Xenex

7 Deadly: 7 Ways to Have a "Good" Life

18 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

"Good" in this context means other than utter, soul-crushing madness.

For what it is worth from a novelist you probably do not know personally, here is my advice:

Partner well. Yes, I'm sure that fellow in the biker jacket, slamming beer cans against his head and yelling racial epithets at children, has a certain rustic charm. You are not stupid. You know you cannot change him and glare when reminded. You know it isn't romantic to think you can, however much media conflates love with suffering. However much you pretend you believe there cannot be affection without torture to earn it. I find it honestly regrettable that you find your stable friend - the one with a job, the one who doesn't beat you and insult you in front of his family - a bit dull. However, given that you hope to turn the "rebel" into the milquetoast through the power of your infatuation, perhaps we could call it even and you could spare yourself some time and much trouble? There are people out there with whom you will be better matched, even if you try to delude yourself that you prefer the challenge. I have been on both sides of this and know how agonizing it is when matched badly. And those relationships do end and almost always in the sort of explosion that leaves a crater and the flaming wreckage of your corpse. More seriously, I have to point out that relationships, even the best of them, require maturity, responsibility, and work. This work can either be the kind that you drag your ass to every day, griping the whole way (on which more soon) or the kind where you feel purposeful and fulfilled. This will require compromise. Yes, compromise on your part as well. Ideally, actually employ some logic to begin with and accept that you are not the exception to the rule. I'm sure it is a great lot of fun seducing people into cheating with you, but anyone who is willing to cheat with you is undoubtedly willing to cheat on you. Find someone you have no trouble speaking with, someone who doesn't bore you after you are done orgasming. If you can truly believe that this relationship can survive with its pants on, by all means, pursue longer lasting pantslessness. But please to not shag a succession of immature losers or put yourself in impossible and painful situations (which means, yes, you have to stop tupping married men because you "know they are capable of commitment" - yes, I have heard this) and expect this is ever going to result in happiness. Your full happiness won't ever be found in the arms and bedsheets of another person, but particularly not a person too busy loving someone else (either themselves, Superman, or their spouses) to ever love you.
Get a job you do not despise that pays you enough to live. This absolutely does not mean working a ninety hour a week job so you can have enough money to support your trophy wife (No! You skipped past the first point! Reread immediately!) and your seventh Rolls Royce. If you are working a job you hate solely for the bragging rights, I'm not impressed and you are not happy. No, the world cannot support nothing but buskers and painters, but there is a niche out there for you. Not everyone needs to be happy, so let them work themselves into an early grave to give their children (well, one is biologically theirs. The rest belong to the mailman, the pool boy, and the Jehovah's Witness) an inheritance that does not quite overshine their resentment. Your job will be one of those facets of your life that you have to face several days a week for the majority of your life. It is too important to let yourself vomit each morning because you are so disgusted with what you do.
Believe in something greater than yourself. I don't mean find Jesus behind the couch, necessarily. Just want something greater than your own happiness. Volunteer at a homeless shelter, tutor inner-city kids. You will be surprised how fulfilling not being a self-centered ass can be. If you are so miserable with your life that anything I am writing is striking home, you desperately need a distraction. Discovering a purpose to your life while thinking about anything other than the friend-with-benefits who gets all the benefits with none of the friendship or the third fast food job you've gotten yourself fired from this year can only make your life brighter. Just don't pretend you are a writer of supernatural fiction. That's my thing...
Have a creative outlet you allow yourself to indulge in as needed. Okay, fine, you can write. Expressing yourself, creating something lasting, carving out beauty from your pain, allows you to feel that you are being heard. It is the toiling in anonymity, feeling invisibly filed away in Section 8 housing, that invites despair. You will feel so much less alone, you will have another legitimate avenue to feed your self esteem, you will allow yourself to become more fully yourself. Seriously. I promise to read your blog or attend any open mic nights at which you are performing.
Cast off detritus to travel lightly. Yes, your breakup was horrible and your parents were bastards. Learn from it and move on. Do not make your life the altar of your revenge. You can't hurt them as much as they hurt you and any attempt to means you lost, that you are letting them cut you every day even though they have moved on. Stop losing, start living your life. Let go of hurt, let go of things you no longer need, your primordial identities that haven't really been you since the 90's. Stop attacking people because they are a friend of someone who hurt someone you know. This isn't middle school any longer.
Take time to be by yourself. You are the only person in your life that you cannot get rid of. Find out how to like yourself. Do things on your own with no expectations of company. Do things because you want to. This will teach you who you actually are and who you want to be without the magnetism of other people's mental impositions.
Drop the guilt/low self-esteem/etc. (I know how hard this is because I've faced it.) You weren't given a life so you could spend it hating your mother for calling you ugly. It sucks, I acknowledge it fully. I work with children who were underestimated and neglected and it cripples them. Now that we have both put our finger on the issue, get the hell over it. Seek therapy if you need to, but stop living you life feeling horrible. You aren't going to get another chance and you are wasting your time. The amount of energy you expend feeling like crap is considerably more than it would take to feel like a glorious member of the human race. So why do it? It isn't true. If you have the insight to feel terrible, you obviously have the mental faculties to realize the truth.

Xenology: Sees His Shadow

08 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST


It's true, you know.

"I am going to hide in the closet now," I inform Amber. "And possibly cry. I haven't decided."

Retreating to rooms, momentarily pretending to prevent the other's entry, had been our game since yesterday. She would step outside without shoes, I would bolt the door until she tried the knob. She would dart into the bedroom and sit in front of the door to prevent entrance. It was a childish metaphor in action, a physical statement of "never forget, I am capable of shutting you out... but I don't want to."

