You want to know something about me? I have a vicious temper. This isn’t some quaint character flaw. You know, like Hemingway is a romantic drunk or how your grandpa tells racist jokes sometimes, but you love him anyway. No. This is relationship crashing stuff I’m talking about. It nearly wrecked everything I had and ever wanted.
It makes me ashamed, honestly. I don’t talk about it. I try my best to prevent stress. I talk through things with my wife that I used to just swallow. It’s there, and never leaves me. But, it doesn’t have to ruin me. It won’t.
I can’t say I’m happy I went through such angry periods in my life. My life is damn good. But, there were times where, despite how good I had it, Mr. Hyde took over. I wanted to break things and scream, and I did. I scared my family. Hell, I scared myself. If anything good comes of out that, it’s understanding.
I understand how badly stress affects my life, and how frustrated anyone can become with the right pressures. I understand that real cowardice is denial, not being a tough guy. I know literally what it feels like in my muscles and bones when I’m tense, and what kinds of things start the blood a boiling. And, I understand — as much as one can — how to control it.
I had to chuckle a couple years ago when someone at work said they admired how much of a cool customer I was when it came to conflict at work. At the time, I was as starved for a compliment about my composure as I could be — it had been only a few months since working things out with my wife. The idea that someone looked to me with admiration of any kind for dealing with stress just left me speechless. I had to shrug, not knowing what else to say. Maybe a little afraid of what else to say.
The terrible thing is that from time to time, I see that anger in other people. It’s usually men. And, you know, I pity them because I know what that tiny, white-hot part of their mind feels like. But, while I sometimes see this, they usually don’t. I see it exactly because I see it repeated, and I know they barely realize they’re stuck. My pity doesn’t linger. They’re responsible for what they do, just like I am. Man up. Get help, I think. All that thrashing about doesn’t scare me, and it sure as hell doesn’t get them anywhere they think it does. People are worth more to us than we think.
The sad truth is they’re powerless. Helpless. Utter helplessness is the cause of all that fury. What worked for me is another person, which turned out to be a counselor and my wife, hearing me out, and then showing they actually understood what I was thinking. That got me off the edge of that angry routine, and I walked down bit by bit from there.
A couple days ago I wrote that not a lot of people really know me — that fewer people really know me than I have fingers. Not even all of them know all this about me. I guess I just got weary of feeling ashamed about it. Maybe some poor bastard out there can get off that edge, too.
“People are crazy and times are strange
I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range
I used to care, but things have changed”- Bob Dylan, Things Have Changed
I spent a good part of the afternoon meeting with my old boss, John. We still work together after I transferred to another department about 5 years ago. We still manage to have a rap session now and then, too. He and I share a lot of the same taste in music, which usually comes up as we connive to conquer the online media world in between lunches at the local Vietnamese restaurant. Unpack that irony, if you can.
John’s an old hippie. My favorite story, among many, from him is the time he was working in Colorado in his younger days. He heard some music from his outdoor job site, so he wandered over to a concert. They had to break through a fence to get in. On stage was Jimi Hendrix. Now that is far out, and I’ve got nothing that cool in my repertoire to impress young co-workers someday.
But, truth is, I’m not so young anymore, and John and I don’t often have time to chat on all things digital and aural. He’s well read — I don’t have anywhere near the patience he does — and he explained an article from the New York Magazine about how Internet services are packing us in a bubble by making choices for us. Pandora spits out variations streams of music to people as they tweak their stations. Google delivers search results based on our history or our Gmail contacts. Amazon recommends products. And on and on.
The machines are making choices for us, and it’s supposed to make things easier and more relevant. The trade-off is a shrinking, not expanding, avenue of information. It may make things easier, but is it more interesting? I think that’s a fair summation of John’s point.
It reminded me of something I’d been chewing on for a while. We don’t share music like we used to. It’s another of those trade-offs. My best pal and music comrade Hastie and I used to hang out just listening to albums and music. It wasn’t as deliberate as the vinyl days, which John waxed nostalgic about today. Now, people shuffle around, in more ways than one, with white cords growing out of their ears. Digital music shattered the experience of albums, which I’ve always lamented (but not enough to avoid an iPod and those white ear buds). Music is often a solitary experience, or background noise. It’s become more passive.
And, hey, it’s not all bad. Trade-offs, like I said. But, I’m with the old hippie in thinking it’s kind of a shame. Worse, I think it’s also true of other art we enjoy. A fragmented, uprooted modern life means a lot of solitary consumption and interpretation of things we enjoy.
