Too Big to Fail. A Hard Look at the Financial Crisis of 2007
Main street America is directing a lot of justifiable anger towards big banks right now. No one is happy with the bailouts that took over a trillion dollars of your money and gave it to institutions that were ‘too big to fail’. Our children’s grandchildren will still be struggling to pay that money back a century from now.
So why did this happen? How did it all come to pass? More importantly who’s to blame? Read on and learn the ugly truth…
How Money is Created- Fractional Reserve Lending
To understand how the big banks earned the label ‘Too big to fail’ you first need to understand how they make their massive piles of money.
Most people understand the basics of how banks operate. You deposit your money and the bank lends it out. Sounds pretty straightforward right? It’s anything but. Using the magic of something called Fractional Reserve Lending a bank literally invents the money that it loans out.
Let’s say Joe deposits $1,000 into a savings account at his local bank. Most people assume the bank pays Joe interest on that money, and that they lend it out at a higher rate so they can make money. That’s partly true. They do pay Joe interest on his $1,000. However, instead of lending out that $1,000 the bank actually loans out $10,000.
Joe’s $1,000 is still sitting in his savings. The bank creates all $10,000 out of thin air, and then loans it out at interest. They keep the money they created and the interest they charge for it. So when you take out a loan they’re loaning you money they never even had.
Let me recap that in case it didn’t sink in. A bank makes up the money it lends for your car or home, and it charges you interest for the privilege.
If you can’t pay back this new money guess what they get to do? Come and take your house or car. If you fail to pay back the money that the bank made up, you lose your very real home or vehicle. They have no skin in the game, but they come out owning your property.
Bear in mind the money they keep in reserve isn’t lost when they make a loan. So if the bank has $25,000 in reserves and you want a $250,000 loan for your home they keep the 25k. They also get all $250,000 they just made up as well as the interest on it.
Sounds pretty shady doesn’t it? It gets worse.
Bank Created Inflation
Do you remember how much a movie ticket cost when you were a kid? How about a gallon of gas or a new car? How much do those things cost now?
Remember when the idea of a million dollars meant you could retire? Now you can barely buy a house with it. In some areas a million dollars won’t even do that much.
From 1933 to the present the U.S. dollar has lost over 96% of its value due to inflation. How and why did this happen?
Inflation happens when the money supply increases. In other words the more dollars there are, the less each dollar is worth. Every time a bank writes a loan it creates more dollars, which causes inflation. So in addition to raking in profits from the money they make out of thin air banks are also making the money in your wallet worth less.
Sounds pretty bad doesn’t it? Banks are creating money from nothing, causing inflation and making incredibly massive profits. All of that is supposed to come at a price though. If a bank makes bad decisions its supposed to go out of business.
Instead the public was forced to bail them out, because we were told they were ‘too big to fail’.
Too big to fail?
Right before the great depression several very powerful banks made risky financial decisions that led to an economic crash larger than anything the U.S. had ever seen. Two of the largest were JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs. Does this sound at all familiar?
In 1933 congress realized that letting the big banks run rampant was a really bad idea. They created the Glass Stegal act. In a nutshell the law said a bank can only lend. It couldn’t own stocks or bonds or deal in any sort of risky trading. Basically it outlawed the very things that led to the great depression, and to banks being considered too large to fail.
Makes sense doesn’t it? The banks in the early 1900s played with our money and crashed the economy, so we made laws to stop it from happening again. For the next sixty five years these laws kept the banks in check, and all was well.
In 1999 the Glass Stegal Act was repealed. Now instead of making their money lending the banks could once again own stocks, bonds or other assets. In essence they could gamble using the money we deposited, but that’s ok because they’re professionals and they’d never make bad bets, right?
Their profits were higher than ever! The problem is that in their rush to make an ever increasing pile of money they started taking more and more risks. Less than a decade after the removal of Glass Stegal the economy collapsed under the weight of their greed.
As we are all painfully aware the ‘professionals’ on Wall Street made some really bad bets. They dabbled in incredibly risky ventures that any sane person should have shied away from.
So how exactly did the banks get themselves into trouble?
The Advent of Mortgage Backed Securities
Before Glass Stegal was repealed banks owned the loans they made. If you borrowed $250,000 for a home loan from Bank of America you made your payment directly to them. If that loan went bad Bank of America lost money, so they were careful only to lend to people that could pay it back.
All that changed with the advent of something called a Mortgage Backed Security. Many people have heard the term, but very few understand exactly what they are.
Basically a MBS is a little piece of somebody’s mortgage. Banks bundled up people’s mortgages into giant pools, usually $30,000,000 or more. They’d sell stock in this pool, and anyone could own a piece. People were eager to do this, because you could make up to 10% interest. At the time a CD only paid about 4%, so it was definitely a smart investment.
We knew this, because these Mortgage Backed Securities were given the highest credit grade by the most reputable ratings agencies in the world: Moody’s, Standard & Poor and Fitch all stamped them with an AAA approval, the highest they offer.
They claimed these were the safest investment money could buy. Safer than stocks. Safer than bonds. Which means if you’re an investor you’d be a fool not to buy them. They offered a higher rate of return than any comparable investment, and were safer to boot. Is it any surprise that every investor in America suddenly had a voracious appetite for them?
Now why was this whole Mortgage Backed Security thing a problem? Because it removed accountability.
As I mentioned before when a bank made a loan they were very careful to make sure the borrower could repay. When they were suddenly able to sell those loans on Wall Street they no longer cared if the person could repay the loan, because if it went bad it already belonged to someone else. All they cared about was funding as many loans as possible so they could increase their profit margin.
At first Mortgage Backed Securities were made up of what’s called A Paper. The A in A Paper refers to the credit rating of the borrower, and meant the people in question had excellent credit. This meant there was very little risk in owning those securities, because you knew the borrowers would make their payments on time.
The thing is there were only a limited number of those people in the United States, and eventually all of them had loans. Yet demand was greater than ever, so banks of all sizes were under enormous pressure to provide more securities at any cost.
More on the Rating Agencies
Remember the ratings agencies I mentioned earlier? As the credit worthiness of the Mortgage Backed Securities dropped, they should have downgraded the rating from that vaunted AAA. They didn’t. They kept right on giving them that top grade stamp even after the financial crisis began in 2007.
Why? It has to do with their business model. The ratings agencies are actually paid by the very companies they rate. The agencies get paid by the people they rate, so if they give them a bad rating those companies won’t use them anymore. Can you say conflict of interest?
Is it any surprise that Moody’s, Standard & Poor and Fitch all lied about how safe Mortgage Backed Securities were? They turned a blind eye to the fraud, because it was profitable for them to do so.
Here Comes the Fraud
I worked for a mortgage bank from 2001 to 2007, so I had a front row seat for the circus that came next. When banks ran out of A Paper loans they started soliciting people with bad credit and/or people who didn’t make enough money to afford the homes they were buying.
Brokers would present loans that appeared to be A Paper, but were really a house of cards. If their borrower didn’t have good credit the broker would help them improve their score until it was high enough to qualify for a loan.
Did their borrower work at starbucks? No problem! They’d just lie and say the person owned a franchise and made $10,000 a month. Did the borrower only have $50 in the bank when the lender required $10,000 in assets? No problem! The broker just lied and said the borrower had the money.
How was this sort of fraud possible?
Banks were so desperate to fund more loans they created something called a stated/stated loan. Borrowers wrote down their salary and their savings, but the lender didn’t check either number. They just took their word for it. As you can imagine almost no one told the truth, which meant billions of dollars in fraudulent loans were funded.
Between 2003 and 2005 the level of fraud increased drastically. To make matters worse a new craze started for ’subprime’ mortgages. Remember when I mentioned A paper before? Subprime loans were made up of D paper. Think about grades in school, and you have some idea of the difference between an A and a D.
Wall Street was so desperate for more Mortgage Backed Securities that they were willing to accept loans where the borrowers had really, really bad credit. By this time people in the know began to get really nervous, and whispers began about the ‘housing bubble’.
Most people scoffed at the idea, but savvy investors stopped buying Mortgage Backed Securities. This created a huge problem as literally hundreds of billions of dollars of these securities were still being created. Since the investors on Wall Street weren’t buying them, who was? You’re not going to like the answer.
You were. You’re probably wondering how that’s possible.
If you have a 401k there’s about a 90% chance it was invested in a mutual fund. A mutual fund is run by a financial investor who invests money for dozens, hundreds or even thousands of people all at once. Long after the investors on Wall Street stopped buying Mortgage Backed Securities the companies running your 401k still were.
They used your retirement to buy bad mortgages which are now worth pennies on the dollar. Chances are you saw a huge drop in the value of your 401k over the last three or four years. That’s probably because at least part of it was invested in Mortgage Backed Securities.
As bad as Mortgage Backed Securities are, at least they made some level of sense. They weren’t the only thing the big banks were involved in though. Wait until you hear about Credit Default Swaps.
Credit Default Swaps. Are you kidding me?
Repealing Glass Stegal allowed banks to buy a whole alphabet soup of financial instruments most people will never understand. The worst were called Credit Default Swaps, or CDS for short. In a nutshell a CDS was an insurance policy, but with some important differences.
Normally an insurance company is required to keep reserves. So if I’m an auto insurance company and I want to write you a policy on your car I need to make sure I have money set aside to pay for that car if you get in an accident.
With a CDS I can write a policy that says I’ll pay you a million dollars if AIG goes bankrupt. But I don’t have to actually have a million dollars. I didn’t even need to have five dollars. I could write as many of these policies as I wanted without having the ability to make good on any of them.
There’s one other important difference between a CDS and a typical insurance policy. When you get insurance you get it on your car or your house. With a CDS you could effectively insure your neighbor Phil’s car, so if he got into an accident you got paid.
Do you see how this could lead to problems? Anyone could make a CDS without being able to pay on the promise it made, and anyone could buy one even if they had no vested interest in the bet.
In 2007 over two trillion dollars of CDSs existed. Over 90% were made between the largest five banks in the nation, all of which are now household names. Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and AIG are the most famous.
Remember when the taxpayers bailed out AIG to the tune of 160 billion dollars? Guess where that money went? AIG created a bunch of Credit Default Swaps and sold them to Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase. Many said that if Bear Sterns went under they’d owe them billions of dollars. Only AIG didn’t have billions of dollars, so when Bear Sterns suddenly collapsed they had no way to pay out these policies.
So who paid for all these bad policies? You did. Your tax dollars were used make good on AIGs debts. Not because the government cared about AIG, but because otherwise Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase would have gone under.
Without the bailout AIG would have declared bankruptcy. That would have meant companies like Goldman Sachs would have had to accept debt settlement, which pays them a cut of what AIG owed but nothing near what they would have gotten otherwise. Instead we bailed out AIG so Goldman and JP Morgan got the full value of all the CDSs AIG made with them.
That’s your tax dollars at work.
So what would have happened if the banks hadn’t been bailed out?
The taxpayers gave over a trillion dollars to the banks in the last few years. Stop and think about that for a minute. A trillion dollars is $3,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States. It’s enough to pay 25 million people a $40,000 salary for a year. It could have rebuilt every road, bridge and levy in the U.S. Instead we gave it to the banks.
When the TARP bill was placed before congress for $700,000,000,000 every poll showed that over 90% of the public was against it. Hundreds of thousands of letters were sent to congress begging them not to do it. They did it anyway, because they didn’t care what we thought. Why should they? We aren’t the one paying millions of dollars to fund their campaigns. The banks are.
Congress told us that without the bailout our country would be in financial ruin. They lied.
What actually would have happened is that all the banks who made bad decisions would have gone out of business. Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Citibank would have imploded. How much would that have effected people on Main Street USA? We barely would have noticed.
We were told that credit would have frozen up entirely. That simply isn’t true. Local banks and credit unions who’d made more conservative choices, and hadn’t made such risky loans would have picked up the slack.
That’s not to say that everything would have been rosy, but would it have been worse than what we’re going through right now? How secure do you feel about the economy, your job and your family’s financial health? Did bailing out the banks do anything to help you directly? Of course it didn’t.
Had they been allowed to fail our country would have gone through a much needed economic correction. People would have learned to live within their means again. It would have been painful, but it’s a normal part of the boom / bust cycle capitalistic societies go through. The banks and credit unions that did things right would have grown, and in time they’d have replaced those the government called too big to fail.
Instead of punishing the people who caused the economic crisis we bailed them out and made sure they still got their bonuses. We made sure they can still live in their mansions, drive their Ferrari’s and live in complete luxury. The cost? We sold our children into perpetual debt slavery. Our national debt is now so large that it cannot be paid off in our grandchildren’s lifetimes. But those banking executives on Wall Street are ok so it was worth it right?
Congress terrified us with tales of our economy grinding to a halt. We were told that we couldn’t let those banks fail, or all lending would stop. Yet those banks did stop lending, even after we gave them our children’s future. Instead they used the money to snap up their smaller rivals, making the too big to fail banks even bigger. They bought up homes, cars, businesses all while the average citizen is struggling to afford food and rent.
It’s a despicable situation. So what can we do about it? It’s clear that congress won’t listen to us, so voting won’t solve the problem. We need to adopt more fundamental changes if we want to rebuild our communities, and get away from the debt slavery the banks are pushing us into.
The good news is that there’s something incredibly basic that all of us can to do help fix the problem. The first step? Join your local credit union.
Credit Unions to the rescue
Rampant greed led to the financial crisis. Everyone wanted to make a profit, and they did whatever it took no matter who they hurt in the process.
That sort of greed isn’t possible with credit unions, because they are not-for-profit organizations. They literally cannot make a profit, so unlike banks they are not motivated by greed. Each member of the board of directors for Bank of America makes between six and thirty million dollars. Why do you think they are paid so handsomely? Because they excel at maximizing profits.
Credit union boards are made up of volunteers who are not paid for their time. They serve out of a desire to help their communities. Which group would you rather have running the institution you bank at?
