Beta Testing Adulthood

I have to say I’m a sucker for good irony. Ironic situations provide some of my favorite opportunities for humor. But the topic for today is funny on the front end while sporting an annoying hypocrisy on the backend. I am talking about the modern miracle of electronic communications from my kids’ schools. The irony comes when you consider how we are inundated with a constant flow of electronic information from the school and yet we are charged by most modern studies to reduce screen time and set an example for, you guessed it, our kids!

If you don’t have kids in school I will catch you up real quick. The days of paperwork sent home with your kid for you to review are essentially gone. You still get the occasional piece of homework to review (and sometimes sign) or a field trip permission slip to fill out with you and your child’s entire medical histories, a list of 30 contacts who can be reached in an emergency situation including their relationships and whereabouts, a critical synopsis of Dickens novels, and an indication for how you intend to prove your child is or is not asthmatic with APA citations. Sign on the dotted line. Also please print and have notarized. But everything else is communicated in some sort of electronic medium. And holy hell are there a lot of them.

Let’s start with updates regarding the classes. Teachers will send updates. Often this starts with something akin to a syllabus. Then throughout the year you will receive these on an ongoing basis in between parent/teacher conferences. Then there is the principal’s updates (mine have 4 principals across 2 kids not including the district super). These usually include news of what is going on in the school, the land next door to the school, his/her childhood hometown, and every single parent organization at that time.

Next you receive the communication from the parent groups. Most of these are run by parents that have no responsibilities outside the home but still follow the Parliamentary Procedures set forth in Robert’s Rules of Order in order to seem as important as possible. If there is a decision between annuals and perennials, there must be a case study, a fundraiser for the case study, a bake sale to raise money for advertising the fundraiser, subcommittee meetings, and then motions on the floor to pick an outcome. If no outcome is reached, we table until the next meeting or call an emergency session of the flower committee. I feel the need at this point to quote the character of John Adams from 1776, “I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace. That two are called a law firm. And that three or more become a congress.”

You have the fundraising committees (and I know they are doing thankless work so I will be brief and gentle). They raise money for anything the tax dollars don’t cover. They send enough emails so that it is hard to tell where they start and where they end. But rest assured you will know when Homecoming and Prom are coming up.

Have I mentioned Apps? There are so many apps. Currently, I have and use: Canvas, Skyward, Playmetrics, Remind, and SafeBus. One of the fun things with these is a few of them send notification emails even when you have the app. It is quite handy when I want to authenticate the app message about marching band dry cleaning day options. You never know when Russian hackers are going to send me on a wild goose chase to a nonexistent meeting on shakos pickup. It is best to be prepared. I am hoping they add 2-stage authentication soon so I can rest easier.

By now you may be thinking me a curmudgeon (you’re not wrong). But allow me this minor defense; I handle hundreds of emails every day for work and already have a ton of communications apps for everyday life. My kiddos prefer FB Messenger. Their mother is a WhatsApp fan. My closest cronies like Signal or SMS. My work uses encrypted Outlook and Teams. My groups like MMS. My former coworkers like Telegraph. And of course I have Gmail and Hangouts for the nostalgic in the stratus. And should you find yourself 43 and dating, well you have all those apps with which to communicate too. It’s enough to send a circa WW2 Enigma codebreaker running and screaming. But we accept it all as normal.

So what is the big moral lesson in this post? I’m so glad you asked. As parents we are all charged with trying to reduce the time our kid mindlessly look at screens. It pains me when we go out for a meal and I see a family with every member buried in a screen. Sometimes my kiddos and I are that family. It is something I am working on.

But let’s add to that the example we set as parents. Sure, we have to keep up with work when we are not there (some sarcasm here but some reality as well). Granted, we have to ensure no one in our inner circle wait more than 180 seconds for answers to unimportant or inconsequential questions. And yes, we have to know the score of the Qatar v Ecuador game in real-time as the stability of our very existence depends on having this information immediately because this is how we “unwind.”

Or maybe we should step back. While I have worked hard to set down the electronic data hub I often hold in my hand so that I might experience life, I am now beholden to it for all things kid school. It tells me when the lunch account is low, when $10 is needed for an event, when to be where for a band event, if the fields are open for practice, the status of bus 799, and of course all the academics. Maybe we need to think of other ways to convey all this information. I can’t stop at work to read all that stuff. After work I risk more time not being present with those I love so I can find out what time the newly-rescheduled drop off and pickup are happening at the football game pre-social.

If you are tempted to tell me how that pickup time is not important I want you to know why I disagree. If you have missed an event/payment/paper/scheduling or anything else at your kid’s school due to it falling in that one newsletter you missed, you will be treated like a fool by the school. There is no empathy for this. I can’t quantify the amount of frustrated sighs, condescension, and glares I have received because I missed something in this Jungian communication archetype. It makes me wish I was a better parent.

