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beardyallen · 5 years

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Well, that went quickly...

What day is it? I’m starting to lose track of how long I’ve been here...

Well, it’s been a week since my last post, and it seems that a lot must have happened, but honestly I feel like I’ve just been cranking through a bunch of comic books.

But I do know that Friday and Saturday involved a good deal excitement, so I guess we had might as well pick up pretty much where we left off!

Last Friday was Orientation for ICB, which meant getting all of the 35-40 instructors, 10 staff members, and the 6-8 people in charge of this program together in a room to introduce us to...basically what we’d been doing all that week. Also, aside from a couple study-abroad-undergrads and my officemate and me, everyone there had probably already heard the spiel.

It was scheduled from 5p-6p with a buffett afterwards, but a bunch of the Communications people from my floor were going out to eat (again?) afterwards, so I made plans with NR. She wanted to try this Mexican restaurant in what I’ll describe as the “international district” of Beijing. Most everything around us when we got there looked like it belonged in literally every metropolitan area in the world. Every major brand you can imagine had a store. Multiple. Too many...

But the Mexican restaurant we visited is owned and managed by a Mexican expat, apparently. He even stopped by our table to ask how the food was, and let me tell you: that quesadilla was the BOMB!!! And the margarita was pretty good (not as good as MHO’C’s, though!). By the time we finished up dinner, it was kind of late, so we wondered around the shopping center, found a bookstore. You know: the usual.

Fun fact: when a store or restaurant wants to indicate to their patrons that they are getting ready to close, they play smooth jazz and turn the lights down. Like for real. Had their not been windows open to the pavilion outside with it’s hundreds of light displays, I would have been seriously concerned when the lights in the place just went out and Kenny G popped up on the speakers.

We entertained the idea of finding the cinema nearby to see Alita Battle Angel, but during the 15 minutes that we spent wondering around in search of the complex, it seemed to elude us. Plus it was getting close to that time when the subway shuts down, and I wasn’t exactly hankering for a taxi ride this early in my stay....if at all.

The next morning, I got up early to meet back up with NR at the National Museum near the Forbidden City. Now, for the most part, the stairs I get don’t bother me. But I will say, if you’re going to stair at the pasty white guy with a hard-to-describe-its-color-accurately-beard, maybe don’t do it when you’re going 15 mph on a bike, facing in the wrong direction! *sigh.....Some people’s kids...

But what really bothered me, especially at the time, was the father-of-three who straight-up filmed me on his phone from 5 feet away for a solid 6 minutes, three hallways, and two escalators! I get it, I’m funny looking. But I really think I a picture would have done just fine...

One of the things that bothered me the most about that experience was that (a) he had a shit-eating grin plastered on his face, (b) his daughters seemed rather embarrassed, (c) he filmed me with the screen aimed at me so I could watch myself on his phone, (d) there was text on the screen, and (e) it went on for a solid 6 minutes.

In hindsight, I was wearing sunglasses and a hat, in a subway system, in the morning, heading to the center of Beijing. Maybe he thought I was a celebrity? I had spoken to a Communications graduate student the other day who happens to be black, and he told me the story of how a citizen here pull out their phone with a picture of Samuel L. Jackson on it, and gestured to him as it to ask if it were him...even though SLJ is for sure at 70 years old and this kid is no more than 35. And he looks 25. #smh

Anyway, after dealing with whatever the hell that was, I got to visit the museum! They, for whatever reason, were not allowing people to bring their charging blocks into the museum (external battery that you can use to charge your cell phone and other devices on-the-go), but more surprising to me was just how many people carried one with them! At least, it was surprising until I took a moment to think about it. As I’ve mentioned before, basically every payment made in Beijing is through WeChat, which needs internet access, so I guess it shouldn’t be too surprising. You also really can’t navigate through the city with some sort of Maps app; there are just too many bus routes, train routes, terminals and stops to keep logged in your head.

As far as the museum itself goes, the gifts to China from foreign governments exhibit and the Ancient China exhibit themselves took most of the day. Also, no surprise: the gift that took up the most floor space was given by a U.S. President. I also got a refresher in 8th Grade Social Studies. Too many small countries to remember all of them, and that space made me feel somewhat moronic.

The Ancient China exhibit was exceptional, though. They broke up the last, oh...750,000 years of human-ish life in China into 8-10 separate eras, the first few cataloguing the life and evolution of Homo erectus pekinensis into Homo sapien, while the latter eras were segregated dynastically. I’ve never seen the progression of human evolution laid out in such detail! The rock tools became better rock tools, then pottery and paper, stamps, buildings and so much more! There were even ceremonial helmets that would put the Juggernaut to shame!

It was strange, though, to have all of this knowledge just beyond my fingertips both literally and figuratively. The literal sense isn’t too shocking, as I’ve been to a museum before and know not to touch the pieces, but to have placards written in a language that would take years to learn was frustrating. Fortunately, NR has a never-ending supply of patience, and she translated much of the text. She even quizzed me on several of the characters. I’ve worked out how to write “rock” for sure.

After the museum, we wondered over to a nearby mall that, honestly, puts the Mall of America to shame. No joke. This place was huge! It just kept going and going and going! There was a particular alley that has all of the “exotic foods” that you might see on The Amazing Race, which I haven’t tried yet but intend to, but the rest is mostly-outdoor shopping center. Our reason for being there was to find food (we had been in the museum for a bit over 7 hours), and then sit our fine asses down in a movie theater to watch Alita.

We found a restaurant that served food traditionally found where NR grew up. It was exceptional. And the beer just made it better. :P

The movie experience was something else entirely. I’ve gotten used to watching television and movies with subtitles so that, when people decide to talk to me, I can follow along with both bits. Or if people are just talking near me while I’m watching television, I don’t have to rewind the show. That helped a lot; the movie was still spoken in English, but there were Chinese subtitles. I recognized the Chinese character for “1″ frequently enough, but that was about it.

The movie itself was way more than I expected. I shouldn’t be surprised, given that one of the primary characters is played by Christoph Waltz. If you haven’t seen it yet, you should definitely consider it.

Also, additional fun fact: I’m thinking that most (if not all) showings of major motion pictures here are in 3D. *shrug* Side note: we’re going to see Captain Marvel tomorrow and I’M SO FREAKIN’ EXCITED!!!!

After the movie, we wandered back to the subway station and parted ways mid-subway-ride to head home. The next day I spent playing Kingdom Hearts 3 and sipping some beer in the 3rd Floor Lounge. All day. It was blissful.

This workweek has consisted of four main things: teaching responsibilities, a bit of dissertation work, trying out another one of the cafeterias on campus, and reading comic books. Oh, and beer. But that kind of goes without saying, doesn’t it? There’s a convenience store on the other side of the building in front of the Guest House that has cans of beer. You can buy them individual for 3 yuan, or roughly 45 cents. I won’t lie to you: I bought 12 of them and it didn’t cost me more than 6 bucks. And it’s really not bad, and even more convenient than the liquor store I lived by in Denver.

Anyway, as I said, I’m going to see Captain Marvel tomorrow, then to “W-Town” (originally Watertown...so glad they shortened it...) in northern Beijing, which sits at the base of part of the Great Wall. More than 20 people from ICB will be heading up to their on Saturday, so I imagine one of them will take pictures. Probably ML or S. So you’ll have those to look forward to since you know I won’t be taking any!

Oh!!! I almost forgot the biggest thing that happened this week! Actually, it might be the biggest news of my entire stay!!!

