Lift your eyes to the Hills...

Last night we had a huge thunderstorm--the rain was coming down in drenching streams which reminded me of an overdone Hollywood movie set. A raging river formed in the street in front of our house, and after a while I started trying to remember where I left our stash of gopher wood...

For the last month, I've thrown almost all of my energy into work-related stuff. Yes, that goes against my creed of "work is not your identity", but it goes great with my philosophy of "uh, yeah, you need to make money..." Unfortunately, that's left practically no time, and no energy when the time does come, for things that I want to do.

That's why I'm writing this at 6 AM. At some juncture I'll start trying to write what I set out to write about.

grumble grumble...no coffee...grumble grumble...don't wanna make it myself...

We did take a nice trip down to the Texas Hill country to stay in an absolutely huge mansion. It is owned by the family of our friends, and they invited us to go out of town with them while the kids were on spring break. We got there at night and walked in and I couldn't believe it. Not sure how many bedrooms, but two different staircases (one of which Ryan fell down very hard), a private library, a boat house, and at leat a hundred oak trees on the huge, manicured lawn. One night we pulled into the driveway and there were about a dozen deer lying in the front yard. The boys slinked out of the car with their newly acquired pop guns and stalked up on them, startling them when they pulled the trigger. The poor deer had to abandon their beds and flee. The kitchen itself was as big as my first apartment. It must be very lovely to live in a mansion.

From that base of operations, which I didn't really want to leave at any point, we ventured down to Enchanted Rock in Fredericksburg. The weather was beautiful--about 70 degrees, and we climbed this huge granite rock, which is about 1800 feet in elevation. It's a steep climb, so I was afraid that Ryan, being cavalier like 8-year-olds tend to be, might slip and fall all the way down. I guess it got my blood pressure up. It didn't help that his friend, who is also 8 and was also with us, refused to obey his dad and kept running ahead and doing risky things like jumping in slick pools of water on the surface, and scrambling up the steepest parts of the rock, or sliding down dips in the surface-he was out of control.

I had to pull Ryan aside and give him the "I can't control your obnoxious buddy (who is destined to an early death at this rate, or at least prison), but you are going to have to listen to me" speech. He took it pretty well, and I made sure to let him go off by himself as soon as we were finished with the dangerous part.

We got to the top, and everyone was looking for the mouth of a cave which goes through the rock. I don't know who thinks it would be fun to lower themself into a dark, dank opening with bats inside (yes, we saw one--and I took a picture), but I get clausterphobic sometimes when I'm sitting in an armchair, and I wasn't having anything to do with that. Besides, this "cave" didn't look too official or anything--just a faint, light-blue arrow spray-painted years ago pointing toward the entrance, which was so obscure that I was afraid that Ryan was trying to drop down into a crevasse between random rocks. Plus, we only had one flashlight for four people.

Eventually, they gave up trying to pull me down into the rockpile and we climbed to the summit. One cave explorer came back to report that the floor had standing water (he was soaked to the bone) and that at many points he had to crawl on his belly through the cave (Mike--out!) and that there's no way we should go down there with just one flashlight with aging battery between us. I offered up a placating, "Well, it gives us something to do next time"...

The behavior of Ryan's friend (I'll call him Calvin) during the trip was driving me a little crazy. His parents are older than we are, and I think they have just run out of energy and/or desire to control him. Sometimes he acts so monstrous that we can't believe it, and we've had several conversations about how this may not be the best thing for Ryan. Fran calls it the "Frat Boy" behavior--one of his endearing qualities is that he often turns his nose up at other people's suggestions or stories or activities. If there is a group of kids playing, he sometimes incites the other kids to "gang up" on and exclude someone (not usually Ryan, but I still hate that kind of stuff).

One of the main issues is that this kid refuses to allow Ryan to win anything. Ryan has a certain kindness and sweetness to his attitude that lets him put up with this--we often get compliments on nice things that Ryan is doing for other people. He's a straight-A student and never gives us problems, and he's certainly no pushover, but his friend is relentless...if they are playing soccer, Calvin, who is extremely atheletic, won't cease to attack him until he gets the ball away.

This puts me in the dilemma of: Should I ask Calvin to tone it down and play nice when they are competing? It makes me feel like I am asking him to go easy on Ryan (Ryan is very atheletic, but Calvin is really just a superstar athelete, which his dad is very proud of and encourages).

I was throwing the football to them, and, when it was Calvin's turn to catch the ball, he caught it. When it was Ryan's turn, Calvin either rushed in at the last moment to catch it, or he would knock it out of the air so Ryan couldn't catch it. Finally, when Ryan broke away and managed to catch one without being disrupted, Calvin chased Ryan across the yard, knocked him down, and shoved his face in the grass. Ryan was so frustrated he started to cry.

