Cart-Pushing, Farming, and Lawyering

I am not second-guessing my decision to pursue a law degree.

On my way to work this morning, I came out of a local grocery store and overheard a few lines of  conversation between two employees.  The weight of their dialog wasn't carried in their words, but by their tone.  Both employees were men, older-not-old, the first particularly happy--you know, that certain brand of big-happy that comes with wide smiles, grandiloquent gesticulation, and hearty ribbing--the second quieter but similarly smiling.  The second had apparently been gone a week or so from work and hadn't communicated with his friend who thought maybe he'd left or disappeared or, I'm guessing now, worse.  I got the impression--maybe faulty, but I don't think so--that these two men truly enjoyed their jobs, and all the more so for each other's company, at the grocery store.  They weren't owners or management; rather they both wore the neon orange vests with reflective stripping of the cart pushers and garbage attendants.

My dad, a veterinarian, once told me that he believed the men and women who lay traffic cones and barrels along construction sites on the freeway have a great job.  Later he told me how he'd enjoy being a farmer.  He's confessed multiple times how he dislikes--or is sick of, really--being a veterinarian.  He's still a vet, but he also has, finally, to a degree--and to just the degree he seems to have always wanted--his farm: a hundred acres of Ohio countryside to mow and tend and plant and do whatever-the-heck he wants with and when he wants to do it.

My first year teaching (and I believe I've mentioned this before), I asked my students to raise their hands if they planned to attend college.  I was appalled--even angered--by how many students did not raise their hands.  I was teaching seventh grade, "mainstream" English.  Surely these kids must have known by seventh grade--and none had handicaps that would otherwise remove them from the possibility--that they would attend college, that, so I foolishly believed, there was no other option.  I talked about future money and possibilities, financial stress, ladders, job satisfaction, and all the other crap an immature teacher would foist on his unwitting and quite innocent students.

What all of this comes to is an examination of what exactly I want and, perhaps, why I want it.  (I've been tinkering with an essay for weeks about the nature of human desire--not that kind of desire--and where our desires stem from and why according to most philosophers, if not all, we are not actually in control of our desires and therefore, ultimately, our choices.)  Why do I want to be a lawyer?  Easy.  So many people have asked the question that I've got an answer ready and waiting: I want to be a lawyer because I want to be able to better take care of my family and yet do a job at which I have potential to not only perform well but to also enjoy.  But why do I really want what I want?  Well, I guess it's the money.  I want my family to be comfortable.  I want my family have ... stuff.  I confess: I want a nice car a nice home and nice clothes.  I want to buy books.  I want to travel.  I want to buy new drums.  I want to be the one who offers help, not the one who requires it.

Selfish?  Greedy?  Indulgent?

Maybe.

It would be a lot easier if I were satisfied and happy with something much simpler but (and if you don't agree, you're stupid), no less important.

And I'm leaving it at that for now.

Consistency Teaching

Things have been pretty stable lately.  This is darn amazing.  So much so that I sometimes forget that I'm only a substitute teacher and that our in comes nowhere near to match our out.  But life, it seems, can't be content with permitting anyone's complacency.  More amazing--and markedly pathetic, really--it doesn't take very much to remind me how fragile things really are--how much I so entirely rely upon others, and, more than anyone, one Other.

For the past couple months now, I've been subbing for a seventh grade science teacher.  While I've learned that eighth graders are not universally worse than seventh graders (I taught eighth grade science next door before this, you may remember), the general pejorative classroom management issues have been offset by the convenience of daily, full-period "preps" (generally, in block schedules, like that of this school, teachers get one prep every other day).  While I can't say I've particularly enjoyed my work this go 'round (I'm not preparing the lessons, and while this makes things simpler--less demanding--it lends a certain degree of detachment--of disassociation), it is yet satisfying to work with kids and teach them something and whatever else and all the other personal benefits one might gain from teaching.

My current gig was originally set to last out through the first week of May.  I got an email this past Saturday that says otherwise.  I've got somewhere between two and four weeks left here, and then....  Who knows?  Objectively, this is just fine.  It's a big school.  There are lots of subs needed.  It's an even bigger school district.  You do the math.  I've got pretty much nothing to worry about.  Yet I worry.

In my previous job, I made good money.  Subbing, I don't.  Despite this, there was far more financial stress before than now, because back then I had no idea when/if I was going to get paid, if it would be a full check, a partial check, or if my boss would find some way of worming out of paying some portion of my check for whatever little fiscal invention he might tease out.  Here, subbing, I know exactly how much I'm making, when it will come, how much will be held for taxes, when my statements will be available, and so on.  It is remarkably consistent.  This is remarkably comforting!

But consistency, no matter where it is, so often reveals itself an illusion.  The pieces are all inter-reliant.  If one thing doesn't fall into place--like having a job to go to! --then the rest sloughs away.  It's an emotional thing, this stability--this consistency--and, really, how often are emotions stable?  I find that I'm a remarkably stable person by appearance, but that doesn't mean things are churning tumultuous beneath the surface.

I didn't have a specific thematic intention when I began this post.  And now as I write, I find my mind bending constantly (that's an important word here, measurable as it is against "consistency" and "stability") toward God.  Really, the consistency is not an illusion.  It is my faith in it that havers.  I am inconstant.  My job stability falters.  Not God.  And as Life reminds me that I'm not in control, I am reminded (intentional passive!) that God is.  Really, He's never let us down.  We've always had our needs provided, and often miraculously.  Regardless of all the inconsistent parties and influences around me, One is not.

And thank God!  The next thing will come with or without my foresight, and food will still be on the table.

TWO THINGS THAT, TODAY, HAVE MADE MY DAY

ONE:

I have been accepted to Ohio Northern University College of Law, which response is the first, positive or negative, from the seven law schools to which I have applied.  What a relief!  That means, whether I'm accepted anywhere else or not, well, I'm going to law school in the fall.  What's more, and while I can't say for sure that its role was integral in my acceptance, this validates, at least to a point, my maverick approach to writing my personal statement.  Take that, naysayers!

***

TWO:

Today is my last day subbing for 8th grade science.  (HERE's the first entry, typos and all, from my tenure in this particular classroom.)  While reaction to my time here really requires a full entry, I'm going to leave it at this: it's been a great experience, I'm actually pretty good at teaching science, and I'm really going to miss these kids--even though they're eighth graders.  All that aside, a young lady in my first period class said something really funny today.  Context: Someone needed to borrow a pen.  He took one of mine.  I let him, because he's always returned pens in the past.  When he was finished with it, I told him to just go ahead and throw it to me.  He threw it.  I didn't catch it; more accurately, I missed it.  The young lady in the back laughed, so I threw the pen at her.  (I did wait until I knew she was ready.)  She missed.  I laughed at her (this is all quite good-humored, by the way).  "And you made fun of me?" I asked, so she said: "Hey, I'm a girl.  What's your excuse."

Unfortunately, I couldn't think of anything to say that couldn't, potentially, get me into trouble.  So I only laughed with her.

A Good Class is a Goofy Class

Last week began to remind of teaching for real, not because of any particular subject matter, but because of the absolute goofiness that cropped up in a couple of classes.  I guess it was a matter of comfort--teacher to students--as anything else.

We're talking about waves in 8th grade science right now.  Our working definition is, "A wave is the propagation of energy through a medium."  Amplitude and frequency are both measurements for how much energy is being propagated.  We talked about how this is why your ipod runs out of batteries faster at a higher volume.  We also talked about higher frequencies--for audio waves, this means higher pitch--indicating higher energy consumption (disregarding the energy required to drive the speakers) and someone said, "I knew it!  Justin Bieber does destroy ipods!"

*

I don't remember the discussion that brought up the '80's, but one boy concurred with the general concensus: "Yeah, the '80's was a real bad year!"  When the class all turned dumbfoundedly to stare at him, he corrected himself: "I mean, it was a real century, I mean week, I mean," and he struggled a moment before finally recognizing it as "time."

