Caustically Optimistic

turn signals

When you get cancer you are quickly placed into one of two groups.  Some people are the good ones that bad things happen to, but if you’re like me you’ll be one of those people who had it coming to them.  I won’t pretend that I’m a good person: I’ve had a rigorous Lutheran upbringing I think it’s foolhardy to think that such things exist outside of Divine Providence.  We spend all this time justifying our existence and our behavior, “I may pick my nose while I drive, but at least I use turn signals.” 

Dear reader, this is the magic of being me: I don’t care what the other humans think and it frees me up considerably to do what I feel like doing and to be who I am want to be.  My life is very comfortable this way. 

There are truths in life that are unavoidable.  You can only count on yourself: family, friends, colleagues will all desert you.  Ronald McDonald is always there for you.  No matter the time of day or night, unless you live in some rural form of Hell, you can find him or he will find you.  This is how we know he is the minion of Satan because who else would be so vigilant?  I defy you to answer this question better, and you cannot.  While I realize these sentiments aren’t as priceless or as beautiful as an original Alex Vance photoshop I can assure you that they just as genuine.  

I say this to you, all of this, because I am joyfully anticipating the premier of Tim Burton’s imagining of Alice in Wonderland, which coincides with the celebration of my not falling off the planet and evading angry mobs for another year outside the womb.  I have re-read the book so that I can complain throughout the movie how it isn’t like the book – not a bad thing since the book has no plot.  It really was the precursor to Napoleon Dynamite only you don’t vote for queens (despite what Ru Paul and George Lucas tell you) so there is no Pedro.

My quest between then and now is to find where they’ve absconded with Valerie so that I can write more, since without Valerie – who is reading this?    That, and to teach again so I have stories to tell or at least a heart that isn't dark, and bitter. 

I have a lot of questions and I want to extend my vocabulary further.  I want to know if it's actually appropriate to not put periods behind abbreviations like the one for mister and why we've stopped using apostrophes.  I want to read French literature and study German.  I want to warn people that Derek is a person and not a float for Mardi Gras.  I want to climb Machu Picchu (and rename it Machu Pikachu).  There is much to be done and less time to do it.  We have to find Valerie, we have to find the stories.  

shooting blanks

Valerie, you asked why I am not returning your calls.  I am not feeling well and cannot take a phone call. 

I’m having one of those weeks where I feel like Kevin from Home Alone – not the icky “I fathered Michael Jackson’s baby” feeling but the, “I think everyone is out to get me – even if I know that’s false, right???”  I hate feeling paranoid, I feel it lumps me in with the Wal Martians at those Tea Parties about the taxes in brackets they’re not a part of. 

I came to this realization at lunch.  On Saturdays our firm buys everyone lunch – we have it ordered in and we all eat the same thing.  It’s always garbage.  It’s also ordered by the office bully – and I’ll never understand how or why under performing people are always tolerated but those of who produce have to have lazy, fat-lards nipping at our heals.  I also don’t understand why, when we have pizza for lunch, we have to have several over-sized “gourmet” pizzas piled with low-grade meats and questionable vegetables but having a plain, cheese pizza is unthinkable.  I’m not asking for my own pizza or something special, I’m asking for something basic.

But there is a lot about human activity that I don’t understand.  I don’t understand how women can car around those enormous bags full of the detritus of the fall of humanity from Eden but somehow exclude their wallet and keys from the mix.  I would never stick my hand into someone’s bag – that’s rude, but I find women confusing in general but this whole shtick of carrying around a duffle bag with apparently nothing in it is mystifying.  My same lady-friends who send e-mails about how men are stupid will comment on this about, “not getting it,” but I always know where my iPhone, keys, and wallet are. 

I understand that when I was teenager people found it tacky that we wore out-sized clothing but apparently they’ve only run clothing for men once because ‘kids today’ seem to be all wearing jeans that don’t fit them but in a way that makes you wonder if they’ll ever be able to have children – and secretly hope they cannot.  It must be parenting because if your son were able to get himself out those nut-huggers, he’d be shooting blanks.  I had friends whose parents had to keep their sisters out of their clothing but I never dreamed I’d see the day when we’d be asking our sons, “Are you wearing your sisters pants?”  I will no longer be taking complaints about how much money my parents had to spend so I’d look like a hobo in high school. 

