Category Archives: Uncategorized

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Primavera- Spring in Paradise

We have now officially left behind my favorite time of year, and I won’t be content again until we reach the autumn. I have not enjoyed a spring since falling in love was still a thing, and summer is too hot to particularly care for. If I can make it out to San Francisco, I think I’ll have a chance, but stuck out in the East Bay, I’ll be cooked alive this August. Growing up in the temperate climes of the Pacific Northwest have forever ruined me for pleasant weather. Once the temperature hits something above the mid-sixties, I start feeling like a lobster, and grow just as red, a combination of rage and sunburn. When I moved to the Bay Area, I was pleasantly surprised by the drastic change of climate between the beginning and the end of my journey. It was the beginning of January, and when I left Seattle, it was cold and rainy, just like every other winter which I’d ever known. Upon arriving in The Emeryville Horror, I was greeted by near-tropical conditions, a shining sun, and warm summer breeze. Somehow, over the course of a twenty-two hour train ride, I had traveled not only through space, but time as well, arriving in the summertime, some six months in the future. It all seemed so fantastic then, a little break from misery.

But what is novel for a little while can grow tiring after too much longer, kind of like how I managed to drive all my ex-girlfriends away. It took a couple of years, but I soon grew weary of winter resembling nothing more than a summer in Seattle. And the past few years have been annoyingly unbearable. Sure, I miss the snow, and actually needing to wear my flannel shirts for something other than just show, but when it gets up into the nineties just as I’m being forced to sit down for a turkey dinner, I tend to feel that I’ve been robbed of the natural cycling of the seasons. Maybe someday the rains will come, and bring something to us which more resembles something not entirely dry and hellish. And maybe on that day I will finally go to check out some of these beaches which I have managed to avoid, and sit and stare down the Pacific Ocean while the rain drizzles down upon me. And that, my friends, is how you know that I grew up in the shadow of the Emerald City. You know, if I wasn’t constantly going on about it.

The past few days it’s been painful just to walk outside, and, according to my cellphone, it’s only reached the seventies. And while it may not be too bad between the ocean and the bay, out here in the Easy Bay, we don’t have that kind of luck. Pretty soon, it will be too hot to sleep until the wee hours, and from sunrise ’til sunset, it will not be any better. Maybe I will do a rain dance of some kind. No, not an antiquated ceremony of supplication to the gods. I mean setting up a sprinkler and running through it in my swim trunks. Of course, we’re in a drought, so I probably wouldn’t be allowed. But no one can stop me from taking a pleasant cooling shower (aside from myself), and as the mercury rises, I plan to avail myself of the opportunity. Don’t worry about water waste, however. Even the most luxurious of my showers, cool or otherwise, last no more than a dozen minutes (one of the advantages which baldness has bestowed upon me). Just enough to wash away the tyranny of over-pleasant weather. No wonder all my friends make fun of me when I speak of moving down to Mexico.

Sure, I’ll be spending most of my time indoors, writing, but I can’t imagine that I’ll be okay when the summer comes. Although, there is the chance that I will get to finally see white sandy beaches and an ocean so deeply blue that I will be moved to tears. And I’ve heard that the lightning storms that roll in near the ruins are something to behold. Of course, none of that will matter if I die from heat stroke. I am the product of a genetic adaptation which allowed my ancestors to survive the bitter cold. Long gone are the days when my family tree could flourish in the summers that once graced the homeland of our species. That being said, I have family that have lived in the south for all of their lives, and they seem to have done alright, so maybe it’s time I stop complaining, and get used to a slightly warmer climate. Not that I’ll have much choice. Whether it’s a move to Mexico, or simply living a little while longer, the weather I once knew as a child, isn’t likely to return.

At least my son is well-equipped to face the coming changes. It’s my hope that he’s inherited his mother’s ability to face unseasonable weather. Whereas I can’t spend more than a handful of oppressive moments in direct sunlight before I begin to burn, my son is happy to run free, and never sad to see the clouds burn off by the mid-morning. He still feels the heat, and complains nearly as much as I do, but I can see it in his eyes that it doesn’t really bother him; a quick sip of something, and he’s out the door again. And, based on our most recent visit to the Puget Sound, he’s not that bad in cold weather, either. Even when the temperature was hovering around freezing, he was determined to hit the rocky beaches of Rolling Bay in rubber boots and a hastily thrown-on hoodie. Actually, my wife didn’t too badly, either. It turns out that it’s easier to throw on a couple of extra layers than to try to find something else to take off when nothing else remains.

Now, if you will all excuse me, I’m going to continue with this new hobby which I’ve picked up: sneezing uncontrollably, and rubbing my face raw with the constant clearing of the ever-running boogers.

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Exhaustion and Health

Honestly, I’m kind of amazed that I’m actually sitting down to write this. I didn’t sleep well last night, and I feel absolutely wiped. And before I finally drifted off last night, I had about an hour or so of incredibly painful muscle spasms. It got to the point where there was nothing I could do but wait and hope that the pain would go away. It finally did, or at least, subsided enough for me to finally drift off to sleep. Sadly, that wasn’t the end of it, however. I kept waking up every couple of hours, with shooting pains through my leg, or my spine trying to collapse back upon itself. When I finally arose about a half an hour before my alarm was set to ring, I felt beaten and battered by my own body, and completely unprepared to face the day. But it is a school day today, and not only that, but I was also volunteered to take the son of a friend as well. It would be getting light soon, and I was running out of time to make myself presentable for people I’m not related to. It’s times like this that make me despise the necessity of pants. So, brushing aside the residual pain as best I could, I gimped over toward the bathroom and resigned myself to my fate.

Even now, hours after I first crabwalked my way out of bed, I am still feeling the tension all throughout my musculature, and my brain seems mired in pudding. You know, I haven’t eaten butterscotch pudding in years. I know that I have so many other things to think about right now, and eating pudding will do nothing for my pain, but I could really go for some right now. Even my son agrees.