I did laundry.

And I washed my slippers. I’m not convinced that they’ve stopped smelling, but I’m holding out hope that I’ve finally figured out how to resolve an issue that I know humanity has been seriously struggling with for decades. I’m on the verge of a breakthrough, people, I swear!

Anyway, time to finish this beer, read a bit more of Scott Lynch’s Republic of Thieves (WE FINALLY FIND OUT ABOUT SABETHA!!!!), and head to bed. Big couple of days ahead...

Sláinte,

BeardyAllen

P.S. I bet you thought I was gonna forget! After class on Wednesday, I worked out how to make a phone call from here to the States to wish my Mom a Happy BIrthday. Caught her at work, and we got to chat for a good long while. It really put a nice cap on my evening, and it seemed it gave her a good start to her day. Anyway, I hope you had a great evening, found something nice at C&B and enjoyed that glass of wine you mentioned! Love you!!

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itmeansfreeman · 6 years

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23 and me

Well! I already have a smile on my face. It’s my last days being this young, very young, twenty-three. The youngest I’ll ever be.

It’s 9-something PM, I think. I’m not even looking at the clock. I just know I’m fresh out of the shower with clean, cold, wet hair down my back. Sitting here in this silky black nightgown that used to be Moriah’s-- that is way too big for me because I don’t have the boobs to fill it out the way she did-- but that still makes me feel sexy every time. Sexy, not in the sense that I’m not seducing someone, but in the sense that I simply feel like a woman, just the way I am. Which is important to me after looking down at my chest a few times this year and contemplating how they’d look with implants.

I stopped by the liquor store before coming home to shower. The first liquor store was closed. I thought maybe it was a sign that I shouldn’t be having a glass of wine while I write tonight. Maybe I should get kombucha instead, being that it sometimes makes me feel tipsy anyways? But no, I looked up a second liquor store that was open, and made an intentional 8-minute drive there to pick up wine. I wanted wine for one main reason: I wanted to keep myself honest as I wrote this. But the second reason was to feel “my age” and “YOLO” to enjoying a glass alone tonight.

I picked up two bottles, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, because I couldn’t remember which one I like better. I found that this was the perfect opportunity to find out which wine I preferred by the time I turn age 24, damn it. So I begin YOLO writing with a 5-oz pour of Merlot. Measured meticulously on a food scale and logged into my FitBit food diary. I guess I can’t escape all my weird ways. And maybe I just don’t want to... I don’t need to.

Recently I’ve been wishing for myself that I’d live a life whose own biography I would want to read. That didn’t mean a successful life (whatever that means) or even a happy life, necessarily. I think it really just means a life pressed in. And all that means, according to Jinnie, is focused. Twenty-three has been the best year of my life. I have been focused. I didn’t go through things that I wanted to go through or would have chosen to go through, but when I did go through them, I went through them with focus. I have been pressed indeed and I want to let the blood of it dry and preserve as these words.

During twenty-three, I started my first corporate job and took all four parts of the CPA exams. Passed one. The most beautiful relationship I’ve ever had the honor of being in came to a swift end. I stood up and chose my faith in times where it meant that I’d lose some things I cherish, namely, Brian. I also let myself be human in the face of faith, and deliberately chose sin and indulgence. I became in the best of shape of my life. I finally pulled the trigger on wanting to learn mixed martial arts. I also pulled the trigger on saying enough to that very first corporate job that I started and screw it to the CPAs too. I used pantiliners every day (how did I ever go without?). I let myself experience myself.

There’s about 1 oz of Merlot left in my glass. I like it.

Now the question is, how to break up this entry?

Brian Kim

I’ve always been attracted to older men. Daddy issues or not, it’s just the way it’s been. I surprised myself for being able to fall in love with somebody my age. I was surprised to have looked up to somebody my age, the way I had with Brian. Though I don’t hold that same sentiment towards him now, I was surprised that I ever did-- and very genuinely I did.

Time to try to the Cab.

I am a hundred times grateful that this relationship ever happened. I am forever thankful to God. I’m thankful I got to find out just what I needed and didn’t need. I think a lot of people say that when coming out of a relationship, but those things are all very private and true. I was really thankful to find out that God had made me a stronger woman than I believed I was. I was astonished to find that that weren’t many tears that I thought were worthy to cry after it all ended. I was astonished to find that I was able to fall asleep, just like a baby, every night. Before our break-up, when I felt it coming, I mostly feared that my post break-up experience would be like that of Joe, my ex in college, who I literally lost my shit over. All. My shit. But this time, wow. I was, and still am, surprised.

I like Merlot better. Carol, on the cusp of 24, realizes that Merlot is the red she prefers. Is it “good” Merlot? I don’t know, and I’m happy that I don’t know the difference.

When we said goodbye to our love at Blaze Pizza, sitting in that back booth, I will never forget the peace and gratitude in my heart. Precisely to God who saw all my tears months prior to the relationship ending. The one to whom I prayed that prayer on a night in October 2017 with my forehead surrendered to a rug-- that I would not be the one to leave this relationship, but if it so is Your will, make him break up with me. And he did. Those words. “A relationship is just not what I need right now.” An immediate warmth in my heart, I looked up at You. And I felt you wink at me, and lovingly hush my heart that would have otherwise skipped a beat. But I remember it. It didn’t even skip a beat. I remember my inner person smiling when Brian said that. I remember nodding my head at him. I remember that this was something worth losing. That I could not, and would not, beg for a human’s love. And that I was finally happy to let him go. This friend that I had gotten to know so intimately for over two years, I was happy to let him go. I wished to see him smile again, the way a friend would want to see a friend laugh and smile. I think that was what really made me want him to break up with me. I knew I wouldn’t do, but I wanted to see him smile.

I drove home that night calling Pastor Julie. “We’re over,” I laughed with a big grin and tear droplets truly as big as marbles rolling off my face. I came home to my mom sitting on the family room couch. I put my bag on the floor, sat close next to her, held her hands and in Korean said “We broke up. I might be sad sometimes, but I am happy. I am happy this happened, but please don’t worry about me when I’m sad.”

I cannot say that today, I look at Brian with the same kind of love in my heart the way I did that night in March when we broke up. I cannot say that I do not resent the way he made me feel utterly foolish a few months later at Monica and Leo’s wedding when, I will not say what, but only that he truly made me feel stepped on. The way friends wouldn’t even make friends feel. However, when I look back at our relationship, I can only feel pure gratitude. When I see videos of us and friends, my heart gets cheerful. And I am thankful that God would protect these memories in such a way that I could still smile about it. To be clear, I would never choose this person again. Not in a million lifetimes. But I am happy to, at one point in my life, have chosen this person.

Dan Ahn

Dan, one of the most influential people to me this year, from near and far. He is one who I think is truly living a happier life in reality than on social media platforms. I think his instagram doesn’t do his life justice, and that’s rare for our generation. With myself and I think the rest of us, Instagram is the inflated, happier version... and our lives simply don’t match up.

Dan connected me to a guy named James who opened a cafe called Fahrenheit 180 in El Paso, TX. After speaking to James on the phone, who had abandoned his opportunities at Wall Street to open a cafe, I decided I needed to pursue my cafe dream and forget about the CPAs. The CPA was a goal, I was beginning to realize, that I was never meant to achieve.

The day before Dan left for his bike-across-America trip, we met at Stuff Yer Face, where he confessed to me that it did make him quite nervous that I’d made such a decision to quit my CPAs and begin working on my business after I had a conversation with the dude he linked me up with. I’ll recall more of how I arrived to this decision later, but I hope Dan knows that he’s not responsible for my actions.

