Author: Daniel Hero

My wife is bringing home Pok Pok. Now, before I let you in on why this is more than just a good thing, I need to also preface it by adding that she is doing so after driving downtown to sit in an insurance meeting for over an hour. A meeting she graciously let me skip out on, even though there was no good reason to let her endure the horror alone.

So, I’m going to have to do something extra nice for her. Reciprocal kindnesses are the bedrock of contentment, in my opinion. More on that later.

Pok Pok is a popular northern Thaiwan style restaurant in southeast Portland. Their specialty is a sauteed, crunchy, sweet and spicy chicken leg and wing. How good? I’ve never not seen a line of people waiting for a seat. (Yes, that is a double negative. Yes, I used it on purpose. Thank you Mr. Orwell. And quit looking so smug Picasso.)

On second thought, this kind of thing is a rarity. In fact, I wonder if I should be worried.

Insurance meeting without me. Fantastic food waited for and delivered. Hmmmm.

If this should be my last and final post, I want you to know that I still ate those wings with gusto. They’re that good. I know, I know, if I just would’ve been more vegetarian, this could have been averted.

But you have to live carefree, throw all your doubts into the wind, and dive right into the Pok Pok.

Besides, if the poison isn’t in the wings, it’d just be in the sticky rice. Or both. You know, just to make sure.

Now before any of you wags out there start to make the comparison between my anecdote here and the famous British exchange: “…Yes, madam, but if I were your husband, I’d drink it!” story can go right on sniggering into their ascots.

Frankly, the worst part of all this for me is having to wait for her to return with those leggy bits of heaven. Meat candy, really.

Woe is me.

Do you know why I never worry about my wife poisoning me?

I have Pok Pok insurance. It’s a rare rider, not found in your typical policy. The premium isn’t that high but the dividends, well. How can I get in on that sweet Pok Pok policy, you ask?

Well, it starts with a simple requirement. One that, remarkably, seems to be too high a hurdle for too many people, which is simply this: don’t be an asshole. Ah, easier said than done, I hear some of you say. Let me offer concrete advice. If you don’t want to ever fear your partner is putting poison in your pie, it’s as simple as this: Be kind. Be considerate. Realize that most of the day to day things in life, ultimately, don’t matter. Or don’t matter much. Cultivate flexibility. And if you need a rule of thumb, ask yourself, how would I feel if the shoe/high heel was on the other foot? This isn’t particle physics here, and besides, it’s always better to state the obvious than miss it entirely.

That will keep you from being smothered in your sleep, I promise.

Now, if you want happiness, you have to up the ante considerably.

You could do a lot worse than tasty chicken delivered home unexpectedly.

I’m telling you, it’s that good.

There’s a thing I’ve been doing on my birthday, off and on, since I’ve been about 16.

Now, this thing I do, off and on but mostly on since I was 16, is not anything special but it is very personal. I don’t recall the details of every birthday I’ve done this. I do recall certain special occasions. These usually correspond with the typical age milestones we all agree on: 16. 18. 21. 30. 45. 50. In fact, milestones are particularly well suited for this exercise.

Typically I wait until the end of my birthday, after whatever festivities, if any, have concluded. It doesn’t take very long but it does necessitate a certain amount of privacy. I don’t make a big deal out of my birthday – I don’t have a party, I do my best not to fish for a happy birthday wish, I’m not concerned with gifts, and I don’t feel the pull to be in a crowd, either at a bar or a music venue. Usually, my wife and I will go and have a nice meal somewhere. I’ll be home before it is dark out (not because I eat at the time the grey hairs do but because it’s still not dark here in the Pacific northwest by 9pm at the end of May), perhaps I’ll indulge in a bit of cannabis before I watch a movie, listen to some music, or maybe just read. That’s usually how my birthday goes. That, and this thing I do.

The first thing I do after I’ve found a quiet spot to myself is try and find some stars to look at. A body of water is also good, if the sky is obscured. Any beautiful spot of nature will do. Still, one takes what one can, and I do recall doing this exercise in some less than beautiful surroundings.  But no matter where I may be, I tell myself no matter what has happened during this last year and no matter what is likely to happen during the next, you are damned lucky to be standing here able to have that thought; be glad you are alive, here, now, with possession of your faculties and your sense of wonder and gratitude still intact.

Then I review the year that has just gone past, the good, the bad, and the merely mediocre. I spend some time thinking about people who are no longer in my life, people I will always love, even though time and circumstance has formed us into people who can no longer be together, or the forks in our individual paths simply lead elsewhere. This list has grown significantly as I’ve aged. I imagine it will grow longer still, hopefully at a glacial pace. I appreciate those who still are in my life and I resolve to keep them there, as best I can.