I don't know why it is the closet I retreat to of all places, except why not the closet? It is dark and confined, a part of our apartment yet not one of its rooms. There is a reason that children assume monsters dwell in closets and the pubescent literati know it is the gateway to magic lands. I write in our closet sometimes, sequestered from distractions of the living room (overfull of screens), the bedroom (with dozens of sets of prying plastic eyes and the dual seduction of the bed), or the bathroom (which has a toilet and is therefore not where one should craft much).

She pushes her way in as I know she will, as I want her to even if I won't say it. This is a last stand of sorts and she will not have her role go to the understudy water heater.

"Why are you going to cry?" she asks, shutting the door behind her. I flop onto the floor and she sits more carefully across from me.

"I don't know. And I do. We both do." Things have been off between us for days. It is nothing that would have been perceptible to an outside observer. We have not fully treated the other person with the full extent of our loving kindness, which is one of the core aspects of our relationship. It has partly to do with a negative feedback loop, her hormones echoing against my stress. Partly, it is growing pains of living together.

We talk as we have not been doing.

"There is such an inner compatibility," I say, meshing my fingers together invisibly for the dark, "that we can operate on automatic most of the time. A little joke here and there instead of addressing one another as we actually are. Then we are so far away and we've missed out on the experience of being together. It gets superficial and that is the last thing we should be. I got so irritable yesterday, I think, because we spent hours trying and failing to beat that level on Left 4 Dead. This unseasonably beautiful day with the woman I love and I felt like we weren't even in the same building."

"You can tell me you don't want to play," she reminds me gently.

"I know that. I do. I am telling you now, too late to rescue the day but still. It's just a symptom anyway," I say. There is a silence broken only by my sniffling. After a minute, I rally my thoughts and continue, "I feel like I forget your depths."

I can't see beyond a faint outline of her face, but I hear her voice thicken and deepen with tears I hazard to kiss away, though I am not positive I deserve the honor. "I do too," she says. "I'm really good at hiding them under a laugh."

"I know that feeling," I reply. "God, do I know it. For the longest time, I was the actor playing the role of me in my life, but nothing was real. I wasn't me, I wasn't letting myself live because I would have had to change so many things in my life to... to live authentically. Emily's leaving helped kick that into gear... You know, I always get left. Part of me is still ready to come home to you packing your bags."

"I always get left too. I won't leave you, not ever. Living with you is such a good thing."

I joke, "You mean not living at home?"

"I mean living with you. Not living with my mom, that too, but this is the step I needed. A step with you."

"It is a step for me, too. It's been so long since I lived with someone... and I get so paranoid that you are going to become annoyed with me because I leave you with so many dishes when I go to work, that you end up doing a lot of the work around the apartment while I am somewhere else. Then I come home and I just want to be with you and let it slip from my mind that I should vacuum. I don�t want the inequity in housework to be an issue between us.�

I think she shakes her head at me, but it is difficult to be certain. "You work. You are the one who earns us money so we can even have a closet to be talking in. It�s okay, I don�t mind cleaning. And I probably don�t do it as much as you think I do. This won�t ever be a problem."

On a roll, I discuss my fears, my insecurities. "I think sometimes that... that you will leave if I don't want children. Because I don't right now and I can't promise I will. I think my disinclination to have children was a factor in Emily's leaving me. Far from the top of the list, but it was there. Even getting into this relationship, I knew we had this fundamental disagreement. You want babies."

"We could have hedgehogs," she offers.

"Don't joke," I admonish, but crack a smile. "I don't want you to resent me because I am holding you back from eventual motherhood."

"You aren't. I won't resent you. I love you."

"And I love you," I say, feeling it more keenly than I have in days, "but I need to say these things. For days, you have been repeatedly asking if I am breaking up with you. I know all those times were ostensibly jokes, but I heard what you were saying beneath the words. I'm not. Not ever, if I can help it."

"We can help it."

We turn on the light and it is so bright after so long staring into the darkness that I feel for a moment blind, aching in a literal sense for the comfort of the dark.

Xenology: House a Home

28 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST


A welcomed sight

I cried to Amber when I left my old apartment behind. She entwined her fingers in mine and let me vent.

In itself, I am glad to be rid of that place. It had black mold in the ceiling from a conspicuous lack of maintenance and pernicious stinkbugs that liked few things more than dying on my window sills. It was entirely too small, though it served as a decent quasi-monastic cell for a few years (alone, I do not need much more than a bed, bathroom, and space enough to write). I never had fewer than two humane mouse traps active at any time and lived in constant fear of a resurgence of bedbugs. The complex had uncanny luck for attracting the most stereotypically annoying neighbors such that most earned derisive nicknames within days, such as The Dealer and Child Abuser Barbie.


You're breaking out in sweat!

Still, it was in that second story hovel that I learned my cherished independence after a lifetime of codependence and abandonment issues. It housed the only time in my life that no one relied on me and I answered to no one. Most of my relationship with Melanie took place in its walls, for good and ill. It was the only home I have had on my own and I managed it even on the edge of penury. It would not be a gross mischaracterization to consider it akin to a cocoon from which I have since emerged, transformed if a bit nostalgic.

As I cried, Amber and I drove to our new apartment, the barely carved block(ed with cardboard boxes) that I was supposed to somehow understand as home. This psychologically feat alone seemed daunting, especially as there were so many external factors begging to be reconciled. It felt I had traded a cramped space on my own for a cramped space with my arguably still new lover who might need more than I would be able to give.


