Category Archives: All About Me

Reading Rousseau: The Problem With Education

All About Me, Arts, Books and Literature, Culture, Politics, Politics & Culture, , , , , ,

I am currently writing a book, set 200 years in the future, after the near-total splintering of society following the election of a narcissistic, childish, manipulative con man/businessman to the American Presidency. The story takes place in two bordering countries: the remains of the U.S.A., and Bernietopia, i.e. the northeastern part of the U.S. It’s a lot of fun to write, and pretty funny too.

Now, the parts that take place in the U.S.A. are really pretty easy to write – I’m basically just laying down the worst-case scenario, based on the direction the country seems to be going (to me, anyway, and it’s my book, so there). The Bernietopia parts, which were the first parts I wrote, as a semester project in a class on American Utopian Literature, are proving much more difficult: see, in these parts, I’m trying to actually articulate a theory, or philosophy, of government which is not only true to the American Dream and the fundamental American Spirit that I still believe in, and faithful to the intent and spirit of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, but also incorporating other sound principles of society and justice (many of which also influenced the thinking and philosophy of our own founding fathers).

So I’m doing a lot of reading on political philosophy, which brings me to the point of this post: the problem with education is that it never ends. It can stop, but it can never really end. No matter how much you read, there is always something more to be learned, on any given subject. Take the research I’ve been doing for this book. It started out as a school project, so I started with the material we’d studied in class: Nathaniel Hawthorne and Laura Ingalls Wilder, among others. Then I moved on to Thomas Carlyle, whom I was introduced to in a class on Victorian Literature. I was surprised to discover that Carlyle, although he seems to have been a pretty staunch capitalist and industrialist, had some very important insights and thoughts that really influenced my thinking.

Warning: The following paragraph is basically just a list of stuff Moon has read lately – feel free to skip ahead if you’d like – sincerely, Moon’s Conscience:

Then, I moved on to Thomas Paine, and his pamphlets The Rights of Man, The Age Of Reason, and Common Sense (a lot of good, thought-provoking stuff there), as well as The Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson (oddly enough, not a lot of help), and Patrick Henry’s Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death speech, as well as The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Frederich Engels (I’ve gotta admit, I was a little leery of ordering that one – don’t want to end up on a list – but figured I really oughta read it and see what all the fuss is about), and The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. And you know what I discovered after reading all that stuff? That there was a whole lot more to read.

Warning 2: the following 2 paragraphs are just more of the same – still sincerely, Moon’s Conscience:

I’ve added Ben Franklin’s Autobiography and Other Writings, The John Locke Collection, John Jay’s The Federalist Papers, The Revolutionary Writings of John Adams, more stuff by Patrick Henry, and Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience and Other Essays to my library, and still have to order The Complete Works of Jeremy Bentham, as well as the works of John Stuart Mill, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, and George Orwell’s 1984, and Animal Farm (and those are just the ones I know of right now).

I also have to get back into Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, G.K. Chesterton, and the Bible. First, of course, I have to make it through The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Okay, I think he’s finished now – You’re welcome – Moon’s Conscience

I hope you understand that I’m not listing all these books and writers to make you think I’m smart or anything: one of the things I learned in college is that education won’t make you smarter (and any of you who actually know me, will know that I am living proof of that). However, I do believe that education can make you better – if you let it; if you’re willing to follow where it leads you, and you’re willing to keep an open mind, and actually think about what you’re learning.

No, the point of listing all this stuff is to illustrate (again) the point of this essay: that the problem with education is that it never ends.

I am also not just talking about formal education: for the first 48 years of my life, I was largely self-educated (no offense to my grade- and high-school teachers, it’s not your fault, it’s all mine), and many of the smartest and wisest people I know are also self-educated, and they, like me, continue to further their own education completely on their own. But I think that they would agree with me that education, whether formal or self-directed, not only never ends, but that it’s exhausting.

There’s just so much to learn – about everything, and we’ve all only got so much time. We’ve all got things to do: work, play, raise the kids, chase the wife (or husband) around the house (preferably in an amorous way), watch a little TV, keep up with the news, waste time on the Facebook, etc. It can be hard to make time for learning, but deep down, we need it, and you know what?

It’s worth it.

The stuff I’m reading right now is not easy to read. Those old dudes had a labyrinthine way with words. I frequently find myself having to go back and re-read something because by the time I get to the end of a sentence, I’ve forgotten what he’s talking about (sometimes I have to re-read 2 or 3 times – see what I mean about college not making you smarter?), but it’s worth it, because you frequently come across gems like this:

“by equality, we should understand, not that the degrees of power and riches are to be absolutely identical for everybody; but that power shall never be great enough for violence, and shall always be exercised by virtue of rank and law; and that, in respect of riches, no citizen shall ever be wealthy enough to buy another, and none poor enough to be forced to sell himself:¹ which implies, on the part of the great, moderation in goods and position, and, on the side of the common sort, moderation in avarice and covetousness.”

¹If the object is to give the state consistency, bring the two extremes as near to each other as possible; allow neither rich men nor beggars. These two estates, which are naturally inseparable; are equally fatal to the common good; from the one come the friends of tyranny, and from the other tyrants. It is always between them that public liberty is put up to auction; the one buys, and the other sells.

I think we have a tendency to think that the problems that plague our society and world currently are somehow new, or that they are something someone has made up to cause trouble, or that, (if we are smart enough to realize that some ((most)) of our problems are at least centuries old) since something (like wealth inequality) is still a problem, then there just clearly isn’t anything we can do about it, at least as a society. Then you read something like that, and have to realize that yes, it’s been a problem for centuries, and that perhaps the reason it still is, is that no society has ever really even tried to fix it, at least not seriously.

Warning: Look out, he’s starting to philosophize – don’t say you weren’t warned – Moon’s Conscience:

When it comes to things like that, a lot of folks like to fall back on the old, “well, you can’t legislate morality” argument. The thing is though, we can, and do, legislate morality all the time. That is largely the purpose of laws: to make immoral things illegal so that 1) people won’t do ’em, and 2) so that the ones that do can be punished. Killing is immoral. Stealing is immoral. Perjury is immoral.

Now I’ll grant you that there is a difference between religious morality and societal morality. That’s why only three of the Ten Commandments are actually reflected in our laws (except in some southern states of course). The founding fathers were wise enough to realize it was best to stick to legislating against things that could be proven and, if truth be told, ignoring those commandments which they themselves had a proclivity for breaking (I’m looking at you, Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin).

But I digress: the point is that we often insist on legislating morality – hence the pro-life movement.

Okay, it should be safe now – Moon’s Conscience

Which brings me to another problem with education: it has no limits, no boundaries. You never know where it’s going to take you.