By the standards set forth considering today’s school communication macrocosm I am so outgunned. I don’t have it in me sometimes to read one more goddamned email which has 20 links in it I also have to follow. Oh and a few of those require logins to other apps as well. I don’t have a suggestion for something better. But an initiative to lower the amount we have to read would be great. Or perhaps we could be afforded some understanding that sometimes we get overwhelmed and can’t read everything the school sends out. I think we could all use a little empathy as well as give a little more. But either way don’t equate my ability as a parent with my bandwidth to read your newsletter and I won’t equate your ability as an educator with how you keep me up-to-the-minute-informed on the status of the brownie supply reserves for the 5^th Grade raingarden bake sale. Deal?

Disclaimer: I know teachers, volunteering parents, and administrators have a lot on their plate. I know they do a hard job and we task them to inform us as to our kids’ progress. I also know they have to abide by district and state standards. But to offer some candor, I have a lot on my plate too. I’m not saying I don’t understand their challenges. Instead I am asking they take a moment to consider mine when they get pissed because I don’t recall the pertinent details of a 2000 word email written 2 months ago and 95% of which did not apply to me or my kids.

I suppose in the grand scheme of things it will be hard to remember this period. Life’s pageant is enormous and garish. Those that suffer it in reclusive enclaves do so in a way I cannot comprehend. Yet magnificent things are happening all around me. This year I have known success, devastation, victory, stress I could not ever have envisioned, health, illness, the pinnacle of pleasure, greatest depths of pain, and every gradient in between.

I have learned a lot. Some education is more costly. I find the direction heading into winter to be one of hope. Perhaps this will be a year when I truly feel the ground beneath my feet. That has proven elusive in the tumult of the past 4 years. Hell, it has been elusive over the past 2 decades. Perhaps even as far back as childhood. Yet I find I yearn for it. I don’t need boring but normal would surely be welcomed with confetti and speeches.

I have only recently begun to understand what that would even look like. The elusive bastard has worn a mercurial cloak. Add to it the reality that my life has always contained people who functioned best when normal was left on hold. Work remains a place of this type but that is why I have the job (crisis management). There is a certain amount of promise in that future as well. The pandemic has had us operating at 150% for almost 3 years now (talking about the workplace). We are actively looking for a new normal to give us a common canvas.

There has been loss and devastation here too. So many I started with here in 2020 are no longer around. If COVID didn’t get the lungs it killed the funding. What a shite way to get “restructured” – by the very outcome of the situation you served to stabilize. I know, I am not making much sense here but I am leaving this as a placeholder for a future post where I can talk of this topic without hurting people I care about. Please God let this new canvas be enough. I have said enough goodbyes this year.

It is the Saturday before Thanksgiving. I can almost smell the kitchen. I am ready for the laughter that comes with little abandon following a feast and some early merriment. I am ready for the embraces that come with no IOUs. I am ready for the echoes of collective joy and love to bounce throughout the house and remind me of why we do this.

I am not melancholy today. Truth be told I am hopeful. The cosmos has been paying up recently so I have had the chance to stop calling on karma to collect. Life is peaceful. My fear of change has turned to optimism (mostly – old habits and all). I open my arms to it and greet it with a grin and the kind of laugh that starts at your feet.

The Schuylkill Expressway (“Surekill”)

It’s 12:29 AM and I’m a bit groggy but simultaneously overstimulated from that Gorillaz concert. I’m blown away. What an amazing show. It was eyeball cocaine and sounded pretty great too! But that’s not the point of this post. In this I want to make the first of a series of posts on the topic of cars and discuss the school of car-crazies our American society has become. I am going to start this class with a quick review of the Schuylkill Expressway.

The Schuylkill Expressway gets its name from the oft adjacent river of the same name that was a lifeblood artery to Philadelphia from Tuscarora and branches to many other towns hours from the city on a horse (or days on the Expressway). The river once carried millions of tons of both coal and steel from the many small manufacturing towns upriver when Central PA was an industrial mecca. Now the river quietly heads from the Poconos and meanders through the Appalachian foothills of Southeastern Pennsylvania before emptying her contents into the Delaware River with the occasional kayak or crew team to break the surface tension. There was a whole toxic pollution/sludge thing that happened in between but we don’t have time for that today so I’m going to leave that history whitewashed for now and move on.

