligent people, we dealt with our sudden loss by getting a puppy.

Reflecting on this, I remember feeling pretty overwhelmed by the sudden upswing in animals I needed to care for. It created a bit of resentment at times, but I grew to love Josie. On the other hand, she is still wary of me.

I would be remiss if I did not mention the attacks of September 11. I will not try to elucidate these events, and I will try not to be sentimental, but I should say that this day had permanent effects on me. I watched television for 13 hours as parts of Manhattan burned to the ground. I listened to first-person accounts and watched videos sent in by New Yorkers.** Suddenly the French New Wave didn't seem quite so important. With all the health care workers, police and firefighters involved, this is the first time I remember thinking about not being an artist.

2002
I completed graduate school with no job prospects and very little direction. Net gain: -$50,000.

I took the first month after school to relax and live off of my savings. This is also the time in which I began drinking heavily, going to bars with friends several nights a week. Getting my first job out of school was little deterrent; I found it easy to frame art on four hours of sleep.

That fall I was offered my first teaching job at my prestigious alma mater. The whole reason I went to grad school was to become a teacher, and I was terribly excited. Of course, one semester of actually teaching cured me of this right quick, (see above net gain).

I also had my first and last solo exhibition, which I enjoyed even less than teaching.*** At the age of 23 I was ready to start my second career. Despite my sorry futures, Darby agreed to marry me.

2003
In January, W declared war on Iraq. I did not agree with his decision, and after seeking approval it turns out that the rest of world didn't either. Nevertheless, the United States invaded a country on the grounds of suspicious boogeymen and state-of-the-art-but-invisible weaponry. Were there more widespread support for the so-called war on terror I may have been able to accept this maneuver. Without it though, I felt our country had been made to seem like the bully of the world, and I was embarrassed to be an American. This marks the first time in which I have hated my president.

Much of the early part of this year was spent planning our wedding. I like to think of myself as easy-going with simple taste, but the topic of napkin color and menu planning can transform a person. Suddenly I found myself arguing about things like the order of songs on our "wedding soundtrack." Most of the time our spirits were high, but it also caused quite a few blowouts. Anyone who is planning a wedding should take heart that they are passing a test—if you get to the wedding day and you still want to marry this person, you have chosen well. And anyone who can get through the planning stages can survive a marriage—it is much more stressful than the average spat over alleged gambling or embezzlement.

Despite these trials, we both showed up and said our vows, after which my grandma said, "Those were some pretty tough promises you made..."

To celebrate we spent three days and three nights in beautiful Milwaukee. (That is not a joke. We were very, very poor).

Ever since, Darby's family has become a part of my life too, welcoming me into their home and treating me with great respect and generosity, and helping Darby and I through some tough times in past several years. Thank you again, Sharon and Fred.

The only other thing I can remember from this year was my return to the two-wheeler. It is said that one never forgets how to ride a bike, and I found it to be true. That said, I was never what one would call a careful biker,**** and the time away didn't improve this. Twelve inches from the ground, I felt frightened and vulnerable. However, it didn't take long before my confidence grew and I was darting between traffic. My decision to bike, which seemed small at the time, is probably one of the most important I've made, and all before it was cool to be quote-unquote green.

2004-06
I lump these together for several reason. For one thing, this piece which began as a list is starting to run long. For another, these years are so thematically similar that it is difficult to distinguish them. That said, a few momentous things did occur.

After 86 years the Red Sox won the series. While I am not strictly a Red Sox fan, many of my favorite players spent their careers in Boston, and I have always rooted for their team. As a moment in baseball history to have lived through, it is hard to top the improbable comeback against the Yankees.

Speaking of improbable comebacks, this nation also re-elected one George W. Bush. Honestly, I have never felt so alienated in my life, and I was part of the gifted and talented program in elementary school. I was literally depressed the day after and I didn't go to work in the morning.

More personally, this is also the time period when Darby is first diagnosed with some medical problems, setting off a chain reaction of bills, investigations of fraud, and ultimately a deep hole of debt.

Of course, this is also the year in which I begin to work for Marie, a local artist. Her company, Creamco, which employed nine of us, was undoubtedly the most amazing job I have ever held. It is also a huge reason that the years run together for me in this way. I worked steadily for almost three years, all the while earning a great wage and setting my own hours. To put it mildly, it was a mindfuck. But that is a much longer story. Suffice it to say that I was given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I sort of squandered it. Ah, well. I was in my mid-20s and not too clear on where I was heading. Giving me more time to be directionless didn't help. At any rate, I am extremely thankful for my time there. Many good friendships were forged, and I am sure it will make a good book one day.

Overall though, these were dark times for me. I continued to drink a lot. I dabbled in a few business relationships, as did Darby, but this only seemed to drive us further into debt. I felt adrift. My depression was becoming more unpredictable and irregular, rather than being seasonal (winter, the Cubs). I was not making any art whatsoever and my diaries at this time are self-loathing rants about wasted potential. I was becoming a fine chess player though.

Fed up, I decided to become a firefighter. I trained hard and bulked up, eventually passing the physical exam, which is basically an adult obstacle course. Sadly, there were just not a lot of positions available. In many cases, even if you are accepted, you can sit on a waiting list for 5 years before you are called. I felt discouraged once more.

2007
The next year showed very few signs of improvement and in April we received some crushing news. To cover our medical expenses, I was working more hours at Creamco. Due to my increased earnings, our taxes were through the roof. I won't bore you with details about independent contract work and home/office write-offs. Let me just say that we suddenly owed a LOT more than we had. Of course, the only solution was to work even more, which would only exacerbate the dilemma. Faced with huge trouble from the IRS, we devised a plan—we would cast about a wide net for new jobs; we would go wherever we had to to earn more money and spend less. And that is how we came to choose Albuquerque.

I was very sad to leave Chicago. I lived there for almost 8 years, and I considered it home. Many of my friends from school had since moved away, but it still had a community of art friends, great restaurants, the Cubs, and it is fairly close to our families. I felt excited to do something new, but I really knew nothing about New Mexico beyond what Wikipedia had to say.

I spent three weeks packing our belongings while Darby went out ahead of me to start her job and find us an apartment.***** When I arrived, I saw she had done well. She loved her job, the weather was fantastic, and we could see mountains from our window. Mountains.

Thankfully, I was quickly able to land a job too and we were well on our way to crawling out of debt. We both worked hard, tightened our belts, and paid every penny we could to the IRS and Citibank.

At some point (actually, it was August 15) I had the idea to start posting some writings on the internet. Though I am a lifelong journaler, I had never written for an audience before (and by audience I mean two of my friends). I found the endeavor challenging, but I also got a lot of enjoyment from the responses, so I kept at it.

By year's end I was feeling pretty homesick. I didn't know anybody. I missed my family and friends. We were so broke we couldn't travel together so I flew home for Thanksgiving without Darby, no doubt setting off rumors of impending divorce.

My first winter in ABQ, my depression struck on schedule, but I noticed something else. Namely, the extreme sun we receive here helped stave off the prolonged phases of sleep. I had more energy than usual. I even managed to keep writing a little. Normally I will remain catatonic until pitchers and catchers report to camp, but I found that I could go for a walk in the afternoons and alleviate much of the nameless dread that I feel in these bouts. Despite my lagging social life in my new city, I was finding other things to love about it.

2008-09
If you are reading this, no doubt you know what happens from here—our cat dies, we get rid of our car, we get a puppy, I quit my job to go to nursing school, we elect my candidate for the first time since I have been able to vote (unless you count Rod Blagojevich, who we each voted for twice), etc.

I haven't seen many of my friends since I left, and I only rarely see my parents. This is already my third New Year's Day in New Mexico. It's these last few years that really seem to have flown. I recently finished an entire year of biology courses, and it feels like yesterday that I sat on this very couch wondering what on Earth I would do now that I was unemployed.

As the decade fades I see how much ground I have covered, and how different my life is. Then again, sitting down to write it all out makes it seem more cohesive than it felt at the time. A lot of things that happen to us are unexpected, or accidental. We don't plan to spend thousands of dollars on surgeries or to suddenly quit our jobs, but these events ultimately determine our paths. How we react to them defines us.

I never thought of it this way before, but Darby has been in my life for almost this entire decade. Finding someone you can spend the rest of your life with is life-altering in the truest sense. All of my decisions consider her feelings (or they ought to anyway...) and it makes the happiness all the more satisfying when it can be shared. Looking back I can sense our good intentions prevailing. We made some bad decisions along the way, but we also worked hard to reconcile them. And we always made it a priority to be happy together and to stay in touch with loved ones.

Of course, I am sorry for the way some things turned out. There are people I no longer speak to, or who no longer speak to me, and at these moments when I am feeling nostalgic it is hard to understand the terms of the conflicts. At any rate, my feelings of anger have long since subsided and have been replaced, mostly with regret and sadness. I can only hope I will behave better in the future.

Heading into the next decade, I am still hopeful. The world seems more dangerous than before. The economy is certainly not in the place it was back when. But I am moving towards my new career with optimism. I feel I will enjoy helping people in a way that administrative work cannot approach. I don't feel quite so manic about my art either. Recently I made a chalkboard for myself. To test it out I wrote:

"Breathe. One day at a time."

It's not exactly profound, but it didn't seem like something I could have thought of at 21. It reflects a mellower approach to life. It is emblematic of growth. Thank god. Sometimes my life seems like no more than a whisper or yawn. It is good to see that I'm still here, and still looking forward to mañana.

To all of you, happy new year, and many more!

* Little did I know, it would only be three short years until George W. Bush went ahead and did it anyway.

** One in particular has never left me. A fairly close shot of the second plane smashing into the towers from an apartment window punctuated by the photographers scream, a sound that overwhelmed the capabilities of their microphone, distorting it with all the anguished helplessness a person feels when something the size of an airplane is about to hit something. What could she do but scream?

*** At this point I would like to state that I do not feel bitterness like so many of my predecessors in the field. I just have different goals for myself, among which exhibiting and selling work are not.

**** I once knocked my teeth out by riding up a tree.

***** It should also be noted that this is the point at which I "accidentally" threw out Darby's oil paints. She never used them, and upon inspection I decided they were very old and in poor condition. I figured if Darby wanted to paint, she could use my set. I think I was in town for two days before she asked where her paints were. It took until Christmas 2008, when I replaced her set, for forgiveness.

Qwerty Monster

2009-12-29T18:58:00.007-07:00

Idea for a story: A farmer teams up with a pirate to save a princess from an evil robot who is his father...

When I was little, maybe six or seven, I went to a Tigers game with my dad. After the game he agreed to buy me a jersey. Though we lived in Ohio, a state with two professional baseball teams, and my father was a devout Detroit fan, I selected a Cubs jersey, mostly because I thought it was cool looking. And it was cool looking—a satiny material of royal blue with nifty white and red stripes at the ends of the sleeves. I was young, but I was pretty sure I had the best shirt of anybody I knew.