Pudding!
Pudding!

Great. Now instead of just being distracted by House of Cards and agonizing pain, I have to fight through a growing desire to squirt a sports bottle full of butterscotch pudding directly into my mouth. If I can actually this column finished out today, I will be impressed. I’m not sure exactly what has happened since yesterday, I mean, aside from almost more pain than I can stand, But it’s not that. I mean, I’ve grown used to the pain, although its surges of intensity sometimes catch me off guard. I just feel like I’m not all here. Last night I was feeling a little dizzy and disoriented, just before the pain took hold. I’m wondering what’s going on, and why it’s happening all of a sudden. Perhaps it’s just a side effect of getting older, or perhaps… I should probably go to see a doctor, but I don’t have health insurance anymore, and after my last experience, I don’t know that I want to go through all of that nonsense yet again.

I realize that my doctor was just trying to cover his ass, or whatever, but it was ridiculous how little he was willing to listen to me, especially when it was my money that was figuratively getting thrown down the drain for every anti-depressant prescription that I was forced to literally throw down the drain when it didn’t work. I let him know that the only pysch med that has ever worked for me was lithium, but he was unwilling to try anything that predated this millennium. And even when my physical therapist recommended muscle relaxants, he still wanted to try to kill two birds with one stone. Instead, he wound up throwing sand at tigers.

I’m sorry for droning on about this. I know that you normally come here to read my caustic rants about injustice, or humorous musings about things I that I feel like mocking. I have even been known to say nice things about people and organizations which I care about. So I want to thank you for bearing with me as I do my very best to avoid thinking the pain I am experiencing, and symptoms which are probably nothing, but still cause me some level of concern. I never imagined that I would make it past my mid-twenties, and so I have been ill-prepared to face my mid-thirties and the inevitable failing of my body. The nice thing about having a blog is that I get to write whatever I feel about whingeing on about, and not having to feel terribly about it, as it is a service that I gladly provide for free. Maybe I should reach out Amalgamated Pudding for an endorsement deal. Except that I would wind up probably accepting a lifetime supply of pudding as payment, and my wife would be upset if I had to make a living selling boxes of pudding mix at discount prices at the flea market just to pay the bills.

It used to be about running from the pain so that I wouldn’t have to feel, but now I’d just like the pain to go away so that I can get on with my life. I’d like to be pain free so that I can start to exercise, and make an effort to get back in shape. I’ve been in a free fall towards obesity since 2002, and I think that it’s time that I try to do something about that. I’m not saying that I think that my last weight-loss regimen is something worth revisiting, but I need to start doing something, or Jerry Springer will have to cut me out of my apartment before too long. But the first thing that I have to get accomplished is a reduction of my pain. If I am forced to face pain whenever I am on my feet, or sitting down, or laying in my bed, I don’t see what chance I have to make it out to a gymnasium to force myself to stretch my already aching muscles.

That’s the amazing disconnect of the human condition: I know what I need to do, and how to do it, and yet I cannot get it done. Maybe if I didn’t have to overthink absolutely everything. Or maybe if I wasn’t such a baby.

Fatmart!
Fatmart!
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Prestidigitation: A Life of Education

I am not a good teacher of things. I lack both the patience and willingness to use it to be an effective educator, at least when it comes to the fundamentals. This is a downside of how my intelligence works. I tend to pick things up through osmosis, give them a go (in private, where no one can see me fail), and then pretend that it wasn’t all that difficult to begin with. The only things whose difficulty I intentionally emphasize are the things which I have absolutely no interest in being asked to do again. Just ask my wife on laundry day. She has a very specific set of standards on how she feels that clothing must be folded, and is in no way impressed by my technique, which involves a quick doubling of said textile, with no regard to whether they will appear to be septuagenarian leggings. Unfortunately, my wife has known me long enough that she has figured out my game plan. So now I have to fold the laundry correctly. I did earn a small concession, however: I do not have to fold her blouses, as even she has admitted that they do not conform to the laws of physics, and would rather that I didn’t tear a hole in the space-time continuum whilst attempting to neatly and geometrically fold them. But she does expect me to attend to the rest of our clothing in the manner which she has taught me.

She is a good teacher, you see. Flor will keep going over the basics, and even answer my patently ridiculous queries as to why it’s actually important do it in a certain way. I could never teach another person how to do their laundry. I mean, I could explain how to use the machines, and the describe why detergent is important, and when not to use chlorine bleach, but their clothing would remain forever wrinkled, and they, like me, would have not the slightest inkling of what fabric softener actually is, or why a person should even bother using it, or how to use it in the first place. But that’s regarding something which I am incapable of caring less about. What about when someone needs to know how to do something that I’m actually half decent at?

One of the things which always drove me crazy when I was working in restaurants, was having to train other people how to do things so that they wouldn’t remain completely useless. I’m crap when it comes to laying down the fundamentals, as any of my former employees would most likely tell you. There are certain basic concepts about how one does his job, and if you cannot understand them from the get-go, then I grow irritated, and probably counterproductive. That’s why I most often just farmed the first couple of shifts worth of training to my new employees out to someone who only did that particular job day in and day out. The owners usually wanted the newbies under direct management supervision, but I felt it was better to get new hires started under the tutelage of someone who wasn’t me. I didn’t want to waste my time talking someone through the basics of how to use a register, or how to do the busy work that comes before one is allowed to actually touch the food. I’d watch for those couple of days, jumping in to make a correction now and then, and finally, when it looked like the rookie had finally achieved mastery over the basics, I would step in to finalize their education.

You see, I’m all about the nuance, at least when it comes to work. I want to know why things work so that I can figure out the best way to make them happen, and then pass that on to my employees. Take register monkeys, for example. There are three stages that most cashiers will go through: Inept, Proficient, and Stellar (there is also a secret, fourth stage: Burnout, but that is usually reserved for those employees who no longer need this f’ing job).

