Yesterday, while soaking in the hot tub in the locker room at the gym, I couldn’t help but stare at CNN, now apparently dubbed HLN (as in, Headline News), blaring on the television 15 feet in front of my face, as they spent nearly an hour (an hour!) on two stories:
1. some idiot teenager set himself on fire imitating something he saw on YouTube, and now his idiot mother is suing YouTube, and they had viewers call in and pontificate on whether or not the mother was rational for suing YouTube, and then they had the lawyer on that’s representing the mother, and boy, what a douche that guy was;
and 2. a story about a guy who went to prison for not paying child-support for a kid that wasn’t biologically his. It’s complicated and sad, and I guess it’s a legitimate story, but seriously!
An hour! On these two stories.
And people wonder why Americans have no idea what’s actually going on in the world, or why it’s all going to shit faster than a 13-year-old imbecile can cover himself in gasoline and ignite a lighter. Survival of the fittest, dude. Evolution cut you a break, don’t push it.
Or maybe they don’t wonder. I don’t know: is CNN HLN still considered a legitimate news source? Their web site is nothing but stories about Michael Jackson and kids being left in cars. I haven’t watched the actual channel in years, until yesterday.
I’ve had a hard time feeling “grown up” lately. What keeps me awake at night these days is a purely ridiculous and existential concern over whether or not I’m “mature” and live an “adult lifestyle.” It’s such a vague and ridiculous notion as to be laughable, but it feels oddly real and anxiety-provoking to me. And I can’t put my finger on why. Maybe because I don’t have anything else to feel stressed out about right now? (Could that possibly be true??)
Erik Erikson, arguably the most influential developmental psychologist that ever lived, posited in his “psychosocial model” of the life span (a direct counterargument to Freud’s “psychosexual model,” as it were) that adulthood began and adolescence ended only when an individual had discovered their true inherent identity. If this didn’t happen until someone was 36, then that person was an adolescent until they were 36. That doesn’t seem particularly radical today, I realize, but back in the 1940’s, when Erikson was working, to apply such a nebulous definition to adolescence was considered radical. Since the process of discovering identity is such a painful and soul-searching endeavor, many people wish to bypass it, Erikson claimed, by prematurely dedicating themselves to work or marriage without having a strong foundation of identity to stand, and build a life upon. The “crisis” of identity will always assert itself, though, at one time or another, hence the idea of “mid-life crisis” was born. If you’re a particularly astute observer of human nature, you might discover that people who generally spend their 20’s “discovering” themselves instead of “settling” before they’re ready, typically don’t suffer these crises of midlife.
So, more concretely, what makes one an “adult?” Marriage? A mortgage? Having a child? Does being an adult make one ready for these life stages, or do these life stages make a person mature? Which comes first? Obviously there’s not an answer, and if we are to gauge the maturity of someone’s intellect, identity or emotional life based on a baby or a mortgage, that’s a little frightening.
I’m successful, I’m halfway through graduate school, I’m actively working as a therapist, I’ve paid off my debt and am finally achieving some semblance of financial stability, I’m in a very stable, mature and gratifying relationship. Why do I still feel like such a child, even compared to some of my classmates, some of whom are close to a decade younger than myself?
I have no idea and I couldn’t even tell you what it is I actually worry about when I worry about this.
I’m gonna go buy an ipod today and not think about it anymore.
It’s almost impossible to believe that today is my 11-month anniversary of moving to Portland. I’ve witnessed every passing season, and the winter wasn’t nearly as awful as I thought it would be, though I was assured this year was very mild and inordinately sunny. Shit. Spring was pretty rainy and yucky, the autumn was stunning and inspiring as promised, and so far, summer has given me untold amounts of energy, though the actual hot day seems a rare commodity, but that’s okay.
This week I started running at the track at the high school near my house. I wear my shortest running shorts, lose the shirt, and try my damnedest to get some sun on my pale, starving skin while I pant through 2 miles. Twice this weekend I took long bike rides around the neighborhood and discovered yet more things I didn’t know about, including Forest Park, a 5,000-acre urban oasis (the largest urban forest in the country), that is, actually, in my neighborhood. Somehow I missed that. This is why I love Portland. In what other city would you not know there’s a 5,000-acre forest a mile and a half from your apartment? I feel like I live in Middle Earth sometimes. I still gasp every time I cross a bridge to the east side of town and it’s clear enough to see Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens looming in the distance like a set of stern but protective parents. I hope I never lose the awe of seeing them as long as I live here.