Nope, sorry – Moon’s Conscience

Studying one thing can suddenly branch out into something completely different. The hardest part of The Social Contract for me to understand was a bit in which Rousseau suddenly started using math to prove his point: I am not a math guy. I just don’t get it. When I look at math, or even just numbers, really, my brain glazes over, and I just go into a kind of trance (and not the cool kind where your spirit animal pops up and takes you to hang out with Jim Morrison, but the other kind, where you suddenly snap out of it and you have no idea what just happened, but you’re not happy, and Donald Trump is suddenly President). Math is hard.

Or you’re studying literature, and all of a sudden, you’re reading non-fiction about the industrial revolution, and the rise of the labor movement.

Or you’re studying military history, and suddenly discover that if the economy hadn’t taken a giant dump on itself in 1873, then Custer might have died of old age, and the history of our relations with Native Peoples might have been very different over the last 150 years (okay, probably not, but an intriguing possibility).

The point of this is simply that everything is related: nothing exists in a vacuum, it’s all intertwined; Literature, Philosophy, Science, Math, the past, the present, the future, morality, religion, truth, lies, good, evil, war, peace, terror, joy, everything you can imagine, all twisted and tied together like some sort of extremely complex DNA of Life, and every new thing you learn unravels just a little bit more of it, and you gradually see, and kind of understand it all just a tiny bit more. It’s fascinating, and scary, and frequently annoying, all at the same time.

Finally, what may actually be the biggest actual problem with education: There is often an uncontrollable urge to share what you’ve learned. No matter how you resist, there’s just some part of you that says, “Hey, I should tell this to EVERYBODY!!!!!” regardless of whether EVERYBODY!!!!! cares, or is even curious or not (chances are they’re not). The next thing you know, you’re trying to think of gimmicks to make reading what you have to say at least somewhat palatable.

Screw you fat boy – Moon’s Conscience

See what I mean?

Which leads me to the last big problem with education (okay, not really, but transitions are hard): Education, as unending, confusing, and unlimited as it is, is important. Really, really, really important. Too important to be used as a pawn in the endless political gamesmanship that our government seems to prefer over actually governing.

 

Now What?

All About Me, Arts, Books and Literature, Culture, Politics, Politics & Culture, , , , , , , , , , ,

I’m freeeeeee! Finally, at the age of 51, I’ve graduated from college. Yay me. I’ve spent the last 3 1/2 years busting my butt, studying, reading, thinking, and writing, and it’s come down to this: I got an email the other day saying that they’ve checked, and yep, I’ve completed all the requirements for a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree in English with a concentration in Creative Writing (I do have to admit to some disappointment that its a B.A., and not a B.S. degree, although, as some have pointed out, I’ve had a degree in BS for decades. Still, it would be nice for it to be official).

The last semester was particularly hard. It’s difficult to concentrate on Frances Burney’s Evelina, or, The History of a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World, first published in 1778, when the whole world seems to be losing its shit. Seriously. In the (sur)real world, we had Donald Trump, whose chief accomplishment seems to be losing money on casinos (and in fairness, even I would find that difficult) vs. Hillary Clinton, who is most famous for being the only politician on earth who has spent her entire existence under congressional investigation (and inconclusive investigation at that).

On top of that, we had dozens of examples of malfeasance by both parties, the campaign was virtually issue-free (why waste time talking about the future of the country, when you can just get on TV and sling shit at your opponent? It’s like the whole thing was held in a monkey house full of incontinent chimpanzees). Finally, Trump won, despite losing the popular vote (by almost 3 million votes), and all of a sudden, it seems like everyone is talking revolution; lefties are gearing up to stop Trump no matter what (although honestly, if they couldn’t get their shit together enough to beat Trump during the election, it seems fairly naive to think they’ll get it together now), and the rightest of the right wing are proposing armed revolt if Trump turns out to be a disappointment to them (it’s like cognitive dissonance has become viral).

So like I was saying, it was really hard to concentrate in school. All the time I was supposed to be writing papers, and reading books, I just couldn’t help thinking about all the stuff I wanted to write for Moonsthoughts. Every conversation would turn to politics, and I’d think, “Ooooh, that’d make a good post,” and “Hey, I have thoughts on that subject too!” I have to admit, I wasn’t really doing my best work there at the end.

And now, 2-3 weeks later, I’m free to write whatever I want . . . and I’ve got nothing. I’ve started several posts, and given up on them all. Part of it may just be ennui, after straining my brain for school, but I’m more afraid that it’s just . . . well . . . despair? resignation? depression? I thought that things would change after the election. I thought that, no matter who won, everybody would calm down, lay off the panic buttons, and maybe start talking to each other again (what can I say; I’m an optimist). Sadly, that doesn’t seem to be the case. All the craziness and hyperbole (on both sides) just seems to keep getting worse.

Most people seem to just want it to be over, to forget about it, to get back to their lives. I’ve had at least two conversations in the last couple of weeks, with intelligent, reasonable, compassionate people who just want to stop talking about all this stuff. This is the wrong approach to take, I think. There’s way too much of just sticking our heads in the sand in that response. Of course, I think it’s also because we were all white, straight, married, Christian, several-generation American, lower-middle-class to middle-class people. The only thing we really have to worry too much about is our own slow slide into poverty (which does seem increasingly likely). Nobody wants to register us, or deport us, or revoke any of our rights, so we’ll probably be okay with our heads in the sand for at least a few more years. Yay us!

The only way I see things getting any better, is if we (and I mean all of us), pull our heads out of the sand (or wherever else they may currently be inserted), and talk to each other about the issues, about the ideas, about our fears, about what direction the country should take. We need to get off the talking points, stop talking about the politicians, and stop talking about what they want us to talk about.

One of the things I learned in college is that you don’t learn a whole lot from people you agree with. We need to talk to people we don’t agree with; to find out why they feel the way they do, to let them know why we feel the way we do. Of course, in order to do that, we’ll have to learn to stop communicating in memes, to stop parroting the misinformation machine that feeds both sides a steady diet of Bullshit.

On the Facebook, I’ve got a lot of pretty hard-core, right-wing friends. I’ve also got a lot of hard-core, left-wing friends. If I’m honest, I have to admit that I find the left’s bullshit much more palatable, but that’s why I don’t unfriend or unfollow my right-wing friends. I don’t want to live in an echo chamber. I know a lot of people who voted for Trump; some who did so proudly, and some reluctantly, but I have no problem with anyone, based on who they voted for. Whether I like it or not, I can understand the reasoning (or at least most of it), to some point, anyway. I think they’re wrong, but being wrong doesn’t make them bad people (to paraphrase a famous guy I used to know).

We’ve got to see past the generalizations. I’m soooooo tired of seeing right-wing propaganda that refers to all liberals as “libtards” or worse, and I’m just as tired of left-wing propaganda that refers to all conservatives as fascists. It’s bad enough in the memes, but when people I know start slinging that kind of crap around, I really get kind of angry, because, (I’m gonna let you all in on a little secret here) I’m a conservative – more on that later.