Inept covers the first few shifts, and I like to think of it as Training Wheels. Sure, on the surface it appears that they can ride the bike, but there is no real confidence or speed, and if it weren’t for the extra help to prop them up, they would probably fall over. After cashiers have finally found their balance, they are upgraded to Proficient. There are several subcategories here, but the main defining quality of Proficiency is that I, as the manager, will not be called up every couple of minutes to answer a question that might just as easily be addressed by reading a menu board. Most cashiers tend to stay at this level until they find other employment, as they will not get their shift preferences until they achieve a Stellar ranking. Proficient cashiers are still not my problem, but I have been known to give advice or point out little shortcuts to those I think are on the rise. Think of a Proficient cashier as running the secondary register on a busy night.

And now we get to my favorite type of employee: Stellar. These are the people who take work seriously, and are always looking out for how to do their own jobs better. These are the people who get preferential scheduling (although they never seem to get to have a weekend to spend with friends or family anymore), and keep their hours when the restaurant hits the slower times of year. These are the people who have noticed that there is a difference between being good, and being great, and are no longer satisfied with remaining among the former. I love this class of employee, and will gladly teach them what I know regarding how to streamline customer interactions and generally rock it like a professional. How does one move their line faster when it’s slammed? Limit what you say, and don’t ask open-ended questions: If someone wants something to drink that isn’t Coca-Cola, they’ll correct you immediately. If you ask them what they’d like to drink, you might as well take a seat while they decide. Stellar cashiers will know the POS and menu shortcuts, know what’s in each menu item, and know how to make proper change. These are the people whom I am indebted to for making my job easier, and I will do everything within my power to keep them happy at their life-draining, soul-crushing place of employment.

But that sometimes doesn’t work, and this Stellar individual begins to fray around the edges. They are starting to Burn Out. Maybe it’s because they are so good that the restaurant cannot really run without them, which means that weekends are for other people. Maybe it’s because the owner hasn’t approved their raise, because it’s been forever since he’s had to worry about the personal cost of basic things, despite his constant moaning about just how broke he is. Maybe it’s because the truly talented people realize that they are simply too good to be wasted on a cashier gig, and that there’s more to life than being mistreated by the general public. I’ve seen it happen so many times, and have felt its seductive call, myself. And it’s hard to argue effectively against, because it is so obviously true. Despite knowing all of this, it still broke my heart to witness one of my Superstars decide to throw the towel in, and turn down the Burnout path.

At this stage, the once-Stellar employee begins to let things go. He begins to drop his standards and perform, at best, as a high-functioning Proficient. If there is line running out the door, he can still kick it into high gear, but usually that’s just a vestigial reaction back from when he still gave a crap. At this point he is looking for another job, or has made the other job that he already has, his main priority. He will change around his availability so that you can no longer schedule him during the really busy times, and he knows that he’ll still get as many hours as he wants because he’s still the best cashier you have. You can tell a Burnout from the hatred barely, if at all, concealed behind his eyes. He doesn’t care anymore, and doesn’t mind sharing that knowledge with you.

At some point he will either become insubordinate to the detriment of everyone around him, or else he will simply not show up for shifts (usually on the busiest days), and management will have to let him go. I tried to view this as a mercy killing, but I always took it personally. I only befriended the good employees, the best employees, but it was most frequently the members of this very group who wound up breaking my heart. I’ve since wished them the best, and have taken solace in their happiness, at least to their faces, but it still hurts that they couldn’t stick around to help me get through my own purgatorial days.

Maybe that’s why it’s so hard for me to deal with newbies. I don’t want to invest myself in personal interactions with people who aren’t going to make it through their first week. Or maybe it’s because, after decades of living with Bi-Polar, it’s simply easier for me to point out how someone is failing, as opposed to setting them up from the very beginning with a chance at legitimate success. I have tried to learn from the managers that I respect the most, though they seemed to Burn Out just as easily as I did, in the end. It’s hard to balance both the ledger and your humanity. But I thank them, all the same, for showing me the importance of retaining my humanity in an industry which seems to encourage its dismissal. In my mind, they shall always remain Stellar examples of how to do things the right way. And I hope that (if I don’t win the lottery this week) when I get back into the industry which has become the harshest of mistresses, I can face it all with courage and humanity until the very end.

-Tex

A good friend, and a cautionary tale I never took to heart. Too good a man to work in this industry.
A good friend, and a cautionary tale I never took to heart. Too good a man to work in this industry.
I hope you have been resting well, and I just want you to know that I have always hoped that you were proud of me.
I hope you have been resting well, and I just want you to know that I have always hoped that you were proud of me.
The man who taught me to value my time... and myself.
The man who taught me to value my time… and myself.
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Real Life: Into The Mouth Of Madness

I am enjoying a surge in readership, which has led me to believe that an hour’s worth of writing cannot possibly justify twelve hours of obsessing over the site stats. I figured that I would be more at ease seeing that I was reaching a wider audience, but it turns out that I only fall deeper down the rabbit hole. Suddenly, what would have been inconceivable just a couple of weeks ago, has become commonplace, and as I breeze past milestone after milestone, it becomes not about the people whom I have just reached, but rather, how much further I can watch the numbers climb. I’d like to say that the game is over now, and that I’m back to writing as if no one else was listening, but somewhere there is a Site Stats page open which I am constantly refreshing. It’s really been fun, these past couple of days, reaching people all across the world, but now the time has come for me to sit back down and work on something different. Thank you to everyone for taking the time to read what I have written, and I hope that you continue to come back on your future journeys through the interwebs.

Now back to real life and reality (for once, not mutually exclusive!). Today my new stove is coming (I’m assuming that means the entire oven, but you never know), and I’m excited that I will once again be able to cook with ease. We’ve been dealing with the limitations of cooking with only one functional burner, and it has forced me to a level of efficiency that feels entirely unwholesome and unnatural. I’m the type of cook who likes to time everything just right, and use up several pots and pans, as each recipe demands. With only one working burner, I’ve had to plan things out so that I can run it like a timeshare and, to my credit, it hasn’t been a complete disaster. But now I get to play with a full set for the time in months, and it disturbs me just how much I want to whip something up just so that I can be the first to break in each and every element. That probably speaks volumes about me, but I don’t care. I get to be lazy as a cook again!

