Things That Annoy Me

I was inspired by Joe, after reading this piece, to compile a similar list of irritants. 


After some time to think and compile, here we are. 


I've never been sure of the purpose of pieces like this. Is it to have someone agree with you? [though, no matter how many people agree or disagree, those things will still annoy you.] Is it to merely remind those reading of life's annoyances? Are you arguing for the items on the list to be considered annoying?


I don't have an answer. I'm not sure of the purpose of this post. 


I just have this list.




1. Overly sensitive hot/cold taps on showers and bath tubs.

I love to shower (though not in the Penn State kind of way). It's a time to unwind, to let hot water rush over you and realize that life isn't that bad. It can be the start to a great day, or a way to wind down before bed as you let the steam carry away all the stress. 

Showers can and should be invigorating, cleansing, simple. 

What makes a great shower?

I'd argue 4 things.

1) Above average water pressure.

2) Adequate, yet clean space for maneuverability.

3) Taps that allow for gradual variance in water temperature.

4) A tall shower head doesn't force one to crouch.

Is there more? Of course. Ideally, you have a place to sit down [because sitting in the shower is heavenly]. And ideally there's a shower curtain. 

But those four are the essentials. There can not be a great shower if those aren't present. 

Unfortunately at my house, none of the four are really met. [I guess #4 is, but barely.]

After one of my countless mediocre showers at this place, I've tried to figure out which of the four are the most essential. If I could have only one of them, which one would I have? This is a tough question to answer. Ideally, you want them all. But what if you could only have one?  

And I think I've decided that the one I would choose is #3.

I can't tell you how frustrating it is to stand in a shower and turn the tap a quarter turn to the right and feel the water go from lukewarm to scalding. Or how tedious it is to turn a tap three full turns with no effect on the water temperature whatsoever. The taps should be consistent [how hard is it to be a water tap, really? You have one purpose in life], and reasonable. 

Imagine if you took a spin class where a quarter turn of the dial was just a guess -- it could make the resistance ten times more difficult or it could do nothing. You'd never take the class again.

Unfortunately, I don't have the same option with boycotting the shower as I do a spin class. [I guess I do, but women seem to be elusive enough when I don't smell like garbage]. So each day I step in to the shower and play this horrible, sometimes painful guessing game.  

2. People who don't wave when you let them in.

If somebody is kind and gives you space to change lanes/enter the highway, throw them a quick wave. It communicates something to the effect of: "Hey, thanks for letting me in. You didn't have to, but you did anyways. I recognize and appreciate not only what you did back there, but you as a person. I wish I could do more, but all I can offer you is a friendly, heartfelt wave. Have a good day. Know that I am always with you, and I hope you find whatever it is you're looking for." 


That one simple act, that quick wave, makes a friend, creates a bond of trust and respect that can never be broken.  


Conversely, if you don't wave, what you are in effect saying is: "I'm too absorbed in my own life to acknowledge kindness when I see it. Important people like me don't have time for waves and thank you's. That's why I don't use my indicator when I change lanes, and I don't say thank you when someone holds a door open for me. Because it doesn't affect me. I'm too important to care about waving, about things that don't directly benefit me. That's why I drive this sweet car...... Oh, and one more thing: go fuck yourself."


Don't be a dick. Just wave. 




3. Being called"buddy" by anyone outside of my family.

My Mom and Dad can call me buddy. My spouse will be granted this privilege too, though I might suggest a more masculine, friendly alternative like tough-stuff. 


For the remaining world population, the term "buddy" is off limits; you call pets and children "buddy", and unless I'm mistaken, I am neither to anybody else in the world.  


So when somebody says, "Hey buddy, could I get a drink from you?" I instantly like them less. 


I'm young, I recognize that. Facial hair growth has never been one of my strong suits. But still, find something else besides a pet name. Anything else. I'd obviously prefer tough-stuff, but would even settle for dude, brother, or Frank. At least Frank's a real name.  


So to answer the question from earlier: Yes, you can get a drink from me, but if you call me buddy one more time, I won't make it with love. I'll just make it. I hope you taste the difference.


4. Persistent house flies.

We spend so much of our lives trying to answer the shortest question: Why?


Why did he leave? 
Why did this happen to me? 
Why am I balding? 


More often than not, there isn't an answer.  


There is not always a logic to be revealed, not always a clear reason for what happens to us in life. 


And so it is with houseflies. 


Why do they buzz around incessantly? Why do house flies continually land on your knee or ankle -- how does landing on my knee improve their day, benefit their miserable life at all? And why are they so obsessed with television screens? Why don't they go find a trash dump somewhere and spend their days flying from rotten fruit to human waste? Flying within arms-reach of me only increases its chances of being swatted and ultimately killed, yet they continually play this dangerous game -- risking their life for seemingly no gain at all. 


Why?  



5. Waiting at a red light at an empty intersection.

This one requires the least explanation. 

There's simply no good reason why any of our life should be spent waiting at a red light when we are the only ones at an intersection. We can surf the internet wirelessly. We can put men in space. But we can't figure out a system that allows people to get from point A to point B without waiting at abandoned intersections? 

It's terribly frustrating; and almost always puts me in the position of debating whether or not to cut the light out of principle.  

There are many things wrong with our society today. This is one of them. But unlike poverty and alcoholism, the answer to this problem seems fairly straightforward. If there's only one car at an intersection, give it the green light. How hard is that? 

