Category Archives: Memoirs

Riding the Elevator

Memoirs, ,

I got on the elevator this morning, and there were nine other people already on it. I entered on the first floor. I was planning to go to the third floor. What I noticed was that every floor above 3 was pushed, but 3 was not. So I pushed 3. Then the elevator went right up to three, and I got off.

And five people got off with me. So, for reasons that make no sense, five people were riding the elevator with intentions of getting off at floor 3 but no one pressed the button for it.

Strange morning.

When You First Begin to Realize You’re Never Going to Change the World

Memoirs, Writing, , , , , , , ,

I was one of those little precocious kids who grew up, convinced that he was one day going to change the world. At first, it was going to be through science, as I studied physics, sure that I was able to see the world in ways that no one else possibly could. I had my ground-breaking theory that re-explained the universe’s creation through a process called neutra-matter (my own invention) that was the embodiment of light, and thus, the separation particle that kept the barrier between matter and anti-matter. It all made sense to me, and actually still does. I worked through college to become a physicist, and throughout my education, I devoted a great deal of time just trying to disprove the theory so I could move onto something better. And I never did. So it might be true. Or not. We’ll never know because I didn’t remain in physics, and even if I did, I hit a point where I started to realize that no one really cared.

Yeah, that was true. No one cared. I had this great idea, and I was convinced it could change science. But again, no one cared. So I moved onto a different field. Genetics.

In genetics, I was quickly invigorated with a new idea that consumed my every scientific thought. I now had a convincing argument as to how the AIDS/HIV strain first emerged, and coordinating this theory with the concepts of archaeology (which I was also studying at the time), I realized that there was a way to use my theory to trace down Patient Zero, and possibly erect a cure for AIDS by creating a genetic suppressor from the origin rather than from the current variation of the virus. And it made a lot of sense to me.

So, as this was during the dawn of the AIDS era, I managed to convince a coordinator of the first AIDS conference to listen to my theory, and she was so intrigued by it that she arranged a meeting with me and a group of scientists who were all part of the first conference. They read my report, called me in and then in a round table discussion, asked me all sorts of questions about my theory. And they were intrigued. And then one of them asked me where I got my medical degree, and I revealed that my education was in physics, and that I did not have a medical degree. Essentially, the discussion was over, and no one was really interested in hearing anything else I had to say. In the end, my theory was shelved, and I went on with my life. Decades later, AIDS is still out there, and unfortunately, I don’t think it’s going to be cured any time soon. Of course, I can’t say my theory would have done it, but it bothers me that it was never followed up.

Many years later, I was in graduate school after doing the whole Ph.d thing in political science. This time, however, I was pursuing communication. And suddenly it dawned on me that our usual process for conducting diplomacy was wrong. In the middle of the night, I woke up with an additive theory, utilizing political science international theory, interpersonal communication theories, a communication rhetoric theory and a mathematical model I designed in my head that would eventually be completed through computer modeling. This new theory, I predicted, would lead to a brand new way of conducting negotiations and diplomacy. Latching onto one of my fellow grad students with a background in history, we wrote up a theoretical paper on this and then presented it at communication conference. After that, a few people from different organizations contacted me by email asking me more questions, but over time, I starrted to realize that it also required people to really think differently than what they were used to. When I tried to present it to the Obama Administration, I realized no one was really interested in learning. People were pretty satisfied with doing things the way they had been doing them since the days of Caesar, so very quickly I got the impression that I was barking up trees that no one wanted me barking near. So I gave up on that as well.

The point is: At some point, you start to realize that no matter how many great ideas you have, eventually you’re probably going to hit the point where you realize that most people generally don’t care. The status quo is so much easier to stick with, so the amount of work involved in getting anyone interested in change is practically at a ridiculous premium. It’s a lot like the Occupy Wall Street movement that’s going on right now. I mean, they have great ideas and the best intentions at heart. But the reality is that no one is going to listen to them, and mostly what they will receive for their efforts is ridicule and pepper spray. You can’t convince people to change their ways, even if the change is in their own best interests.

So, at some point, you have to realize that as much as you like, you can have all of the greatest intentions in the world, but at some point you need to do the proverbial growing up of reality and settle for mediocrity and, if lucky, a small step after a period of anarchical punctuated equilibrium.