Now if only parenting were easier. My son’s counselor thinks that it is great that I am reflecting on my past, using my prior points of view to come up with strategies on how to be a better parent. I keep trying to tell her that I’m not sure, exactly, what good it’s supposed to do, as no one figured out how to be an effective parent once I became the embodiment of rebellion. The only thing that I have going for me is that I am at least as stubborn as my precious child, and I’ve had decades more experience to guide me. I knew that teaching David to question everything would come back to bite me, but I never imagined that I’d see the gapped teeth marks (as he’s been losing baby teeth) so soon. I swear, the only things he’s really lacking are discipline and time. He’s got a raw intelligence that makes me nervous on my best days, and a matching lack of anything resembling even the barest hint of common sense. It looks like my mother is getting her revenge, after all. I think that when the time comes, I’ll send myself off to boarding school, and let him stay at home. Sometimes it’s just easier to move house than it is to face cleaning up your messes.

Shannon Buxton, a friend and mentor, said recently, in response to what I wrote about the Teen Center, “I stand by my belief that teens are not broken and therefore do not need to be fixed.” I know that this is true, but it takes an amazing amount of patience to guide them through their formative years, and I look forward to sending the Minkey up to spend a summer (or several) with his Auntie Shannon who has so graciously volunteered to not fix him. That was a bit tongue-in-cheek, obviously, but I do hope that I can have him spend a little time with her when he is older, as she is able to interact with kids as if they were actually people, and I think that sometimes parents get so caught up in trying to make sure that their kids don’t wind up serial killers that we forget that (eventually) our kids might have something they can teach us, if we’re only willing to stop and listen. That’s easier said than done, of course. There’s only so many times that I can listen to stories about a video game that I was watching my son play before I starting twitching uncontrollably.

I feel like my son and I will wind up like Sean Connery and Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and not just because I am bald (and the first impression I ever did was of Mr. Connery), and David is afraid of snakes. Maybe it’s something that all fathers and sons go through which I missed out on because I didn’t get to know my dad. I just feel like by the time he grows into his own skin, and is capable of thought which isn’t directly influenced by raging hormones (or, as they are currently: sugar), it will be time for him to go out into the world, and I will find that I miss him more than I had thought possible. I think I’ll have to look back at this in a decade or so, and see if knowing what would happen made it any easier to live through. If his childhood is any indication, I do not think it will.

UPDATE: The new oven is here, but cannot be connected, as the wall outlet is for a dryer, apparently, and this new oven will not plug in correctly. Instead of replacing the outlet, the owner has told me that he’s just going to replace the power cord, thereby voiding the warranty. I don’t know. I’m not an owner, nor am I a licensed electrician, but I feel like it would just be easier to replace the outlet than perform surgery on a perfectly functional appliance. The downside to all of this is that we have been reduced to microwaving everything we wish to eat at temperature warmer than the room in which we’re sitting. Good thing Flor bought a couple more boxes of cereal yesterday!

-Tex

Oh, and here’s the Photo of the Day:

Doesn't my wife have just the most beautiful eyes?
Doesn’t my wife have just the most beautiful eyes?
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Chicken Little

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I looked up at the sky last night to see that it was falling all around me. As has been the case for as long as I remember, the best of days seem always to conclude in a spiraled attempt to be the worst. I’m trying not to read too much into it, but the fact is that, as a writer, I’m constantly on the prowl for subplots and foreshadowing. And it’s hard to pin down the cause, as I can never tell if it’s just me who’s freaking out, or if I have a right to stand my ground on any given issue. Add someone who is also showing signs of emotional fatigue, and it becomes a game of twenty questions (that you should never ask). Yes, there is a part of me that is even angrier for not being allowed to enjoy what had been my best day as a writer in well over a decade, having reached a wider audience in twenty-four hours than I had in any week before, and having been affirmed as a wordsmith of at least some value by people with whom I do not regularly converse. I should be riding high upon the world this morning, and yet the only thing I want to do is curl myself into the fetal position beneath the covers and wait for everything to fail.

For years now, I’ve had to be the voice of reason in this household, clinging desperately to sanity and rationality as a form of self-defense. That’s not to say that my wife is incapable of doing so, but she tends to focus her attention on other areas which would otherwise be neglected. The only problem in my ascendancy to this august throne, is that having to keep it all together is a massive strain, and every day that I put off the breakdown which I know is coming, the worse I know that it will be upon its prophesied arrival. Somewhere deep inside me lies a tectonic plate of sanity which has been grinding up against the neighboring plate of madness, and the pressure feels unworldly, and I know, like everyone living on a fault line must, that the Big One is on its way, and there’s nothing left to do but hope I’ve retrofitted everything sufficiently. I’m still not sure why I haven’t cracked, and it feels so overdue that I’m growing a little terrified of what will happen in the aftermath. I’m getting older now, and I don’t know that I can bounce back as easily as I once did when I was twenty-one. There are too many people who depend on me (yes, Virginia, even when I’m not pulling in a paycheck) for me to just throw in what little will that I have left and wait for Death to claim me. Of course, in putting it off, I’m just making it worse.