No one will ever be responsible for my actions. And furthermore, this year I learned that all people, no matter their brilliance or track record, are just people with opinions from their experiences. I’ve talked to so many businesspeople this year about cafes, discussing their big wins and shameful failures. They offer convincing advice. But at the end of the day, it’s my choice to give weight to a person’s message. It’s my choice in how much I’m going to believe them.

Jeff from Kudo Society, said to me, “Be decisive. You can make up for your mistakes later. But more costly than mistakes is not being decisive.” So watching Dan and speaking to James, I have decided to be decisive. I will not be an accountant.

Listening to Her

After the breakup, I got to ask this girl, myself, what she wanted to do. She wanted a dog of course. A warm, happy Golden. But more realistically, I wanted to learn Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Something that I had yearned to practice deep inside ever since Julius and I rolled as kids. I never tried it earlier because of the money. Then I had the money, but not the time. But suddenly I was a working woman and single. I had both the money and time. So there I found myself on Google at work, searching MMA gyms around me.

I visited three: Driven Gym, Diesel, and Fight & Fitness, before I ultimately chose Fight & Fitness. What a perfectly hand picked place from God Him-very-self. Not necessarily for the training style, but for the people. Oh dear God, the people. Thank you God.

I think I ended up liking Muay Thai better than BJJ. I’ve been going to Muay Thai classes twice as often as BJJ. I honestly think that it’s because the punching, kneeing, and kicking is so much more releasing than strategically finding ways to strangle someone. But also, the eye candy is a little better in Muay Thai.

To that point, do I want to date? Hell to the no. I hate to say it because it makes me feel weak when I just said above how I was surprised to find how strong I am. But I think I am pretty scarred from my relationship and from learning about men, in general. I’m not sure that I really ever want to get married, and it doesn’t make me feel sad to think or say that. I’m truly at a place of so much freedom to not need the thought of ending up with a partner to make my life feel complete. My workplace has people cheating on their spouses with one another. Men who are now married, and even with children, are flirting with me and asking me on dates. My close male coworker, who is recently married and also a new father, told me that “Men are as faithful as their options-- including myself.”

I ponder what a sacred thing marriage is. My girlfriend said that over a decade later, her mom still thinks longingly over her ex-husband. “I don’t think you can really get over a failed marriage. Especially someone you have children with.” I wonder if it’s better to abstain from marriage if the divorce rate is so high.

Divorce lawyer and author of If You’re In My Office, It’s Already Too Late, James Sexton, says that Americans do more car research than research on marriage. If he were to tell someone that there’s over a 50% chance that they’ll get hit by a car when they walk across the street, most people wouldn't even take the chance. They’d stay inside. And if they did go to cross the street, they’d at least wear a helmet. His point was that divorce rates are higher than 50% and people don’t even inquire of what they should be prepared for in marriage. They just walk into it hoping that they will beat the odds and won’t get hit with divorce someday, like getting hit by a car. It leaves me wondering if it’s better that I don’t get married at all. And I’m okay with that. I’m satisfied enough-- or scared enough-- to be okay with that.

This is not to say I don’t believe in love. For the people who have found true, vibrating, deep, knowing love-- I celebrate that love. It truly ignites my heart on fire and I cheer always for you. I know it exists. I know that it is possible.

After Brian and I broke up, I heard that someone had told another friend of mine, “I don’t believe in love. If Brian and Carol broke up, there’s no hope for any of us.” But I do. I still believe in love. I still believe in lasting, sacred marriage. It is simply for those who, with all their might, will dedicate themselves to it. I personally don’t know if it’s for me, but I see other people that have it written in their DNAs and whose love I believe in.

Anyways, both Muay Thai and BJJ have been a wonderful sport for me. I remember one night, my head was being squeezed in between someone’s legs and my face was nuzzled in their crotch. We froze in this twisted contortion while our instructor critiqued our position. “Only in MMA would it be totally normal for my face to be held against a stranger’s crotch as someone teaches them how to do it better” I thought. MMA is a weird place for weird people, and I love it.

I heard the guys talking in the men’s locker room, “When it comes being a fighter, you need to have somewhat of an ego. But not in jiu jitsu. All of that goes out the door. You never know what’s gonna happen. Some days you just get fucked up and tossed around. And you just gotta let yourself be humbled.” I don’t know why that stuck with me the way it did when I heard it through the thin walls while changing alone in the girl’s locker room. But I just remember knowing that it was true not only on the mats, but in the fight of life. Sometimes, no matter how much you’ve trained, you will still get humbled by a force from left-field. A force you can’t control, anticipate, or mitigate.

Tim Ferriss

I just finished the 5-oz of Cab. It was definitely Merlot that I enjoyed better. 5 more ounces of Merlot, coming up. This is 360 calories so far, FYI.

Well, soon after I had turned twenty-three, I read the 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris. There’s a concept called “batching” that he teaches on. Basically, the idea is that we can save a whole lot of time if we simply batch tasks together instead of doing them continually throughout the day. We batch our laundry and wait for it to build up to the top of the basket, sometimes overflowing, before actually throwing it in the washing machine. We ought to do that with our e-mails. We ought to do that with a lot of things instead of letting them seem like productive tasks to tackle throughout the day, which actually do the opposite and steal productivity from the very things we wish to accomplish.

After reading about it, I put it to the test. I batched my tasks. I got off of social media. And suddenly, what I had was a whole lot of time. A whole sack of available time just looking me in the eye. All the clocks in the world were slow. All these months and even years, I’d been saying that I was going to get working on my coffee shop once I got the time-- but right now, “I was too busy.” Man. The batching did away with all my bullshit. I saw all that time right before me. And to my utter horror, I was choosing to not work on my cafe. I was paralyzed. Must I now face the very thing that I have said was my dream? Where are my excuses? What if I fail?

So I bought books on coffee shops. I listened to podcasts on business. I made phone calls to entrepreneurs to inquire and learn. I bought a 4” binder to collect all my data. A four-inch binder. I’ve never even bought such a binder for all my years of school. Then I stumbled across Babes in Business NJ, a group of female entrepreneurs who champion each other in their business pursuits. So I said to myself that I’m going to their next event. I’m going to get out of my comfort zone and launch myself in. When I went to this event, I learned about myself through the panel of speakers that I was yet again making excuses that I must acquire enough research before beginning to attempt this business. As if the 4” binder must be packed with paper before I’m qualified to try. The human brain is crazy with its excuses.

So I said I’m not going to let my life be ruled by excuses anymore.

1465 Irving St. Rahway, NJ.

It was the first location that I seriously looked at and considered to become the cafe. It was the beautiful and airy vacant spot across the street from the train station with exposed white brick walls. That location convinced me enough that I would stand with my neon green clipboard on the corner of Irving & East Cherry on a Friday morning to host market surveys with pedestrians. A spot so sparkly that I woke up early in the mornings to drive to it and tally all the foot-bike-and-car traffic from 6 AM to 8:50 AM, leaving me just enough time to get to work by 9. To be hanging around the spot long enough to where two different cops asked me what I was doing. I told one of them that I was looking to open a coffee shop at this site, as I pointed behind me. He gave me a thumbs up and said “Good for you, dear!” and drove on.