Don’t get me wrong credit unions do use Fractional Reserve Lending, just like banks. The difference is the profit they would have made is funneled back into your community. They support local charities like the United Way and youth outreach programs.
More importantly they make small business loans, provide low interest rates and offer a safe place for you to invest your money. They are federally insured just like banks are, and offer nearly all the same services.
If you’re tired of giving your money to big banks more interested in next quarter’s profits than in the community make the switch to your local credit union. Put your money to work for you and your neighbors instead of having it siphoned off by shareholders that may not even live in the United States.
So where do we go from here?
Why did the banks get away with their reckless behavior? Why hasn’t a law been passed to prevent the use or sale of Credit Default Swaps? Why do we continue to bail out these banks? Most importantly of all why aren’t our leaders listening to us?
These are difficult questions with even more difficult answers. I can’t tell you how we’re going to get out of the mess we’re in, but I can say this. It begins with you. It begins with me. If we want to see real change we’re going to have to work together to make it happen.
And so I begin again…
Being a perfectionist sucks, but being a perfectionist with a complete lack of patience is infinitely worse.
Yesterday I began the fourth draft of The Bond of Jhordil, my first original novel. I’m frustrated because I was hoping the third draft had finally nailed down the plot, and that once it was finished I could sit back and begin the loooonnnng editing process. Unfortunately it was not to be. I got through about two thirds of the third draft before I had to stop and re-examine the plot due to feedback I’d received.
I showed the early chapters to about a dozen people. Six of them told me exactly the same thing. We like it, but it feels like we’re starting in the middle of a book. We need to know more about Aranthar and Briana, the new leads I’d added.
Why is this so frustrating? Because Aranthar and Briana weren’t even in the first two drafts. It originally centered on the town of Mountain Shadow, and the main characters were the offspring of The Dark Lord(tm) killed in the prologue. Yet the more I wrote the more I realized the brothers couldn’t sustain a novel on their own. The book was ok but it wasn’t amazing, and the sad reality of today’s publishing market is that if your novel isn’t amazing it simply will not sell.
So I went back to the drawing board. I realized that neither brother was cut out to be the main character. The lead in a compelling novel is one that the readers empathize with, laugh with, cry with and love to read about. They are human and flawed. Neither brother fit that closely enough, which meant I needed a new lead.
I’ve played Mass Multiplayer Games like Everquest and World of Warcraft for many years, and my all time favorite character was Aranthar. He was an irrevrent drunk who wanted to do the right thing, but had a hard time putting his wineskin down long enough to do it. During the years I played him the ladies in these games loved the character, as evidenced by the stories they still tell years later.
I decided to modify him and insert him into The Bond. If I could bring him to life the way I did in those games I figured I’d have a pretty compelling lead. The good news is that I was right. Everyone who read the new draft liked Aranthar, and it was universally agreed that the book was much stronger with him in it.
I also realized that for him to work I’d need a foil, someone for him to argue with. As Aranthar is the world’s biggest ManHo that character would naturally need to be female. So I created Briana, a character that still needs work but one the readers really like so far. The interplay between them works, and people enjoy reading their adventures. Great news for me!
So I created four chapters with Aranthar and Briana trying to reach Mountain Shadow, but kept the rest of the plot intact. The two vampyr brothers and the complete cast of characters I created in the town are still there. The plot is still the same, though now its Aranthar investigating the mystery instead of the brothers. It seemed to work perfectly, and I was very proud of myself.
Then came the feedback. Readers liked Aranthar and Briana, but they had no idea why they were traveling to Mountain Shadow. They wanted to know how the pair met and why they were traveling together in the first place.
The good news is that I have the answers to these questions, and writing those chapters is cake. They’re also really fun to write, because I have a blast with the interplay between Aranthar and Briana. However, it going to take me at least an extra month and will probably be closer to two.
Worse, adding these chapters creates some serious problems later in the book. You see in the publishing world fantasy novels are limited to 100,000 words. I’m already at 120,000 and adding these chapters is going to put me at closer to 150,000 words.
That means I need to cut nearly a third of the novel, all of which is going to have to come from the last part of the book. That’s why I’m so frustrated >.<
I’m sure I’ll be able to find a way to do this, but its hard to effectively start over with the plot of the novel. I’ve already done it three times, and a fourth is both tiring and daunting. I’m not giving up mind you, but I do feel like banging my head against my desk.
GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
Ok I feel better now. Focus on the good, Mr. Fox. The new version is way better than any of the previous versions! Besides, I knew going in what I was getting myself into. The publishing industry has changed a great deal in the last twenty years.
It used to be that any moron could slap together a fantasy novel, and if it was even close to readable it would get published. Books as a whole are dying, and the epic fantasy genre is on the endangered species list. That means only the very best of the very best will get accepted.
If I want to get published I need to master my craft, and that’s going to take years. In the end it will be worth the investment of time, and I just need to remind myself that the payoff will make it all worth while.
The good news is that the first of the Rifters I’m published in arrived! One of my Evil GM Tricks articles was the very first in the issue which felt good!
I’m also on schedule as far as my short stories go. I finished The End of All Things in January, and am just about done with There is No Such Thing as Werewolves for February. March’s short story is entitled Sacred Duty, and should be done before the end of the month.
So I am meeting the goals I’ve set for myself. My work continues to improve by leaps and bounds, but while the short stories are getting picked up the novel needs at least another year of improvement before it will blow people away.
Guess I’d better get back to work on that!
Disconnected
I remember with vivid clarity the last time I felt normal. I was eight years old and had just finished the third grade in Scottsdale where I attended Tonalea elementary. I can still picture the school, the playground and my best friends Austin and Myron. I remember jackrabbits in the fields outside town, dust storms and cactuses.
Most of all I remember the pillars of rock jutting out of the desert in a rainbow of colors, like silent sentinels who’d watched the place since the dawn of time. At that age I was athletic, intelligent and popular. Life had never been so wonderful, and I remember that year as one of the best in my life. I was so innocent and full of vibrant, passionate life.
It didn’t last. That summer when I went to visit my mother she refused to give us back to my father. They waged a protracted legal battle and in the end my mother lost. Her solution? She kidnapped us. The time on the run was an amazing adventure, and combined with the time in foster homes after we were caught I was gone for about eight months.
I returned to Scottsdale changed in deep and fundamental ways. It wasn’t the battery of phychological tests, or the mandatory meetings with a phychiatrist. It wasn’t the IQ tests or my subsequent enrollment in Gifted and Talented, which created a stigma with the rest of my class. No, all of those were minor.
It was the knowledge that my mother was in jail, and the uncertainty I’d ever see her again. It was the horrors I’d witnessed in the foster homes. I was no longer a little boy because my innocence had been violently ripped away.
I could no longer relate to my friends, and while I still enjoyed spending time with them there was a barrier that never existed before. Scottsdale hadn’t changed, but I had. I learned the meaning of the phrase you can never go home at entirely too young an age.
At the end of that school year my father decided it was no longer safe to remain in Arizona. He feared my mother would never give up, and that one day he’d get a call from the police saying we’d been taken again. It was a justified fear, and had we stayed I’m sure my mother would have made the attempt.
So we packed up our things and moved to New Hampshire, over three thousand miles away. Leaving my home battered my already wounded phsyche. So did the terror of the unknown, because I had no idea what to expect in my new home.
When I enrolled in fifth grade at Salem Elementary the culture shock was intense. I had a different accent than the rest of the kids. I wore battered hand me downs and my parents were destitute, which meant I was on the assisted lunch program. This made me an immediate target for the other kids, because they attacked anything different than themselves. To top it all off I was still dealing with the loss of my mother and the fresh scars from the foster homes.
I shut down emotionally. I lost myself in books, reading every fantasy novel I could get my hands on. I didn’t make any close friends and spent most of my free time alone. After all, what was the point? Any friend I made would be lost the next time we moved, and I knew from experience that we didn’t stay anywhere longer than a year or two. The three years in Scottsdale was, at that time in my life, the longest I’d ever lived anywhere.
I was disconnected from everyone, and began laying the foundation for the walls that still exist today. I refused to let anyone inside, because they’d be taken away from me eventually. I became a loner, and my few friends were aquaintences of convenience that I never let get too close. It proved to be the right decision. We moved again a year later, which added a few more bricks to the wall.
Once again I had to give up all my friends, my new home and the cousins I was just getting to know. All that was gone when we moved to New York. Once again I had to face exactly the same challenges. I was the new kid with the strange accent. My family was poor, which further ostracised me.
Lyncourt school was even smaller than Salem had been, and my sixth grade class consisted of twenty kids who’d all known each other since kindergarten. Every last one was catholic, making me the only heathen in the lot. It was just one more thing that singled me out for ridicule.
My mother had stopped calling or writing. I hadn’t heard from her in two years, and asked myself daily if she still loved me. The only distraction was the contant ridicule every day at school. I shut down even further, and found solace in the only escape available to me, reading. I eagerly devoured every fantasy novel I could find, because when I was in a book I didn’t have to be Chris anymore. I could pretend my life was some awful dream, at least for a little while.
Unfortunatley the reading made matters worse, as the other kids laughed at anyone who’d read a book for fun. They picked on me for always having my nose in a book, but I didn’t care. If I stopped reading they’d have just found something else to torment me about, and at least with the books I could escape.
Eventually one of the larger bullies figured out my strategy. A kid named Chucky Huff realized that I was tuning him and the others out, so he stole the novel I was reading and threw it in a puddle. The book was ruined and I was enraged, but it was the impotent sort. There was nothing I could do to fight back because he was bigger and stronger.
Fortunately I was smarter. The best way to deal with the bullies was to avoid them entirely. I was a very, very eloquent child so I tracked down the old school librarian Mrs. Winegardener. I explained my dilemma, and begged her to let me stay in the library at lunch. She was justifiably nervous about it, because it meant leaving an eleven year old unsupervised. In the end she saw how badly I was being tormented and relented. I was given the run of the library, free to explore the endless rows of books.
To me the place was magical in a way that defied description. It was blessedly quiet and while there I was free from the torment of my classmates. I spent day after day exploring Narnia, Middle Earth, Lord Valentine’s Castle and a host of other places that provided a refuge from the rest of my life. It made my life bearable and I will never forget Mrs. Winegardener’s kindness.
The characters in those books became more my friends than any of the kids in school. The one exception was Mike Pratsky. Prior to my arrival he’d been the butt of every joke, because he was The Fat Kid ™. My arrival spread the love, and the two of us bonded as fellow outcasts. I introduced Mike to Dungeons & Dragons. He introduced me to Legend of Zelda on the Super Nintendo, and Elfquest which is still one of my favorite comics.
We became best friends and for the first time since Arizona I remembered what it was like to be close to someone my own age. It didn’t last because not long after my arrival Mike moved away. I made friends with a couple of other kids, but we had very little in common and I was definitely their sidekick and not an equal. They were into sports, and didn’t understand the books I read or the games I played. It was a pretty lonely time, but oddly I came to cherish the solitude. The quiet came to represent freedom from pain.
Things were still bad a lot of the time, mind you. Seventh grade was the worst, as I spent the entire year grounded. No TV, no phone calls, no extra curricular activities. Why? My parents had a very straightforward rule. If I had a single C on my report card I was grounded. I hated school, because it didn’t represent a place of learning. It was the place I went to be tormented, and to attend classes that taught incredibly basic things I could care less about. So naturally I had a lot more than one C on every report card.
All that changed when I hit 9th grade. Lyncourt was too small to have its own high school so we were bussed to the neighboring town of Solvay. All of a sudden the kids who tormented me got a taste of what I’d already faced. They were lost in a giant school amidst a sea of unfamiliar faces and were too busy to bother me. Most of them weren’t in my classes anyway, thank god.
You see New York state had one of the finest school systems in the country, using something called the REGENTS program. It was a special college prep track set up for the smart kids, and the stupid kids and slackers were relegated to a different set of classes.
This meant that everyone in my classes belonged there. Instead of going at the pace of the slowest moron the entire class was made up of smart kids. We flew through material, so instead of being bored Ienjoyed the classes. For the first time in my life I cared about school. I hit the high honor roll my very first semester, and lived there through my freshman and sophmore years.
I loved Solvay High. One of the side effects of being in class with all smart kids was they actually valued intelligence. Instead of competing at sports we competed scholastically. I was very, very intelligent so I rose to the top of the class. The best part was that the girls were all smart too, and appreciated my intellect.
Before long I had my first girlfriend, a cute brunette named Alison. We awkwardly explored dating together, fumbling about our first kiss and pawing inexpertly at each other in the halls between classes. I still remember buying her a ceramic heart shaped jewelry box that made her cry when I gave it to her.
I’m sure you know what comes next, right? Things were going well for me, and we couldn’t have that. Those familiar with my blog already know that my father was busted for using pot and speed, and that he was the president of the school board when it happened.
All of a sudden my friends weren’t allowed to hang out with me. I was ostracized and lost my cute little girlfriend because I was a bad influence. None of it mattered, because surprise surprise we moved three thousand miles to Northern California to escape the mess my father had made. I left behind my job, my scholarship, my dog, my friends and most of my family including my older brother.
This is where the disconnect became full blown. When I arrived in NorCal I didn’t care about anything anymore. I’ve always had an uncanny ability to see patterns and understand systems. What was the pattern here? Anytime I built something it would be crushed, destroyed or taken away. The catalyst for this destruction? My parents.
Most people learn to love and trust their family before they even learn to walk. They are sheltered and nurtured by their mother, and taught the ways of the world by their father. Not so for me. I had my mother ripped away and learned to fear my stepmother and father. There was no nurturing, only endless discipline, chores, beatings and a strong desire to avoid being noticed.
Most people grow up with friends. They build a home and a life, and if they have to move it’s generally from one town to another. By the time I was eleven I’d lived in a dozen places in five different states. I learned that home was what you could carry, and friends were a fleeting luxury that would eventually be stripped away. You enjoyed their company while you could, but then you moved and left them behind.