I remember when I could believe that love could solve everything. I also recall how that’s worked out for me before, so now the wound is extra salty. Love is hard. There are some days when it would simply be easier to grab a handful of my necessities (my laptop, hard drive, and all the old notebooks I could fit into my backpack), and just run away from home. There are couches in the world which I have not yet surfed, and my writing has always soared when I am broken by despair. And yet I know that I am too old for all of that. I cannot keep running when things get too big for me to face. I’ve run away to fight another day so many times that I think that, just this once, I should turn back around and make my final stand. Getting older has allowed me to discard the judgments of others for the shackles that they are, and the same obstinacy which has allowed me to get this far by refusing to let me fail should give me the courage to face down the end of all things, though I’ve everything to lose, and only the status quo to gain. When all the drama has been stripped away, and the arguments laid to rest, I can so clearly see that it is only our fear which drives us apart. We’re living in a constant state of terror that the world will begin to crumble beneath our feet, and when it comes to fight or flight, you could call us Orville and Wilbur Wright.

I think that I once wrote that it’s not about the grand gestures. Those are easy, and generally only for show. It’s the little things which change the world, one act of consideration at a time. And here is why I know that, despite the odds, the time has come for me to fight: my wife is someone worth fighting for, and though the simple acts of cultured love are most often lost within the daily grind, they are there, waiting patiently for us to notice, and far too humble to draw attention to themselves. I don’t know that I can become the person that my wife deserves. I am who I have always been, and I never lied about that. But for her, for my Wildflower, I am willing to make the effort. She is infuriating and obsessive, selfless and self-destructive, amazing and inscrutable. And I’m a better man for having known her.

So what does this all mean? I have not the slightest clue. I know I love my wife, but I am uncertain if the years of knowing me have robbed her of her love for me. On the outside, I am often caustic and uncaring so as to not reveal the scared and tired child behind the curtain. Someone once said that “Sometimes you can’t fix everything with a hug.” But I will hold her close until the end of days, and we can face the wave of uncertainty together, if she’ll have me. The sky is falling all around me, and I am Chicken Little.

-Tex

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The Teen Center

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What? The Teen Center is in trouble?
What? The Teen Center is in trouble?

Let me just start by saying that I’m not sure if I’m a shining example, or cautionary tale, but I said that I would write this, and write this I will. Sometimes there are things so important to me that I have to actually get out of bed and put pants on, that I can be taken just a little bit more seriously when I begin my long-winded defense of things I care about. Other times, I just say I’ve got pants on, and sort of go from there. But this is definitely a pants-wearing moment. For some reason, the one place that I actually wanted to spend time during those carefree years before adulthood (aside from in the high school bleachers with my girlfriend) is facing a possible closure due to the fact that… I don’t know… kids these days? Unlike so many other places that adults wanted us to go, back in the day, I still remember that we actually wanted to hang out at the Teen Center. Obviously, part of that was its prime location, not more than a couple of minutes’ walk from anywhere on campus, but more than that, it always held that feeling of being organically cool. No one there came out and stunk of old people trying to “get us.” More, the staff there engaged us like they would with any other human beings, and it engendered a level of mutual respect.

Don’t get me wrong, we were still teenagers, and not above testing the boundaries, and seeing just what, exactly, that we could get away with. I mean, sure, my girlfriend and I were asked to stop sucking face (on a couple of occasions), but we weren’t judged for having been making out. It’s easy to gloss over one’s memories of youth, insisting upon the adoption of a bitterness that comes with growing up, but that’s something that we never had to deal with. I remember always being treated with respect (and more than I deserved most times), and never told what I should do, but rather, encouraged to go out and make the right decisions. I can say that for a fact, I avoided so much more trouble than I otherwise would have, simply by having somewhere to go, and something to do. At home, I faced anger and disappointment for not being the person that I was expected to become, but in that little building, sitting beneath the shadows of those concrete bleachers, I was always warmly welcomed. And now, a couple of decades later, I realize that I really do miss that place, and those people, and I wish that I had something similar in my current life. Maybe what we need is a Wayward Adult Center, with snacks, warped pool table, and an NES.

Sorry, got a little off-topic there.

What really meant the most to me, and allowed me to become the adult that I am today (still alive, and moderately well-adjusted), were the staff members who chose to spend their time there. They were the parents that we wished we’d had, the ones who didn’t judge us. I can still remember Shannon taking time out of her day to sit and listen to me expound upon my heartbreak every time a new girl broke my heart, and she helped guide me through the dark times of my depression when even I didn’t really know what was going on. And it wasn’t just me that she took the time to help, nor just Shannon to offer. I always felt that no matter who was working, I had someone upon whom I could rely to help me through the most confusing years of life. And even though I began complaining about the “kids these days” beginning sometime around 1999, the fact is the Teen Center has somehow managed to maintain its youth connection and remain relevant to kids over almost a quarter of a century is a testament to how badly young adults just want to be accepted, in any generation.

Even the flannel-wearing, long haired Grunge generation!
Even the flannel-wearing, long haired Grunge generation!

The Teen Center was an exemplary alternative to the plethora of unsavory distractions of which we might have availed ourselves, and so it must remain. Perhaps the taint of time has yellowed in my eyes the character of youth, but I feel that more than ever, a place like this must exist, must reach out and help young adults make the bewildering transition from little kid to productive member of society. Even now the youth have begun to drift away upon the tides of interwebz, and it’s up to us, those who have made it through to the other side and come out alright, to help keep the doors open and get the kids off their internet machines and sat down upon a couch and talking to other people currently in the same room. Using their voices. And maybe even learning what a belt is for.

There are some who will say that maybe the Center’s time has passed, and that the kids these days no longer need an anachronism such as that. And here is where I must disagree. More than ever, we need someplace safe for the kids to go, where they can practice what it’s like to be grown up, before they face real consequence for failure. Those of us who were lucky enough to have had this resource available must stand proud and extol its virtues from the rooftops (or, should one wish to avoid a charge of misdemeanor trespassing, the streets), and help to keep The Center of the Cool Universe massive enough to exert its hold upon those who need it most.