When I was younger, the thing I do next was much less grounded. I cast an eye towards what might most be in store for my future self. I remember being 16 and knowing that in the near term, things were pretty predictable: get through high school, get out of this house, see the world. But I didn’t just think about the next couple years, I tried to envision what my life would be like at 20, 30, 50. Needless to say, the wild eyed musings of a 16 year old in 1982 don’t come close to the reality of turning 51 years old in the beginning of the 21^st century. No matter what the future holds, I know who I am in a way that is simply impossible for an adolescent.

But I remember that young man’s mind with some frightening detail. I know what I’ve lost, traded, and gained over those intervening thirty five years. When I was thirteen I was reading Plato’s Apology and learning about Socrates. “The unexamined life is not worth living.” “Know yourself.” Socrates said. Question your underlying assumptions. You might think this a difficult exercise for a teenager but it really isn’t. Many in our culture would be well served by an introduction to Socrates just prior to puberty. He innately appeals to the teenage mind. If Socrates were alive today, he’d be a 13 year old girl with the catch phrase “You don’t know what you think you know, you know?” Examining your life at 16 doesn’t take that long, because when you’re that young there isn’t that much for you to examine, you haven’t had the time to develop depth, or at least not in the way 50 years behind you affords.

My motto back then was “variety is the spice of life.” I craved experiences and sensations that an overly authoritarian household attempted to deny me at every turn. Yet by god I was going to have them and have them I did. I not only had my fun I had your’s as well. And his. And hers. There were occasions where those good times easily could have led to my demise or a life nowhere near as good as the one I enjoy. Fortune favors the foolish and the phantasmagorically fucked up. I wanted to live every life but my own. It’s the reason why I still love fiction. There are so many ways to be human and I want to experience as many of those ways as I can.

I clearly recall trying to guess what it would feel like being 50. When I turned 50 last year, I tried to imagine what it would feel like being 100. I hope I’m as wrong at 100 as I was at 16. Because being older is better than what that 16 year old could imagine. All those experiences I yearned for, and more, are now part of a vast pool of knowing. Knowing not just in the sense of facts and processes neatly cataloged and stored but knowing in a visceral way. What it feels like to win. To lose. To not being able to tell the difference. To affirm your allegiance towards something that will always be grander than you as an individual, maybe even something noble.  To know that vast pool will only ever be but a rapidly drying puddle compared to the ocean of what there is to know and be. It’s not enough to merely know yourself. In the end we are responsible to that self; doesn’t it makes sense then to develop into the best version possible?

This year will be a little different. I’m essentially doing here what I would have done in the privacy of my new home. Snapping the laundry of my mind out in the warm breeze of exposition. Letting some sunlight in and beating the carpets. When I was sixteen I craved the new. At fifty one I still do. It’s a good thing life moves so fast, I never have to worry about being jaded and I am old enough now to not be tempted by that I have already done.

I hope all the wonders we seem to be teetering on the cusp of come to pass. I would like to live in a world where turning 50 means you’ve finally exited childhood and are ready for the life of an adult. I often think it’s taken me that long to at last have a firm grasp of what being an adult means. Whenever I feel the urge to excoriate myself for taking so long I’m reminded we all exist somewhere on that spectrum and for everyone I might feel inferior to in that regard, the examples of those below me are legion. I’d be more inclined to patience if the times weren’t so otherwise demanding.

I am still learning. I want to be able to say the same when I’m 100.

Despite overwhelming evidence that urges otherwise and all the times I play the contrarian, I remain optimistic. Life is fantastically rich and good. Life is almost unbearably tragic and sad. I try in my own way to maximize the former and minimize the latter. To do otherwise leads to despair or a callous heart. I leave regret aside as much as I am able – it’s too easy to slip into self pity.

And besides, I have decades of memories to remind myself just how precious it is to be alive. I aim myself towards a future where the really good stuff has yet to happen and the worst is yet to come.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

If there’s one thing about the times I find myself living in, it’s how quickly one becomes inured to the snapping cords of normalcy. To be fair, supplanting normal is the nature of our culture, our commerce, and our technology – a perfect confluence that inherently eschews tradition in favor of inevitable change. We’ve just supercharged the speed at which that change takes place. I get how baby boomers are freaked out about the way modern life has turned out. I still marvel at how quickly people have adopted their own mobile computer that also can shoot video, surf the internet, and let you talk to mom. And by adopted I mean that in the most intimate way: challenge yourself next time you go out to a restaurant or have a layover in an airport, to put your device away and observe the crowd; you’ll soon notice that many people pay more attention to their tablet/cell/laptop than they often do to their actual children – and it doesn’t take too long for the child to return the favor.