It’s not just counterproductive, it’s stupid. I don’t know anybody whose entire existence can be summed up by one word. Like I said before, I know a lot of folks on the right, and even though I disagree with almost everything they say, I know that they are not fascist, racist, gay-bashing, Troglodytes consumed by hatred for anything that doesn’t look or act like them (at least not the ones I know). I also know a lot of folks on the left, and none of them hate America, or want to invalidate your religion, or to take any of your stuff away and give it to anybody else. Pretty much all of the folks I know, left and right, just want to live their lives according to their own lights. None of them wishes harm to anyone else. None of them want to hurt anybody, or rule over anybody. They just want to do their jobs, support their families, and live in peace.

We like things simple; we like the idea that there are good guys and bad guys, absolute right and absolute wrong, and we all, left or right, like to think that we’re on the side of the Angels (or the side of Right, anyway). That way we don’t have to think. We really hate to think. We really, really hate to think that we might not be absolutely, completely, 100% right on everything (although ironically, we do like to post about how flawed and imperfect we are on the Facebook, especially us Christians). We need to talk, and more importantly, to listen to people who think differently than us because, the chances are that on any given subject, neither of us are really, completely, 100% right on anything.

We’ve got to talk about this stuff; capitalism, socialism, gay rights, racism, abortion, women’s rights, freedom of religion/freedom from religion, guns, immigration, all of it, among ourselves. We’ve got to take the power out of the hands of the politicians, and back into our hands, where it should be. The powers that be don’t want us to come together; it’s much easier for them to get what they want if we’re too busy fighting with each other to look at them. Our loss is their gain.

We’ve all got to do whatever we can do to contribute to the conversation, but first we’ve got to start that conversation; what we’ve got right now is essentially a nation of incontinent chimps flinging shitty memes at each other, thinking “that’ll show ’em.”

I know I’ve got to keep on writing; not to convince, not to convert, or to preach, but to present what I think, and why I think this way (and yes, I was dropped on my head as a child. Several times). It’s the only way I know to try to fix things.

What can you do?

 

Doctor, Doctor

All About Me, Religion

Here’s a link to my latest article for The Odyssey:

Doctor, Doctor, Give Me the (good) News

It’s kind of a follow-up to last week’s That Certain Friend (also available on The Odyssey Online, and here, in last week’s moonsthoughts post, although it certainly stands on its own. I hope you enjoy it, and, as always, thanks for reading!

Dear David: An Open Letter To My Little Brother

All About Me, , , , ,

Dear David,

Since you recently had a birthday, and now get to stare down the barrel of the big Five-Oh for a year, I thought I’d take a moment on the occasion of my 51st birthday to pass on a few words of wisdom regarding what is arguably the most horrific of all birthdays.

First of all, it’s really not all that bad. In fact, it’s actually pretty stinkin’ good. I know, I know, that doesn’t make any sense, but it’s true. I was having a little trouble figuring it out, when I came across some research that really cleared it up, and what it comes down to is this: It’s never gonna get any better.

Apparently, we peak pretty early in life: physically in our mid-30’s, creatively in our late 30’s, mentally in our early 40’s, and wisdomly(?) in our late 40’s. I’ve seen other research that says we also hit our peak earning potential in our mid-40’s.

That means (and I’ll just speak for myself here, your mileage may vary) I’m never going to be any stronger, prettier, sexier, smarter, wiser, or more creative than I am today, and my best earning days are just a speck in the rear-view mirror.

Do you realize what this means? It means ALL THE PRESSURE’S OFF!!!!! It’s all just one long downhill slope to the end from here, little brother. We can just take our feet off the pedals, enjoy the ride, and coast all the way to the finish line!

No more worries for me about trying to become a rich and famous writer. At this point, even if I do manage to write the Great American Novel, nobody will notice until after I’m dead, and fat lot of good it’ll do me then. Of course, the readers of moonsthoughts will have the opportunity to crow about how they’ve known about the lyric magic of my prose and my rapier-like wit for years, so that’s some consolation (and, by the way, you’re all very welcome, and thanks for reading). I can just concentrate on being a good writer, and writing about stuff that matters, and stop worrying about ambitions.

I can also stop worrying about inconveniences like diet and exercise (not that I ever worried that much about them anyway). I had pretty much shelved all that nonsense a few years ago, you remember, when I lost over 40 pounds, was looking and feeling really good, and then had a heart attack! I mean seriously, at this point, what’s the point?

Yes, I know that they say that stuff can add years to your life, and that smoking and drinking take years off, but as someone once said, those are years at the other end of your life, and those are shitty years anyway. Now, I’ll grant you, proper diet and exercise probably can’t hurt, and that you, with your abnormally moderate nature, will have a longer, gentler (or less meteoric) downhill trajectory than me, but we’ll end up at the same finish line (and you know how I always loved to go fast).

Don’t get me wrong, I’m in no hurry, I’m just saying it’s time to relax a little (or a lot!). After all, who, by worrying can add one extra day to his life? I’m pretty sure I read that somewhere.

It’s time to maybe try some new things: apparently, I started school long after my mental peak, but it’s worked out pretty well. Although I’m not getting any smarter, every “A” I get represents a pretty significant triumph.

Of course I’ve always been a pretty smart guy (at least I like to think so, so don’t burst my bubble. Disappointment doesn’t get any easier to deal with), but that’s never stopped me from doing a lot of phenomenally stupid things, usually when I was trying to be smart.

No more worries about that though. Now I can relax and just accept the fact that I’m an idiot; that I don’t know shit from shinola, and I’m probably getting dumber every day. In fact statistically, I’ll never be as smart again as I am right now. On the up side, I’m waaaaaaay smarter than I will be next year, so yay me!

Nope, little brother, the big accomplishments are behind us. It’s time to start celebrating the little triumphs, like remembering where you parked, successfully hooking up a new piece of video equipment, or sneezing without shitting yourself (if you’re not there yet, trust me, you will be).

A little more free advise (and remember, you get what you pay for):

Try to spend more time naked, for a number of reasons:

First, you’re not going to ever look better naked than you do today, so enjoy it!

Second, it’s good for the environment, what with saving water on laundry and all.

Third, you’ve finally gotten your kids out of the house. Make the most of it! Think of all those times you’ve wished you were naked, but no, you had to think about the kids, so you had to put on pants just to go get something to drink.

Fourth, it keeps unwanted visitors away. There are two approaches to this: you can warn people, as I did about “No Pants” Fridays, or you can just answer the door au naturale a couple of times, and just let word-of-mouth do the rest. Dealer’s choice, really.

Enjoy yourself. Watch more westerns. Read (or, in your case, play more golf). Have more sex, if you can (no one, at least no one in a long-term, monogamous relationship, on their deathbed ever said, “I wish I’d had less sex”). That is another up side to spending more time naked. If you can get Robin to go along with it, that is. Good luck.

Worry as little as possible, about everything. To paraphrase the line from above, who by worrying can actually influence an election, keep the economy from tanking, or stop their adult children from doing stupid shit that you’ve already warned them about numerous times?