Like a wee bird

I had, both from necessity and inclination, grown accustomed to a large proportion of private time. Though Amber does not require me to entertain her, the fact remains that we would live in close quarters at least until I am made full time/Amber finds a job. She would almost always be no farther than the bedroom. As a Writer, solitude is my canvas. (Though, more precisely, downtime during work or when I am in a public place with appropriate distraction is my true canvas. When granted solitude, I generally exercise or waste far too much time on the internet.) I try not to focus much energy on the notion, but could not ignore the niggling worry that this cohabitation could go spectacularly wrong if we are not supremely compatible and respectful of one another.

Yet I almost immediately find that living with Amber brings many unconsidered joys: opening the front door to her gleefully cataloging new clays on the floor by surrounding herself with dozens of newly baked discs, our wandering to discover the landscape of our new town and stumbling upon both strange graffiti against the scenic vista and Moonies, her habit of perching in a tiny chair while working on her computer, how happy she is to kill zombies with me on video games (and how well we work together to banish the infected from our path), her single-minded focus while playing Dance Dance Revolution in a bra and jeans, that paintbrushes adorn our bathroom and kitchen sink.


Really, artists leave their droppings everywhere.

She toiled tirelessly to unpack and decorate while I worked for weeks so that, every time I returned, it looked a bit more like we belong here. I won't deny that I did half jokingly ask her once, a week into living together, when it was that she planned on going home. She replied that she was home and I could not disagree. Soon, it is hard to imagine that I ever did without her because she has so subtly overwritten my need to solitude.

I was willing to see what this might bring, in part because of my pride. I wanted to prove to myself that I could, by my effort alone, provide a life spacious enough to fit two. It did not much matter who the other person was, so long as she did not bother me too much as I pursued my private passions. It would have to be a girlfriend, I knew, and I had assumed for years that it would be Melanie - who will never be in the financial position to have to depend on anyone who does not share half of her chromosomes. I could enumerate the virtues and flaws that made her seem sensible, but they boiled down to the fact that Melanie and I did not need one another and I increasingly felt a need to prove myself worthy.


We did not get eaten by Moonies at this time.

I don't know that Amber needs me, though I do not recall having ever been surer that someone loves me. She still has her bedroom in her mother's house, untouched if a bit emptier. She has a safety net. Similarly, as she pays none of the apartment bills, I do not need her in any material sense. This allows for a purity to our arrangement, as we are here together because we wish to be.

Her mother questioned Amber whether she sufficiently earns her keep and - while I do not exactly keep a ledger in my mind - I can't imagine that anyone who had seen us together could doubt it. Without effort, everything seems to get done. When I was recently so ill I could not stand, Amber cuddled against me and read The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making to me until the cramping subsisted. We have our symbiosis, even if she jokes that one of the reasons she loves me is that I let her live in my apartment and insist on calling it ours. She also admits that she is the crucial factor that makes this a home and not merely a place to live.

Xenology: No Time for Principles

22 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST


Merrill

Daniel and his Canadian companion Eva say their goodbyes well before midnight on New Year's Eve. They, with Merrill in tow, had arrived to Tom's party less than an hour prior. None of them actually knew Tom, after all, though it turned out Daniel had a few coincidental associations among the other guests, none strong enough to overrule spending the rest of the night alone with Eva. I just told Eva that it was a pleasure to meet her (it was, albeit so briefly) and wished Daniel a nice night, since it is not for me to dictate the New Year's Eve plans of adults.

At least, this is true in principle, but New Year's Eve in no time for principles.

Merrill does not leave with them, as I have assured Daniel - to the extent he cares - that I can get her home. I drink no more than a few sips of champagne all night and therefore make for a damn fine designated driver.

Merrill chats with a man whose name I willfully let slip from my mind, but whom I will call "Moose"� for the sake of convenience. Moose, I am certain in context I miss, says that he has never had balls on his chin. Merrill parries this by noting this means he is heterosexual, then gives the point, "But are you single?"�

He is, he admits.

I turn from lovingly tormenting Amber - who I may be liquoring up with Jack and Cokes for my own entertainment - and say, "Wow, may I offer the slow clap here?"�

Merrill has been officially dumped in the last few days, though the breakup was one of those prolonged affairs that ran the gamut of social networking statuses. When last I thought to check earlier in the week, she was complicated and he, Henry, was merely single. When I checked before leaving for the party, prior to gussying myself up to suit the demands of a supposedly formal party (after finally allowing Amber reprieve enough from my affection to dress herself in a stunning and frilly blue number), she was single and he, quite notably, was not. Given this - and the fact that Tom's party had an open invite - I could hardly let the poor girl spend such an evening alone.

When she came in, she admitted that she had never before been to a party, which is one of those statements which practically begs for her to be badgered with questions. This is a party, though, and badgering is hardly festive.

I admit to not knowing Merrill well. She is above an acquaintance - we can talk, even if we do not make a habit of it when we are mutually out of personal distress - but I would not call her a friend. We may have first connected around the time of my breakup with Emily, because I was given to harassing people on dating websites for reasons no more in depth than potential friendship. It was contact enough that I recognized her and addressed her by her screen name when she met Daniel, Hannah, Melanie, and me for a salty lunch years ago. (It made sense; I met those three on the same site as I met her.) Merrill was perhaps more Daniel's friend then as now; they had apparently gone on a few dates that came to nothing more. As can be judged from the occasional photos she posts of him wearing pink feathered boas, he trusts and cares for her. With a few exceptions, I have ample cause to have confidence in his judgment.


A good crew

Despite and because of this specific lack in our emotional intimacy, I feel protectively toward Merrill and know even in the moment that I am projecting. In her shoes - to the extent I can imagine them given that this is the second time I have seen her - I know how vulnerable I would be feeling, how inclined I would be to stifle that voice in my head that says this is a bad idea for that cloying demon that reminds me that I have just be expelled from a relationship and aren't I entitled to a bit of a tumble (metaphorically or literally)? Merrill is an adult, I must assume she can take care of herself. And, though I know it might have seemed nearly indistinguishable from quixotic chivalry from the outside, this is not my attempt at white knighting. I do not believe that Merrill is in any way weak owing to the congenital deficiency of having a vagina. (Trust me, I adolesced alongside Buffy. Women kick just as much ass as men.)