That’s where I am now. There are so many things I wanted to do with my life, so many things I thought I would do with my life, but in the end, I realize that it really didn’t amount to much. No fame. No fortune. No changing of the minds of the masses or even a few leaders. Not even a really cool career or a stable girlfriend (or an unstable one for that matter). At some point, you begin to realize that all you really have is an apartment full of friendly stuffed animals, a shelf of unpublished, or crappily published, novels, reruns of Star Trek and a World of Warcraft account. Had I known that a long time ago, I probably would have chosen a much easier route to get here.

An Update of Current Events with Duane

Memoirs, Writing, , ,

Figured it’s been a little time since I’ve done an update on me, so here goes:

1. I moved. Yes, I’ve been planning a local move for quite some time and finally did it this last weekend. I found a two bedroom apartment owned by the same management company where I’ve been living for the last two years and decided to move there. I’ve turned one of the bedrooms into an office and moved two desks and all of my bookshelves into it). I still haven’t set up my computer yet, but it’s all there and waiting for me to start plugging everything back together. My other laptops are there already (I never realized how much computer equipment I had, but wow, I have way too much). The new apartment also has a gas fireplace, although I think they have to light the pilot light or something because I can’t figure out how to get it working yet. Mostly, I’m completely moved in and pretty happy about that, although my arms are really tired as I’ve done nothing but move for the last four days (plus a few days the previous week, when I actually took possession of the place).

2. Writing. I’m preparing myself for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) next month. Usually, I start November by free writing something and hoping it goes somewhere, but this time around I’m actually going to be working on a specific project. I’ve been putting together the background for the new novel, which is a tragic romance that’s told through time as a characterization mechanism. Like a lot of my more recent works, this project involves attempting to challenge my usual writing abilities by doing something that hasn’t really been done before and seeing how I pull it off. I’ve always felt that a writer should be trying to stretch himself beyond his normal abilities, to push the very boundaries of genre and skill. Otherwise, I feel that writing is just a casual thing that doesn’t really have much of a purpose. I’m still planning to work on my historical novel of the 1991 August Coup in the Soviet Union, which right now sounds almost impossible to accomplish, but I’m hoping that by learning new techniques with each of my latest projects, I might build the ability to finally write the projects I’m hoping to accomplish in the future.

3. Teaching. It’s going fine. I teach two classes a week (a political science class and an interpersonal communication course). Sometimes, I feel that I’m running on autopilot with both classes, as I’ve taught them so many times before, but unfortunately, as an adjunct, I’m never going to be offered the opportunity to build a curriculum or even a course on my own. I thought about going back to school to finish another Ph.d, but honestly my passion is writing, and as much as I love teaching, I still feel my greatest accomplishment is going to be in the creative sphere.

4. Work. I’m finding the ability to be a bit more creative these days. Having learned a little more with instructional design, I’ve been able to create a few more modules in a different direction, involving a more interactive approach. It’s not extremely satisfactory, but at least it gives me a chance to stretch my brain a tiny bit. The job is really not designed to be all that intuitive or that much involved intellectually, and that makes it really difficult sometimes to try to manage when I really want to be stretching the boundaries of what’s possible. Oh well.

That’s really all that’s going on right now. Guess I’ll get back to talking about politics and stuff because my own personal life is somewhat boring.

Chicago, Moving, and the Process of Reinventing Writing

Books, Memoirs, Relationships, Social Networking, Writing, , , , , , , ,

Not much going on, so I thought I would do another recap of what might actually be going on. So, here goes:

1. Took a trip to Chicago this weekend.

I have to admit that I’ve never really given Chicago a fair shake. One of my friends, Kevin, is from Chicago and always talked up the place in a positive way. Having been there a few times, I never really found myself enamored with the place. So, I went there specifically to meet up with someone, and while I had a good time meeting her, the place itself met the expectations I had going into it. I found the place to be mostly dirty, kind of like you’d expect from any large downtown city. I was in the Chinatown area of the city (or at least one of them), so the people were generally friendly, but there wasn’t really that much more to say about it.