The Schuylkill Expressway begins at the convergence of 422 (The Ben Franklin Expressway), US-202 (for locals that would be the route from KOP to West Chester), and I-76 (the infamous main east/west artery of the Pennsylvania Turnpike running from Philly to Pittsburgh) just south of King of Prussia. It ends just east of Philadelphia crossing the Delaware River into New Jersey. From Wikipedia, “locally known as “the Schuylkill”, is a two- to-eight lane freeway through southern Montgomery County and the city of Philadelphia in Philadelphia County.” The 8 lane portions exist for the westernmost 15 yards and the eastern section starting near Belmont (basically northeast downtown) which constitutes the final 4 miles.

The entire Schuylkill Expressway is 25.2 miles long. No one has ever successfully traveled from one end to the other as it takes longer than one lifetime and the cryogenic suspension technology is not yet available that would allow one to do so using suspended animation. No matter what time of day you get on the Schuylkill you will encounter a traffic jam. The causes for this are many. The first is this highway serving a city of 6 million people using 2 lanes in each direction. The second is this highway being an artery for over the road trucks to traverse the state of PA from east to west and into New Jersey. The third is the fact that once of the most constricted 7 mile sections has no entrances or exits. When there is an accident there is no way to relieve the congestion. The fourth is the accidents.

There is an accident on the Schuylkill every second of every day. When you register to vote here you are also entered in a rotation whereby you must cause an accident when notified of your name being drawn. Penndot draws names daily and notifies you using the Driver Alert System. Once an accident of sufficient severity has occurred to require emergency services they come using the shoulder. However, multiple people having suffered years on this freeway become unhinged and pull to the shoulder to attempt bypassing the accident at 90 miles per hour…on the shoulder. When they inevitably also wreck this requires emergency services to respond to the new accident which causes more delays and additional shoulder-jerk accidents. Meanwhile new emergency services are called in and attempt to reach the accident by driving up the highway in the wrong direction. Inexplicably they also dispatch in the opposing direction and upon reaching the incursion they block the other side and provide services over the median. As you see in the accident pic above this means we now have ALL traffic going any direction blocked.

The congestion only worsens as the western suburbs continue to develop. It is actually faster and easier to drive to Pittsburg to see their sports teams than attempting to get to downtown Philly from the burbs on the Schuylkill. Your other option to access downtown is taking the “Blue Route” south on I-495 to I-95. I-95 from Chester (the I-495/I-95 interchange) to Downtown allowed the Mad Max and the Road Warrior movies to save a ton on actors and set budgets by simply filming a regular day on that road and dropping Mel Gibson in the middle.

Rumor has it Pope Benedict XVI abdicated as the supreme Roman pontiff after driving on the Schuylkill and was screaming and shouting impure thoughts through the tiny hole in the plexiglass safety bubble. Apparently he attempted to run a Range Rover off the road when it grazed the Popemobile merging at zero inches clearance traveling at 160 miles per hour. The 7 mile section that is “the Bottleneck” section is not under the jurisdiction of any US law enforcement agency. It is a lawless hellscape where true Libertarian ideals can be seen playing out. Crimes committed in this section are not punished as no one knows who should enforce the laws or if the Constitution even applies. Scream all you want, no one is coming to help you.

I decided to write this post after sitting in traffic on the way to The Met to see Gorillaz. We left the house at 5 and travel time end to end was originally 1 hour 9 minutes. Once on the Schuylkill we encountered the requisite traffic jamb and Google revised our time (at that moment having traveled about halfway) from 31 minutes to 2 hours and 29 minutes. Eventually we broke through having lost one hour to travel 4 miles. As we broke through I noted the remaining journey: 12 miles and 37 minutes. That is so Philly I can’t even explain.

This country desperately needs regional rail networks and high speed intercity rail. Desperately. I could have taken the train. It would have meant a 30 minute drive, a 52 minute train ride, a 72 minute bus trip or a 49 minute subway trek, and a six block walk. And the last train would have left by the time I was able to get back for the return trip. We could do so much to reverse global warming if we really gave a shit. But instead we are going to attempt making the Schuylkill a double-decker highway. The project will be done in 90 years and during it the highway will be one lane. But we are car crazies and that’s what we do.

Welcome back! I was thinking today of my trait that requires I be challenged in my life. This is true in most arenas. When I say “I require” I am not saying that they are essential for any and all things, but stagnation and waste of human potential drive me crazy. I am pretty good at challenging myself. I’ve been doing so for the better part of 43 years. I am not always successful at meeting the challenges I set. I’m a stretch-goal kind of lad (if you haven’t figured this out by now you may want to read some of the archives). Mind you, I rarely ask anyone else to meet the level I set in my goals. You see, I am aware how absurdly ridiculous my expectations of myself are and as such I try to keep that torture as masochistic-only.

I still think I may chase that PhD someday. I am pursuing a CHFSP Certification for fun now. This will be my 3rd high-level certification for hospital engineering. I’m a sucker for letters after my name. Really in the case of this one I just want to see if I can beat the test without studying. And that’s not borne of a place of arrogance; I read and apply the relevant content every single day so I think I should already have it nailed.