She reports that he squeezes her into a sloppy and slightly presumptuous kiss at the stroke of midnight. She seems pleasantly baffled by this, as though wondering if this behavior was commonplace at parties. It is, at least, commonplace where there are attractive and flirty woman, alcohol, and men who see an excuse to steal kisses. I know, I've been such a man on such night.


But I go home with her

After midnight, as I note Moose's hands taking liberties that are improper not only because Merrill is freshly out of a relationship and he does not even know her surname but because he is in the middle of the party and being not even a little subtle, I suggest to Merrill that it is night about time we should be getting her home.

She looks at Moose. "No, I think I'll stay."

I glance at Amber, quickly conferring. "No," I say, "I think it would really be better if you were to come with us. Now. Please." I throw Moose a conciliatory smile, hoping he will loosen his grip on her inner thigh.

"He'll bring me home, won't you?" she very nearly coos to him. He, a bit ruddy with inebriation, agrees. Merrill then locks eyes with me, since I think she knows what I am attempting. "Don't worry."

But I do worry. I back off and ask Amber what we should do, since staying at the party to babysit someone who insists she does not require our services as chaperone or chauffeur is not how I intend to spend the remainder of my night. We decide that our duty is not to watch her get pawed, but that I will be antsy if I do not alert someone to the situation. I tentatively ask around until I am directed to a room of various partygoers, all of whom are tipsy at the absolute least. I explain the situation to Tom and then, to better suit the level of coherence of a room full of the appropriately drunk, break it down a bit. "Merrill got dumped yesterday. Technically, two days ago, since it's after midnight. I don't know her especially well, but I think I would be... not exactly in my right mind... in her position."

"So, you want us to cock block him?" Tom asks.

"I was more thinking of it as babysitting... Actually, yes. Cock block. She should not go home with him."

There is some amused hemming and hawing, some men asserting that the bond of testicular brotherhood mean that they are forbidden from directly preventing a fellow male from scoring with what seems to be an easy lay. I am instead pointed to the hostess, who knows the Moose in question, though it is implied they are not on good terms.

"So this is Tom's friend?" Kat asks.

"No," I reply sheepishly. "Her friend Daniel brought her, but he left hours ago. Tom doesn't even know Merrill. Once we leave, she will basically be on her own, but I think that's a bad idea. I wanted someone else to keep on eye on her."

"If her friend left her like that, she is on her own. I'm not interfering."

In concept, I can't disagree with that argument. And after midnight on New Year's, I am not starting 2012 by subverting the free will of others lubricated by alcohol, especially at the expense of getting home to my warm, cozy bed with my warm, cozy girlfriend.

Xenology: Applying Restraint

12 Jan 2012 00:00:00 EST


This helps a lot.

I have spent the day learning and performing how to execute therapeutic holds, how to cuff children efficiently, how to repel clumsy attacks with irresistible force. This is perhaps a part of my job, though as a teacher, I would just as soon leave the regular exploitation of these skills to the omnipresent guards in my facility.

Muscles I forgot I had are sore and I realize how this job creates, from necessity, compartmentalized versions of me. The self that works in this facility needs to use muscles other than the one between his ears - and despite the appearance I cultivate, I do have functional muscles under my sweaters and jeans. He is guarded, implying he has a life outside the locked sets of doors but going no further than that. He leaves this job behind him when he walks out the door, when he gets his car keys back, when he again steps into the fresh air and realizes he has missed a snow squall in his hours of voluntary confinement for a paycheck. His overreaching thought while behind these locked doors with adjudicated minors is that he gets to go home at the end of the day. They do not, so nothing they can do short of physical violence bothers him. His best response is the outside door clicking shut at 3:30. (I do not mean to imply that - for their various offenses - I see the residents as other than boys whose needs I cannot hope to adequately meet in the half a year the court mandates they spend in this facility. Some of them would have been happy and law abiding given a different environment and I have yet to meet the boy beyond redemption.)

Then I drive the few minutes back to my messy apartment, where Amber is waiting. I vent for all of five minutes before we make preparations for dinner, chat about irrelevancies, or cuddle with a movie. What I do to give us this home has no place within its doors. I would rather keep the purity of this respite. It is returning home to her that pulls me through my days, especially those days when I am being trained in skills I hope I never have to use, even as the muscles in my back can still remember dozens of hands pushing me down and my wrists bear scrapes from the inexpert application of ten sets of handcuffs.

Xenology: Hierarchy of Need

07 Jan 2011 00:00:00 EST


This helps.

Amber and I go to Jacki's Die Hard Christmas party, which is to say that we go to Jacki's home and, in exchange for some tasty bread and a beverage, eat copiously of the potluck and watch Bruce Willis in his best role (aside from criminally underappreciated Unbreakable). We cannot stay long - this is the weekend we go from living in our respective homes to living together in Red Hook - but it is hardly an event we are wont to miss. Supposedly, Die Hard is a Christmas movie. By that metric, so is Rent in that it makes mention of the holiday. I am not about to indulge that level of foolishness. Unless Santa, Frosty, Rudolph, the Grinch, or Gizmo features in a supporting role, the film evades Christmas Movie classification.