I got involved in a small downtown city with new strangers the way I never imagined I could. I went to Chamber of Commerce meetings. I had drinks with locals. I sat with city officials in their office to discuss planning and zoning. I got into the cars of strangers. I collected business cards by the handfuls. I researched with joy and madness. I thought this was it. E-mails and phone calls filled my days and nights.

Whenever there was news about potential competition in the area, I remembered what Karl, my accounting friend from college, said to me. “Good. Competition is good. It leaves no room for complacency.” That was right. I feared no competition. I would do it better. I would always improve and serve people the best coffee that was around.

The guy who owns The Coffee Box in Plainfield, Jeff, also was looking at 1465 Irving St. He knew that there was another person looking at the same spot for the same coffee shop purpose-- which was secretly me. He eventually ended up leasing the spot less than 24 hours before I was scheduled to go to the spot with an architect. We were both racing against time and against one another. I remember a couple weeks earlier, going to his coffee shop incognito to see what kind of place he runs anyways. I was disappointed to find out that he does an intimidatingly excellent job. The day that I visited, I was just an ordinary, unrecognizable, customer. But he was so damn friendly to me that I hated it. I had asked him if The Coffee Box was their only location, to which he responded, “We’re looking at a second spot in Rahway.” It was the spot I was looking at. “Aw best of luck,” I smiled. He did indeed catch that luck.

Though I know it wasn’t luck. It was favor. Not favor on him, but favor on me-- that it didn’t work out for me. There was Jesse, the owner of The Irving Inn, a restaurant next to 1465 Irving. He was 1461 Irving. A charming restaurant. Jesse’s a white man in his early 40’s who I became friends with during this research period. He took me to Restaurant Depot and to other coffee shops like The Coffee Mill. He gave me advice. I used to think “Wow, he must really believe in my dream to give me so much of his time to help me.” Then there was a drive home one day from his restaurant when I said out loud behind the steering wheel, “Don’t be so stupid, Carol. He has other intentions.” He ended up confessing his crush on me and asking me if he can take me out. Although that ended there, he confessed another thing: that it was good that the spot didn’t work out for me. “The rent was much too high, especially for someone like you who doesn’t have coffee experience.” Though it hurt, I knew that he was right. It was time for me to learn coffee. So I went home, took a long shower, and went online to apply to coffee shops.

Chris Brown

I have to write about this new friend Christian.

But first, I have to ask. Do you ever wonder how things happen in such a timely manner that you cannot help but believe that someone is handing you the pieces in that particular order? It’s like you were given all the pieces to build an IKEA desk, in its proper sequence, which you would have never known without ever seeing the manual. You cannot say you earned the pieces yourself. You cannot say that you purchased them either. You know that feeling, and you know it can’t just be the universe? It cannot be some vast, unknowable, outerspace energy. Instead, it is all so intentional and loving that you cannot help but believe that it is a God, a person, who loves you, individually. With eyes fixed on you like you are the only person whose life He is concerned about of over the seven billion around you.

So I met Christian at the MMA gym. He joined about two weeks after me back in July. He was immediately friendly to everyone, giving people fist bumps at the beginning of every class. He was already very obviously fit, but new to MMA. I can’t say that I was ever attracted to him, but at the very least, curious. Not romantically curious. Curious about his character. Something about him-- I already knew there was something in me that knew something in him. I just didn’t know what that common something was.

A couple of us at the gym exchanged numbers at the gym last week. When Christian told me his last name was Brown as I saved his number into my phone, I said “Your name sounds like you should be a celebrity or something.” He said, “It’s like one.” I replied, “Oh yeah?” and laughed. “Yeah. Chris Brown.” I really laughed. I laughed a lot. Oh, that’s why he sounds like he should be a celebrity.

At Thursday’s class, Christian and I were stretching on the blue mats. Some anterior hip stretches. I don’t remember how we got to the conversation, but I shared with him how I was hoping to get fired at my job but unfortunately I got promoted instead. So in return, I would be quitting in a month to start working at a coffee shop. His eyes lit up. Yup, there it is. I think I found that common understanding. The thing in me that knew the thing in him. We linked up over coffee and yoga two days later.

So there we were sharing coffee at 9:15 AM on a Sunday. I didn’t know many people who would meet with me on a Sunday morning at 9:15. We were strangers really. The only thing I knew about him was that he was my age, and how his punches to my face feel when we spar in class. Or how his kick feels to my ass. But there we were in early morning window seating at an empty coffee shop, talking about philosophy, love, time, deception, the vanity and sacredness of life, and spirituality. Christian isn’t Christian. But he asked me to share about my Christianity. And I, for the first time in several years, was able to share with a non-believer in complete comfort-- my faith in its full, passionate, flawed, form.

He brought a book for me that he had just finished. Wrapped in a yellow-brown Barnes & Noble plastic bag. It was a tiny book. On The Shortness of Life: Life is Long If You Know How to Use It, by Seneca.

Seneca. Seneca-- the stoic that I listen to Tim Ferris talk about so often. Like Tim Ferris, that batching author.

I held the corner of the book and let the pages quickly flip through my thumb nail. I saw yellow highlights and penciled in comments that Christian had written. That’s exactly what I do with all my books. I wondered if Christian was me in male form. I’m sure many people highlight and write. But I let myself have this moment of knowing the thing in me that knew the thing in him.

“A lot of the things you’re talking about are actually in the book,” he said to me. So I couldn’t wait to get home to read this damn thing. I remember very consciously being happy that I would have something better to read than my Instagram feed.

“And a lot of the ways you are, Tim Ferris is,” I told Christian. He went home and downloaded Tim Ferris’ podcasts.

Seneca

I think Seneca knew I was an accountant. I think God knew. Or Christian knew. Or something. Because today while reading this passage from his book, I had to take several pauses to remember to breathe and wonder if Seneca, God, and Christian were altogether watching me read. It was confirming everything I had concluded in my journey this year.

“Indeed, you are managing the accounts of the world as scrupulously as you would another person’s, as carefully as your own, as conscientiously as the state’s. You are winning affection in a job in which it is hard to avoid ill-will; but believe me it is better to understand the balance-sheet of one’s own life than of the corn trade. You must recall that vigorous mind of yours, supremely capable of dealing with the greatest responsibilities, from a task which is certainly honourable but scarcely suited to the happy life; and you must consider that all your youthful training in the liberal studies was not directed to this end, that many thousands of measures of corn might safely be entrusted to you. You had promised higher and greater things of yourself.

You must retire to these pursuits which are quieter, safer and more important. Do you think it is the same thing whether you are overseeing the transfer of corn into granaries, unspoilt by the dishonesty and carelessness of the shippers, and taking care that it does not get damp and then ruined through heat, and that it tallies in measure and weight?

Indeed the state of all who are preoccupied is wretched, but the most wretched are those who are toiling not even at their own preoccupations, but must regulate their sleep by another’s, and their walk by another’s pace, and obey orders in those freest of things, loving and hating. If such people want to know how short their lives are, let them reflect how small a portion is their own.

So, when you see a man repeatedly wearing the robe of office, or one whose name is often spoken in the Forum, do not envy him: these things are won at the cost of life.”

I was promoted and praised at my job for my hard work. A percentage of raise that I haven’t heard anybody in my level be given before. Yet, I remember coming back to my desk that day of my promotion, not very happy. In fact, pretty sad. I didn’t tell anybody for a while, not even my family. I felt that I was working so hard at fulfilling a firm’s dreams, not mine. I felt like this promotion meant more responsibility and commitment to a thing which I do not want to do.