Sometime later—I am not sure how long, those jerseys last forever—I was playing football with the big kids from my neighborhood. Most of them were the older brothers of my friends and neighbors. The point is, I didn't know them very well and they were all at least twice as tall as me. The other important thing to tell you is that I was absolutely dominating the game against them. Carrying the ball, surrounded by a group of three or four big kids, they kept missing me. They would dive, I would run, and they would miss me and roll onto the grass, laughing. Even if they got a hand on me, my Cubs jersey was apparently too slippery to hang onto and they would fall and lose their grip. It was hysterical. It was almost as though they were letting me evade them, like they were purposely throwing the match; I was that good. I mentioned that my Cubs jersey was awfully hard to hang onto, and that would explain why I was so difficult to tackle on this particular day, you know, so they wouldn't feel too bad. And they agreed. The jersey combined with my guile and quickness was making it damn near impossible to catch me. It wasn't fair, but that's how it was. I guess they should have gotten their own jerseys.

Sometime after that—I don't know, a week, three months—we were going to play again, only this time my jersey was in the dirty clothes hamper. The hamper was a wicker container painted blue, with a blue vinyl lid. I hated the hamper. It was where my favorite clothes went for what seemed like ever. I am sure my mom did laundry often, but to a boy who believed that certain garments had magical powers, it didn't feel often enough. I have always been the type to have favorite garments that I will wear for days before changing. I'm fairly superstitious, and messing with your outfit when you're on a good streak is luck suicide. Anyway, I asked if I could get my jersey back out of the hamper. I was told no.

I pleaded with my mom. I explained that the big kids couldn't catch me in my jersey, that I needed it, for my safety really. Her answer was still no, which is understandable—I had probably been wearing it for the entire previous week. But this was important. If she would just look out the window she would see that these were the big kids.

She remained unfazed. She explained that the jersey had nothing to do with my abilities, and if I had been able to evade them before, I could do it again. This, of course, made no sense whatsoever. Not only were these kids big enough to be able to outrun me, but they had all agreed the shirt had been the difference. I remember that very clearly. Alas, I was left to fend for myself, thrown to the wolves sans jersey like an ordinary little kid.

Now that I am older, I understand what my mom was trying to tell me—that it is what's inside that counts, that the uniform does not make the man. However, to this day I still don't believe it. Like most artists, I have a vivid imagination, and I often use it to imagine myself doing something amazing. Unfortunately, my dreams are rarely accomplished by hard work or discipline or any of those qualities we speak of at people's funerals. Instead, the secret to my success is almost always a possession I covet.

I will fixate on said item, and I will become convinced that without it I will be unable to move, all my future plans hinge on having this item. Sometimes it is a garment, like a new pair of shoes, or a hat. Sometimes it is a bicycle part, or perhaps an entire bicycle. It is often an art supply, typically related to oil painting which I do about once a year. Most recently it was a typewriter.

Even though I have never written more than a few short stories, I still feel in my heart that I am destined to write novels, plays, and other works of fiction and, of course, to be famous for doing so. I think about it all the time. It's quite perverse, spending so much time pondering something I never actually do. It's actually a lot like being a virgin again. And as with losing my virginity, I am constantly conceiving of ways to get myself to write. Unfortunately, as with losing my virginity, it seems like it's taking forever.

I have pretty good excuses. For one thing, I am a painfully slow writer. I agonize over word choice. Also, I am pretty moody about when I will write. For a long time I could only write if I had complete silence, and it was early morning. I certainly couldn't write if anyone else was around. It's getting better, but I still have to limit the sound to instrumental music.

Lately I have taken to my studio to write. It is (usually) quiet, there are no dogs or people or telephones or even internet. The only drawback is that I must take the laptop with me, a fact that is unpopular with some of the Tetris-playing members of the household. Furthemore, if the computer was reserved for something legitimate it would mean that I would have to wait to use it! I don't know if I can explain this to those of you who are not artists, but having to wait when you are inspired is just about the most uncomfortable feeling there is. It is more or less mental constipation. And the longer you must wait, the less likely anything is going to come out of it.

Considering these issues, I hit upon a brilliant idea, one that would eliminate my hoarding of the computer and also fulfill my desire to purchase a new device that would finally provide me literary regularity. I became convinced that a typewriter was the missing link in the chain between me and greatness. It was one of those ideas that, after I thought of it, seemed so obvious that it was amazing it had been overlooked for so long. At last I would be afforded the freedom to travel the world, writing machine in hand, recording events in person, fashioning stories about the people I encounter. No longer would I have to sit in front of a dull-eyed screen, arguing with spell check about whether douchebag is a word. Finally I would know the joy of working without the crutch that is the delete key. I began researching typewriters that very day.

Whenever I am about to buy something that I know almost nothing about, I will progress through a series of beliefs that reflect the amount of knowledge I have been able to accrue by googling the word.

I will begin by saying that I should just get a cheap one, since I am only a beginner. That way, if I don't like it I'm not out a bunch of money. Besides, a true artist doesn't need fancy equipment to do their work.

Honey, where is the doorstop?

Next I will realize that for only a little more money I could actually get a pretty nice one, and it seems a shame to spend good money on something that might not be of very high quality, especially if I'm just going to turn around and upgrade anyway. I believe a person gets what they pay for, especially if what they pay for is a really hip vintage model.

Oh, this old thing? Wes Anderson said he wasn't really using it anymore.

After that I will begin to covet the extremely high-end models that are needlessly ornate and well out of any initial price range I imagined. I will not pretend that I think it is a good idea to purchase one of these high-enders, but I will spend the next 72 hours on ebay looking for deals.

Do you have anything with jeweled dragons on the sides?

Often what happens next is I am unable to reconcile my wish to own said object and the cost of the model I have decided is my fate, (usually due to some random article I read online). After a few weeks I will have forgotten about said object altogether. However, sometimes I get lucky. In this case, I was at my friends' house when I mentioned my desire to own a typewriter, whereupon my friend Becky produced two typewriters from her attic. I left with a 1943 Smith-Corona portable in perfect working condition.

Note: Not the actual typewriter. This one is a professional actor.

This is the part where I tell you how the typewriter has changed my life, that my dreams are in the process of being realized. Well, I am a little embarrassed to admit it, but I have had my typewriter now for a week and I have yet to complete a single thing with it. Don't get me wrong, I like using it. I love being able to look out the window instead of into the blue light of pixels. But I guess I still need to think of the stories before I can sit down and type them, they aren't just locked away in the aura of the machine. And this is merely the cognitive aspects of writing. Not surprisingly, physically using my new instrument is taking some getting used to, and it is also just not capable of doing some things that I rely on fairly heavily.

To say that the typewriter foregrounds my weaknesses is an understatement. Firstly, I am an abomanible speller. Of course, the typewriter cares not if I can't hit the keys in the proper order,* laying bare all the mistakes one makes along the way so that you end up with words like anoutmoded or unfamiar. I am also not a strong typist. I have good days and bad ones, but unless I am fully caffeinated and inspired I think I work at about 40 words a month. I don't think I need to say that the spring-loaded action of a machine made before the television doesn't exactly speed up the process. But probably most important is the fact that I can't rearrange paragraphs as I go. I have been told my writer's 'voice' sounds natural or conversational, usually by my relatives, but I can tell you that writing is an agonizing process that takes me hours or days complete. Often I will write several paragraphs or even pages that only serve to get me to the first sentence of my articles. Almost always I will change my mind about how the pieces should begin, or end. I like to copy and paste sections back and forth, reading them both ways before I decide. In short, I kind of suck at writing. The computer helps me suck a lot less.

Still, I remain confident. I continue to envision myself working late into the night with a bottle and a handgun on either side of the machine, smacking an original manuscript into leafs of real paper. I think it is going to be good for me to spend less time plugged in to the internet-ready laptop and rely a bit more on memory, imagination, and my thrift store dictionary.

Many years ago, as I lined up across from the big kids in my normal, non-magical shirt, I knew I was going to come up short. I knew that what was special on that previous day was gone. I had felt the shirt's power, and I was worse off without it.

Whether it is true or not, you can't argue me out of my feelings, and you sure as hell can't stop me when I feel them. Sometimes, with the right tools, I'm just invincible.

* Even the word 'typewriter' is kind of tough. Most of it happens with the left hand on adjacent keys. I just can't get it right.

Carmen and the Guardian Angel

2009-12-09T20:05:00.010-07:00

...and apparently religious.

The other morning I had to tell a woman to stop calling my house. Before she finally got me on the phone I imagined what I might say to her, how I would handle the escalating situation. Truth be told, I felt great relief at having spoken to her, but I was also hoping it wouldn't come to that. I thought she might just give up and go away on her own. You see, I'm not very assertive. I have a lot of trouble telling people no. In this case, I definitely accept some of the blame, but come on. Take a hint. I guess some people, no matter how desperate or hopeless the situation seems, need verbal confirmation.

Her name is Carmen. In all, I think I received five messages, and I actually spoke to her four other times in a span of about two weeks. I don't have Caller ID, so I have no record if she tried calling other times without leaving messages. Of course, this means I also have no way to screen my calls.

From the start, I thought it was odd to be hearing from her. Because I am the art critic for the paper, she seemed to believe she could call me out of the blue, at home, in order to encourage me to review her friend's show. In the course of this first conversation I learned a lot of things. For instance, I learned she is a casting agent, and that she would be getting drinks later that evening with some high-ranking state official. As she spoke, the implication became clear—there might be a favor in my future if I were to write a review. Of course, she may also just be prone to exaggeration, as evidenced by her description of the artist.

I will call him M, and besides being a full-time surgeon and head of cardiology at a local hospital, he also finds time to paint and sculpt. Carmen would be the first to admit she didn't know how he found the time, but it was obvious that this information was supposed to inspire me. At any rate, after her lengthy espousal I politely agreed to see the show and get back to her.

I see now my mistake. In the future I hope to be more candid with my beliefs in this regard, foremost of which is that I did not appreciate being called at home by a stranger one iota, let alone one making nebulous inferences about casting me in movies. I don't even want to be in movies, not with my teeth the way they are. Granted, she was very polite and wasn't exactly asking me for anything, but the implications of this kind of back-door deal are disgusting. Were I to follow through, viewing and then writing a favorable review of a show, just because some woman calls out of nowhere and says words like "Hollywood" and "State Supreme Court" I would be a pretty lousy reporter indeed. Alas, I saw no harm in checking out her friend's art, and I swear to you that I made no promises beyond that. Unsettling as I found her phone call, I was courteous. (Damn you, good upbringing!) If I could do it again, I would firmly and politely explain my feelings upfront. But that isn't really my style.

At this point I would like to segue into my past, to my last summer before I moved to Chicago. I was working at Arby's. I had just graduated from college and was trying to earn some money before I left for grad school. I knew I would be leaving in only a few months, so I applied at the closest job I could find, without disclosing this information. Admittedly, it was dishonest, but I want to say that throughout my tenure I was a very good employee, probably the best I've ever been at any job. Knowing I wouldn't be there very long allowed me a very healthy perspective on my position—it was a way to earn, it was easy, it was temporary. I actually kind of enjoyed working at Arby's. There was zero stress, the hours were relaxed, and I got free food. Just about the only drawback was the nightmares where I couldn't turn off the fryers. Anyway, one day a man came into the restaurant. He was disheveled, he smelled like alcohol, and his speech was incoherent. If I had to guess I'd say he was homeless, or at least very crazy.