The movie (and the fact it is not a Christmas movie) is not the cause for this entry. As we the partygoers chat and eat in the hours before the movie begins - which is almost always what happens at Jacki's parties and one of the reasons I love them - I feel strangely able to talk. More exactly, I feel capable of acknowledging I know things, that I have thoughts and opinions, that my expressing them improves the silence. It was not that I consciously repressed myself previously as that there was an unspoken and unrealized deficit in my ego that of late has seemingly been remedied.

Further, as I sit in the living room speaking with Jacki, I must cast a wistful glance toward Amber in the kitchen where she is participating in - not dominating, not silently judging, not counting the minutes until she can have me to herself again - her own conversations.

I turn back to Jacki, who has a grin. "What? I like her," I say.

"I can tell. I like her, too."

"She is... nice to be with. It's easy. We're both independent, but somehow independent together. She has herself figured out. I don't have to worry about keeping her entertained, but I trust she is. I don't remember the last time I was with someone where I did not feel like I was surmounting the odds." I don't say, because I don't feel I need to, that it has been as long since I felt my friends as a whole approved of my partner.

It was not until days later when I stumbled upon something for work - a bit of educational theory I had read and discussed a dozen times before without sufficient absorption - that it all came into focus via Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Need. According to this theory, one cannot consider higher needs until lower ones are sated. More plainly, someone who cannot trust they will have food, shelter, and clothing is unable to really care about safety. Once reliably fed and watered, one might then turn one's mind to this problem but then, until the need for safety is satisfied, one doesn't care about belonging (we are still a tribal species). Then comes ego satisfaction (liking oneself with good cause) and subsequently self-actualization (being the best one can be). Different levels have be slotted into the pyramid by various people throughout the years or the current ones were subdivided as adherents and detractors saw fit, but these are the five with which I am most familiar.

Suddenly, and for the first time in recent memory, I find myself articulate and whole, with sets of worries extinguished in a flash. I have the love of a good woman whose consistent moods are dictated primarily by reason, I have a job in my field at which I perform well. For several years, I knew that I was living from paycheck to paycheck or with the assistance of government programs. Should I catch some illness that sufficiently derailed my health - a distinct possibility as a high school substitute teacher and something that nearly occurred once - I would have found myself begging to family and friends for the means to continue to pay rent. A few times, I went without buying groceries for a few weeks so as to make sure I would be able to meet my financial obligations because a school holiday fell in the wrong place on my pay cycle. It whittled at me. Now, the background processes concerned with fretting have be freed up for more constructive cognitive uses.

With such an underlying and persistent threat to my security, there were parts of my life that remained in stasis or undeveloped, particularly my ego satisfaction. (And, for far too long, I struggled with attachment issues - belongingness - as the core of my self worth; if I was not someone's lover, then what was I for?) As friends and family will no doubt admit, I did not attach appropriate importance to getting published as it did not pay enough to supplant teaching as my means of making ends meet. When Melanie threatened the security of our relationship for over half a year, I took it particularly hard as it was one more aspect of my life that I could not seem to control despite my best efforts. I won't be so patronizing as to imply that I regressed to the mindset of one who lives on the streets, but I find it undeniable that I was not letting myself self-actualize. I could not provide for myself consistently despite my best efforts, therefore I was insufficient despite my stated accomplishments, even as I could intellectualize that my failings had more to do with the economic downturn.

The Hierarchy of Need is situational and not developmental. Just because one has in the past felt ego satisfaction or belongingness, it did not mean that the wrong jolt could not knock them down the pyramid a level or more. There is a saying that society is only a few missed meals from chaos. This is why. Our progress, our security, our very sense of self is predicated on external factors that can prove decidedly fragile. Most of us - myself indubitably included - have only so much psychological buttressing available to us before the external affects the internal in a way that can feel both dire and permanent. Then, we scrabble as best we can until our needs are met and we can again try for the summit.

Xenology: To Red Hook

30 Dec 2011 00:00:00 EST

Despite having found an apartment Amber and I both like (if not love), this move rattles me.

Moving to Jo-anna's three years ago was relatively easy because I had known I had a deadline in Amenia from the moment I took the job there. This deadline was something I looked forward to daily (though I had then assumed I would be starting a new life with my wife by my side). Yes, there was a bit of scrabbling at the last moment, but everything worked out in the end. Frankly, any move away from Amenia was one toward sanity and sense, even though my time with Jo-anna lasted only a bit over a month.

Moving to Fishkill shortly after - rushed by Jo-anna's family losing their house - seemed simple in comparison with my present move. I was barely unpacked. I had my editorial gig by then and felt as though my life was settling into a form I could better handle.

I more than admit that there is a much in this move to Red Hook that is good: we are right in town, I will live with Amber (who I wish were here tonight because I have been dealing with days of stress-induced insomnia and I sleep with her head on my chest), it is a fairly cultural small town given its proximity to Bard College, it is close to my job (on which more presently). Yet I was comfortable in the life I was leading (even though I know that one of the healthiest things one can do with such comfort is to smash it). Aspects of that life felt effortless, even if I fretted over chasing away poverty in a very real way. My subbing and tutoring was so easy that I could do it without thinking, instead devoting my cognitive energies to my writing. Owing largely to having to focus on packing up boxes and make plans for moving and work, this is my most writing I have done in days.

I do want this move, but I feel for days as though I am emotionally muzzled from expressing hesitations aloud. I don't want Amber to feel I am getting cold feet. When I do get around to expressing this to her, she assures me that she understands my feelings - at least those I am able to express - and has been trying to keep strong and steady both for me and her mother (who, despite having rid herself of Amber while she was at college, may be suffering from a bit of early onset Empty Nest Syndrome). Things need to get done and that will not happen if she falls to as many pieces as I feel I am. She, however, does not have as many people as I do to act as a sounding board for her, aside from the women in her circle (who cannot quite relate to what she is experiencing, as many of them are old enough to have given birth to her).

