2011 Thoughts: Moving Forward

When I was still married I was pretty damn sure I'd never go back to NJ. The reasons where:

1) The place is too damn expensive

2) Been there, done that

3) Why go back, try something different

So, now it's been six months since I moved into this apartment. Six months to do some serious non-intentional thinking. And I must confess, the thought of heading back to NJ has taken root.

1) There's certainly no reason for me to stay in TX, of all places

2) Now closer to 50 than 40

3) It is what I know

4) I really miss the entire east coast

But, I have kids. Though my daughter heads off to college (please dear girl, look at Rutgers) in a about a year and a half, my son is only 12. Recently, he has expressed interest in moving to NJ-brought up by himself with no influence from me.

Perhaps, my exile won't last the next 7 years, but only 2---but what of his mother?

Aspiration...or how I Failed

Conor, my 10 yr old son has declared his future employment...he says he's going to be...the next Billy Mays....

I'm Such A Damn Hypocrite

I don't know how your family was growing up but (and I think I've already established that mine was probably not real normal) at our dinner table, after our parents left and the four of us remained to finish eating (because we dragged our heels on eating the things we hated: beets, liver, turnips, etc...) we would entertain ourselves and break out into laughing fits.

Sorry for the Henry James-like sentence (though mine is slightly shorter).

Anyway, from the living room, as they watched the evening news, my parents would yell at us to stop what we were doing, knock it off, quit laughing, etc...and we just couldn't stop or fathom why we were getting in trouble for...laughing. What could possibly be wrong with laughing? How could that be wrong? I mean, my parents were just freaks.

Fast forward thirty-some-odd years, and yes, you know where this is going. I'm sitting at the dinner table with my two kids and their acting like complete damn idiots. And there I go telling them to stop, knock it off, quit and all that stuff my parents said to me.

With my kids looking at me like there's something wrong with me, what could I do but, with serious face, rip a fart, get up and walk out of the kitchen, leaving them laughing and unable to breathe.

As the Father of a Teenage Daughter...

...I hate teenage boys.

A Little Sumpin Sumpin on Cigars

I enjoy a cigar every so often. My old friend Mike in Chicago has good taste in cigars and whenever we're together he's kind enough to offer me a very nice cigar.

Right before I left NJ, a really sweet cigar bar opened in my home town. Of course, I never got to fully take advantage of it and right after that cigars became much more mainstream and popular.

Usually, here alone, I can only afford the occasional box of Swisher Sweets...easy to smoke but not the greatest of taste.

Recently, I had the privilege of obtaining several hand rolled Dominican cigars from a guy from Tampa whilst in Orlando. Very nice smokes.

So, now my brother-in-laws have a little sumpin sumpin to smoke after the Shreveport Mardi Gras next month.

Depression

There is much written on depression these days. Millions of Americans are on some sort of anti-depressant...rightfully or not. Depression in others is easier to determine than in oneself. After all, how do you separate what you've known all your life to be normal when in fact it isn't?

Schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder are more obvious in people, but moderate to severe on-going depression is hard to discern. Often we just think someone is having a bad time of it or are in "a mood" not realizing that, in fact, it could be a clinical problem. In ourselves we just tend to think being "down" is normal when we perceive that life isn't going the way we want.

This is what happened to me. First, it took me to move away from everything in order to see differences. Then it took marital problems to make me realize I had a problem. Another realization is that I suffered, unbeknownst until now, from anxiety instilled in me by the way our father treated us.

Long story short, I got myself on Cymbalta and that has had a huge affect on my life. Anxiety: gone. The ups and downs of good/bad feelings: gone. I feel more even keeled and overall good about myself. I'm not one for regrets but sometimes I can't help wondering if my past would have turned out different if I'd diagnosed this issue many years ago.

Number one reason for no regrets: my family. I couldn't possibly look at my wife and kids and regret anything because it's always possible I wouldn't have them. And in the end, water under the bridge is water out to sea. Only the here/now matters and the decisions I make.