Getting to Chicago kind of sucked, and it wasn’t really the fault of Chicago itself. It was the fault of Indiana. And then Chicago. At one point, I went through what seemed like an endless series of toll booths. I’m not kidding. I drove less than a half a mile after a toll booth, and I was driving up to another one. It’s like the government workers had their hands out nonstop while traveling through their mecca. And the first toll booth person I dealt with was one of the more rude ones you come across. She was hostile, scowling, and she held her hand so far back in her booth (to provide change for the bills I gave her) that I had to open my car door and practically walk over to her to get her to give me my money back. I noticed that she didn’t have a problem taking my money; she just wasn’t all that excited about having to stretch her hand out to give any back. That’s HORRIBLE customer service, and obviously she doesn’t care, which means her bosses don’t care, and thus, neither does its government. I started to immediately hate Chicago, and I wasn’t even ten feet into the city.

Leaving Chicago was a lot easier. And a relief. Did I mention I don’t really like Chicago? I guess you have to have been born there, or really like big cities with rude people in them. I guess a New Yorker would love Chicago. A San Franciscan? Not so much.

2. School is back in swing.

I’m starting the third week of school, and everything seems to be going well. I’m kind of apprehensive about continuing this job in the future (after this semester) as I really feel like I’m being taken advantage of. The place they have me teaching is in Lowell, which is pretty far away (another city), and the main point they made is they don’t pick up mileage for having to drive my car twice a week twenty minutes to half an hour. You’d think if they really wanted someone to fill this type of position, they’d be somewhat responsive to the fact that it’s costing me money to actually make it to this place twice a week. This school has a tendency to be pretty cheap when it comes to covering certain things, and sometimes I wonder if it’s really worth it. I mean, the pay isn’t stellar, and it does take a great deal of chunk of time out of my normal schedule. Again, this is one of those cases where a teacher is kind of left with a thought of how much do I really want to teach versus how much I’m willing to sacrifice with getting very little in return. I’m already at a loss from a simple economic perspective as my text book for one of my classes went missing after the very first day (when I know I had it in class with me); that never makes one feel really good about things.

3. Moving.

I’ve been trying to find a larger place for myself within my own housing complex, and I’ve been disappointed at the experience. On Friday, I spoke with the woman at Wyndham Hill, and she told me that a two bedroom apartment (pretty close to where I wanted to move to) would be available at the end of October, but that the people were still in the apartment, so I couldn’t lay any claim to it until they vacated. Today, I called to verify the time frame, and she told me that the apartment was already given to someone else over the weekend. Which, if you think about it, means that someone else came along and picked up the apartment, EVEN THOUGH she told me that there was no way to ask for it until the other family vacated, which they have not. In other words, I got screwed, and there was no way I could have done anything about it. One of the problems with the place where I live is that no matter what I try to ask for, something always seems to prevent me from getting it. A garage opened up closer to my apartment (I’ve seen it open and empty) but when I asked if I could switch to it, I was told no garage was available. It’s still empty. I kept asking for a den apartment, but was told it was a hard commodity to get, so I asked to be put on the waiting list for when it became available. Each time it became available, it turned into a first come, first serve situation where no one let me know it was available, and obviously there was no list or line. I just got ignored yet again.

So I may just move out completely. I hate moving over stupid shit, but what can you do? I’m currently looking at a series of apartments near 28th Street, which would put me in walking distance to shops and a potential social night life. Where I live now is conducive to feeding ducks, and that’s about it.

4. Writing

I haven’t been doing much writing lately, mainly because I’ve been completely discouraged by the whole writing industry. I had an agent at one point who just kind of disappeared, had another agent after her who sort of just, well, disappeared, and getting a new one after him has been a continuous series of failures. And no, they didn’t disappear because of anything I did. Honestly. I have an alibi. Really.

Part of the problem for me is that I have such grandiose projects I’m working on with my writing that no longer consist of “Get an idea, tell a story and then revamp it.” Instead, I’m focused on analyzing a genre, trying to turn it on its head completely and do something that seems almost impossible for me to do, and every writing project has felt that way, until I finish it, and then I feel as if I’ve learned a whole new chapter in my writing, so I have to go out and break new ground for the next one. I’m not sure anyone understands what I’m saying here because most people when I tell them I’m a writer, still think that I’m referring to sitting down and writing a cute story. I’ve even stopped telling people what I’m writing because they tend to stare at me blank-faced and, if I’m lucky, they’ll ask, “Okay, but what’s the story about?” In other words, there’s a miscommunication thing going on, and a lot of it is due to my impatience with explaining the process of writing something from a completely different perspective of normal literature. I’d say that someday people will understand what I’ve been trying to do (as they analyze it in post-modern literature analysis courses), but part of me (a large part of me) suspects that most people will never hear of me because I’m doomed to writing for myself, having given up on the publishing world already as too sporadic and celebrity centered for someone like me to ever make it. Yeah, I know there’s the cynic out there thinking, “Or maybe you just suck, Duane.” And the part of me that’s most concerned is the part that thinks that cynic may be right, and I’ve been wasting my time and energy when I could have been a lot more productive if I would have focused all of my energy on getting my mage to level 85 in World of Warcraft.