Just because I notice how little people look up anymore doesn’t mean I’m anti-technology. Quite the opposite, I not only think it represents our ingenuity and creativity, I think it embodies a victory of knowledge over superstition. Human history is in large part a constant race between catastrophe and our ability to outrace it with our technology. True, all too often that technology carries within it the seed of future catastrophe but who said life was ever supposed to be easy? Call it cosmically just that the more power we gain over nature only makes us all the more vulnerable.

I like to watch and listen when I go out into my community. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I’m very good at hearing your conversation, couple in the booth next to me. Guy talking to his buddy on the phone in the grocery store. Group of old ladies discussing the devil walking among us as if they saw him swinging his dick from a bell tower just last Sunday. There is good along with the bad. I also see and hear people out there alarmed at the things we ought to be alarmed with, a list that is in itself, alarming. I see and hear the common kindnesses and natural goodwill that is just as much a part of us as is the all too human tendency to look away, or convince ourselves to see what we want.

It is more common than not to be ground down by the necessities of day to day life, leaving not enough cognitive or emotional wampum at the end of the day to barter for some truth, much less wisdom. Today, just as in the past, we’ve always used a privileged caste to shoulder that burden. An Atlas to carry our worldview, a burning bush to light our way, a glorious revolution to either fight for or against. To be sure, most of us simply inherit the framework provided us by geography and parentage. But those cords are snapping too, mostly due to our technology. We’re self selecting into tribes of self interests, a disparate mix of obsessions and escapes competing with noble calls to action in a time of crisis. Is it more satisfying to be a partial member of many small tribes than it is to be a full member of one so large they will never know you by name? I kind of think it is. I think it fits in with our evolutionary heritage.

I’ve found myself disengaging from social media and cable outlets as of late. I think it’s gotten to the point where teams have been chosen and everyone is eyeing each other to see who’s going to jump first. Even so, I regard it my duty as a citizen to stay informed. I find it much easier to do so without watching 99% of cable news. AP alerts, Reuters, a handful of websites, and some carefully chosen print subscriptions have so far kept me reasonably informed. I simply cannot watch the current administration’s talking bobbleheads or the Republican leadership providing it with cover. They erode my faith in humanity.

I don’t like the word faith. I try not to have faith in anything. As a practical concern, I realize this is not how humans operate. We take on faith a great many things. I’ve been able to recognize those things I’ve had faith in due to the shock of faith’s disappointment. It’s hard for me to choose whether I’d rather feel that shock of disappointment over the grim satisfaction of a predicted cynicism fulfilled. I think I would. Especially when you start gazing into the yawning despair enfolding before us now. To do otherwise leads to building bunkers and hoarding food.

Our upper crust overlords, multinational corporations, military contractors and industry, and everyone else who has the means to purchase their very own slice of what Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan call a conscience, are the ones who are pushing us all towards the brink. They could care less about 45 – they merely haven’t gotten their tax breaks and a legal means of dumping coal ash into our rivers, er, I mean regulatory reforms yet. All of their hand picked stooges have yet to be placed in a position to do the most harm for the country and benefit for the buyer. They must be getting antsy that the Russia collusion investigation is getting in the way of staffing. And until they get what they want, they’re going to let the fire take root.

Meanwhile, our very own syphillus ridden Nero is busily sawing away at every chord of normalcy he can wrap his tiny hands around. Isn’t the noise fucking horrendous? How much of this before he breaks the instrument altogether?

Twang, there goes another cord.

We still have each other. Strengthen the cords of normalcy around you. If the center is going to hold, we’re the ones who are going to have to do it.

It’s been some time since I last made an entry; I’ve been letting a number of things marinate in my mind, which is both a good and a bad thing. The good thing is that I have most of a short story worked out and have started writing it. The bad thing is that all of the recent political turmoil is fucking with my capacity to remain positive and optimistic.

It’s a stone cold fool who thinks that the events of the last few months don’t portend even darker days ahead. Spring will bring no thaw this year.

I mean look at what is happening at an alarmingly quick rate – our state department is gutted and led by the former CEO of Exxon, a man awarded Russia’s highest non military honor, the medal hung around his neck by Putin himself, our EPA is systematically under assault as regulations that protect life are targeted for elimination, the president’s children are given the reins of state, positions of power beyond the scope of their experience and ability, widespread purges of essential personnel are being replaced with people whose primary tenet is loyalty to 45, the President is using the national treasury to pay for expenditures at HIS properties, not to mention the expense of secret service protection for his wife and child who will not live at the White House, allies and enemies alike mock our president and they’re not wrong.

This of course, is not even a complete list of the outrages that our new president is either embroiled in or is likely to pursue.

The Russia thing, for example.

I’m not even going to get into the many links both direct and indirect Russian intelligence has woven itself into this administration, both leading up to the election and arguably every day since.