He ordered food and as I was collecting his fries and drinking cup he put some change on the counter. I can't remember the total, but it wasn't really enough. When I told him it wasn't enough money he started to get agitated. He attempted to grab the soda cup, all the while rambling nonsense. He either didn't comprehend or didn't care that his money was short. He began loudly demanding his food. I felt foolish, but I wasn't really sure what to do. I figured he would realize he wasn't getting food and go away. After all, there was this counter between him and the food.

My manager, Bridgette, appeared from her office. I didn't know her too well, but my impression was that, for a short woman of wide berth, she was not the sort who would take any crap. I liked her but, as with all management I have known, she seemed deeply unhappy, like someone who is not in control of their own destiny. I also know this feeling can breed anger, and it is moments like this that bring it out suddenly.

She greeted the man sharply in a way that I imagine was taught to her at some corporate management seminar. Immediately the man zeroed in on her, his behavior escalating so he was staggering towards her, pointing and babbling. In response, Bridgette's tone and manner harshened. I cannot remember what was said, but the argument was between whether the man should leave or be allowed to have a turnover. Finally, Bridgette informed the man she was calling the police and went to her office to do just that.

It is at this point that the story becomes less like a retelling of an event and more like a religious experience. A person whom I believed was insane offered me guidance. I almost didn't believe it when it was happening, but it did happen.

Alone again with the man who had been yelling and reaching across the counter, he suddenly turned to me and said in the soberest of voices, "You let your girlfriend do your dirty work?" I was so stunned by the man's sudden transformation that I said nothing. He looked me over and then leaned in a bit closer. "One day, you're going to have to learn to stand up for yourself."

Bridgette returned and the man began gesticulating and croaking again, morphing seamlessly back into his belligerent self. He left in a flurry of swearing and we never saw him again. I didn't tell anyone about what the man said to me, or that he wasn't really drunk. They wouldn't have believed it anyway.

I was thinking about the man this week.
Actually, I think of him often. I was rattled by the event, his strange demeanor, his ability to assess me. He was right. I do not like confrontations. There have been many moments in my life when I have wished I would have said something or done something in the heat of the moment, only to wait it out. I don't exactly think I am a coward, but I often choose to say nothing to someone I perceive as an aggressor, not wanting to inflame the situation. Honestly though, I almost always regret this.

The week after I first spoke to Carmen she called again to see how I liked the show. I apologized for not getting back to her, but I had a legitimate excuse—I had not seen her friend's show. I had indeed gone to the gallery, but when I arrived the space was occupied with people spreading plastic sheeting on the floor and stapling it down. I asked a woman if the exhibition was open and a man called from behind a wall, "Five minutes! We'll be done soon."

I waited for about ten minutes before it started to rain. When I poked my head through the door once more, staple guns were still firing, so I left. I am in Santa Fe every week, so I saw no need to get wet. I would just come back the following week.

Speaking to Carmen again, she reiterated a lot of the information from the first phone call—she is a casting agent, her friend is a heart surgeon, he is brilliant, etc. I explained what had happened at the gallery. Once more, I said I would attend the show. Satisfied, she said she would wait to hear from me.

The following Friday I returned to the gallery, and this time I was allowed to see what all the proverbial fuss was about. The space in which the show was being held is a small one, no more than twelve feet square. It has a single entrance but is basically an enclosure of four solid walls. Covering most of the walls were a dozen or so paintings, but these did not immediately get my attention due to the fact that an eight-foot high sculpture of a sea monster made from blackened spray foam was cutting diagonally across the room and staring me in the face the moment I turned the corner.

I will not bore you with too many of the details of the show. In truth, I was not quite sure what to think. These past few months I have seen a lot of art, much of it very boring or derivative. Well, this show was neither of those things. It was actually a little bit frightening in the sense that a supposedly sane person created it. My first thought was, "My god! They let this man operate on people." The sea monster was part of a trio of sculptures, all produced from the same glistening black foam and matted faux fur. They were, unequivocally, the worst sculptures I have ever seen from an adult.

The paintings weren't a lot better. They were crudely made and naively thought out. They featured the kind of imagery one might expect from an elementary school student, but they were violently painted at a very large scale. Most of the images included at least one floating head which, my friend Davey pointed out, is often a sign of schizophrenia in the artist. Best of all, the titles of the works—things like "The Boy Who Loved Socker and Barbie Dolls" or "Nightmare in the Boardroom"—were scrawled directly onto the walls with charcoal, 10" letters in a jagged, deranged hand that is the very picture of what it is to scrawl.

If I had stumbled upon this work on my own, I might have laughed, or written it off as a calculated attempt to seem like an outsider artist. I don't know. But there was something so sincere about the work that I couldn't believe anyone would want to pretend to be so unhinged. I mean, the guy flat out could not paint. His compositions were awful, his execution was a mess, and the imagery was very infantile. The more I looked, the more certain I became that this art had been created by a madman.

Even stranger, I learned that other galleries had been showing this man's work. I began to wonder if he and Carmen were somehow able to leverage shows from otherwise steady and reputable dealers, using their positions as bargaining chips. It wouldn't be the first time. But I also couldn't wrap my mind around the idea that other people would see this work and not either fall down laughing or just leave the room. (I really can't stress enough the ridiculousness of the leviathan. Those must be some bargaining chips). I actually started to get scared. Who was I dealing with here?

That weekend, my friend Bryan arrived. It was the week of Thanksgiving, and he would be in town throughout. In other words, it gave me a pretty good excuse to avoid Carmen. I was not at all sure what to say to her. How do you say to someone that their friend's show was probably the biggest disaster you have looked at all year? I suppose I could have told her I didn't think the show was something I was interested in. Or I could have made some excuse about not wanting to review the same gallery too often. But I just don't like to lie, even to strangers, so I did what I always do—nothing. I decided to enjoy my break with my old friend and not worry about Carmen.

This is when the messages started.

One, two, then three messages, all in the same little smoker's voice. Carmen was always just trying to catch me on her way somewhere. She always made a bit of small talk on the recording about her friend, lest I should forget why she was calling. I would have admired her persistence if I wasn't started to feel stalked. I had told her I would call. Never mind that I hadn't, I was surprised to see that she would keep trying.

When she finally got me on the phone, I was still at a loss for words. I tried to speak honestly about the works, their childish craft, and she tended to agree with me, only without the repulsion I felt. She described her friend some more to me. She said he was very sensitive, and could be very childlike. She told a pretty funny story about the time she brought him some food and gifts from her hometown. As part of the package, Carmen had included a small jar of dirt that was supposedly blessed. She called it "prayer dirt." The following day, M called to thank her for the food but, he said, he was worried that there was something spoiled in the Ovaltine. Of course, there was no Ovaltine, and M had drunk the dirt. I believe this story was supposed to endear me to him, but I felt it was further proof that I was getting very close to something dangerous and insane.

I panicked. In order to appease Carmen, I said I thought I might have more questions about the work, and that they could be better answered by M himself. In a huge bluff, I asked for his phone number. Well, Carmen happily gave it to me. To this I added I would likely not call this week with the holiday, but that next time I went to Santa Fe I might try to have coffee with him.

After I hung up, I felt terrible. I had no intention of meeting with this person. My selfish motive was only to try to get Carmen to stop calling. I felt that if the ball was in my court, so to speak, they might wait for my call and eventually get the message. I mean, the guy's a surgeon. What does he need a crappy art review for anyway? He'd get over it.

Oh, but I still have much to learn. Ten years after a madman gave me sage advice in a fast food lobby, I was still not standing up for myself. Here again, ten years on, I was being pushed and harassed by another madman, and they seemed to know it too.

I never called, and for a few days neither did Carmen. It was last Thursday that the first message appeared on my machine. She was understanding. She knew, what with the holidays, I had gotten busy. She was sure I had probably tried to contact M, while he was in surgery no doubt, but he was still hoping to hear from me. Apparently, since I hadn't called, he'd been feeling a little down, but Carmen reassured him that I would call. What was this woman doing? Who is this bipolar hospital head that needed approval from a local art critic? By the end of the message, I was fully creeped out.

The next day, Friday, there is still another message. Not that it is of consequence, but I was actually quite busy last week, and I was not home during appropriate calling hours even if I had intended to call. People like Carmen, I guess they don't care if they come off as pushy or desperate. They are going to hound you until they get you on the phone. And I ask, what is the point? She must have known by now that I was giving her the brush off. I had been very rude by not returning her calls. Couldn't she see that I was trying to stonewall her?

I should add that sometime during the week I wrote to my editor and asked that they please not give out my home phone number. In the past, they have forwarded emails to me from people who are trying to contact me, but this seemed to cross a line. My editor responded by saying that no one in the office could remember giving out my number, and besides that it was against their policy. I thanked her, as it meant that my employer was not in the habit of aiding people that wish to harass me, but I was suspicious. How else could Carmen find me and know exactly who I am?

I didn't sleep well on Friday night. I thought about calling Carmen and putting a stop to all this, but again I could not find the words. Deep down, wasn't she just trying to do her crazy friend a favor? She was a sweet old grandmother. I just hoped and hoped she would stop calling and I would not have to tell her the truth. I was sure she I had heard the last of her.

Saturday morning, at about 9am, I was making blueberry pancakes when the phone rang. I promise that I did not suspect it would be Carmen. Up to that point, she had always respected normal business hours, and had never called on a weekend, so when she said "Hello, John?" I had to ask who it was. "John, it's Carmen." The voice so familiar from my machine had lost something, patience I think. Immediately she launched into a similar spiel regarding my supposed attempts to contact M, and the fact that I was probably really busy, etc.

I have to say, I was starting to get pissed. Not only was this woman flat out pestering me, on an early weekend morning, but she was also being, in my opinion, disingenuous. I simply do not accept that she felt I had in earnest been trying to call. Indeed, if my track record was an indication, I had never yet called. And still, she insisted on pretending to believe in me and playing at politeness. I could hear it in her tone. She was annoyed, and she was saying these things out of some perverse duty she felt to be polite to me, to whom she owed nothing. I cannot imagine she was enjoying this. I cannot fathom why she would bother. I hope she's being well paid.

Cutting her off, I asked, "Carmen, how did you get this number?"

There was a pause. "I don't know." Another pause. "It might have been in the phone book."

Indeed it is. I had not wanted to pay for an unlisted number. Carmen hadn't wheedled it out of anyone. Being a resourceful sort of bully, she had merely looked me up.

I was stunned. My paper hadn't given out the number after all. My home number is in the public domain. This is what I get.

Quickly I said, "Well, I'd like you to stop calling."

"So, you're not going to call him?"

"No. Thank you," I said, and I hung up.

As stated, I felt a great sense of relief at having finally said what I needed to say. Of course, I also felt no small amount of guilt too. I should have had the nerve to tell Carmen on day one. Or day two or three, etc. I should not sit around and wish my problems away. Unfortunately, I do not appear to be built for this. I am not quick to react to conflicts. When I do I always feel that I have overreacted. In this case, Carmen might still say that I overreacted. I don't know what to think. I don't understand any of it.

I do know that I have not learned to stand up for myself though. I suppose I could have caved completely and just written the review. That would be truly spineless. But the fact remains that I never did tell Carmen the truth. I never gave her an honest opinion, really. And that's too bad. After all, I'm a critic. Giving my opinion is my job.