*

girl: "Every time I think of Mr. Center, I think of a centipede for some reason."

boy: "What, like Mr. Centerpede?"

Mr. Center: "At least once a day."

*

PHYSICS INTUITION

Today was better.  Quite a lot better.  Certainly, I didn't have ANY time for reading and blogging East of Eden (I don't have a clue when I'm going to get to that today), and I didn't have any time to work on my NaNoWriMo, which, of course, is utterly expendable, even if I don't want it to be.

The teacher I'm covering, I was convinced, hadn't done a thing to help me out before my taking over.  I'm still not 100% convinced, but I uncovered a folder full of material for my 8th grade science classes.  Big help.  I actually had something to teach today (more on that in a minute).  For 7th grade, I thankfully have a wonderful neighbor who supplies me with plans, and we're mostly on track.  (The 8th grade is a month behind their target, which target is reached and maintained by EVERY OTHER 8th GRADE SCIENCE CLASS IN THE SCHOOL.)

During "Flex" time today (a 30-min block in which students can pretty much party if they've got good grades or get remediation if they don't) I was with the band, fixing the percussionists in prep for the concert tonight in which I will be actively filling in the blanks.

So the great part:  PHYSICS, the basics of which are the core of 8th grade science, apparently.  How cool is (are?) physics?  It is a subject entirely--at least at this level--intuitive.  I am not a science teacher.  Correction: I was not a science teacher; I am now a science teacher, and it was cool.  The kids were INTO it, we got a lot done, and it was fun.  Of course, I can barely talk now--my voice box hasn't built up the callous it usually gains by this point in a school year....  I had fun.  I knew what I was talking about.  The kids had fun.  We all learned stuff.

Unfortunately, the 7th graders are studying chemistry....

Subbing.... (not meant to be quite as pessimistic as it will certainly seem)

Being a long-term substitute teacher is like renting someone else's house and living in it 'til they decide to come back.  Being a long-term bstitute teacher who actually knows how to teach, is endorsed, and has taught a long time is like renting someone else's house when you don't want to rent the stupid house but you don't have a choice even though you've got $100,000 in the freaking bank.

***

This afternoon--I don't remember the circumstances or what I said--I muttered something to myself and a student caught me.  "Are you talking to yourself?" she asked.  "You bet," I answered.  "About the only intelligent conversation I get all day."

Paragraphing

I am a substitute teacher.  I am no longer a real teacher.  If you think there's no significant difference between the two, then either you've forgotten what it's like to be a student under a sub--especially the day-to-day kind (long-termers like me are a different kind of rotten) --or you think you know a lot more about teaching than you really do.  Substitute teachers are not real teachers, the same way that pasteurized cheese spread is not real cheese.  I admit, however, that though I'm just a sub (and as a "real" teacher, I didn't have the least trust in the lesser breed and often went to work sick just so I didn't have to repair whatever damage was done while I was gone (much of which was never necessarily the sub's fault--just symptom of the situation)), I enjoy being back in a "real" classroom and working with kids again.  On a more fundamentalist note, it's nice having regular work.

Having been a full-time, real teacher before being a long-term sub gives me a different perspective, however.  And there are lots of subs--maybe even a majority--who were once real teachers, and now I think I understand their dilemma a bit better.

I'm sure that the teacher I'm covering for--away on maternity leave--is an excellent teacher.  Nearly all the teachers in this school are young, enthusiastic, and naive.  I never thought I'd be old enough to say it!  To give a little perspective, I walk into the staff room to warm up my lunch each day, and all the other teachers who come in, or nearly all, jabbering about recalled intramural college athletics memories and dating and applying to grad school, are almost ten years younger than me.  Crap!  I'm old!

But I'm experienced!

Anyway, the point is that, like I said, I'm sure this young lady I'm covering for is wonderful.  Most likely, it's her lack of faith in substitute teachers that lead to the creation of such abysmally boring, repetitive, stale lesson plans.  The students are dying!  And if eighth graders in an inspiring classroom atmosphere are bad, imagine how they are in utter academic doldrums.

Today it's all eighth graders.  I'm still getting a feel for the kids.  There's still a lot to do in accomplishing the teacher's plans (which I have to follow! --well, I'm sure I could rebel, but she's kind of my employer, and I'd like to get more of these positions at this or other schools, especially if the trend of rejections continues from these HUNDREDS of applications we've made for other work).  I don't feel comfortable doing my own thing yet.  Yet.

We'll see.

So what brought this all on?

I read regularly from the Visual Thesaurus website.  There's a great, widely ranging collection of wordy and academic stuff there, including teaching resources.  I read the following article:

http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/teachersatwork/2448/

and enjoyed it.  The man GETS it.  And it fired me up a bit.  If you didn't read or don't feel like reading the article, it's about getting students to write essays and the difficulty for so many students to adequately paragraph.  Basically.  And he condemns--or at least subjectively supports my own condemnation of--6 Traits Writing.  I do my own thing, teaching kids to write.  He does his own thing.  It made me want to go back and check out my old lesson plans and tweak them.  But why?  I'm not really ever going to use them again....

I'm just a sub.

First Day on the Job

It's almost hard to believe that I should be excited about this job.  The pay is terrible, the commute long, and the subjects either beyond or just at the edge of my expertise; yet here I am, sitting in MY classroom, typing on MY computer (I even get to take it home!), and feeling like I've actually got some ownership over something for a change.  I've even been given the online gradebook login for the teacher so I can manage attendance and grades.  It's almost like being a real teacher again!

The day was not difficult, if long.  I'm not used to block schedules, though that's basically what I had back when I taught in Nebo district.  The kids are good.  I enjoy seventh grade, but tomorrow is eighth, and I'v got long-standing reservation about eighth. 

Fingers crossed.

In the meantime, it's time to close up shop.  In one or two moments, I will take MY KEY for MY CLASSROOM out of my pocket, lock up, walk the halls out to the front, then to my car, and home.

On a side note, everything out here is so NEW: this laptop is new, the school is new (this is its first year), the road I took to get here has been open on one or two months, all the teachers are new.... 

Cool.

The Job Stalker

I tease my wife because she sometimes seems a bit like that prototypical blogstalker that's becoming such a stereotype anymore.  I have a bit more sympathy for her now that I've actually got a facebook page, a couple blogs, and have clicked the "next blog" button over and over again on blogger.com.  I haven't yet reached the status of stalker however, as I'm yet to return to any of those blogs, become familiar with the writers' families and friends and politics and dining habits and gastrointestinal cycles.  She hasn't gone quite that far.  But I am now a part of the social network, so to speak.

While I'm not yet a blogstalker, however, I experienced something kind of funny today.  I think I may be a job stalker.

Today was my second day, not in a row and not for the same teacher, at a same grade school from earlier in the week, which (though this has nothing to do with anything) happens to be right across the street from the house I bought and lived in when I first met my wife.  Anyway, today I was covering for one of the art/gym teachers (yes: art/gym teacher).  I looked over the plans.  Simple enough.  I met the first period of kids.  Good enough.  And I made it to lunch.  Easy enough.  However, when I watched the second group of post-lunch first graders come into the gym, I had this weird twist of deja vous.  It took me a second to realize, particularly amidst the first-grader shrieks, "Hi, Teacher!"s, and general first-grade ruckus, that this was the same group I subbed for the other day.

They were thrilled, which was mildly flattering, of course, but it remained somehow strange.  Something about their teacher being back in the building (though not in the gym) or having the kids in a different situation or the fact that, well-behaved though they were Tuesday, they were monsters today, I don't know.  It felt like I was skipping from job to job to job (which, over the last three weeks is very true), came back to this one, and suddenly it was the same but not the same: I knew the kids--or something about them--which ones to watch, which ones to baby, which ones I could joke with, which ones to just leave alone. 

I don't know if I'm telling this clearly.  It was familiar, yet strange.  Comforting to see them, yet disconcerting in the status of the situation....