I am tired of looking out into the world and not understanding it, and I don’t understand why I want to understand it. Why would I want to understand Humans, Wal Martians, and the other inhabitants of the planet? 

Well, whatever, I out performed the office bully two to one last month and carried a quarter of all production on a staff of ten and I think I deserve my own damned plain cheese pizza. 

Yes, other readers, I do have these conversations with Valerie – well, before becoming consumed with worry about the contents of my belly button.  

a tiny pianist

I  like nonsense and non sequitur, and even if I can’t pull together a collected thought that moves freely and logically from paragraph to paragraph I enjoy all the crazy ideas in my head.  I don't enjoy posts that ramble on about unhappiness 

I like hearing the old lady play piano at the department store in the mall.  It reminds me of Leah Monster and how life is a great deal more complex when you have to keep up with her train of thought.  When I can afford it I will pay a pianist to play in my home while I write.  I would hire Leah Monster but when you came over, you would comment, “My, you have a tiny pianist.”  It is very rude to comment or poke fun at the size of a man’s pianist. 

I like that the fries at Red Robin are bottomless even if they’re contributing to my bottom.  Today I am joined the gym and broke up with my longtime boyfriend, Ronald McDonald.  He doesn’t need to know that I’ve been cavorting with Dave Thomas and Colonel Sanders.  I’m breaking up with them, too.  My friend Jason would suggest jogging around the block and not joining a gym – he’s right that if you don’t go then you’re wasting your money but I am tighter with my money than you’d suspect because if I’m paying for something I am going to get my money’s worth. 

I like that everyone is gung-ho about any new trend that comes up to show support for breast cancer research.  I’ve just lost a dear friend to colon cancer – or what had began as colon cancer – and I’d like everyone to support research to cure all cancer.  After that, let’s search for a cure for a-holes.  I’m very sad that I’ve lost my friend and dejected that Satan’s younger brother sits in the desk behind mine – but unlike seventh grade, I can’t clown him into submission on the technicality that he’s my boss.  

I like that the plant on my desk hasn’t died, despite my best efforts to the contrary.  I am anti death and I’m glad that this plant has chosen life and to overcome my indifference to watering it on a regular basis.  If it were a human, or perhaps a canine, I would do my level best to ensure quality of life from conception to death.  However, it came up out of the ground and is on it’s own – even if it can’t move. 

And most of all, I am glad that YouTube has subtitles for programming from Britain and Australia in English so that I could pretend to enjoy them but I’ll be honest – I have no idea what’s going on.  I wonder if they have as hard a time understanding people in the United States, even those of us with impeccable Midwestern accents and perfect diction.  I’m not sure if that should have ended in a question mark or in a period; I am confident that this should end.  

Back in the Day BC

I’m terrible at Christmas because, in general, I suck at life.  I’m inept at picking out gifts, and worse at receiving them.  I’m incredibly materialistic but since the schism with my mother’s family I prefer to buy anything I have myself and not have to depend or ask another soul for anything. 

I did receive some incredible gifts – a generous soul found the font of all argyle snow hats for men and sent them to me – and did find a fleur-de-lis for Suburban Island that was a homerun.  Everything else fell flat.  I’m also terrible at the card business.  That went downhill for me when I decided to stop “sharing the peace” with people at church who don’t speak to me the other six days in the week.  This extended into Christmas cards when I stopped opening them from people I don’t talk to any other time of the year and I’ve just stopped sending them myself. 

I used to feel bad about being terrible at Christmas until Christmas Eve. 

I heard four Christmas Eve sermons all the same topic, all with the same points.  I smell a rat.  Two on the radio and two in church all had the same theme, main points, examples and historical references.  It was like President’s Day when the children recite the Gettysburg Address.