It’s enough to send one into a livid rage. Except, that won’t help. In fact, it will only make things worse. I understand the inclination though. I have to actively fight against it every time I hear 45, Mitch McConnell, or any republican in power speak. I have to remind myself with every yellow tea party flag on the back of the pickup trucks I see on the road that the people who support conservative ideology and yearn for a theocratic corporate state ought to be pitied more than loathed.

They don’t know any better. This in itself would place them squarely in the zone of my Venn diagram labeled “Treat them with kindness, for they are like children.” Unfortunately, too many also occupy a section labeled “Willfully ignorant and proud to be so”, which immediately forces them outside my ability to be kind.

At best, I can muster cool civility.

Removing myself from their presence is my first inclination. In my darkest moods, I wish things upon them that could only happen in a science fiction novel. Because no matter what they’ve done so far, I refuse to wish upon them that which they so sorely wish to visit on the rest of us.

Pain. Suffering. Humiliation. Death. Preferably in that order. This is what it seems to be the GOP, Trump, and conservatives in general wish to bring to fellow citizens and a good portion of the rest of humanity. They don’t give a damn about anything other than staying in power, accumulating as much wealth as they can in the process and praising Jesus as they do it.

And too many of my fellow citizens either cheer them on enthusiastically or can’t be bothered to care at all.

Like I said, it’s been difficult to maintain a positive and optimistic outlook.

I abhor violence. Asimov said that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. It’s also the first thing the bully reaches for. It’s difficult to see the actions of today’s GOP and the conservative movement as anything other than bullying. They break the rules when the rules hinder them and insist on their adherence when they favor them. They outright lie and obfuscate the truth. They vote against the interests of their constituents in favor of corporate donations. They insist that citizens live a morality they themselves will not.

They are already wielding political violence and have assaulted respect for the truth so many times they have succeeded in replacing truth with their own version of reality – not only in the minds of their supporters but arguably in their own minds as well.

How can actual violence not be far behind? A cynic would posit that these actions are in part designed to provoke violence, which would enhance their agenda more than stall it. Those tip toeing around the fringes of paranoia will say that if such an event doesn’t happen on its own, the administration is likely to either stage or directly spark such an event themselves.

History has shown the efficacy of this tactic. Perhaps in this case fearing and shouting about the worst will cure the worse. Perhaps.

So I make my phone calls and I stay as informed as I can without jeopardizing my blood pressure. More has to be done, I know this. But I won’t be a part of the further degradation of our society. I refuse to give in to fear. I refuse to shelter in place and tighten my circle of concern. We’re all in this together you dim witted motherfuckers and I won’t let you have dominion over me or what I care about.

And I won’t let you turn me into a version of you. Fuck that. I also won’t let you demoralize me so badly I curl into the fetal position, paralyzed by despair.

I’ve been stewing in my own juices long enough. I guess break time is over.

It would appear the devil is afoot at my local sandwich shop. My wife made sure I didn’t confront the devil, as much as I was tempted. And boy, was I tempted. I’ve listened to many Pentecostal and Charismatic Christian sermons so I’m well informed that the devil can manifest himself in ways beyond the awkward whiff of sulfur and brimstone.

In this particular case, the leathery winged one took the form of five little old ladies holding a writing circle over tomato bisque and chipotle chicken avocado melts. Ok, that was what I was having, I couldn’t tell what they were eating. Gobbets of flesh rent from the backs of the innocent, presumably. Oh, the devil was in fine disguise, I’ll grant you. These ladies looked like they were taking a break from a nearby librarians’ seminar. Sweater coats, thick rimmed glasses, not a one of them under 65.

While I couldn’t discern whose baby they were feasting on, I could easily hear what they said. As my wife and I begin to settle into our lunch, I hear one of these sweet little old ladies say to the one directly opposite her, “We have to set up a prayer circle this March 17^th to counteract the witches who have cast a spell against our government and President Trump. Have you heard? Apparently the international coven of witches has cast an evil spell on our President!”

Now at first, I chuckled. I thought she was being snarky, you see. Because yes, there was some group of wiccans who got together to cast a spell – that’s not the point. There was just no way anyone could take that bullshit seriously. But the sincerity in her voice mixed with the horrified expression on the woman sitting across from her, who I had a perfect view of, the woman who replied with an earnest, “The devil is walking the Earth right now seeking to devour who he may!”, convinced me they were quite serious.

It was like stumbling across a feral tribe in the Amazon. You know they exist but you never expect to see them in person.

Woman number two continues: “We’ve got to send the power of prayer to President Trump, Christians will never submit to Satan’s puppets.”

At this point, I feel my own righteous rumble begin to gather.