But, of course, this isn't the biggest problem. No, that belongs to seeing one of my kids suffer a similar issue. Both my wife and I suffer from some form of depression and are now on medication. We both have family histories that include bi-polar and schizophrenia, so should we really expect our children to go unscathed?

My son was born 5 weeks early and one of his lungs collapsed. Until now I thought the worst thing in my life was walking into the NICU and seeing a tube sticking out the side of his chest knowing they cut into him and shoved the tube with no anesthetic. That was hard to swallow. But seeing him suffer now is worse.

At first we just thought he had a bad attitude or our parenting was inadequate. Once we decided to do something about it, that made all the difference because you never want your kids to suffer the same things you did. So, we got him on medication, after making sure we did all due diligence to ensure that was necessary...we didn't just walk in and have him medicated. No one wants to medicate their kids, so we chose a very well respected and conservative child psychologist (to the tune of paying cash as he isn't on the insurance plan--and it ain't cheap, let me tell you).

For six months things were greatly improved, but then seemed to slide back. After meeting with the doc we upped his dosage and that had a temporary improved effect, which quickly turned negative. So, we bumped him back down and are currently waiting to meet with the doc again. Hopefully, this may simply amount to changing the type of medication as it hurts to watch your child knowing something just isn't right and knowing he's not happy.

Interjection

I don't know if anyone actually reads this blog. I have had only one comment to any of my entries (from the formerly known as Becky Scango--whom I remember and recall that I liked her--good people).

But the lack of a new post is due to the fact that I am down in Orlando. Disney World to be exact. Our annual National Sales Meeting is being held here this week, so I'm a bit busy working-yes, working. Though I've taken the opportunity to have my family fly down at the end of the week and join me so we can have our first ever Disney World family vacation.

I know I owe a posting on depression--hopefully I'll get to that next week. We'll see; as my old friend Pete has recently sent me a long email response to mine updating me on his life, so I may take some time and respond to that instead...again, we'll see.

Meds

An old, recently reconnected friend has a post on his blog about how a nurse was surprised when asked what medications he was on and he said none. Pete is a runner so is probably in fairly good shape in his middle age of 44.

I turn 44 very soon. Between the ages of 39 and 41 my cholesterol fluctuated up and down based, a little on diet, but mostly on my various attempts to start and maintain an exercise regiment.

At 42, my blood pressure at work would rise and just wipe me out. All told, according to my doctor, this, along with the cholesterol, was a genetic problem. Now, this was hard to swallow. My father had a debilitating stroke 11 yrs earlier--but he smoked since a teenager, drank consistently (until the point of full blown alcoholism) and ate whatever he wanted to. So, I saw his problems as self induced and mine shouldn't be.

Today, I'm convinced I could at least control my cholesterol with some level of consistent exercise. Blood pressure, we'd have to see.

But the reason my friend's nurse was surprised is that so many men our age are on at least one if not both of these medicines. Good for Pete that he is not.

Then, last year, I worked my way onto Cymbalta and that has had a very large effect on my life, but that is for another post.

So, here I am, middle-aged and counting pills--but thanks to Cymbalta, no worries...

Daughters

My daughter is a pretty cool kid. She's wise beyond her 15 years. However, when it comes to some other life things (sex specifically) she leans more towards the 13/14 yr range than the 16/17 range. Thank God. So, I'm not complaining, however, nor am I naive enough to think that I may be completely wrong.

But why? Someone please tell me, why does a 15 yr old girl need to wear $40 Victoria Secret bras? It's like buying $80 shoes for your 1 year old.

Hanes. At Sears. Done.

And why, for the love of God, why do daughters insist on telling their fathers they need a bigger bra?

On Being a Smart Ass (And just a little note to my Southern bretheren)

My 9 yr old son can be quite the smart ass. Everyone in my family, but my mother, is a smart ass, so I guess we all received the smart ass gene from my father. Of course, there appears to be a plethora of smart asses in the Northeast. I worked with many over the years there. Perhaps smart ass-ism is more of a regional phenomenon, I'm not sure.

Yes, there are smart asses down here in the South as well, but not nearly in the large herds as up in the NE.