Really, life is a lot like playing football for Northeastern* back in our day. We’re going to lose. We’re probably going to get the living shit beaten out of us while we lose. It’s not going to be pretty. It’s going to be ugly, and embarrassing, and we’ll never live it down, but we might as well play as hard as we can anyway, and try to enjoy it as much as possible. At least we’ll get some good stories out of it.

 

Well, I guess that’s about it, little brother. I hope as your next birthday looms ever larger, with its twin barrels of Age and Infirmity looking more like railroad tunnels every day, you’ll be able to remember, er, look this letter up again, to remind yourself that it’s only going to get worse, so enjoy today! At least you’ll always be younger than me.

Cheers!

Your Big Brother Lloyd.

 

*For those of you unfamiliar with the glory days of our high school football careers, the Northeastern Wayne High School football team set the state record for most consecutive games lost. We lost one game 83-0. An average game we’d lose 49-0. I was the team captain my senior year, the third straight season without a single win.

 

 

It’s the Little Things That Matter: At Least That’s What I Tell Jess

All About Me, Home Life, Wives,

Warning: the following post contains innuendo, double entendre, tasteless humor, and disco music references. Proceed at your own risk.

I often wonder how I got so lucky with my wife, the exceptional and clearly-out-of-my-league Jess. Not so much about how I got her (I really believe that was God’s doing, with an assist from alcohol), but how we’ve managed to stay so happy 22 years into it. I mean, let’s face it: I was no prize when we got married, and now, I’m even less so, and even though the still lovely and long-suffering Jess remains my dream girl, the years of living with me have taken a toll on her.

We no longer do nearly as much of the things that we used to do constantly. We don’t drink much anymore, although really that’s no great loss. We don’t travel much due to a lack of funds and abundance of dogs, as well as the fact that we both really like it right here. What we used to refer to as the “carnal Olympics” has slowly shifted from a daily occurrence to a weekly to a “Hey, we oughta do that again before we forget how” basis (although we both spend a lot of time reflecting fondly on all of the gold and silver medals we’ve accrued over the years). It kind of hurts to have to admit that we’ve become boring, middle-aged adults.

 

Still the most beautiful woman in the world
Still the most beautiful woman in the world

Correction: we’ve become happy, boring, middle-aged adults, and I think the key is laughter. We laugh a lot. We laugh when times are good, but we also laugh also as much when times are bad. I’ve always been able to make her laugh (and yes, laughing at me counts), and I’ve always thought she is one of the most genuinely funny women on earth. It also helps that the one aspect of our lives and personalities that hasn’t matured at all is our senses of humor.

I’ll give you an example: A couple of weeks ago, we were getting mom’s house ready for a renter. Now this is the house that we all grew up in, and it was killing me to think of renting it, but I couldn’t afford to leave it empty. So there we were, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, and I was getting more and more depressed the whole time. We had decided that we needed to re-caulk the tub and shower, so I was trying to get rid of the old caulking. If you’ve ever done that, you know it’s no easy task. Lots of rubbing and scraping, rubbing and scraping.

I find that often, when doing a mindlessly repetitive job, my mind tends to wander. I get into a rhythm, and my subconscious will drag some old song up out of the vaults of my memory. So it was that I found myself scrape, scrape, scraping away, with the chorus from K.C. and the Sunshine Band’s disco classic, “Shake Your Booty” running on an endless loop in my head. As if that wasn’t bad enough (have you ever noticed, when this happens, it’s never a good song, or even one you can remember completely?), my subconscious kicked into overdrive, and “shake, shake, shake . . . shake, shake, shake . . . shake your booooo-tayyyy! shake your booooo-tayyyy!” became “scrape, scrape, scrape . . . scrape, scrape, scrape . . . scrape your caulk off! scrape your caulk off!” complete with the horn part.

Not a pleasant thing to have running through your mind over and over again, but I have to admit that, while distressing, the sheer stupidity of it did kind of cheer me up. When we took a smoke break, I told Jess about it, and she thought it was pretty funny. Then we sang a couple of choruses, just trying to get it out of our heads. It didn’t work, but we laughed and laughed. That was it for the rest of the day. Every time she’d come check on me, she’d ask, “Get your caulk all scraped off yet?” and I’d stretch my aching back and say, “No, and all this caulk scraping is getting pretty painful,” and we’d laugh some more. When we’d take a break (and I’ve found that frequent breaks are a key to making a bad job last a really long time), it was because I needed a break from scraping my caulk. When it was time to go back to work, she’d tell me, “You’re not gonna get your caulk scraped off sitting here,” and we’d laugh again.

I suggested, at one point, that perhaps she’d like a turn at scraping the caulk off, but she seemed to feel quite strongly that it was my caulk, and if anybody was going to scrape it off, it was going to be me. She also reminded me that I prefer it when she sticks to caulk application. I conceded the point, and we laughed some more. It really brightened up my whole day. In fact, we got about two or three day’s worth of caulk jokes out of that. It’s a good sign, when the jokes outlast the task.

That, I think, is really the secret to our success. We make each other laugh. A lot. About everything. There is very little that is off-limits. We both recognize our individual and collective shortcomings as sources of humor, and frequently, the more embarrassing the better.

Nothing makes us laugh harder than when we’re outside, having a smoke, or playing with the dogs, and one of us gets that shocked, deer-in-the-headlights look, and full-body clench that signals a sudden, impending digestive disaster (you other middle-agers know what I’m talking about). Of course, when that happens, only one of us is laughing; the other is too busy trying to hurry to the bathroom without actually moving anything between the neck and the knees (it’s funny to them too, but, in a digestive crisis, seal integrity is the paramount concern). For that one, the laughs come later, either from relief or embarrassment.

We spend a lot of time laughing about things that happened years, or even decades, ago; like the fart-heard-round-the-world at Stonehenge, or the time I got her to zap herself with an electric fence (I told you I’m no prize), or the time she gave me a concussion “accidentally” slamming a hatch lid on my head, or the time we both fell through the floor when replacing her mom’s living room floor (it’s really kind of a wonder we’re still alive).

Trying to outrun the camera timer. That hill was a lot steeper than it looks
Trying to outrun the camera timer. That hill was a lot steeper than it looks

We laugh about the way she used to mispronounce zealot (zeelot), or the time I absent-mindedly thought a bunch of calves in a field were full-grown miniature cows (“Why would anybody bother raising those? You’re not gonna get much meat.”). Yes, we are frequently idiots, but we’re happy idiots. And that’s the important thing. Much more important than dignity, or pride, or success, or financial security (thank God, because we’re usually running pretty short on all those).

The best woman in the world, and her biggest shortcoming
The best woman in the world, and her biggest shortcoming

I really think that, if you want a good relationship, find someone who makes you laugh, and thinks you’re funny too.

P.S. Just in case you don’t have that stupid song running through your head, here’s a link: K.C. and the Sunshine Band, “Shake Your Booty” . It’s also funny how easy it would be to make the entire song fit caulk-scraping. Also, now that would make a great video. Enjoy!