How does this need for challenge apply in my daily work life? Work is work, and I am fortunate to work in an industry where dynamic learning and critical thinking are valued. Moreover I work with people who challenge me frequently. Sometimes I think they’re trying to stump me…and I love them for that. I learn through application and this is the fastest route.

In everyday life I take it as it comes. I am a father and that definitely keeps me on my toes (literally, they make me coach soccer and my heels suck). My house is cool but it takes a lot to keep up with it. There isn’t much of time to slack off around here as it is. And the other people in my life? They definitely challenge me. I intentionally surround myself with people who won’t let me be lazy.

Lazy has some varying definitions to it. I enjoy being physically active and pushing myself but I detest running and I don’t ever see myself doing a triathlon. Living with a few bum joints and a torn tendon or two has pushed me toward resistance cardio and weight training. In all honesty I like to work out totally alone. If it wouldn’t look creepy I’d wear blackout glasses to the gym. I don’t care what other people are doing I want to listen to my body so I know what IT is doing. So, challenging in my case does not mean looking for people with whom to summit Kilimanjaro.

Challenge as I see it relevant to my interpersonal relationships is intellectual, emotional, and ethical. I will break that down a bit.

Intellectual is crucial. I promise I am not trying to be a snob here. I will drink a beer or a coffee with anybody. But if it is going to be someone I reach out to regularly and someone that I am really drawn to, they have to challenge my grey matter. This can occur in myriad ways but when it happens it happens and a connection occurs. They do not have to think like me. But they do have to think. Accept everything I say and we’re in for some short conversations.

Emotional seems pretty obvious. To me this means helping me manage extremes while not allowing me to sit on my proverbial EQ hands. As we age I find it is so tempting to give into becoming jaded and trying to lock our emotional being down. It is safer in a vault and it certainly helps us stave off getting hurt (I talked about this in my Revisiting post). But, to steal (and bastardize a little) a quote from my main man Ben Franklin, ‘those who would give up emotional liberty for temporary emotional safety deserve neither.’ I see the irony in picking Ben Franklin to talk about interpersonal emotions but he (with my mod) wasn’t wrong. It is okay to require from each other some emotional capital. Otherwise what we are doing is simply transactional.

Ethical is philosophy in itself so nobody can say they have the patent on the definition. For me it means my belief structure (micro) and worldview (macro). On the micro stage there are things like shoplifting and the internals such as Atticus Finch might articulate. On the macro we have police violence, Russian aggression, stock manipulation, Bernie Sanders, and inflexible Boomerism, etc. While this may sound like it should fall in the intellect portion, I feel that the intellect is the bricks and the ethics are the masons.

Find people that challenge you in whatever that looks like for you. This includes your friends, your acquaintances (when appropriate), and your person/SO/PolySOs/Small Colony/partner/spouse/special friend unit. Otherwise why do it? To get by? To make do? Yeah bullshit. I see the temptation but it’s just not who I am. If I do something stupid slap me in the figurative intellectual face. If I allow myself to think about the world through a populist lens to avoid real critical thinking or the seeking of information then kick me in my ethically-malnourished shin. And if I don’t let the emotion out when I should, poke me in the feeler’s eyes. Break the dam for the tears whether they be sorrow or joy

In any event take care of each other. Much love and have a great (physically safe) weekend! Mine has a Gorillaz concert at the Met, some soccer, and some social interaction with kindreds in store.

I should warn you that this post has some ups and downs but it is not light. Childhood memories of formative events tied to adult choices are like that. If that is not your jam or if you have synchronous trauma you may want to bail on this one.

Were you prone to fantasy as a kid? Did you ever play-pretend roles in different scenarios through imagination (by yourself)? I certainly did. As a child I think I had an overactive imagination. “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” hit home with me. I had the ability to imagine I was a captain on a space ship, seagoing vessel, or an airplane with great ease. I made my own sound effects and required few props.

If you added in some social or entertainment influences I could adopt or mimic them. I was more of a Star Trek (TOS – the good one, not Next Gen) fan than Star wars when it came to play but that could have been connected to lack of space to play (pun intended). I was a fan of Jules Verne, Walter Lorde, and of course James Thurber. I was fortunate to have some kids my age near me in the early years of my life. Although my closest 3 friends at that time (actual direct neighbors) moved away by the time I was 8 or 9.