There's a government conspiracy lurking beneath all this. I'm sure of it.  

The Dumbest Generation

*I had written this a week ago, but am publishing it now because I forgot to bring my laptop to Florida with me. I will write about Florida shortly. 

In his book, The Dumbest Generation, Mark Bauerlein paints a bleak picture of the American youth. They are remarkably uneducated, Bauerlein says, despite the unprecedented access they have to information. 


You can imagine what he forecasts for America if nothing changes, if it is left in the hands of these unprepared, dim-witted youths. Bauerlein reveals how the young of today are reading less and even exhibit a bizarre sense of pride in how little they read. He details how technology isn't improving learning in or out of the classroom, but rather hinders it in many instances. An entire chapter is spent arguing that enjoyment and achievement have "no necessary relation" --  in other words whether a child loves or hates school doesn't alter how much they absorb or retain [this is a rebuttal to the movement that says "maybe kids will learn more/study more/go to school more if school is more fun]. He argues that the youth are choosing to use technology to become more informed about other peers, about their friend's lives than they use it do research Plato's Republic or Napoleon's return from Elba. And it's quite simple why they make this choice -- being informed about friends, being aware of youtube videos and being able to get pop culture references -- all that leads to acceptance, which is of the utmost importance during adolescence. 

His book reminded me of titles like Freakanomics, Blink, The Tipping Point -- books loaded with studies, statistics and easily-digestible arguments; books that soar up bestseller charts and are widely talked about until of course a new book comes out that's just as well-researched, just as digestible, just as explosive, but only more recent and probably more relevant. Then the book fades and the author looks for something else that can be researched, crunched, and packaged for all of America to read.

And Bauerlein does this -- the studies, the logical progression -- as well as Gladwell or Levitt and Dubner. It is a quick, informative read. The perfect book to sit down on a long flight and get through and feel informed, and more importantly, somewhat alarmed. 

But unfortunately Bauerlein is wrong. Not about the enjoyment-achievement relationship. Not about the effect of technology in the classroom. Not about the alarming decline in reading. Those points are hard to argue, and are frankly ones that I agree with. But he is wrong, or at least misguided.


Bauerlein spends much of the book hammering home the point that advances in technology have not led to improvement in the classroom, and in some cases have actually led to declining performance. To illustrate this, he'll talk about a study, which shows that "x" percentage of schools in America have access to computers and the internet today as opposed to a smaller "y" percentage of schools that had the same access ten years ago. He'll then compare math and science and reading scores from today with the ones from ten years ago and find no difference, and in some cases, a slight regression. The conclusion is obvious. And it's not just one study. It's fifteen more, mixed with anecdotes. It's compelling. 


However, Bauerlein's error is that these studies assume that "intelligence", "learning" -- any and all those big buzz words we hear tossed around in conversations about education -- all those studies assume that intelligence can be measured in a multiple choice test. 


Ken Robinson, in his book The Element, spends pages and pages railing against such generic and widespread testing because it can only measure one type of intelligence. It tests memorization, statistical retention, certain types of problem solving. Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers argues alongside Robinson -- that there are multiple types of intelligence, and yet we rarely think of it as such. Gladwell tells the story of two men. One has an absurdly high IQ [a standard way of measuring intelligence] -- 30 points higher than Einstein's. The other is above average, most certainly intelligent, but not off the charts. One wins a nobel prize. The other lives alone on a ranch, barely making enough to support his ranch. It was the "less intelligent" one that wins the Nobel Prize. It was the prodigious genius who lives alone, not even able to graduate from college. And the reason Gladwell gives for this unexpected discrepancy is that the Nobel Prize winner displayed a much higher level of social intelligence. He could interact with people, work amongst them, coddle professors to give him high marks, understand the politics of working in a competitive field of science. The genius couldn't. He was awkward, abrasive to those who didn't understand him. He offended professors, insulted their intelligence, so they looked for reasons to fail him and they of course found plenty. 


The Genius would score off the charts in any test Bauerlein could put in front him, but yet he can't function in society, or even a classroom. One type of intelligence is easy to measure. The other types of intelligence are just as and perhaps -- if the story about the Nobel Prize winner and the Dropout Genius are any indication --  perhaps those other types are even more useful. So why is Bauerlein condemning an entire generation when he seems to be measuring one, out of many, types of intelligence?

The issue of intelligence continues to be debated quite hotly [judging by all the books published on the topic in the last few years]. It is a topic that has hundreds of thousands of pages of literature on it, and my two paragraphs are by no means definitive. It is something to think about, though.


If that was the only mistake Bauerlein was guilty of, I wouldn't be writing this. The problem with his book isn't that he doesn't understand intelligence. It's that he doesn't understand the generation he writes about. 


Bauerlein is writing about, even tries to categorize and define, a generation he is not a part of. The great writers who pen works that come to serve as a voice for a generation -- whether it's Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby or Kerouac's On The Road --  they were all a part of the generation that they came to symbolize. And more importantly, they didn't set out to write about a generation. They set out to tell a story, which in the end, told much more. 

And so Bauerlein sits on the outside looking in, trying to explain and categorize a generation that has known nothing but a world with internet and ipods and cell-phones -- a world he can never know, never truly comprehend. So while he laments how many hours a teen spends on social networking sites, we sit here and wonder how you knew anything about your friends, let alone kept in touch with them, before social networking. He wonders why the world isn't the way it was, why we aren't reading, learning, retaining like previous generations. Bauerlein frets at the alarming decrease in engineering and math majors -- why aren't more people striving for those jobs like they did a few decades ago?  He wonders what will happen to the electoral process if the voters are becoming increasingly less-informed. 