What’s Wrong with Me? A Little Overdue Self-Examination

All About Me, Culture, Politics, Politics & Culture, Religion

There is an anecdote, perhaps apocryphal, that G.K. Chesterton once responded to the question, “What is wrong with the world?” from The Times of London with the answer, “I am.” Now, Chesterton was a very, very smart writer, critic, and theologian, so who am I to question him? However, he died in 1936, and the world is still very, very messed up. Clearly he was not all that was wrong with the world or, maybe he was just answering for every single one of us, which begs the question, “What is wrong with us?” Chesterton went on to write an entire book, “What’s Wrong with the World”, in 1910, examining the question more deeply. I don’t have time to write a book, but, I feel that a pretty decent small-scale answer can be found in simply answering the question, “What’s wrong with me?”  Sadly, I am also no match for Chesterton’s brevity, so please bear with me.

At first glance, it shouldn’t be too hard. After all, I’m a military retiree, born and raised on an Indiana farm, and raised to behave and live according to the traditional values of my family, church, and nation; all men are created equal, do unto others . . . , etc. I mean, how bad could I really be? Generally, I think I’m a pretty good guy. My wife and friends tell me I’m a good man. Still, I know I’m not perfect. Some of my faults are obvious; I eat too much, smoke too much, don’t exercise enough. I procrastinate both habitually and accidentally (for example, I forgot this essay is due). I am self-destructive in any number of ways. I’m also fundamentally childish, petty, arrogant, vain, judgmental, insecure, wasteful, and, in all likelihood, not nearly as smart as I think I am. I guess I’m probably pretty much just like you and everybody else on the planet.

But all those things are really just the symptoms. They’re the things that I, along with you, and most of the rest of the world are aware of, and work to overcome every day so that we can be the people we’d like to be. To just stop there would really be premature. To get to the root of these symptoms, deeper self-examination is required.

One of the great things about going back to school late in life is that it has really made me at least try to be a critical thinker; to think deeply about things that I would normally just take for granted, or never think about at all. For example, I’ve been thinking about race a lot lately, which led me to ask myself, “Am I a racist?” Normally, I would just say no, of course not. After all, I don’t associate with members of any racial minorities now, but that’s because none live around me, or are in class with me (I really don’t get out much). I did spend 20 years in the Air Force though, working with people of many different ethnicities and nationalities. Many were friends, and I got along with virtually all of them. I did dislike some, but it was based on work, personality, and behavior, not their skin color. Clearly the answer was no. Emphatically no. I felt really good about that.

Then that critical thinking thing kicked in, and I really looked at my life. Just that sentence above about how I don’t associate with any minorities now, essentially admits that I don’t because I don’t have to. That’s kind of disturbing. Do I avoid places that might cause me to have to interact with minorities? Were there parts of town that I avoid? I realized that the answer to both those questions was yes. I’ll drive through the north side of town, but that’s it. When I need a haircut, I go to a chain salon on the east side, even though it made me uncomfortable. It just seemed unmanly (more on that later) to go to a salon instead of a barber, but the only barber shop I knew of is in the black part of town. I’ve driven by it literally thousands of times. It is by far the closest and most convenient barber shop in town, but I had never even considered going there for a haircut. I had to ask myself why not? The more I thought about it, the more uncomfortable I got about myself. Why not go there? I’m not picky about my hair. I just want it shorter. I’d even had it cut by black barbers in base barber shops. I had to face the fact that I’d never considered it simply because it’s a “black” barber shop. This was not a happy realization for me. It undermined a lot of what I’ve always believed about myself, and I decided I needed to do something about it. The next time I needed a haircut, that’s where I went.

I was uncomfortable walking into Wright’s Barber Shop. What would it be like? Would I be the only white guy in there? Would they all look at me? I imagined walking into something like the movie Barber Shop. Rap and Soul music playing, black people laughing and joking and having a good time. Then I walk in, and it all goes dead silent, every face turning to stare at me in shock. Maybe somebody drops a pair of scissors, and their clatter is as loud as Notre Dame’s bells ringing. Maybe it would even all happen in slow motion.

I was a little nervous as I opened the door. I walked in, and one of the ladies there asked, “Can I help you?”

“Yes, please. I need a haircut.”

“Okay, have a seat. It’ll be a few minutes.”

That’s it. No gasps of shock, no funny looks, barely a break in the conversation. I felt like a schmuck. I sat down on a sofa and looked around me. Okay, kind of what I expected; some velvet paintings on the wall, Aretha on the radio. Jet and Ebony magazines on a coffee table. After a few minutes, Mr. Wright came out, and gave me a great haircut. We had a lovely conversation, and he made me feel not only welcome, but like I belonged, like there was nothing weird about a white guy coming into his place for a haircut. Because there wasn’t.

I walked out of there feeling pretty good about myself; Apparently I wasn’t racist after all. But, if I wasn’t at least a little bit racist, then a simple haircut wouldn’t need all this thinking, all these feelings and worries, however small, would it? At least I was only a little bit racist. Of course, being a little racist is like having chlamydia: It’s better than having syphilis, but still not good. That’s a problem I’m going to have to do something about.

Then, I had to ask myself, why would getting my hair cut at a “salon” strike me as unmanly? Why would it even bother me? Deep down, I knew that men go to barbers, and that salons are for women, metrosexuals, and homosexuals. This has led me to realize that I am apparently a little bit homophobic. This is disturbing on a number of levels. Quite a few of my favorite people are gay, both friends and family. These are people that I genuinely love and respect. Even some of my favorite fictional characters are gay. I’m in favor of gay marriage, and I’m completely against these “religious freedom” laws that are so popular now, and seem to be nothing more than a thinly-veiled excuse for discriminating against gay people. I find them (the laws) offensive and distinctly un-American, so to realize that deep-down, I harbor some of these same sentiments, no matter how insignificantly or superficially, is frankly, shameful. It’s not that I have anything against them, I just apparently just don’t want to be mistaken for one of them. I was really starting to feel like a jackass, and rightly so. I’m going to have to do some work on this too. I realize that, if I were to go to a black barbershop for a haircut to explore my previously unsuspected racism, then perhaps I should try a similar experiment to test my level of homophobia. It occurred to me, however, that I don’t know of any gay barber shops. There are salons, but that’s how I ended up with this dilemma. I suppose that the next logical step at this point would be to go hang out at a gay bar. I’m just not sure that that is a step I’m ready to take. For one thing, I just don’t go to bars. I don’t really go anywhere. I like to stay home. Then there’s the whole “being in a gay bar thing.” What if someone asked me to dance? How would I react? I wouldn’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings. It would just be an uncomfortable situation. Or, maybe even worse, what if no one asked me to dance? I’m an overweight, greying 50-year-old man teetering on the verge of a mid-life crisis; I don’t need that kind of rejection. Clearly, this is another area I’m going to have to work on.