While I am sure you’re quick to jump to their defense and point out that there are only so many angles of the incarnation of Christ to explore I submit to you that it wasn’t that simple.  Each of the sermons or homilies discussed the social status of Hebrew shepherds in Back-in-the-Day BC.  I am pretty sure that this was an article somewhere in a magazine or periodical that is mainly read and considered by theologians and clerics.  I’m also pretty sure that they didn’t expect some zealot of a grinch to be that into Christmas Eve and catch them, but it happened.  

I know that everyone is busy during December, even pastors – especially Lutheran ones who bump their one day of accountability up to two – but I don’t get to have someone else test drive my customers so I think they could write their own sermon for this very auspicious occasion.   

So I get it, shepherds couldn’t keep the law perfectly or well at all and no one would have them testify in court because they were of questionable character.  Apparently now everyone in America will get it and perhaps further.  I didn’t go to church in the English speaking parts of Canada.  

Lesson learned: don't feel bad about being terrible at Christmas, you're not the only one.  

Adventures at Oxmoor Center

Yesterday I went to the mall with my sister to look for Christmas and birthday presents for people in our family.  Holiday shopping is never an enjoyable experience but one of the tests of our holiday season is that our mother is a December baby.  What do you get her that isn’t holiday themed so she still has and enjoys her birthday as a special event like those of us born during March or June? 

One of the places we stopped while at the mall was Swarovski.  We usually get my mother a gift from Swarovski for the Festival of Saint Nicolas (night of the fifth, morning of the sixth), her birthday, or the Mass of Christ (the 25^th).  We’re late in our game because normally we give any decorations or special clothing needed for the other holidays at the Festival of Saint Nicolas.  I should not have waited.  

While we were in Swarovski I was surprised that they had things out in boxes where you could touch them.  I made the faux pas of touching one of the boxes to see what it contained a little bit better.  I understand fully now that you shouldn’t touch anything in the store.  How did I learn this?  Chady, the dumpy sales clerk slapped my hand. 

I realize that I don’t look my age, like I make a tremendous amount of money, or like I would normally buy something from a place like Swarovski.  However, I make a lot of money selling automobiles to people – more than most of my coworkers – because I don’t prejudge people coming into the showroom.  I certainly would never slap someone’s hand away from a Phaeton.  I was pretty shocked that someone hit me, much less even touched me in a store. 

This wasn’t humiliating enough, Chady had more in her dumpy shop of horrors.  She said, “Feel free to look around because that isn’t expensive since you can’t afford anything.”  Game.  Set.  Match.  She is right, I probably can’t afford to spend money with a company that hires haughty salesclerks that would deign to physically assault someone in their store.  I was so shocked by those two behaviors that I followed Chaos Bean out of the store. 

Poor Chaos Bean, she was in a white-hot rage.  She didn’t enjoy the rest of the trip to the mall.  She didn’t enjoy the shoe stores or looking at scarves and she didn’t even enjoy people watching.  Chady (nearly) ruined the one night a week we all get to spend as a family.  When I had calmed down I called the manager on duty at the store and recounted the story.  She was equally as horrified and very apologetic.  Getting Mom a present from Swarovski is a part of December like those bell ringers outside the grocery or poorly conceived ads from Target. 

In general, I am tired of salesclerks who present themselves as better than the people they’re helping instead of representatives of their brands.  I’ve been a salesclerk and I knew then that I didn’t speak for the Chocolatier for whom I worked nor was I as rich and fantastic as those who could afford it.  I also knew that people like to be treated like they’re rich and fantastic when purchasing a luxury or extravagant item – like Belgian chocolates or Swarovski crystal. 

I do very little holiday shopping and I hope the rest of it isn’t as bad as this experience. 

 

I’m not saying “don’t buy from Swarovski,” I’m saying, “don’t by from Chady.”  

Mc Rib

One of the things I loved about teaching directly under the sun in Phoenix was the ability to leave for lunch.  We would usually just go to Wendy’s, McDonald’s, and when the gods of cellulite smiled on us, Chino Bandito.  One of the things I don’t like about schlepping cars is all the eating we do. 