Bauerlein divides the world into old and young, into teachers and students. And if you read the book you get the sense that old is good and young is bad. 


Towards the end of the book Bauerlein writes: "Furthermore, they [confidence and enjoyment] prevent the students from forming the one essential ingredient of long-term success: an accurate, realistic appraisal of their present capabilities."


Doesn't he get it?


Bauerlein tries to define intelligence and I believe he does so poorly. When he tries to define success, he fails miserably. Bauerlein thinks being an engineer, majoring in math, graduating from good schools, being a professor [he is one], scoring high on multiple choice tests -- those are indicators of success. He thinks being able to "realistically appraise" is crucial to finding success. The ideal student looks at themself in a mirror and says "well, I'm not good at drawing, so I probably should put more time into studying math, because then I can be an engineer." 


Those jobs -- engineers, professors, scientists, lawyers -- they are outdated measuring sticks of success, much like the IQ test is an outdated barometer of intelligence. (You can't help but wonder if they were ever worthwhile modes of measurement in the first place.) But by trying to push them on the dumbest generation, he fits perfectly into the divided world he has created; he is the old, all-knowing sage, who looks at the troubled youth of today and their dreams and then uses words like "realistic" and "success" to sober them to the unpleasant struggle that is life. Success lies in stability, in a degree, in a job title.


Doesn't he get it?


The best and the brightest that Halberstam writes about -- men who Bauerlein would love to have in every classroom across America -- orchestrated Vietnam. The dumbest generation helped elect a black president. 


There are glaring problems with our generation, as there have been with every generation that preceded ours. We read less. Bauerlein's generation turned fire hoses on African-Americans trying to vote. We check facebook too often. Men from Bauerlein's generation got elected to office and started wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Men from Bauerlein's generation who were economic geniuses [I wonder how they would have scored on those intelligence tests] started those disasterous hedge funds like Long Term Capital Management, they became CEOs of Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae and gambled with money so egregiously that our economy is in the teeth of a brutal recession -- a recession that makes young, dumb, kids like me have fewer jobs to find. 


We can't add. We don't know about the Peace of Westphalia. We can't find Iraq on a map. Alarming? Yes. But so is being forty-five, diabetically obese, divorced, and having no real relationship with your children. Unless of course you're a lawyer. Or an engineer. Or a professor. Then it's success. Right?


I'm confused. Perhaps that's to be expected.


After all, I am part of the dumbest generation. 

An E-mail

I still haven't gone to bed after my last post, so I decided to be productive and catch up on e-mails. This is quite a task, as many people often seek my counsel, or just want to be kept up to date with the details of my insanely entertaining life. 


So when I sat down to write Carinne an e-mail, here's what I produced. I share it with you because it has some lessons that we could all learn from, and because it gives a brilliant insight into the man who penned it. 


I began the e-mail with a few simple, yet brilliant introductory paragraphs. 


Then, this followed:


"...


I'm not sure mine will be that eclectic [nice word choice, Ed], but it will be long. And you know what they always say: if you can't write an eclectic e-mail, at least write a long one. 

I saw your rock climbing pictures. Looked beautiful. The only thing that would have made it cooler is if you'd discovered a Civil War ironclad submarine full of gold during the hike. You probably won't remember, but that's the plot to Sahara - that movie you made me watch with you starring Matthew McConaughey. You of course, fell asleep during it, so I ended up turning it off because during the entire thirty minutes I watched it, I found no reason to keep it on. You should know, however, that I've decided that Matthew McConaughey is annoyingly good-looking, and so is Ryan Gosling. When you think about it, they're pretty selfish guys, actually. There are kids starving in Africa and they're spending that much time on themselves, trying to look good? They could be using their time to generate awareness, to raise money for those poor kids, but instead, they spend their days tanning and trimming their facial hair and getting photos taken of them looking pensively into a camera. Everybody needs to grow up, and it starts with them.  

Do you see what I just did there? I wrote six lines that really added nothing to the e-mail. They didn't really explain how I've been doing and they didn't really offer much of an opinion about what you've been up to [other than that the rock climbing looked beautiful, but you already knew that]. All I did was talk about two good-looking male celebrities, who should really have no bearing on this conversation whatsoever. But that, my dear, is how you write a long e-mail. And why do you need to write a long e-mail? you might ask. Well [besides the reason I gave you earlier: if you can't write an eclectic e-mail, at least write a long one], because when you send somebody a long e-mail, they assume you spent a long time writing it and therefore that you care about them -- after all, you sat down and dedicated a all this time just to share your words, your thoughts with them. What they don't realize is that often the shortest e-mails are the most heartfelt, because you sat at the computer and couldn't find anything to say except the core of your heart, so you just shared a few lines, which are the only ones really worth reading anyways. But if you couldn't already tell, you're getting the long version this time. 

And did you see what I just did there? That's close to eight lines, explaining how I added six lines. Pure genius I tell you. Pure genius. 

So you're still in Thailand, huh? Do they speak Engrish over there? Does everybody look like Confucius? 