When I hit California I was bitterly angry and spoiling for a fight. I wanted to lash out and hurt people the way I’d been hurt. I knew I’d be singled out by bullies, but this time I was determined to go down swinging. The thing was there was only one bully, and after I unleashed years of pent up rage by beating the shit out of him the rest left me alone.
Within three days I had a girlfriend and had met some incredible friends, one of whom went on to become the best man at my wedding and is my roomate over fifteen years later. Over the next two years I made a home and a life in Sonoma County, and for the first time since I was eight I was suddenly popular again.
Every other time in my life when I got comfortable or built any sort of life it was all stripped away the next time my family moved. Any guesses as to what came next? Almost exactly two years after moving to Northern California my parents *gasp* decided to move again. This time they were heading down to sunny San Diego, where I knew no one.
I’d just met Darlene, the woman I’d later marry. I’d started my first semester at Santa Rosa JC. I’d joined Tau Kappa Epsilon, a fraternity based out of Sonoma State University. I had a double fistful of close friends that I loved hanging out with, and I was famous in the gamer community because of how ruthlessly I won every Magic tournament. I was one of the kings of my social circle and I loved it.
Contrast that to my family, who wanted me to leave it all behind. My eight year old sister was a terror. I won’t get into specifics, but the bottom line was that she could get away with murder and often got either myself or my friends into trouble. For the record we have a great relationship now, but back then was another matter. I was an angry teenager, and tired of being treated like a second class citizen while she was given everything.
My father routinely kicked my ass for the slightest infraction, and I was often asked to do things that made my friends do a double take. My favorite example is walking to the local comic shop, which took about forty five minutes in the blistering mid summer heat. Right after Jeff and I made it in the door my father came strolling in behind us. He told me that my little sister had spilled popcorn on the floor at home, and I needed to go home and clean it up.
I asked him if I could at least finish my shopping, since I’d just walked 45 minutes in 100 degree heat just to buy a few comics. Of course he said no. Did he offer me a ride back home to perform this chore? Nope. I walked back home in the heat without making it past the entry way.
That should give you some idea of what life was my life was like, because every day there was a similar injustice I had to deal with. I was bitterly aware that two short years ago I’d left my entire life behind and had my dog put to sleep, and I blamed my father with a hatred that burned hotter than the surface of the sun. I had more teenage angst than any six kids had a right to, and it was solely focused on my parents.
You can imagine my response when they told me we were moving again, and wanted me to give up the life I’d so painstakingly built. I told them to fuck off in no uncertain terms. There was no way in hell I was leaving everything behind again. I’d finally turned eighteen and could make my own decisions.
My parents ordered me to stay. I laughed in their faces. I was done being jerked around like a puppet. It was time for me to cut the strings and that’s exactly what I did. I moved into a frat house and lived in the garage just to get away from my parents. I’d have slept on the street if I had to.
The sad thing was that I still tried to be as gracious as possible, even going so far as to help them with their move to San Diego. When the big day came my father wasn’t there. He’d moved down ahead of time to start his new job, and was flying back so he could drive the moving truck while my mother took the car.
That meant packing was 100% my responsibility. I was told to gather a bunch of my friends to load my family’s mountain of crap into the largest moving truck they make. Unfortunately my friends all hated my parents because of the way they treated me. I asked a lot of people to come, but the only person who showed up was my best friend Jeff. At the time he was seventeen and weighed about a hundred and five pounds.
My parents furniture was oak, which is incredibly heavy. We spent the next twelve hours manhandling an endless array of tables, dressers, beds, armoirs, over a hundred boxes into this truck. By the end of the day were exhausted and in pain, and unfortunately there just wasn’t enough room for everyhing. We packed it as tightly as we could, but couldn’t get around physics. Some of the junk was going to have to be left behind, and I did a sort of triage where I left out the things I thought my parents could bare to part with.
My father arrived about fifteen minutes after we finished. Jeff and I were coated in bruises and sweat, but we were proud of our handiwork. Against all odds we’d managed to load the truck by ourselves, and I cannot stress how incredible a feat this was. I waited eagerly for my father to tell us what a good job we’d done. His response? He wanted us to unload the entire truck and repack it. His tone dripped scorn and he was clearly upset at my poor performance. He made it abundantly clear that I had once again failed him.
I saw red. Eighteen years of mental and physical abuse crashed over me in a titanic wave. I’d taken a whole lot of shit over the years, and I wasn’t going to take any more from him ever again. The tirade that followed was the stuff of legends. I told him to his face what an ungrateful piece of shit he was, that he was a horrible father and that I was done with the family. He’d made a mess of my life for the last time. At first he fought back, and we shouted at each other for a while. Then I threw him off guard by doing the last thing he ever expected.
I calmly thanked Jeff for his help and let him know he could go. After he left I just as calmly told my father to have a nice Christmas and a nice life. Then I turned around and walked away. He chased me down and for the first time in my life his eyes were tinged with fear.
It made sense, in hindsight. Three years earlier when we’d left New York my brother had gone through a very similar conversation with my father. He’d stayed behind in Syracuse, completely cutting my parents out of his life. When he called it was to talk to my sister and I, but he wouldn’t say a word to our parents. My father saw me making exactly the same decision, and knew I meant it. I was ready to walk away and never look back.
He begged me not to go and like a fool I stayed. I drove down to San Diego and helped them get moved in, largely because I felt guilty about leaving my sister in their not very capable hands. I’d become a sort of parental figure to her, because I was the only one who instilled any discipline. When she did something particularly horrible instead of patting her head I spanked her, even though it meant an ass kicking every time I did it.
The trip went about as you’d expect, and by the end of the weekend I renewed my resolve to stop talking to my family. I stayed in Sonoma County. I got married. I made a life for myself, and for the first time since I was eight I started to feel like a normal person again. That feeling lasted six years.
During that time I lowered the barriers I’d spent my whole life erecting. I gave myself to Darlene wholly and without reservation. I loved her with the purity and innocence only those who’ve never been hurt can muster. She was my whole world and I strived to be a better man because I thought she deserved it.
Her betrayal blew a hole through my entire life like a tank shell to the face. Everything I thought I knew was wrong. My whole paradigm was destroyed, and all the books I’d read and movies I’d watched were revealed for the lies they were. Love wasn’t forever and neither was friendship. I relearned a lesson I’d forgotten. You can only rely on yourself, and letting anyone in is a recipe for pain. The voice of my past told me what a fool I’d been, and I resolved never to let anyone in again.
That was nine years ago. In the intervening time I’ve dated many women and been in several longterm relationships. I never let any of them get close, not even Jen who I can honestly say I loved. In the end my inability to trust cost me that relationship, because I knew I’d never give her the whole of myself. As difficult as it was I loved her enough to let her go.
If you’ve read this far congratulations, that’s one massive wall of text you’ve slogged through. You deserve a medal, or at least a certificate of accomplishment. You’re probably wondering where I’m going with this whole bitter rant. What do I mean by the title, disconnected? Don’t worry we’re almost there.
In the last week of December 2009 I decided to make some pretty serious changes to life. I came out of my drug filled haze, and haven’t smoked weed since. I’ve approached life with renewed vigor, and have started doing all the things I’ve always wanted to.
I’ve learned to ride horses. I’ve hiked sixty miles every week since January first. I’ve started dating and am working out and losing weight. My writing is on a whole other level, and I’m getting far more stories accepted. My novel will be finished in the next few months. Things are looking up, and I can’t remember being this happy since the first couple years of my marriage. I’ve found a solace and peace that have been lacking for a very long time.
Yet during the last two months I’ve been faced with an inescapable truth, one I don’t know what to do about. My entire life I’ve learned that people are unreliable, and that in the end they will only hurt you. I know this to the depths of my soul, and my walls are taller and thicker than they’ve ever been. I am disconnected from everyone.
When I say I’ve been hiking, I’ve done that alone. I go by myself not because I don’t have anyone to go with, but because I prefer being alone to spending time with other people. My evenings are generally spent watching DVDs or writing, both of which I do alone. I see Jeff, but we don’t spend much time together.
Don’t get me wrong I’m not a complete hermit. I enjoy some social activities. I go to the movies with Heather from time to time, and I have Aaron, Jeff and Blair over for my Exalted game once a week. I talk to Saul pretty often, and I have a number of friends I regularly chat with online or via email.
I like talking to my sisters, Brandy and Alicia. I’ve also waded back into the dating pool, and have been on three dates with a girl I work with. All of that’s great, but it only makes up a fraction of my free time. The vast majority is spent alone by choice. Why? I just don’t enjoy spending time with people like I used to. Being alone is usually more fun.
I feel so disconnected from everyone around me. When I hang out with people or talk to them on the phone they don’t care about my life. They only want to tell me about theirs. Granted I’m a pretty good listener, and generally I don’t mind hearing about their lives. But it gets old when they don’t reciprocate by expressing interest in mine.
Most of them respond with obvious boredom when I talk about my novel, or the things I see while hiking, or anything that doesn’t directly impact them. The topic is quickly changed back to them, and I am powerfully tired of ME ME ME from most of the people in my life.
This problem plagued my recent foray into dating. After three dates with the cute brunette from work I can tell you about her hobbies, religion, family, ex and a whole host of other subjects. I know because I asked a lot of questions. She knows next to nothing about me, because she never took the time to ask and or to listen. Don’t get me wrong, I had a good time hanging out with her. It’s just that I’d like to be with someone who had at least a little interest in me and my life. I’m starting to wonder if that exists.
The end result is that I’ve gone back to the solitude I always treasured. I enjoy my own thoughts, particularly while exploring beautiful places like Armstrong Woods or Sugarloaf Mountain. I lose myself in the worlds I create, just as I did when I was a child trying to escape the notice of abusive parents.
I often wondered if I’d grow out of that, but the older I get the more I see it’s the opposite. I am my own best friend, because no one cares about the things in my life like I do. Maybe I’m just not that interesting, and if that’s the case I’m ok with it. They have their own lives and frankly I don’t give a shit what they think about mine.
The problem is that means I’m ever more disconnected from everyone, because I make less and less effort to have friends. I worry about where this will leave me as I get older. I see my father and know that he’s desperately lonely, because he cut off everyone in his life. Am I making the same mistake? I don’t know. I wish I had answers.
God I feel broken.
Accountability and the death of Phoebe Price
The United States has changed a lot since I was a child. Back then we were taught some measure of accountability. If I failed a class in school the teacher sent a note to my parents. My father kicked my ass and before you knew it I was working hard in school again. If I still failed then I either had to repeat the course, or was held back a grade.
Today things work quite a bit differently.
If a child fails a class, the teacher is frowned upon because the school gets less money. This makes it the teacher’s fault that the student isn’t doing his job. It can’t be that the kid is slacking or goofing off. No, the fault must lie with the teacher because little Johnny is an angel. No parent is willing to accept that their little darling could be anything but perfect.
So what’s the corrective action for little Johnny when he fails? They pass him anyway, because it will net more funds for the school and result in less angry parents.
If they used the same method as when I was a kid the teacher would be fired, and my father would be arrested for child abuse. The thing is, what lesson does that teach little Johnny? If he’s not doing well at school he learns to blame others instead of taking responsibility for himself. Worse, he learns that there are no consequences for his actions.
Now this isn’t entirely Johnny’s fault, mind you. If you have a puppy and that puppy chews on your shoes and pees on your floor whose fault is it? The dog? Of course not, the puppy doesn’t know any better. The fault is yours because you neglected to train him.
If little Johnny’s not doing well in school part of that is his fault, but teaching him discipline is his parents responsibility. Which, of course, brings us right back to accountability. It can’t be your fault that your child is a monster. It’s the TV they watch, or the kids at school. It’s the teacher for not instilling discipline.
Everywhere you look in our society it’s the same. People point at everyone but themselves when it comes time to assign blame. No one is willing to stand up and say, you know what? It’s my fault.
By now you’re probably wondering what triggered this rant. It’s this article right here that angered me enough to post this:
http://www.truecrimereport.com/2010/01/phoebe_prince_15_commits_suici.php
In a nutshell the article tells the story of 15 year old Phoebe Prince. She is an Irish immigrant who was brought to the United States by her parents in the hopes of a better life. What she found was an endless assault of hatred and insults lobbed at her by the popular girls in school.
The abuse followed her online to places like Facebook, so she couldn’t even escape it at home. In the end Phoebe couldn’t take it anymore and hung herself in her closet. The mean girls won.
As horrible as that story is that’s not the part that pisses me off. The girls in question continued to insult the girl online after she killed herself. They made fun of her death. But wait it gets worse. The local news showed up to interview students, and one of them talked about the situation in detail.
She explained that the popular girls in school had made Phoebe’s life miserable, and that they were so brutal that she wasn’t surprised she’d taken her own life. Phoebe tried to get help from the faculty, but was ignored.
So what happened to the brave student who stood up and told the story to the press? The girls in question physically attacked her. That’s right, they beat the crap out of the whistleblower. Their punishment? They’re going to be *gasp* suspended from school.
That’s right, they pushed a girl to suicide, laughed about it online, then beat up a student who told Phoebe’s story. And their pubishment is effecively a school endorsed vacation.
What the hell happened to accountability in our society? These girls should be prosecuted, and failing that expelled. Yet they face no real punishment. What does this teach them? They can get away with anything. Worse, it teaches the kids they victimize that there’s no help for them. They can’t fight back, they can only put up with the abuse.
Is that the life lessons we want to leave them with? These are the people who will be running the world when we’re too old to work.
My name is Christopher Fox and I’m a Great Writer
This week marks a very important milestone for me. Exactly one year ago I made a promise to myself. I swore I’d write every day for the next year. I promised I’d belt out at least five thousand words a week, for a total of a quarter million. I didn’t just beat my goal. I tied it up, beat the shit out of it and dumped it’s body in the river. My total for the year was 1.2 million words, over 600,000 of which was fiction.
In honor of keeping that promise I’ve decided to start a new tradition. Every February I’m going to reflect on my growth as a writer during the previous year. However, as this is the first post in my new series I’m going to start at the beginning and tell the tale of how I became a writer.