I don't see much good in going over this issue with Calvin's parents again--they are aware of these issues, and have expressed frustration about his behavior, as well as told us about criticism from other people. They just don't have the guts to put the kid in his place (which I find to be incredible, but what do I know?)

On the last day of the trip, Calvin pushed me to my limit. We were eating lunch at a restaurant and he kicked me under the table--he wasn't even sitting across from me directly, but was to my front and right. I let it go about five different times, then I asked him very nicely to please be careful of where his feet were. I don't know if he was embarrassed or what, but he began to intermittently kick me under the table for the next ten minutes--he probably kicked me thirty times! Finally, I reached my hand under the table and tried to grab his foot very subtly, but I couldn't reach him. His mother was sitting across from me and noticed that he was doing it and kept saying "Calvin, stop it now..."

At last, I had enough. I pointed across the table, looked him in the eye and said very sternly (imagine a drill sergeant): "Calvin! DO NOT KICK ME ONE MORE TIME! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?!". He didn't, but I felt like an ogre for letting the little brat get under my skin, and I resented his parents a little for making me be the bad guy. And I felt a little guilty since we were there as their guests at the beautiful mansion.

The rest of the trip was very nice. Along the highways in Texas during the springtime you can see fields of wildflowers such as bluebonnets and indian paintbrushes. The sky was a beautiful, denim blue and we tackled our 200-mile trip (each way) with gusto--the kids sat quietly watching a movie in the back of the van, and traffic was light. We even let Calvin ride home with us part of the way, and he behaved well. Fran and I are still talking about what, if anything, we should do to help keep Ryan from being negatively influenced, but he insists that Calvin is his best friend, and we won't break that up.

Haunted by the Past

A lot of people give me the "Don't I know you from somewhere?" question. Maybe it's just that through my job I meet a lot of people. Or it could be that "wanted" poster they put up with my face on it in the post office...

Here's my favorite joke along the same lines: Two Irishmen, Paddy and Finnegan, are drinking in a bar when Paddy raises his glass to Finnegan. "Here's ta you gov! Where ya be from?" Finnegan replies, "Aye, I be from Dublin." "No foolin! I be from Dublin too! Where's yer alta mater?" "I graduated from St. Mary's." "No foolin! I graduated from St. Mary's too! When ya graduate?" "Graduated in 1952." "1952?! NO FOOLIN! I GRADUATED IN 1952!" Another gentleman walks in and asks the bartender what's going on. The bartender replies, "Oh, the O'Malley twins are drunk again." (Happy St. Patrick's Day).

It's kind of awkward sometimes when this happens--almost like the burden is on you to come up where you might have seen the person. I always say "Oh, this happens to me all the time--I think I just have one of those faces that looks familiar..." I usually get a distrustful sideways glance.

But when I walked into a meeting and saw Candace, I knew who she was and exactly where I had first met her. She sat immediately to my right on the back row of that small high school Biology class, which I hated. The teacher was a shameless flirt with the pretty girls in the class, which left little room in his consciousness for the guys, as well as the ugly girls for that matter. I remember making a "32" on one of his tests--everyone failed and he actually re-administered the test a week later. It was a college prep class--I went on to college and nearly failed the same class there. So I didn't consider myself to be well-prepped.

Candace had a very harshly pinched appearance, was extremely thin, with nearly luminescently white skin and a protruding chin with beady, brown eyes. Her dark brown hair hung limply to her shoulders, and her nasal voice was somewhat irritating. Candace talked with a very quick cadence, and it turns out that she was the smartest one in our class. Despite this fact, I can't remember the bastard instructor directing one word at her during the whole course. Maybe it's because she looked like a human skeleton.

Looking at her from across the room, now, twenty years later, she looked a little spinster-ish. No wedding ring, she is now a Ph.D in Biology, and just fast-forward all of those same features about 20-30 unkind years working in the lab. All she had to do was wear the Pink Floyd concert shirt that she always seemed to be wearing, and I would be 100% confident that it was her. But it was possible, just possible, that it isn't the same person. The boss told me that she grew up and went to high school in another town 40 miles away. She looks exactly the same and has the same first and last name--come on, it's her! Right?

I'm working on a project with the group, so I have to tread carefully in digging up past events, but nonetheless I wanted to see if I could confirm that this is absolutely the same girl that I went to school with--I mean, that would be kinda cool, right? Unfortunatley, it is a little bit of a touchy subject--I wonder if Candace had ever told them about her felony conviction.