But back to you. Rock climbing doesn't sound that fun, to be honest. People have always told me I'd love things like scuba diving and rock climbing, but activities that bring you face-to-face with the terror of death don't appeal to me that much. And after seeing 127 Hours, I decided that I'm never rock-climbing. Is it logical to rule out an activity because of an extreme case I saw in a movie once? Absolutely not. But my life has been fine so far without any extensive rock climbing and scuba diving, and I think it'll be just fine without it. I of course plan on walking trails and backpacking up hills and many other outdoorsy things before I die, but rock-climbing and scuba diving, I'll pass. Because the only times you really ever hear about rock-climbing and scuba diving is when someone dies, and I feel like I hear those stories often enough to make me believe that pretty much everybody who partakes in them dies at some point or another. 

Now sky-diving, that's a different matter. I want to do it, but only if I could jump by myself, which of course you can't do on your first jump, so I'm actually probably never going to sky dive, though I desperately want to. First of all, the thought of a guy strapped behind me as we fall through the air is just gay. If there was a woman instructor, this would help, but I don't think women are allowed to be sky-diving instructors/guides, or whatever you call people who jump out of airplanes strapped to other people [besides morons]. And secondly, having someone else pull the cord/tell you when to pull the cord -- that takes the fun out of it. That would be like someone giving you a sweet car, but then every single time you drove, there was a driving instructor in the front seat who told you when to put on your indicator, when to brake, when to accelerate. I'd sign a waiver. I'd do whatever was needed to ensure that when I leapt out of the plane it was just me, some sweet skydiving outfit, and a parachute. [And a watch. I think those skydiving instructors/guides always wear big watches... And goggles. They always have dumb looking goggles, but I'd wear those too, just to look the part.] Because then if I landed, I'd have actually accomplished something. It would be me that had survived. I pulled the cord, I steered my way to safety. I would have cheated death. Not some expert who does it every day. At some point, people need to take the training wheels off their life and start jumping out of planes by themselves. 

There once was a girl named Carinne,

Who lived a life full of sin. 

She wore flannel outfits,

never shaved her armpits,

And ate cockroaches by the bin. 

Bet you weren't expecting a personalized limerick, were you? But you got one. 

This seems as good a time as any to lecture you about expectations, Carinne. You see, being two years older than you, I feel reasonably qualified to inform you about life. I know what lies ahead, and you -- so young, so naive -- you have no idea. How could you? You're like a worker bee, who's out for honey one day and stumbles upon a beautiful flower. I'm a more experienced worker bee -- the queen trusts me more -- and I look at the flower along with you, and then we both smile, and then I look at you and tell you about expectations. Anyways, you shouldn't expect things, Carinne. Notice how I put that in italics. Actually, I didn't put "that" in italics. I put "expect" in italics. I wrote: expect. Notice how the italics further emphasize what I'm trying to say. Italics are important, Carinne. Far too many people don't say what they mean. They don't put enough weight in their words. Notice how heavy the word "weight" feels when it's italicized. 


Take these two sentences for instance: 

Carinne loved jellybeans. 

Carinne loved jellybeans. 

The first Carinne, well, she loves jellybeans, and that's good and dandy, but the second Carinne, man, she loves jellybeans. She wakes up, and the thought of a good bag of jellybeans, that just puts a smile on her face. I really get a feeling about how much she loves jellybeans. I can picture her happiness, and her love seems much more enthusiastic, much more genuine. I see giving her a bag of jellybeans and her face just lighting up, like I really made her day by giving her a bag of jellybeans. The first Carinne? I give her the same bag, she might smile, say thank you and even give me a half-assed hug, but it won't be anything like the second one, and odds are, I probably won't buy her another bag. And the craziest thing about it all? They're both the same sentence. One used italics, the other played by the rules. And what do they always say about playing by the rules? That you should do it, but not always.

I googled Matthew McConaughey earlier to figure out how to spell his name and I left the window open while I typed this e-mail. One of the first images that pops up on google is him staring at the camera with a creepy smile. So for the last twenty minutes, Matthew McConaughey has been creepily staring at me, and now I'm unsettled. I just closed google, and now he's gone. I don't miss him.

By now you're probably realizing this is the literary equivalent to a prank call. I started this with no real purpose in mind. I had nothing really that I wanted to share with you that I hadn't already shared. 

I'm still debt free. I leave for Florida on Tuesday, and I'll be there for a week to watch Ryan compete in the Ironman this Saturday. 

Maybe I should have said that at the beginning. But then again, we could spend our life wondering maybe... Maybe I should have asked if he was eighteen... Maybe I should have worn underpants today... Maybe I should stop spending my weekends looking for buried Civil War ironclad submarines full of chests with gold... 

Notice the italics?

-Ed

Halloween

It is Halloween weekend in Austin, which means tens of thousands of people, wearing all sorts of costumes will head down to 6th street tonight and drink. I wish I could dress it up more [wow -- only two sentences in and already he's wielding such clever puns?] -- but tonight boils down to two things: costumes and alcohol. It is this simplicity that appeals to the young adults of Austin. Become somebody else and get drunk. Sounds fun enough.  And it is also this simplicity that makes tonight a "no refusal" night for the Austin Police Department -- meaning if you are pulled over, you have no right to refuse a breathalyzer test. [I feel a desperate need to write a sentence, cleverly talking about the "tricks and treats" found on 6th street, but I just can't bring myself to do it.]