My interest in writing began when I was six years old, back when my biological mother sent me a set of ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ books. I fell in love with the fantastic worlds they offered, and quickly decided I wanted to create and share my own.
I started writing primitive stories, none of which I remember now. I knew my stories sucked, but that didn’t deter me. I kept writing and writing, hoping that one day I’d be good enough to see print. That day came eight years later when I turned 14.
The U.S. had just launched operation Desert Storm, and I felt so strongly about the war in Iraq that I wrote a letter to our local paper. The Herald Journal chose to publish it as an opinion piece, and I received a call from the youth director a few days later. He told me about something called the Herald Junior, a newpaper published by local teens for local teens.
So at age fourteen I took my first step into the world of writing. Over the next couple of years I published a number of articles in the Herald Junior and a few in the school paper. None of them were amazing, but seeing my name in print awoke a hunger for more. Articles were all well in good, but my real goal was getting fiction published.
I was a voracious reader, often finishing a novel every day. By the time I was fifteen I owned several hundred books, and had read hundreds more from the library. These books filled me with ideas and fueled the creation of my own fantasy world. I began taking notes, writing (bad) short stories and inventing characters. Much of my freshman and sophmore year were spent daydreaming in this world, and the more time I spent there the more fleshed out the world became.
In the second half of my sophmore year my gifted and talented class was given the chance to work with a professional in the field of our choice. Not surprisingly I decided I wanted to work with an author, and Mrs. Notcher (my G&T teacher) hooked me up with a professor at Syracuse University named Paul Griner.
He helped me pen my very first short story, a horror piece about a woman discovering the existence of werewolves. Over the next six months I learned to craft a story, create a compelling lead and to revise my own work. Paul’s guidance was invaluable, but not nearly so much as his encouragement. He told me something that stuck with me to this day. Never stop writing.
I wish I could say that I followed his advice, but my teenage years were a difficult time. I only had a single semester to work with him, because my family packed up and moved from New York to California. I lost my job with the Herald Journal and access to my writing instructor in one fell swoop. This put a major kink in my efforts, and for the next three years I stopped writing fiction entirely. That’s the bad news. The good news is that I found a new creative outlet, one that made me a far better storyteller.
I’d discovered Dungeons & Dragons when I was six, but I’d always been a player instead of the game master. That meant I was running around in other people’s worlds, seeing their imagination in action instead of my own. When I arrived in California I quickly found a gaming group, but that group consisted of four guys all interested in playing roleplaying games instead of running them. We had no gamemaster, without which playing was impossible. That meant someone had to step up and run the games. I’d never done it before, but I figured what the hell? It couldn’t be that hard. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Crafting a world for people to run around in was far more difficult than I’d ever imagined, but despite the massive amount of work I loved it. At first I used recycled plots from the many novels I’d read, but as time went on I began to experiment with stories of my own. There was something magical about weaving a story for my friends, and I ran campaign after campaign over the next several years.
My world took on more and more definition, and by the time I was eighteen my games were well known among the gaming community as some of the best to be found anywhere. When I ran a campaign with my friend Aaron at the local gaming shop we had over thirty players apply. That game lasted for nearly a year, and people were so impressed that even those who weren’t playing came every week to watch.
Yet as rewarding as being a great Storyteller was, roleplaying games didn’t quite scratch the itch I was looking for. In the back of my mind I was always aware that I’d given up my dream of being an author. I’d convinced myself that my work sucked, and stopped writing because I figured what’s the point? No one wants to read what I write. This was backed up by my friends, wife and family who all started backing away and looking for the nearest exit whenever I asked them to read my work.
This malaise lasted through my mid twenties, until I moved to Los Angeles. I’m not sure why, but I decided to belt out a short story for the Rifts universe. I submitted it to the Rifter, and was shocked when they picked it up. I’d expected a rejection slip, but instead found myself cashing a check.
This inspired me to keep trying, so my next piece was a novella set in the Exalted universe. It was hosted at a site called The Exalted Compendium, which had a feature that allowed users to review and rate stories. Flight into Darkness became the number one story, and the only one consistently rated 10 out of 10. It was the longest piece I’d ever written, and the best received out of all my work.
This spurred me to keep writing, but I was tired of playing in other people’s universes. I’d spent my late teens and much of my twenties creating the Faelands universe, so I decided it was time to write the novel that had been bouncing around in my head for years. The only problem was I didn’t know how.
I belted out 70,000 words before I finally gave up in disgust. My work was juvenile, cliché and poorly written. No one was ever going to pay money to read it. I might be a hell of a storyteller when it came to roleplaying games, but Robert Jordan I was not. So I gave in to the Great Lie. I decided that I’d never be good enough to get a novel published, so I stopped trying. After all, I reasoned, I’m just wasting my time.
The Great Lie is both evil and insidious. It claims that writers are born, not made. It is a complete and utter fabrication. Anyone can learn to write if they have the patience and commitment. Some people have natural talent which will accelerate this process, but even they have to put in the time to learn their craft. In my case I was trying to get by on talent alone, but it just wasn’t enough. I’d never learned the building blocks of great fiction, and without them I was doomed to mediocrity.
Twelve months ago I decided to give writing another try. This time, though, I went about things differently. I ordered several books on writing, and actually sat down and read them cover to cover. Then I spent a few months putting the principles I’d learned into practice. I ordered more books that covered different aspects of writing, read them, and then spent a few more months putting those principles into practice.
I repeated this process several times over the last year. I read over a dozen books on topics like Plot, Characterization, Point of View, Grammar and Dialogue. Looking back at everything I’ve learned I’m amazed. The quality of my writing has grown by leaps and bounds. I’ve had many more short stories accepted, and for the first time ever I’ve finished a novel.
Six months ago I turned my attention back to Faelands, my original world. I belted out a first draft to my novel, then a second. On January 20th I started the third draft. The work finally feels like its publishable, and by the end of march I should have a solid manuscript.
I’ve shown it to friends and family, and the feedback has been very positive. Instead of the cringing I’m used to they’re asking questions about the story. Even better they want to read more! The novel needs a ton of work, but I feel like I’ve gotten over the metaphorical hump. I now have all the building blocks to tell a great story.
I understand how to evoke emotion in my readers, how to write memorable characters, and how to build gripping plots. These principles are still new to me, and I’ll need a lot more practice before I can say I’ve mastered my craft. But at least I understand what they are, and know that I should be trying to create them. Before I didn’t even know what my work was lacking.
One million, two hundred thousands words. That’s what I wrote in the last year. I finished ten short stories, a complete novel and two drafts of another. I learned more in that time than the previous twenty years of work put together. I finally feel like I’m an author. Instead of worrying if I’ll get a novel published I now wonder when. I know in my bones, in my secret heart of hearts, that I was meant to be a novelist. That my work will make it.
I no longer believe the great lie. Great Writers aren’t born. They are forged in the fire of discipline, hard work, practice and diligence. Great Writers never give up. They never stop writing. They never accept that their work is good enough. They always reach for the next hurdle, the next story, the next novel.
My name is Christopher Fox and I am a Great Writer.
So what the heck is Zen Buddhism anyway?
I am often asked what it means to be a Zen Buddhist, and I am always happy to answer those questions. Very few people understand much about the religion, so I decided to write this essay. I hope it teaches you a bit more about Zen, and about my own personal quest for spiritual enlightenment.
My Quest for Answers
The great thing about my blog is that I can be as long winded as I want. So before I tell you about Zen, I’m going to tell you a bit about my quest to find religion.
When I was six my stepmother enrolled me in Catholic school. This was the first brush I had with religion, because my father was agnostic and hadn’t addressed the issue. At first I was both fascinated and excited. Great, my young self though, I’ve finally found the place with all the answers. They can tell me everything I need to know, and I’ll finally understand what happens when we die.
My enthusiasm didn’t last long. The problem I ran into was that the church didn’t like questions, and I was overflowing with them. I remember one of the sisters teaching us about the great flood and Noah’s Ark. I was horrified by the tale, and I made her clarify something for me.
Did god really wipe out everyone in the world, including all the plants and animals? The sister told me he had, but that god’s faithful and most of the animals were saved on the ark. Only the wicked were punished.
I was silent for a moment while I considered this. How could animals be wicked? All the cats and dogs and frogs and lizards had been bad? That didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.
So I started asking questions. One question led to another, which led to another. Before long the sister was shaking with rage. My string of questions looked something like this:
If god is all knowing didn’t he know that people would be wicked? And, since god had made people and god was perfect, didn’t that mean he intentionally made us so we’d be wicked? So why did he punish us for being what he made us to be? If he was perfect than this was all part of his plan, wasn’t it?
So he’d planned to murder every living thing on the planet, except for the people and animals that got on one boat? I was horrified. God sounded like a pretty vindictive dude. All those dead children and animals didn’t seem fair and I told the sister that. I was made to sit outside in the hall.
Two days later I was told the story of Jobe, and once again was horrified by what I heard. God jacked the man over repeatedly based on a bet with the devil? Whoah, how messed up is that? Once again I was made to sit in the hall. Within a few weeks I was kicked out of the Catholic school, and dumped back into public school.
Yet the experience stayed with me. I’d learned the concept of hell, and I was terrified I’d be sent there. The more I learned, the less god made sense to me. All the sisters and priests could tell me was that I needed to have faith. Only, I didn’t know how to have faith. I really tried, but everything I heard about Christianity sounded like a bunch of made up stories. It wasn’t any more or less far fetched than Greek Mythology or Santa Claus, so why was one right and the others wrong? I just couldn’t wrap my head around it.
Finally I met my first athiest, my fifth grade science teacher. He told me that Christianity was, in essence, a crock of shit. He explained that people had made up stories thousands of years ago to help them explain the universe, but that they were nothing more than stories. He also told me that Christians taught that the world was about seven thousand years old, and pointed out that they couldn’t explain dinosaurs.
So for a few years I called myself an athiest. I felt much better, because I was no longer worried about going to hell. But as the years passed a nagging doubt grew in my head. How could the athiests be sure there was no god? There wasn’t any proof of his existence, but there wasn’t any proof he didn’t exist either.
That’s when I learned the word agnostic, and it made a staggering amount of sense to me. The fact that I didn’t believe in god didn’t preclude his existence. It just meant I’d never seen anything to convince me he existed. I still might find that proof, and honestly hoped I would. The idea of an all powerful entity watching over the world was comforting, and I had a number of very religious friends. They took a great deal of comfort from their faith, while I was left with nothing but cold hard reality.
I called myself an agnostic until I was twenty three, so just over ten years ago. That was when I discovered Zen. I worked as the head tech for a computer store, and one of the employees was a guy named James. James was a Zen Buddhist, and I asked him to tell me a little about the religion. He was more than happy to teach, and he became my mentor for the next few years. I owe him a huge debt that I can never fully repay.
What Zen is Not
Zen is a non-historical religion. It doesn’t have a timeline of when the world was created, and it has no stance on the existence of god. It doesn’t teach reincarnation (that’s Tibetan Buddhism). It espouses no beliefs.
Most religions try to propagate themselves through conversion. What I mean by this is that Christians, for example, have a duty to teach other people about Christianity. Zen has no such tenet. In fact most instructors will only teach you if you ask three times. They make you work for it, unlike most religions which have often forced their views on others.
There are no holy books for Zen, such as the Bible or Koran. In fact there are no official books at all. In Zen we don’t believe in the implied duality of right and wrong. There are no absolutes.
So what is Zen?
Zen is a philosophy first taught by a guy named Gotama who lived in or around India about five hundred years before Christ was born. He was the first Buddha and taught that we are all divine beings. The path to enlightment lay within each of us, and we can all find Nirvana by practicing a simple set of principles.
Earlier I mentioned that Zen has no religious books. What it does have are books written by some of the more prominent Buddhists like Steve Hagen. My personal favorite is Buddhism Plain & Simple, which was the very first book my mentor recommended I read. It utterly changed my life.
As good as the book was I eventually moved beyond it. One of the teachings of Zen is that any book, no matter how good, is like a raft. You use it to cross the river on your journey of spiritual enlightenment, but once you’ve crossed you have to leave it behind. The books are useful as a beginning guide, but after that you have to find your own path. No book or person can do it for you.
There are the general tenets that we follow though:
The Four Noble Truths
Truth #1- Life pretty much sucks.
Truth #2- Life sucks because of attachment. We either want to get things, like a new car, a better job, or a gorgeous spouse. Or we want to keep things away, like old age, death, or poverty.
Truth #3- You can end this suffering.
Truth #4- This is the meat of the religion, and is called The Eight Fold Path. It gives eight specific ways you can improve your life and end your suffering.
The Eight Fold Path
Right View- In a nutshell right view means seeing the world the way it really is. It begins with understanding the four noble truths, but progesses to an understanding of all things the further along the path you go. This is difficult to put into words, and the journey is different for each person that undertakes it.
Right Intention- Simply put right intention means that everything you do should be done for the right reasons. It’s a commitment to ethical and moral self improvement. Basically, you should be a better person for no other reason than to be a better person. Not because you fear hell, or because you want people to see you as a good person.
It means resisting desire in all forms, avoiding both anger and aversion, and avoiding cruelty, violence or aggression. Note that it doesn’t say any of these things are wrong, or that you’d never do them. Violence might make sense if you’re defending your home.
Right Speech- Avoid lying or telling falsehoods. Avoid slanderous speech and don’t talk smack about others. Abstain from harsh words that will hurt others wherever possible. Avoid idle chatter that serves no purpose. Don’t gossip. Simple stuff, but very powerful.
Right Action- Avoid hurting sentient beings including yourself. Try to avoid stealing, deceit or dishonesty. Basically, try to be a moral person who doesn’t harm others.
Right Living- Right living teaches that your job should allow you to sleep at night. If you’re swindling people, killing bunnies or doing something else that feels wrong then you should get another job.
This particular one has a lot of meaning for me, because I was making six figures in LA. I quit that job because I was hurting a lot of people by allowing them to get bad mortgages. Now I work for a credit union helping people recover financially, and its much more rewarding. I find I sleep much better at night.