My friend Sara lived immediately next door and we were inseparable when school was out. There is no implied love story here, we were just kids and playmates. We spent 4 solid summers playing together. She introduced me to the Beastie Boys. I introduced her to Sci-Fi. She went to public school and I went to a Catholic school. We only had playtime when school was out. And this was 80’s play so we were riding our bikes miles from our house. Those were great days. When her family moved I didn’t get a lot of warning, a few days at most. I never heard from or saw her again. The same goes for the other neighbor kids that moved – nothing. My old neighborhood was in a “transitional” state at that time and while the rent was great the conditions were not for everybody. Even with the modern capabilities of things like Facebook I have never located these people.

This is important to the post because at the time I was also struggling to make friends at school. I never have understood why but I chock it up to 1980’s being the bullying decade. I got more than a fair share of it. It was isolating and the years following would prove more formative than I wish they were. The following year my 23-year-old brother died suddenly and it altered the entire family. Gone were the days of a loud and rambunctious house filled with jokes and noise. Instead it became quiet. My older sister had been away at college and she decided to move out full-time.  Mom really wasn’t able to do much of anything but be catatonic. Dad worked 80+ hour weeks. I found some solace in my imagination. It allowed me the outlet to create things. I wrote, began writing music, and developed an interest in live theater. But the perpetuation of imagination continued beyond simple output. You see, when you are 10-11 years old with few people to talk to you find ways to get by including cognitive dissonance. It even means creating scenarios of what the perfect life would be. You can practically feel it. So you build these narratives and they don’t really go away. Coping mechanisms are so pervasive in our species and this was one of mine.

Here is the part where I reassure you that I have a point to this post. I probably have a few.

You see, it occurred to me that imagination isn’t always on our side. Consider a scenario where you take a job because you imagine it will be great but you ignore the warning signs that it is actually terrible (lawyers do this a lot I hear). Or another where you adopt the imagined promise of a romanticlove that is not congruent with reality – the love that COULD be. Can you love hard enough for two people? Trick question, the answer is no. You just give love twice as fast until yours is depleted and you have to develop new coping mechanisms or reframe the entire situation. I have done both and both have been costly to my heart and soul.

Discovering and processing this connection has been quite cathartic. I also realized that over time I have become more analytical than emotional in tough situations. My friend Rachael tells me it is a learned trauma response. I suppose that is better than it being a product of aging. But in some ways it has taken the lighter (happier?) parts away and left the denser ones in place. I miss it and I am working on relighting it. I miss the feeling of just living in emotion sometimes and not have to analyze it. This is my new self-improvement project. I want to reduce the analyzing to some degree. But getting there takes some vulnerability and that is going to be a lot harder than I care to explain. There is a trust necessary for whomever is in my atmosphere at that moment that I don’t know how to develop. I’m kind of hoping maybe they will know how in the right circumstance. Granted, I talk a lot of s**t for a guy who is timid in situations requiring vulnerability. I have definitely learned not to allow fantasy to cloud my judgement in matters of real life.

Don’t stop dreaming and don’t stop playing. Nothing is worth sacrificing that joy. But don’t let these things allow you to cosplay the life you want in lieu of actually living it.

I love the arrival of Autumn. We’re still seeing daytime temps at 80° but at night we drop to 59°. The leaves have begun to fall reminding us that we are now well into the back-half of this annual lap round the sun. With it I feel it brings a sense of wonder. For me I’m certain it does.

In the world of Vivaldi I am a fan of Winter but in reality Autumn holds my interest better than any. Fall takes us from the dog days of Summer and reminds us that change is not only possible, it is necessary. Soon the leaves will begin changing colors and this reminds us that change is also beautiful. With some change to dark and Grey we can anticipate the coming of light and rebirth. In this way the death of Summer as we move into Autumn reminds us that a proverbial shedding of skin is needed first us to emerge anew when the rains come.

In Pennsylvania we get there a lot sooner than my ancestral homeland of Missouri. The timeline runs 2-4 weeks ahead. Right now is no different. As the leaves drop the wind has picked up a delightful crispness. As a committed user of A/C when the heat clears 81 degrees this is one of the few times in any year my meter isn’t spinning with reckless abandon. I often wonder if PECO suffers a little sadness at this time.

Taking in the last few weeks I’ve coached a soccer team in 2 games, enjoyed a visit to a distillery, helped a friend move in the rain, tuckpointed a staircase, read “To Kill a Mockingbird” [again], done some planning, and finished a lot of project. On the whole I have been productive. Moreover, I have been in a good mood and it came naturally.

This is one of my rambling posts spawned by random occurrences, events, or visuals that strike me. This time it was the green grass and the blue sky with tolerable temperatures. As I considered what to write I immersed myself in the understanding that change is good. 2022 has taught me a lot about resilience (more than I cared to know actually) and part of resilience is adaptation. My new normal is not all that normal if taken from the baseline of the rest of my life. I have my health, my family, and my life. It hasn’t all come easy, but I am adapting. And it is good.