Everything feels like a struggle and I get no mental down time to sort through them all (least of all at work. From 7:30 to 3:30, I am left alone for fewer than three or four minutes at a time, even having to attend meetings during my lunch). I began to cry tonight, when driving Amber back to her house with my car full of another load of boxes. I find my job psychologically awkward, knowing that 90% of the boys end up back in our facility or worse and I am asked at least once daily how long I intend to work there. On the surface, the residents are no worse than the special ed kids I dealt with at my old job, but I feel underutilized. I am a great teacher and I am (according to some at the facility) now babysitting minors adjudicated guilty of felonies - though I try not to know the nature of my charges' crimes so as to be able to help them without personal prejudice. I told Amber that, if I defined myself primarily as a teacher instead of a writer who needs to meet his bills somehow, I do not think I could stay long at this job. I wish I were teaching motivated students at a liberal prep school, but I will cope with this.

Despite all this, were this job were close to my current apartment, I know I would not be so ill at ease now. I could have a month at this job to get acclimated and accrue some monetary security before endeavoring to get a new apartment and move in with Amber.

I concede this could have been so much worse. Not long ago, I worried I was going to have to get a job out of state to keep my head above water financially. While I am certain Amber would have been up for it, we will only be twenty-five minutes from her mother's home and a bit under an hour from where I currently live.

I know all this will ease as I adjust to my job duties and my days stop feeling like interminable interstitial moments between two lives. I will come to adapt to this until it feels this is the only life I have ever led. I know this task before me is hardly the worst I have faced and I am far too experienced to let it bother me for long. Many would doubtless balk at the population with which I am to deal professionally (as I might balk at those residents in a more secure facility). As Melanie puts it when I write much of this to her: "I would even go so far as to say that this ability to wade through the chaos and irrationality of others while still being able to make sense of things is part of what makes you such a good storyteller. You can become part of a place (real or imagined) without letting it take over you, and without getting sucked in beyond the point of analysis and self-reflection. You are, in other words, perpetually intact. Still, you ARE susceptible to being rattled around, which is what's happening now. Let yourself rattle; trust that you will pull through, and call upon that trust when you feel like you can't cope at present."

Xenology: Measuring in Standard Ambers

25 Dec 2011 00:00:00 EST


One Standard Amber.

We huddle against a wooden fence in Rhinebeck, clutching our paper sacks protectively. Given that the Sinterklaas parade is still twenty minutes from beginning, Amber and I begin to eat our feast of bagel sandwiches and tater tots, the quickest food we could rustle up among the frigid throng.

"You are warm. Very warm," she says, squeezing my arm as if to induce me to release more body heat to keep her toasty.

"Homeostasis," I say, then lift my Styrofoam cup to my lips. "And free hot cider. That helps."

A woman passes my current sight line who has managed to fit a size ten ass into a size five skirt, so I ask Amber, "What do you think would be the worst song to request at a wedding? I'm thinking 'Fat Bottom Girls'."

"'You're Having My Baby'?" she guesses without a pause.

"What about 'Dude Looks Like a Lady'?"

Given that I have just spent so long reading Ender's Game to Amber at her craft fair that my throat is sore, I am feeling keenly fond. I feel, perhaps without sufficient justification, that today provided a fair glimpse of what our life will be like once we move in together by the end of the month. Though I had tried to experimentally provoke panic at this significant step after having known one another less than half a year, it will not take. She feels overwhelmingly right and makes this new life I am entering into feel all the easier. I feed her a tater tot and cuddle against her more.

The next day, we carry boxes to my car. I have been purloining cardboard boxes from a liquor store to pack up those possessions I do not currently need. My living room - and there is little more to my current apartment but living room - is stacked three feet deep. I try to leave the lighter boxes for her - those full of a stuffed Cthulhu or random closet junk rather than those packed with books - but Amber is too eager to be helpful, so she hoists those that strain her. Within twenty minutes, my apartment is nearly bereft of books and my car must weight at least three hundred pounds more (and feels every ounce of it). My apartment does not look much emptier and will not for another week of packing and transporting. I do not yet feel a weight (three hundred pounds of it) lifted off my shoulders.

We drive straight to Germantown with our load. A landlady called earlier in the day and said her husband could meet us in a few hours. We have found that most of the complexes in the area are outside our likely price range thanks to the proximity to a private college and so have turned to Craigslist. We search maps to figure out how many miles there are between my new job and any potential home, as I do not have snow days.

I find it curious that everything is now fixated on a single imaginary pin: where I have been hired. In the past, I considered potential jobs based on whether they would pull me further from my partner (Melanie primarily, as Emily was a bit more flexible and autonomous). Now I have a partner who is portable, who looks to begin an adult life with me (albeit an adult life within a couple of dozen minutes from her mother) wherever works best for us. She has no job but artist and is well finished with her collegiate education.

I am briefly infatuated with this first apartment because I see it through the eyes of one who has spent the last three years in a studio apartment that fell apart (one that I am positive has a black mold problem in the walls because my former landlord refused to fix obvious water damage and gaping holes in the ceiling, deciding to leave these for the company to whom he sold out). Amber sees it through the eyes of someone who presently lives in a house and thus finds this space cramped. For $50 less than I wanted to spend only on rent, we would get a partially furnished one bedroom with all utilities taken care of. And, yes, there is a part of me that simply wants this process over as quickly as I can manage it. I had initial terror that I had to move at all, nagging worry that I would not be able to find an apartment that is close enough to my job and in our price range. It seemed so massive a task to have to perform while acclimating to a new job, but there is no other way. This apartment more than satisfies my basal needs, even if it is obvious the landlord presumes I am eighteen and in need of parental supervision.