That's it, anyway.  I'm sure I'll be at that school again in the relatively near future, and then, after having taught eight times as many students, grades one through six, will likely have eight times the weirdness.  Awesome.

(I want my own classroom back....)

Polishing Poop: My Contribution to the Cosmetics Industry

So I'd thought up this great, elaborate essay using the idea behind the following Mythbusters' clip as a metaphor for the spectrum of occupation from packaging cosmetics to changing diapers/potty training, and it would build elegantly from the previous post about family vs. Bud.  However, and following The Hyneman's example, rather than Adam's, I have decided to keep it simply and let the video prompt your imagination on its own, and leave well enough alone.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Mythbusters polishing poop; a metaphor for my temporary employment (and working for Bud, for that matter):

Family vs. the Edict of Bud

There's nothing like campfire smoke and one-on-one time with you five-year old boy for granting articulation and/or first-hand evidence to a philosophy, and I'm not talking about Jacob's philosophy, of which there is endless supply, but to this:

I work to live; I don't live to work. 

I've always felt this way, but never thought it would contribute to the decision of whether to stick with or quit my employment.  It wasn't the primary issue, as you should know, but lack of pay, which I've made pretty clear and public.  Over the last three weeks, I really haven't thought too much more about it; I've felt very comfortable in my decision (even if uncomfortable with unemployment).  But last night and this morning, I got a little reinforcing boost.

Our ward had its annual Father and Son Camp Out last night.  Jacob and I haven't attended one of these yet, despite annual opportunities.  I realize now what I've been missing.  We had a blast!  Funnily enough, I don't think we would have gone if we had money and a career and whatever else.  There's something about scraping for absolutely everything that makes you appreciate the little things a lot more.  I mean little things like M&Ms or enough gas in the car to drive to grandma and grandpa's for no more reason than saying hi.  Or the six bucks we anticipated as toll to drive up the canyon to the campground.  (Thankfully, we already had tent and sleeping bags; that would have been a lot more than just what we could find by scraping!)

"We can't afford six dollars;" "Maybe we need to afford it;" "How?" "Let's dig for quarters;" "Do you even want to go?" "I think we need to go;" "Jacob needs to get out of the house;" "I need to get out of the house;" "Do you even want to go?" "Of course.  It will be fun;" "Let's dig for quarters."

We found out shortly thereafter that when going to this particular campground, owned by the LDS church, all we had to do is say so at the ranger's pillbox and they'd let us pass.

We did, they did, and Jacob and I drove up the canyon, windows down, listening to The Great Brain and eating M&Ms (we couldn't afford those either).

About a month ago--a little more perhaps--I got in bit of trouble with the Bud.  (You all remember Bud?)  He thought I wasn't putting enough effort into my work.  (!)  (And when it comes right down to it, I'm pretty sure he's grateful he doesn't have me anymore, as now he doesn't have to pay me!  In fact, several times over the last year he's even complained TO ME about how much he has to pay me ("Oh, but you're worth it, Joe," he'd chase with every time).)  This is part of what he said:

I have put my family second on numerous occasions to make sure that yours is taken care of. You must make this your number one priority. Even if you have to do something uncomfortable over and over again.

Hmm.  I don't remember that in my job description.  And he was trying to guilt me into it!  Am I required to sacrifice my family just because he sacrificed his?  This is an extreme that has led more than once to the end of families, some of whom I know quite personally.  There's no way I'm going to let that happen to me.  If my family is the most important thing, why in the freaking world would I not put them first?

And I'm not talking about the balance of taking care of them via employment and whatever else, like on the airplane how you have to put the oxygen mask on yourself before your kids.  I WANT to work!  But we're talking about extremes.  Here's the other end of the spectrum (on the far right is The Edict of Bud):

(on the left)
Unemployment (and I mean doing absolutely nothing), but having family and going on camp outs and wrestling with kids and making dinner for my wife.

It's Angie who always deals in extremes--black and white.  Period.  Done.  I, on the other hand, am always looking at subtleties and gray areas, where I feel I find 98% of the world.  Well, this must be part of that remaining two percent.

I work to live; I don't live to work, because homeless and together is a lot better than rich and alone.  Last night proved it.  Period.

Family first!

The Trouble with Context

—which, of course, is also it’s greatest strength.

I will start with an example (though without punctuation):

you gotta go now

Read it again:

you gotta go now

And again, now changing the inflection, the pacing, the punctuation....

Go where?  To do what? 

You get the idea.

Here’s how it actually happened, my senior year (not junior year, may it be known), the CONTEXT:

I used to run.  I was a bit of a track fanatic in high school, and I did pretty well.  Mostly I ran the middle distances—the 400m and 800m—but I also did the long jump, and the respective relays.  While I worked almost entirely with the head track coach, Coach DeBos, who focused on middle distance, sprints, and the jumps, for the 4x800 I had Coach Albaugh, the distance man.

Coaches, teachers, and grownups all seem to have their catch phrases.  My calc teacher had dozens (“That’s what you get,” “Some days you get the bear, some days it gets you,” “You wanna flip burgers the rest of your life?” and so on, all the while waving his thumb and index finger around like a gun).  While Coach Albaugh seemed to use this particular command, “You gotta go now!” all the time—and I figure you can guess how a track coach might use it—there is one particular instance when it didn’t just achieve its intended goal, but even redirected my life.  Or, at least, gave me a pretty good metaphor for it.

My 4x800m relay team made it to the Ohio State Track Finals, all the way back in 1995.  I don’t think I’d ever been happier or more excited.  (And I’ve got probably five or six more great stories from this long weekend, but, fear not, those are for another time.)

 ...  Okay, so I’m really going to have to hold back to keep this the short version....

I ran third leg.  I was fastest on the team, but that was the strategy—put the fastest guy against all the other slowest guys.  It worked pretty well.  I got the baton in last place.  Per coach’s direction, I moved immediately over the first hundred meters into sixth, amidst much elbow swinging and misdirected tracks spikes.  I held my place in the middle of the pack around the first lap, again, just like I was told.  And it was easy.

Now, I don’t know how many of you have been to a big track meet.  A REALLY big track meet.  The Ohio State Track and Field finals are held in the Horse Shoe at Ohio State University, behind a statue of none other than JESSE OWENS!  It’s a big place.  It was packed to capacity.  And even if you’ve only ever been to a small meet, or just watched on TV, you should know that the relays are the big time.  They MEAN something, not just to the runners or the teams, but to everyone.  They are a statement of dominance!  Well, if you win. 

Even now, just in the third leg of the race, the pack a true pack, with no leaders, no stragglers, the crowd was loud.  LOUD!  It was a roar like I imagine a tornado must roar.

I was just rounding the end of the curve at the top of the second lap, tight in the pack.  The noise was growing steadily.

Even though I already knew exactly what to do, my coach—Coach Albaugh—yelled at me.  Somehow, despite the insanity of the crowd, I heard, as though he were running beside me (seriously, it was like magic—and this was before Harry Potter), “YOU GOTTA GO NOW!”

I didn’t think about it; I responded immediately.  I took a side step to the outside of the pack, dodged an elbow, and freaking HIT THE GAS, and the crowd exploded—little bits of fans flaking down all around.  It was awesome.  I took off, left everyone behind, and, three hundred meters later, passed the baton to our anchor a hundred meters ahead of second place.  It was super cool.  The crowd loved it.  It was the highlight of my life!

So what in the world does this have to do with anything?  Context.

The trouble with context is that it entirely limits applicability.  This story is great for motivation, and I’ve used it as such (it’s also really good as an object lesson for the infamous 5-paragraph essay), but practically nothing else.  So screw the context.  (Of course, screwing context doesn’t work so well with my old track coach’s line unless you’re potty training your two-year-old.)

Here’s something else, where dashing context makes absolutely no difference to the applicability and power of the quotation.  I heard it at work yesterday.  (It was a really good day at work, by the way.  Our team’s “assignment” kept us all at our table and quiet enough that we could actually talk.  Fortunately, I have two teammates who are, like me, utter geeks.  It was great, and the time flew!)

