I started this blog as an outlet to force myself to be honest and process difficult thoughts, a kind of you-can-run-but-you-can't-hide-journal. I'm not sure that's what it still is. I enjoy writing in it, I think it has been useful to me in a number of ways--it's helped me organize my thoughts and I think it's improved my thinking and probably improved my writing in some ways. But I'm writing less and less about the things that are wrong with me. I don't think I'm being less honest than I intended, but I'm probably being honest about different things than I should be honest about in order to help myself. On a certain level I think I've started to try to impress the people I imagine reading when I write a post, which is not what I want to be doing. I want to use this as a forum to face the hard things I've been avoiding, not another way to avoid them and feel better a out myself.
The overwhelming elephant in the room that I'm trying in various ways not to confront is my atrocious physical health. I'm in real physical danger due to my unchecked obesity and I've failed for years to honestly address it. If I don't take real, drastic action now then I'm playing Russian Roulette with my life, and by extension the lives of my family and everyone who loves me.
I'm taking real steps, starting today, to get serious about my health. I'm approaching it with an open mind and a dedication to rigor and discipline. I'm probably going to be writing a lot more grumpy and boring posts about food urges and how hard it is to force myself to excercise in the next few weeks, is my point, and less long-winded whimsical meditations on family and the meaning of work. So I apologize in advance if it gets boring.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Guilt and Consequences
I drove out to the lovely Torrance Highway Patrol office this afternoon to pick up a copy of the official collision report regarding my recent traffic accident. The report, among other things, is a document of blame that exists to declare which driver was at fault. I was rear-ended on the freeway, completely blindsided, and was assured by everyone I spoke with afterwards that there was no way I could have avoided it. But for the last 3 weeks I've been obsessed with the possibility that I somehow did something wrong. A weird kind of guilt has festered and weighed on me in a completely ridiculous way. Even if I was at fault, somehow, it wouldn't really matter in the larger scheme of things. Nobody was hurt, everyone was insured, and surely if I had contributed to the collision in some way it wouldn't make me any less decent or valuable in the universe. It all has to do with some deep-rooted insecurity I have about my ability to function as an able-bodied, responsible adult in the world. I still see myself as an overgrown kid playing grown-up, wearing somebody else's leather shoes, using somebody else's disposable razor, depositing somebody else's checks in somebody else's bank account. I await the inevitable crack in the facade, the moment of unveiling when those close to me finally point and say "Who the fuck does this guy think he is? You're not fooling anybody, bub. Back to the kid's table." And I recognize that feeling to be as much wish-fulfillment as it is real insecurity. I don't want to be an adult! I don't want to have to think about credit card balances or cholesterol or living wills or ironed shirts or hotel reservations or any of that shit. I want to be at the kid's table, laughing until snot comes out of my nose and making fun of the grown-ups and sneaking a piece of pie before dinner. How the fuck should I know how to drive a car on the freeway? I don't have time for that shit. I've got branches to swing from.
But I am, as I heard someone say the other day, a grown-ass man. And I can take care of my shit. I'm not Fredo Corleone. I welcome my responsibilities, on an intellectual level, I want to honor them and I want to enjoy the life I have constructed for myself, because it is beautiful. But I also want to be able to shrug off the weight when I feel it pressing down on me, I want to keep it all in balance and *always* be able to take illicit joy in an afternoon alone at the movies or an inappropriate joke. I want perspective, in other words. Who the fuck doesn't?
Anyway the report absolved me completely. Party P-1 was at fault, and party P-2, yours truly, was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I felt giddy when I read the report on the bench outside the office, I felt liberated. That's completely insane, I realize. But I kind of don't mind it. I'll take my liberation where I can find it, even if I have to invent oppression to get there.
The Highway Patrol office walls were filled with pictures of officers who were killed in the line of duty, with a brief description of how long they served and how they died. The picture above the collision report window was of a man who died in 1972, a year before I was born. He looked unbelievably young in his uniform, like a 15 year old kid dressed up as a cop for Halloween. The caption said he was killed when he responded to an accident call and arrived at the scene to find a horse trailer overturned, with three horses inside. The horses were injured and apparently going wild, and another officer was instructed to go inside the horse trailer and shoot them. The first bullet missed a horse, ricocheted off the trailer and struck the officer standing outside, killing him instantly.