When he shows us the view from the backyard, seventy acres of forest ending at the Hudson River with only the Catskill Mountains blocking the horizon, I do my best to keep composed and not hand him all my money. He gives us paperwork and, just as we get in the car, we receive a call about another apartment twenty minutes away.


A fine cabin to be axe murdered.

We arrive at Apartment Two and I am startled for a moment that it is not an apartment. No, it is a cabin. A self-enclosed building with a roof and no other residents. It had not occurred to me that this would be an option, let alone for $105 less than our top rent.

A woman - not the landlord - shows us around the building. She details that the only thing included is well water, every other utility would be our responsibility. When I press her as to the presumed cost of heating this cabin, she becomes cagey and refuses to divulge. She explains that a tree recently fell on the roof and they are still cleaning up the floor, which she assures us she had just waxed and washed despite the dirt. She mentions that the lawn would be ours and therefore our responsibility for mowing, which is to say that she will do it for $20 a week. She leaves us to wander about it at our leisure while we fill out a rental application. Amber will not say whether or not she especially likes this place, but it certainly is roomy. As she writes, I begin taking pictures of the dimensions, then of the damage and flaws I see (mold, broken plaster, no doors on the top cabinets, plywood drawers on the bottom, nothing but rotten boards for the front and back porch). Though there is talk of there being a boat in the back we can use, I am reticent given how much work this place would plainly need, work the landlord had obviously felt unnecessary before having this woman show it off.

We are momentarily stymied as to our next move, which turns into going to the center of Red Hook and checking the corkboards outside any grocery store or cafe. As we do, I point out to Amber where bits of my books have taken place. "That's the gas station where Roselyn calls the police, that's the White Rabbit Cafe in the story, over there is the Red Hook Diner--"

"That vampires run," she adds.

"Yes, though possibly not really. And that is Shane's apartment."

"So, we could live in Shane's apartment?" she asks.


One Standard Amber.

"In theory."

"Have you ever been inside of it?"

I look up at the window. "Once. My friend Sarah lived there. I think it looks vaguely as I described it. It has been a while."

The corkboards end up being dead ends, since we are not looking to replace or find pets or attend classes in vegan cookery. The wandering is not, as we pass a couple of "For Rent" signs, all of which I promptly call.

Night is drawing in and I am due at a meeting for an anthology project in a couple of hours. I buy Amber dinner at the Apple a Day Diner and try to process.

As the waitress brings us the check, she asks if she can get us anything else.

"Yes, actually," I say. "Do you live in an apartment? If so, do you like your landlord?"

She reports that she does for both and, in short order, produces the landlady's phone number. I look at it and instantly recognize it as one we had already called in our wandering. I leave a big tip for the help.

The landlady - who seems to rent out half the buildings in town - calls the next day and says she has a one bedroom in town, but can only show it when I am working. This means that she can only show it to Amber and I will have to trust my lover to judge it well enough.

Days later, the land lady leaves the apartment over for me to see with Amber. It is not too small, not too far from anything much, nor too likely to fall apart during our occupancy. I ask Amber if she likes it.

"Sure. I guess," she says.

"Not good enough," I state. "We have to live here for a while and there is no heat and hot water included. I need you to be confident."

"Yes, I like it," she clarifies.

"Say you love it."

"I like it," she maintains.

"Fine, then. That will do." I begin to plan where our things will go and make my girlfriend stand in corners that I may measure in units of Standard Ambers. We have our first apartment and I wish this meant I felt the weight lifting, but I know this is only the beginning.

Xenology: Floating Aloft

06 Dec 2011 01:00:00 EST

I am not certain what to expect from Kelley's memorial service. I assume it is not a funeral, that he will be there in spirit but not in body. I hope this is the case, at least, as his corpse is not an experience I feel I need. I am not sure of the etiquette of terms - funeral, wake, memorial service - because I have gone only to a couple of these. People online had been speaking of Kelley's Catholicism - that he was so devout that he refused to dress up as a zombie for a zombie Easter party (instead, he dressed as an ostensibly post-mortem Judas and told everyone that he was the reason they were all there) - but this was not a facet of his personality I was ever given occasion to encounter. The vast majority of my prior association with Kelley took place as we tried to terrify the paying public. Theology did not play much of a part in our discussions.

On the drive to the Calvary Chapel, I feel anxiety that expresses itself through urges toward road rage. I understand that this is what is going on and to not let it get the better of me (even if the person in front of me is driving with their hazards on, ten miles below the speed limit, on a road where it is impossible to pass them legally, rather than pulling over and letting the twenty cars behind them go). I meet Amber in a dusty parking lot outside a building that in no way seems holy. She is surrounded by mourners, which is to say "people in black clothing". The demeanor of those in the parking lot, while slightly subdued, is still closer to amusement than anguish.

Amber, dressed in khakis and a black top, is there only for me. She did not know Kelley and had no occasion to have ever met him, since I was too poor to take us to the Haunted Mansion this year. I did not ask her to be there, but she offered to join me when I mentioned I would be going to the service. I was at the very least relieved that she opted to join me, but I was not going to ask her. (Though more precisely, I was overwhelmed with love and appreciation that my girlfriend was willing to sacrifice an evening to be in an awkward social situation with me rather than allow me to languish alone in discomfiture.)

The assembled throng agrees that this parking lot, adjoining what they assure us is a hockey rink, is likely not the right location however much the address assure us otherwise. We spy a sign for the chapel and trudge down the long driveway. People around us crack jokes about how tricking us into meeting at the wrong location would have been what Kelley would have wanted and how the lack of an obituary could all be a part of a massive practical joke. I squeeze Amber's hand, which I have placed inside my capacious coat pocket as defense against the chill of the night, hoping to convey something to her, though I don't in the moment know quite what. I cannot focus fully on anything but the moment, her hand in mine, the cold.