Yep, that's right--Candace participated in one of the most famous crimes in our high school's history.

It was the middle of August 1986--school was going to start in about two weeks, and the Texas summer was still blasting down on us all. I was working until midnight every night at the local grocery store, a job which I loved--I was one of those nerds who got trained in every function of the store (my favorite was the week that I worked in the deli, because I would chow down on roast beef and potato salad at the end of the day). Sometimes, the guys and I would all get together and go out afterward to play video games, bowl, or anything to avoid going home, so it wasn't too surprising that I was asleep at 9:00 AM when my friend, David called.

"Hey, the school's on fire! There's black smoke everywhere!"

Later, we found out that a couple of guys, aided by a couple of girlfriends (which is where Candace comes in), broke into the school with a gas can and matches and set a fire in the principal's office. It spread rapidly, chewing up the whole front office of the school and causing tons of smoke damage throughout the building. I guess the saving grace of the school (and one of the plan's greatest flaws) is that there is a fire station directly next door.

The arsonists' motivation: They were "really bummed" that school was going to start again, and they thought that the fire would delay the first day at least a week or so (it didn't, but we had construction for nearly two years). They were caught immediately, and two of them went to jail. Candace and her friend got a conviction with probation. I remember her coming to Biology class after court one day and she had the documents with her in her backpack--the thick packet had a statement on the front that said something like "Decree of Probation". It really struck me that criminal court documents had such elaborate lettering on the front--it almost looked like calligraphy, and seemed like a waste. She didn't really show them to me--I spotted them as she dug her book out for class, and she seemed to be duly embarrassed. Someone later told me that she was one of the girls from "the school fire".

So, I can see why, during all of my dealings with Candace that she doesn't want me to recognize her. Maybe she's afraid that I will mention that she worked at Mr. Jim's pizza--worst pizza in town. Twenty years later, she's doing important research, and she seems to know what she's doing in the lab.

I'm still debating whether I will engage her in a conversation about school, and see if she confirms that she remembers me or even that she went to that school. Of course, I would be too polite to bring up the brilliant fire strategy, which was hatched by the "Mr. Jim's" gang (they all worked there) while watching "The Wall" and smoking pot, but maybe the dumb grin on my face would give it away.

Call me Ishmael...

Kaitlyn's first fishing trip--I would say that she's at least intrigued....

...and Ryan was pretty proud of himself--he hooked this fish completely on his own--I think that's a first for him, too!

My shot at the Man

After one of those "worst days ever", which usually kind of just make me laugh, I woke up the next morning and put my resume' on a job posting site. You can't believe how freeing it felt.

The funny thing is that I'm really not interested in getting a new job. I've gotten several responses, but, just for the record, I don't want to work with old people, I don't want to sell insurance, and I don't want to sell insurance to old people--I think that eliminates about 1/3 of the opportunities out there.

No, I'm not really looking for a new job, but I think it was a big mental and emotional leap to consider myself as something different than I am. I already knew, I guess, that it is a horrible idea to identify yourself by your job. Too many external factors can affect your employment--things over which you have no control. Why allow someone else to define you, or change the existing definition of who you are? Trust me, I've been there--I can certainly see how someone wakes up later in life and realizes that they've been floating in a dream world, responding to corporate demands and external factors and living someone else's idea of a good life. I had a wake-up call before, so maybe this little exercise was "phase II"--an assertion of independent thought.

The bad day itself was just a series of negative events, one of which was caused by one of my clients. I've been working on a project with another company, and the other company is very incompetent, and do everything over the web from Vermont. Since I'm here in the customer's same city, I am expected to show up and help on-site at the hint of any problems, even if they are totally the responsibility of the leaf-peepers--since that really isn't appropriate, I have been careful not to rush in and support their half of the project too readily, especially since I don't understand their components and, secondly and most importantly, don't like the way they did some things... The customer decided that it would be highly motivating to completely rip me on an Email saying how I was doing a poor job and copy everyone in her lab and everyone at the other company, which was very embarassing (and not true).

This is an identifiable "last straw" event, but the pressure and discontent has been a vague cloud hovering over me for a while. It was time to face the issue and consider the possibilities.

"Resume' Day" was the next day, and it was kind of fun (at 4:45 AM) to imagine the look on everyone's face at the project when I showed up and shot them, individually, the finger, turned around and walked out. Then, I fantasized about rolling up a TPS report and telling Lundberg where it could be filed...(if you haven't seen Office Space, it is genius). I'm really not violent, but perhaps a little vengeful...