Now, we do eat better as we make more money than teachers.  Yes, Valerie, I come home and roll around in my money.  We eat well, but we eat a great deal and often.  I’m still a big fan of the fast food but my coworkers are not.  They want to keep the local restaurants open and vibrant. 

I was surprised the other day, when my friend Sara posted on her Facebook that she had a Mc Rib, when we were thrown into a frenzy to find them.  My coworkers love barbeque and are very discerning about what barbeque they eat.  I was shocked that they not only wanted to find as badly as I did, but also engaged in my practice of calling everyone and everywhere that might have the answer to my question.  We called every McDonald’s in our county, the close ones in surrounding counties in Kentucky and Indiana.  I also called a few in Cincinnati that were (falsely) reported to have them. 

I mean, really, it’s probably not even pork and I have no delusions that it is actually rib meat. 

We then sent juvenile text and Facebook messages to Sara about her Mc Rib eating self.  How dare she bring up yet another Mcdeficiency of Kentucky and high point of Nebraska?  I regret that because I hate to be the tool that is an Internet/Text Message tough guy.  I just want to have a Mc Rib.  Today at Qdoba, the tool at the counter was telling my mother and I about how they do things in Germany – without realizing that she’s German and I grew up there – all I could think about was, “Great, now he’s ruined my burrito by reminding me it isn’t a Mc Rib.” 

I felt like an oldster on the phone telling the one guy, Nick, that in my country when I was his age they had Mc Ribs all the time and it was as ordinary as a hamburger to see it there.  Nick promised that he’d call us as soon as they bring it back because it is apparently not a big mover here in Kentucky – the fattest state where they’ll eat just about anything and the highlight of their life is a horse race that, if it lasts two minutes, is a bad one.  I promised Nick that in return that I’d name my first son after him but Sarah asked me to stop doing that because the poor kid already has a name longer than most princes of minor principalities. 

Please feel free to mail me a Mc Rib.  Just don’t mail it to work, because while I will still eat it I wouldn’t want to have to share.  

$65.50

We now have a swear jar at work, if we say a bad word then money goes into the jar.  Our Boss thinks this will clean up our language. I work with an attorney who is taking a break from practicing law and we were tasked with developing the rules and payment schedules.  The system is byzantine and complicated and there have been, in the two days we’ve had it, at least twenty appeals.

Our boss’ tab is about $65.50. 

Before you comment that it is ridiculous that an adult would need a swear jar at work to curb their enthusiasm please consider the fact that we are a step below prostitution in the hierarchy of noble professions.  I call the system bzyantine, not just because I love anachronistic and antediluvian words, but also because I’ve drawn up rules and payment schedules around people I don’t like.  There are people who will pay dearly just for greeting me in the morning, at least until we have a meeting to formalize the rules, payment schedule, and appeals process. 

Before I downed about seven dollars into the jar myself, I agonized about how to use this jar to my advantage.  The first rule clearly indicates that the traditionally accepted four and five letter words couldn’t be used – even if they were found in scripture.  I did not get it included that replacements for those words when clearly intended to be replacements would count.  I did get included that hate speech toward demographic groups – even when one is a member of said group – included but I couldn’t get ‘assault on the English language’ included because only three of us are native speakers.  I am happy that I got unkind nicknames thrown in there because I am tired of anyone who isn’t my father calling me, “junior.”  Well, if you were Sean Connery I’d let you do it so I could pretend for a hot minute that I was Indiana Jones.

I was able to write in many things I wanted to stop at the office, but I am unable to get people to stop talking about their personal lives.  I have a coworker who is into something I find distasteful and I almost threw up in the trashcan today when our coworkers interrogated him about it.  Now, before you send me a barrage of comments about being a judgmental cracker, I know. I really don’t care about what you do in your personal life.  I sincerely do not care; don’t tell me about it – even if I do it my personal life.  I care if it presents a public health hazard or if it makes me heave into my own trashcan.  It’s the one time I miss working for my last principal: a woman who had an ironic detachment between her own foibles and her persecution of others – she’d have crucified the offending individual long ago.  This drek doesn't fly in an office full of women, it does in an office full of men (exception number four is that you can curse in a foreign language if you're the only one who understands what you're saying).