In my opinion, Carmen crossed a line. And then she crossed another one. I can only surmise she was M's annoying little attack dog, hassling people for press. But she deserved to hear the truth about it. In that regard, I failed her. By saying nothing, I crossed a line too.

Since Saturday, I have not heard from Carmen, but I was a bit uneasy for a few days. Each time the phone rings I swallow hard. I picture myself being accosted while I walk my dogs. I daydream that I will be blacklisted from getting a nursing job in town. Frankly I don't see how this story could have had a happy ending. Sometimes people just come into your life and start pushing you. Sometimes the only thing you can do is push back.

After all this time, I can't decide if the man at Arby's was truly crazy, if he was faking it completely, or if it was something in between, a kind of sociopathic charade to keep people at a distance. The explanation I prefer makes the least amount of sense, but I decided he was some kind of guardian angel sent to help me. He was testing me, and when I failed he was telling me how to pass the test. He's going to keep testing me. He's going to teach me how to become a man.

The New York Time's Effect on Man

2009-11-29T19:44:00.005-07:00

I saw a white light. And it had a great bass run.

I am currently enrolled in a class called pathophysiology. It is literally the study of disease in the body, and it is so difficult that my spell checker doesn't even agree that it's a word. Don't get me wrong, it's fascinating, but sometimes it can be difficult to see how the information we cover is going to have anything to do with nursing. The fact is I will not need to understand the clotting cascade in order to see that a patient is bleeding to death. At any rate, explaining it to the patient would be little comfort.

After next semester I will no longer have to take any biology classes. When I begin nursing school proper my training will become more specific to my tasks in the clinics. I will be working with patients, and working with my hands. In preparation for this, I was recently required to enroll in a life-saving course.

It wasn't as great as it sounds. For one thing, I guess I don't know when my birthday is because I scheduled the class for the evening of, so instead of celebrating with my wife and friends I was repeatedly mashing the rib cage of a rubber mannequin who I had just met. For another, the class didn't seem very thorough. I mean, I passed. I have a card that certifies my training in areas of saving lives. But I am honestly not sure I could do it on a non-rubber person. Perhaps, if faced with a situation, adrenaline would kick in, muscle memory would take over, and I would coolly go about the task of resuscitating, but I'm just not sure the 8 minutes of practice was enough. I make french toast every Sunday, but I still look at the cookbook each time, just to be safe. If forced, I think I could make french toast without a recipe, but I would be worrying the entire time that I had skipped a step, probably the most important step.

You: "Weren't you supposed to use bread?"
Me: "I can't remember..."

The instructors, of which there were three, didn't seem concerned. They spoke jovially about the goal of CPR—trying to squish the human heart between the sternum and the spine to maintain oxygen flow—all the while eating Dunkin Donuts. They were paramedics, so I suppose they had become quite used to the idea of a stopped heart, enough so that food sounded appealing.

For that matter, they had all let themselves go a bit. As a trio, I'll bet they weighed 800 pounds. However unlikely, I kept thinking how awful it would be if the three amigos all keeled over in class, mid-donut, exposing us as inept frauds who didn't know the first thing about CPR. Apart from the extreme guilt I would feel, I am fairly sure they would make us retake the class.

My favorite thing I learned in my life-saving course was how to keep time. The proper tempo for CPR is 100 chest compressions per minute, a number that could easily be estimated. However, this is a matter of life and death, so the instructors revealed a foolproof industry secret—the Bee Gees. Apparently, the song Stayin' Alive was recorded at or around 100bpm. Compressing the chest in time with the pulsing disco downbeat will effectively help the victim stay alive. In a way, this is a very effective teaching technique. Aside from the cute correlation between the title and the action for which it is being employed, the song is memorable enough that a person can recall it at will, and honestly, if you can't keep the beat to a disco song, I don't want you doing CPR on me anyway.

The only weird part, I assume, will be when I actually have to use CPR. There I am, hammering away on someone's chest, trying to force enough oxygen into their brain to stave off permanent damage, humming that chilling song I will forever associate with death, the Bee Gees looking over my shoulders like satiny Grim Reapers.

In a Gallery Near You

2009-10-30T08:18:00.007-06:00

Darby is unequivocally their favorite person in the Universe

I never used to give much thought to promotional materials. For one thing, I know I'm not getting an unbiased account of things. Take movie advertisements: short, decontextualized words of praise, set to theme music, where they play up adjectives and skip the part where the quote came from the intern at the Montana Sun-Rifle. It seems that if you look hard enough, you can find someone that likes every movie*.

Besides, a lot of the quotes don't make any sense. A personal favorite was when a movie was described as "the biggest laugh generator since There's Something About Mary."**

Movies have big budgets, and a comparatively wide audience. They hire design teams to carefully tailor and craft these promos, right down to what kind of movie they want their movie to seem like so that we, the audience, won't be confused as to why there is no wrestling in Kramer vs. Kramer. Movies are enormous financial investments, and a lot more money gets dumped into trying to get people to go, all before anyone has even seen it. Of course they're going to say it's great. They are trying to sell it to us.

Something I have become keenly aware of since starting my weekly column is the promotional material describing art exhibitions, which are produced without all the financial backing of Hollywood. Indeed, artists are not usually known for their abilities in other areas—areas such as proper grammar, or humility. I can tell you from experience that so-called artist statements are some of the worst examples of writing a person could ever hope to encounter. Many of them are like Vogon poetry. Really, the only time I read them is when:

1. I like the work and hope to learn more about the artist's thought process.

2. I am sort of offended by the work and I want to ascertain what the artist was thinking so I can hate them more completely.

Sadly, these two circumstances are few and far between. Usually the work is very bland or familiar, and there is really nothing to be gained by reading how the interplay of light and shadow gives rise to notions of the abstract, impregnating the works with the duality of the mind/body split when all I see are some stripes. By skipping the artist statement, I can qualify the artist as untalented instead of completely deluded, which is much more depressing.

Since I travel to Santa Fe only once each week, and am at the mercy of the train schedule, I have a finite amount of time to see a given show. I try to be thorough, but this isn't always possible. I am a little ashamed to admit that I base a lot of the stops in my circuit on the promotional blurbs that are published in the very paper for which I write. (It feels a bit cannibalistic).

All of a sudden, abbreviated artist statements are part of my routine. Every Friday I sit with my coffee and read through the listings to see what new shows will be opening, and to see if I have missed any that sound interesting. And herein lies the problem—most art shows do not sound interesting. They usually sound extremely boring:

"[The artist] presents egg tempera landscape painting."

(She is the lucky 1 millionth person to do so!)

Or pretentious:

"[The artist] showcases oil and watercolor paintings that bespeak the stillness of canyons, lakes, gardens, barns, and everything in between."

"A connoisseur of skies, [the artist] brings his refined perspective to New Mexico."

(Nobody who believes they're good at something refers to themselves as a connoisseur, or refined, and they don't showcase. These are words born out of insecurity.)

Or both:

"[The artist] infuses the mundane with the sacred as she paints everyday settings, including empty streets, balconies, decks, chairs, and cityscapes."

And some of the blurbs don't seem to communicate anything at all:

"[The artist] works with ink and pastels on a layered surface to achieve novelty in his abstract figurative pieces."

(So, to clarify, the artist makes things for you to look at. They are also hung vertically on walls in order to aid you in this endeavor.)

Sometimes I am surprised. Just last week I visited a show described only as "Polish Posters," as in posters designed by Poles, for Poles. It was fantastic. I try to keep an open mind and visit as many shows as possible. I guess I just never realized how atonal and off-putting a few words about one's life's work could sound.

It is always painfully obvious that these blurbs were written by the artist in the third person, as though this will lend it some credibility. Having become something of a connoisseur of these blurbs, my advice would be to just go for clarity and honesty:

"John Photos takes lots of pictures, mostly of his wife and dogs. He loves them. The best ones are on view through...

And don't try to bespeak or infuse anything. You're probably doing it wrong.

* I have been accused of this in the past. It's complicated. Suffice it to say that I like movies on a variety of levels, and so a terrible plot and laughable dialog doesn't always ruin it for me. After a while I start to imagine what it must have been like to actually work on, or be in, said movie, and what a nightmarish experience it would be, standing there across from other amateurs in a cloak, wondering if I should have finished college. I sort of start to empathize...

** That movie was Trekkies, a documentary about Star Trek Cons, possibly the only place on earth where they might plausibly have a giant laugh generator. (A google search attributes the quote to Bonnie Britton, Indianapolis Star & News).

Last Ditch

2009-10-29T14:55:00.003-06:00

I have been taking lots of pictures, but that's kind of the least I could do as a Photo teacher.

Well, the entire month of October has passed, and I've posted nary a word. I wish I could say that I've spent my favorite month undertaking exciting projects and spending lots of time outdoors before we all move inside for the winter and put on baggy sweaters to hide our baggy stomachs. Alas, it isn't so. For one thing, I am in the midst of teaching a new course in a new department, so most of my time outside of class is spent preparing a lecture, worrying about the lecture I just gave, or drinking in order to put off preparing a lecture or thinking about the lecture I just gave.

I am also pretty sad that my new 'gig' as an art critic is not only psychically (that's not a typo) exhausting, but it makes sitting at a computer to write "for myself" even less appealing. Furthermore, it has made my schedule such that, were I to write, I would likely have to write about what I'm already writing about. See the problem? I guess I could use this blog as a snarky repository for the clunkers that don't get mentioned in my paid writings, but that just isn't very nice. Although...

Last, I just wanted to write down this true story so that I won't forget it:

This morning, as I was purchasing a small, black coffee from the café in the student union, the cashier next to my cashier was counting out her money.

"I can't believe how many tens I've seen today," she said.

"Thanks," I said.

Lower Education

2009-09-19T20:51:00.004-06:00

Even the XXXL Clothing company is making fun of us

I have mixed feeling about the new NBC comedy Community. On the one hand, I am extremely flattered they made a show about my unexpected return to education. On the other hand, I disapprove of the writers’ characterization of the student body as a mélange of misfits and people with behavioral disorders.

Having attended both private art academies, with their hefty tuitions and the entitled students that can afford it, as well as community college, where the students often have to work to put themselves through school and most certainly will have to get a job afterwards, I feel more than a little defensive about the assumptions that are made in the name of comedy.

Granted, community college is not like a typical University. The student body varies widely in age, demographic, and general background. As a 30 year old returning to school, I am certainly not among the youngest students, but I am also not alone. I am one of many adults that have decided to reorient their career path towards something more stable or more lucrative. I am usually about the median age in a class, and I am not the only person who has already graduated from college.

I know where the shows’ creators are coming from. (I once referred to a friend's former community college as his alma mater, much to his embarrassment). There is, without a doubt, a stigma attached to community college. For one thing, there is often not really an admissions policy—I was “accepted” to the school merely by registering online and saying that I had completed high school—so the pride one might feel by getting accepted to a University is a bit watered down. For another, the sense of ‘community’ that one actually feels is lessened by the fact that many students are only attending part-time. This means it takes them much longer to complete their curriculum, and it means their schedules are more erratic—a reflection of the students’ work schedules outside of school. Ironically, a 4-year college is going to be much better at fostering a community, where friends and peers move in lockstep towards graduation and often remain friends for life.