I read it twice to make sure I understood the details. It's got to be one of the strangest, saddest, weirdest things I've ever heard about in my life. My elation at the absolution provided by the collision report was short-lived and tempered somehow by that photograph, and I keep imagining the scenario in my head. What happened after the guy got shot? Did they go back in and shoot all the horses? Did the horses get out and run down the freeway and get crushed by a semi? What happened to the other officer who fired the shot, how could he ever have gotten over that tragedy and gone on with his life? Did the guy have a wife, kids, parents? How did they react to the incredible circumstances of his death? Was it his it his first week on the job? Did he ever even really get to be a Highway Patrol Officer before that moment?
It doesn't matter if I think I'm a man or a child or a mongoose. The universe is deep and unknowable and harsh and beautiful. Until it isn't.
But I am, as I heard someone say the other day, a grown-ass man. And I can take care of my shit. I'm not Fredo Corleone. I welcome my responsibilities, on an intellectual level, I want to honor them and I want to enjoy the life I have constructed for myself, because it is beautiful. But I also want to be able to shrug off the weight when I feel it pressing down on me, I want to keep it all in balance and *always* be able to take illicit joy in an afternoon alone at the movies or an inappropriate joke. I want perspective, in other words. Who the fuck doesn't?
Anyway the report absolved me completely. Party P-1 was at fault, and party P-2, yours truly, was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I felt giddy when I read the report on the bench outside the office, I felt liberated. That's completely insane, I realize. But I kind of don't mind it. I'll take my liberation where I can find it, even if I have to invent oppression to get there.
The Highway Patrol office walls were filled with pictures of officers who were killed in the line of duty, with a brief description of how long they served and how they died. The picture above the collision report window was of a man who died in 1972, a year before I was born. He looked unbelievably young in his uniform, like a 15 year old kid dressed up as a cop for Halloween. The caption said he was killed when he responded to an accident call and arrived at the scene to find a horse trailer overturned, with three horses inside. The horses were injured and apparently going wild, and another officer was instructed to go inside the horse trailer and shoot them. The first bullet missed a horse, ricocheted off the trailer and struck the officer standing outside, killing him instantly.
I read it twice to make sure I understood the details. It's got to be one of the strangest, saddest, weirdest things I've ever heard about in my life. My elation at the absolution provided by the collision report was short-lived and tempered somehow by that photograph, and I keep imagining the scenario in my head. What happened after the guy got shot? Did they go back in and shoot all the horses? Did the horses get out and run down the freeway and get crushed by a semi? What happened to the other officer who fired the shot, how could he ever have gotten over that tragedy and gone on with his life? Did the guy have a wife, kids, parents? How did they react to the incredible circumstances of his death? Was it his it his first week on the job? Did he ever even really get to be a Highway Patrol Officer before that moment?
It doesn't matter if I think I'm a man or a child or a mongoose. The universe is deep and unknowable and harsh and beautiful. Until it isn't.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Work Beats Jail
When I was a kid I witnessed a knock-down drag-out argument between my mother and her younger brother that left quite an impression on me, one in a series of observed blow-ups that dot the landscape of my youth and doubtless did much to form my worldview, and not necessarily in a bad way. This particular event occurred when I was probably 12 or 13, one of those glorious endless summers when I had all the time in the world to explore the universe, lose myself in books, movies and the Pacific Ocean. My uncle would come down from Northern California and rent a beach house for a few weeks and everyone in the extended family would gather there, an open house overflowing with kids and adults and food and conversation. On one of those evenings my mother and her brothers were talking and singing and reminiscing, a few of them were certainly drinking or imbibing other aids to modern living, and the conversation somehow turned to the topic of Work, with a capital W. My mother, a high school teacher who has devoted her life to helping children and has inspired and changed countless young lives through her passion and dedication, made the statement that she "loved" her job. Her younger brother, then as ever a kind of mythical figure in my life, a brilliant, poetic, raucous, free-spirited and extraordinarily kind and sensitive man who also possessed a keen and biting wit and an easily ignited Irish temper, took issue with her proclamation and ridiculed the notion that anyone of substance could truly "love" their job, no matter what it was. Work, to him, was at best a necessary evil in the world and at worst a soul-crushing institution designed to destroy the spirit of humanity. He was also, at that time, a teacher, and a damned good one, but he made no bones about the fact that any good he was able to do in his job was in spite of it being a job, not because of it. To "love" your work was to him to admit defeat, to cede control, to shut the door on the wild and beautiful spirit of the world outside the closed parameters of your (then) 40-hour-a-week obligation. I remember him saying how horrendous he thought it was that the first question anyone asks when they meet a new person is "What do you do?", which really only means "What method do you employ to acquire money in the world?" Why is it that we have decided that particular question defines us? Why do we not ask "What do you love?" "What do you read?" or even "What do you eat?", "What are you afraid of?", "Where have you been, what have you seen?" You may have the right job, and if so good for you, you're luckier than most. But you don't fucking love your job. Stop kidding yourself, and stop devaluing the very notion of love by saying that.