At least I’m not sexist. I love women. Most of my favorite people are women. I’m all for equal rights, equal pay, women in any job they want to do. I’d certainly vote for Elizabeth Warren for president. I may even vote for Hilary Clinton. I think of myself as a feminist. I try really hard not to objectify women, although I have to admit that that’s gotten a lot easier as I’ve gotten older. I just don’t seem to have the energy. I even asked my wife if she thought I was possibly just the slightest bit sexist, and she assured me I was not. “If you were, I wouldn’t be with you,” were her exact words, although she did acknowledge my penchant for some sexist jokes. Then I realize that, when I go to a bookstore, I automatically reject almost any book written by a woman. While I have enjoyed a number of books by women, they were virtually all books I was required to read, and not read voluntarily. This is a hard thing to have to admit, and I strongly recommend not having this particular revelation in a college literature class full of aspiring female writers like I did. While I survived that little indiscretion, I am at a loss to explain my dismissal of women’s writing. I know there are a lot of really smart, talented female writers out there. Why don’t I want to know what they have to say? It obviously points to yet another fundamental fault in my psychological and emotional makeup.

I take comfort in the fact that at least I’m not a religious bigot. I am a Christian, but I have no problem with Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, or any other religion. I believe we all have a right to believe whatever we believe, and I see the numerous parallels between most religions and my own, and realize that we’re all looking for the same God. I don’t for a moment believe that all Muslims are either overt, or closet, jihadists, that they are all out to get me. I certainly don’t believe in carpet-bombing countries to kill ISIS. I don’t believe we should have a “kill them before they kill us” brand of foreign policy. Except why do I feel a little frisson of concern when I see a guy in a turban getting on my flight? Why do I feel a little weirded out when I see a woman walking around with a hijab? At this point, I’m beginning to wonder if there is anyone I’m not at least a little prejudiced against.

I guess what’s wrong with me is that I am, to some degree, everything that I loathe people like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz for. I am (apparently) everything that I rail against. Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” and I have apparently gone almost 50 years without really examining my life. I don’t think I’m alone in this. Really examining your life takes time. It’s uncomfortable. It, at least in my case, shattered my illusions about myself, those same illusions that we all spend our lives carefully building and protecting. Once you really start thinking, you realize that there are no answers, at least no easy ones, only more questions. Once I realized that I am, in reality, a bigot; racially, genderally (?), sexually, and religiously (and don’t kid yourself, being even a little bit bigoted is like being a little bit pregnant), I’ve had to ask myself why am I all these things, which has led to numerous even less flattering revelations, both about myself, and about those who have, and do, influence me. Even worse, I’ve had to realize that there are no easy answers as to how to fix all these things that are wrong with me. I’m going to have to be an ongoing project.

It has been really hard to write this without providing some sort of defense for myself; like I said before, I like to think I’m a good guy, and at this point, I’m really feeling like a jerk. I know that life isn’t easy for these folks. I’ve been the object of baseless distrust and discrimination myself, although not nearly to the level of minorities, women, gays, or Muslims. As a middle-aged, white veteran attending college full-time, I’ve gotten the hairy eyeball from many of my fellow students. Although there are very few minorities at my school, there are a lot of females and LGBTQ folks, and it took a while for a lot of them to accept me. I made a lot of them uncomfortable. The point, though, is that they did accept me. Many of them have become good friends, and I like to think they feel the same about me. Hearing the stories about their struggles, especially the LGBTQ kids with their families has made me a lot more conscious of the problems they face. I can’t imagine how painful it must be to be rejected by my family just for being me.

Conservatives make a big noise about universities being bastions of liberalism. I say, “Good.” College maybe the last place these kids will be able to let down their guard and openly be themselves, particularly if the vast majority of us don’t get over ourselves and learn to treat those who are superficially different the way we ourselves insist on being treated. If I get a few wonky looks, so be it. I’m a middle-aged white guy. There are lots and lots of people who will be more than willing to accept me and treat me decently, based solely on the way I look. It’s not an issue for me. It’s just that it shouldn’t be an issue for Muslims, LGBTQ folks, minorities, or anyone else. Not in this country.

In the end, Chesterton was right about what’s wrong with the world: I am.

I take some small comfort that at least now, I know it. I’m just one guy. I can’t fix the whole world, but I can at least try to fix myself. I’m certainly going to try. If you should happen to bump into me on the street, have a little patience with me. I’m a work in progress. I’ll try to be a little patient with you too. Maybe that’s the key to the whole damned thing.

Bernie Sanders: Why I’m Feeling the Bern (As Stupid As That May Sound)

All About Me, Politics, Politics & Culture, , , ,

I am kind of proud to support Bernie Sanders. Granted, I’m only kind of proud because I’m having a hard time believing that there’s a politician out there that I can support, that I can vote for, as opposed to voting against the other guy. I’m a firm believer that a person has to be nuts to even want that office, and the last thing we need in that office is a nut. That said, Bernie Sanders is my kind of nut. I’m proud to support Bernie Sanders for two simple reasons: because I’m a Christian, and because I love this country. I’ll wait while some of you log off, or plan your outraged response.

There, that should be enough time. Please note that, although I claim to be a Christian, I make no claims to being a good one. Frankly, I suck at it. I’m certainly no theologian or Biblical Scholar, God hasn’t tapped me on the shoulder and told me anything personally. I don’t even know if God really even cares who wins the election. I do know this though; Jesus told us to feed his sheep. If we love him, we’re to feed his sheep. We’re to love God first, and second, we’re to love one another. We’re to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. We’re to care for the poor, the down-trodden, the sick. We’re not supposed to feed only those sheep who deserve it, we’re not to love only those who agree with us, or look like us, we’re not to do unto others before they do unto us. We’re not supposed to care for the poor, the down-trodden, and the sick once they’ve earned our help. We’re just supposed to do it.

I don’t remember anything in the Bible that says to shun the refugee, to persecute the immigrant. I’m pretty sure that it even says something in there about loving our enemies. I’m having a hard time finding the part about carpet-bombing potential or even current enemies back to the stone age. Perhaps I need to find the translation that all the Republican candidates seem to be using.

Now I know that Bernie Sanders is not a Christian, he’s not even a christian. As far as I can tell, from what he himself has said, he’s sort of a semi-Agnostic Jew. What I do know is that the things he stands for represents the Christian values that I try so hard to stick to far better than any other candidate I’ve ever heard from. Ever. In any election, with the possible exception of Jimmy Carter. Now, even I don’t think that Carter was a good president, but I think he was a good man, which is more than I can say for anyone else (besides Bernie) running this year.