I've been in Austin for four Halloweens now, which roughly equates to four years, which roughly equates to twenty-eight dog years, which roughly equates to .000000786 light years. I must admit something to you. I lied about the light years number. [A light year, contrary to its name, measures length not time.] 














I'm glad we've left all that behind. The lies, the light years. 


We're back to Halloween. You're probably wondering what it's like to be on 6th street, surrounded by drunk people in costume. You might also be wondering how many light years long 6th street is itself -- but we've agreed to not talk about light-years, remember? 


All that I can share with you is what 6th street is like on Halloween. I've been one of the 10,000+. 


It was a few Halloweens ago and Joe was sick and decided to stay home and rest, so Brogan and I went downtown in costumes that we had obtained from our friend's girlfriend at the time [my friend and the girl are broken up, but Brogan still proudly holds on to the costume]. Brogan went as a playboy bunny -- complete with bunny ears, a short dress that had a cottontail on the rear and showed his chest hair, and tube socks that nearly tore as they went up his legs. I was a naughty police officer, which was really just a tube-top dress with a badge on the front complemented by a hat too small for my head and a set of toy handcuffs. The dresses covered all the essential parts they must cover, though it was far too cold to be wearing dresses, but we wore them anyways and with his bunny ears and my officer's hat, we went downtown to be one of the ten thousand. 


If that night proved anything to me, it is that the best costume a man can wear on Halloween is one that makes him look like a woman. [Is it sad that these are the life lessons I'm learning?] 


For instance, I can't tell you the number of times I walked into a bar and spotted another naughty cop -- though this one was actually a woman [or at least looked the part more than I did] -- and I'd go over to her and say something like "this town isn't big enough for two sheriffs," or "I hate to be the one to tell you this, but I think you're out of your jurisdiction here." If she understood the word jurisdiction, they'd laugh and just like that, the awkward first step of approaching a girl, of staring rejection and humiliation in the face was broken because I was wearing the same dress she was. [A lesson I definitely plan to impart to little Jack -- possibly during the conversation he and Joe have over beers on his 15th birthday]. 


The night carried many similar triumphs. When Brogan and I walked down the street, we were constantly stopped and asked to take photos, which we were more than happy to do [Brogan looked like pedophile, and I looked like a character from Silence of the Lambs with my toy gun pointed at the camera], and then after the photos were taken and reviewed and laughed at, they would hug us and thank us and carry on down the street and so would we, wondering why the hell we were more desirable to women when we wore a dress. 


I drank a fair amount that night, but I do remember one conversation with surprising clarity. 


-"You look hot in that dress," a drunk woman said to me as I stood outside a bar. Not the normal opening line to a conversation, I grant you.
-"Thanks. I was going to get it in a small, but decided it might be a little too scandalous."
-"I think they would have arrested you if it got any smaller," she said.
-"I'm a cop, remember?" I flashed her the handcuffs and badge, to prove I actually was a cop. "And as far as I'm aware, being sexy isn't a crime." 


She laughed. The truth is that "being sexy" can be a crime, especially if it involves indecent exposure /lewd conduct. But she wasn't the type of girl to mention things like that. 


As I stood outside the bar, I started to look around. 


-"What are you looking for?" she astutely asked.
-"My friend."
-"What do they look like?"
-"He's six-foot three, and he's wearing a black dress."
-"What?"
-"I said he's six-foot three, and he's wearing a black dress."
-"Your friend's wearing a black dress?" she asked.
-"Yes," I said, though a sarcastic nooo would have worked just as well. "He's got on bunny ears and tube socks, too," I added, just in case there were other tall guys in black dresses. I didn't want her wasting my time with false alarms.


She looked at me to see if I was being serious. I was.


-"I haven't seen him," she said. She was a pretty girl, but as you can tell, she had an unpleasant tendency to tell you things you already knew. 
-"Well let me know if you do."
-"Are you gay?" she asked.
-"Am I gay?"
-"Yeah. Are you gay?"
-"Why? Because I'm looking for a tall guy in a dress, or because I'm a tall guy in a dress?"
-"Both."
-"What do you think?" I asked her.
-"I think you're gay."
-"How would you feel if I told you I'm not gay?"
-"I'd tell you to prove it."


I stared at this girl for a second, and even as she bathed in the generous view that I hold everybody in when I've had too much to drink, I couldn't find any desire to prove anything to her. 


-"I'm gay," I said. 


And then I walked off to find Brogan so we could go to another bar.




Tonight I didn't partake in the madness. I worked [though I did dress up as a woman -- one of our bartenders, who we decided looks better than I do in jean shorts], and when I was done with work I went home and slept until I woke up for no reason at 12:30 am, which is why I'm up now and writing this blog. It's strange to think that a few miles away there are naughty cops and playboy bunnies stumbling down the street, trying to find a way home, trying to find somebody drunk enough to sleep with. It is strange to think I was one of them. 


It is even stranger to think about how famous a person must be before they can be assassinated instead of murdered. 

Looking the World In the Face

"He looks the whole world in the face,

 for he owes not any man."

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"The Village Blacksmith" was published by Longfellow as part of a poetry collection titled Ballads and Other Poems in 1841. It is what you expect from a Longfellow poem -- musical, simple, at times didactic. The poem, as you could guess, centers around a village blacksmith; a hard-working, church-going, widowed husband and a loving father. If you have a few minutes -- for that's all it really takes to get through it -- you should give it a read. At the very least, you can then tell people you've been reading poetry, which makes them think you're deep and sophisticated; that you're the kind of person that chooses to read poetry because you get poetry. 