So, isn’t crazy that when we actually get to know someone in our life well enough to find out they enjoy art we enjoy, that it’s a thrill? How bizarre that people would have to get excited that someone out in the wide universe actually knows and enjoys a musician or a show or a book? I mean, of course there are people out there doing that. It shouldn’t be much of a surprise, especially when it’s good stuff — great albums or books or films. Whatever.
The other day, I found out that Heather, the woman who sits across from my cube at work, loves Scrivener, which is some pretty specialized software for writers. Which means she does writing at home. I also later found out that her husband writes a beer blog and wants to taste every IPA in the world. It only took us, oh, eight or nine months to realize this wonderful stuff.
I don’t blame her one bit, to be clear. She and I have a lot of work to do, not enough resources to get it done, and families to love and enjoy after the bell rings. Ok, there’s not actually a bell. We mostly sit at our desks through lunch, eating alone, and still reeling every so slightly from the last round of “be happy we still have jobs.”
I wonder what books she reads at night? Does she ever wonder what other people read, too?
What a world.
After a blissfully hum-drum day at work, I shuttled off to my temporary single dad duties. Kate had a soccer game in Polk City. On the ride home from Ma and Pa Snyder’s house, Kate reminded me at least three times she had to bring after-game treats.
Polk City is tucked up north and well out of the way for us. That meant a pit stop at Hell on Earth, the lobotomizing experience we all know and love as “Wal Mart.” Now, I assumed, foolishly, that the Ankeny Wal-Mart could not muster the kind of IQ-lowering enhanced interrogation techniques that the south side store does so spectacularly. I managed to swear in front of the kids only a couple times as the Amazon checking us out remarked on poor quality of our fruity snacks.
Kate’s penultimate soccer game for the season proved to be worth the ordeal. Her team struggles, despite their improvement and determination. They’ve lost every game so far, and they have gone scoreless in about half their matches. Today, they put up a hell of a fight, went into the half leading 1-0 and ended up in a tie after a bizarre penalty kick that shot over the poor 10-year-old keeper’s head.
Trish, mom to Kate’ s best pal, and I did more yelling and fretting than any grown up should do for a bunch of fifth and sixth graders. “I think I’m going to have a heart attack,” she mentioned to me at the half. “You and me both,” I replied with a smirk.
I grew up on little league, slow pitch, baseball, basketball and football. You know, meat and potato sports of the good ol’ Midwest. I’m a die hard NFL fan, and love my Hawkeyes, too. So, it’s a little strange for me to holler at the top of my lungs to the left defender to cover the goal on a corner kick. I’ll be damned if I’m not on the edge of my fold up nylon chair for each girl out there as they dribble the ball up the field. Now if they could only pass a bit better …
I’d teased Kate and Riggs before the game. Pancheros was in their future. So, we dined like royalty. For those not in the know, Pancheros is a made-to-order burrito place on the order of Qdoba and Chipotle. But, those places? Mere shadows on the cave wall. Food for plebes and riff raff! Pancheros is ambrosia. I have been going to Pancheros since 1993. It started as a single restaurant in 1992 in my home-away-from-home, Iowa City. In a bid to keep me sane and well fed, they franchised right as I moved back to the Des Moines area (they’re in bunches of states now, too). I have spent birthdays there. I bring the food home for Christmas, for christ’s sake! Watching them prep food inspired several of my own cooking tricks for Mexican grub.
The secret is the tortilla, which they press from dough as you order. It is divine, and I never want to know the ingredients or nutritional values of that glob of delicious stuff. Shuddup and eat it, I say. It makes all that soccer dad mania almost palatable.
I worked out at the gym in my small town today. Most people I talk to say they prefer exercising outdoors. I’d rather run and lift weights inside. It’s because I use that time to wind down my thoughts. Running outside tears the hell out of my knees, too, but it keeps me distracted. What I need is focus and time to process thoughts while I’m huffing and puffing on the treadmill or on whatever the hell they call that barbell on tracks machine I do leg squats on.
Today’s June 1st. It’s a Wednesday, and my wife just left town for nine days to grade 1.2 million essays with about 1,200 other teachers. How nuts is that, anyway? Teacher let the monkeys out, and now she’s grading strangers’ standardized tests in some kind of sweatshop in Louisville. It gives me still more time to process thoughts. We’ve been so busy lately I can hardly keep up.