What is it that drives us to multiply the emotional sins of our past? Why do we amplify the trauma given us by our parents or ancestors? And why in the name of [pick your supreme being] do we allow these school shootings to continue? In the Guns & Jesus side of the argument they want to put religion in our public schools. THAT should help, right? History has shown us that when you inject religion nothing but real and lasting peace comes about. We all know how if you pray in a foxhole the incoming bullets just bounce off.

It almost feels like we thrive on tragedy. But I don’t think that is it. I think we are scared of change. Like if we admit we’re codependent on a disturbing status quo of societal self-harm in the name of a farcical “freedom” concept we will be called a weak or a masochist. Dare we admit our feelings of loneliness and despair from being bullied or marginalized lest they paint us into a corner? We don’t want to feel alone and we don’t want to look weak or play a fool.

Well, we need to get something straight first; those are interpersonal problems, not spiritual ones. If you won’t follow a moral code without worshipping a prepackaged deity, you certainly won’t construct a real moral code in any meaningful way if you find a deity to follow. If the religion-as-character-foundation is your plan just know you are accepting a leash, not an enhancement of your moral being.

Add to this our ingrained machismo learned from years of immersion in toxic masculinity, create the right atmosphere, and violence is the obvious result (if you think this statement is hogwash I encourage you to watch the documentary on Woodstock ’99, see also: add Limp Bizkit). Sometimes the violence is against others, and sometimes against ourselves. But humans remain terrifyingly adept at tearing each other’s flesh with ease and increasing efficiency.

We know more about the human brain today than ever before and yet our behavioral healthcare remains underfunded and stunted. Rather than giving therapists the resources they need to help solve these problems we cut funding and access because ‘“socialism” or some stupid shit. There are times I’m surprised the ammosexuals don’t just advocate for gun socialism. You know? Like have the government hand everyone a gun and let chance work out the details. This album (idea) has all the greatest hits of the gun-nut culture: 1) not perpetually ongoing, 2) supports gun manufacturers, 3) biblical (Old Testament-y) albeit modernized, 4) cannot be considered helpful to those in need in any way, 5) and somebody gets hurt or dies (who’s up for a prayer service/candlelight vigil!?).

Of course this idea is absurd. The right would never do something to help everyone even if it was only performative. Besides, why give the guns away? You can get a gun no problem. My home state of origin has essentially neutralized all gun laws of any kind. I mean, what the fuck could go wrong in that equation? “Do you have multiple violent felonies on your record? No big deal. I’m sure you’re not a threat now, especially if you’ve accepted Christ.” On a side note, ask the same mental furballs that are cool with arming violent offenders if they would be cool with those same felonious individuals teaching their kids and you will get a different answer. There are a lot of mental gymnastics involved when you want to contradict yourself and then claim it to be legitimate because of a collection of parables written by drunk clerics 1500 years ago.

At a time when our healthcare system has the research and knowledge to truly address the crisis, we stop mid-swing. The system is woefully understaffed and suffers burnout at an alarming rate. Why would a nurse want to take on someone that swings at you or spits at you when they can work at an ambulatory surgery center for more money and less risk? Why would a med student pick psychiatry when your patients likely never get 100% better and you come out of residency with $500k of debt? Especially when they can be an ortho or an anesthesiologist and make more money while seeing much more visible and consistent results…

There is not an easy answer here. When I say “easy” I don’t mean a solution simple to decipher. By “not an easy answer” I mean it will somehow disrupt our lives a little. We might be inconvenienced a little. We might have to submit proof of mental stability in the form of a test before buying a gun or a large single-purchase of ammunition. We might have to have trauma-informed specialists in schools to look out for at-risk youth. We might have to consider giving up weapons that fire ammunition designed to cause organ damage irreparable by even the most skilled of surgeons (yes the AR-15 – I don’t care if you call it an assault rifle or a noise stick it is specifically designed to reliably end human lives). Read: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/parkland-shooter-s-ar-15-was-designed-kill-efficiently-possible-ncna848346.

There has to be something we can agree on. I can say our polarization is troubling and labeling the opposition is clearly something of which I am guilty. But I really believe I could stop if we could at least find a compromise that makes a difference provided that compromise is NOT adding more guns or arming teachers. Our schools should not be battlefields.

Like most people I don’t know the solution. I just know we can’t keep doing what we’ve been doing. Perversion of the Constitution is not an unimpeachable excuse for everyone to have a judge/jury/execution-ing device on their person at all times (sidebar: fuck Antonin Scalia).

Now is as good a time as any to remind you to tell someone that you love them tonight. We are more fragile than we want to admit or accept and our lives can change in an instant.