When Seneca talks about observing the transfer of corn, I get flashbacks of all the inventory observations I had to perform throughout the year as an auditor; taking note of all the damaged goods in various warehouses and making sure company balance sheets were accurate. But now, I’m auditing my own life. I’m taking inventory of my bookshelf, of all the books I bought and haven’t read because social media damned my soul.

I am given the permission to understand the balance sheet of my own life, instead of the balance sheets of a multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical company filing for IPO. I was tempted many times this year to believe that I couldn’t amount to anything. That I will always be this accounting firm’s bottom bitch. But I am prompted now to remember again that I have been given the ability to execute the things-- any things-- that I affix my determination to. I’ve witnessed it myself. And I know again that it is in me. It has always been in me.

So I am thankful because I know I was meant to read this book, this passage, at the end of this year, today, at this time.

OJ Simpson

You always end up on that weird place on YouTube. This year, I listened to a psychologist on YouTube talk about the characteristics of narcissists, psychopaths, and sociopaths. That same day, I also randomly watched an interview with Kris Jenner where she unashamedly admitted that her regret in life was divorcing Rob Kardashian. I was fascinated by that. That she could firstly be so open about regretting a divorce with somebody. How refreshing it was to watch somebody have no problem saying that they regret something. The ownership of Kris’ regret is so admirable. It reminded me of how I regret not having been a better friend to Richard before he committed suicide this year and how I never want to not regret it. I was secondly fascinated that Kris’ regret was not over marrying Bruce, a man who would later become trans, but rather that it was for simply losing her marriage with Rob.

I wanted to learn about Rob. What about this man could leave a woman with such riches and success in regret? All I knew about Rob was that he was OJ Simpson’s attorney during his murder trial.

Then from there, I got curious about OJ’s trial. I ended up binge-researching the murder and binge-watching The People vs. OJ Simpson. I saw something in me that I knew in OJ Simpson. Just like I knew there was something in me that I knew in Christian. It was alluring and addictive. My heart sank when I recognized it. It was OJ’s narcissism. I had just learned of all the characteristics of narcissism from that psychologist on YouTube. I sneered at OJ on the television and pointed out how he was such a narcissist in this way and that, but then I realized it was me. It was me. It was me on Instagram, it was me on Facebook, it was me in real life. It was a part of me too.

I can’t imagine myself being able to “balance” social media. I don’t think social media is a battle that humans are fit to defeat. It wasn’t designed for humans to be able to tame it and use it in moderation. It was designed by people who design slot machines for casinos. How am I supposed to win something that was designed to get me addicted? I think that so long as I am on it, I will always be playing with the fire and being burned by it. I think it will forever fuel my narcissism. I hate when I’m posting. I hate that I’m so involved in other people’s daily lives who I would otherwise have no business with. And it is nobody’s business to know what I am eating at any given time, yet because of my narcissism, I think people should know what Carol Sohn is eating, singing, doing, every day.

I have a laundry list of books that I bought but I don’t read because I am pulling this slot machine from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed.

I am really not that important. And in another sense, I am so important that I should be feeding myself with books and knowledge instead of feeding on pictures of other people’s lives. I wish for my 24th birthday to gift myself with the severance of social media. I hope I can do it. I have less than 24 hours to say yes to denying myself.

I am learning that to go after the things I really want will mean saying no to things I also do actually want. I really want to respect myself, so I have to say no to hooking up with that hot 38-year old guy that I also want. I really want to open my own coffee shop, so I have to say no to the accounting salary that I also want. The person I am becoming is asking me to sacrifice some things for her. I want to honor this woman.

Moments of Declaration

I remember deciding to quit the pursuit of my CPAs. My mom said that it felt like such a waste of time and money that I had exhausted up until that point if I was just going to give up. I remember thinking that I was just so glad that I’m saving so much time and money by deciding to quit now instead of dedicating more of my life to it. The day of my exam, I didn’t even go. I went to HomeGoods instead. I was in the lamp section as I thought to myself, “Wow, I really don’t give a care about the CPAs. I’m really out here right now looking at lamps and letting a $200 exam fee flutter away. I am really happy.” It was a declaration to myself. A $200 memorial.

Tomorrow is my birthday. For the past several birthdays since I was 19, I had best friends or a significant other planning an extravagant party. This is the first birthday in a while that I don’t really have anything. I’m camping out in my own home in solitude these last few days leading up to my birthday. My own birthday slumber party if you will. The only thing I have planned is to go to orientation at the coffee shop I will soon be working at full-time. At first when I was told that orientation would be on my birthday, I thought, “Do I really want to be at orientation on my birthday? Should I ask them to reschedule it for a different date?” And then I realized, “I would love to do just that on my birthday. There’s no better way I want to spend it.” So tomorrow, from 5-7 PM, I will be at a work orientation to become a barista. It is a declaration to myself that this year, I am doing what I dreamed. No excuses.

Notes to Self for 24

I do not have to be anybody but myself. This past year, I confused myself because I didn’t know if I was feminine, masculine, uptight, relaxed, religious, rebellious, milennial, or old. I am realizing that I am all of this. Some people bring certain sides out of me that other people don’t. I thought I was a phony but I’m not. I’m simply all of this at different times. And it is better to live my own life authentically and imperfectly than to perfectly imitate another’s. There has never been and never will be anybody made exactly like me and it would be a shame to force this life to conform to some other person’s life for the sake of familiarity. I cannot be replicated, and nor can anybody else.

When I finally quit this month and go from that hunky salary to making $8.65 an hour, I will remember what Sue said. “You’re going back to school. People go back to school to learn what they really want and they take out student loans to do it. You’re going back to school, and you’re actually getting paid $8.65 an hour.” Going to work is like going to school. My homework is working on the business and learning to love God, myself, and people.

Jinnie Rhee said this twice to me this year. I think she said it a second time because she forgot that she already said it once before. I’m pretty forgetful, but I know she said this twice because it alarmed me the first time, let alone the second. She said, “I don’t think you realize this, but you’re really really hard on yourself. The way nobody else is.” This was true when I thought about it. This year, I don’t want to be so hard on myself. The inevitable fluctuations in weight, money, faith, and all. Don’t be so hard.

Lastly, as Pastor Julie looked me in the eye and said, “Carol, you don’t need to explain yourself-- not to me, not to anyone.”

This post took me two days and two bottles of wine to write. This year was made so successful, in my eyes, because of a common thread-- people. I am thankful to everyone for sharing their time, a thing no one can ever get back, with me. I thank you, I celebrate you, and I celebrate me.

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imeugene · 5 years

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Watchman, Always Watching

We call him Watchman. Not because that’s what he calls himself, it’s actually what he calls us but you say the same phrase over and over again and it becomes a thing. It’s kind of weird to think about cause the nickname he gave us and the nickname we gave him is the same. “Watchman! Watchman!” is what he would say when he entered the store. It started with my dad first because he’d watch over the customers to see if anyone steals. Plenty of opportunists in this neighborhood but that’s how it is over here. Soon it spread to my coworker, then my brother. I’m consistently the youngest so I’m Watchman Jr.