But I mention Longfellow's poem because I read it a few days ago [see - aren't you impressed?], and the line about looking the world in the face -- it floored me. 

*************

I'm not sure where or when to begin.

We very often try to forget our shame, to bury it beneath enough memories until it blurs and fades to nothing more than a faint recollection. It's a form of self-preservation, no different than your brain telling your body that you must walk when you're tired, that you simply can't go on. The truth is you can almost always keep going. But sometimes it's easier to stop, it's easier to forget. 

So when I say I don't really remember, I'm being honest. I have spent the last five, maybe six years trying to distance myself from it, to make it less real. 

If only it were all that easy to leave behind. 

I'll start with what I remember in San Diego. That seems as good a place as any. 

In San Diego, Mom and Dad paid for my tuition and deposited some spending money in my account each month. This worked well for the first few months, especially since I had a card that I could go to a school cafeteria and buy food and books with. 

As the semester moved along, I found that I was running low on money towards the end of each month -- not on account of how much my parents were sending me, but because my spending was growing as I became more and more social. The purchases weren't outlandish -- over seventy percent of it went to beer and fast food; the staple diet of any college freshman. They were simply needless, and had I been able to show a little more restraint, they would have been completely avoidable. But women and beaches are mighty hard to resist, and they both go well with beer, so I kept buying.  

Not wanting to ask my parents for more than they were already doing for me, I opened up a credit account. 

A quick side-note: too many parents obsess and try and influence their child's every move from grade school right up through college. They check to make sure their homework's done. They help choose the courses to be studied. They have access to e-mail and bank accounts. They are Big Brother parents, who say they trust you but constantly monitor you like a felon. Fortunately, my homework was rarely checked, my e-mails never read. If I had a problem, I could always go to them and ask for help -- but it was my decision to do so, and that made all the difference. 

So I was able to open up this credit account without anybody else knowing. It helped me stay afloat when I'd normally be broke and stuck with cafeteria food [another thing that could have helped me stay afloat was to spend less, but that of course, was not an option]. Then, when I got my spending money at the beginning of the month, I'd pay off whatever I owed on the credit card. This of course meant that at the end of the next month, I'd be short again and would have to use the credit card. But it was the best system I had, and more importantly, I had it under control. 

The truth is, when you have no income -- which I didn't -- any debt you have is out of control.

So on and on this little game went; using the credit card, catching up, using the credit card, catching up, with the numbers growing a little bigger each time.

And then one month I couldn't pay it all off. So I didn't. 

The rest of this story is obvious. The sum grows. Since I'm using some of the spending money to try and pay it back, I find myself using the card earlier and earlier each month, so now it's reaching numbers that I'm not comfortable with, that I can't control. Factor in a missed payment one month, steep interest each and every month -- and now things are desperate.  

The toughest part about all of this was that I there was no one to point the finger at but me. My parents weren't being tight-fisted and cutting back. In fact, they would often call and ask how I was doing and if I needed a little extra help. I would just say everything was fine and then try and change the subject. But it was there, in the back of my mind, in the back of every conversation. I wanted to tell them, to ask for even more than they were already doing. But I just couldn't. 

And then one day I could. I had to. 

I don't remember whether I'd moved to Austin or not. I just remember the conversation and holding the phone so tight I thought I was going to break it. I called Dad and told him everything. I cried because I'd never felt like less of a man; creating problems I couldn't even fix myself, problems that I had to run to Daddy and ask him to fix for me. When I had finished explaining everything, there were a few seconds where the line was silent. 

-"How much do you need?" he asked in a calm voice.

After I told him there were a few more seconds of silence.

-"All right. Don't worry. I'll take care of it. One one condition: that you cut up the credit card."

He's been a better Dad than I deserved at times, and I consider this to most certainly to be one of them. There was no lecture, no stiff rebuke, no demeaning, no threats. He just said that problems that can be solved by money are the best kind to have. And then before he hung up he told me that he was still proud of me, that he still loved me. 

That should be the end of this story. But it actually is just the beginning. 

I was most certainly in Austin when I met Carinne. I'd transferred from San Diego to UT. It was a new school in a new city, and somehow I'd even managed to find a new job. 

A quick side-note: I've discovered that the best way to get a job is to lie. Most place won't hire you unless you have experience, but you can't get experience unless you have a job. A brilliant system. So I lied -- not because I enjoy lying, but because that was the only way I saw to landing a job. I lied because I knew I could learn if I was given the chance.  

So I lied and got a shitty job waiting tables in some casual dining restaurant where I made enough to justify showing up for each shift. I hated practically every second of it -- the bending over for the customer, the non-slip shoes, the complaints about food I didn't cook, the tables you busted your ass for that didn't tip -- but it was there, in that casual dining restaurant, that I met Carinne and fell in love with her. 

At this point, my parents were paying my tuition, rent, and still sending me some spending money. I had a girlfriend I adored. I had a job that gave me a little extra cash. I was getting straight A's. I got to hang out with my brother on the weekends and drink beers and watch football. The credit card, at Dad's request, had been cut up and thrown away long ago. 