So, June 1, a fine time to start a little personal challenge for myself. This post is round one. More to come. While I was dripping sweat into my eyeballs doing leg squats, I realized a few things about this little challenge I had cooked up for myself.
First thing is this: The hardest part about setting a big goal for myself isn’t setting the goal. It’s putting aside all the other things I have cooked up inside my carousel of a brain. I’ve been reading a couple things recently about how to go about accomplishing a big goal or accomplish something significant and difficult. The advice is grand. Set a goal, see? Then, just break things down into the steps I need to achieve that goal. I’m over simplifying, but it truly is sound advice. The problem is that I can’t settle on one goal.
Second thing is: I beat myself up about this kind of stuff, especially when I don’t get anywhere. The reason is pretty damn good, though. I’m already past half way in a big goal, and keep forgetting it. I’m in getting my MBA, while working and having a family. Day by day, it’s hard to remember that I’ve learned a lot, sharpened my critical thinking, and really transformed my role at work over four years. Here’s to hoping there’s a big payoff down the road for all this effort. But, it comes at a cost, which leads me to …
The third thing: Creativity atrophies. I can’t figure out if it’s actually the case that all my focus on job and graduate school actually deadens creative thought, but I’m beginning to wonder. Maybe it’s just that I have less time overall. I sure as hell hope that’s it. The idea that I’ve driven off my creative energy and skills terrifies me, to be honest.
And, all of that is why I’m still sitting up with about 70 minutes to spare on day one of my challenge. It’s why I’m sitting in the dark typing before I go to bed, and why I’m not already asleep, having rationalized away why this challenge was a silly whim.
So, this is for me. This is a reminder that I don’t give half a damn about being able to run a marathon some day, but I’m scared to death I won’t have the chops to create, to write something worth reading some day.
I think I decided somewhere in these last few days that I’ve stopped worrying about what people might think of a guy who has opinions and ideas like mine. What I write here and anywhere else is who I am. The number of people who really have any real sense of that are fewer than I have fingers. But, what’s the use of all that? It mostly just makes life a little more lonely. It sure as shit isn’t going to make my creative life any better.
The Walker of Worlds blog has a review of one of my favorite series, Queen & Country. Check out Stephen Aryan’s review of Queen & Country: Definitive Edition Volume 2.
I’m not surprised Stephen liked it! Queen & Country is amazing.
Tags: Greg Walker, Queen & Country, Review, Walker of Worlds
Around the first of the year, the company I work for always puts on a special event to get employees exercising. I started and stopped the last couple years. But, this year I stuck with it. So far, I’ve worked out nearly every week. I missed a couple when I was sick and on vacation.
For the first time in my adult life I stick with it. There wasn’t anything special about it. Oh, going with my wife to the gym helps, sure. She does look great in workout gear! But, it wasn’t anything different this year.
I still hate doing it. I have sore knees. When I lift a lot, I get stiff and sore. I dread the exertion, but finally did reach a point I feel good after workouts. I haven’t quite hit running 2 miles without resting, but I’m close. And, I’m already lifting more than when I started. It’s progress, as long as I can keep that damn knee of mine in line.
Last week, I sat down on my couch with my laptop and actually wrote more than 500 words of fiction. I did it again last night, though it was fewer than 500 words. It was something. The writing’s not terrible, and I may actually get a short story out of my efforts for once. But it won’t just happen effortlessly. And, as my graduate classes ramp up again, the routine will be tough to keep.
I’ve been at this point before. Over a year ago I wrote a couple thousand words, but never finished. For years, I’ve had starts and stops, but never have much to show for it.
Writing is a lot like working out for me. No amount of reading inspiring books on writing, no amount of knowing all the tricks of the trade changes the fundamental thing. Just like braving cold January days when I don’t have to work out, I also have to set aside time and write. I’ll have sore knees, and I’ll have frustrating sessions of only a couple hundred words.
I accept that it’s exercise. It’s a routine. And, it doesn’t come easy. I know this isn’t news to anyone. It’s not news to me, either. Exercise is good for me, but I still didn’t always do it. Writing’s the same way. I know what I need to do. Doing it’s another thing.
I take heart in two things. First, that I can actually change my routines in life, whether working out or writing. Second, that those things shows real progress, bit by bit. The trick will be keeping that up.
The Imperfectionists: A Novel by Tom Rachman hits a place dear to me – newspapers. I spent my college years learning to be a newspaper man in one of the best damn college newspapers in the country, The Daily Iowan. But, like the paper and staffers in Tom Rachman’s novel, my journalism career was doomed to a short life. Fortunately, my life isn’t quite as dysfunctional and, well, imperfect. I think we both have just a little regret, though.