By 8:30 AM of the same day, I was back on the project and the issue was solved--hmmm, turns out it wasn't my fault, after all. Did the customer take the high road? Yes--she apologized, "I'm sorry I was such a B-I-T-C-H to you..." In front of her whole group. So that was something. And the dark matter of the previous day was counteracted with an equivalent amount of white matter over the next few days, so I guess we're good.

Crappy offers and vague "opportunities" keep rolling in from my posted resume', but I set up an Email account just for this occasion so I could escape the whole thing some day without permanent damage--you know, it was my equivalent of Britney Spears shaving her head and getting a tattoo--except my tattoo washes off with soap and water.

In the meantime, maybe it is healthy to reaffirm to yourself--You know what? If I'm given the opportunity to stand back and make a new decision about my life, my work, I would choose to do the same thing. If you can say that with certainty, there is a certain amount of confidence and satisfaction that comes with it, and it is rejuvenating. If the idea of making a change is exciting, maybe that process can initiate action.

Either way, I was proud of myself for taking a hard look.

Renewed Energy

Well, sorry about my last depressing (depressed) post. I think it's funny that I consider myself to be a real optimist, but sometimes I just need to visit the dark side of things just to say "hello".

Then there's the point that a lot of the things that I think are funny are really pretty bad situations seen in laughing retrospect.

Take, for example, this weekend.

It wasn't exactly winter outside, but it was cold. It wasn't spring, but it was sunny and bright and the trees have started to bud. Just the kind of weather that tempts me to start putting my yard in order and cutting back the wilderness of rose bushes we have in the back.

It was in the process of this bushwacking that I discovered an abandoned dove's nest. Years ago, Fran had me build a trellis around one of the large windows and for a few years I took pains to weave the prickly rose vines through it until they now hold up the east wall of our home. When the rain falls and the season turns and the moon is right, we get beautiful, huge blooms of pink, antique roses outside our window. When they dry out during the winter, we should probably register them as lethal weapons.

It also probably doesn't help things that I have this pair of leather moccasins that are form-fit to my feet, which also happen to have a wafer-thin sole which invites rose thorns to peek through at any opportunity.

Back to the bird's nest, which I had seen empty throughout the winter. As I spied it in the trellis, I realized that it had three tiny,white eggs inside. On closer inspection, one of the eggs had hatched open and there were two duds (to paraphrase the mother goose in Charlotte's Web). I carefully lifted the nest and brought it down the ladder--it was woven together in an incredibly durable fashion--it was really hard to believe. I decided to keep the eggs in the nest and take it inside to show the kids, who were delighted and wanted to touch, hug, pet, taste, and wear the whole thing, jumping up and down as I hovered the assembly just out of reach.

Then what? Throw it away? Surely not. Maybe Ryan would even want to take it to school or something. At any rate, I put it on the patio table while I finished the task at hand and then...well, forgot about it while I put the ladder away, perforated my forearms loading the lawn bags, and put away my shears.

Later that day, I took Kaitlyn outside to play on the swingset and we even set up a little croquet course. I noticed her standing, thoughtfully, at the patio table but I had completely forgotten that the nest was still there from our morning naturalism course. If I had seen it, I could have moved bishop to queen 3, or something like that, but I was probably staring at the pretty colors on the croquet--I didn't realize what I was up against.

Kaitlyn grabbed one of the mallets, scandalously, and while waving it and giggling, ran to the other side of the swingset. Like a dopey dog that chases moving cars out of instinct, I followed after her, halfway expecting her to hammer-throw the mallet over the fence. Surprisingly, she dropped the mallet and, turing with a wizened look of calm which comes from knowing that victory is shortly at hand, she bolted past me, dodged between the swings like a bullfighter, and, before I realized we weren't playing "Daddy, come stop me from destroying something with this mallet", she was halfway to the bird's nest.

After clunking into one of the swings left fluttering in her wake, I caught up with her...two steps too late. She had seized one of the eggs and cradled it delicately in her hand, examining it's beautiful, white, slightly-speckled shell.

"Oh, Kaitlyn, let me have that, please."

And she squeezed that little egg for all she was worth. Rotted dove fetus, stored under pressure for six months had been unleashed from its walls and was now expelled in a two-foot radius, including poor Kaitlyn's dress with the purple flowers. And an overpoweringly, indescribably putrid stench descended on our patio and on my poor, not-innocent three-year-old. I scooped up my daughter and ran inside in that reckless, floppy-kid way usually reserved for trips to the emergency room. She soon started gagging from the smell as I rinsed her off and changed her clothes, and I must say that I got a little criticism for leaving the nest within reach. The lesson was over, my nerves were frazzled by the whole incident, and the nest and its contents were unceremoniously disposed of in the trash.