Now, let's segment smart ass-ism (this is the part for my Southern friends): there's Wise Ass-ism and Ball Busting.

Wise Ass: If I'm being a wise ass it's because I don't like someone or something.

Ball Busting: If I'm busting balls (or, not to be sexist--also known as "busting chops", "busting your hump", and some others) it's because I like someone.

The South (and Midwest) are known for being friendlier, but what I have noticed about the South in general (note: yes, I'm painting with a wide brush, this does not apply to everyone but overall I think it true) is that, while friendlier, they are also much more thin-skinned. It's generally harder for them to tell the difference between Wise Ass-ism and Ball Busting.

So, my Southern friends, here is the key: when we say something smart ass you can tell if it's Ball Busting if we're laughing. If we're not, we're being Wise Asses.

And to be perfectly clear on this, Busting Balls is an art form and requires, to do it well, great creativity. Thus, if we take the time and effort to "bust your balls", it's because we like you--we don't waste our energy or creative juices on people we don't like.

Thank you

Past, Present and Future (memory)

Some people live for tomorrow. Some live in the past. Some live here and now. This is mostly about memory but there are a few tie-ins around school that I'll write in another post.

I don't know how most people's memories work. There's a biological aspect to how our brains processes memories and, I think, where our tendency to "live" (past, present, future) comes from. Whether there is an inherent gene or if the brain synapses are formed this way due to the environment, I don't know, but this is beyond the scope of this entry.

I have found myself forever stuck in the present. My mind does not naturally plan or look into the future (though I have been guilty of procrastinating parts of my life under the guise that things will be "better tomorrow"). When my mind drifts back, it tends to go to the elementary years not the high school years (see future school entry).

When a memory enters my mind I can't seem to bring a visual of it only the idea of the memory. Even memories from several months ago fall victim to this "failure to load". The consequence of this is that past events seem like they never really happened. If we were to use the analogy of water under the bridge, my memory is the water which has swept out to sea and left me on the bridge seemingly gone for good. Which means days like when I got married, the birth of my son, all seem so vague and far away, as if they belong to someone else.

My memory is more like bytes on a hard drive than a file cabinet full of pictures and movies. As if I can only recall in text not images.

It's the difference between this:



And this:
"It's night, there's a big fountain with tall buildings in the background."

I would like to recall in images not in text but it appears my entire thought process only works in text. Which is odd because I don't dream in text, I dream in very vivid color images with Dolby Surround Sound. Of course, then it all just becomes text as I try to capture the images and feelings in a journal when I wake up.

All this makes Visualization very difficult.

On top of all this, I can't really seem to recall anything. I'm not forgetful, I don't have a "bad memory" (though, the older I get...). I mean, I know my son was born, I know I was there, I recall the incident but...My family will talk about things that happened when we were kids and I'll have no recollection, as if the memory has been wiped, or never happened. Or wasn't important enough to register, yet we all know that everything, even things we don't consciously notice, get filed in our brain. So, it's more like the bytes on the hard drive have become corrupt and cannot be accessed or the "ties", the "line" to the memory has been severed or withered and died.

It's all very odd and in the end leaves me with the here and now. But, of course, isn't that all we really have?

Parenting

I don't usually say much about parenting--we all do things differently and I'm not one to tell anyone else how to raise their kid (exceptions being any kind of abuse).  But here's a fairly recent article I just read from the UK.  In the article, the author brings up a book by Judith Rich Harris I read when it came out 10 years ago.  I've read and re-read this book and I highly, highly recommend this book to everyone (not just parents).

Regardless of how you feel after reading the book, it will make you think, not just about your kids, if you have them, but about your parents and friends and how you were raised.

I buy into the premise of the book very much so.  My college minor was sociology and I've done a lot of reading in this subject as well as psychology and social psychology and Judith Rich Harris' book is the only book that both ties all the pieces together but explains the gaps and contradictions I've always encountered in both subject matters.

Here is her website.  There are lots of links and articles to read, lots of opinions. Again, I highly recommend her book above most all books I've ever read--and her writing is very accessible with a good sense of humor.  And that's all I've got to say about parenting.