This is not to say that I haven’t made any friends at my new school. I sort of have. The point is the very attitude of many of my classmates is different than it was among the fledgling artists I schooled with previously. Whereas college was a social rite of passage and an excuse to experiment, community college is just one more thing we have to get through to get paid. It’s not an escape from your parents’ house, or a place you go to party. It’s a goal-based education, and it feels like job training. It’s ok to make friends, but that isn’t why we’re here.

So, why are we here? If the show or the clichéd opinions surrounding community college are to be believed, it is because we fucked up. We dropped out of highschool. We got kicked out of a better college, or are too poor or too stupid to get into one. We made horrible decisions when we were younger. We invested $100,000 in an arts education and can’t seem to get a good return on it.

In a way, these things are true. But I worry they are voiced in a way that belies the optimism inherent in trying to get an education. By cynically sneering at someone who has changed their mind, or is trying to change their life, we miss the point and with it all the good aspects of community college.

You won’t find a lot of wealthy students at community college. You won’t find a lot of former valedictorians, or even the kind of people who could have coasted through their schooling. But this is exactly why community colleges are so important—they are an opportunity for those less fortunate and less prepared for a University education straight out of high school. They are an affordable way for people to better their lives.

Making the decision to go back to school, and to stick with it, is a difficult and worthy endeavor. For many of my classmates—myself included—this is their second chance to have a career they can be proud of. They can earn a decent wage for once. They can learn better study habits and complete something. They can accomplish their goals. The effects of these things cannot be measured. They are invaluable to the individual that achieves them. And the attempts at this are certainly nothing to make fun of.

It is true that not everyone will make it. Some of the people will just not have the skills or the support to finish. But this is no different than the fancy art academies I attended, or the University where I teach. None of them are foolproof, and they all have plenty of fools. I only hope that the writers of Community understand this and, in subsequent episodes, will attempt to portray some of the characters with the bit of pride and dignity they deserve. After all, no one is making us go to community college. We chose to do it, and I doubt any of us will regret it.

I would like to thank David Brooks, who wrote an inspiring article about Obama's spending bill to fund more community colleges. He made me feel proud of my decision.

Hate Male

2009-09-14T11:30:00.001-06:00

Working alone isn't so bad.

When I accepted the job at the paper, I knew it was only a matter of time before I got some hate mail. I have been in this position before when I submitted other writings (see previous post In Full Disclosure). It is to be expected. After all, I am a local art critic for a free weekly. When you’re at the top, everyone is trying to knock you off.

To do my job you have to have thick skin. Week in and week out I have to go to an art gallery, look at pictures or thingies, think about them, and then sit at my computer and write down what I thought about. As if the grueling schedule wasn’t bad enough, by giving opinions and analysis I put my own character at risk. Though I try to be fair and measured, my fleeting thoughts, drunken diatribes, and rambling soliloquies written several minutes before my deadline are immortalized in print alongside the more mediocre stuff I write for the masses to pore over with clear eyes and sharpened teeth. And last week I made a friend.

His name is Dave, and unlike me, he is a real writer. I know this because he posted a comment below my recent article that was at least as long as my article, and probably twice as well written. In this comment, he made mention of the fact that I am “stealing food from the mouths of real writers.” If that is true, I indeed feel bad about it. I assumed that when the paper hired me they had considered whether I was a real writer, or whether I might be only pretending, and I had taken their word for granted. How embarrassing! Of course, I can sympathize with Dave’s anger. You see, it turns out he is actually a staff writer for my paper.

If I had my druthers, I would probably elect for Dave to send me a personal email regarding his concerns as opposed to publicly berating me. Although we have never met, I think collegiality can go a long way towards building respect. By ambushing me he seems to want to discredit rather than discuss our differing styles and opinions. At any rate, it would certainly have avoided insinuations regarding Dave’s possible jealousy, cowardice, unprofessionalism, and complete inability to identify what is/is not a joke.

I spent the next few days after “the incident” thinking about what I should do. I became depressed, and lost a lot of confidence. I would wake up thinking about possible responses I could post. I imagined meeting Dave and what I might say to him. I realized that if you split his last name up you got the words ‘ma ass,’ as in “I wiped ma ass with your last article.”

In the end I decided not to post a rebuttal, nor did I attempt to contact Dave directly, and I am glad. I am unwilling (or just unable) to write when I am angry, and Dave’s note made me pretty angry. Now that the initial shock has worn off, I feel I can assess Dave’s comments with a clear head, and my clear head feels that most of what Dave wrote was way off the mark. He made some serious accusations about me/my abilities and, though I feel they are unfounded, they are now in the public record. In my lack of direct response is my hope that:

1. Tacit professionalism will win out over gossipy infighting.

2. Subsequent articles will bury any doubt as to my authenticity.

3. Dave is crushed by a falling piano.

I understand that in my position of immense power I am going to make some enemies. As a local art critic I am in the business of judging others’ personal projects, and feelings can get hurt. In some cases, the artists and their peers may feel the need to defend themselves. I am being honest when I say I welcome this. If I misrepresent the artist in someway, or if I am being disingenuous, I would hope that someone might come forward to correct it. I do not wish to abuse my position in order to sway other’s opinions. I aim to be descriptive, analytical, and entertaining. That said, I am new at this and still finding my way. I take what I write seriously, but I also have occasional doubts and anxiety about it. And maybe this is where Dave can actually teach me something. Thanks to his clumsy interpretation and unscrupulous misquoting, I am learning that it will be impossible to get through to everyone, that what is said in jest or hyperbole may be taken literally (no matter how improbable), and especially I have learned that after half a century it is still not ok to tease an avant-garde composer about his work of silence. It’s not funny!

Me, A Cause For Celebration

2009-08-17T20:48:00.007-06:00

Newton: Proof that the brain has an off switch.

If anyone is even still paying attention, I am pleased to announce that Life, the Universe, & Everything has limped across the finish line of its second year in existence as of this week. It wasn't a great year, writing-wise, but I managed to contribute something at the staggering pace of more than once a month (on average, not the past few months). To those of you who count on me, indeed look up to me, I am very, very sorry. I will try to do better. And to those of you who have stood by me and encouraged me to keep writing, even though you obviously have better things to do, I sincerely thank you. Without your cajolery, I would probably write even less.

Despite my previous prediction of a more stable, more predictable year, the 2008-09 season was, in many ways, one of the most erratic and difficult years the Photos family has yet encountered.

For starters, we got rid of our car, and this has impacted us in ways we could not have imagined. In truth, we drove so little, it is almost the same as before, except in the winter when it is freezing (or at least in the high 30's) and there are no groceries in the house because a person can only carry so much in a backpack. Or when we run out of dog food and we have to try to get 25 pounds of compressed chicken parts to balance between our shoulder blades (leaving no room for groceries). Or we want to get out of town for the day and go hiking in the beautiful mountains. Or my wife has to have surgery or something. On those days, it sucks. But most of the time, I don't miss auto ownership at all. Our legs and lungs are in fantastic shape. By October, I doubt I'll even be sweating through my jeans anymore.

Next, I need to admit that I achieved a milestone this year by turning 30, which I celebrated by immediately registering as a Republican. Boo, taxes!

Turning 30 wasn't as jarring as I imagined it would be. I don't feel "old," but it certainly made me feel like I've wasted a lot of time. I don't have anything inspiring or philosophical to add to that, like that I learned my lesson and discovered a newfound self-discipline. I didn't. I guess I'm just excited that I managed to retain my will to live, something that was exemplified by my sudden adoption of a puppy.

His name is Newton, and he is extremely sweet and very slow to learn the house rules. I will not lie, raising a puppy has been a struggle. I'd like to blame it on the fact that he had been a stray, and all the behavioral problems that can entail, but I really think that I am not cut out for dog training. I read The Dog Whisperer, and it makes a lot of sense to me, but when I have already told the dog not to pull the leash over 100 times and then he runs into the street after his arch-nemesis, skateboarders, I get pretty bent out of shape. I don't like to yell at him, but I'm afraid he doesn't respond to reasonable commands at reasonable volumes. Soon after we got him, our neighbor stopped to say hello.

"You got a new dog, did ya?"
"Yes. He's a bad boy," Darby said lovingly.
"Yeah. That's what we hear."

In observance of my civic responsibilities, I played dual roles this year, first as a member of the Nielsen family, which was great fun, and then as a person who was not able to shirk jury duty. I am extremely sorry that this was neither mentioned nor blogged about at the time, but it actually caused a sort of mental unraveling that resulted in a life-altering decision. (Sound ominous? Good, it was.) Let me just promise that my experience as a member of the court system will one day appear as a story. Until then, I advise you to just keep trying to get out of it. It was awful.

More awful still was when we thought that Darby might have cancer... A few days after my birthday, Darby was admitted to the hospital where she had lumps removed from both breasts. It was outpatient surgery, and Darby came through it completely fine, but we still had to wait a few days before we knew what we were dealing with. Thankfully, the lumps were not cancerous and a follow-up appointment revealed no further growths. To Sharon and Fred, who came out to be with us during the procedure, I just want to say thank you again for your support. It was very nice having you around for such a scary event. And to all our friends and relatives who called or wrote to us, it means a lot to know that you are out there thinking of us.

Since Darby didn't have cancer, we realized that we had been given a wonderful opportunity to wreck our lives in some other way, and so I decided to go back to school.

Of course, many of you know that my lifelong dream is to become a nurse so that I can murder senior citizens. And while I have tried to be very positive regarding this turn of events, putting a brave face on my already pretty brave face, I should tell you that my return to school has been tough on everyone.

I've had to relearn how to be a student, taking on a whole new set of subjects, and I've had to study harder than I ever have in my life. As an art student, homework was completed leisurely in the evenings, accompanied by music and perhaps mind-altering substances. It was rigorous, but it was relaxing and often social. Whereas in order to pass Anatomy, I would study for 8-12 hours a week. Compared to reading a textbook about Microbiology, lying on my bed and doing a painting of Yoda just seems quaint. However, despite my hectic class schedule, I managed to get a 4.0 GPA over two semesters. I officially apply for the nursing program this September.

Of course, I had help. With little warning (or the money a person might save prior to making such a decision), I decided to quit my job. This would put more than a little pressure on my poor wife, who was suddenly thrust into the role of breadwinner (and this after beating cancer!). It meant cutting back our expenses like crazy. It meant living hand to mouth, again, again. It meant that nothing catastrophic could happen, and nothing unexpected could happen, and that we would be back to sneaking by on a strict budget with about half the money we were used to. And I want to tell you that Darby rose to the occasion. Every morning she got up and went to work so that I could stay at home and study. She literally worked to put me through school, like an old-fashioned story. She gave me the opportunity to concentrate on my education, and finish my class loads in as short a time as possible. Because of her, I completed 21 credit hours of science courses in only two semesters, and I just want you to know how proud I am, and how lucky I am to have her. There are moments that you just know will be the stories you tell your children and your grandchildren, and this is one of them—the time Mommy worked so that Daddy could become a nurse. I mean, how clichéd can you get?