Right Effort- This precept teaches that when you know something is bad, put it aside. When you know something is healthy, do it. This includes things like avoiding drugs or alcolhol, and working out to keep yourself healthy. It’s basically channeling your efforts into positive pursuits that will better yourself.
Right Mindfulness- This one is all about perception, and is also called true seeing. We have a tendecy to make assumptions and correlations about things when we see them. For example if you see a person you will immediate make judgements based on their clothing, ethnicity and sex. Right mindfulness teaches you to avoid doing that, and to simply observe rather than categorize as we so often do.
Right Concentration- This precept is also called meditation. Meditation is something I’ll delve into in a longer article, but I can tell you from experience that meditating daily will make you calmer, happier and more in tune with your surroundings.
Some notes about Zen
Thoughts on Belief- Zen teaches that you shouldn’t believe anything, instead you should perceive without judgement. What does that mean exactly? I’ll give you an example stolen from Steve Hagen. Let’s just say I hold out my hand in a closed fist. I might have a quarter in the palm of my hand, but you don’t know whether I do or don’t.
You can believe I do, or believe I don’t but you don’t know. You might be right, or you might be wrong but have no way of knowing for sure. However, as soon as I open my hand the need for and the usefulness of belief vanish. You can see whether I have a quarter or not, so what you believe is irrelevent.
In more practical terms instead of having beliefs, like a belief in god, we have ideas or theories. I might think something is a certain way, or have a theory about what happens when I die. However, if I turn those into beliefs I’m closing my mind to the possibility that I’m wrong.
It was exactly that sort of mindset that had Gallileo imprisoned in a tower for years because he said the sun was the center of the solar system. Because they believed the earth was the center of the universe, people were not receptive to such a radical new idea even though it was true.
Right and Wrong- In religions like Christianity you are taught that certain things are always right, or always wrong. For example one of the ten commandments is Thou shall not steal. Stealing is wrong, period. But what if you need to steal to feed your family? What if someone had a gun and you knew they were going to use it to kill someone you loved? Would stealing that gun be wrong if it saved a life?
Zen doesn’t believe in absolutes. You should generally avoid stealing, and generally avoid lying. However, since the universe is fluid you never know when it might make sense to lie or steal. Imagine you are in Nazi germany and the gestapo is at your door. If you were harboring Jews would it be wrong to lie about them being in your home?
Of course you’d lie, because in that instance lying is the compassionate right thing to do. This is why we don’t believe in absolutes. You should do the right thing in every situation, but ultimately only you can decide what that right thing is.
In Conclusion
There’s a lot more to the practice, of course. The more you learn the more truths become evident over time. It’s a never ending struggle, but the longer you go the easier things get. Learning Zen has vastly improved my life, and every time I stray and stop practicing for any length of time I regret it.
I began my practice in earnest again about two months ago, and have seen a tremendous difference in my quality of life and mental well being. I can’t believe how much I missed it, and am so thankful to have rediscovered my path.
If you are feeling lost spiritually, have tried other religions and they just don’t fit, or are simply curious I encourage you to pick up Buddhism Plain and Simple by Steve Hagen. It gives a wonderful overview of Zen, and it changed my life. I hope it has the same impact on yours.
How Marijuana Effected my Life
Disclaimer: Yes, I smoked marijuana. However, for the last several years I did so legally with a doctor’s prescription. I no longer smoke, but wanted it clear that when I did I broke no laws. I know there are a lot of jokes about people faking ailments to get a prescription, but in my case I had a very valid reason. I used Marijuana as an anti-depressant, because it worked where prozac and zoloft failed.
I spent much of my youth growing up in upstate New York, which has the most rabid anti-drug propaganda I have ever seen. I remember watching a video in my seventh grade health class that claimed all drugs were as addictive as heroin. One puff of a joint and you’d go from an upstanding citizen to a degenerate junky.
We even watched that old Reefer Madness film put out in 1936. In a nutshell it taught us that marijuana would cause you to commit rape, murder and/or go insane. I accepted this as fact, because no other views were presented. The sum total of my drug knowledge came from outdated and innacurate propaganda designed to frighten children into obedience.
At first this tactic worked perfectly. I was terrified of drugs, and the last thing I would ever do was try marijuana. The problem with this approach is that it was based on lies. Smoking marijuana will not cause you to rape women. Nor will it cause you to commit murder or go insane. Mostly it results in you sitting on the couch and eating a lot of junk food while watching Beavis & Butthead.
I didn’t know that of course. When I was twelve I’d sooner have chopped off a limb than smoked a joint. This fear lasted for two years, when my father was arrested for possession of marijuana and methamphetamines. It rocked my entire world, because I idolized him. If he used drugs, I reasoned, how bad could they be?
My father held a prestigious position as a controller for a large company. He was the president of the school board. He was married and raising three children. How was that possible if he’d been using drugs? Everything I’d been taught suggested that he should be broke, peniless and alone. Drugs were evil. Weren’t they?
I was very logical at a young age, and the logic here was inescapable. My father was living proof that drugs couldn’t do what I’d been taught. Obviously I was being lied to. The question I kept asking myself was why? Why would my school lie about drugs? This led to a natural curiousity about what drugs were really like.
I didn’t act on this curiousity until I was sixteen, because of what happened to my father. He lost his position as the president of the school board, and was on the front page of the local paper. Everyone, and I mean everyone in our town knew what he’d done. Suddenly my friends weren’t allowed to hang out with me anymore. Our family was ostracized. Drugs seemed to carry a steep cost, and I had no desire to go down the same road.
Because of my father’s arrest life became so bad for my family that we decided to move. This was something we did every couple of years, so it didn’t surprise me. We picked up and crossed the country, landing in sunny northern California.
I quickly learned that California has a much different attitude towards marijuana. In New York it was a crime akin to rape, and people never openly admitted to drug use. In California just about everyone I knew smoked weed. Many of my friends even smoked it with their parents. I’d moved to the land where hippies go to die, and it had a vey noticable effect on the culture. Even those that didn’t smoke were usually ok with it, and only a bare handful had the rabid anti-drug stance I’d been taught back home.
When I was sixteen one of my new friends, a jovial guy by the name of Jacob Merriman, loved to smoke. We organized a camping trip and he brought along some marijuana. That was the first time I ever smoked, and I had an absolute blast. Getting high was more fun than I ever could have imagined, and the best part was that I didn’t notice any side effects.
I wasn’t addicted. I didn’t crave marijuana after smoking, though it was so much fun I looked forward to an opportunity to do it again. The experience was so positive that it shattered my confidence in the system. It confirmed the lies I’d been told in New York, and destroyed any respect I had for authority.
As a toddler I’d been lied to about Santa Claus. Now as a teen I was being lied to about drugs. It established a pattern that I didn’t like, and I quite rightly assumed that I was being lied to about other things as well. I became an anti-establishment pro-hippy rebel, with the full support of my father who’d long espoused the same views.
As the years passed I smoked off and on. Marijuana is expensive, and while it was fun to smoke it wasn’t as much fun as having money to buy roleplaying games. I often had to make a choice between weed and the latest gaming book, and gaming almost always won.
By the time I graduated high school I smoked almost every weekend, usually at parties. My parents decided to move yet again, and this time when they headed down to San Diego I stayed behind in Santa Rosa. The next few years were a smoke filled haze.
During that time I took a number of trips down to see my family, and on one of them I realized my father was still smoking. I confronted him about it, and he denied it until I admitted that I was smoking too. For the first time in my life I had something to bond with my father over. He was overjoyed, and I thought the idea of smoking with him was officially the coolest thing ever. My mother knew nothing about it of course.
Then my father ran into problems with his connection. His solution? He asked me to get it for him. My (ex)wife was understandably leery, but in the end she agreed. So we drove three hundred miles to the town of Buttonwillow in central California to meet my father. It was the midway point between Santa Rosa and San Diego, which seemed like the logical place to meet. I made the exchange, and my father told me how proud of me he was.
Before I go any further I need to stress how important this was to me. My father wasn’t proud when I was offered a full scholarship to Annapolis (which requires the sponsorship of a congressman), or when I got a 1390 on the SATs. When I had my first article published in the local paper at age fourteen he told me it could have been written by a five year old. When I hit the high honor roll I was given a grudging nod of respect, but instead of telling me he was proud he threatened to ground me if I got a single ‘C’ on my report card.
Yet me bringing him drugs made him proud. Looking back now I am filled with disgust whenever I think of my father, but at the time I would have done anything to hear those five little words.
My father smoked about two ounces a month. For those not familiar with marijuana that’s enough to supply your average fraternity for the same length of time. All of my friends put together would have been hard pressed to burn through that much weed. The idea that one person could smoke it was mind boggling.
As I’d now become my father’s source he expected me to drive down once a month to make the exchange. He lied to my mother, of course, so she had no idea what he was asking me to do. Darlene and I quickly decided these trips weren’t worth it, but my father worked me over emotionally. He all but begged, and told me that if I was a dutiful son I’d find a way to get it to him.
In the end he suggested I mail it. He wanted me to ship marijuana through UPS, even though he’d been busted for doing exactly the same thing ten years earlier. I knew it was a bad idea, but I did it anyway. I did it because I didn’t want to lose my father’s respect, and he made it clear it was at stake. My entire life could have been ruined, but he didn’t care so long as he got what he wanted.
This soured my desire to smoke so I quit for a while when I was twenty-three. That lasted two years until I divorced Darlene, which sent me into a spiral of depression. To be honest I needed something to dull the pain. I started smoking again, and buried myself beneath a haze of smoke because it made the pain of day to day life tolerable.
For the first time I wasn’t using marijuana as a recreational drug. I was using it as medication. Was it the best anti-depressant? I don’t know as I only ever tried Zoloft and Prosac, but it was definitely better than those. It balanced me out, and pushed away the depression.
Not long after that I lost my job and moved in with my family in San Diego. Being that close to my father showed me the man in a way I’d never seen him. I realized how toxic he was, and how much damage he’d done to me over the years. I didn’t care if I had his approval anymore. I just wanted to get away from him, so I moved in with my then girlfriend Brandy up in Los Angeles.
Moving took away my access to marijuana, which was fine because I’d decided I didn’t need it anymore. Instead of drugs I used success to stave off the depression. I had a meteoric rise through the mortgage industry, and within a couple of years was making even more money than I had as a software engineer. For five years I didn’t touch marijuana, except for my annual trips back to Santa Rosa to see Trevor, Jeff and Saul.
During my final year living in Los Angeles my best friend Jeff moved down and ended up in the same apartment complex. We smoked occasionally and I found that I really missed getting high. Sitting around passing a bong back and forth while discussing life was a hell of a lot of fun, and we really enjoyed it. I told myself I’d smoke moderately, and for a long time I did.
Then we moved back to Santa Rosa. Suddenly I reconnected with all my high school and college friends, all of whom still smoked. Much to my amusement most were still sitting in the same spot on the couch as when I’d left six years before. Having escaped the vortex of L.A. I told myself I’d earned a break, and decided to join them.
For the next several months Jeff and I lived in a haze of marijuana and World of Warcraft. It was an amazing amount of fun, at least at first. Like everything done to excess eventually smoking lost some of its appeal. I neglected many things in my life including my weight and appearance. Before I knew it I was wallowing in depression. Instead of helping me marijuana had become part of the problem.
For the two and a half years I smoked nearly every day, because I was caught in a vicious cycle. My life was painful, and the marijuana dulled that pain. Unfortunately a lot of the reason my life was painful was because I was high all the time. I hardly ever left the house unless it was to go to work, and pretty much became a hermit because of the massive social anxiety I felt at the thought of being around other people.
I began smoking less, and when Jeff and I moved out on our own we really cut down. I started taking week long breaks, and found I was able to accomplish a lot when I wasn’t smoking. The problem was that without the weed the full weight of the world came crashing down on me. All the pain and depression came flooding back, and each time it happened I quickly fled back into a smoke filled haze.
On one of these breaks I took a damn good look at myself. I was fifty pounds overweight, and even though I live in one of the most beautiful places in the world I didn’t ever see it. I was trapped in my house, and never got out to see the redwoods, wine country or the northern California coast.
My life snapped into razor sharp focus. I realized that while marijuana might help me deal with my depression the side effects simply weren’t worth it. The paranoia, social anxiety and loss of short term memory were hampering me too much. So was the fact that I was spending $250 a month on my medication.
In mid December I looked at what I’d accomplished in 2009 while smoking. I wrote a pair of novels, many short stories, got promoted at work and had a whole host of other victories. What could I accomplish if I gave up weed? How much better would the quality of my life be?
Here I am a few weeks later. I don’t miss marijuana at all, nor do I plan on going back to it any time soon. I’m losing weight and am more clear headed than I’ve been in years. Life is looking up, and while I wrestle with the depression now that I’ve stopped smoking I still think its worth it.
I used the new raise and the money I’ve saved from not smoking to invest in a new camera. Over the last few weeks I’ve taken it to Armstrong Woods, Sugarloaf Mountain and Goat Rock. I’ve had a blast hiking and taking pictures, and am finally losing the weight I’ve been trying to get rid of for so long.
I miss smoking, but I don’t miss what it did to my life. It’s time to face reality head on, and if I occasionally stumble because of the depression as least I have friends and family to help pull me out.
2010 is going to be a very good year
My last entry went over the goals and highlights of 2009. Now that I’ve spent time reflecting on past accomplishments its time to put together new goals. Last year I accomplished a lot, and 2010 will be even better. So without further ado here’s the list:
2010 Goals
- Lose 50 pounds
- Get in good enough shape to do rock climbing
- Get back into paintball
- Finish and submit The Bond of Jhordil
- Finish and submit 12 original short stories
- Learn how to use my expensive new camera
- Visit Yosemite
- Find a Gamer Chica who makes my blood boil and my heart sing
- Add $200 a month to my savings
- Pay my car loan down to $3000
- Be nicer to myself
Goal #1- Lose 50 lbs
This one doesn’t need much explanation. I need to drop fifty pounds and I plan to do it in 2010. I’ve created a page on this site to track my progress, complete with monthly pictures and weekly updates.