As I have been preparing this, I was also asked to share any pleasant memories of the time that I spent there. Unfortunately, trying to remember specific happy things from two decades past is a little daunting, but I do have a quilt of snippets which I can share with you. The first time I went to the Teen Center, I believe it was following a middle school dance, or something involving Commodore, anyway, and I walked up to the this building nestled into the backside of the high school (how rad was that?) to see a show that some local bands were putting on. I used to spend my weekend evenings (because I was broke and had no girlfriends) at the Teen Center with my group of friends and played role-playing games- out in the open. For a date, I bought Independence Day on VHS and brought it to the Teen Center to watch with my girlfriend at the time, the logic being that the theater was too expensive, and this way, I’d still have a movie at the end of the date. It took me a few years to figure out the look that Shannon had in her eyes when I told her my Master Plan. It was amusement and sympathy. But, to her credit, she didn’t say a word as I sat my girlfriend down in front of the television set and proceed to the lay the groundwork for no longer having a girlfriend. She even gave us the room, though there wasn’t a whole lot of privacy, mainly, I believe, so that my shame would be more manageable. And I still can’t play pool, as I learned on a warped table, and if that sounds like negativity, then you’ve never seen me make the impossible shots, which somehow are the only kind that I can make.

I’m including humorous moments and self-deprecation, but the fact is that I spent the majority of my teen years there, and never once was I made to feel unwelcome. It was always nice to know that there was someone there to be on your side, to listen to your problems and nudge you in the right direction. Let’s come together now, and help out this institution. Let’s re-establish the Teen Center’s Non-Profit Status and get the kids back through the doors once more. It’s not a matter of telling them that it’s cool; it’s simply a matter of being cool. I know that it has been a while since we were cool to kids, as some of our own would most likely gladly tell the world, but these issues never really change, and if there is one thing that I believe in, it’s that the world will always need a Teen Center with someone like Shannon Buxton at the helm.

You! Get off Facebook! Help out a good cause!
You! Get off Facebook! Help out a good cause! Or stay on Facebook and help out a good cause!
Uncategorized

Falling in Love

After almost six years of marriage, and nearly nine years into my relationship, I can say that I miss the feeling of the random, razor butterflies that rip me up inside every time that I happen to fall again in love. It hasn’t happened for quite some time, obviously, but the memory is something which I will keep with me forever. It used to be that I could fall in love as easily as the wind might shift, and yet still love each new person just as deeply as all the other loves which came before. But being with someone for the better part of a decade is an entirely different kind of monster. It’s easy to get discouraged when that heady rush of endorphins peters out, but the key to love’s survival is to turn your eyes toward the long game, and stop focusing on the addictive narcotic of infatuation. I love my wife more each and every day, which, to be honest, because we are both imperfect beings, is a little impressive at times. We have our own drives and desires and are constantly forced to balance them against what we need to stay together. My love for Flor is not a rush of illicit substance hitting my veins and causing me to gasp. She is, instead, the warmth of sharing a mint condition copy of Detective Comics #27 with someone whom you trust until the end of days. I guess what I’m trying to get at is that she increases in value with every moment that passes, and I live in constant fear that she will soon realize that she can do much better.

On our first date (excluding that time where people were trying to get us to hook up at a friend’s wedding), I sat her down and warned her of all my character flaws. She thought that I was joking. In a way, I think that there is no more beautiful way to describe who we are and what it is, exactly, that we have. I am serious and brooding, aware of my failings, and obsessed with a certain sense of honor. My wife thinks that I am full of it, and is always looking for the punchline. Obviously, I’m simplifying things just a little bit, but it’s nice to know that even in my darkest hours, there is someone who will speak truth to power and tell me when I’m acting like an ass. That doesn’t mean that I always listen, or even that, in that moment, I appreciate it all that much, but it comforts me to know that I have someone on my side. Someone who is genuinely looking out for my best interests. It’s easy to forget, when we’re in the middle of an argument, that my instincts are not always to be trusted, as I have this nasty tendency to seek out my own destruction. Whereas my life before I met my wife was a whirlwind of impulsive and ultimately disturbingly atrocious choices, that all came to an end (I cough and nudge some errors back beneath the rug) when we decided to take a chance on one another.

I realized that I had been drawn, much like a moth, to women who would only immolate me. There is something soothing in the passions of insanity, and reassurance in the knowledge that the only surprises will not be what, but how. But that kind of love, if one-sided passion built upon a foundation of co-dependence can be acknowledged as such, tears a person down, undercuts his sense of self, and leaves him deep in debt with nowhere to call home. I knew that the time had come for me to make a change. I would be lying if I said I knew that we would be together for this long. When we started dating, it was just something we did to pass the time in which we’d normally just be lonely. And when we moved in together, it wasn’t because we were so madly in love that we couldn’t be apart, but rather, we both had to move out of the places we were living, and decided that splitting the rent and bills in half was a better way to do it. Even through her pregnancy, we fought like cats and dogs, with my Beautiful Flower doing everything she could to make me feel inferior.

It wasn’t done by insults, or even ill intent, but rather, she outclassed me with every step along the way. Whereas I had been to hell and back, fighting the demons which danced within my mind, she exuded a certain quiet fortitude that put all my travails to shame. Here she was, nearly 1,900 miles from everything and everyone she’d ever known, nearly 2,000 miles away from her teenage daughter and elderly parents, and she was comforting me in the face of impending fatherhood. I cannot imagine the amount of courage that sort of selflessness requires. She put her life on pause to sort out someone else’s problems, and then, instead of focusing on her own, turned her attention toward fixing what was wrong with me. Years later, I think that she may have grown a little weary of her game of Whack-A-Mole, but that she could begin to play at all is what continually amazes me. She is the most amazing person whom I have ever had the pleasure of having known, and though I tell her that I love her at least several times throughout the day, I feel like I could find a way to somehow tell her more.

There is a strength is in her that rivals the very fundamental forces inherent in Mother Nature. There is a love in her that crushes all opposition, grinding it down beneath her boot like a discarded cigarette. There is a beauty in her that hides until she finds the time to smile, and then spills out in radiance upon the world like an overturned barrel full of sunshine. And I feel grateful every day that she is on my side, and grateful to just be near her, to know her, to take in everything about her, and have the opportunity to love her for as long as she will have me.