On a brighter note than cancer and poverty, the job market suddenly looked favorably upon me. After 7 months of fruitlessness and unreturned phone calls, in a span of about two weeks I was offered three jobs! Next week, I resume my place in the ivory tower of academia as a photography instructor at UNM. It has been 6 years since I last taught, but I have had time to prepare myself and catch up on some of the new technologies. By the way, what is a jay peg?

Perhaps even more surprising than being contacted to teach was the email I got inviting me to send some writing samples. After a little back and forth, I was offered a weekly column at the Santa Fe Reporter, mostly due to this very blog! Fortunately they didn't seem to notice/or else mind the infrequency with which I post, or the fact that I have never had a writing job. My editor was extremely positive and before my first day he sent me a short email that said only, "Remember to have fun." Needless to say, I graciously accepted. My reviews come out Wednesdays at sfreporter.com, so be nice to me or I will abuse my power and turn you into a laughingstock.

And of course, Darby and I recently celebrated our sixth anniversary together. (Oof. That does make me feel old). As you have just read, our resolve was tested this year, and I am glad to say that our resolve passed. We still have some hard times ahead of us, since I still have four semesters of nursing school to complete, but I am extremely thankful that I have someone to go through it with.

To all of you, thank you for reading.

-John

One Year Later

2009-07-20T23:38:00.007-06:00

Wait'll they get a load of me!

This week marked the one-year anniversary of the release of The Dark Knight. It is a minor holiday, I know, but I took the opportunity to take a much-needed break from studying to watch the film again and maybe even finish the review I started 12 months ago. So, without further ado…

The Dark Knight is very nearly a masterpiece of action movies. From the tense opening scene, the movie sustains a frantic pace that never allows you to return to a comfortable seated position. It is unequivocally the best Batman movie to date. It is also one of the cleverest and most socially relevant movies I have seen in years. It does, however, suffer from a small but undeniable flaw—namely, that the protagonist is a grown man dressed in a latex body suit and cape, a persona that ultimately comes across as puzzling and silly in contrast to the dark realism of the rest of the cast.

By now you have all heard about Heath Ledger's epic final act. I, for one, am hesitant to heap praise upon actors when I usually find the writers and directors more deserving. My skepticism was only heightened by the inevitable emotional impact of the sudden death of this young and talented actor. Indeed, it was impossible to ignore the fact that I was witnessing the last role that Ledger would ever play, one that he never got to see completed. But for once the hype machine got it right. I admit he is amazing. Some credit, of course, must go to the writers for their thorough reimagining of The Joker—he is not so much a Villain, with all the clichéd cartoonish mannerisms and awful macabre jokes, as he is a terrorist, something wicked that will gladly die for his cause, whatever it may be—but the script is only words. It is Ledger, with a fascinating mix of facial tics and a deadly reedy voice that gives the movie what it really needs—something to be afraid of. Convincing as a lunatic, his confrontations with his co-stars are truly frightening. Knives out, he stalks from victim to victim with the cool and malice of a cat playing with its food. He broke the mold with his performance. And herein lies the problem. His nemesis, some weirdo in a rubber suit, can hardly return the favor.

A lot of the blame goes to Christian Bale. Peering out at us from behind a pointy hat and copious amounts of eye shadow, he does little more than rasp and glower in a way that is neither threatening, nor in step with the tone of the movie.

But the root of the problem, if I may call it such a thing, is with the genre of superheroes movies. To say that Christopher Nolan (director of Memento, Batman Begins, and co-writer of The Dark Knight) has outdone himself doesn't quite cover it. He has outdone Batman. The script is deadlier, and the plot is darker than a superhero movie should go. There is no humor or camp or even vanity to relieve you. There is not even a real love story. The Dark Knight is, for all the world, a horror movie. To the detriment of the film, Batman the character, trapped in an older, cartoonier iteration, never made the transformation. Traipsing through the shadowy sets in a cumbersome costume, he is the last vestige, the lone anchor to the childish PG versions of superheroes, complete with all the invincibility and morality they possess, so that you never really feel that failure is a possibility, the result of which is almost disappointing in the face of The Joker’s astonishing and skillful schemes. (Not to say that I was rooting for The Joker, but one has to admire his guile.)

Alas, the filmmakers seemed to understand Batman’s limitations as well. In one of the best scenes, a brutal roughing up of The Joker by our hero in the confines of a police interrogation cell, Batman attempts to extract information regarding the whereabouts of kidnap victims. After a few failed attempts, the beatings becoming more vicious, the questions peaking at a reverberating and hoarse shout, Ledger's Joker lets out a drunken and mirthful laugh. “There is nothing that you can threaten me with!” he says, and it is as though all of Batman’s strength has been completely sucked out of the room.

As I mentioned earlier, the thing that makes The Joker so good and so scary is that he is not an ordinary bad guy, rather he resembles something closer to just ordinary. He doesn’t waste his time waging war specifically against the protagonist, a force of nature that would surely defeat him in combat. Nor does he rely on stealing state-of-the-art weaponry to execute his master plan. He doesn’t have any special powers, or skills, or even a vendetta. His plans have a thrown-together feel that are equal parts brilliant and simple. Perhaps most convincingly, he employs everyday technology—video, cell phones, broadcast television, and the viral way in which these conduits can find their audience instantly—in order to involve a terrorized public. Indeed, his plans began to resemble the deadly punch line of a reality game show gone awry, the contestants foregoing all decency and humanity in order to survive, their grinning host morbidly delightedly watching it happen.

In keeping with this, it is ultimately not Batman that gets the better of The Joker—it is us, his would-be victims and our (apparently) unshakable goodness in the face of death that deal the harshest blow. Personally, I found the eventual outcome unlikely, or at least debatable, but to end it otherwise might have been too depressing and irreconcilable. After all, it was the single moment of hope in an otherwise unrelenting tale of mayhem and misery. It was the only hint at a happy ending amidst a bounty of tragedy, both on and off the screen.

No One Wants To Be Defeated

2009-06-26T13:37:00.005-06:00

God how I wanted to moonwalk. The china hutch that my mother kept in the carpeted sitting room, several rooms away from the eating area, had a mirrored back, like the ones seen in saloons, that provided an excellent view for practicing one's dance moves. My feet would become hot from the friction of socks on rug as I unsuccessfully shuffled the wrong direction. I have watched it in slow-mo, and I still cannot fathom how the feet move forward but carry him back. Even when it was popular, I always knew that the running man was invented as a cast-off to appease those of us who would never master the greatest dance move in history.

After my family purchased our first VCR, I remember watching "Beat It" over and over, attempting to memorize the choreography. I especially loved the single-leg kick where he shakes it back and forth before slapping his knee. (I've toppled many a lamp with this move over the years.) My mom looked on, laughing.

"You're pretty good."
Hopeful, I asked, "Do you think I'm better than Michael Jackson?"
"Oh, no, honey!"

At the time, I was definitely not expecting this blow to my ego. I actually felt a little hurt. As a boy I was, as are most children, used to hearing about my limitless potential. I asked my dad once if he thought I might make the major leagues. He simply said, "Sure." Whether he believed it or not, I cannot say, but there is something deeply amusing and poignant about the fact that my mom could not bring herself to tell a white lie to her eager son and his clumsy dance moves: MJ was the best, and that was that. To claim otherwise would just be wrong.

To say I am mourning the loss is overstating it. The only album I own is a beat up copy of Off the Wall that I found in a thrift store. But I certainly felt sad when I heard the news. Despite his eccentricities, and the many allegations about this tortured, possibly torturous, person, I grew up watching this person sing and dance and show me what it was to be a star. He was huge, and I was transfixed by him and his fluid skeleton. It is hard not to smile when you witness the geometric improbabilities of his motions. And it is even harder, for even the shyest party-goers, not to at least tap a foot when the bass run of Billie Jean invades the airspace.

A lot of people seem angry or annoyed by all the attention his death is receiving when there are more important issues in the world. Or the fact that we continue to celebrate an alleged child molester. To them I can only say that I agree, the world is a troubled place, and the death of a pop star is not the most important thing, and if he did in fact molest those boys, then it is unforgivable, but it does not change the fact that his music and dance moves are amazing, even today, and he was able to inspire more people on this planet than just about anyone, ever. And so, I am not going to sit around and cry and say he was too young, etc., etc. I just wanted to pay respect to someone that I idolized as a boy. He was an entertainer, and I was entertained.

Follow Me

2009-06-26T09:05:00.009-06:00

To the guy that caught up with me and then rode a few feet behind me so that he could lecture me in a gentle sarcasm, against a stiff breeze, about bicycle safety and conscientiousness while we descended the steep grade of Lead avenue—I just wanted to apologize for yelling "Fuck off!" as I turned right at the corner of Broadway. I definitely lost my cool and took it out on you, and I have always wished, continue to wish, that I could move through these kinds of confrontations with my usual sense of humor and playfulness so that I don't come across as an enraged maniac. That said, I want to assure you that I do not like you.

What you say is true. I went through a red light before it had, technically speaking, turned green, but I would also like to point out that the crossing traffic, of which there was none, was facing a yellow light at the time, and since the sight-line for that particular intersection—the corners of Lead and the hospital, one that is little more than a driveway for patients—is wide open on both sides for many meters, I see no reason why a person who is coasting downhill at a medium clip cannot anticipate the light change and not have to wear out his brake pads for what will amount to a rolling stop, as long as I am not endangering any pedestrians or inconveniencing motorists. In short, to say that I "ran" the light seems to me an exaggeration.

Furthermore, I object to your tone of false appreciation when you thanked me for running the light. As if it were not bad enough that you believe the way to get through to someone is to open with an insincere proclamation, I do not see how my own risky behavior should warrant appreciation on your part (even falsely) since I did not, by jumping the gun, affect you or your safety in any way.

You may argue that, by breaking the law, I am an agent of erosion in the social contract we have with others who share the street—the slippery slope scenario—meaning that if I run a light, then eventually everyone can/will run lights. To this I can only say that I don't believe this to be the case. I watch other cyclists, usually riding a fixed-gear or clad in Lycra, dart directly into moving traffic, and I do not feel compelled to follow suit. If I have offended your sensibilities, I can accept it on those terms, but to make a point of pacing yourself at my back wheel so that you can mildly chide me for god knows what—the wind in my ears was doing a fantastic job of keeping your righteousness out of them—all the way into downtown, is frankly very annoying. In the future, if you are angry, I recommend that you raise your voice a little, not only to overcome the conditions in which you were giving advice, but to convey properly the deep-seeded anger you obviously felt. I know a lot of people think that, by not escalating their volume or pace, they sound calm and not like a huge douche bag, but I can testify that this is not the case, and that it is still entirely possible to come across as someone who has anger issues despite a veil of measured speech. (The rapid pedaling didn't help either).