...  again, struggling to keep it short and simple; as you can see, that’s stupidly hard for me....

So Matt was talking about his cell phone.  I told him I didn’t have one, and he looked at me like....  Well, you can imagine.  He said something along these line: “I can’t imagine going around without having access to all the information in the world right in my pocket!”  He went on with, “After all, everything that can be thought has already been thought.”

Hmm.  I sure hope not, and I said so: “Matt, you know that’s absolutely impossible to know.”

Then John spoke, entirely without warning (or inflection even)— and I need to take a second and tell you about the amazing balance that John and Matt embody, a true symbiosis, in all that word’s particularly geeky glory.  Matt describes himself, and he’s totally right, as a person who needs no other person to keep himself entirely entertained.  John once commented that he was even jealous, because he’d never seen anyone get such a kick out of themselves as Matt, who finds everything he says utterly and sincerely laugh- and praiseworthy.  Matt said how much simpler life would be if you could really just exclude everyone else for the sake of your own little world and be thrilled to death about it.  That’s Matt.  John, on the other hand, is the very embodiment of soft-spoken and sober.  If I didn’t now know better, I would call him a bore.  But I know better.  He’s not a bore.  He’s freaking hilarious! 

So, getting back:

—John looked at Matt and said, “Yeah, Matt.  Quit marveling and contribute.”

We laughed and laughed.

Okay, so maybe you had to be there.  Maybe you have to be packing cosmetics.  Maybe you have to be so bored that anything is funny.  Regardless, like I said before—and here’s the point—SCREW CONTEXT.

While Coach Albaugh’s line is terribly limited, John’s is not.  Even though the two sentences are, grammatically speaking, practically parallel (“You gotta go now;” “Quit marveling and contribute” —okay, so they’re really just both commands), the second, John’s, is incredibly pertinent to me, the unemployed.  You can extrapolate it all you want.  For me, it’s this simple:

I think I need to stop checking facebook, email, and my blog stats, and get back to my most recent job application.

Cheers.

Go to Work Every Day

a Brother Simmons story

Brother Simmons is a good friend of mine.  I met him in Michigan our first year there.  I can’t say I’m sure why, but he and his family really connected with mine and me—took us under their collective wing, which, on a number of occasions we really needed.  The best part of their generosity and love, is they never held it under our noses or expected anything or even acknowledged what they assumed they must have meant for us.  We were just a part of their family.  Brother Simmons, his wife, and his seven (at the time, there are more now) children, are remarkably down-to-earth people, with that Wisdom so particular to people who’ve learned the hard way, stuck with it, and come out the other end okay.  Strong and together.  I’ve got a dozen stories that would tell you how great this family is, but I want this entry, for a change, to be short.

We were at their new home in Utah, having made the drive in honor of the wedding of their oldest son, and were all hanging out in the kitchen afterward.  As usual, Brother Simmons (and, yes, I’m leaving out his name—though it’s plenty awkward to call him anything else) and I were sitting together, joking (he’s got the greatest jokes—and seems, for better or worse, to reserve the dirty ones for our little sit downs), when suddenly he got serious a moment and asked how we were doing.  I told him the story about our move to Utah and the uncertainty of it all, and he told me this story:

He and his wife married very young.  I mean VERY young.  Most of their friends and relatives were not happy about the union, at least at the time, and as the newlyweds were indeed, essentially, still kids, all these “friends” and family felt very free to tell them so.  There were all the questions: How’re ya gonna pay for everything; How’re ya gonna accomplish anything; Y’ain’t even goin’ta college; You know what happens to kids like you who think they’re ready for this?  And on and on.  And this is AT THE RECEPTION!

In addition to the demeaning rhetoric of the questions was the condescension always present with bad advice.  But the couple bore up well, confident and in love, and stuck it out.

Toward the end, one man in particular came through the line.  As Brother Simmons said, “a little Mexican who helped out with the shop class at my high school.”  He went on to describe him as a hard worker, but with kids who all turned out losers and either in jail or on their way.  “But,” he said, “this man gave me the only good advice I got that night.  I don’t remember another word from all those people, but what this man said has stayed with me all my life.”

The man said something like this: “All these people, they don’t know you.  They can’t tell you anything.  They say you’re going to lose.  Don’t listen.  Listen to me.  If you want to make it in this world, go to work everyday.”  Then the little man patted my friend on the shoulder and walked off.

Go to work every day.

Period.

And he did it, my friend, Brother Simmons.  He went to work every day.  Period.

Back in the kitchen, Brother Simmons looked at me and said, “Joe, it doesn’t matter what you do—substitute teaching, manufacturing, teaching, whatever.  Just do it.  Every day.  Then come home and love your family.  Things will be okay.”

Then he told me another dirty joke.  That was two years ago.

Well, I went to work today.  I’ve been “working” since I left the school, but working at finding a job!  Today, I had a job.  Tomorrow I have a job.  I’ve got an interview too!  The next day I’ve got a job.  Will it pay the bills?  Heck no.  But I’m going, and here’s my pledge, to me and my family:

I WILL GO TO WORK EVERY DAY.

The Pioneers Had It Rough

My family and I left for church Sunday morning earlier than usual.  It was regional conference, which meant that pretty much no matter which of the bajillion LDS churches we chose to attend from anywhere across the entire county, we would see the same broadcast as anyone else as relayed from the Marriott Center at BYU.  So we joined my father- and sister-in-law (which I’m always in favor of, because it generally means that I’ll actually get to pay attention to the meeting rather than spend all my faculties keeping the kids occupied and quiet—and they’re quality company, besides), and went to their building. 

It was an excellent meeting, of course (and I’m not just saying so because it was church and Apostles and whatnot), and I particularly enjoyed the comments from Julie Beck, General Relief Society President for the Church, and from Elder Holland of the Twelve.  But I didn’t take notes.  I never do, and I can’t say that any of their words are still hanging out with me.  Elder Packer, however, whom I don’t usually find particularly compelling (sorry), said something that gave me pause—something like this:  Should the pioneers look down and comment on the difficulty of living in the modern age, they would confess how much harder we’ve got it than they had.  So, simplifying: my life is harder than the life of a pioneer—one of those poor people who trekked across the Great Plains from Ohio, Missouri, Illinois all the way to Utah and beyond in the name of religious freedom, and did so under some of the most harrowing circumstances you might ever come across.  If you doubt me, find a Mormon church and attend Sunday services anywhere around the 24^th of July.  And if you are a Mormon, you know exactly the crazy, amazing, and inspiring experiences these people underwent.  Holy cow, and here’s an apostle of the Lord claiming my life’s tougher!?  Sure, he’s drawing a metaphor to living as a “spiritual pioneer” in the Last Days, and is trying to build us up that, hey, our challenges are BIGGER, REALLY, but come on....

Again, I’m not the kind to just take their word for it.  This is what I think and the process I took to get there (nowhere definitive, I’m afraid), and it starts with that modifier, “spiritual,” against that big noun above, “pioneer.”

So, “In the beginning,” we understand that God created all things spiritually before he created them physically.  That makes sense.  He did/does have a plan, after all.  We see a bigger version of this, turned cyclic, in the advent and absolution of the Law of Moses.  Before Moses, there was the higher law, which the children of Israel were deemed too slow to cope with; so the higher law from before was replaced with the Law of Sacrifice, which, of course—for Christians—means that those couple thousand years or so were preparatory, particularly metaphorically, for the ultimate and final sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  So spiritual versus physical, right?  The higher law is a spiritual law; the law of Moses very physical, and now, we’re back to the higher law.  So what’s this got to do with the Mormon pioneers?

I see it that the pioneers’ trials—and I think this should be pretty clear—underwent ostensibly and dominantly physical trials.  I’m sure that they had their spiritual trials too, but as far as the collective generations of the pioneers are concerned, theirs were physical—and they were freaking tremendous.  On the other hand, physically speaking, we’ve got it pretty easy.  (And what Elder Packer is talking about when he says our trials will make the pioneers happy they didn’t have our lot—what exactly the modern TRIALS are, generally, for an entire population—well, I think they’re abundant, but feel free to comment!)