He’s about my father’s age, late 50’s to early 60’s, a night time customer. There is always a distinction between night time customers and day time customers at the liquor store. If you’re an all day customer you have a problem. He comes in wearing his neon yellow construction vest each time so I want to say he comes in after work. A skinny man, Black-American, wears glasses that seem to cover about half his face. A bit gaunt, maybe that’s how he is, but I’d like to imagine that years of heavy labor never allowed him to gain a pound of fat on his body. He buys Milwaukee 6-pack and maybe a shot of Gilbeys. That’s the cheapest beer combined with the cheapest and smallest liquor. It’s the beer and liquor of the homeless but in this neighborhood where the most common complaint is how hard times have become, the savings choice. You can tell a lot by the drinks people choose. A working class guy like him coming in to buy the same cheap stuff everyday, he favors the buzz over the taste. He knows exactly what the price should be so he’s probably frugal and a bit of thinker at the very least. Plenty of people come in everyday, buy the same thing, never aware of how much it is. It’s just part of their daily program. Give a $20, take the change, go home. It’s certainly not because they’re wealthy to the extent money is no longer an issue, just that the lack of money has become an ingrained issue. But Watchman notices. He always makes noise when the price increases.

I tell the few who notice the same programmed response. Everything is going up. Rent is going up. Gas is going up. Food is going up. So is liquor. It’s at that point they come to realization that’s its a universal truth and even us being “prestigious” business owner of something like a liquor store are just mere pawns in the games of a world much larger than any of us. But that doesn’t stop the complaints, they see the store owner in front of them. They have a direct connection to the man who prices every single item in the store. This isn’t McDonalds or Walmart where they’ll be crushed by the corporate steps. All they have to do is complain to make their voices heard. Unfortunately it falls onto my father’s deaf ears and they know that. They know that if put in my father’s shoes they’d make the same choices. It’s a business, not a charity. We have to remind them that sometimes.

But Watchman never makes his noise in a serious way. More like something to fill the void of silence. He’s certainly a peculiar person. He espouses the negative stereotypes of his race. He pretends to hide beer in his vest and run away. Complains incessantly for no reason. Asks for free every single time. Tells us his plan to get away with a free beer. It’s as if he plays a caricature of his race, complete with exaggerated manner of behavior and speech. Like a meta-level social commentary. I find the theory of it funnier than the reality. It’s kind of uncomfortable cause it’d be like laughing at what I think a minstrel show was, besides he’s just a regular old black guy who works construction, so I don’t know what to take of it. I think he realizes this, he’s perceptive, goes back to noticing the change in prices. Now he talks about marrying my mom and he tells me it’s ok to for me to call him daddy. He never takes his change. Always the same return when I try to give it to him, “Son put that into your college fund”. It’s about 7 cents max. I return the favor when he’s a bit short but that’s rare.

In a lower class neighborhood like this there a hood moments. It’s usually a culmination of a guy whose just had enough. That movie “Falling Down” with Micheal Douglas, he plays an office worker who just had enough of the life and has a break down leading up to a chain of events where he ends up with like an RPG on the boardwalk and in a confrontation with the police. That’s kind of what a hood moment is. It’s hard out here. People are always watching their back, distrust is high amongst each other and the larger world itself. Life can’t get any worse, to some people prison is literally preferable because at least in there you’re taken care of. In the real world, you can easily end up in fate worse than that and you see just that all around you. Stress just builds up. You end up living a life with a permanent chip on your shoulder cause you have it worst. You can bring up starving kids in Africa but nobody has actually of us have ever seen a starving kid in Africa, that’s just TV and you see all sorts of things on TV. Hood moments always transpire over the smallest infractions, it’s never really about the infraction. Like I said it’s a culmination of all the infractions over the course of lifetime and a deep seated somewhat rightful resentment of the world. That small infraction is just the straw the broke the camel’s camels back. But when you’re stuck in a neighborhood where everyone is like that, everyones on edge, everyone is one straw away from something like even murder, it leaves everywhere a powderkeg waiting to explode. But this is a liquor store so it’s a big powderkeg. This sentimentality exists everywhere in the country but what separates the hood from upper middle class is that in the back of everyone’s head, they have nothing to lose so it’s dangerous.

My dad from time to time have these hood moments. People come in disrespecting him because of his race. Complaining about prices after he’s already explained the situation to them every day before that. Dealing with homeless people who smell of a literal human shit and at times even cleaning it. My mother’s complaints which are perfectly logical in her head but not based on any type of actual evidence. Just dealing with the same general petty bullshit that the hood is rife with on a day to day for most of his day, for most of the year. It has a way of weathering down a man’s spirit.

Our neighborhood passed a law banning the use of single use plastic bag. It’s been the biggest source of complaints. It’s probably because of the environment and the recent push to protect which I’m all for but that’s because I come from a bit of money. People around here have more immediate issues to address than something abstract like global warming. Those words are in the same playing fields as Dow Jones or the conflict in some place in the world where no one can point to it in the map. People already pay 5 cents per bag because of the county tax and now they’re telling us that we can’t have plastic. It’s absurd to the people here. Its worse particularly in the liquor store (everythings worse at a liquor store) because beer is chilled so when it leaves refrigerator it naturally gets wet because of the humidity or whatever science behind that. Wet paper = ripped paper. You need to legally be able to cover the alcohol to not get an open carry ticket and in a neighborhood where most residents don’t own cars and the cops are fierce, that’s an imperative. Combine that with the economic situation in which the cheapest single paper bag bought in bulk costs more than the 5 cent charge the government requires so we’re losing money on every bag which is more or less required for every purchase. Legally we could charge more for the bags but when the major chain grocery stores across the street who buy bags in what probably seems like millions in bulk can get away with the 5 cents, we can’t. We can’t increase cause we’d seem like the greedy ones. People don’t already want to pay 5 cents for a bag they don’t like. It’s a perfect storm for the making of a hood moment.

Watchman bought his usual six pack of Milwaukee, got his paper bag, my dad probably reminded him to hold it from the bottom like he does everyone else but he probably didn’t listen like everyone else. He leaves the store, bag rips, beer hits the ground, and one can explodes. See Watchman is already a frugal guy, he buys the 6 pack of the cheapest beer and the cheapest liquor shot. He doesn’t have to, he has a job, he can get away with a Budweiser but he doesn’t. He comes back into the store, not necessarily demanding another beer but in true Watchman fashion he asks for it in the most extra way. My dad already reminded him to hold it from the bottom, he doesn’t feel liable, he’s not an unreasonable person but so he doesn’t feel like he should loose money on the mistake of another in which he clearly tried to prevent. I bet all those infractions that slowly build up over the years just rushed out. My father had a hood moment. He reprimanded Watchman, someone similar in age to him, yelling at him about Watchman’s fault in the matter. I was witness to all this. I like Watchman, I’ve seen these infractions drive long time customers away, sour relationships, even create enemies. I was just waiting for Watchman to explode, it was only natural. But he didn’t. He kept his head low and just replied mannerly to everything my father said. He didn’t create a bigger fuss, he just waited him out until my father ran out of steam. These things only escalate when both parties involve themselves. It’s a battle of whose the winner or the loser of the day. Watchman had every condition ripe to be explode right there too but like I said he didn’t. That day Watchman took his free extra beer, got a new bag and walked away. The next day Watchman came in and he honestly didn’t seem phased by the encounter. Did his usual routine. Said his usual jokes. It was as it never happened. He looked at my father and yelled “Watchman, always watching!”. Later on my father confided in me that he respects Watchman.