To accomplish my goal I’ll be going to the gym seven days a week. As of this writing I’ve been every day since January 1st. I’ve also signed up for Weight Watchers online, which has worked well for me in the past. Hopefully between the two I’ll see the results I’m looking for.
Goal #2- Get in good enough shape to go rock climbing
One of the monster boulders near Goat Rock
When I was a kid I lived in Scottsdale, Arizona for a few years. My father took my brother and I out to climb the rocks up to the caves that Navajo ancestors used to use. I was fascinated by them, and ever since I’ve wanted to take a trip to see the Anasazi caves in the southwest. For those not familiar Anasazi means ‘Ancient Enemy’ in Navajo. You can imagine how that fired my imagination as a kid.
Fat people and rock climbing do not mix, so in addition to losing the weight I need to pack on the muscle. To do this I’ve decided to hire a personal trainer to kick my ass three times a week. By this summer I want to be able to scale the massive rocks like this one, at a place called Goat Rock on the northern California coast.
Goal #3- Get back into paintball
I love paintball. LOVE it. It’s the only sport I’ve ever excelled at, and when I was playing it gave me motivation to stay in shape. Every weekend I’d come home covered in purple and yellow bruises, but I wore them like badges of honor. Every one of them was hard earned, and I gave far better than I got.
I still remember the game when Trevor and I drove up the field gunning down opponents. We snagged the flag and brought it back while still under fire. Effectively we won the game with just the two of us. It was a hell of a day.
I have all the gear to get back into the game. All I need to do is lose some weight, so if I hit goal number one and two this should be a snap.
Goal #4- Finish and submit The Bond of Jhordil
I’ve been working on my first wholly original novel since October. I completed the first draft in November, and am 45% through the second draft. I want to finish the 2nd draft by the end of February, and the third by the end of July.
After that I’ll shelve it for three months so its not as fresh in my mind, and then I’ll give it one final revision. By November I want to submit it to Tor Books.
Of my goals this is the single most important, and also the one I am most sure I will definitely accomplish. Writing has become a daily task over the last ten months, and now I don’t even think about it. I just do it. Now if I can just get Tor to publish the thing…
Goal #5- Write and submit 12 short stories
Finishing the novel is a must, but I also want to get my name out there and the best way to do that is with short stories. I have a billion and five ideas rolling around in my head, so this goal should be easy to meet as well. I just need to take breaks from the novel, and use that time to finish stories.
The added bonus is that every short story that’s accepted pays me at least $60. Some sell for as much as $200. Every time I get a check for my writing it fills me with pride, and motivates me to keep trying. All the more reason to submit as many as possible!
Goal #6- Learn how to use my expensive new camera
My new Cannon Digital Rebel
Last Sunday I went to the coast to do some hiking, and much to my surprise I saw an eagle. I named my new eagle buddy Fred, which has no bearing on this goal but hopefully made you snicker. Anyway Fred flew low over my head, and passed within about twenty feet of me. It was surreal and I desperately tried to snatch a picture of him. Unfortunately my iPhone just isn’t fast enough, and all I got was a black blur.
I decided right then that I never wanted to lose an opporunity like that again, so when I got home I started camera shopping. Amazon was having a special on the Cannon Digital Rebel, which is a beautiful entry level professional camera. I have no idea how to use it, but this year I want to start exploring photography and see if I can learn to take some amazing pictures.
Being that I run a blog and live in one of the most beautiful areas of the world I figured it would be pretty handy! From Yosemite to Armstrong woods to the California coast to Lake Tahoe we have it all. I want to capture some of that beauty, and I finally have a camera that can do it.
Goal #7- Visit Yosemite
A shot of Half Dome with Yosemite Valley below
I haven’t been back to Yosemite since I was married, which was nearly ten years ago. I have some very fond memories of the trip. Half Dome, El Capitan and the sprawling forests are amazing. Now that I have my shiny new camera, I want to use it to capture that magnificence, and I want to do it from the top of El Capitan which I’ve never been brave enough to climb before.
Goal #8- Find a gamer chica who makes my heart sing
What I’m looking for is as rare as a unicorn and as ephemeral as a rainbow. I want a pretty gamer chick, who lives in Northern California and isn’t batshit insane. I’ve met many pretty gamer chicks over the years, but most suffer from one of three problems. They don’t live anywhere near me, they’re crazy and have a vortex of drama spinning around them or they’re already taken.
I’m not really sure where to look, but I gather they’ve come out with Gamer Geek dating websites so that’s probably a good place to start. I should get set up on Yahoo Personals, and post a good picture of me. The ones I have now don’t show me in the best light, that’s for sure. Of course getting in shape will help, so if I can accomplish that it will provide a better picture automatically!
I also have a ton of friends that are pestering me to go on blind dates. I suppose I could try that as well, the thing is I’m really picky. I want someone who understands me, and that’s not a common thing. I’m not looking for a mainstream chick who spends her time shopping for shoes and watching Grey’s Anatomy. I want one who’s impressed by my arena rating in WoW, and who’d be excited to play in my Exalted campaign.
Goal #9- Add $200 a month to my savings
My savings took a massive hit over the last three years. The good news is that I bought everything from a new 42″ TV to a top of the line computer I custom built, complete with a gorgeous 26″ monitor. I flew up to Oregon to see Megan, and she showed me around Portland which was an absolute blast (thanks Megan!). There was the move into the new place, a new laptop, a trip to Atlanta and a billion other things I’m probably forgetting.
The long and short of things is that this year I need to start adding to my savings again. I’ve recently gotten a raise at work, and since I’m dieting am spending a ton less on food. That gives me about $300 exta each month so I figured I’d put $200 into savings, and the other $100 into paying down my car which leads me to…
Goal #10- Pay my car under $3000 this year
When I first got my car in 2005 it was at a 23.9% rate of interest. The payment was around $400 and very little of that was paying down the principle. That was just over four years ago, and while I was able to get the interest rate down to 4.99% I’m mightily tired of having a car payment.
This year I’m throwing every spare penny at the loan. I owe about $6500 on the car, and I want to get it under $3000 this year. That would allow me to pay it off in 2011, and as the car only has 30,000 miles on it I’ll have a nice car that I actually OWN.
The car is my only form of debt, so paying it off means that I am completely debt free. I’ve got a blog entry queued on the evils of debt slavery, but I’ll give it the short version here. The real measure of wealth is interest. If you are paying interest you are poor. If you are making interest off of your investments you are rich. The first step to becoming rich is paying off all your debt.
By 2011 I’ll have done that! Add in the money I’ve got saved and I’m doing pretty well. As of this year I finally have a positive net worth, and it will only grow from here on out!
Goal #11- Be nicer to myself
Being a perfectionist has its upsides. I can accomplish things that many people would deem impossible, which feels really good when I pull it off. But it also has a serious downside. I’m never happy with my own accomplishments, and tend to shrug them off right after I finish them.
To give an example of what I mean, last year I wrote Yuri Silvertongue & the Violet Spire. It’s a good novel. The dialogue is witty and it has a lot of high adventure. Yet I bag on it constantly. To me it just isn’t good enough, even though its my first novel and was written before I really understood how to tell a good story. I hold myself to such a high standard that I expected it to be perfect, and because it wasn’t I’m disappointed.
If you rewound time to a year ago and told me I’d complete a novel in 2009 I would have been ecstatic at the idea! Yet now that I’ve done it my response is, “Meh, it could be better.” I wish I knew why I was that way. It is a major accomplishment, so why can’t I accept that? Why do I need to critisize myself over my first attempt at a novel? Shouldn’t the fact that I finished an entire novel, polished it and submitted it be a massive feather in my cap?
It should. I know it should. My Zen practice teaches me that self-deprication is not only pointless, but damaging. It’s ok to set high standards for myself, but I need to learn to give myself props for my accomplishments. I’m holding yet another contract from Palladium Books for one of my stories. I just cashed a $200 check for a story.
That’s a hell of an accomplishment. People are paying me money for my work. So, Chris, bask in that for a little while. Stop fretting over the next goal, and take a minute to celebrate your victories!
Well, that sums up my goals for 2010. It should be interesting to check my progress in twelve months time!
2009 A Year in Review
When I was fourteen I bought one of those mottled black and white academic notebooks from the corner store with a pile of change I’d scrounged from my paper route. I wanted to be a writer, and my gifted and talented teacher told me that all great writers kept journals where they revealed their innermost thoughts.
I loved the sound of this and while my inner most thoughts mostly had to do with girls or whatever novel I happened to be reading I eagerly recorded them every week. Within three months I’d finished my notebook, and coincidentally this happened just before New Year’s.
As the final entry I decided to create A Year in Review, my first stab at a column although I didn’t understand that at the time. That entry began a tradition and every year since I’ve spent the final days of the year reflecting on the previous twelve months.
I am a very goal oriented person, and there’s rarely been a time in my life where I didn’t have a slew of things I was trying to accomplish. My journal entries are the yard stick I use at the end of every year to measure what I actually accomplished. It only makes sense to continue that tradition on my blog, as that’s replaced the old hand written journals I used to keep.
What were 2009’s Goals?
In 2009 I set a modest number of goals, at least by my standards They are as follows:
- Move into a nicer place
- Figure out what I want to do with my life
- Put together a new gaming group
- Lose as much weight as possible
- Get back into paintball
- Decide if I want to date
- Work on my FICO
Goal #1- Finding a new place
The first thing I wanted to do was move out of the three bedroom duplex I was living in. The place baked you in the summer and was freezing in the winter. It had no central heat or AC, thin walls and tiny little rooms. The power was frightening, and we had to run extension cords throughout the house to preserve our delicate power balance. Even with the extension cords thrown breakers were a daily occurence. Our microwave sat on a chair in the dining room, because none of the outlets in the kitchen worked.
When Jeff and I first moved up from Los Angeles it was just us. We chose a three bedroom place, because we wanted to have an office where we could game. Both of our computers were in there, and that’s where we spent the bulk of every day. It was really nice to sit right next to each other when we played games like World of Warcraft.
Not long after that an old friend of mine needed a place to stay. This was problematic as two of the bedrooms were in use by Jeff and I, and the third served as the office where we gamed. Our first instinct was to say no, but Aaron agreed to sleep in the living room and set his computer up in the office. This preserved our game room, and since we didn’t really use the living room anyway it seemed like a good solution. All three of us would play World of Warcraft together, and it was an absolute blast being in the same room.
Adding a third person took the place from roomy to cramped, but we adjusted. The problems got more and more annoying as time passed, and as most of them stemmed from where we lived we decided to start looking for a more comfortable place. Aaron deserved his own room, and we desperately wanted a second bathroom. A place where turning on a light switch wasn’t a fire hazard seemed like it might be a plus, and not having someone sleeping in the living room would be a definite improvement too.
Instead of moving we added another roomate. Not only was there no room for a fourth person, but the guy in question wasn’t paying any bills. He just sort of…lived there. If you’ve ever seen the movie Half Baked we had our very own Guy on the Couch.
If I haven’t mentioned it the place only had one bathroom. With two people it was no big deal. With three it was a big deal. With four it was untenable. To make matters worse the kitchen was like a warzone. Every dish sat dirty on the counter, and the refrigerator usually required you to hold your breath before you opened it.
I hated it and it gave me bitter flashbacks to the final years of my marriage, when I lived in indescribable filth. Back then my floors were covered in fast food wrappers and other gargbage. The refrigerator had evolved into a new form of life. Trust me when I tell you the place was grim and you wouldn’t wish it on your worst enemy.
When I realized what I’d let my living situation devolve into I was furious with myself. I’d made a promise that I’d never live like that again. Yet that’s exactly what I was doing.
Goal Resolution: 10/10
So how did my quest to escape the den of filth end? Very, very well. Jeff and I talked and we decided that getting a place with just the two of us was a must. In May we moved into a two bedroom place with hardwood floors and an indoor washer / dryer. We have heat and AC, and for the first time since moving home I no longer dread August.
I love the place and work hard to keep it spotless. The boost to my confidence and mental well being that comes from living in a nice place is immeasurable. It completely changed the quality of my life. I no longer fear going home, and when someone asks if they can come over I eagerly accept. I show off my place with pride instead of fumbling for an excuse so they don’t see the hellhole where I live.
Goal #2- Find my purpose in life
I’ve heard people talk about the dreaded mid life crisis, but I’ve never understood what they meant until this year. In my case the mid-life crisis was triggered by a sudden terrifying look at my life. When I left Los Angeles I was making a six figure income. I lived in a beautiful apartment. I had the respect of my peers, and ate at the nicest places in the San Fernando Valley.
I gave all of that up when I moved home. I told myself that money didn’t matter, and that true happiness would never be found as a yuppy living in LA. I was burnt out and tired and I knew I needed a drastic change. The problem was that while I had correctly identified the problem, I really had no solution for it.
When I moved back to Santa Rosa I took a low paying entry level customer service job. I turned down the promotion they offered me, because I was content to hunker down in my cube and stay out of the limelight. Instead of forging a path to the top like I had at every other job I was content being a peon.
Work had been a big part of my life in Los Angeles, but after moving home instead of a career I just had a job. I had also just broken up with Jen. The only things of any real meaning in my life were the latest video games, and the roleplaying games I played with my friends.
I didn’t look think about the future, because I told myself I’d earned a break. That might have been true, but losing sight of the future was damaging in ways I could never have predidcted. I had no purpose in life, no goals. For the first time in years I had no idea what I wanted to do.
This destroyed my self-esteem, and at first I didn’t even know why. When I don’t have goals I stagnate very quickly, and it wasn’t long before I fell into a depressed funk. I was miserable, but didn’t know what I could do to fix it. What was I looking for? A new job? A new relationship? Was I trying to lose weight? I just didn’t have the answers, and it drove me nuts because I desperately wanted them.