While a deviation from my normal post content and themes, I accepted a challenge from a friend of mine that I write a positive post. Now, I refuse to concede that many of my posts end on anything but a positive note. She is right in that I need to try nailing positivity from start to finish at least once. I have an easy topic: U14 Soccer. I have been an assistant coach for 2 seasons (and a rabid fanDad for about 10 before that) but this season I was asked to take on the head coach role. Um….GAAAHHHHHH!

I hid my abject terror behind a confident face and a clipboard. Fortunately, the incredible head coach under whom I worked these last 2 seasons (Coach Harry) has stayed on as an assistant lest I should trip and fall on my face. This first week however has just been me. All three assistant coaches had other obligations. No biggie, right? Just me and 17 (yes we are 11 v 11 this season and we have a big team) kids ages 12-14. I’ve got this…I think…I hope.

So out I walked onto the pitch on night 1. I had my coach’s bag. I had my spreadsheet (by which I live and die). I had my clipboard (dry erase no less). I had my ballcap and sunglasses. I had my slide-in polymer condensable shin guards. I had my new Copa Mundial futbol boots (the Kangaroo really feels amazing). I had everything but confidence in that moment. But I promise you no one knew it. And I remembered something from my favorite show…

I called the group together. I took roll. It had been raining most of the previous 2 days so the smell of the grass on the pitch was almost overwhelming but just shy enough to be perfect. The temp was still high 60s yet almost called for a light jacket. I had outlined 5 session drills for the night. First single-touch paired shots. Second double-touch paired shots. Third came reception dead-legs. Fourth was throwing practice. Fifth was side-to-sides with rollover on the 4th. I had a chance to start seeing each player’s individual strengths and areas where there exist opportunities. Everyone including the coaches have places where learning is possible. And they were responding! More than half these kids are new to me and we were getting things done!

The end of night 1 arrives and off the pitch we go. My son tells me, ” dad, you nailed it.” I’m pretty sure I floated the last 20 paces to the car. Time to plan practice 2 (next night).

Walking out on the field on night two I felt myself walking a few inches taller. We set up the cones and Puggs. Time to practice slalom dribbling. I find the issues I expected to: comfort with one foot meaning the other isn’t used at all, dribbles too far out to defend, and overpassing. All easy things to fix. Next we do dead-legs and bounce-kills. It took a while but once they realized they had to do it until I saw committed effort we started getting somewhere. Letting those that showed the most commitment take a few minutes of R&R encouraged the others to fall in. Then another scrimmage. We were short on players so it was 5 v 5 with one sub. Everyone was rotated. If you were amazing at a position you were rotated into another one so we can put the cards on the table. If you love it, it comes easy, and don’t do anything else am I doing my job? In my opinion, no. I’m here to push them to challenge themselves and grow while having fun. We did just that. Several of the kids said they were sore from the drills the night before (not in a painful way but just noting). We’re on the right track.

I have been fortunate to have some pretty great mentors along the way. The past 2 seasons especially taught me more than I can begin to explain. On my way home a parent of a new player texted me to tell me how much her son enjoyed the first two practices. She lauded how much I paid attention to her son’s concerns (he has a dangerous left foot shot) and discussed planned skills development. She said he was excited! I can say I haven’t felt the personal pride felt in that moment in a while and after this summer this was beyond welcome.

Tonight I still have the smell of the turf in my nose. It is a volunteer coaching gig but I would pay them to let me do it. I don’t know who benefits more, them or me. But I am pretty sure it is the latter. Next (this weekend) I have to work on split-group practice plans as 2 assistant coaches are joining next week and another a few weeks later.

This place is where I’m supposed to be.

Tonight’s post playlist contained: 1) Breaking Benjamin, 2) Shinedown, 3) The Violent, 4) Blink. I call this playlist “Testosteremo for the Masses.”

Next up:

I think I handled positivity well. I will try to work on more elements of this in future posts. Well…at least after the next one. I definitely feel more comfortable diving into the DSM-5, Milton, Narc/Socio, and the many fallibilities of humankind. So…trying to write positively when I have a sweet dark post on trust violation, insecurities, exploitation, and stealthy gaslighting on deck…it’s…well…

Up next look for something on those 4 topics but written with excessive visual aids from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Full disclosure, I’m just looking for an excuse to post pics of Ricardo Montelban’s glorious pecs.

I am still getting used to running holidays solo. Granted, I thought I would be better at it by now but I set unreasonable standards for myself (we all know this). Either way I am managing. In reality the worst thing I have to worry about is burning the salcissia. It is nice to hear the house full of noise. My life is pretty good all things considered. But something is eating at me today; this holiday is not honored as it should be.

Why you ask? Because this is a holiday meant to honor the labor movement. A holiday intentionally placed in September (occasionally August) to prevent its association with May Day and Socialism (if you don’t realize by now that we are marionettes then you haven’t been paying attention).