But is our situation really harder?  Really?

When I gauge the distance across the epochs of humanity (ugh, that sounds ridiculous!) and note how far we’ve come—in whatever sense, though we can probably add, “or how low we’ve sunk” —I can’t say that I think anyone’s got it any harder than anyone else, ever.  We’ve all heard the stereotypical fatherly or grandfatherly when-I-was-your-age boloney (bologna?).  No.  They didn’t have it harder.  No.  I don’t think we’ve got it harder.  Here’s why:

Christ’s temptations.  Let’s look at those first (Matthew 4, Mark 1, Luke 4).  (I’m going to try and keep this concise.)  So the Bible uses the word “tempt” for what Satan does—not tries to do, but does—to Jesus out in the wilderness among the beasts.  And, yes, I know we have to take the actual wording of the Bible (thank you, Bart Ehrman) with a grain of salt, or several handfuls.  And if you think you can take this literally, which you can’t (though, in this case, literal interpretation works just as well, as it turns out), you’re firstly warded off not by any potential misquotation (which, actually, Bart, isn’t an issue as we Mormons—who believe—got the JST) but by the etymology of the word itself.  (I confess, I was disappointed; I wanted it to be literal and say, “Yes, see, Satan didn’t attempt to tempt Jesus—he DID tempt him!”)  The word “tempt” means to “attempt to influence,” not “to influence.”  Sorry.  Regardless, could any of these little trivialities really be anything for Jesus as are the temptations wily adversary puts before me—us?

Yes.

Now before you call lightning down upon me, think about it (and really, the difference between Jesus and us is perfect here (and, yes, I’m speaking for all of us—and you), that is Jesus didn’t give in!):  Satan knows us.  He knows us well enough that he picks (or maybe it’s just process of elimination and he doesn’t know anything, but I don’t think so—he’s got no veil over his eyes depriving him of the knowledge of all our time and development in the preexistence) only the most likely-to-make-us-fall temptations he can find.  Now, as Jesus is so much greater a potential prize for him than any one or even all of us, wouldn’t he have been all the more careful to most meticulously select the Master’s temptations.  (And besides—and this is just speculation—if Jesus has to really know/understand everything about our experience in order to truly advocate for us, wouldn’t he have to truly know/understand temptation?)  Anyway, I trust it wasn’t so simple as, “Hey, little brother, turning that rock to bread is pretty stupid, so just go away.”  I think he felt tempted.

And it makes sense, doesn’t it?  After all, I can look at all kinds of people—alcoholics, for an extreme example—and scoff, “What the heck’s wrong with them; I’d never do that.”  And I probably won’t.  I can’t say that I’ve got a problem with gossip, or with dishonoring my parents.  Are there people who do?  Well, duh, or there wouldn’t have been commandments set forth to countermand the actions pursuant of such weaknesses in the first place!  I’ve got problems of my own.  And, really, if I’d been fasting for weeks in the wilderness and I had the power to turn a freaking rock into a loaf of bread, well....

Take a step beyond temptations.  Trials.  There are all kinds.  For example, there are trials that we bring upon ourselves, because we’ve succumbed to temptation or made a stupid decision or whatever else. There are also the trials that God simply puts before us, not because we’re weak, but because he wants to make us stronger.  With trials, similar to temptations—but without the examples, as this is going on forever—something that is an obstacle for me would not necessarily be an obstacle for another.

And why not?  Didn’t God create us equal?

Again, here’s how I see it:  We’re all different—little snowflakes, right?  Infinite possibilities.  But for each of us God has the same mission, that is to return to Him.  That’s what he wants.  And for us to be happy.  He wants us back!  He didn’t put us here to fail, no matter how much it might at time seem otherwise and so often.  But he also wants us to be the best we can be.  That’s another thing entirely, and what would make the pioneers the best they could be is not necessarily the same stuff that will make me or you or anyone else of our generations the best we can be.  How do I know?  Well, how many of us are pushing a handcart across the Rocky-freaking-Mountains?

When Elder Packer says the pioneers will look on us and say, “Holy crap, I’m glad that’s not us,” all it tells me is that the pioneers were different people, perfectly suited—eternally speaking—for the trials they were given; and holy crap, I’m glad I don’t have to do what they did.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t make my life any easier.  Interestingly enough, despite the difference in trial types—physical versus spiritual—God provided exactly the same means for overcoming them.  To be happy in the face of trials, to overcome the trials and gain what the Maker wants us to gain from them, what do we need? 

Faith, man.  That’s the answer.  And it’s the bleeding answer for every problem we’re confronted with, self-induced, Godly, or otherwise. Faith.  In Jesus Christ.  He, who underwent everything—condescended, to use the King James scribblers’ vernacular—so that he could pull us through or carry us over anything.

So back to the beginning: So, did the pioneers REALLY NOT get it as rough as we got it?  Nope.  It’s true.  Low and behold, old Packer is right.  It’s harder for us, because it is us, not them.  And knowing—or hearing from one of God’s mouthpieces on Earth—that my life, at least for me, is harder than anything the pioneers went through, well, it helps me remember to really put my best foot forward and remember that if it’s what the Lord’s given me, it must also be what’s best for me, and that (as well as being another clause in a ridiculous run-on sentence) is really comforting right now.

Amen.

A Simple Miracle

When I started this blog-thing a few days ago, I thought this sort of entry would be the kind I wouldn't write--that is, a super simple, super personal, generally inartistic (I know that makes me sound incredibly pretentious, so take it as "he's learning, so we'll forgive him for now, at least until he proves himself a snot again") and undeveloped post.  Well, yeah, I'm learning.

Several months ago, my wife won four day pass tickets to Lagoon, a theme park here in Utah.  Under normal circumstances it's too expensive a place for us to visit casually, much less spontaneously, enough so that even with the free passes, we didn't make any plans.

Well, we've got nothing right now.  (And I'm not bothered by it, actually; the freedom is incredible.)  But we've been stuck in the house without the ability to go anywhere long enough that we've all been suffering a bit from cabin fever.  So, we decided to go.  Someone helped us out with gas.  Someone helped us out with food.  We scraped together eight bucks in change to pay the parking fee, and we went.

And we had a blast.

We didn't spend a penny while we were there, but we rode rides and walked around and doddered about the little pioneer village and museums and ate food and generally had a ringing blast for a solid ten hours today.  And people, if that's not a miracle, I don't know what one is.  My kids know we don't have a lot of money, but they don't know how stuck we really are.  They don't need to know.  (They're 5 and 2 for crying out loud!)  My wife and I've done nothing but hunted for jobs and tried to make valuable connections for ten days now, amid the scattered interviews, stops at Work Force Services, and whatnot.  But it's interesting (and I wasn't planning on this when I started writing five minutes ago), how our lives have changed and even for the better.  We walk places more.  We chose our food more carefully.  We cook everything ourselves at home.  We read more books.  We're going to bed at more reasonable times and waking up earlier too.  We're more productive.  I get to walk my boy to the bus stop.  I sit and work side-by-side with my beautiful wife and we peck away at application after application. 

Hmm.  As I'm writing this, I can't help but think that, yeah, Lagoon today was a small miracle, but in a way, this whole new facet of our life that's technically (professionally, though I employ my time as directly and fully as ever) unemployment might be its own sort of miracle.  Sometimes life's really hard, especially when we bog ourselves down with it.  Sometimes,  though, with just the right perfectly timed lift, you can see it for what it really is: pretty friggin' great, and thank God for that.