I’m a different person than I was when I moved here, and that’s a good thing. Calmer, more settled, less afraid, more sure of myself, less afraid of my real priorities and values. Also more unsure in other ways. That’s okay. Life isn’t about certainty. As I’ve decided. I used to think it was. I left that behind. The change of scenery into the unfamiliar has paid off in just the way I suspected (and hoped) it would. That’s nice to know.
I finished my final school project tonight. I still have class this next week, but all of my work is done, so all I have to do is show up. I can’t believe I’m a year down, and halfway through school already. It’s exciting.
I saw my first client today. I feel like a real life therapist. Well, to be honest, I sat in on the session while my supervisor did the intake assessment. But they’re going to be my client! Mine! And I did talk a little bit, and ask some questions.
At one point, I almost choked up while the client was talking about her mother. I wasn’t sad, I don’t think, so much as moved. But also a little sad.
I’ve got to get a hell of a lot thicker skin if I’m gonna do this job.
It seems that recent have events have been conspiring to shake my self-confidence lately. As someone who has felt so sure of where he’s been going for the past year or so, suddenly I’m feeling much less cocky. I’m entering a transition, to be sure, from mostly just classes to classes mostly being over and having to put that stuff to use now. Maybe that’s part of it, but I don’t think so. It’s other things; things I take personally, but probably shouldn’t, but do anyway, because that’s just what I do. They’re things that don’t reflect upon my ability but make me feel less competent anyway. Things that undermine my faith in pursuing future education, at least formally.
I’m feeling beaten down a little this semester, and feel a bit like I can’t win, no matter what I try to do. And it’s frustrating. I work hard. I’m smart. Perhaps I could work a little harder and be a little smarter. Maybe it’s just silly academia politics. I don’t know. But, once again, I’m finding myself laying awake at night, questioning my decisions, and wondering, “Is this really where I belong, and what I’m supposed to be doing?” I know it is, but I have to fight my own internal impulses to believe otherwise, to want to run away again because it’s hard and painful, and I’ve been really confused lately. Especially this past week. I feel as if I’m returning to that struggle to prove myself that makes me feel so inadequate.
Kids who grow up in small towns have to more or less invent entertainment for themselves. Not that I grew up totally isolated or anything, but the nearest town where we could really “do” anything (go out to eat, go shopping, go to the movies, go CD shopping) was a 30-minute drive away. So in small towns you find yourself a little niche, private places to hang out, away from adults or supervision. It seems like this is actually much easier to do in small towns than in cities.
When I was in high school, my friends and I used to love to hang out at the old Monte Ne resort. Before Beaver Lake existed (a huge, man-made lake in Northwest Arkansas where everyone goes now, but didn’t exist before 1966), there was a fancy spa-resort called Monte Ne. The developer and owner was a very eccentric man:
Harvey did some deep research into the history of the Ozark Mountains. He claimed that they were some of the oldest mountains in the world and definitely the oldest in the United States. They had been untouched by volcanoes and earthquakes. He believed that the mountains around Monte Ne would eventually crumble and fill the valley with silt and sediment. Figuring that the mountains were approximately 240 ft (73 m) high, Harvey planned to construct a massive concrete obelisk and its capstone would remain above the debris. Archaeologist in the distant future would be able to dig down and find the monument[32] He called the project “The Pyramid” and dedicated the rest of his life to its construction.
There is so much more to the story; if you like eccentric characters with tragic ends you should take a few minutes to read his Wikipedia entry. (FYI, my great-grandfather, once the mayor of Rogers, was a good friend of the developer and helped finance his presidential run. It was some weird, probably right-wing, made-up party that never went anywhere, but does offer the distinction of hosting a presidential convention in Arkansas – the only one ever.)
We liked to hang out there, I think, largely because it was so isolated, and largely because we felt the creepy, decrepit structure gave our lives some poetic sensibility. Walking up on that hulking structure in the midst of a pitch-black night, with no light shining but the stars, is one of the more intimidating experiences of my life, probably. But we went there frequently, sometimes even parking our cars in a small lot in some trees nearby and sleeping in them overnight. We would occasionally start fires on the concrete floors, or go skinny-dipping in the moonlight. Or we might go there with someone special to make out or smoke and share our angsty poetry by flashlight.