I’ve seen people posting things about what good Christian men Cruz, Rubio, and even Trump (Trump!) are, and I’ve seen Cruz and Rubio blathering on about their strong faith, but every time I do, I think about that bit in the bible that talks about not praying in public like the hypocrites do, about not making it a public spectacle, so I have my doubts. It strikes me as more about image and votes than devotion to God (also, I refer you to the bit above about the things Jesus told us to do). When I compare their feelings about God with their feelings about their fellow man, there seems to be a major disconnect. As far as Trump goes, he may be the only professing Christian on the planet with a shakier grasp on biblical matters than me (but at least I’m not using it to get a job).

To my thinking, Bernie Sanders seems to know Jesus far better than any of the rest.

As to my second reason for supporting Bernie, that I love this country: Bernie Sanders is the only candidate who seems to think the good ol’ USA can do anything other than huddle in fear. Fear of terrorists (they want to kill us!) fear of blacks and other minorities (they want our stuff! and they probably want to kill us too!), fear of gun control (they want our guns!), fear of immigrants (they want our jobs! and to kill us!), of the poor (they want our money!), of non-Christians (they want our religion!), gays (they want us!), fear of unions (they want to cripple industry!), frankly fear of everything.

Okay, so I’ll go along with everybody else on the terrorists (they do want to kill us, but to fear them is to give them power), but I believe that as far as the rest go, what the blacks and other minorities, immigrants, poor, non-Christians, gays, and unions want is what this country has always promised; a fair chance at the American dream. And honestly, if you think they’ve been given that already, then nothing I say here is going to change your mind, but I do have to ask, why are you still reading?

We’re even supposed to be afraid of our own employers; if we don’t let them do what they want, they’re going to pack up all the rest of the jobs and move them overseas! To me this sounds like capitulation to corporate extortion, and it makes me pretty stinkin’ angry.

Bernie Sanders wants to rebuild our infrastructure. Is there really anybody out there who doesn’t think this is a good idea? Our roads and bridges are falling apart. How is commerce supposed to happen without transportation, and how is transportation going to happen without roads, bridges, railroads, etc?

Bernie Sanders wants to make college possible for every American. Do you think that having a more educated population will hurt this country? I know people who are $50,000, $60,000, or more in debt to graduate from IU East. Single mothers, trying to make a better life for themselves and their families. I know that if I couldn’t have gone to school thanks to the GI Bill, I’d be looking at a pretty bleak and dismal future. I certainly wouldn’t have gone into debt, or at least not that much debt for it, and I know that my future is much brighter, with more possibilities than it would be without this education. Pro-lifer’s used to talk about all the unborn Hemingways, and Beethovens, and Einsteins and Curies who were being aborted. I’m not going to argue with that. I’m going to take that argument one step farther. What about all the budding Hemingways and Beethovens, and Einsteins, and Curies, who are born, but will spend their days working at Walmart, or McDonalds, or on an assembly line because they never had a chance to break out of poverty? To be trained? Our caring shouldn’t stop at birth.

Bernie Sanders wants universal health-care. You think that’s a bad thing? I have a brother who died as an infant because Dad couldn’t afford a doctor, and so he waited too long. That was almost 60 years ago. That, in this country, should not still be an issue. Yes, there will be problems, but it is do-able. It’s already being done. All over the world. By countries who don’t claim to be exceptional. If they can do it, we should be able to, and, I believe we should be able to do it better. I also think about this; yes people can receive care in any emergency room in the country, but that’s emergency care. How many of those emergency room visits could be avoided if people could get preventative care? What about all the communicable diseases that could be curbed by preventative care? I think it could drastically improve the lives of millions of Americans, particularly those in poverty, if done right. I think we can do it right. Maybe not perfectly, but better than anyone else, or at the very least, as well as anyone else.

Bernie Sanders believes in diplomacy. So do I. I’m pretty sure we’re not the only two. Only a complete idiot would believe that carpet-bombing would do anything more than make a bad situation worse. We’ve been wasting the greatest military the world has ever seen in pointless wars with virtually no end in sight, but the Republicans would have us believe that more of that is what we need. Escalation certainly worked in Vietnam, didn’t it? I served in the Air Force for 20 years, and I don’t believe, I know that we have the best military on earth. But military force is not the best tool for every situation, and the old tactics may not work in every situation. To just use our military as the de facto solution to every problem does the men and women in our services a huge disservice. Even the best tool will break when misused. I saw that in my own career, and I’m still unbelievably angry about it. I’ve tried writing about it a number of times, and I just can’t do it.

Think about this; we get our panties in a bunch every time N. Korea, or Iran, or Russia start rattling their sabers. How do you think a shop keeper in Syria, or a student in Iran feels about Cruz, Rubio, Trump, et al’s promises to the American people that we’re going to wipe them out? Knowing that we actually have the capability to do it? Think that might make them feel a little bit leery, a little bit hostile toward us?

Now obviously, there are going to be times when putting our troops in harm’s way will be necessary. But when we do, we need to make sure they have the tools and equipment they need, we need to have a clear plan, and we need to take care of them when they come home battered, bruised, and wounded, physically, mentally, and emotionally. Bernie Sanders believes in that too.

I personally think that income equality is a far greater enemy to the safety and security of this country than ISIS, or any other foreign power or force. Every chart I’ve seen shows the poor and lower-middle class wages have stagnated since the 80’s or 90’s, while the income of the guys at the top of the fiscal food chain looks like the trajectory of a rocket. If a poor man robs a gas station, and hurts no one, he’s going to jail. The big banks have robbed the entire country, and we bailed them out. No one went to jail, or at least no one important. Something’s got to change if we’re going to keep Karl Marx from turning from a radical boogeyman into a prophet.

Bernie Sanders is in favor of implementing renewable energy, like wind and solar, which are becoming more efficient every day. Other countries, like Germany, are making huge strides in this. We, on the other hand, are fracking, breaking up the foundations of the earth, and poisoning our own water, to suck a little more gas out. That’s fracking nuts. Oil, gas, and coal, are the past. I don’t believe we’ll ever completely replace oil and gas, especially in heavy industry applications, but a move to wind and solar could significantly reduce the demand for them, and the hazardous pollution they create, and they could make life so much more livable, especially for the poor. On the reservations in the west and southwest, where every year people freeze to death because they can’t afford fuel, wind and solar power could make a huge difference.

Bernie Sanders wants to do a lot of things that I’m highly in favor of. Do I think he could accomplish them all? No. I’m no starry-eyed dreamer. No one could accomplish all of them. But he could start them. They said the world was going to end when Teddy Roosevelt broke up the trusts and monopolies. It didn’t. They said FDR’s New Deal would reduce the country to wreck and ruin. It didn’t. We used to believe we could do things, great things, things that would make everyone’s lives better. We can believe it again. The best weapon in the war on terrorism and extremism isn’t guns or bombers. It isn’t money. The best weapon in that war is the American Dream itself, making America what it has always claimed to be; a place where any man, woman, or child, can get a fair shake, can become anything they want. A place where everyone can live, a place where even the little guy has a fair chance.

That seems to be what Bernie Sanders stands for, and that’s why I support him.