Goal Resolution: 10/10
A great deal of soul searching later I finally found the answer. There wasn’t any one specific thing I needed to do to find my purpose in life. In fact my goals didn’t really matter at all. What matters is that I have goals. As long as I am learning and improving I am happy, but if I get to a point where I’m treading water I become depressed and listless. So I decided to test my theory by improving my life.
My first experiment was going back to school. I took an American history and a programming course, which were both amazing. Even better than the courses themselves was the immediate change I noticed. Being back in school awakened a long dormant part of me. It gave me direction and more importantly I was learning again. I’d forgotten just how much I loved doing that, and bringing it back into my life showed me what I’d been missing.
As much as I loved going back to school it was an enormous amount of work. I’m employed full time, and homework on top of a job was brutal. I learned a lot in both classes, but I knew there was no way I was going to go back to school for eight solid years. At two classes a semester that’s how long it would take me to get a B.S in computer science. It just didn’t seem worth it.
Knowing that school wasn’t the answer I considered my options. Learning was something I passionately loved, so whatever my purpose was it must involve that. I looked closely at my life and asked myself when I was the happiest. What did I enjoy most?
Those who’ve read the site for a while already know the answer, but at the time I was clueless. I meandered around for a couple of months, and in late February I started writing again. Within a few days a lightbulb switched on in my head.
I loved learning. I also loved writing. Why not learn to write? Some of my earliest memories are of wanting to be an author, and it’s a dream I’ve chased my entire life. I’d given up that dream, because somewhere along the way I stopped believing I could accomplish it.
That’s normal for most people, but not for me. When I was a child I was blessed with the sort of arrogance only gifted children demonstrate. I believed I could do anything, because by and large I could. I succeeded at everything I set my mind to, and this was even more true at a young age. In short I was used to being a genius and I took it for granted.
My early to mid twenties were a series of kicks to the balls that rudely disabused me of that notion. I divorced the love of my life, my high paying engineering job was outsourced, my cat died, I wrecked my brand new car and to top it all off I had to move back in with my parents for the first time since I was eighteen. The next couple of years were brutal, and shifted my entire world on its axis.
Somewhere along the way I stopped trying, and started acting like a beaten dog. My arrogance was gone, which some would say is a good thing. The problem is that it took my fire and my confidence with it. I became overly cautious and less willing to take risks. I stopped believing in myself. I stopped thinking I could achieve my dreams, that I was a badass capable of anything.
This understanding of what I had lost was both powerful and profound, and it only came about recently. Everything snapped sharply into focus, and I saw myself with a clarity that had been lacking for a very long time. Practically overnight I reclaimed what was missing. I found my fire, and it still burns with the same intensity it did when I was younger.
I can’t even express how good that resolve feels. I can do anything. I am a badass. I don’t care what other people say. I know who I am. I know what I can accomplish. In three years I went from the mail room to Executive Vice President of a mortgage bank. I’ve won just about every MtG tournament I’ve ever entered. In an afternoon I made a program that revolutionized my department at work. I wrote a novel and published several short stories this year.
I am filled to the brim with potential, and never again will I forget that. I can do anything, as long as I try.
Goal #3- Put together a new gaming group
The vast majority of people reading my site are gamers, so many of you will understand my next goal. I’ve played pen and paper RPGs since I was six, and I am still just as passionate about them nearly three decades later. I take my gaming seriously, because I like telling amazing stories. Doing so requires the right kind of players, and the sad fact is that not all of my friends fit that mold.
My old gaming group suffered from three major problems. First, there were just too many of us. If you haven’t played a lot of pen and paper games it might not be immediately apparent why that’s an issue. Playing an RPG is kind of like watching a movie. The more characters you have the less screen time each character gets. We had six players, which meant most of your evening was spent ‘off screen’. As you can imagine this gets really boring as you are essentially watching other people play while you sit around.
The second sticking point was that our group’s style tended more towards combat and rules mongering and less towards story and character development. We played our games more like a boardgame and less like living, breathing characters in a fictional world. People didn’t get into character, they talked about what their characters did. Both styles are good in their own way, I just prefer the latter.
The final kiss of death was that our group liked to get good and loaded before gaming. I ran more than one of these games so trust me when I say running a game while innebriated does not a good story make. For me these games are all about the stories, so this drove me nuts.
Don’t get me wrong. I had a great time with my previous gaming group. Most of them are very old friends, and I can’t think of a finer group to sit and round BS with. I love hanging out with them, and some of the games we played were a lot of fun. I loved playing with them. I just didn’t like running games for them.
Goal Resolution: 10/10
My own style tends towards smaller groups and more intense roleplay. Nor do I enjoy gaming while inebriated, so I had a difficult choice to make. In the end I decided to leave the gaming group and build my own. When our current campaign ended I started the long hunt.
I created a campaign website, a Meetup Group and I started advertising in local gaming shops. Within a few weeks I had three players who’s style matched my own, and my new Exalted campaign was under way. I miss hanging out with the old group, but my current one is amazing.
Our sessions are an absolute blast and I’ve been running the same game since July. Things only seem to get better the longer we play, and if I have my way this is the group I’ll be gaming with for years.
Goal #4- Get in Shape & Lose Weight
I’ve battled with my weight since I was eighteen. I’ve never been morbidly obese, but I’ve carried between 50-75 extra pounds for nearly my entire adult life. Every year I resolve to get in shape, and some years are more successful than others. This is a goal I think many can relate too, so most of you know how difficult it can be.
At the beginning of 2009 I weighted 250 pounds. My goal was to lose fifty pounds, and ending the year 200 pounds would have made me ecstatic.
Goal Resolution: 7/10
I didn’t come anywhere close to my weight loss goal. As of this writing I am 235 pounds, which is where I imagine I’ll finish the year. Still, it’s hard to be too disappointed. I did lose weight even if it as only fifteen pounds instead of my goal of fifty.
What’s more I started going to gym again in May. I was lucky enough to find one a few blocks from home, and have worked out pretty steadily for the second half of the year. I’ve started going every day and really notice a difference in the way I feel.
Goal #5- Get Back into Paintball
I was never the last kid picked for dodgeball, but I wasn’t the first either. I ran varsity track in high school, and played about ten years of little league. That was pretty much it as far as sports goes other than the occasional pickup game of basketball growing up.
Imagine my surprise when I found paintball. The very first time I picked up a gun I tore up the field. In my third game ever I took out seven opponents before they brought me down. This was done with a crappy rental gun that shot about as straight as most politicians. I fell in love instantly, and dumped a couple grand into a nice gun and a big pile of gear.
I played religiously for the first year, but after that I started going less often and eventually stopped entirely. Since moving home almost three years ago I keep telling myself I want to get back into it, but the thing is it’s hard to play if you’re fat. The weight loss goal goes hand in hand with this one, so you probably know how this is going to end.
Goal Resolution: 1/10
I gave myself a single point for actually getting the paintball gear out of storage and taking apart my gun. Unfortunately that’s as close as I got to actually playing paintball in 2009 =/.
Goal #6- Deciding whether or not to Date
I’m 33 years old, have no children and very little baggage. I’m not bad looking, intelligent, reasonably witty and I make decent money. I’m a published author, have lived all over the country and am a good conversationalist. I’ve been in several longterm relationships, and many short term ones. I don’t have any problem meeting new women. I’m not shy and have never had an issue landing a girl when I set my mind to it.
So why have I been single for the last two years? Because I’ve had no desire to get back into the dating game. Not because I’m afraid or because I worry about being rejected. I’ve stayed single because I’m just so weary of getting burned. I’m tired of winching up the gates to my heart, only to leave myself open to inevitable heartbreak. I know that’s a rather cynical view, but in my case its accurate. I’ve been burned badly, and I’m not eager to repeat the experience.
I’m one of those people with the good fortune to have fallen in love not once, but twice. I don’t mean the kind of love that grows over time, the way warmth seeps into you when you lay in a nice hot bath. No, I mean the all consuming passion of knowing you’ve met your other half. The person you were meant to spend your life with.
The first was my ex-wife Darlene. After my divorce I had a hard time getting back in the game, because Dar was something special. She connected with me on so many levels that we regularly finished each other’s sentences. Looking at her filled me with something beyond happiness, beyond contentment. I loved her with the purity of innocence, and she returned my feelings with the same ferocity. It was heady and intense, like a drug.
My second love was a straw haired beauty named Jen from the corn filled state of Iowa. Not only was she gorgeous, but she has the kindest soul I’ve ever met. There was a gentless to her like dew on a spiderweb just before the sun crests the horizon. Fragile and fleeting, but beautiful in a way that catches your breath.
She was too perfect for this world, or at least too perfect for me. In our case the long distance killed the relationship, and when I lost her she took something that I haven’t been able to recover since. Something precious and unidentifiable.
Jen and I broke up almost three years ago. Since then I’ve dated other women, none of which lasted more than a few dates. None of them kindled the fire that I felt with Dar or Jen. None caught my interest, and while the sex would have been nice I cut each of them off before it got to that stage.
So that’s the story. Now you know why I asked myself whether or not I wanted to date, or wait for the Japanese to perfect robotic women instead. It’s a question I spent a lot of time mulling over this year. Even as pain fades I still remember the horrible damage the end of those relationships wrought.
Yet I often wonder if such a negative outlook keeps me from seeing the positives. When I was in those relationships I woke up every day feeling like I wanted to sing. I loved with an intensity that defies description. So the ultimate question, then, is the pain of the inevitable breakup worth the initial bliss?
Goal Resolution: 8/10
My final answer is yes, it is worth the pain. I want to find a woman who makes my heart sing. Someone who cups my soul between delicate hands, whose smile makes the sunrise pale. If a relationship with such a woman eventually ends it will have been worth it for the wonderful memories. If not, maybe I’ll find ‘the one’ and actually grow old with her.
Unfortunately this decision wasn’t reached until I flew out to Atlanta a few weeks ago, so I haven’t had a chance to act on it. I gave myself an 8 out of 10 anyway, because even before I knew the question I was working on a solution.
I knew that if I was going to date there were many things about my life I’d want to change. You’ve read where I lived. How many women do you know who’d walk into a house like that and not immediately turn around and walk out? That wasn’t my only problem of course, but it was a big one. It was fixed by moving into my new place, which any date I bring home will love.
I also am wise enough to know that the crap we’re taught about women is just that. Crap. Women aren’t after a man who’s funny or nice. Those are both perks, but the fairer sex are just as shallow as we are and don’t let them tell you otherwise. They want Brad Pitt not Danny Devito. A nice set of abs goes a lot further than a funny joke.
That’s why I hit the gym so heavily this year. If I want to meet the woman who’s going to blow me away I need to look my best. In addition to working on the weight loss I redid my wardrobe, dropped my glasses in favor of contacts, and snuck into the dentist for the first time in over a decade.
I feel and look better than I have in a long time. I live in a nice place. I drive a nice car. I have a nice job. My fiction is finally taking off. More important than any of that I have the resolve to keep bettering myself, because I know she’s out there somewhere and I think I’m finally ready to go out and find her.
I sincerely hope 2010 is the year I meet her, but if not at the very least I will be in a position to snatch her up if she appears.
Goal #7- Work on my FICO
If you’ve ever had bad credit you know the fear that lives in the pit of your stomach whenever it comes up. From hunting for a new apartment to applying for a loan, if your FICO sucks you feel that awful mix of embarassment and despair that comes along with bad credit. I know, because in my mid 20s my FICO dropped to 580 and lived there for several years.
When I bought my car in 2005 I was genuinely worried if they’d approve me at all, and was quite relieved when someone did. They charged me 23.9% interest, and if you work anywhere near the world of finance you probably cringed when you heard that number. If you didn’t then you should have, because it means I would have paid about 180% of the car’s value in interest. So my $13,000 Elantra would have cost me over $30,000 once interest was factored in.
Goal Resolution: 10/10
Fortunately, I worked for a mortage bank and understood the important of my credit score. I also knew how to raise it, and that part of doing so meant suffering through my horrible interest rate. Within a year my credit improved, and I refinanced down to a 16.9%. I kept up the hard work, and last year I refinanced my car to a 4.99% loan. It took nearly five years, but I finally have good credit.
My FICO as of this writing is 776 and for someone who’s long suffered from a dismal score you have no idea how good that feels. For the first time in my life I have good credit. I don’t stress when the subject comes up anymore. I don’t worry about being able to get a cell phone, or an apartment or a loan. I even set my sister up with a cell phone, because her credit was pretty poor. This is one of the areas I am proudest this year, because it’s the culmination of a five year journey. I can’t believe I finally made it.
Way to go me!
Unexpected Achievements
If you’ve made it this far I’m both surprised and impressed. You’ve waded through a 4,000 word wall of text! Don’t worry we’re most of the way done. My unexpected achievements section is the final one every year. It came about because I realized that much of what I accomplish happened either by accident, or happy coincidence. Not everything I achieve is a goal, so this area recounts the unexpected things that happened this year.
UA #1- My writing carreer
Every English teacher I’ve ever had has told me that I was meant to be a writer. By the time I was 18 I was so certain of that fact that I had all but cashed my first royalty check without even picking up a pen. There was only one problem. My writing sucked. I was devestated when I belted out fiction, only to realize it was flat, lifeless and boring. None of my friends and family were even willing to read it, and as this was before the advent of the web I couldn’t even go online for help.
So I gave up. I’d given in to the Big Lie, which is that writers are born not made. Oh what a lie that is. Some writers are born with talent, but even the best of us needs to hone our craft to realize that potential. My problem wasn’t that I lacked talent. I’d just never learned how to tap into it. So this year I decided to remedy that.
In February I started working on an Exalted novel, since it was an established world and would be a great place for a new author to practice. Up to that point the longest piece I’d ever written had been 35,000 words and that was over five years ago. I wanted to see if I could better that, and resolved to learn as much as I could about writing.
Six months later I’d read a dozen books on writing. I learned about characterization, plot, and many other fundamentals that helped me learn how to tell a good story. These principles have transformed my writing, but none as much as the last book I read. It was called Line by Line, and is only 150 pages long. After reading that book my command of the English language leapt to a whole new level.