Feliz sexto aniversario, mi amor. Te quiero hasta el fin del mundo, y un poco más. Todavía tú eres la luz de mi vida, y espero que yo merezco tu paciencia conmigo. No tengo nada para ofrecerte, aparte de mi amor, pues, entonces, te doy mi alma misma.

-Tex

I love you
Happy sixth anniversary, my love.
I love you
I love you until the end of the world, and a little more.
A million times, I love you
Still, you are the light of my life, and I hope I deserve your patience with me.
Until the end of days
I have nothing to offer, other than my love,
And ever after
well then, I give you my soul.
Uncategorized

Family

It's disturbing just how happy I look...
It’s disturbing just how happy I look…

The one regret I have, were I to admit to myself that I had any regrets at all, would be that, in moving so far away from the little island which I used to call my home, I have placed an almost insurmountable distance between myself and the one person in my family who I miss the most: my grandmother. We’re just a week from celebrating her eightieth birthday, and where else would she be, but in the hospital, fighting off a bout of pneumonia. My mother informed me this morning, and I’ve been worrying off and on throughout the afternoon regarding just how ill-prepared I am at this very moment to go running back up to the state of Washington should the moment come to pass that I would be worse off for not having gone. Through luck and the gracious love which my wife feels for me, I have been able to stretch what would have been a short sabbatical into something just a little longer as I teach myself to write once more. But we have now exhausted most, if not all of our wiggle room, and should that dreaded phone call come, I’m not sure exactly what I have to quickly liquidate to catch the next flight out of Oakland.

The person who I have become is built upon the foundation which my grandmother laid down by example throughout my youth and adolescence. As far back as I can remember, in my grandmother I have always had an ally in my struggles to come to terms with what injustices I have perceived in my travels through the world. She is a woman of her word, a force for fairness, and the only person to whom I am related that views meaningless debates as a form of exercise. My grandmother has always made time to argue the finer points of irrelevant nonsense, occasionally dipping into the banned weaponry of religion or politics, but even then, only as a retaliatory strike against her upstart grandson who merely enjoys the heated thrashing about of ideas with someone who won’t just quit after an hour or two has passed. And what I respect about her most, in this regard, is that she has always been willing, despite her ideology, to listen to my bleeding-hearted arguments championing socialism and the redistribution of wealth, and every now and then, confronted by evidence in support of a minor point here or there, adjust her moral compass just a little. From her I have learned an indefatigable work ethic, a solid moral code, and the understanding of what it means to remain true to oneself and to one’s word. If only she weren’t a Republican…

In recent years, we’ve had to limit our verbal sparring to the occasional telephonic jab, as her health has been in a steady decline since the very first of her heart attacks back in the 1990’s. It was so noticeable when I was still living at home, or just a quick ferry ride away from her, but since we began measuring time apart in years instead of days or weeks, I’ve seen just how time can wear away at even the most ever present structures. It’s funny: whenever I have heard that someone’s died, I am usually the first to mention how at least their pain has finally come to an end, and whether they fall to the hands of their depression or simply succumb to old age, they have, at last, found some measure of peace. Even the notion of my final moments fills me with nothing more than a sense of delayed relief, and perhaps a hint of impatience that I’ve yet so much to do before I can finally put all this behind me and get all of the sleep of which I have somehow been deprived for all these years. And yet, when I contemplate the mortality of those whom I love more than I am willing to admit, I begin to grasp at every chance to keep them for just a moment longer.

Philosophically I understand that without the dark, the light has no meaning, and that to have a beginning, there must, one day be an end. One cannot revel in a sense of joy and wonderment without seasoning it misery and despair, for there can be no heads without a tail. And yet… Even dancing around all of this, that bitter realization which threatens to rend me from myself and cast me down into a hell from which I am not sure that I can return, I cannot let down my guard and let myself admit just why it is that I am so afraid. Inside I am just a little boy, clinging to the certainty that his grandparents are some type of extension of natural law, having existed long before me, and that it stands to reason that they, like all things fundamental to the workings of reality, must continue to exist for the universe to keep on spinning.

I know that she is in pain, and should something come to pass, that there will be no coming back. I know that she believes that when the moment comes, she will see everyone she’s ever loved, having transcended the bonds of mortal flesh to continue being, but in state of eternal wonder. I know that none of that will matter when the moment comes that marks the end of our arguments, and I am left with an unspoken retort upon my lips, lost forever to the ages, a perfect comeback that comes only when it’s far too late. I know that I am simply working myself up, and that if there were a pressing need to have traveled to the Northwest, I would have already begun to make my way there.

In a world where loyalties are bought and sold, and morality is just something that screamed from inside the television, I wanted to write about someone who was better, someone who has shown me that we can be better. I wanted to write about my Hero.

-Tex

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After Dark: A Blast From The Past Presents: “Superman: Doomsday: WTF?!!”

Superman: Doomsday: WTF?!!

September 30th, 2007

1:46 a.m.

Okay, prepare the nerd glasses, it’s time to talk about the magic of DC Comics. While Marvel seems to be content in taking brilliant characters and turning them into shitty movies, DC has taken it to a whole new level.

I was warned by [Bad Leon Suave] that this animated feature was bad. I was warned that it was a painfully bad, bad attempt at trying to cash in on the Death Of Superman for a new generation.

I’m not going to repeat his gripes here. Let him do that in his own blogs.

My issue with this travesty is that they combined the Death Of Superman, World Without A Superman, and the Reign Of The Supermen story arcs into a feature length presentation. This in itself is retarded. So much nuance was lost. But even if it had been just that, I might have been okay. But I don’t remember Luthor digging up Doomsday. Or Luthor for that matter. It was his “son.” I seem to recall an organization called the JLA. And a somewhat longer journey to metropolis. Does anyone else remember Supes taking Doomsday into orbit for the final blow? No? That’s cause it didn’t fucking happen.