It was a quite a scene, and it did not end well. My mother, no shrinking violet to be sure, was reduced to tears, and everyone else chimed in on one side or the other, and the night got out of control. It blew over, as those family fights always did, and there were plenty more summers and plenty more arguments to come. I, as a kid who loved his mother, was on one hand appalled and upset to see her attacked and felt horribly for her. But on the other hand I was quite taken by my uncle's ideas, and they stayed with me. A few weeks later my uncle sent my mother a letter, a beautifully written quasi-apology that continued the discussion in a much gentler manner. I don't remember all of the details but I do remember the last line. When he was young my uncle was a hell-raiser, and he spent a few months in a juvenile lock-up in Campo in East San Diego. He wrote vividly about the details of that experience and ended the letter by saying "Work beats jail, but not by much."
He had seen both work, jail and some third thing that was a life of his choosing, and he knew what he preferred. I can't help thinking now that I came into the game with a chip on my shoulder, in part because I took some of those notions to heart in a kind of idealized way when I was far too young to truly understand what they meant. My uncle did not choose to hate his jobs, and he surely would have been happier if he could have not hated them. My mother truly did love her job, and I don't believe she had to give up anything deeper or more valuable in order to do that. Both things are true. But I'm afraid I romanticized the idea that work is a "necessary evil" in a way that has done no favors to my intellectual or emotional development. I don't think I've earned that realization, the way my uncle did, I think I chose it as a kind of pose and have used it to define my own identity and set myself apart from the life that I am actually living. And that doesn't feel like bravery, the way it did when I saw it in my uncle. From this vantage point, looking in the mirror, it feels like fear.
I am 35 years old now, and I've never been to jail. But I've been to work, and I've not been to work. And I prefer the latter, without reservation, but I don't want to believe that *has* to be true anymore. I don't have to love my job, but I don't have to resent it either. I can try and make it part of a larger journey, I'd like to think, I can try and use it to find a way to be useful, to give and receive the energy of love, the way my mother has done her whole life. It's worth a shot, anyway.
My uncle died of lung cancer at the age of 55 in 1996, when I was 23 years old, and his death left a huge void in our lives that has not been filled. His legacy is one of love, kindness, beauty, art and wakefulness. He was courageous and sensitive and tortured, in his way. And as is true of all my heroes, I find him when I need him. I need him now, as much as I ever have. And here he is, slightly different than he ever was before, rolling around in my head, helping carry my thoughts where they need to go. Not this, that, or maybe that, or maybe this. Keep asking. Keep feeling. Keep laughing, and fighting, and then apologizing and admitting you know nothing except what you know and you didn't mean to hurt anyone, but what you really meant was this, and this is why. Keep your heart open, but call bullshit when you see it. Especially if it's in yourself.
It was a quite a scene, and it did not end well. My mother, no shrinking violet to be sure, was reduced to tears, and everyone else chimed in on one side or the other, and the night got out of control. It blew over, as those family fights always did, and there were plenty more summers and plenty more arguments to come. I, as a kid who loved his mother, was on one hand appalled and upset to see her attacked and felt horribly for her. But on the other hand I was quite taken by my uncle's ideas, and they stayed with me. A few weeks later my uncle sent my mother a letter, a beautifully written quasi-apology that continued the discussion in a much gentler manner. I don't remember all of the details but I do remember the last line. When he was young my uncle was a hell-raiser, and he spent a few months in a juvenile lock-up in Campo in East San Diego. He wrote vividly about the details of that experience and ended the letter by saying "Work beats jail, but not by much."