The book assembles several short narratives from a different characters’ perspectives. Here are short, usually tragic stories of, say, the ambitious obituary writer, the hapless news editor, the copy desk old maid, and even the obsessive-compulsive newspaper reader among others. All work at or read a once-great international English-language newspaper headquartered in Rome.
Between the short fiction for each of these journalistic has-beens, Rachman insperses vignettes of the paper’s history that serve as its obituary. It is the kind of inbred jouarnlistic enterprise whom all the participants refer to simply as “the paper.” (Say no more; I know the kind.)
Rachman’s title is clever. They characters are all imperfection personified, and they’re more than slightly obsessive. Yes, the thing unfolds in a kind of broad stroke imperfect tense — things that have happened with indefinite endings. Characters with action, but without “tense,” so to speak. Rachman’s too good at noting the idiosyncracies of copy editing — and copy editors — to avoid such playful spirit in the book.
It works. But, there’s something off kilter about these frustrating messes of people, as though the twisted, tragic endings for each chapter and character came out of a modern day O. Henry school. Oh, the trajedies aren’t surprise endings. Some are predictable. Rather, Rachman paints an expatriate life that the imperfectionist fools manage to let slip through their fingers.
The book does have an incredible sense of both time and place. Rachman, who worked as an international journalist and still lives in Rome, paints a wonderfully mundane, vivid locale of Rome. His characters walk his streets, and it shows. There, too, are wonderful juxtapositions of actual events in precisely the right time. The novel’s set around 2007, and headlines bubble up through the work, giving the characters a grounding in the real world we all know and fret about. Iraq war references abound, as do events like the Virginia Tech shooting.
That juxtaposition is Rachman’s real achievement here. He crafts believable characters living in a dynamic world. But, he doesn’t cast them larger than life, caught up in those events. He lets them be their imperfect selves, worried about a bit of flab or sucking on hard candies, or lonely at night. When their imperfections aren’t frustrating (and they are, those poor, imperfect bastards), they’re vulnerable and endearing. Cheer for them, anyway, won’t you?
In each tale, though, there isn’t much time to cheer. The stories are brief, as is the book. It’s a fine, quick read, but Rachman rushes at times. Dialogue is more reported than scored, which may be the effect Rachman aimed for. It’s a newpaper pace that doesn’t let the characters breathe.
And, taken as a whole, the strung-together short works stumble their way to the newspaper’s demise, yet those characters never realize their fates. The book works as a novel mainly in name. Yes, characters “cross” one another’s narratives, thus tying the work together. But, its differences from an anthology are sparse.
In the end, it’s a wistful look at the tough times newspapers face in a new digital world, and the human mess those stubborn old journalists make of things. I feel bad for them … almost.
The Imperfectionists: A Novel: C+
Tags: C-plus, journalism, newspapers, Review, Rome, The Imperfectionists, Tom Rachman
My daily commute is usually me shuffling through songs on my iPod as I dodge traffic in my car. I’ve been driving the same route for about 13 years now, so it’s getting pretty robotic.
Today, Neil Young popped on the list. This song’s not very old. It’s the eponymous Fork in the Road, which was a pitch-perfect send up to the recession. It really affected me in a time when the world was going more crazy than usual.
Anyway, I had to smirk when Shakey blasted out this verse:
Keep on bloggin’
‘Til the power goes out
Your battery’s dead
Twist and shout
Immediately preceding this great lyric is:
Download this
Sounds like shit
On the knee-slapping video of this bit, he has a pair of headphones plugged into an actual apple. After he sings that bit, he takes a bite out of the apple. Funny stuff, but it’s one hell of an irony that I love Neil so much I had Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World engraved on the back of my ipod.
Tags: ipod, Neil Young
I’m already well into The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman. It’s a speedy read, and it came recommended by my old boss. He thought the quirky stories about a newspaper would suit me, and he’s right. It reminds me of my short-lived days as a news journalist. These days, I’m far gone from those nobly intended days to do good in print. I still remember them fondly, and I still am a news junkie.
Those brief years, even while young, did give me enough of a taste of newsrooms to appreciate Rachman’s fictional newsroom, inspired by his own reporting days. It’s proving a nostalgic read that way, although the characters are a entertaining, frustrating mess so far. Review to come!
Tags: journalism, newspapers, The Imperfectionists, Tom Rachman
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