Of what little I could hear, I want to say that, no, I will not accept the blame for the fact that sometimes bicycles are hit by cars. This is the same slippery slope argument as before. The fact is, driving a car is an extremely passive activity, requiring almost no conscious attention at all. How many times have you been driving along and then realized you have been spacing out for the last several blocks? I would venture a guess that it is fairly common. And this does not even account for risky conditions, alcohol, or just plain old mistakes by either party.* So to say that a bicyclist, by disobeying a traffic law, on a quiet street in bright sun, is causing accidents is unfair at best and absolute bullshit in truth. Not to mention that I found a person giving a low-volume lecture, like a little cartoon shoulder angel, as I hurtled at ever-accelerating speeds, was fairly distracting. If it is safety that you are so concerned with, I would like to point out that by riding my ass, you were creating a situation in which my full attention was no longer being given to the road and its denizens, something that I did not enjoy considering the velocity at which we were traveling. Perhaps a better, safer solution would be to politely ask me to pull over so that we could discuss your concerns on the sidewalk. Or maybe we could go halfsies on one of these:

"Confound it, Woman! Slow your tempo or you'll have us all trampled under hoof!"

When I realized that you might actually follow me home in order to finish your long list of ills I was helping to unleash upon society, I turned round to ask if you were going to go straight at the fast-approaching intersection, and you confirmed that you were. In an effort to return to my preferred riding conditions, sans disapproving narrator, I turned right, a deviation from my normal route. I felt this was a civil way to diffuse the situation without having to tell you what a pain in the ass you are or punch you in the windpipe or anything like that. Verily, I was trying to walk away. So for you to then yell yet another sarcastic thanks—this time for not signaling—as I veered in another, quieter direction was the last straw and the moment in which I yelled the aforementioned profane words.

I just wanted to clarify that I am normally a very mild-mannered person, and I do not often scream swear words, or scream words at all, and that my little outburst needs to be characterized as something that was catalyzed by you. So, congratulations Sarcastic Bicycle Safety Know-it-all Guy. You got under my skin and made me feel ashamed for yelling. Though you don't seem it, I hope you're happy.

* I, myself, have been involved in two accidents with motor vehicles, one in which I was knocked down and driven onto while walking my bike through a crosswalk, and another in which I was doored while riding in the designated bike lane. So really, accidents can strike almost anywhere.

Call Me Nielsen

2009-05-27T11:51:00.005-06:00

In yet another attempt to move against the tide, Darby and I decided to get rid of our cell phones. Our decision was partly due to economics and partly due to the fact that we just never got used to talking on a phone that isn’t tethered attractively to the wall.

When we tell people that we no longer have a mobile phone, they treat us as though we have just told them that we are dying. They assume, like with dying, that it wasn’t really our decision, and they offer their pity and support. Fighting back tears, they say, “You poor things. If you ever need anything at all, don’t hesitate to write.”

As far as I can tell, telephone technology hasn’t changed very much since the days when Alexander Graham Bell first tied two cans together. Still, rejecting the current technology is insulting to some—interpreted as a character judgment, like we think we’re too good for cell phones. I’ve noticed that our phone rings a lot less than it used to, though I wonder if people know that a cell phone will still call a landline.

It’s true that mobile phones possess more capabilities and have helped rid us of things like address books, calendars, and punctuality, but the basic function of a phone remains the same—I enter a sequence of numbers, you say “Yell-o?” I guess the thing that I will miss the most is not being able to know that at this exact moment you are parking and will be there in a minute.

The landline does have its upsides too. You don’t have to charge it, the reception is always excellent, and is not as fragile as a mobile phone. I don’t know how many times I found myself in the middle of a heated exchange, frantically searching for something I could throw because my wireless company said I was going to get charged if I kept “losing” mine. A corded phone, on the other hand, is like a gavel—hard and loud. Bounce that thing off the tabletop a few times and it’s pretty clear who’s in charge.

“You idiots!” SLAM. “I told you!” SLAM. “I wanted thin crust!”

Another benefit of the landline is that I still get calls from solicitors. I have thought about registering for the Do Not Call list, but I just never grow weary of telling people that I am the man of the household. And occasionally I get a phone call that changes everything.

After a short phone conversation with a polite young man regarding the number of “sets” we own, whether we have cable, and whether we speak Spanish, Darby and I were formally welcomed into the Nielsen Family, and thus my destiny was fulfilled.

I had always wondered about the other Nielsens and who they were. I pictured middle-class families of four sitting together in a carpeted living room and watching sit-coms—the same families that are depicted in these sit-coms, really. I guess that shows you what kind of imagination I have.

If I could get a full-time job watching TV, I would. I will watch anything. I have one of the greatest memories in history, and it is mostly full of obscure cereal commercials and Simpsons quotes. If there is a TV on, with no sound, across a noisy bar, I will not be able to converse with you. It is that compelling for me. My undergraduate thesis was comprised entirely of stills I made while watching television, and a paper that included sections with titles like “Learning to Love Mondrian: An After-School Special.” Put into economic terms, I spent about $60,000 so that I could receive a degree for taking pictures that had already been taken.

A lot of people think television is evil. You read articles about kids who are watching thirty hours of TV per week. The reporters are usually incensed, and they blame TV for everything from our declining educational standards to obesity. Well, I don’t think television is the sole reason our children are overweight (zero calories), and it certainly doesn’t make you stupid. This opinion is merely a holdover from pre-post-modernity where culture was viewed on a vertical axis, television being considered part of “pop” culture, and ranking well below enriching and educational experiences like looking at abstract paintings by drunks, or seeing The Nutcracker. As much as I love to watch men in leotards quietly jumping around in front of trompe l’oeil palaces, I am not clear on its benefit to my understanding of the world. Suffice it to say, there are different types of smarts. I honestly think I learned more about geography, history, and mythology by watching Duck Tales than by attending grades 4–12*.

The package arrived on a Wednesday, a cardboard envelope with the Nielsen logo—the name in a blue, serif font, next to a television set knocked akimbo, and displaying the word TV—prominently displayed on all sides. The contents were thus:

1. A thank you letter from my relatives, the other Nielsens
2. My logbook
3. Thirty dollars cash

I had to laugh at the low-tech system that was still being used. In the age of digital
broadcasts, I should think that there would be a way to track viewership automatically, in-house. Instead, they rely on us to fill in a little booklet, by hand, with the exact times and programs that we viewed. And who, besides your grandparents, sends cash? If you ever come across an unopened Nielsen envelope, it will contain a ten and a twenty. I'm just sayin….

I wondered how they ever got anybody to follow through, since they pay you up front, but ultimately I decided that the cash was a masterstroke. Cash in your hand reinforces the agreement, and makes it seem more like a real family. If you received a check, you could easily ignore your duties and neglect to cash it to make up for your sloth, or change it later, once the shame had subsided. With cash, the responsibility is palpable—you barely know these people and they're sending you money in the mail.

Of course, we also got a follow-up call (an Uncle, I think) to make sure we received our package, and to guilt trip us into actually filling out the logbook and returning it on time. I suppose they thought that we were just going to buy drugs with the money and get so stoned that we’d forget to fill it out. The thought barely crossed my mind.

The filling out of the logbook was more complicated than I imagined. For one thing, they want you to know the name of each station your set receives—in my case all thirteen of them. For example, it is not enough to write, “Channel 2. Fox.” They want to know that you are watching KRQE. This is fine for CBS and NBC and the other stations that I watch with some regularity, but there was no way that I was going to bother learning the call sign of the station that only shows Korean musical soap operas, or La Explosión, the Spanish language channel that shows dubbed action movies, (Hasta la vista, bebé). I just scribbled something illegibly in those fields.

Once I was all logged in I was ready to roll. Strangely, I felt a heightened sense of self-consciousness. Normally I would only feel mildly ashamed to watch a half-hour commercial for the 10 CD set Soft Rock of the 70s, hosted by the aged members of Air Supply. But I will still watch the whole thing, even after the stock footage of the rare performances repeats, because I would be watching it ironically. However, as part of my new family, I would have to admit to someone, a scientist probably, that I had done so. I began to get suspicious about just how much data could be gleaned from a logbook, and whether it would go in my file.

“Mr. Photos, is it true that you once watched a re-run of the Jeopardy College Tournament with a friend, and pretended you had psychic powers?”

“Yes.”

“Unfortunately, I’m afraid that disqualifies you from being an Astronaut. I am very sorry.”

“But still, I knew you were going to say that. So explain that.”

Now that I had to write down every minute of television I was watching, I began to feel something resembling embarrassment. In order to seem more high-brow, I found myself lingering on a PBS documentary about steam when I knew that I was missing Two and a Half Men.

Darby felt it too. As Kath & Kim came on, she told me to mark an X for her (meaning she had stopped watching). Since she remained on the couch, I refused, as this was expressly forbidden in the logbook rules.

“But I don’t want people to know that we watch this show.”

“Like who?”

“Anybody.”

“Then we should turn the TV off.”

“So, turn it off.”

“Never!”

The real shame about the Nielsen system is that it doesn’t allow for the viewer to provide their opinion. There is not even a comments section in the logbook. The only data that is gathered is whether or not you watched a program, viewership being the ultimate form of praise. The problem with this method is that, by its standards, McDonald’s would have to be considered the best restaurant in the world. I suppose individual critiques of every program would just take too long to read.

In an attempt to assert myself, I adopted a code of symbols to indicate my feelings about a particular program. 30 Rock and the four football games I watched were marked with hearts; Law and Order: Criminal Intent got a smiley face; Steam received a word bubble containing, “zzz…”

Our totals for the week were pretty low, and I began to realize how different my life is from my college days when we watched movies, The Price Is Right, all the late night talk shows. Once the centerpiece of our living room, the television actually plays a pretty small part in my life when compared with the laptop computer.

But, as with our landline, or the radio broadcasts of baseball games, or the fact that we don’t own a car, perhaps our rabbit-eared television will once again become the choice for entertainment as it slides ever further from its place of prominence in the American home, just where we like it.

* Take that Mrs. Howard. Blabbering Blatherscythe!

A Fleeting Sense of Accomplishment

2009-04-30T11:49:00.004-06:00

What do you mean you don't give A pluses!?

At the end of the first Star Wars trilogy there is a big party—people are dancing, there is some terrible music being played, and the crushing glove of the empire is replaced with a love for all fellow man and Ewok. Good triumphed and we should be very happy, but even as a little boy I can remember thinking, what are Luke and the gang going to do now? After finally vanquishing their enemy, I imagine them waking up the next day, or a few days onward, and feeling, well, bored.

For a while there, the rebellion had been waging an intergalactic war. Fighter jets, light saber battles, disguises and espionage—they were heroes, and spies, and this brought them together. It gave them a purpose. Appointing committees to restructure a new galactic government, and just generally living in peace has to pale in comparison. I mean, Luke could either get a cushy job through Leia's connections, or go back to spice farming. Most likely he'll end up in some craggy hut like Old Ben Kenobi, meditating and reminiscing or telling the same old heroic stories at the American Legion. And Han, assuming he even gets married, would be bored to death with the pageantry of living in a royal family. I give him a year before he cheats on her worshipfulness.

I mention it because I just completed my first semester as a science major and, though proud, I am suddenly faced with three weeks of time off and nothing to do.

The sense of accomplishment that accompanies the completion of a difficult task is both satisfying and short-lived. For about 15 minutes I was elated. I wanted to go jump on my bike and ride around the city crowing at strangers. Instead I just went home and ate some beans and rice.

About an hour after my exam, something like panic began to overtake me. I started checking my email compulsively. I tried to write something. I got out my guitar, but didn't play it. I started eating everything in the cupboard (which was not much—a few chips, some grape nuts, two fistfuls of almonds). And then I realized that I was completely unprepared for my new found free time.