He had seen both work, jail and some third thing that was a life of his choosing, and he knew what he preferred. I can't help thinking now that I came into the game with a chip on my shoulder, in part because I took some of those notions to heart in a kind of idealized way when I was far too young to truly understand what they meant. My uncle did not choose to hate his jobs, and he surely would have been happier if he could have not hated them. My mother truly did love her job, and I don't believe she had to give up anything deeper or more valuable in order to do that. Both things are true. But I'm afraid I romanticized the idea that work is a "necessary evil" in a way that has done no favors to my intellectual or emotional development. I don't think I've earned that realization, the way my uncle did, I think I chose it as a kind of pose and have used it to define my own identity and set myself apart from the life that I am actually living. And that doesn't feel like bravery, the way it did when I saw it in my uncle. From this vantage point, looking in the mirror, it feels like fear.
I am 35 years old now, and I've never been to jail. But I've been to work, and I've not been to work. And I prefer the latter, without reservation, but I don't want to believe that *has* to be true anymore. I don't have to love my job, but I don't have to resent it either. I can try and make it part of a larger journey, I'd like to think, I can try and use it to find a way to be useful, to give and receive the energy of love, the way my mother has done her whole life. It's worth a shot, anyway.
My uncle died of lung cancer at the age of 55 in 1996, when I was 23 years old, and his death left a huge void in our lives that has not been filled. His legacy is one of love, kindness, beauty, art and wakefulness. He was courageous and sensitive and tortured, in his way. And as is true of all my heroes, I find him when I need him. I need him now, as much as I ever have. And here he is, slightly different than he ever was before, rolling around in my head, helping carry my thoughts where they need to go. Not this, that, or maybe that, or maybe this. Keep asking. Keep feeling. Keep laughing, and fighting, and then apologizing and admitting you know nothing except what you know and you didn't mean to hurt anyone, but what you really meant was this, and this is why. Keep your heart open, but call bullshit when you see it. Especially if it's in yourself.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Beaten Path
My weekends go by too fast these days. There's a line connecting Friday evening to Monday morning. It feels slack and loose for about an hour, and then suddenly I've pulled it tight and run smack into the week without even knowing it.
I had a bit of an abbreviated workday on Friday and took the boys to a local park in the afternoon that has a small walking trail. The summit of the small hill provides a breathtaking view of the The Olive Garden and Marshall's, our finest local merchants, so it's really not to be missed. We wandered up the trail together, meandering and poking trees with our sticks and I'm sure we cut quite a figure: two tow-headed rug rats bursting with energy trailed by a sweaty fat 35 year old in King Size Dockers, clutching a diaper bag and a Diet Coke.
But we had a nice little adventure in our way, and it felt good to get the blood flowing a bit and look at things from a slightly different angle. At the end of the walk i thought: I can do this, I can be a normal guy who goes on walks with his kids and points out the different kinds of trees, I can sit on a bench at the end of the trail and breathe in deeply and watch my kids on the playground and take in the moment. I need to remember that I can do this, that these simple moments are constantly available to me and are worth seeking out. The way to slow the weekend down is to slow myself down, and sitting here on Saturday morning I vow to give it my best shot for the next 48 hours.
I had a bit of an abbreviated workday on Friday and took the boys to a local park in the afternoon that has a small walking trail. The summit of the small hill provides a breathtaking view of the The Olive Garden and Marshall's, our finest local merchants, so it's really not to be missed. We wandered up the trail together, meandering and poking trees with our sticks and I'm sure we cut quite a figure: two tow-headed rug rats bursting with energy trailed by a sweaty fat 35 year old in King Size Dockers, clutching a diaper bag and a Diet Coke.
But we had a nice little adventure in our way, and it felt good to get the blood flowing a bit and look at things from a slightly different angle. At the end of the walk i thought: I can do this, I can be a normal guy who goes on walks with his kids and points out the different kinds of trees, I can sit on a bench at the end of the trail and breathe in deeply and watch my kids on the playground and take in the moment. I need to remember that I can do this, that these simple moments are constantly available to me and are worth seeking out. The way to slow the weekend down is to slow myself down, and sitting here on Saturday morning I vow to give it my best shot for the next 48 hours.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
You're Going the Wrong Way!!