#listlo

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clubofinfo · 7 years

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Expert: All it takes for a society to express fear, paranoia, confusion, and a sort of mad country (riffing on mad cow disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy) mental disease is a toxic brew of narcissism, propaganda, amnesia, planned and perceived obsolescence and a transnational economic barbarism against the collective masses, and we end up here: Leaders (sic) in USA, Canada, Mexico, most of Latin America, most of Europe, Australia, Japan, Israel and Middle East are as nasty and ethically/morally arrested developed as any of the lots in power-on thrones-in war rooms at anytime during the development (sic) of “civilization,” so much so that’s it’s hard to tell which tentacle of a Trump-styled sea monster really has hold of our collective frontal lobe. These are the days, yessiree — anti-intellectualism, nationalism, demagoguery, disparaging one group after another—Mexicans, Muslims, African-Americans, Asians, women, and any and all competitors. These people in America, like Trump, throw low blows and distribute piles of lies and spread their pandemic of white male billionaire disease, and he rises in the polls, by the very people he and the neoliberals and neocons and Christian-Zionists call parasites, or, deplorables. Adversaries are quickly branded “losers” or “flunkies” or “dopes” or “lowlifes.” I want to lay down, but these countries are like uncles who touch you when you’re young and asleep. Look at all these borders foaming at the mouth with bodies broken and desperate…I spent days and nights in the stomach of the truck; I did not come out the same. Sometimes it feels like someone else is wearing my body. ― Warsan Shire, Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth Anyone can postulate just how long it took, really, for humanity – most certainly the hoards of IKEA-loving developed tooled and armed first world and their groomed despots — to succumb to the adage of we are just apes with nuclear bombs (or monkeys with algorithms, surveillance tools, psychological war weapons, and gobs of fossil fuels). Five decades of collective community abandonment, collective mean styled capitalism, collective delusion; four decades of a collective cult of personality (nothingness), collective imploding of services, public health, welfare, safety; three decades of collective reverse mortgaging education, food systems, public transportation; ten decades of collective see-hear-speak no evil in the midst of massive evil-crimes against humanity/crimes against the globe/crimes against nature/crimes against common sense? The Humanist: Some people are genuinely afraid. Chomsky: They are genuinely afraid. The fear is genuine, and you can’t ridicule people’s genuine feelings. In fact you have to sympathize with them, ask where they’re coming from. In this case I think you can understand it. If you’re crushing somebody under your jackboot, you have to have a reason. The reason can’t be “I’m an evil monster.” The reason has to be either “I’m doing it for their good,” which is the usual reason, or else “I’m afraid of them and if I don’t do it they’ll go after me.” That’s a very prevailing attitude. It can be manipulated and cynical, power-hungry political figures working for concentrations of power do it all the time. Germany, remember, was the most civilized part of the world. It was the peak of Western civilization, the center of the arts, the sciences, and literature. If you wanted to study physics, you went to Germany. Within a few years, it turned into a society of raving maniacs. Why did they destroy the Jews? Out of fear. Because, in their minds, the Jews were going to destroy them. They were defending not only themselves, but the Aryan race against the Jews. The Humanist: That brings us back to the human animal, apparently a very fearful animal. Chomsky: Humans are capable of many things. Some of them are horrible, some are wonderful. The very simple acts of meanness from bureaucracies and the leaders, or so-called leaders, are demonstrative of the scaling up of the barbarity and banality of evil the elite and their minions with their trillions in offshore bank accounts and cachets of diamonds and Great Lakes full of oil have parlayed from this collective lack of empathy. Little Eichmann’s pushing the collective mouse click of despair, and smaller ones with a badge and uniform and pure hatred of blacks-Latinos-gays-demonstrators-people. In Spokane or Tucson, LA or NYC, the agents of human disposal are hard at work – boulder sized concrete detritus spread out under Interstate 90 in the heart of Spokane so vagabonds or local homeless can’t spread their tents and belongings out of the freezing rain. Three hundred dollar tickets for asking a stranger to spare a dime in El Paso or Ventura – both the panhandlers (sic) and the givers subject to fines, handcuffs, jail. True, jail, or worse by just imagining (no, this is not a thought experiment) the few of us who fight back, with words, principles, telling off some Gestapo cop with 17-bullet clips on semi-auto German pistols and their three foot batons and their Kevlar vests and their rapid fire 12 gauge shotguns and their reinforced SUV’s and their sixty foot streams of pepper spray and their hydra-headed Tasers and lobbed shock grenades and rubber bullets and bean bag launchers and their noise throwers, flame throwers, tanks, weaponized drones, conveys of armed Humvees and armored command centers. In Santa Monica you can’t use a public curb to parallel park the old RV or hitched-up trailer. No overnight parking. No living in dignity. No sleeping here, or …? Multi-thousand dollar fines and impounding of those last vestiges of a home before hitting the tarmac with discarded yoga mat. These fascists, knee-jerking Anglo-Caucasians, pushing over food carts in Atlanta or Albany. All American Flag Wrapped wingnuts swastika-tagging food marts owned by Sikh-Vietnamese-Korean-Punjabi in every town and big city, from Pacific to Atlantic. Those 24-hour ticking time bombs of insults, retrograde reporting, falsifications called Mainline Media, failing not even just the humanity test in falsifying what social injustice is, but rubbing out any semblance of reality, as if each and everyone of them with coiffed hair and sweaty lips is Blanche Dubois and Walter Middy on Steroids-Growth Hormone Replacements Fake Journalist/Person. In 2014, 64 communities had citywide bans on public camping, up from 40 in 2011. And the number of cities that prohibit sleeping in vehicles jumped from 37 in 2011, to 81 in 2014 and the number of cities that prohibit sitting or lying in public spaces increased from 70 in 2011, to 100 in 2014. Often called “sit/lie” laws, they prohibit the homeless from sitting or lying down on any street, sidewalk, entrance to a story, alley or other public place. This is the age of shitting on thy neighbor and throwing huge chunks of stone in our greasy collective glass houses: more and more cities are passing bans on begging, loitering and sharing or giving food away in public places, which hurts non-profit, community, individual food give-away programs, and pantries or churches who give food to the homeless on the street. The penalties vary by city and law and can include fines or jail time. Here, read the report on, Ending the Criminalization of Homelessness in U.S. Cities Hell, I worked for one of Portland’s largest homeless and recovery non-profits, and the dude we called our boss, from one of the top five investment (sic) companies, told us social workers to call the cops if we felt threatened, and he believed anyone leaning up against the bricks of our office should be roused by the cops, as Portland has laws against leaning against buildings (you know, this constant rain 6 months out of the year Mini-Metropolis), so god forbid the poor and homeless might get a few minutes of respite under an overhang. Poverty pimps – you don’t have to resort to the Urban Dictionary to understand the connotations of that phrase, but here, read! The term “poverty pimp” is defined as a derogatory label for an individual or group which, to its own benefit, acts as an intermediary on behalf of the poor. Literally, a poverty pimp is an individual or group who solicits for the poor, or it can mean, a welfare system procurer. Poverty pimps gain a higher quality of existence from exploiting the poverty of others. Under the American system of inter-linked public and private social services the poor get helped but not in any effective way; the big bucks go for overhead. As always, a lot of anti-poverty money is going to people who are not poor. There are whole classes of people who live off the services provided to the poor. Ahh, the flipped over America – liberals living off the pain of the poor, and the elites, the bankers, the chosen ones in the renter class, legal class, penitentiary class, they make the big bucks on servicing the poor, forcing them to live lives of toil, legal financial obligations killing them, and so many other things coupled with the very idea that a mark is born every second, and a sucker (read poor, forced