I have been unemployed now for 4 months and though I have been continually looking for work, I am not sorry about it. I felt fortunate that I could devote myself so completely to my studies. A lot of my peers struggled with the work load because they were forced to keep jobs. It gave me an eerie feeling of privilege, like I was from a wealthy family and didn't have to work (which, in a sense is true, though we just live really simply and get by on very little).

To compensate, I became determined to get straight A's (my grades are as yet unconfirmed). This was no small task. Even as a full time student, I had to prioritize my time and study on a schedule every week. Compared to all my previous schooling, where my goal was merely to pass, it was far more stressful to try not to lose any points than it was to just try to get enough.
And the process consumed me. I even did the extra credit assignments when I didn't need to. I became hyper competitive with the other students, and when I outscored them I became competitive with myself. One teacher, while arguing with me about an 'incorrect' answer, pointed out, "You know we don't give A pluses." I didn't know, but I didn't care either. Every deduction from a perfect score was a painful jab at my carelessness. My anatomy teacher grades on the curve, meaning she takes the highest score and makes it a 100, the difference is then added to everyone's score. Twice my test was the curve setter, but I actually felt disappointed when I realized that I had not scored a 100 at all, I had only rightfully earned a 95 and a 98. My perfect scores were tainted. Now I know how Roger Maris must have felt.

I realize that I must seem pretty unsympathetic. Something happened to me this semester in my quest for perfection and, although I felt unable to stop it, suffice it to say that I didn't really enjoy the feeling. I like being in school, and I like working toward a goal, but the singular nature of my goal—to score 100s—was stressful and had a hollowing effect. I do not think it's bad to be devoted to something, especially education, but I think it is important to try to retain a sense of humor and humility about it, to allow yourself to make mistakes and enjoy yourself.

I see the same symptoms when I watch Tiger Woods. I think it is universally agreed that he is the greatest golfer alive, possibly ever. And yet his steely glare, his victorious fist pump that borders on rage, his dull-eyed anguish when he loses—I get the feeling that he's never really having any fun at all. He is only there to win. Well, winning feels good, but as they say, it isn't everything. Just ask Luke.

On Hope

2009-03-16T21:58:00.006-06:00

Something to cheer you up after you read my blog

We are studying depression in my psychology class and, though depressing, it's nice to be able to put a name to some of the feelings that wash over me while I sit on my sofa weekend after weekend watching shows that I have already seen or don't really like.

Today we learned about a phenomenon called Learned Helplessness. It is, as one might expect, the feeling that no matter what you do, the outcome is going to be bad. They discovered this particular trait – is it a trait? – while conducting tests on (who else?) lab rats. The tests involved giving the rats electric shocks through the floors of their cages so that they would feel it in their paws, which are particularly sensitive. Some of the rats were allowed to escape harm's way by climbing a nearby ladder or pressing a button, but some of the rats would have no other option than to just be shocked, and this is where Learned Helplessness appeared – the rats, with nowhere to run, would just roll onto their backs so that their paws would not have to feel the shock.

And it gets worse.

Once the animal has resigned itself to resignation, it will no longer even attempt escape, that is, if an animal that has displayed Learned Helplessness is provided with a ladder, or tiny rubber boots, it will continue to just lie on its back. Because depression is hereditary, some rats are more irrepressible than others, so it takes them longer to get to this point but, after enough time, any rat will roll – scientific evidence that there is a threshold to the spirit.

Apart from the sadness I feel when I think of the rats, staring at the ceilings of their cages, praying it will stop, I worry about the prevalence of this phenomenon in humans. Does this mean that once life has dealt you too many blows that there is just no way to bounce back? I understand depression, and the way we can feel overwhelmed or even powerless against things like the IRS or Barack Obama, but are we all just meandering toward our breaking points? I mean, I know it's a stupid metaphor, but are we so different from the rats, those of us with lousy jobs (or no job at all) and not enough money?

I guess my point is this: if someone you know, or even someone you don't know, is struggling, think of those rats, and how they must have felt once all the hope they had had left their bodies, and try to see that person for what they are – an animal in pain – and be a ladder.

Class Clowns vs. Teacher's Pets

2009-02-23T21:07:00.004-07:00

Quail Man and Quail Dog: A Fashion Inspiration

When I was in grade school (and in middle school and high school) I used to get into trouble. I would be talking while the teacher was talking and they would interrupt me, tell me to be quiet, walk purposefully to the far end of the chalkboard, and write “John”. If I still hadn’t learned my lesson and I continued to talk, they would walk back to the far end of the board and, with a backwards glance, silently add a check mark next to it.

The teachers believed that this was a form of punishment. They all decided at some education conference before 1983 that if you wrote a student’s name on the board, said student would correct their behavior. And I think they were probably right. The first time I got my name on the board, I would wager that I didn’t talk again for the rest of the day. Mission accomplished.

The problem with this system is that after you have had your name on the board a few times you realize that that is the extent of the action against you. Your name was erased from the board that night by the janitors and you didn’t have to go to the principal until you got 2 check marks, a near statistical impossibility in a 40-minute class period.

The other problem with this system is that it relies on the hope that the student does not wish to be singled out. So much of the behavior in school is driven by a desire to fit in. To stand out, to draw attention to oneself, is to open oneself up to criticism and ridicule… unless you are the class clown. When you are the class clown, ridicule is the highest form of praise. I once wore my underwear on the outside of my gym shorts on a dare.

What the teachers never understood was that by acknowledging me, even in a way that they deemed negative, they were feeding me the very thing that I craved. I was talking in class to get attention from my fellow students, usually a select few friends. By stopping the lessons and writing my name, the teachers were putting all the attention on me. My name on the board was like having it on the marquee. I was famous!

Where I ran into the real trouble was at parent/teacher meetings. Throughout my schooling, these meetings fell on the second week of November, which meant that I always got a 4-day weekend for my birthday, and this was a mixed blessing if ever there was one. If the meeting was on Monday, my birthday had most likely already happened; presents were received, sleepovers were allowed. However, if the meeting was on Friday it meant that I now had 4 days off in which to be in trouble. Every year it was the same conversation. The teacher would say that I was disruptive, that I didn’t follow directions, and that I was getting my name on the board a lot.

My parents are nice people. They expected me to get good grades, (I did for the most part), and they were never hard on me as long as I got B’s. That said, they would come home from these meetings in a mighty pissy mood. Maybe it was generational, maybe it was because they were not themselves class clowns, but the idea of their son’s name on the board was a topic of great shame to them. It was like a horrible secret between the janitor and me had been unearthed. My defense was as unwavering as it was unconvincing.

“My teacher hates me,” I would say.
“Why?”
“Because they’re mean.”

According to my testimony, I had the most hateful and cruel line-up of teachers in the history of public schooling. For some reason, my parents never accepted this explanation.

A little older, a little more schooling (and even some teaching) under my belt, I can see the role that I may have played in all of this for what it was. In reality, I was a jerk, and just a lousy student. I had no interest in homework, or lectures, or anything really that wasn’t attached to a pair of shaved legs. But I stand by my original sentiment.

The thing that I like about this reasoning is that, while it misses the point of why I was getting in trouble, I still think it is completely true. Many of my teachers didn’t like me. And even more of them were just mean. On television, or in movies, you see the teacher as an empathetic character that reaches out to the kids who cause them the most problems. They become like a guardian figure and unlock the hidden potential in a child that will help he or she overcome their behavioral problems. They willingly spend time outside of class to help, and they actually seem to be enjoying themselves.

In reality, those teachers probably don’t exist. And if they do, they are probably dying of a brain tumor or something so they have vowed to embrace life. As to the rest of them, they are just people trying to get through a workday. I was just a kid who made their workday a little more annoying. For that I am sorry.

…

Last month I enrolled in what will be my 7th year of education outside of high school. I could tell you a few stories of teachers that, through positive and negative influence, taught me some valuable lessons about life. But that is for another time. For now, suffice it to say that I learned to become a good student sometime in my freshman year of college, and learned to enjoy education in general. Unfortunately, I am still perfecting my new positive outlook.

The major difference between then and now is that I quit a job to go to school. This being the case, there is a heightened sense of pressure to get just stupendous grades since I can’t claim that I am too busy with anything else. All I have is school, and this has made me eerily eager and annoying. I come to every class, usually early. I sit near the front and take notes. I don’t talk, and in fact roll my eyes at the students who talk or text throughout. I ask and answer questions, and bring in articles I’ve read that pertain to the subject. In other words, I am a flippin Teacher’s Pet. Oh, the irony! The symmetry! Of course, I am learning that the teacher’s treatment of the students, no matter their roles, is more static than I would have thought. Put another way, my teachers still don’t seem to like me.

I always assumed that the Teacher’s Pets were a welcome face in a hostile and indifferent crowd. I figured that they were treated with kindness, or something resembling gratefulness. I believed they embodied everything that a teacher wants in a student. As the class clown, I saw in them my opposite – studious, attentive, courteous, deferential. I loathed them and their obedience. I pitied them for their myopia. A few weeks into my new field of study, I can only surmise that the teachers concur.

Viewed now from both ends of the spectrum – someone just doodling and coasting through class, and someone that attempts to be engaged and who does their assignments before they are due – I am regarded in the same uninspiring manner no matter how I apply myself. And in a way it's worse now because I feel like I am invested in the assignments, whereas my teachers don't seem to want to return the favor. My attempts to make conversation after class have been met with weary distraction as they pack their bags to leave. My email regarding the length of an assignment – 9 paragraphs of bioethical discussions – was answered in the tersest of messages; “1-2 pages TOTAL”. (9 paragraphs on 1 page?! How is that even possible?) And, just to prove I’m not being paranoid, twice I have had to confront my teachers regarding my grade on a paper.

Thinking my score was surprisingly low, I approached the man who insists that we call him ‘Professor’ to inquire. With a sigh he looked over the paragraph in question and awarded me more points without so much as an explanation as to why they were negated in the first place. In another instance, I again had to wait around for the teacher after class to point out an entire paragraph (out of only 3) that discussed in detail the very topic she was claiming I had left out. Later, when I received a lowered unit score for spotty attendance I again had to corner the Professor and show him the notes that were taken on the days in dispute. Worst of all was when a teacher just added my test score incorrectly because she was in too big a hurry to do basic arithmetic. I feel as though I am being cheated out of points, and I have to fight for things I have already earned. When I was still not awarded full points for attendance, I just let it go. It’s tiresome, and though I believe I am right I’m afraid it makes me seem like a whiner. I see the teachers begin to wince as I approach their desk while the other students head for the door. They act like it's a great favor to change my grade.

My wife likes to mention ‘High School Me’, a younger version of herself, as a barometer for how square and compromising she has become in her adulthood. High School Her is always shaking her head at her. And it’s true. As teenagers, we were imperfect, immature people. But we had real convictions, and the energy to back them up. High School Me wouldn’t care about the grades. He wouldn’t study so hard. He would be happy with an A-. And he sure as hell wouldn’t need the approval of a bunch of people who were just too lazy to do their jobs right. Life is too short for that. Now, let's ditch and go smoke a cigarette.