Only to be immediately extinguished by the calm, serene, very much aware, one might even say angelic, gaze of my wife sitting across from me.

And that’s how I really knew there wasn’t five little old ladies sitting over badly written fiction (I had to listen to that too, as if I needed any further evidence) and broccoli soup.

It was the devil.

Only the devil would know how to torment me so. On the one hand, I have humans engaging in loud public discourse about complete and total horse hooey – contrary to the laws of physics, the rules of reason, and the court of common sense. As an educated human, an educator at heart, and a concerned citizen, I cannot let this idiocy go unaddressed.

On the other hand, I have my wife. She does not share my views on spontaneously educating five little old ladies over tomato bisque and chipotle chicken avocado melts. This is clearly apparent in her angelic expression.

But the torment doesn’t stop there. Oh no.

For the next 20 minutes I engage in a herculean effort of focus. Keeping my attention on my wife’s conversation to me and not on the continuing hash of magical thinking, right wing politics, and character critiques. Their character’s dialogue alone made me want to start overturning tables.

Torture. Fucking torture.

Well played Lucifer. Well played.

In the end though, I resisted temptation. I finished my lunch, bussed my own table, and refilled my wife’s beverage. At no point did the seething cauldron of my – irritation, frustration, annoyance, desire to contradict, or at least say something along the lines of “Careful ladies! I hear bigfoot is walking the Earth seeking to devour… or mate with…, who he may!” – ever ghost across my features as I left the establishment.

No. I took the high road. With bigfoot and Elvis on the back of a unicorn.

And I’m damn sure going to use it as my pass through the pearly gates.

Today:

5:38 a.m. – Wake from dream that is either filled with existential dread or a strange mixture of whatever I’m reading at the time and old friends. Shrug it off and go back to sleep.

6:03 a.m. – Urinate.

7:15 a.m. – Clean bed. Just kidding. Rise to meet the day with steely purpose.

7:16 a.m. – Enter shower after spending one full minute to travel 32 feet.

7:30 a.m. – Exit shower carefully avoiding fully stretched out Labrador occupying shower mat.

7:35 a.m. – Finish drying off in four inch wide square of shower mat not occupied by Labrador.

7:36 a.m. – Finish dressing. Typical outfit: Sweatpants, black, comfortable. Socks, black. Tshirt or three quarter sleeve shirt. Some tshirts express my fabulous sense of humor and whimsy. Most are solid color, grey, or naturally, black. Shoes, running. Grey or black. Yes. I am a ninja.

7:37 a.m. – Begin discussion with spouse. Typical conversations: Expressions of good will and fortune regarding the upcoming day. Good natured verbal arm wrestling over the nature of the day’s evening meal. Tears of joy wept over successful employment of Son. Tears of outrage over yesterday’s outrage.

7:50 a.m. – Attend to Labrador and Feline. Wife departs to stamp out pestilence and do no harm.

7:55 a.m. – Check status of Son.

8:00 a.m. – Load Labrador, Son, son’s wheelchair, laptop, motor drive assist, and backpack into car and depart for downtown.

8:50/9 a.m. – Arrive downtown and unload backpack, motor drive assist, laptop, son’s wheelchair and Son. Pet Labrador and assure that he is indeed, a good boy. Hug Son and assure that he is indeed, a good boy.

8:53/9:03 a.m. – Depart downtown.

9:28 a.m. – Arrive home. Brew coffee.

9:30 a.m. – Feed Labrador.

9:32 a.m. – Consume coffee, dare to learn of the day’s fresh outrage.

9:45 a.m. – Acquiesce to Labrador’s insistence on abandonment of outrage in favor of going outside.

9:47 a.m. – Secure home. Begin walking Labrador.

10:35 a.m. – Return home, winded. Route allows Labrador to be safely off leash, in woods, over varied terrain ranging from gentle to quite steep.

10:36 a.m. – Clean Feline waste management system.

10:42 a.m. – Wash hands.

10:43 a.m. – Turn on jazz. Enjoy snack.

10:50 a.m. – Turn on computer. Write, if fortunate. Work on what I’ve already written if not. Otherwise, sit and think.

11:00 a.m. – Experience the theory of many worlds divergence point. In one reality I am sitting here writing the words ‘writing the words’, in another I am still playing with the Labrador, in another I am engrossed on the internet, in another I am choking on a snack, in another I am talking on the phone, in another I am answering the door, in another I am playing a video game, in another I am smoking cannabis, in another I am smoking cannabis while playing a video game, in another I am calling my senator, in another I am running on a treadmill, in another I am reading a novel, in another I am laughing with a friend. In none of them am I supporting Trump. Unless it’s bizarro world and the great orange one is the exact opposite of the version I am unfortunate enough to live in.