Doubt

I watched a movie last night. Woo-hoo, right? Well, typically, upon finishing a book or movie—and I can’t say this is the case for just any book or movie, but one that HITS me—I like to write about it. I don’t like the word “review,” but I probably ought to call a spade a ... well, not a SPADE, because that’s simply not enough, and it’s so cliché. (the Greeks, from what I understand, call figs figs, but I think the OED sites the most appropriate for the day:) So I will call a spade a “bloody shovel,” because this is likely to be significantly more than a movie review.

In the past (and still), upon a great book/movie experience, I’ve emailed a fellow literary conspirator with my thoughts, or simply given expansion to a recommendation (I rarely “review” that which I don’t care for, mostly, because I rarely finish that which I don’t care for, and I’m not going to recommend a movie that I don’t— sorry, I’ll move on). When the show or book’s really good—or impacting, at least—I frequently wish I were back with my old kids at the Saginaw Arts and Sciences Academy and that we might watch, appreciate, tear to pieces, and get it. Well, I don’t have SASA. Heck, I don’t have a school at all. OR students, for that matter. I do, however, have fellow literary conspirators, and that’s whom this is seeking.

Back to the lack of a school:

Every review or critique—mine, anyway—needs a context, else there’s no understanding for the nature of the impression, or, in this particular case, the CRATER. So, I’m couching this movie review in unemployment—and not because that’s the title of my freaking BLOG and that I’m particularly interested in maintaining a theme, but because my COUCH—the very one from which I watched the movie (or at least it’s pillows which supported my view from the floor, because my back was hurting) —IS unemployment. Or my glasses are, at least.

So I watched John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt. I loved it. Period. (DISCLAIMER: if you have any thoughts that my review might be anything more than totally subjective and if you might be offended thereby, then, please, stop reading.) So, yeah, it was great. Here’s what I think (excuse the general generic-ness of the beginnings):

The performances are wonderful. I’m a big fan of the accents, for one thing. And Philip Seymour Hoffman—man! —really dug into his Father Flynn sermons. When it comes to it, and despite how great the interactions between him and his co-stars might be, these sermons were the highlight. I particularly enjoyed how each (four, I think, altogether, and two significantly better than the others) seemed to usher in the next act, which, of course, makes sense, as it was adapted from Shanley’s own stage play. (I’d love to see that.) More on the sermons later.

I appreciated Shanley’s selection for historical context. It would have been easy, and a copout, to put it all up in a more modern time, what with the Catholic church’s bad press with priests and scandals and stuff. What’s great about putting it so much earlier is he firmly points out that the movie’s not about the potential scandal (and this reinforced by the enacted, non-lexical iteration/rendering of the title in the abrupt and perfectly-placed End), but the swirls of leaves and feathers that surround it.

That being the case, I’m brought up to probably my biggest point of the movie (and thereby explain my general inability to write of the movie concisely and fluidly). But first, a word on art and poetry (please refrain from groaning):

For me—and I’ve tried to instill this in my students—art is, and should be, personal. Who cares how great a work or event or person is if it/he/she doesn’t mean something to you (case in indirect point: while I was amazed by Yann Martel’s most recent book, Beatrice and Virgil, I couldn’t understand why he—so not-a-Jew—should write such an evidently personal account of the Holocaust, and in such a way as to make it appear that the book was no more than a writing exercise designed to determine his ability at conveying a significant piece of history—it could have even been randomly selected, but I guess he was looking for audience—as artistic metaphor!)? It’s difficult for me to say exactly why any of my very favorite works are favorite. I can point out what I think makes them great or impressive, but the personal connection is the clincher. The emotional connection is what elevates the work to—another cliché—more than the sum of its constituent parts. That’s what’s happened with Doubt. Cinematography. Location. Season. Cast. Delivery. Pacing. Metaphor. Motif. Blah. Blah. Blah. Just pieces. Take the blinding old nun, for example, and her relationship with Sister Beauvier (Streep) Maybe it was just a tool, but were she not there, Beauvier would look like the dragon Hoffman’s Flynn labels her as from the beginning. But she’s not! She’s human! Though we very nearly in fact and indeed see her in no more human capacity than a great fire-breathing lizard. And her relationship with Amy Adam’s character, Sister James. This woman—Streep’s—is a good person, trying to do what’s right, but she screws up. She points the finger (echoing, conversely, the great God-finger from the gossip sermon) at Flynn.

So back to the sermons. The two strongest are the first, regarding the general issue of doubt, and later—the second? —about gossip (this one because it was just amazingly-well presented by Hoffman—yes, AMAZING). Obviously, that first sermon sets up the premise for the whole movie, and how it permeates so much of everything—like those scattered feathers of gossip do—throughout every little nook and cranny of the plot, its characters, and into the very fabric of the whole construct. Really, it’s a very small movie, technically speaking. A Hulme or Pound compared to the epoch operatics of a Tolkein or Steinbeck. But, and just like “Town Sky-Line” or “The Garrett,” it’s SO * MUCH * MORE.

So what?

(This isn’t changing the subject. Really.)

While I served my LDS mission in Italy, many of the other missionaries and I collected quotations and anecdotes from and about big members of the church, generally and particularly regarding Joseph Smith. My favorite of these, likely apocryphal, and not about Smith, regarded a current member of the Church’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Dallin H Oaks:

Oaks had just been called to the Quorum of the Twelve and, as such, delivered his first General Conference talk. He stepped into an elevator soon thereafter and was joined by President Kimball, who congratulated him on Oaks’ address. Oaks was gratified and smiled. “Thank you very much,” he said. President Kimball then said, rather abruptly, “Therefore what?” “Pardon me?” Oaks asked. “Therefore what?” Kimball repeated. “It was a wonderful talk, but therefore what?”

The point, which I took when I heard the story and hold still is this: it doesn’t matter how eloquent or scholarly or humorous or whatever a presentation or work may be if it doesn’t ask anything of the audience (sort of takes down to nothing—if we apply this to the act of creating art—making art for the sake of making art and doing it for self (though I’ve got opinions there, too—another time)). So, the movie, Doubt. Therefore what? Well, here it is. Doubt. That’s the answer—the therefore-what: DOUBT. Duh—which is nearly as universally applicable as is my blog title, only less generic, as it turns out.

So why “doubt,” if this is such a personal work for me? And that first sermon of Father Flynn’s nails the big question. Is IT—doubt—a good thing, an endowment from our Maker—forcing us into care and caution? Is it the divining force toward humility, wariness, gratitude? The problem with this is that, from my understanding, caution is the opposite of impetuousness, and shouldn’t we, as testifying Christians (I speak of me, here), heedlessly/impetuously do whatever is right—black and white—and right now?

Sheesh. What does that even mean?

If I were impetuously GOOD, would I have stayed with Bud or left anyway? ...I have my doubts.... (ha!) (And, I swear, I will only permit myself two more entries that even mention the man; I’ve had other jobs, after all.)

Let’s look at it—Stay versus Go Anyway. And it really only amounts to a bunch of questions—all ultimately pointless, because I’ve already resigned! 

• WAS HE A BAD DUDE?
• WAS HE A GOOD DUDE?
• DOES HIS GOOD OR BAD DUDE-NESS EVEN MATTER (IT WAS A GOOD ENDEAVOR, REGARDLESS)?
• SHOULD I HAVE FOLLOWED MY MOTHER-IN-LAW’S ADVICE ALL ALONG AND BEEN SHOT OF IT TWO YEARS AGO?  

Further: doubt regarding—

• how I discipline my children,
• working for Bud,
• joining Facebook,
• leaving public education,
• leaving Michigan?
• Is Father Flynn’s “wind” blowing at my back as well? And if so, is it destiny or suggestion? 

So I finished the movie. I already mentioned this, but here it is again: The ENDING is perfect in timing and significance—perfect. Perhaps less so because of itself and its location on the spectrum of PERFECTION, than for the subjectivity of my viewing, and it hit me, less perhaps because it was a great movie than because it was so stinking applicable. Unemployment lends doubt, man!

*

So this was not an unbiased or objective critique. I apologize. I warned you. But watch the movie. We’ve all got our doubts.