It is the place I will probably associate most with being a teenager in Rogers. I went back this weekend to see my family and decided to drive down there and take some pictures of it. A thing like that never changes, except that some of the underground hotel rooms we used to hang out in were submerged because the water is so high right now. I got a little nostalgic, I won’t lie.
The place has always captured my imagination. Several years ago I wrote a full-length screenplay centered around it, called, originally, Monte Ne, which I am now half-heartedly adapting into a novel.
I took several more pictures which you can look at here, (in full-size, too) along with my pictures of my July 4th weekend with the fam!
When I was a little kid, one of my very favorite things to do was put on “concerts” where I would basically construct a “set list” of anywhere from 13-20 songs (including an encore) that I would compile into a mix tape and play, and then pretend that I was a performer giving a concert. These songs would be a mix of genders, but for the most part they were all songs by female artists. Yeah, George Michael would find his way in there somewhere, along with a ballad by White Lion or something. Sometimes my friend Jennifer would come over and we would pretend to be a singing duo group and sometimes fight over which songs we each got to perform at our concerts.*
But two of my very favorite songs to perform also happened to be two of my first cassingles, “Rush Hour” by Jane Wiedlin, and “Summer Rain” by Belinda Carlisle. Little did I know at the time that they both came from the Go-Go’s, which I only knew because of “Our Lips Are Sealed” anyway (my Go-Go’s obsession came much later in life). My favorite things about the Jane Wiedlin video are the dolphins she’s riding, and how she’s wearing a guitar but there’s no guitar in the song. And why is Belinda Carlisle wearing that big frumpy dress that makes her look like an eccentric art teacher at a rural elementary school?
We had a busy weekend. On Friday night we checked out a screening of Dirty Dancing, which also happened to be a “quote-along, sing-along, dance-along” performance. DD is one of my favorite movies (unironically) and Tom had never seen it. I was reticent to have him experience it for the first time in that environment, but as it turned out it was super fun, and it was maybe the perfect environment to experience such a ridiculous but also awesome movie for the first time.
Saturday we had to go get some renter’s insurance, then made a quick trip to the PSU farmer’s market, where we spent almost $20, and got the most delicious strawberries that ever existed. That evening we went to a friend’s housewarming party in the Pearl, and saw Food, Inc, which was shocking. Even after reading Michael Pollan, and Mark Bittman, and Eric Schlosser, there are images in that movie I’ll never forget. I’ve been toying lately with the idea of going vegetarian again anyway, and I think that movie finally pushed me over the edge. At least unless I buy the meat myself, and I get it from some friendly farmer at the farmer’s market. I can’t recommend the movie enough, even though it’s infuriating and depressing.
Today we had a leisurely morning and saw a $1 screening of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, which is one of Tom’s favorite movies, but I’d never seen it. How could I say no after he went to see Dirty Dancing with me? Plus, it sounded fun. Since we saw the extended version, I definitely thought it was too long, but I think most movies over 80 minutes are too long. I had a really good time, and thought it was hilarious, and that it looked gorgeous.
I realized today at one point when I was waiting for the train downtown that I feel really at home here. Strangely, what caused this epiphany is that I realized I know which trains are coming just by the way they’re color-coded, without having to read the signs, and I knew that the yellow train (“City Center”) coming my way wasn’t the one I needed. I can’t tell you how much I love living in a city that has “America’s Best Transit System” according to plaques on the trains. Despite all the rumors I’d heard about Portland’s great public transit, I was very nervous giving up my car, and felt like I was taking a real leap of faith, especially without ever even having been here. I’m glad it’s a leap that’s paid off (for the most part). Of course sometimes I still wish I had a car, but honestly, I rarely even think about it anymore, except when I want to leave town, and then it’s kind of a bummer. But then I think about how I don’t have to worry about gas prices (I saw a gas station yesterday as I was passing it in the streetcar, and was shocked to see that gas is up to $3 again), I don’t have to go get oil changes, I don’t have to pay insurance, and I don’t have to pay for costly repairs, or, even more importantly, freak out and panic when I realize I won’t have a car for days because it’s getting costly repairs. When I think about possibly leaving Portland in the next few years, I realize I will miss this aspect of this city more than anything else. And also maybe the fact that it’s the most beautiful city I’ve ever set foot in, completely engulfed as it is, by nature.
But I’m thinking about composing a whole post here soon about how my life has changed since going car-less, so I’ll save it. Until then, go crazy for some Swayze.