One last thing; the other candidates seem to think that we need to fear our own government, that the government itself is our enemy. It wants to enslave us, it cripples the economy with unnecessary regulations, it is a greedy, grasping vulture, feasting on the remains of our country. Gun rights wonks swear we need guns to protect us from our own military, the same military that we all, including guns rights wonks, swear we love. This presumes a willingness on the part of the government to order the military to use force against us, and the willingness on the part of that military that we all love, to follow those orders, and on a national scale.

The problem with that line of thinking is that the government is US! At least it’s supposed to be. If it’s not, it’s because we’ve allowed it to be taken out of our hands, usurped by powers that shouldn’t have it. You know what, we can take it back. That’s what voting is for. As Jim Wright says, “If you want a better country, be better citizens.” Get out and vote, even if it’s not for Bernie Sanders! But you should vote for Bernie Sanders. I am.

Monday Morning: A Success Story – Sort of

All About Me, Wives

It’s Monday Morning!!!!! Yaaaaay!!!!! Okay, honestly, I feel like a lot of you are not sharing my enthusiasm. I don’t blame you, it’s not your fault. You’re probably having a regular Monday like I usually have: you wake up tired, drag yourself out of bed, stumble through your ablutions, probably cut yourself shaving, remember that you forgot to do laundry over the weekend, so now you’re sniffing your way through the pile of last week’s work clothes, trying to find the least wrinkled and most olfactorily acceptable ones (because you have just enough work clothes for 1 week). Finally ready, you stumble off, bracing yourself for the slings and arrows of outrageous stupidity that you know you’ll have to face throughout the day at your soul-crushing job.

I know your pain. That’s usually how it is for me. In fact, that’s how I thought today was going to be: just another freakishly horrible start to another run-of-the-mill week. My wife, the hard-working and sunnily optimistic Jess, woke me up at 6 a.m., in the morning! Let’s face it: That’s a terrible way to start any day, much less a Monday, and, just 6 hours into the new week, my spring was already sprung. Instead of springing out of bed, I oooooozed out, like chubby lava reluctant to leave it’s nice, warm, comfy volcano.

I was even less enthusiastic about this Monday morning than usual, because I had to take a math test. Well, technically, I didn’t have to take it until next Sunday, but I am trying to get ahead in my math class. You see, I suck at math. When I went back to school, I had to take a math placement test. The test confirmed what I had always known; I  am extraordinarily mathematically incompetent. I thought, “No big deal, I’m going to school to study English.” Ah, those were the days . . . I was young(er) . . . I was naive . . . I was wrong . . . so very, very wrong. It turns out that, even if you’re studying English, you still have to take math and science classes and foreign language classes.

Now, two and a half years later, I’ve bluffed my way through all of them – Environmental Science, Geology, and not one, but two, semesters of Spanish, getting A’s in all of them (which, quite frankly, gives me cause for concern regarding the quality of the education I’m getting). And when I say bluffed, I do mean bluffed. I’m pretty sure that I now speak less Spanish than I did at the start of the first semester, all I learned from Environmental Science is that we’re killing the planet in a multitude of ways, but that’s okay, because in Geology, I learned that the planet is trying to kill us in a number of ways, most of which involve lava and rocks.

That just leaves math; my old nemesis. My dad was amazing at math. He could do stuff in his head that I still can’t do, even with a calculator. Fractions, decimals, algebra, all that stuff, he seemed to be just naturally good at it. Sadly, the math gene apparently skips a generation, at least in the males. My sister is an accountant, so she is, presumably, pretty good at it, but neither I nor my brothers could do simple addition without a calculator. What can I say? We’re word guys.

Anyway, to make a long story truly endless, I’ve been working very hard to get ahead in math because I know that I suck at it. Also, because this is no ordinary math class. It’s called “Math for the Humanities”, and, as explained to me by numerous advisers, it’s a math class designed for mathematically-deficient English and History majors like me, to give us the math credits we need to graduate without over-taxing our math-challenged little minds. THEY LIED!!!!! I’ve had to spend the last two weeks converting Babylonian numbers, Mayan numbers, even Egyptian numbers into Hindu-Arabic (which is apparently what our numbers are called) numbers, and vice-versa. Ironically, the Egyptian numbers are the easiest, and they’re not even numbers, they’re pictures. A typical Egyptian number looks like: fish fish fish squiggly thing squiggly thing curleque curleque curleque hooky thing stick stick stick, but at least they give you a chart.

There’s also multiplying, dividing, adding, and subtracting in bases other than 10. I’m not going to even try to explain what that means (to be honest, I’m not even sure what it means, much less why it’s important to know how to do it). In high school, I was one of those kids who was always asking, “Why do I have to learn this? When am I ever going to need this?”, which is fairly common, even today. However, now, I’m 50 years old, and I know, excuse me, I KNOW I’m never going to need to do any of this!!!

Why else would I be an English major? If I was any good at math or science, I’d be studying them. There’s actual money to be made in math and science. My sister asked me what I’d be qualified to do after graduating with an English degree, and I told her, quite truthfully, “Be a stripper.” Then my wife, the very funny and needlessly cruel Jess, chimed in with, “Honey, you’re not qualified to do that either.”

So anyway, I’ve been struggling with this math stuff for two weeks now. I sit here at the computer, straining my brain, cursing at the computer, and talking myself through these math problems: “Okay . . . so 8 x 6 is 42 . . . ” while the much more mathematically capable Jess sits in the living room watching Pit Bulls and Parolee’s shouting, “No it’s not!” and giggling. Finally, last week, after going through the practice exercises for four hours, I felt like I was ready to take the test. I clicked on it (the whole class is on-line), and the computer said I couldn’t open the test until February 1st.

You probably heard me screaming.

So, this morning, February 1st, I ooooozed out of bed, took care of the critters, and sat down to take the test. I thought about going through the practice exercises again, and then realized that I just don’t care enough. So I clicked the thing, and took the test . . .

. . . And kicked it’s ass! (cue fanfare) That’s right! I killed it! I beat that thing like a rented mule! I showed it who’s boss! I got . . . wait for it . . . an 86%!!!!! Okay, I’ll wait a moment for you to stop laughing.

There, finished? No?

How about now?

Okay, that’s enough. Listen, 86% might not seem like much to crow about, but for me, it’s like . . . well, it’s like me almost qualifying to be an Olympic gymnast (those of you who know me and have heard me straining to tie my shoes even back when I was thin will know how surprising that would be).

What, you thought I was kidding about how badly I suck at math? If you’re a regular follower of this blog, then you know that I am, if anything, a master of the understatement, and that my humility is outshone only by my absolute honesty.

Anyway, not only did I experience an absolute and unqualified triumph over that horrible test, I also managed to get a load of laundry done, peruse the Facebook a little bit, fold and put away the laundry, and write this little gem. Not bad for a Monday morning. Of course, it’s only 11 a.m., and I still have to go to class, but I’m feeling uncharacteristically optimistic today.

How was your morning?