5. Dating.

What’s that?

That’s all for today. I keep plugging forward, thinking that Einstein’s theoretic is wrong, and that perhaps if you do continue to do the same stupid thing over and over again, you WILL get different, better results.

Ponderings on the Ponders of my Ponderings

Memoirs, Social Networking, Writing

I guess I’ve been spending most of my blog time talking about politics, my iPad and other non-Duane stuff. So, I thought I would take a moment and talk about Duane. I don’t get to do that very often, other than an occasional mention here and there. So, let’s see where this goes.

1. My Writing. At the moment, I’m involved in what appears to be an endless writing project that will probably never see the light of day. It’s an epic romance, which is completely out of my normal genres of writing. It’s probably the hardest thing I’ve written because it involves very intricate connections to pull off, and rather than just write my way through it, I thought I would attempt to re-create the genre through some experimental storytelling. I’ve never written this way before, and it tells a story that I probably could not have told a decade ago. You see, my previous novel was a humorous Greek epic, which on the surface sounds like a continuous one-joke romp through epic literature, but I wanted to do something with it I’d never done before. Rather than just tell a fun story, I decided to write a novel that would be written for two separate, distinct audiences. One would be the mainstream crowd that would appreciate the humor, and the other would be the academic scholars who study classical literature. By writing this way, I created a novel that is read in two completely different ways, based on which member of its audience you happen to be. It’s why it took me 5 years to write, instead of two months. On the surface, no one will probably ever realize this. It’s the same thing with my current novel. There is something deeper going on with this novel that might never be discovered, and knowing my luck, it probably won’t ever be published, so the point is probably moot anyway (or mute for that matter).

2. The Job Front. At the moment, it’s steady, but I had my annual performance review today, and let’s just say that sometimes I think I’m being held to higher standards than I should be. Needless to say, the review wasn’t all that exemplary, but not because I do a bad job, but because it’s obvious that I’m not comfortable where I’m at. You see, I do a job that not a lot of people could do, but I’m also way over qualified for the job that I do…if that makes any sense. So, I spend a lot of time doing busy work, because there are times when I’m really not tasked to do anything significant. And that’s a major part of my problem. I don’t do anything on a daily basis that makes a difference. All of my life I always felt that I was here to do something significant, something big, something that matters. And instead, I’m editing copy for a health care organization, whereas it’s seen that I should be doing more than editing copy for a health care organization, yet “we’re just not sure what else you could be doing”. So I find myself inventing things to do that I figure might be useful, such as digging for analytical processes that I can assess and help staff improve. When I do it, it usually looks great, and it’s appreciated. But again, it’s me searching for something to do, and in the end, it was never what was wanted in the first place. That gets old really fast.

We talked about that today in our performance review meeting, and I said I was interested in perhaps exploring developing apps for some of the learning modules we create. That’s seen as a great idea, but again I get the impression that it’s seen as a bit of a gray area until I actually produce something and it’s realized how much these sorts of things were always needed. I’m a creative designer who works for an industry that is not very excited about changing things; that gets really hard to deal with sometimes.

3. Relationships. Not much going on there. Hasn’t been much going on in the last decade. Before that, I had a very active life. Now, nothing. The closest relationships I’ve had have been women with whom I hoped to create relationships, but they were always only interested in being friends. The first time, you get over it. When it happens all of the time, you start to feel somewhat unwanted. It’s honestly been a decade since I’ve seriously dated. And I’m starting to get on in age right now so that it may never happen. My last serious girlfriend was a crazy woman from Hong Kong who should have been institutionalized except I think she scared the institutions too much to ever think of committing her. And that was one of the more stable relationships I had back then….

4. Health. Surprisingly, this is the one good area. I went through a lot of work to change my entire lifestyle to fix some of the health problems I was having. My last doctor’s visit indicated that all of that work paid off. So, something good at least.