It’s also impossible to speak intelligently on the topic of Mazda or Honda’s engineering without using the word, “shit.”  I’m going to learn the Japanese word for “shit” so I can say that instead.  I’m sure no one will look it up when I say, “The Japanese word for this engineering is, ‘daiben,’ and the German word is, ‘überlegen.’”  In fact, I can think of nothing else I want to do all day beyond use the prefix über and curse in foreign languages – besides put in eight to sixteen hours of honest labor. Beyond the ability to earn a decent living I want to be able to curse in Japanese and add über to words higgledy-piggledy.  Bubbe always said if you didn’t have anything nice to say, say it in Yiddish.  Hondas are drek.    

It’s going to be überimpossible for us to clean our farkakt mouths if we keep building and discovering loopholes in the system.  Then again, if we didn’t, it wouldn’t be America.  

upon our homeward way

There’s an old joke that I really enjoy that is alternately about growing up down the street from Jesus or growing up as Saint James the lesser (traditionally understood to be Jesus’ brother).  The gist of the joke is that it must have been hard growing up near/next to someone who was perfect and didn’t give his mother any trouble, “Why can’t you be more like that Jesus down the street who always does his homework?”  

My friend Nici has consumed my thoughts and prayers as of late; it’s why I haven’t been blogging.  I don’t want this to become a compendium of my stages of grief.  In church this Sunday we sang, Savior, Again to thy Dear Name, and it took me through the entire process all at once.  I was pretty angry because in a prior hymn we sang that God always takes care of his faithful servants and all I could think was, “yeah, right.”  This hymn, however reminded me of the truth of the matter that if life isn’t easy, then following Christ doesn’t make things any simpler.  The lines that hit me follow: 

Grant us thy peace upon our homeward way;

with thee began, with thee shall end the day.

From harm and danger keep thy children free,

for dark and light are both alike to thee.

This also reminds me of the joke, that I would realize wasn’t funny if I were a mature adult, because Nici and Matt have been so human but also on perfect pitch about how they’re feeling and their faith perspective.  I’m sure to a greater extent than I am; they’re having moments of anger, guilt, and remorse.  I almost never feel remorse and I’ve felt it more since Matt summoned us to Texas than I’ve felt it my whole life.

I will always love Nici because of her incredible example of what it means to be a friend, to love someone, to be a teacher, a Christian, a Lutheran, and now she’s teaching us – always a teacher, that one – to cling to Jesus no matter what.  Matthew as well, who I am more crushed for than anyone, and her parents.  However, all of these people can be falsely accused of putting on a brave face for the adoring public but I believe that they are buoyed by an incredible faith that their reward is in Heaven, that Jesus will see them through this. 

 The vast, unmapped parts of my personality that are largely selfish and immature I harbor this tawdry resentment that Nici is being like Jesus – perfect to the last.  However, in this season of thanks it breaks my heart that I will bid farewell to a friend while being thankful that her suffering is going to break way to glory in Paradise.  I am alternately thankful, and I feel this is perverse, that Nici has taught me one last thing.  I’ll always remember so much about Nici but it will always stick with me how her every remark and action came off as well scripted as something from Larry David even her final act. 

Shakespeare said that nothing was good or bad, only thinking made things so.  Obi Wan told us that much of what we cling to as true depends greatly on our point of view.  The author of this hymn, who was Methodist so I’m not going to linger on that, reminds us that what we view as dark and light are immaterial to the Lord.  Dying isn’t good but neither is it bad.  The bridge between an event and an experience is learning.  I’ve learned from this experience, my faith has been challenged and it has matured and grown.  While my feelings are still very raw on the topic I know that my friend has been a good and faithful servant and will be going Home soon, and our tears – as Hazel has taught us – are tears of jealousy because her reward is won and ours is yet to come. 