I also seem to recall Jonathon Kent being alive to witness the death of his adopted son. And WTF with the Reign B.S.?

Yes there was a clone. He was a teenager cloned into a human equivalent of Superman because they couldn’t properly decode the Kryptonian DNA. The was also the Last Son Of Krypton who was actually the Eradicator. There was a cyborg Superman as well. Not to mention some dude who wore metal superman armor and had a big ass-hammer (for [Fed]). And didn’t (what was it, Coast City) get fuckin nuked because the Cyborg was working for Mongul? And that’s when Supes came back. Blah blah saved the day, everything good.

Not this bullshit.

God knows what will happen if they remember Knightfall.

Fuck this shit! They’re cut off.

Yet another reason I need to get off my ass and found Uncle Walt/ Tex Batmart / whatever else sounds good so I can buy Aol/Time Warner and protect our comic book heroes from this bullshit.

Bullshit!

(I may never have sex again).

-Tex

Current Events, Uncategorized

Modern Antiquities: My Impending Anniversary

I knew that I should have taken a nap first. I always get a little cranky unless I’ve had a decent night’s sleep. Well, cranky or incoherent, anyway. I was told that today was going to be my day to sleep in, which I was looking forward to because I haven’t been able to get much sleep due to this persistent hacking cough. Unfortunately, my wife mixed up her days off, and I was awoken ungodly early as she was rushing out the door to work. Sure, I promptly returned to sleep, but my alarm woke up sometime thereafter, and now here I am, pretending that I can still function like a human being. It’s comforting to know that I can still get my son up and dressed, fed and medicated, and out the door and off to school while functioning on autopilot. Sometimes I think that I am more efficient when I’m running on empty than when I’ve got a full head of steam. It probably has to do with trying to most effectively manage my dwindling resources, like trying to get the Apollo 13 command module up and running again on only 20 amps (and I can’t draw power from the LEM before cutting it loose). And yes, I did just watch the applicable bits from the movie again to get the numbers right. And yes, I know what I’m going to be doing as soon as I finish writing this.

I think that I almost miss working. And by that, I mean that I am beginning to feel nostalgic for those heady days of long commutes and the mindless tedium which filled my waking hours. Not that crafting moderately amusing rants isn’t work, of a sort, but it isn’t really paying the bills, and I am a master of finding literally anything else to do instead of being productive. I’m ready to start penning something in addition to what I’m doing here, but now that I’ve mastered the art of blogging (I have not), I feel too satisfied with myself, and as soon as I hit “Publish”, it’s like clocking out for the day. What I need to train myself to do now is take a little break, and then come right back and start working on something that people will actually pay me for the privilege of reading. I just wish I wasn’t so easily distracted by all the shiny things. And I wish that my office wasn’t equipped with a high-definition television and Blu-ray player. I suppose that I could move my laptop somewhere else, but then I wouldn’t get such wonderful Wi-Fi reception, and that’s kind of a deal breaker. Because I use the internet for research. And not for finding things to distract me when I should be doing literally anything else. Literally.

***

I have a little over a week to plan for my anniversary, and I really don’t know what we’re going to do. I missed the chance for us to repeat our best anniversary experience, as the VIP tickets to the Whiskies Of The World Expo in San Francisco were already sold out when my wife decided that she’d like to go this year. I knew I should have just bought them last autumn when they went on sale. But, at least there is a silver lining: My friend, Nerissa Lopez, is doing one of those pop-up restaurant deals this Sunday, and I’ve been invited (with my plus one) to come and enjoy the evening and review the experience on this very blog. It’s a zero-waste, gluten-free, vegan-style menu, apparently, which, if you haven’t been paying attention these past few months, is not really my thing. However, I can say that Nerissa was a wonderfully talented employee with mad skills in the kitchen, and it probably wouldn’t kill me to eat something healthy. Plus there will be booze, so there’s that. Depending on how both my wife and I are feeling Sunday, we’ll most likely be attending. And it will be an awesome anniversary dinner because it’s in The City, at a trendy (pop-ups are still trendy, right? I mean, I heard the kids on the T.V. talking about them, so they must be…) restaurant, away from the kids and we haven’t been out on a date together in practically forever. I even have a suit! Now if this cough would just go away, I’d be all sunshine and puppies.

I can’t believe that we’ve made it this long without a major stabbing. She and I are both incredibly passionate people, utterly convinced of their own infallibility, and completely unwilling to back down from. Compromise is something that we both believe is reserved for other people. Sure, we have different areas of expertise, spheres of influence, if you will, but we are also both convinced of the primacy of our respective bailiwicks, so it’s never really a fight over how a thing might best be done, but rather which thing would be best done now. It’s Irish temper versus Mexican rage, and more often than not we appear to be small children flailing about because we can’t have our way. But like grown-ups. We’ve been together as a couple for nearly a decade, now, and we’ve gotten really good at fighting. That’s another reason why I want us to go out this Sunday and have an amazing evening: I’d like for us to spend a night just focused on one another, having cast aside trivialities and worry, children and mounting bills, and just have fun together. Something to remind us that we’re more than just a couple of people who happen to live together.

My romantic muscles (not a euphemism) have atrophied a bit over the years, gone to the same place where I imagine that my hair has found its final resting place. I don’t think that it would hurt me all that much to spend a little time and energy on the courtship of my wife. I know that I’ve already won her heart, but it never hurts to give her reasons not to change her mind.

-Tex

This evening, I’ll be posting the Fourth Chapter of Blast From The Past, my ongoing series exploring my past through snark. You can read the previous installments here, here, and here (I also have a bonus BFTP here. NSFW, language). I look forward to seeing you all back this evening.

And seriously, if you’re going to be in the Bay Area this weekend, come and check out the Tasting Event for Z’hara. Come and eat good food and keep me and my wife company. Please. Save us from the Youth of Today….