5. The Future. I don’t really know. I have a feeling that I’m not going to remain in Grand Rapids much longer. I just don’t like it here. I have no friends, and I have no social life whatsoever. I basically sleep, go to work and come home and play World of Warcraft and then repeat. On the weekends, I don’t go to work, which is the only variation. I’d go out, but there’s nothing to do here in Grand Rapids that interests me. Nothing. I started looking at Chicago and Florida, but unless I can find a job, I’m really stuck here.

That’s really it for now.

A Creature of Habit

Memoirs, Relationships, Uncategorized, Writing

I’m what you would call a creature of habit. Well, other people have lots of other names for me, but I’m going to go with that one for now.

You see, I kind of like things stabilized and normal. Yet, at the same time I tend to have a habit of picking up and starting over from scratch because I get tired of the same kind of life after awhile. No, it doesn’t make sense to me either.

However, I was getting lunch today, when it dawned on me that I get the same thing for lunch every day. And it didn’t dawn on me because I’m really cognizant over those kinds of things. It dawned on me because the cashier remarked “I’ve noticed you get the same thing every day, except for Fridays. That’s when you switch chicken strips for wings.” And she was right. Come Friday, I will get the exact same lunch at work I get every Friday because I’m what I’ve already called a creature of habit.

On the weekend, I will eat breakfast at Burger King. I don’t even order my meal any more. I walk up to the counter and whoever is working there will charge me $6.87 and eventually someone will bring me EXACTLY the same breakfast I get on Saturday and Sunday. It doesn’t change.

I don’t date, which is why I don’t really have to worry about someone else deciding, “You know, I’d like to eat at some strange restaurant we’ve never tried before.” I’d like to date, but I can’t find anyone interesting in my neck of the woods. And I gave up looking. Besides, someone new might want to eat somewhere other than where I normally eat.

The problem is I’m not sure if it’s a problem or not. I guess it could be, especially because I’m a big fan of making abrupt, huge life-changing changes. But I haven’t changed anything in a long time. Aside from socks and underwear. And a couple of months ago, I changed the oil in my car. But right after I did so, I drove to Burger King and had breakfast.

Something don’t ever change.

Some Thoughts on Current Events

Business, Economics, Education, Memoirs, News, Politics, Relationships, Social Networking, Technology, Television

Okay, haven’t done a recap in a bit. And I’ve been kind of busy, so here goes:

1. News of the World. Okay, I don’t know an easier way to say this, but I’m finding the whole situation with Robert Murdoch and his evil empire to be somewhat hilarious. Yes, he’s evil, and his empire is evil. And they’ve been discovered to be doing evil things. Not really all that surprised. He wants to own the world, and when you want to own the world, chances are pretty good that you don’t care who you destroy on the way to doing it. Some people are glad this has happened because they are liberals and hate Murdoch because he’s anti-liberal. I’m not like that. I just find it hilarious. I do want to add, however, that I think Rebecca Brooks, the one who lost her job because of being Darth Vader to Murdoch’s Dark Emperor, is kind of hot. I’m just saying….

2. Charlie Sheen is going to have a new TV show. I don’t care. Didn’t watch his old show. Won’t watch his new one. Next story.

3. Rebecca Black Has a Follow-up Song to “Friday”. Never heard “Friday”. Don’t care that she has a new one. Basically, someone who was ridiculed for a really bad song has managed to create a music career out of the ridiculousness and now wants to be taken seriously. But she wasn’t taken seriously before. Next story.

4. Universal pulled the plug on Dark Tower movies. Ron Howard was going to direct Stephen King’s epic series about Roland the Gunslinger. Was looking forward to it. Now, I’m disappointed. I’ll move on now….

5. Reporters Are Trying to Find out Where Casey Alexander is Hiding Out. Really? Get over it. The story of the century (or the last few months) is over. Move onto something else. Isn’t there an ambulance somewhere that can be chased?

6. Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez crashed some wedding. Supposedly, Bieber’s song was playing so loud while they were driving by that he went in and became a part of the wedding party celebration. First, I was thinking my first act as the groom would have been to deck the guy for showing up at my wedding. The second thought was to immediately not get married because my future wife decided to play Justin Bieber music at my wedding reception. And then I realized that if they were listening to the twirp, who cares? They were probably overjoyed to see him, much as I would be if Shania Twain showed up to my wedding (assuming she didn’t show up to be IN my wedding as the bride). So I really shouldn’t be commenting here.