Driving home from the airport last night, it took me 10 minutes to realize I was heading in the wrong direction on the freeway. I was in National City before it dawned on me that I should be on the 5 North, not the 5 South.
This afternoon at work I dialed my home number when I meant to call somebody else and was startled to hear my wife answer on the other end.
I routinely fall asleep in my living room watching TV after the kids have gone to bed, then wake up at 3:30 AM with a sore neck and a headache and drag myself into a bed that by that point is invariably already filled with one grown adult and two young children.
I thought I would be able to work from home tomorrow but I can't, I have to drive up to LA for a meeting. This weekend we have a five year old's pool party to look forward to on Saturday. And another five year old's pool party to look forward to on Sunday.
I'm fucking tired. My wife is even more fucking tired. Our kids, it seems, are never tired.
I'm not complaining, don't get me wrong. Alright, I am complaining. I'd like to have a nice romantic dinner with my wife. I'd like to get a full night's sleep. I'd like to spend a lazy Sunday reading the New York Times from cover to cover.
WAH!! POOR ME!! I'M SO TIRED!! WAH!!
Yeah, I feel like I shouldn't be complaining. It feels self-indulgent and ungrateful and juvenile. I'm not suffering, I'm just whining, and I feel like I have to temper those complaints with a declaration that I'm happy about the choices I've made. I am grateful for my life and I don't take it for granted. I want my children to healthy and young and crazy and demanding, I want to be challenged by my job, I want to be busy.
But I'm just really fucking tired today. And if that's my biggest complaint, that I really should be grateful, I suppose. So take this as a giving of thanks rather than a complaint, then. Take it however you want. Take it up your ass for all I fucking care.
Whoa, where did that come from? Sorry. I'm going to go ahead and not delete that sentence because it just made me laugh out loud. I can't offer profundity every day.
Did I mention I was tired?
This afternoon at work I dialed my home number when I meant to call somebody else and was startled to hear my wife answer on the other end.
I routinely fall asleep in my living room watching TV after the kids have gone to bed, then wake up at 3:30 AM with a sore neck and a headache and drag myself into a bed that by that point is invariably already filled with one grown adult and two young children.
I thought I would be able to work from home tomorrow but I can't, I have to drive up to LA for a meeting. This weekend we have a five year old's pool party to look forward to on Saturday. And another five year old's pool party to look forward to on Sunday.
I'm fucking tired. My wife is even more fucking tired. Our kids, it seems, are never tired.
I'm not complaining, don't get me wrong. Alright, I am complaining. I'd like to have a nice romantic dinner with my wife. I'd like to get a full night's sleep. I'd like to spend a lazy Sunday reading the New York Times from cover to cover.
WAH!! POOR ME!! I'M SO TIRED!! WAH!!
Yeah, I feel like I shouldn't be complaining. It feels self-indulgent and ungrateful and juvenile. I'm not suffering, I'm just whining, and I feel like I have to temper those complaints with a declaration that I'm happy about the choices I've made. I am grateful for my life and I don't take it for granted. I want my children to healthy and young and crazy and demanding, I want to be challenged by my job, I want to be busy.
But I'm just really fucking tired today. And if that's my biggest complaint, that I really should be grateful, I suppose. So take this as a giving of thanks rather than a complaint, then. Take it however you want. Take it up your ass for all I fucking care.
Whoa, where did that come from? Sorry. I'm going to go ahead and not delete that sentence because it just made me laugh out loud. I can't offer profundity every day.
Did I mention I was tired?
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Ground Control
I'm traveling today so I don't have time for a long post. Sitting in the airport bar 10 minutes away from boarding my flight home from SFO. Double Jack and Coke, thank you very much. And me without my vicodin. Can I squeeze in one more drink before the flight? Who am I kidding, I could squeeze in three. Room for lots of Jacks in here, the more the merrier!
I am not a good flyer, to say the least. I've gotten better over the years, out of necessity, but all that really means is that I've gotten better at concealing my sheer terror. In addition to my mental anxiety I face the very real physical reality of being a HUGE man attempting to squeeze his HUGE ass into a seat made for anorexic toddlers. As always I'm praying for an empty flight. Pity the poor motherfucker who gets seated next to me if it's full.