11:15 a.m. – In half of those realities swear off that shit with a THC percentage over 25. In the other half, thank the cosmos for that shit with a THC percentage higher than 25.

11:16 a.m. – Continue writing, reading, see above.

12:40 p.m. – Call spouse, ask if she’s game for two out of three in another good natured verbal arm wrestling match regarding the evening meal. Lose. Ask about the events of the morning. Take note of any various items that may need attending. Typical items include: Various odd jobs forgotten such as folding laundry, taking out garbage, scheduling events, picking up or dropping off dry cleaning, and fetching supplies.

12:50 p.m. – Lunch.

1:15 p.m. – Clean up after lunch. Give Labrador snack. As if he’s not getting them all day.

1:16 p.m. – House duty or errands run. Otherwise cultural enrichment. This is elective time. Choices include continuing writing if fortunate, otherwise engage in some form of personal growth. Reading. Learning something new. Playing the pan flute. Catch up on current events not necessarily political. Outside with Labrador.

3:00 p.m. – Meditate. Ok, nap.

4:00 p.m. – Depart for downtown.

4:40/5:00 p.m. – Load Son, son’s wheelchair, laptop, motor drive assist, and backpack into car and depart for home.

5:01 p.m. – Listen to the world weariness of Son after less than two full weeks on his very first job. Grin like fool. Continue home.

5:50/6 p.m. – Arrive home. Repeat Son and gear unloading. Daily itinerary concludes. Upload data to mothership and download evening itinerary.

I’ve been struggling with how and to what degree I’m comfortable talking about the people in my life I love. I have no trouble telling the occasional anecdote about a past girlfriend but I think long and hard about anything I commit on “paper” regarding my ex-wives.

Not to mention my wife. Or my son.

With my parents there is a much wider spectrum I’m willing to talk about. I figure they deserve it and besides, there’s both a long literary and psychological tradition I can follow.

The cost of this website has to be one of the cheapest forms of therapy out there. I hope you don’t mind my mind. I’m lazy and I’m the easiest person to get permission to tell stories about.

I’ve read many writers remark on how it isn’t wise to let one into your life, not if you want any shred of privacy. I’ve never felt that way. Somewhere along the line I adopted the notion that while everything in a writer’s life is fair game, not everyone’s life is fair to be tracked, cornered, killed, dressed, cooked and served up according to that writer’s whim.

Ah, but that’s where the flavor is, red in tooth and claw. Believe me, I know.

The trick is to whisk, fold, simmer over a low flame, and reduce my life so the essence of what I experience smooths away the ability to distinguish one from the whole.

For example, I’ve noticed that I definitely have a type.

Now before you ladies start sharpening your knives in anticipation of me listing a set of physical attributes, I can assure you we won’t be dining on a side of male chauvinism, medium rare.

I’ve loved short women, tall women, blondes, brunettes, and redheads. I’ve loved heavy women and those who weighed 100 lbs soaking wet. I’ve loved conventionally attractive women and those considered not conventionally attractive. I’ve loved women outside my ethnicity and nationality. I’ve loved women older than me and younger than me.

They all have something in common.

All of them were strong, intelligent, intensely curious about something other than themselves, confident, funny, and passionate.

Now some of them were more of one of those things than another, but they each possess those characteristics to some degree.

It is somewhat of a cliché to describe a scene where all of one’s past romantic relationships are gathered under the same roof. Usually the subject of everyone’s shared experience is painted as feeling awkward if not extremely uncomfortable. Putting myself in that situation doesn’t elicit the same feeling.

Maybe it’s because I’m that narcissistic but I would love to be in a room with all my past relationships. There’s something I’d like to say to each of them, beginning with Mia S. (my first love – in my youth I thought it would be high larry us if my wife’s name was Mia Hero) and ending with my wife of almost 20 years now, Toni.

All those (not that there’s that many) women are chapters in my life. Many of which I’m not proud of. To those I hurt because I did not know how to love properly, I’m sorry you were the ones to take the brunt of my long and difficult learning curve. I gladly and deservedly accept the lion share of fault for the reason our relationships failed.

In some cases all the fault.

Thank you for contributing to my education and growth. It isn’t fair that any enlightenment (or at least illumination) I’ve achieved was purchased with your pain. I ask for your forgiveness and understand if you’ll be damned before you give me a single thing.

Usually, my failing was an inability to transition from the high of our beginning into the much more difficult phase of growing both together and as individuals.

That and my inability to say no to another woman who wanted me. It’s not pretty but it’s true.

In my defense, in my room of past relationships, not everyone there I like to think would be unhappy to see me. Mia, for example, is still a friend.

Most importantly, Toni would be happy to see me. She wouldn’t be happy to be there. But she’d be happy to see me.