7. The Debt Ceiling. They’ll either come to an agreement. Or they won’t. I’m going to assume that they’re still going to collect my taxes and that we’ll still be at war with countries I don’t want to be at war with. So I really don’t care. I’m not important enough so that anything I do is of any concern to them, so I”m not really concerned at anything they do either. For them, it’s a tragedy because they’re the ones with the money, and they’re the ones who stand to lose a lot. For me, I stand to go from being kind of poor to being really poor. Not going to make much of a relevant difference. I’ve stopped being significant a long time ago. Come to think of it, I never really was.

8. Apparently US students still suck at geography. This caused me to pull out a map to see if I could figure out where the US was to see how close it was to Michigan, just so I could get an idea of where this place might be. Couldn’t find it, so I assume it was probably some small country somewhere unimportant.

9. Google and Facebook appear to have changed their relationship status to “It’s Complicated”. Ironically, that’s my life status as well.

10. Number 9 was really my last item. I just like having 10 items whenever I can.

Our Government’s Purpose is to Protect Government and Rich People

Memoirs, News, Politics, Writing, , ,

In case you haven’t figured it out, the reason our government exists isn’t to protect the rest of us. It’s to protect very wealthy people and other people in government. An example is the current event involving e coli poisoning. For the last week or so, we were told there’s absolutely no fear of any spread in the United States, even as the same articles were reporting that were sporadic cases of infection in the United States. It’s almost like no one even pays attention to what’s really going on and then just continues business as usual. Well, guess what? There are actual cases of e coli spread in the United States now. Imagine that.

I’ve been stating this for a long time, but no one seems to care (and they still won’t): Our government isn’t really representative of the rest of us. It’s representative of very wealthy people who continue to believe themselves worthy of raiding the government coffers for themselves. They’ll justify it under all sorts of different rationalizations, like “giving back to the poor” or “the wealthy pay the most taxes” or whatever makes them feel best. But in the end, when it comes down to a simple yes or no decision, rational actors decide what is best for them, not for the greater good. This is why we can have a story where the claim is made that oil companies are profiting off of people by doing horrific things to other people and the environment, and then when challenged by “government”, they’ll still continue to do horrific things to other people and the environment, and then turn around and claim “PROFIT!” before giving out absurd sums of money to their executives in bonuses, right before turning to the government and claiming a loss in the same breath that they tell stockholders they are raking in more money than ever before. And the rest of us? We’re so insignificant that they don’t care what we think.

Right now, we have a party in power that got into power by claiming the other party was doing evil things. Rather than stop those evil things, they continued doing the same evil things, claiming the issue is “complicated”, and have asked for four more years to continue doing the same things to make things better by doing the same evil things that have been done for decades. And we’ll vote them that extra time. Why? Because we’re morons. And they know it, so they’ll lie to our faces and tell us everything’s great. And we’ll buy it. Not only that, but we’ll donate to their campaigns to make sure they keep doing it.

And a few of us will complain. And no one will listen because we’re not listened to by anyone. Hell, we can’t even get a major distributor to give us a voice for other people to hear. Instead, the people who get heard are the mainstream people who keep doing the same shit over and over again. And then someone will try to sell us Lady Gaga as if that’s “extreme”. Or they’ll talk about how outrageous Charlie Sheen is. And we’ll buy into it. Why? Because we’re morons. And they know it.

That’s really all I have to say. Which is okay because I’m not important to have anyone pay attention to me anyway.

Have a nice day.

As we suspected, Size Really Does Matter

Memoirs, , ,

I was having a conversation with a female friend of mine, and I stated that no matter how much she says otherwise, size definitely matters. She denied it for a moment, and then after I showed her, she gave in and said that I was right. Size, in fact, does matter. Her exact words were: “Oh, my god. It’s huge!” So the matter is settled. Having a larger computer monitor is DEFINITELY better than having a smaller one.