Burger King and The Bud

My first job (and I imagine my calc teacher, good ol' Mr. Andreas, rolling his eyes) was burger flipping at Burger King. Any shift of mine comprised of me taking meat from the freezer, feeding it to the broiler (okay, not “flipping” per se), stashing the bubbly gray output in the steamer, and, as the orders popped up, assembling burgers at lightning speed (or I got totally chewed out by the viscious shrew in the office). Sometimes I got to wash dishes.

I was sixteen.  Since then, and in no small thanks to BK, my threshold for pain has risen signficantly, and I'm sure there are a whole lot more people out there with a higher tolerance than me, but—holy crap! —my first job was bloody torture.  Look at it this way: imagine your worst fast food nightmare with all its attendant grease, offal, and cobwebby corners and instead of sitting beyond the safety glass—like from your car! —looking in, you’re actually INSIDE the machine like I was or any other poor employee: a cog implemented in the production of ... well, you know.

Okay, so apart from working there, I like Burger King just fine—but as a PATRON.  I am a Whopper fan.  (And who can criticize the Jr.?)  But, and here’s the parallel, I also like/-d my most recent employment and -er, and, yet, like BK, I am no longer there.  If you read my first entry from September 8, you may recall Bud, Bud, the Uber-Ameri-Man boss with the t-shirts and goatee. You may recall that yesterday (not to mention last year) he was not the vampire; he was not the pimp (though he retained certain vestiges of both); he was the bridge between the then and the now.

I called Bud a week ago and resigned. He chuckled sarcastically and said, “I knew it.”

Backing up:

I have two, and only two, fond memories from my Burger-King days:

The runner-up moment came on an evening shift during a break.  Fifteen glorious minutes.  I poured my free drink (the one perk to working BK back then), grabbed a complimentary newspaper, and headed for an empty booth.  I braced myself for the inevitable acceleration of time, which would immediately and shockingly launch me across space-time at a some ridiculous and entirely unpredictable rate, the moment I sat down.  I opened the paper randomly, scanned a column, sipped my root beer, turned a page, sipped again, and saw it: the Announcement I’d been waiting for!  (To give a little context to the time frame we’re looking at:  It was more than half a lifetime ago that I was sixteen and engaging in my first “real” employment.  I’m 33 now.)  I was thrilled!  I read it again and again.

Harrison Ford had agreed to do a fourth Indiana Jones movie!  (Little did I know all those years ago....)

So that was the lesser of the two great moments, this one providing hope and happiness—yes! there is something good in the world.  The next provided freedom.

It already felt like I’d been working there forever, though it had probably only been a few weeks.  I hated it. My feelings weren’t a mystery.  I talked to my parents about it, and my dad told me in no uncertain terms that I could only quit BK if and only if I found another job, and not bloody well until.  I’d looked around a bit, chased down a possibility or two, and applied, but I hadn’t heard back from anyone yet.

One night, it all finally came to a head.  It got bad enough that I even got up the guts to finally do something about it, AND willfully rebel against my father (and that, for me, was no small deal)!  I was scheduled for the last shift of the evening.  It was my first time closing.  I didn’t know what that meant—no one had told me—and was appalled when eleven o’clock came, went, and I hadn’t been sent home.  “Hey, I’ve done my hours.  It’s time for me to go, right?”  “Forget it, kid,” one of my co-workers said.  “You’ll be here ‘til two ro three more hours, man.  We gotta clean it all first.”  The schedule said eleven. IT SAID ELEVEN!  I got up the nerve asked my supervisor (boy, was she a GEM!).  “One or two o'freaking'clock, if you’re lucky, squirt.  Now mop the floor!”  Really.  She called me squirt.  I was twice her size.

“Can I break first?”

I had my fifteen minutes.  Could I make it in time?  (The absurdity of this concern, considering what I was about to do, didn’t hit me until years later.)

Instead of my typical root beer and newspaper, I speed-walked to my [mom's] car, gunned it all the way home, ran down to the laundry, shrugged out of my uniform and into some cleans (still couldn’t escape the smell), back to the car, back to BK, and stopped aside the drive-up window.

You can guess what I did:

I knocked.

The restaurant was closed.  The drive up was closed.

I knocked again, and the one employee whom I didn’t hate and who didn’t hate me, some older lady—spinster and toothless—answered, though part of me (the then-very, VERY small part of me that actually had a smidgen of confrontational gut to it) really, really wanted it to be my supervisor.  I told her, “I quit.  Would you mind giving these to B_____?  Thanks.”  And I went home.

Oo, it was sweet.

And what’s all this got to do with Bud?  A few things.  First, though it seems thin without explanation, the pleasant symmetry aligning these two jobs: first and last, both quit, no backup plan more than a prayer.  Well, all that plus the fat all-American-ness inherent to both via Bud and the Whopper.

That symmetry is really where it’s at.  But this is where it gets personal and serious, something I didn’t have back then—seriousness—but now, 16+ years later, I’ve got it in spades via my family.  That does something to you—to me.  It means something more than a cool story to tell your friends that, “Hey, yo, I quit my job and don’t have a new one yet!” what you've got kids.

I’m not going to get into the whys and wherefores of my most recent resignation.  Suffice it to say I had good reason for leaving.  I hold no ill will for Bud or his enterprise.  In fact, a lot like Burger King, I really love the old Whopper, and what his business plan was trying to accomplish was really pretty great (even if I can’t confess a belief that it would or will ever actually work).

Remember, it was my dad who said I couldn’t quit BK until I had another job.  He never found out about the glorious nature of my departure from Job #1, or the short gap before #2 kicked in, but he knows all about what’s going on right now.  We had a pretty long, pretty serious TALK about the ethics and morality involved in such a decision, stepping into the dark of the unknown on a prayer, and while I can’t say I ever PRAYED that Harrison Ford would do a fourth Jones, that announcement all those years ago—so late, so late in its realization—did in fact give me something positive to hold on to.  Well, I’ve got my own prayers, but what’s even better is I’ve got the prayers of my family, most importantly my wife (and not, “Dear God, fix my idiot husband!").  We’re working side-by-side at this.  I resurrected an old computer, I put all my application files on both, and we hunt and search and apply and follow up all day long. Almost like a date actually (how desperate is that!).

It’s a funny thing, looking back now:  practically the day I started working at Burger King, I swore I would never take another fast food job.  I’ll tell you, it’s nothing but the seemingly-universal fear of employers’ for hiring the “over-qualified” that’s maintained my old, naive vow.  We’re so desperate right now, even Burger King’s looking good.

Pimp Daddy Man and the Vampire

This isn't new writing. Actually, I wrote it a year ago (it's doctored-up now, though; things change over twelve months). It is, however, a pretty good prelude to what's coming, as the un-named academic institution alluded to in the "column" is the one for which I no longer work (no animosity; I'm really fine with it--well, except for the part where I don't have a job right now).

It’s been a dozen years since my two years in Italy, and over those years my brain has managed to take all the instances of the once-linear memories, blend them up, and mash them down into just one place in one city, just one time of the week at one time of the year, and right there on this little piazza, right around the heart of the city center is everyone/everything I know and love. All of it all at once. A great and mighty concentration of two years’ images and impressions: It is always sometime in early winter with lots of descending fog; it’s always the weekend—a Friday night; and it’s never just one moment, rather it’s the progression of the evening, from just before sunset, through to the end of the dark, chilly, yet somehow and miraculously cozy night when all the crowd and their adornments—the fragmata of my nostalgia—slowly drain from the one square in the one city in the West of Italy, and the fogs eddy and pool in the wake of the departing.

The book ends of this stock evening and its saturnalia are, and as the title above may indicate, Pimp Daddy Man and the vampire. In Italy—or my chaotic memory of Italy (and really, if I'm honest, my the Italy from my memory and the true geographic location are not at all the same place) —it is the development, people, and ambience of the night that bridge the gap between these two ends, the Pimp at the beginning and the vampire after; In my home today in Utah County, Utah, there’s another bridge: my former boss, a once-rich, Bic’d-bald to hide he’s balding, super-sized American of the quintessentially best and worst kind.