I think most sons looks up to their fathers, or want to at least. Fortunately, my Dad was easy to idolize. He was the strongest man I knew, the smartest, the funniest. I loved watching the Tour de France because it meant I could watch it with him. I loved football because every kid wants to score a touchdown in front of their Dad. I loved Bali because Dad taught me how to body surf. He was everything I wanted to be. 

I write this because in our family, Dad was the backbone and Mom was the heart. And so I tried to be the backbone for Carinne. We were both in school, in love, and waiting tables. So whenever possible, I paid for dinner. I paid for everything I could. Not because she ever asked -- in fact, she often protested to me paying. I did anyways, because the man I wanted to be would pay for things like that. It was a way to show her how much I cared, to make things a little easier for her, even if it made things much tougher on me. I could handle it. 

I didn't have a credit card, but I did have overdraft protection on my debit card, which was linked to my credit account. I'd cut up the card but left the credit account open because a banker had told me your credit score drops if you close it. So it stayed open. 

With overdraft protection, if you don't actually have enough money in your debit account for what you're trying to purchase, the bank will charge you a $35 fee, and then transfer however much you need in to your account. 

Well, I overdrafted seven times in one month. Each overdraft brought a $35 fee, not to mention what I had actually paid for. When I finally checked my bank account, my stomach dropped.  

But I continued to spend. Not outrageous things. Dinner and drinks. A night out for me. Flowers and movie tickets. Little road trips. But they add up. Especially with $35 fees sprinkled in. 

My credit limit was higher than before, and within a year so, I had hit the limit. I can't explain why I hadn't stopped before then. You just reach a point where you think "what difference does another $50 make?" And you realize that it doesn't make much of a difference, so you just swipe the card, knowing that the $70 meal will actually cost you $105, but what difference does $105 make? 

So here I was, back in a hole. 

This time, I swore I wouldn't call Dad. Not because I couldn't -- but because I didn't want to him write another check and fix this again for me. I thought about the money and how if he sent it to me it meant he wouldn't buy himself a new bike. I couldn't live with that. So I decided that I would fix this. No matter how long it took, I would fix this.

But the truth was I couldn't fix it myself. Not yet. I had maxed out a credit account without owning a credit card. The first thing I needed was some breathing space. So I called Jim and Amelia. I remember that conversation a little better. I remember pacing outside my apartment, humiliated yet again. Again, the only questions that Jim asked were "how much do you need?" and "are you sure you don't need more?" The truth was I did need more. I needed a lot more than I was asking for. But I was too embarrassed to admit how big my mistake was. To show how much I'd messed up. So Jim sent the check and I ducked below my credit limit and wondered why I was so fucking dumb with money.  

How to repay my brother in law, not to mention thousands more to a bank when I was in school, with a girlfriend, and waiting tables making $60-80 a shift?

The answer to that is that you don't pay it off that way. You simply can't. And I didn't. The amount I owed stayed pretty much the same for the next two-three years. I'd make the monthly payments of a few hundred dollars, but that did nothing because all I was really doing was paying off the interest. And when I could, I'd send Jim and Amelia a few hundred dollars, but I could rarely do that, and any free money I had I wanted to put towards the credit card because I was paying interest on that. And with the little I knew about money, I knew the less there was in my credit account, the less interest I would have to pay and so the easier it would be to pay it off.  

Around this time, I started letting the money and the debt affect my relationship with Carinne. I would be upset because I couldn't pay for things like I wanted. I would sit at home and write for entire weekends, convinced that a script was the only way I could ever buy my way out of this debt. I didn't feel like a man, because I couldn't buy my girlfriend a nice dinner or take her out randomly and buy her a new pair of shoes. Now to sit here and blame all of our problems on my debt would be the easy route. It certainly caused some tension, and didn't help, but I was far from perfect in other areas, and that played a role, probably a bigger one in why our relationship ultimately did not last. 

After I graduated, I thought things would be different. I'd find a real job, I'd knock the debt out, I'd re-kindle the strained relationship. That was the light at the end of the tunnel. Graduation. Just graduate. That would fix everything. 

It didn't work like that. I graduated college and got my diploma in the mail and was still a waiter, still in debt. And somehow, being out of school made me feel worse about it all. And that was that.  

During these tough years, there were periodic conversations with Dad that made it even tougher. He'd look at me and tell me how proud he was, how amazing it was to be my age and to have big dreams and no debt. So many times I wanted to crack, to tell him that I'd cut up the card but that I'd fucked up yet again and was still in debt. That I was so sorry, that I stayed up nights thinking of ways to make thousands of dollars, that I'd looked at papers and thought about plasma donations, even selling the truck he'd given me -- anything to be the debt-free son he thought I was. But I couldn't. I just changed the subject. "If he ever asked me directly, I'd tell him the truth." That was how I convinced myself I wasn't lying. I of course knew he'd never ask me directly, just as he'd never asked me about my homework.  

Then I stopped waiting tables and found a new job working in a bar. It wasn't much better at first, but it beat having people complain to you about cold soup. I started in winter at the door. I stood there, freezing my ass off, not making much more than when I was a waiter. But this job had the promise of becoming a bartender, which promised a significant pay increase. There was a new light at the end of the tunnel. 