This weekend, I had been thinking about it nonstop, and then I went to Sam’s Club, and there it was: a 27 inch Samsung monitor. It was huge. It was freaking HUGE, and it was there, just waiting for me. So I put it into my cart, took it to the cash register, wheeled it out to my car, opened the trunk of my car, placed it inside, wheeled the cart to one of those little cart places where they store them so Sam’s Club employees can gather them and make somewhat of a living, but I had to stop halfway because I realized my trunk was still open, so I wheeled the cart back to my car, closed the trunk and then wheeled the cart back to that little cart place where they store them so Sam’s Club employees can gather them and make somewhat of a living, drove back home, stopping to buy an Icee on the way (the Cherry flavored one…can’t stand the root beer one, oh my god, what were they thinking when they invented that), parked my car in the garage, closed the garage door, said hi to the girl who is always crying whenever I see her (that girl really needs to dump that guy…I swear), opened my door, entered my apartment, fought off a rabid band of stuffed animals that were overjoyed to see me again, set up the new monitor, turned on my computer, drank from my Icee, and then embraced the wonder that is a 27 inch computer monitor.

It was kind of nice. The Icee, too. But don’t get me started on that whole root beer flavor thing. I’m just saying.

Government Indifference to the Common Folk

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About five years ago, I left California and moved to South Korea to work as a debate instructor. At the time, it was a stupid choice to make when it came to employment, but the recession had just started up, finding a job was extremely difficult, and I was doing anything to survive back then. So, I packed up everything I owned, sold most of it, and set off for a new adventure in a far off land. Okay, Heminway aside, one of the last things I did before leaving was sell my car to a colleague in graduate school, pretty much giving her a really great deal on a 2000 Saturn. Firing off a bill of sale on my computer, I gave it to her so she could turn it into the DMV, and I ventured off to new horizons.

The trip to Korea didn’t go well. A year into the trip, I was seriously cheated by the company that was paying me, and to avoid another long story for another article, I ended up barely getting out of a very bad situation, ending up back in the United States with a little more than the shirt on my back. Customs took all of my luggage, and for reasons that to this day have never been explained to me, never gave it back. As it was all clothing and paperwork, I finally gave up on ever seeing it again, and then started a brand new life in Michigan.

Well, at the beginning of 2011, California sent me a bill for $140, stating that I now owed them money for parking tickets not paid on that car I gave up five years ago. The tickets were racked up about four years ago.

I sent California’s DMV a letter explaining the situation, and then sent me a form letter back, indicating that I had to produce paperwork proving I had sold the car to a graduate student I had lost contact with shortly after I left the country. I had to prove it by providing paperwork that her full CURRENT address, and I had 15 days to do it.

OR THEY WOULD SEND ME TO COLLECTIONS.

Seeing as I have absolutely no way of producing this particular form of paperwork that does not exist, I’m at a loss as to what I should do. Principle tells me to go tell them to go fuck themselves, but in the end, I’m still going to get turned over to collections, and no matter what I do, some debt collector is going to make my life miserable because he’ll want $140 (probably jacked up to about $300 by the time he gets the account), and there won’t be any conversation that changes the outcome. The debtor is ALWAYS guilty.

This reminds me of when I got out of the Army. I had been out for a few years, and it dawned on me that I didn’t actually have a copy of my honorable discharge. So I wrote the government and asked them if they could supply me with it. Their response was that somehow I owed the government $212.42. Thank you for your service to this country, but you owe us $212.42. Please pay up today or we’ll make your life a miserable hell. And thank you for using our service.

This is the problem with government in how it deals with the common person. During this whole big budget debate lately, there’s been a lot of talk about how the government NEEDS more money, and that the American people are responsible for fixing the problems that the members of government have caused. When it comes to delivering money, it’s always our fault, and our responsibility. When it comes to actually getting something back from the government, it’s “please take a number, sit down, and be happy if someone actually gets to you.”

So, I’m left in another quandary with government. I’m shit poor, and I’ve always been my whole life. I’d like to say that I took a vow of poverty, but there really wasn’t a vow involved. It just sort of happened, and my life choices are generally not the kind that leads to mass wealth and fortune. So, when government wants another $140 from me, it bothers me a lot. You see, I’m one of those guys who parks his car where I’m supposed to park it, putting money into the coin machine to make sure I’m parking legally. When I error, I pay my bills immediately, even though I make it a point not to error in the first place. Yet, here I am having to pay for the foibles of some other person who probably didn’t even register the car in the first place. I couldn’t control that. I wasn’t even in the fucking country at the time.

Yet, I’m going to be the one held responsible. Because that’s supposedly the American way.

And people wonder why the country has problems. If this is how you treat the members of your society who go out of their way to the do the right thing, good luck on winning over the other 98% of the population.