Not everyone can say that who has been married for as long as we have.

I don’t have permission to say more.

Sometimes I miss being a student. I like to think I’m wise enough to realize that in the bigger sense, I’m still a student and will be one until my last breath. This means bringing that same sense of expectation and openness beyond the buildings dedicated to learning.

So when I say that I sometimes miss being a student, what I mean is I miss the buildings dedicated to learning and that underlying sense of excitement which always accompanies the emotions of expectation and openness.

How many of you can remember what it was like to start a new school year? Our shared youth fueling a group emotion heady with anticipation and anxiety? Being battered about by a surge of humanity when the period bell rang and the halls filled like sluiceways. The social cues of how to belong, or not, as our and others’ perceptions dictated. The hammering of your heart when that person you couldn’t keep your eyes off glided by.

And then there was the structure of the day itself. I personally believe that the factory method of instruction as explained by Zinn, where groups of students are packaged together as a unit for one hour of single topic instruction which is repeated throughout the day, is not the ideal method for most people to learn. It also puts people who aren’t inclined to learn by listening to someone lecture or by reading for themselves at a disadvantage.

Given my druthers, I enjoy learning by reading above all other ways except one. The other way is dialogue. I can listen to someone passionate and perspicacious talk about their chosen topic and remain riveted for hours. Someone passionate and perspicacious that I can question and plumb, well, let’s just say I was more than one engaged teacher’s favorite student.

I was one of those people for which the public education system did more good than harm. This includes the horror that was my middle school experience. I also had the great good fortune to attend a private Catholic high school where I unequivocally received a better education than I would have if I attended the public high school I was slotted to attend. So I know from personal experience the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches.

Later in life I chose to pursue a master’s degree in teaching, so I think I’m at least technically qualified to remark on today’s confirmation of Betsy Devos as Secretary of Education.

Let’s take my high school experience as a case study in what Devos is trying to achieve. She is an avowed enemy of public education and wants to see federal funding for it syphoned away towards her preferred institutions, charter and religious schools. Private religious schools like Salpointe Catholic High, in Tucson, Arizona.

Salpointe charged, according to my mother, $3,000 a year for me to attend. This didn’t include student fees and food. Oh, and that price was lower if you belonged to a Catholic church. That might not seem like much but this was in the early 80’s. Today, Salpointe charges $9,400 for tuition. I’m fairly certain the average American family does not have nearly ten thousand dollars per child extra in their budget for education. Most Catholics probably don’t have the discounted price either.

To be fair, I will be the first one to assert that my mother got her money’s worth. You have to give it to the Catholics, in my experience they place academic success near the top of their priorities. But not at the top. Molding good Catholics strong in the faith remains at the top. This is why they had a mandatory religion class. And why there was a definite tendency to weave Christian themes into certain soft subjects. By that I mean I never heard sister Mary Peter mention Christ in geometry.

But she could have. And I’m sure there are religious schools out there that do. How many isosceles triangles can you make out of the cross our lord and savior died on kids? This is the sort of education Devos and her religious friends want to use taxpayer money to promote, “knowledge” such as creationism, otherwise known as alt evolution.

It was already too late for any real chance of converting me, high school was my first experience with a nonsecular school and by the time I got to Salpointe I didn’t identify as a Christian, much less a Catholic. By the time the Catholics had their chance, I was reading Spinoza and convinced there was no one watching the contents of my head but me. I’m not so sure I would have been so resilient if they’d had their way with me since elementary school. And Betsy Devos, Catholics, evangelicals, and home school parents are keenly aware of this.

So what? You said yourself that you got a much better education at your Catholic high school than you would have got at the public high school you would have attended. Don’t they have a point then that private schools are better at education than public ones? Besides, I hear you say, not only do kids get a better education, they also get Christ, which will make them a better person. So why not let more kids into private school and let some federal funding in to help?

As much as I hate having to explain this to you, dearly despised opposition, here’s one reason why – private schools are by definition private. Which means they include and exclude students based upon their own criteria. So beyond the odious notion of having taxpayers fund religious indoctrination, Catholic or otherwise, they will receive public money while simultaneously being able to reject the public for whatever reason they like. Maybe they don’t want any Mexicans. Maybe they don’t want any Mormons. Maybe they don’t want anyone with an IQ less than 110 and willing to sign a morality contract. Mostly they won’t want anyone that can’t afford the $9400 tuition, which won’t go down one cent the day they receive federal funding. And if you think that belief in Christ will make you a better person, then why are our prisons filled with so many Christians and so few atheists, beyond and above their representative size in our population? Religion can make no claims on moral superiority.