Last call, time to drink up and face the music. What a wimp I am.
I am not a good flyer, to say the least. I've gotten better over the years, out of necessity, but all that really means is that I've gotten better at concealing my sheer terror. In addition to my mental anxiety I face the very real physical reality of being a HUGE man attempting to squeeze his HUGE ass into a seat made for anorexic toddlers. As always I'm praying for an empty flight. Pity the poor motherfucker who gets seated next to me if it's full.
Last call, time to drink up and face the music. What a wimp I am.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Anger, Management
I grew up in a very loving household overflowing with laughter and energy and encouragement. We also had more than our fair share of yelling, slamming doors, the occasional flying object or punched wall, cars peeling out of driveways, etc. One was not taught to hold back.
I took me awhile to understand that the rest of the world doesn't necessarily operate that way, that sudden dramatic outbursts aren't always taken in stride and shrugged off as necessary venting by people who aren't used to being yelled at, to understand the unintentional harm my anger and aggression could inflict on people I love and respect. I'm still trying to strike the right balance, trying to temper my temper without sublimating my emotions, trying to unlearn what needs to be unlearned and keep what needs to be kept. Trying to find the wisdom, as they say, to know the difference.
I had the good fortune to meet an earnest, intelligent, open and spiritual person today who exudes a kind of even-keeled stillness, a man who has clearly dedicated his life to trying to learn how to live and seems to have found a way to use his work to explore those issues as well. It was an example I needed today; I needed to feel that energy. It made me calm down and breathe and hum a little song under my breath, just sitting in a meeting for a few hours and taking in somebody else's beautiful spirit. It gave me a kind of hope. How great is that? How wonderful that we possess the capacity to be surprised by each other, the capacity to give other people what they need without knowing it, the ability to spread peace and stillness by finding our own peace and stillness? Man may hand on misery to man, like the poet says, but he can hand on a lot of other things too, the things you need to make the misery bearable. I think you just need to find them when they're offered, you have to know when to be quiet so that you can hear them.
So I guess that's the balance I'm looking for. I'll always need the catharthis of a good throat-clearing, chest-stomping outburst now and again--it's part of who I am, it's part of how I process. But I can channel it, I think, if I can slow myself down, if I can do the spiritual work of tuning up my mind and spirit. "Teach us to care and not to care; Teach us to sit still," as TS Eliot wrote, probably trying to get at a very different thing (but that's ok too, I'll hear it how I need to hear it today).
I took me awhile to understand that the rest of the world doesn't necessarily operate that way, that sudden dramatic outbursts aren't always taken in stride and shrugged off as necessary venting by people who aren't used to being yelled at, to understand the unintentional harm my anger and aggression could inflict on people I love and respect. I'm still trying to strike the right balance, trying to temper my temper without sublimating my emotions, trying to unlearn what needs to be unlearned and keep what needs to be kept. Trying to find the wisdom, as they say, to know the difference.
I had the good fortune to meet an earnest, intelligent, open and spiritual person today who exudes a kind of even-keeled stillness, a man who has clearly dedicated his life to trying to learn how to live and seems to have found a way to use his work to explore those issues as well. It was an example I needed today; I needed to feel that energy. It made me calm down and breathe and hum a little song under my breath, just sitting in a meeting for a few hours and taking in somebody else's beautiful spirit. It gave me a kind of hope. How great is that? How wonderful that we possess the capacity to be surprised by each other, the capacity to give other people what they need without knowing it, the ability to spread peace and stillness by finding our own peace and stillness? Man may hand on misery to man, like the poet says, but he can hand on a lot of other things too, the things you need to make the misery bearable. I think you just need to find them when they're offered, you have to know when to be quiet so that you can hear them.
So I guess that's the balance I'm looking for. I'll always need the catharthis of a good throat-clearing, chest-stomping outburst now and again--it's part of who I am, it's part of how I process. But I can channel it, I think, if I can slow myself down, if I can do the spiritual work of tuning up my mind and spirit. "Teach us to care and not to care; Teach us to sit still," as TS Eliot wrote, probably trying to get at a very different thing (but that's ok too, I'll hear it how I need to hear it today).
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