poor class) is born every nanosecond. My own work here, at DV, or LA Progressive and a monthly magazine speaks to the shackles poor people trudge around, from a liquor store-gun shop on every corner, to PayDay Loans in every census track, to fence-line communities sucking in the carcinogenic of the hissing, steaming, fogging by-products of the refinery-industrial sized farming industries. Read, my, “Six Degrees of Separation!” “The High Cost of Being Poor,” now eleven years old, from Barbara Ehrenreich, but relevant, by just ramping up the pain and the stats by a factor of five! And this one by Dave Johnson is three years old, good, informed, and yet, keep adding onto the misery these two writers reported — more than half of Americans are near poor, and the one paycheck away from poverty/homelessness /destitution/basement surfing/car sleeping/opiate sucking/booze sucking/suicide is not a story the left-right-in between want to deal with, and those deplorables voting for Trump are most probably not in this huge grouping of Americans working as wage slaves and precarious/temp/ multi-gig fellow citizens who would see the entire shit hit the fan with a bad fall, cancer diagnosis, busted head gasket, death in the family, and jump in the rent even 10 percent. These purveyors of cultural sickness, country-wide hipsterism, nationwide values – the Mainstream Press – come on hard at us, precarious ones, fellow Americans, or whatever they think we are: Republicans constantly talk about how good the poor have it. In 2002 the Wall Street Journal called the poor “Lucky Duckies” because they are “the beneficiaries” of the progressive tax system and pay little or no taxes. But the reality is that it just plain sucks to be poor. It’s actually more expensive not having enough money to get by. Even the pop psychologists who are touted by Alternet and Salon, two pro-Hillary sites, have to weigh in on Trump and our collective psychosis. Here’s one — “Duke Psychiatrist: America Is Having a Nervous Breakdown: Author Allen Frances puts Trump on the couch, and reveals how we might regain our sanity”: The 20 richest people in America have more wealth than half the country. 20 people have more wealth than half the country. The message is real. The Democratic Party has been remarkably inept in connecting with its natural voters. The Republican Party has sold propaganda very successfully, and Trump is the epitome of someone who is the worst possible messenger for a reasonably important message. He’s a false prophet. Every move he’s made has betrayed the people who voted for him. I think that the hope over the next months will be that his falling popularity, from 45 percent to 35 percent, that we’ll see a gradual erosion of people who realize that he was not the man they thought he was. That the hope they rested in him [was] misplaced, a buyer’s remorse, and he will become more and more isolated in office and as a result, will be able to do less damage. Shame, blame, recrimination, prejudice, racism, speciesism, genocide. This is the fabric of a society weened on the hind tit of war games, wars, football on Sunday, cults of patriarchy, disaster capitalism, parasitic money making. This is the end line of those fed on Hollywood lies, normalizing murder, fetishes around looking-feeling-tasting-sounding-smelling like some Disney character. Every day in America, more than half the people are tackled by their own fears, their own lost lives, hoping for some cleaning of the slate, massive restart button, personal-national tabula rasa. Lusting after the good old days of slavery, seeding those first nations’ blankets with smallpox days; those glory days of bombing brown people, ripping off the soul of Mexico; those halcyon days where bombs bursting in air is the theme from sea to shining sea. Everyday I have youth, boy do I have youth, and it’s not just the Trumping of the Worst Presidents on Earth — all 45 — that eats at these 17-to-21 year olds. It’s not the constant bombardment of the gut with the bio-waste of modern (sic) diets eating at the very fabric of their sanity. They sort of get it that their prostate cancers and breast removals in four or five decades might be tied to the cheese in Cheetos or triple-deck cheeseburgers. These youth are worn out at age 18. They are gassed and fatigued. Their poverty and their family pedigrees, all of that, with the shit-storm that is America being our CLASS chiseled country, all of that plus the stupidity of industrial education, the plague of low paying job futures, and the absurdity of the heroes/super heroes they adore making the greenbacks they lust after but really know it’s all smoke and mirrors and Hollywood fascism and Pro-Sports elitism and Music Mental Depravity. It’s the daily examples of burned out infrastructure — nothing for youth, except the impending days of wine, vodka, beer consumption when they hit 21. It’s the absurdly lacking public transportation. The clarion call to get hitched up with car loan, over-priced (usury) rentals, and the endless Twitter and SnapChat of more and more expensive pieces of shit smart-dumb phones and sick loan shark level phone and data plans. Is this the paradise of the blind, the lost generation, the data-info-knowledge fatigue/paralysis generation? Is this the one last thrust of the masses in America to push away those One Percenters and the purveyors of the Christian-Zionist white racist flogging of the other races? These young people know they have been lied to. They know they are in the same rooms-hallways-corridors-churches-malls-warehouses-classrooms of the great con game impresarios. They know their future is looking like chronic asthma, diabetes, brain fog, loss of motor-bodily-cognitive functions. Who in their right mind would not BECOME opiate addicted under this shit hole operation, capitalism, and the con men of the last spasm of unfettered capitalism? Which child living under this web and flaming net of exploitation-disparities-abandonment wouldn’t rather choose/enter into the controllers’ house of torture a la Spanish Inquisition? Better to wig out, check out, burn out, veg out. The bastards are high in number, and the body count is rising. Here, Hedges burns it good, in his piece, “How Careerism is a Big Part of Our Social Predicament“: The greatest crimes of human history are made possible by the most colorless human beings. They are the careerists. The bureaucrats. The cynics. They do the little chores that make vast, complicated systems of exploitation and death a reality. They collect and read the personal data gathered on tens of millions of us by the security and surveillance state. They keep the accounts of ExxonMobil, BP and Goldman Sachs. They build or pilot aerial drones. They work in corporate advertising and public relations. They issue the forms. They process the papers. They deny food stamps to some and unemployment benefits or medical coverage to others. They enforce the laws and the regulations. And they do not ask questions. Good. Evil. These words do not mean anything to them. They are beyond morality. They are there to make corporate systems function. If insurance companies abandon tens of millions of sick to suffer and die, so be it. If banks and sheriff departments toss families out of their homes, so be it. If financial firms rob citizens of their savings, so be it. If the government shuts down schools and libraries, so be it. If the military murders children in Pakistan or Afghanistan, so be it. If commodity speculators drive up the cost of rice and corn and wheat so that they are unaffordable for hundreds of millions of poor across the planet, so be it. If Congress and the courts strip citizens of basic civil liberties, so be it. If the fossil fuel industry turns the earth into a broiler of greenhouse gases that doom us, so be it. They serve the system. The god of profit and exploitation. The most dangerous force in the industrialized world does not come from those who wield radical creeds, whether Islamic radicalism or Christian fundamentalism, but from legions of faceless bureaucrats who claw their way up layered corporate and governmental machines. They serve any system that meets their pathetic quota of needs. Why do people leave their homelands, and seek the very Turtle Island of many of their own societies’ problems, desperation, despair? “No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark,” is one way to look at it, coming from poet, Warsan Shire. There is no land of milk and honey now that the beasts of any nation have been sucker punched and dumped into the shipping canals of the Goldman and Sachs, the countless ones in Fortune 400 circles, by the 20 richest, meanest people on planet earth! Or the richest in America! How good are they? How shapeless are they in their Lost Paradises? And how many levels down the Dantean flaming ladder will they fall? If ever? That is the question, to flail and flog, or not to! Colonialism only loosens its hold when the knife is at its throat. — Frantz Fanon Replace “colonialism” with capitalism, Wall Street, Military-Financial-Big Pharma-Insurance-Ag-Energy-Surveillance-Prison Complex! http://clubof.info/

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