One of the reasons why my high school was able to give me a great education had nothing to do with it being Catholic and everything to do with it being exclusive. I never sat in a classroom with more than 25 people in it. Most of the English and writing classes I elected to take (which, hardly surprising, were among my favorites) had less than 20. I’m convinced this is one of the reasons why I also had such good teachers. Not because they were paid any better, which I’m sure they weren’t, but because they had classrooms filled with kids whose parents could afford to send them to a private high school. Not only that, they were assured that the students in those classrooms were more or less grade level proficient. How do I know this? I had to take an academic assessment test prior to admittance. Think about how this is likely to effect the student parent relationship vis-a-vis bad grades.

I wager there are a fair number of teachers who would agree to give up a bit of salary or benefits if they were guaranteed classrooms of less than 30 kids who were vetted grade proficient and living with parents that were paying large sums of money for their education. Parents who literally enjoy both a vested interest economically while simultaneously having a vested interest in their child’s academic performance. This means their child is much less likely to be hungry. Or live in an impoverished neighborhood, which means a student better able and willing to learn. A student that can be expelled for academic failure but usually isn’t because there’s a pissed off parent to make sure she won’t.

There are problems with our public education system. I personally think the system is ripe for a major overhaul. But not in the way Devos and her supporters wish to see it.

I mentioned at the beginning that I try to bring that sense of expectation and openness which I often felt at school beyond the walls of school. Applying that in this case is not as difficult as you might think. While I fear the worst, I also see the opportunity inherent to what Devos wants to accomplish. The system is ripe for overhaul and she is eager to see it burn. Perhaps there is a way to judo her attempt in service to the greater good.

Maybe it is time for humanists to start a chain of schools, Montessori style.

A chain of schools founded on the classics; civics, rhetoric, logic, philosophy, music and humanities, mathematics and the other hard sciences.

It’s the school I’d send my kid to. The schools we sorely need.

Oh and there would be no fucking football. [Ed. Note: Future me has reconsidered this. There would be no American Football.]

So things have spiraled downhill even faster than I anticipated. Today the senate confirmed Tillerson as the incoming Secretary of State. China has said that war with the US is almost assured. Jeff Sessions is going to be the next Attorney General. Green card holders have been kept out of the country. American citizens are going to pay for a boondoogle wall that will be as ineffective as it is stupid. This is only a partial list.

On the positive side, public outrage has managed to mitigate or reverse otherwise odious measures immediately taken by the Trump administration. Victories need to be celebrated with vigor even in the face of daily developments.

Unfortunately, I keep experiencing the sinking feeling that whatever we do will be too little too late.

Trump and his hand picked general seem itching to start the bombs dropping and the troops shipping out back to the middle east. Most likely Iran. Old allies are reacting with horror to what they see America rapidly descending into.

This is very dangerous. Fear let loose on the nation state level has the potential to cause already fragile relationships to reshuffle in unforeseeable ways.

And then there’s the domestic situation.

So far, reports of citizens clashing with citizens has been low. I hope this remains the case.

I live in one of the few states where democrats control both houses of state government as well as the governorship. When I look around the sea of red where this isn’t the case, I quail at what this bodes for our country. Because they aren’t standing up to the daily insanity which is the Trump administration. They don’t care that they won with a combination of fear, hate mongering, voter suppression, gerrymandering, Russian internet hijinx, and the director of the FBI deliberately trying to sink Clinton.

They don’t care.

They see the opportunity to eradicate everything their religious leaders despise at the same time they loot the national treasury. The very thought of this caused the vampires on wall street to break the 20,000 mark for the first time in history.

Nepotism is running rampant in the halls of our democracy. The senate majority leader’s wife was rewarded with a cabinet position after McConnell successfully kept Russian involvment out of the media until after the election. Or maybe it was for making sure Obama’s SCOTUS pick was never even given a hearing.

To make matters worse, the democrats who remain for the most part are not responding with anywhere near enough outrage and obstinance. Only one democratic senator opposed every one of Trump’s nominee’s. Just one.

I do have hope.

When I see the scale and intensity of protests and the increasing amount of alarm at what Trump and his coterie of vultures have in mind, I have hope. When I notice that media is finally beginning to call a lie a lie, I have hope. When I see a nazi punched in the face, not once but twice, I have hope. When I see a handful of republicans speak out against some of the worst that Trump has already said and done, I have hope.

Hope is essential but not enough.

I wish I were smart enough to see a solution or even an outcome that doesn’t involve far too much suffering.

To think of all those people in the past who fought and died to keep our country’s highest principles alive, all for nought if they get their way. When I do, I get pissed. I get pissed for them, who I imagine, if they could see what is happening (they can’t), would want me to be angry.

Anger isn’t enough either.

I will continue to shake off despair, embrace a positive attitude, and resist.

You should too.