So I worked all the shifts nobody else would work. I learned how to barback, and so I saved the bar money by working barback and door in the same night, even doing both of the closing duties by myself. It was miserable -- it took me close to two hours just to get through all the closing chores each night: take all the chairs from outside and carry them inside. Take all the TVs down from outside and carry them in. Wipe all tables outside. Wipe all ashtrays. Sweep any cigarette butts outsides. Mop and sweep bathroom floors. Clean all bar glassware. Pick up all drain covers and soak them in bleach. Mop inside floor and behind bar. Soak all bar mats. Wipe all tables and stools inside. Empty all trashcans in dumpster outside and hose out trash cans. Make sure storage unit is locked - but I did it. And each night I'd come home, six nights a week, exhausted from the shift, not wanting to clean a damn thing again. 

I was promised bartending shifts for what seemed months on end, but each time the schedule came out I had the same barback/door shifts. Since I was working so much and had no time to spend the money I was making, things were getting a little more comfortable financially, but I was still staring at thousands and thousands of dollars of debt. But finally, my debt had stabilized -- no more thoughts of plasma donations or selling the truck -- the only problem was that it wasn't dwindling either. 

Even when it's stagnant, debt is still an incredibly unpleasant burden. The best way I can think to describe it is a cancerous tumor. There is something inherently awful in it. And when it spreads, there is sense of overwhelming helplessness. When it's stagnant, there's the fear that it will somehow awake and multiply again and again as it always seems to, or even if it doesn't spread, it will anchor itself and never leave. The only way to truly rid yourself of it is to cut it out, to keep cutting until there is not a single cell left. There are of course, huge holes in this comparison. Debt is almost always self-imposed, while cancer [except in smokers], is almost always not. But the point is they are both hideous things, capable of destroying everything they contact, and your life is better without it. 

After months of working myself to the brink of unhappiness, I finally got my first bar shift. And then before I knew it, I had five. Some of them were the slow shifts were you didn't make much, but there were a few where did you make a lot, and so it was worth it. All of a sudden I went from making $70-80 a shift, to now making $250-400. Other days were even better than that. 

At this point in my life, I could support myself financially for the first time. Rent. Bills. Gas. Anything and everything. I earned and paid for it all. Not only was I paying for everything, but on good weeks, I had more than enough cash left over to start making dents in the debt I owed to the bank. So I started making $500 payments to the bank. Then one month it was $1,000. 

Just a few weeks ago I made the last payment to the bank. I walked in and asked the teller what my credit card account balance was. When she told me, I reached into my pocket and pulled out an envelope stuffed with the cash I'd put away for the last month. I smiled and told her that I could pay it right now. 

I had checked my account balance before I walked in. But I just wanted to hear her say it one last time.

After a few impatient days of waiting for it to clear, I checked my online statement and saw this:

To describe that feeling, that moment when I saw nothing but zeros -- it's impossible. A song came to mind though. Etta James's At Last. 

Then, after working 11 days out of 12, I had saved up enough to write Jim and Amelia their much overdue check. Not once since they'd lent me the money had they ever pressured or asked me about it. 

I sent it off earlier this week.

********

And so here I am, days after sending the check off to Amelia and Jim, reading "The Village Blacksmith." I'm reading about this hard-working, proud man who looks the world in the face. And then I stop reading. 

I stopped because I realized that I not only carried the debt, but I carried so much shame along with it. I avoided going to the bank and checking my bank account because I didn't want to be reminded of how bad it actually was. I didn't want the teller to look at my account and see I had overdrafted four times and that I was over my credit limit. I avoided conversations with my Mom and Dad because I didn't want to chance that a conversation about debt would come up. I spent so many years trying to sweep it under the rug, do anything but confront it. In those years I let it affect me, I let it affect my relationship, my belief in myself. There were times when it almost won. 

But the real reason I stopped reading because it didn't win. I stopped because I now can look the world, and more importantly, my family in the face and not have anything to hide. I owe not any man. 

While it is easy to take all the credit, the truth is I wouldn't be writing this without my family. They carried me through the patches I'd like to forget. I wouldn't have made it if Joe and Ellie hadn't picked up the phone when I called and told me everything would be ok, that I would find a way to pay it all off one day. I wouldn't be here if my parents hadn't provided money for rent and living expenses for me even after I'd left college. And Jim and Amelia -- well you know how important, how patient they were in all of this. 

It has taken much longer than I would have liked, but I'm debt-free. I'm financially independent. In fact, I've got a savings account that has money in it and a credit account that has nothing on it. There are no more half-truths, no more wincing when I hear the word "debt." The word is now just something I'm glad to have overcome. I mopped up vomit, stayed awake at night, cooked hot dogs for a week, stood in the cold for nine hours a night -- I did all that and so much more to rid myself of it, and now here I am, alive, determined never to repeat, determined never to forget. 

I'm saving and planning for a trip somewhere next year. I haven't even picked the continent yet. Europe sounds nice, but so does South America. Ireland routinely comes to my mind for reasons I can't place. I picture it as rainy, green and cold, which sounds as good a place as any to write and read. But then again, so does Belize. 

Wherever I go, I'm taking a copy of Longfellow's poem with me. I'm going to stand some place beautiful and read the words again. I'm not sure what I'll do after that. Maybe if it's night time in Ireland I'll stand and look at the stars. Or if it's Brazil I'll go down to the beach and fall asleep to the sound of the water. 

Or maybe I'll just do what I did a few nights ago after I read the poem. I'll grab a cold beer, sit down somewhere quiet, and smile as I take the first sip. 

"His brow is wet with honest sweat,

He earns whate'er he can,

And looks the whole world in the face,

For he owes not any man."