I put my new found skills to work and belted out a 160,000 word novel. The average novel is only 100,000 words long so that’s quite an accomplishment. I’d have been happy if that was the only thing I wrote this year, but it was just the tip of the iceberg.
I completed the rough draft of my first original novel, The Bond of Jhordil. This is the novel that’s been kicking around in my head since high school, so that’s a major, major feather in my cap. Especially when you consider that I wrote TWO novels in one year. That’s nothing short of amazing.
Nor is it the only thing I wrote. Revenge of the Gamer was born this year, so every article and page on this site was created in the last twelve months. The same holds true for my other two blogs, the Unconquered Sun and The Bond of Jhordil.
I submitted a story to the Dragonmount Anthology, which looks like it will be accepted. I also sent several stories and a slew of Evil GM articles to the Rifter, all of which were accepted. I wrote a column for one of the largest gaming sites on the internet www.rpg.net, and continued submitting my Evil GM series to Gamegrene.
All told I wrote more than 1,000,000 words in 2009. That’s right, a million words in a year. That’s about 3,000 words every single day for a full 12 months. For the first time in my life I can call myself and author, and know that it’s true.
UA #2- Meeting Brandon Sanderson & Harriet McDougal
This achievement is tangentally related to my writing. Back in high school one of my favorite series was The Wheel of Time by a guy named Robert Jordan. In 2007 he passed away, leaving his masterpiece unfinished. His widow Harriet selected a successor, and she chose Brandon Sanderson for the job.
This year Brandon released book 12 of the Wheel of Time, A Gathering Storm. I applied with Tor books to be a Stormleader for the book signing. Basically I worked the crowd while he signed books, and afterwords we got a chance to go out to dinner and play Magic the Gathering.
It was an amazing experience, and it gave me a glimpse into the shoes I one day hope to fill. I got a chance to see Brandon, and realized that he wasn’t much different from me. That made me more sure than ever that I can publish novels, and in a year or two I’ll stand beside him as an author.
UA #3- Getting Promoted
I’ve been working for Redwood Credit Union for a little over two years now. About eight months ago I was drafted into the Financial Assistance Department, which is a nice name for collections. At first I dreaded the work, but in time I adjusted. I’ve done cold calling before, and this is far easier than calling brokers ever was.
A full time position opened in that department, and as I was already doing the work I decided to apply. They accepted me, and I ended up with a nice fat raise while still doing the same work I was before. Now that’s the kind of promotion I can get behind!
Overall Score: 9/10
2009 rocked. It was a far better year than either 2008 or 2007, and has paved the way for 2010 to be even better. I still can’t believe that I wrote over a million words, or that I wrote and submitted a novel. This has been the best year for me in a long time, and I’m entering the New Year not just thankful for what I have but also excited about the possibilties in store for me!
Keep an eye out for my next post, 2010’s goals!
Dorothy Diane Fox, In Memory
I had a bombshell dropped on me last Friday. My brother sent an email containing three simple words. Mom is dead. It hit me like a kick to the chest, and honestly I’m still a little numb. It was a lot to take in even though it was somewhat expected.
Writing is a cathartic experience for me so I’ve decided that the best way to deal with the tumult of emotions is to post about my mother. I wanted to tell the world a little about her so that she’s remembered in some small corner of the world.
My earliest memory is of a tall dark haired woman with a brilliant smile and the kindest eyes you can imagine. It happened when I was two. I was standing outside of a courthouse playing with the fountain while she and my grandmother discussed momentous things in too quiet voices. I was too young to understand what was going on, but I knew she was sad. It wasn’t very long until I found out why.
My father had filed for divorce, and she’d fought for custody of my older brother and I. She lost. It was a landmark decision that set precedent in California, because in the 1970s custody of children nearly always went to the mother. Losing us devastated her and I’m not sure she was ever the same afterwards.
For the next several years we lived with my father. Because we’d moved to Arizona and she still lived in California it was difficult for her to come see us, and I don’t remember her ever making the trip. As a result I didn’t see my mother for the next few years.
As we grew older my father decided we needed time with her, and arranged limited visitation with the courts. This went well so eventually we were allowed longer and longer visits, and by the time I was six we were spending our summers at Bethel Island.
Bethel Island was a magical place that nearly defies description. It was a tiny island in the river delta of central California, and to reach it you either needed to take the ferry or use the island’s one small bridge. It was largely isolated from the surrounding area, and felt wild and untamed to my young eyes.
My mother’s house was even more magical. She lived on a house boat, and I found the concept amazing. I nursed dreams of it breaking loose from its moorings and drifting out to sea. I told myself I might awake on any given morning to find ourselves blown to some magical island across the sea where we could live together without ever having to worry about returning home to my father.
I was too young to fully understand how poor my mother was, or how close to the edge she lived. To me cooking spaghetti every night was fun, not the only option because she couldn’t afford anything other than cheap pasta and cheaper sauce. At age eight staying home during the day with my eleven year old brother was an adventure, not my mother unable to afford child care for her two children.
Don’t get me wrong I knew we weren’t rich. I saw the sad look on her face whenever we asked for something and she couldn’t afford it. I still remember sitting home fishing instead of watching cable, because I thought cable charged by the hour and I didn’t want her to have to spend any money on me.
To me such things were insignificant. What did it matter if my mother had money? She had her smile and her magical ability to take away my pain and to make everything make sense in the world. She was a source of comfort, and I loved her dearly. Leaving that house boat every summer was the hardest thing my young self ever had to do.
My final visit came when I was eight. It was the third year we’d gone, and the place was fast becoming my home away from home. I was so excited by the time I boarded the plane that I could barely sit still, and my older brother Brian felt the same. My mother picked us up as usual, and we enjoyed the best summer I have ever had.
We spent the time fishing, talking, watching movies and being a family. I remember my mother showing me Jaws that summer, which in retrospect probably wasn’t the best movie for an eight year old living on a house boat. We sailed around on her boyfriend’s yaught and sang together. It was a magical time and one I will never forget.
When the summer ended my mother was heartbroken. She couldn’t bear to be separated from us again, so she sued my father for custody. Her case was based around what she perceived as child abuse. To be fair my childhood was pretty rough, and I had the crap kicked out of me by my father on more than one occasion.
This never happened randomly though, only after I’d done something monumentally stupid. Today it would be called child abuse, but in the early 80s it was just discipline and the courts saw it as such. My mother lost her case and the judge left us in our father’s custody.
On the day the verdict was read my brother and I were left home. Around noon the phone rang and my mother told us to pack whatever we could carry and run to her boyfriend’s house. She’d decided to kidnap us rather than give us back to our father.
I loved my mother with a ferocity that I cannot adequately convey, and I wanted to protect her at any cost. More than that I cherished the summers at Bethel Island as they gave me freedom from the strict home my father and stepmother maintained. As you might expect I did exactly as my mother asked, because I wanted to stay with her.
My brother and I wanted to live with her as much as she wanted us there. We dutifully packed a little clothing, and since I was the brains of the operation I thought it was a good idea to pack food as we had no idea when we could get more. What did I bring? About a dozen Twinkies.
From there we crossed Bethel Island in search of her boyfriend’s house. My brother was eleven and I was eight, and today what she asked us to do would have been called reckless endangerment. To us it was normal. She knew we were responsible enough to take care of ourselves, and that we could reach her boyfriend’s without getting into trouble.
She met us there a little while later, and for the next several months we were on the run from the law. We used assumed names and never stayed in the same place for very long. Our first stop was her boyfriend’s 180 acre ranch down in Arizona. It was isolated and as safe a haven as we could find, but it was also stocked with a healthy supply of guns and Playboys.
My mother was less than thrilled with the latter so we fled to Yuma to stay with my grandmother Mary and my grandfather Merle (known affectionately as grandpa Snoopy). Now you have to understand how desperate my mother was to reach the point where she asked them for help. My grandfather was the sweetest man alive, and I cherish his memory. But my grandmother was a different story.
Mary Mitchell was a vile woman who wasn’t happy unless she was making someone else miserable. She taught my brother to tie his shoes by making him stand in the corner day after day until he got it right. She didn’t actually teach him to tie them. She just expected him to learn on his own. That should give you some idea of how horrid this woman was, and she gloated over the fact that my mother needed her.
Seven months after I’d been kidnapped my mother couldn’t take it any longer and fled from Mary Mitchell. She brought us back to Bethel Island, the idea being that we were going to stop home just long enough to pick up a few things before heading to the next destination. You can imagine how it worked out.
The cops had been watching the place, and within an hour of our arrival they swarmed us. My mother was dragged off to jail, and my brother and I were placed in foster care. Not only did I lose my mother, but in the same blow I was placed in the most corrupt, horrifying situation a child can be.
I won’t speak more about the horrors that occurred in the various foster homes we stayed in. If you’ve ever lived in one you know what I’m talking about. It more than scarred me. It forced me to become an adult when I was eight years old.
By the time I was nine my father had gotten custody back. We were taken from the horrible foster homes and placed back in his care. I was terrified he’d be angry that we’d chosen to stay with my mother that summer, but quite the opposite. Life improved for us because I think it was a wake up call to him.
Things did not improve for my mother. Not long after we came home my family moved to New Hampshire. My father wanted to take us as far from my mother as possible, because he was terrified she’d kidnap us again. My mother might have, so it was a valid concern. Instead she was left behind in California with a felony arrest record and a crushing amount of debt she could never hope to pay back.
She called us once, but that was the last I saw or heard from my mother for the next decade. I spent a lot of time wondering why, because each and every time we moved my father dutifully made sure we saw him mail her a letter giving her the new address.
I often wondered if she’d stopped loving me, or if she’d found a new family. I was lonely and bitter and I missed her terribly. My brother felt the same and somewhere along the way we forgot about her as best we were able. It was the best way to manage the pain.
It wasn’t until just after I’d gotten married that I heard from her again. I had just turned nineteen, and had plunged pretty heavily into the world of drugs and parties. I was hurt and angry that she’d been gone for so long, and when I asked her why I was upset because she had no good reason.
My mother told me that she hadn’t been able to find us, but when I asked how she’d finally tracked me down she admitted that a friend bought her the services of a private investigator as a gift. Apparently the man found me using my social security number, and had my phone number within two days of starting his search.
By this time I’d spent nearly fifteen years living with Maryann, my stepmother. She was the woman who’d watched over me while I was sick, made my birthday cakes and picked me up when life knocked me down. Maryann was more my mother than my biological mother ever could be. That’s true to this day and blood be damned.
I was angry with my mother, and things were made worse by some of the wild claims she made. She told me that my father had taken us away from her, which was understandable. What was less easy to accept was that she said my father had bugged her house, and that it was still bugged over a decade later.
My father is many things and I’d count asshole among them. Even he would never stoop that low, and even if he would he lacked the means. My father was too busy getting high and avoiding the real world to do anything as elaborate as bugging his ex wife’s house ten years after the last time he’d seen her. Yet she persisted in these claims and our conversations devolved into bitter fights about him.
In the end I couldn’t handle the stress and I cut things off. In my mind she’d been gone for over a decade, and hadn’t made any serious attempt to find me. That didn’t leave her much room to attack my father, who for all his flaws loved us as best he could. He’d been there. She hadn’t.
Fast forward another ten years. I’d just turned twenty eight when I received a call from my brother. He told me that D.D. had been diagnosed with Lupus. She wasn’t doing well, and he asked me if I’d give her a call as he felt it would lift her spirits. Of course I agreed and for the first time since I was eight I re-connected with my mother.
She lived up in Washington and I lived in Los Angeles. Fortunately for me I had a six figure income and a company that was understanding about vacation. I flew up to see her several times over the next year. It was without a doubt the most difficult thing I’ve ever done, but I did it anyway. I did it for her.
What made it so difficult to see her was a mix of things. First and foremost was my mother’s health. Gone was the vibrant smiling woman I remembered. In her place was an old woman with swollen legs who found walking difficult. She smoked like a chimney, and her entire house was a constant cloud of smoke so acrid my eyes burned. That was far from the worst of it though.
My mother was insane. I’m not talking about a little crazy like your eccentric aunt Freda. I mean so off that it’s immediately apparent, like a fence with missing posts. My mother believed every crazy conspiracy theory out there. She believed that she’d been kidnapped by aliens, that my father still had her house bugged (she showed me the bugged phone and spoke in whispers around it) and that if you wished hard enough you could find a magical world full of hobbit holes.
It wasn’t a malicious sort of insanity, but not all of it was as benign as the examples given. One manifestation tore me apart inside, and every time I heard it a little part of me died. My mother believed that it was my fault we’d lost touch after she was sent to jail. She believed that as an eight year old I should have found a way to cross the continental United States to find her.
No amount of reasoning with her worked, because as I said she was crazy. She believed what she believed, and I think a part of her mind recoiled at all that had happened back then. D.D. was meant to be a mother, but through circumstance she lost her children and I think that started her on the road to insanity.
In the end I couldn’t take it anymore. I spent too many nights crying and had too much heartache. One day she called me and we got into a huge fight, because I was so tired of being told I’d failed her as a child. The fact that she expected me to have figured out a way to come find her infuriated me. I was the scared eight year old boy wishing for his mother. She was the adult. Yet somehow it was my fault.
I knew she didn’t really mean it, and that it was her mind’s only defense against the truth. Just like my father bugging her house, it absolved her of responsibility and made it not her fault. Logically I can say that, but emotionally I couldn’t face it.
That final conversation took place three years ago, and I’m ashamed to admit that I never spoke to her again. I don’t blame myself. The last time I dealt with her it sent me into a crippling spiral of depression. As much as I wanted to be there for her at the end I just didn’t have the strength.
Whenever I think about her it makes me sad. She had so much pain in her life, and endured more humiliation, shame and heartbreak than anyone should have to. My mother did the best she could in a difficult world, and I will always love her for that.
Wherever you are now Mom I hope you’re happy.
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