Now, I need to go and live a life as Nici has shown us as possible: as a good and faithful servant.  I will never be the picture of grace and faithfulness that Matt and Nici have been.  I’ll never be a teacher of her caliber; I will never have a heart that big.  What I can do is turn the heart that I do have, my whole heart, over to my faith and to my work, to my Lord, and live in a constructive and helpful way – the way she has. 

In this season of thanksgiving I dislike being thankful having had something but I’ve got to change that perspective because a good example is never lost, a good friend is never lost, and our Lord is never lost to us, either.  

Fits & Starts - part two

Fits & Starts, Part Two

I have to apologize, but I hate doing it.  It’s not that I can’t admit that I’m wrong or that I don’t feel like I should – I want to apologize and have this weight lifted off me.  What I want to do is say, “Stan, I’m sorry[i] for being a penis[ii],” without going into detail about the whole episode or disagreement and how I am a repugnant human being.

 I hate this because I want apologies to me to go like this:

            Offending Person: I’m sorry.

            Me: Okay. 

I don’t want you to go into too much detail about what went on and how much you think I need to know.  I’d like to make my own story up in my head, it’s always less hurtful than the one you’re going to drop on me.  I am paranoid and I will only add my own epilogue to your tale of sadness.  My faith dictates that I forgive you, it is so much easier when I don't know what you've done.  

 This comes up, not because I have to apologize to someone, but I am going to [obscenity] someone’s [obscenity] the [obscenity] up.  I lost my wallet and because I am a man, I am going to pass responsibility on to someone else.  I didn’t lose my wallet; someone took it.  Someone had to take it.  I wouldn’t have misplaced it.  NOW I have to go buy a new one and this means entering a long-term relationship. 

I liked my old wallet, and apparently someone else did as well, and now I have to find another one that meets my needs and doesn’t cost more than what is carried in it.  The DMV replaces your driver’s license, the bank sends you a new debit card, and Triple A doesn’t card you.  But your wallet doesn’t replace itself.  Also, this wallet was a gift and was intended to be a bit more (um) “grown-up” than my other ones.  Apparently, it grew some legs and wandered off. 

If I wanted to be in charge I’d have been born a woman, I don’t want to make decisions I want to do what I’m told.  Now, I have to go to the store and decide between money clips, bi-folds, tri-folds, and a bunch of other things that evade my understanding and will impact my life until this happens again or Christmas.  This is like having a baby only it will take longer but involve less blood to find a new wallet. 

 

 

---

[i] Never apologize to Stan: he is always, always wrong.  I am using Stan as an example because it is comedic. 

[ii] Remember, just because you have one doesn’t necessarily translate into being one.  

Fits & Starts

Fits & Starts – Part One

I haven’t done this in weeks, I don’t care what Marie says: it’s nothing like riding a bike. 

I keep having ideas of what to write, but not time.  I went to Betsy’s wedding, where unlike Valerie, she is commended for not being Bridezilla.  She called me today about that, being Bridezilla, because I am the friend who you can alternately count on to have an appalling lack of tact and point it out in others.  The only thing you could say about Betsy’s wedding is that she didn’t make you cart off a trinket commemorating the event.  Well, I did but that’s because the music teachers always give me a song to sing about it later. 

My coworkers insisted that I go the wedding or at least the Last Night Out and molest a bridesmaid.  Betsy was at no point Bridezilla toward me but had I done that I would have incurred something reserved for surly adolescents and I was looking to make friends not fill the roll of Dwight Schrute at her wedding – Jeff showed me the wedding episode so I’d prepared.  I did however wake up hung-over on the floor of a hotel with the tall, dark handsome type of substitute teacher (named Anthony) and a blow-up doll (named Clark). 

Stop exchanging money, it’s not nearly that interesting or insightful but it is something I cherish dearly: a good story.  More than that, I love a set of facts I can misconstrue. 

In Fits & Starts, Part 2 I will let you in on how not to seduce a man, why we like hunting, and what not to do with a piñata.