I’ll talk about the The Pimp first.

As I sit on the bench in my mind at the edge of a small stand of decorative trees on Piazza Mazzini (which my memory portrays very differently from the representation I just checked on Google Earth), I watch the slow 4:30 traffic skirting the edge of the evening: an elderly couple on bicycles with plastic shopping bags hanging from their handlebars; a woman, a nanny most likely, walking three children surely not her own; a miniature dachshund, apparent victim of some sort of swelling, corneal dysfunction, darting about the street and approaching a young Ghanaian in brilliant purple at his blanket of knickknacks, and the dog sniffs a rawhide model hippo and defecates on the spot, then twitches violently, and runs off, leash clattering; there are two priests—one laughing, one serious—gesticulating wildly, and the serious one stops just short of the fresh offal to emphasize a point, the laugher now hidden behind a pillar, leaving the other to gesticulate alone; and then from under the portico emptying onto my piazza, I see him: I see, emerging as though surprised by the great open and sunlight in which he finds himself, casually pleased by his good fortune, and yet somehow simultaneously bored, Pimp Daddy Man.

I have seen him many times stalking for hours the streets of the city center, always dressed and pressed and mannered the same. This time and just as always, he’s smoking, and clearly bending to affect that super-dope John Travolta smoke or maybe James Dean. There’s a greasy, black ponytail to match his olive-oily skin, slick black clothes, worn and polished pimpin’ shoes, and a strut so supremely exaggerated that he must be suspended from strings. Yet this all the man does not make. The lynchpin of the Pimp’s equable livery and ensemble is the jauntily knotted black tie emblazoned with flaming pink star proclaiming its wearer in big yellow letters (and more rightly without the here-accompanying indefinite article, which, by the way and for the audacity of simply wearing such an obsequious adornment—or, perhaps more aptly-labeled, garnish—should be changed spontaneously and forever to the definite:) a PIMP DADDY.

Before this current year of my life I have not given The Pimp thought beyond the very occasional and good-humored oh-yeah-I-remember-that-guy. Now, however, I am employed by the man I will here dub Bud. (I will get to the vampire shortly.)

Earlier, I said that Bud, that über-Ameri-man boss of mine, was my current life’s connection between the now-metaphoric Pimp Daddy Man at the beginning of the pullulant evening and the vampire at its end. That’s not really the case. Bud is more, I guess, a quintessentially American analog of The Pimp himself. It was my employment under this Pimp analog (though in Italy I never worked for this or, certainly, any other pimp) that correlates to the development, people, and ambience of an Italian weekend evening in early winter. The vampire is yet something else; Bud is not—not even cliché-ly metaphorically—the vampire.

Bud is a failed developer, victim of the economy, and former though so he believes yet-football player or jock, with neatly-cropped goatee and a penchant for such brilliantly logoed t-shirts as “I’m Bringin’ Sexy Back.” This is certainly Bud’s most obvious connection to Pimp Daddy Man. There is another: while Pimp Daddy Man maintained a constant and salacious hunt for willing (willing being the operative word, certainly not another word like, say, for example, attractive) young women, Bud is a businessman, whose current ambition is—ideally attractive, but really something much more like The Pimp’s quarries—just as evasive, and for which he employed me.

It takes a few hours for any Italian weekend super-evening to really get rolling. The Peruvian street band with their smiles and amplification, the gypsies with their contrapuntal accordions, sidewalk artists and the solicitous patrons and admirers, flocks of the groomed and plumed, food vendors, chiming shop doors, rings and waves of smoke, the chattering grummets and the click-clacking shoes…. All of them emerge—materialize—as one along and from the streets, under the portici, and into the square, and the noise is a wash like the fog which plays about just like you might imagine happy ghosts, and I sit there in reverie.

I said before that my bench is at the back of the square, tucked under the eaves of the little cobbled park with its trees and two-seater café tables. Along my left, its right-hand border parallel with the back slats of my bench, is a narrow street, down which I’ve never walked (and which, according to Google Earth, doesn’t even exist anyway), and I don’t know if I ever will, though not for lack of interest, especially considering the general attraction and invitation of such isolation after so-ebullient a bevy. I imagine what it may be like, and I can even see—see like you can see in dreams—the total silence, that entering this alley will entirely isolate the absconder from all the ecstatic noise and smell and imagery meters away. And down along this right hand wall, where I can’t see it from my bench, though I know—again, with dreamlike certainty—it’s there, there’s a door, unlit and plain. Through this door is the vampire.

Again, Bud’s not the vampire. Patience, Grasshopper.

Bud recently attempted to purchase a massive building as premises to his newest business venture over which I would be the presiding manager. The building had its genesis as a giant indoor carnival replete with cafes, video arcades, band stands and bowling alleys, rides and roller coasters and roller rinks, photo booths, popsicles and popcorn and corn dogs, elephant ears and funnel cakes. Over the years it’s been remodeled and retrofitted to house a rather ridiculous variety of endeavors. Bud got his eye on it when the present owner gave up and listed it. Bud had grand visions. He pictured again the cafes and now a computer store and now a gym and day spa, sporting and athletic fields, services to the community, auditoriums and classrooms, and all as accompaniment to and in symphony with his grand scheme. It would be magnificent. We even moved in on the promise and trust that earnest money for the purchase of this place would soon arrive and all else would neatly slide in place. Three or four weeks later, I sat in my office, leaned back in my chair, and breaked a momen--from such tenable duties as creating forms and informational pamphlets and letters, hiring staff, and all the other official tittles wrought by a presiding manager--just to steal a look out my big windows. Maybe I would even step out and into the tremendous atrium, five stories high with full skylights above and trees and gardens below and along the cobbled paths leading from front doors and offices to cafes, bandstands, and two sweeping, Cinderella staircases.

In Italy—my stilted, jumbled memory of Italy—it is at the deceleration of the festa that my attention is drawn to the dark, absorbing street; here, now, in Utah and my deluded fantasy—unavoidable spawn of Bud’s over-ambition (and I think I’ve always known it would never work) —it’s when I step out of my office and into the great wide open and see that there isn’t anything or even anyone here—just Bud, his remnant crew from previous ventures, and me—that my attention is drawn away, and in a building this tremendous and overwrought—so many new walls built and old walls removed, newly lowered floors and raised ceilings, new furnace, tech, and storage closets—there are near-numberless dark, absorbing streets, each, certainly, with its attendant vampire or other beasty. Bud walks these just as the Pimp did in Italy. I’ve seen him do it hours at a time, and each time he steps from an alley or byway of the great construct and back into the sunlit atrium he’s blinded, casually smug, and maybe even a little surprised by the light.

This all ended, of course. The building is no longer an option, and the court is forbidding our reentry. It’s no longer Pimp Daddy Man, the party, or even Bud drawing the attention of my thoughts. It’s the vampire.

When I was in Italy—such a romantic, mysterious place—it had to be a vampire that lived behind that otherwise-inelegant door down that sucking side street. Things are different now. I don’t know what’s behind the door anymore, and I don’t think it really matters. Maybe it’s a vampire, maybe some other monster, fell and caterwauling, maybe the apartment’s just empty . Maybe there is no apartment—never was an apartment—with or without a door or anything behind it.

But, really, I don’t think it’s any of this.

No matter how wonderful the potential of the great and spacious building, Italy—my metonymy of all things bright and beautiful—my Italy (and again and maybe/probably my Italy now isn’t anything like the Italy that’s really over there) is the point. Bud’s there. The Pimp’s there. So is the party, every Friday night. The alley’s there, and so, of course, is the door. All a mystery, and someday, and I like to think no matter what, I’ll get back there. Then there’s the next point: about two years ago I started walking down this dark, quiet, unknown and inelegant alley when I accepted the offer from Bud. The road’s there. I just exited.

Surely there are other doors. Maybe Italy’s behind one of them.