I used to march in the Labor Day parade. I represented IUOE Local 148 Maintenance Workers. 2016 was my last year in the union and in the parade. It was interesting because I noticed we got so damned comfortable. We had politicians wearing the same dress shirt they wore during the week but they switched to jeans in order to come across as relatable. They weren’t us. And we knew it then. But sweet Jesus the opposition was so well organized we did what we had to. If you think “Big Labor” is well organized you should see the opposition.

There is no “Big Labor.” There are just people trying any way they can to avoid drowning. They are trying to survive. This transcends union organizing. A life and a living wage are fairly quantifiable in my opinion. If you don’t agree, enjoy your barbeque today…you don’t know what you are talking about.

I’ve been one paycheck from ruin. I have owned my own business. I have worked for others. If you want to argue the microeconomic realities with me come on ahead. I am certain I have the chops.

I am proud of my stance on labor. I am proud of my stance on living wages. And I appreciate Labor Day. But remember it is a concession given to quiet the possibility of a riot. Really, the fact that those who use their hands and backs for their labor as their currency are likely working today while I sit at my laptop (on my paid day off) is a damned shame. Those the holiday was meant to honor are working today. This should piss you off. If it doesn’t then you don’t understand the holiday. Or like me you are practicing cognitive dissonance (anyone want a hot dog?).

Solidarity brothers and sisters. One way or another we will force the tide to rise.

Happy Labor Day!

I am fond of saying “I don’t know what I’m doing” on here. That is no accident. It’s not that I walk around a clueless buffoon in this life (well, not all the time anyway). But it is more to say that nothing I type in here is vetted beyond me. I am not a prophet or a wiseman. What experience I possess is my own and my life is fraught with mistakes and missteps. I didn’t really understand trauma until I was in my 30’s (spoiler: I’m late Gen X and expressing or accepting our feelings is not our jar of marmalade). Once I understood the existence of the trauma I attempted to dissolve or drown it in various libations (plot twist: that stuff can breathe underwater).

In a recent conversation I told someone I write a blog (I didn’t have the guts to tell them it’s really a diary masquerading as an opinion piece). They said, “oh, is it a lifestyle blog?”

What the hell is a lifestyle blog? No, I’m not going to Google it. I am going to make rash assumptions and then be fully incensed about it (this is still the internet and I’m entitled to my grossly underinformed opinion). I mean, at the mouth of this river is me. I have a lifestyle and I (badly) write a blog. So….maybe it is a lifestyle blog? I don’t know. I don’t know the names of who made my furniture. I’m a snob about my Kohler bath fixtures but it’s not HansGrohe? I’m an audiophile but my hearing is damaged enough that I don’t see the point in investing in Bang & Olufsen. Although my arrogance and vanity wholeheartedly disagree…

This is my personal editorial page. This is a chance for me to impart unto you the vast cadre of knowledge I have gained over my 43 years on this ball of stone, metal, and biology [sarcasm]. This blog is a chance for me to be vulnerable in some ways and let you know that I am far beyond far from perfect. But also to let you know you’re not alone. And really you may be perfect (Hi Gaston!). In that case I’m pretending I’m on your level (deal with it, we’re flying coach in this conversation) whether it’s above or below at the moment. And maybe you’re imperfect. I find that at least as beautiful as perfect but likely much much more. Imperfect isn’t easy. You have to live in a world that requires perfection and fake it. You have to accept that much of what we assume to be settled sociology in how our society perceives beauty is actually temporary performative hogwash. You have to accept your flaws and soldier on. It drains the soul like a spile* in a Vermont Maple tree. But you do it. And that is so much more beautiful than bronzer or airbrushing could ever hope to be. You’ve got grit. I was just talking to my friend about grit. I find it one of the realest and most admirable traits in a person. This is especially true if you can avoid jaded negativity. I struggle to imagine that emo and grit can live in harmony.

Charles Dickens kind of nailed my opinion of vanity in this little bit; “Man,” said the Ghost, “if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be that, in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man’s child.” Yeah, I know Chuck was talking about charity and goodwill but I’ll happily apply it to vanity. There is some crossover as greed could also be swapped in.

Not that I’m immune from it. This guy has an interview (third round panels) with a healthcare & university chain you’ve probably heard of. So I’m pretty sure I am walking a smidge taller for it. I don’t know if it means anything at this point as my loyalty is likely to preclude my hubris and greed. But, I got through the first two rounds and part of why was accepting that I have flaws and being willing to talk about them when asked.

I hope this finds you happy and healthy tonight. If not I hope it finds you safe.

Until next time…

*Thanks to Maura for keeping me honest!