The “Good Friday” earthquake in Anchorage, Alaska is the largest earthquake in North American history, and the third largest earthquake in terms of richter size, in the history of the world (since earthquake records have been kept). It measured a 9.5 and shook the ground for over 4 straight minutes (compared to roughly 10 seconds or so for normal earthquakes).
It also caused tsunamis all the way down the coast to Northern California, where 12 people were killed; in Oregon, 4 children were swept off a beach; and a Canadian inlet, 55 houses were totally washed away.
Tsunami damage in Kodiak, Alaska
The Alaska quake was a subduction zone earthquake, which occurs when an ocean plate slides beneath a continental plate or another ocean plate. These produce the deadliest quakes (think the 2004 Indian Ocean quake). As it turns out, there is a subduction zone 50 miles off the coast of Oregon. Last time it unleashed a massive tremblor was in 1700, where it reportedly caused tsunamis in Japan. According to seismologists quoted in The Myth of Solid Ground: Earthquakes, Prediction, and the Fault Line Between Reason and Faith by David Ulin, which I’m obsessing over at the moment, this particular zone should blow off steam (i.e., produce a massive, devastating quake) every 200-500 years. If it were to happen now, it would completely wipe out the entire coast of Oregon.
As it turns out, there are three huge fault lines running underneath Portland, two of which are directly underneath downtown. One, the Portland Hills Fault, is about 6 blocks west of where Tom and I live. Scientists are unsure if any of these faults are even still active or have ever really produced substantial earthquakes, but they all agree that the Portland Hills Fault is the most likely to blow any time soon (in fact, they give it about a 10% chance of producing a sizable quake in the next 30 years). If it goes, the west hills would completely liquefy, and everything on them (all those million dollar homes precariously placed over the city on pencil-thin stilts) would come crashing into downtown, making a lot of people really unhappy. There was a fairly unpleasant earthquake in Portland in 1993, which shook residents out of their beds and damaged some buildings, but strangely, geologists aren’t sure where it came from. They all agree that there is a far greater chance of Portland being disturbed by earthquakes in Washington, as it was when Portland residents felt the richter 6.8 Seattle quake in 2001. And in 1949, there was a huge earthquake in Olympia that killed 11 residents there.
Damage from the 2001 Nisqually (Seattle) earthquake
I guess on Sunday I’ll be participating in a “Pride” celebration for the first time ever when I march with Pacific University in their annual representation in Portland’s Pride parade. I was pretty indifferent about it, but my friend Caryn, who doesn’t even go to school with me, wanted to volunteer at the festival anyway, so I suggested she march with us and she was all about it. Several of my classmates and professors are also attending to represent, so it should be fun. My classmate Carrie asked her 7-year-old son if he wanted to march in the parade and he got real excited, then the next morning at breakfast he was more ambivalent about it, and asked her, “What does gay mean?” So she told him in terms he could understand, he pondered it for a moment, then replied, “That makes sense.” And then got excited about being in the parade again. She’s raising a great boy.
It’s funny how all of the existential philosophers I’ve read any of over the past few months (Nietzsche, Sartre, and Ernest Becker) never talk about how to achieve happiness, but they do seem to talk a great deal about unhappiness, which seems to stem largely from a lack of meaning in one’s life. And of course unhappiness leads to all kinds of undesirable outcomes, especially when it’s wrapped up in an effort to deny one’s mortality in order to become infinite. From henceforth all the world’s evil and injustice flows, according to Becker.
It’s hard to be unhappy in a neighborhood as lovely as mine. Or maybe I’ve just finally achieved the meaning I’ve sought. People who go around harping about how happy they are all the time are some of the most insufferable people that exist, mostly because I don’t believe them. Or maybe it’s because I do believe them. Or maybe it’s just because they’re annoying. I don’t think “being happy” (an idea I actually find very distasteful) implies a lack of unhappiness in one’s life, it just implies balance, a dedication to reality, the maintaining of perspective, and the feeling of being useful.
I don’t think that’s so unreasonable. But damn, it sure is difficult most of the time. And naturally, as soon as one declares oneself “happy,” something hideous will happen to them. Life is nothing if not humbling.
But today I am happy, and I am fulfilled, and I have wine and ice cream in my belly, even if my shoulder has been aching all day from doing restraints on children at work yesterday. Back to work at 7am tomorrow. I can’t wait.