After decompressing (almost typed decomposing...), it made me think about goofy things I did as a kid, and how, although they seemed traumatic at the time, are more like badges of honor and discernable time points of interest in an otherwise unremarkable childhood. I'm not wishing for any more rotten egg incidents, but once it happens, I guess we may as well laugh at it.

Written under the Full Moon

Maybe it's a seasonal thing, but this time of year I usually find myself feeling a little low. Somewhere I read that there was a gap during this time of year where it is the longest interval between holidays...but I don't think that's it.

Last Friday fell around me like a heavy, black curtain. I woke up at 2:00 AM to the sounds of someone breaking into my car outside my bedroom window. I lay there, paralyzed and feeling helpless, wondering about the damage I would find the next morning--I had left some things in the back of the car that belonged to my company, and it would require a lot of explaining when they were gone.

It turns out that my mind had assembled the tinks and gongs of the night and created a story--somehow the worst case scenario--and a sense of inevitable dread set in and reinforced my greatest fears. I didn't even feel better when I discovered that I was completely wrong, and that my car was just fine when I went out to check after the sun had come up. Somehow, I guess I knew I was wrong, and the fact that I had conjured up such a negative image out of raw materials just made me feel worse. What the hell is wrong with me to be so negative?

I'm usually the guy who wears a smile and soldiers on when everyone around me is jumping off the bow of the ship. But, I've got this threshold which, when I wear down below it, I just can't rise above it and keep smiling. I can't even rationalize my way out of it--you know, look at things and say "Hey, you're a lucky guy! You're lucky to be alive/walking/successful/married/a father..." It all serves to make me feel like an ungrateful wretch on top of the underlying negative feelings.

I resigned myself to move slowly through the day and maybe just get one thing right. That's another funny thing about being depressed. If you just carry on, you're just doing the same depressing shit that made you feel that way to begin with. In this case, there are about five situations at my job which are pushing me off the ledge (figuratively, in case you are starting to really worry about me). These are things like--not putting the cover on my TPS report and getting totally reamed by some out-of-touch beauracrat, having to stand up and take responsibility for other people's failure to act diligently (times about four separate situations), and, in general, feeling like I'm "on my own" in trying to do a good job without proper backing. After a while, it gets lonely out there and then I started to doubt if I am doing a good job...Have I ever done a good job, or did I just get lucky at times? Did I just get old and burned out and now I just suck?

Another funny thing about depression is that it is the type of thing that is polite to keep to yourself. Telling someone about it is embarassing and weak. Seriously, I don't want help when I get down like this. I don't want to be cheered up. I want to indulge myself in being pissed at the world.

I wandered to my sink and decided to shave with my shaving brush and mug with warm shaving soap. The primitive implements were a little indulgence that I requested for Christmas, and it cheers me up a little--My normal day has me shaving in the rear-view mirror of my car as I drive for about 2 hours per day in the course of my job. And as I stand there, I think about how I wish I wrote Breakfast at Tiffany's. I love Holly Golightly--she's one of my favorite characters, because she is random and light and hilarious and witty and disorganized and charming. The book consists of the author and Holly, two totally different perspectives which coexist and contrast each other perfectly and come together and separate again with no resolution. That's the way things are in the real world.

It occurs to me to mirror the book in some way with a story of my own, but I get tired of thinking about it right away and dismiss the idea. I reach for the hardback edition and find a note written by a co-worker, years ago. She loved to read like me, and we compared reading lists. I don't know why I look down my nose at people when they rattle off Stephen King and Sidney Sheldon as some of their favorite authors--I sheepishly offer up Hemingway and Faulkner and decide not to mention Shakespeare. I loaned her my copy of Breakfast at Tiffany's and she wrote out a page of observations and commentary which struck me enough to hang on to it. I flicked the edge of her note and didn't open it--I already know what it says even though I haven't read it for at least four years.

I pour another half cup of coffee and start to talk to my wife--she,bristled, practically imperceptively, at my negativism, and I just closed up and let it go rather than inflict it upon her and ruin her day. I drove off to work, and eventually the smile that was camoflauging my broken spirit diffused through me and brought me around to a feeling of normal.

That was last Friday, and here we are a week later. Today might have been the first day where I woke up happy since then; the first time I felt a sense of peace. It scares me that I can just sink so low irrationally, even though it is such a rare occurrance. I just let myself feel the lows that come with the good times, and remember the details. And write them out.