When we find the chapel, I am astounded to see how beyond full the parking lot is. Could they all be here for the memorial service? It does not seem possible. When I went to Emily's father's funeral, the funeral home was packed, but that would have only accounted for one hundred people at the most. This parking lot implies fivefold as many mourners.

We make our way into the building, the air heavy with evaporating tears and a dense silence. I shake hands with and hug people who I have never before seen in anything but shrouds, masks, and latex prostheses. "These people should be dripping blood from every orifice," I whisper to Amber. "Then I would know who I was hugging." Indeed, some people are referred to only by appellations such as "Scary Guy" and "Devil Boy", even if said in somber tones.

We are ushered into a carpeted room that is packed beyond capacity, eventually being directed to seats in the second row, just behind the band. The pastor gets on the microphone and asks if the church family - those who are members of this chapel but not expressly biological family or Kelley's friends - would kindly move to a secondary room to make space for truer mourners. I hear some shuffling, but the view behind us looks no roomier.

This space is vast and seems as though it could accommodate over four hundred in comfort. Later, I will be quoted the figure of a thousand mourners, but I do not know how accurate that is. There is a raised stage, on which the pastor, a couple of guitars, a keyboard, and several mic stand sit. On either side of the stage are six-by-five foot screens projecting a picture of Kelley smiling in his slightly goofy way. In the back, someone is thanked for volunteering his time to do lights and sound for this service. The few church services I have ever attended - weddings, funerals, Christmas - have been markedly more austere.

Kelley's father and mother grace the stage at the pastor's request. His father talks about the parts of Kelley I know, the man who could charm a raging bull into docility, the one who made friends of everyone, the man with the heart of a child to whom kids flocked. To this last point, his family is gathering donations in Kelley's name to provide Christmas gifts to those children in need. He says how, in watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, he was reminded of Kelley. He is the balloon held aloft, but all of us are the connection that keep him anchored to this world. He seems composed, almost peaceful, in a way I am certain I would not be. He then speaks of Kelley's religious side, something the pastor will detail almost to the exclusion of anything else, how Kelley had wanted to be a committed member of the church, how he wanted to more keenly feel the presence of God in his life. Granted, my conception of Kelley is weighted toward his adolescence when he was foulmouthed and hormonal, but what his father describes is almost a version of him beyond my imagining. Kelley apparently had the "Footsteps" poem tattooed in whole upon his left upper arm, as it reminded him that Jesus was there to carry him in his times of need. This brings his family comfort, because they know Kelley is not gone but merely practicing his volleyball spike with Jesus.

His mother demurs speaking at all, but instead nods along with her husband's remarks.

After a slideshow set to Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Simple Man" Kelley had made for his mother years ago (with the portentous comment "if I ever die, this is going to make you cry so much"), the pastor comes back. He largely preaches, throwing up Bible verses and challenging us to look at aspects of the Bible and tell him that the whole of the book isn't true. I don't find this consoling, though I hope most gathered do. If every word in the Bible were literally true as he claims (especially those statements that contradict other things in the Bible...), that means that Kelley is damned, since he committed suicide and that is a mortal sin that cannot be ameliorated through repentance. All the pastor will grant is that anyone who is not a Christian is going to Hell to burn forever at the hands of his loving God. "If Kelley could come back to you all," he says, all smiles, "he wouldn't. He is where he belongs." I rather disagree and squeeze Amber's hand instead of whispering my irritation. We should be allowed our tears at the death of a man and allowed to remember him at this memorial service, not told in essence that we are wasting our time.

I want the pastor to discuss Kelley, whom he knew, whom he reports came into his office months ago wanting to play a greater part in the church. I want this man not to merely close his eyes and look as though Kelley's death transports him to bliss, but to address that it hurts him personally, how this is a loss not only for him but for the world. He says Kelley would call him, that they would have frequent conversations. Did Kelley confess suicidal thoughts to this man? Did he suspect what Kelley was contemplating? But we get none of that, only a series of Bible quotes (included one from Revelations) that he, the pastor, likes with occasional mentions that Kelley might have appreciated them. I later wonder aloud to Amber whether the pastor simply slots the name of the recently deceased into a boilerplate sermon, given how minimally his portion of the memorial service had anything to do with Kelley.

After some talented Christian rock and another slideshow, the pastor asks if anyone would like to come to his podium to share a story about Kelley. "Make sure they are brief, though!" he chides us after his forty-five minute lecture about his favorite Bible quotes and our own eminent damnation. Only one person goes up, Kelley's aunt, saying how Kelley was born was she was nineteen and carefree but how she learned the meaning of love and responsibility for that love from watching her sister raise Kelley. She says that this was a horrible accident that took Kelley from the world. I look at Amber and mouth the question "accident?" It occurs to me for the first time that one could kill oneself and not have committed suicide, accidentally overdosing or driving recklessly, but this slip is just another puzzle I will not be able to resolve when I want a piece that will clarify.

There is a lull of fifteen second when people are weighing whether they, too, wish to speak, during which the pastor dismisses us to enjoy refreshments in the back.

Amber and I exit. As I do, I see Chris, one of Kelley's best friends as far as I know, crumbled into the arms of a woman while a child tugs at the cuff of his pants. I want to say something comforting to him, but find I do not have the words and know I do not have the right. Amber and I wait by the doors. After a few minutes, and several acquaintances nodding at me as they try to exit, I admit to her that I don't know what I am waiting for. For solace, I suppose. To feel connected to someone else who knew Kelley, someone who won't throw up the words of the ancient dead and weak platitudes in lieu of admitting that this was a senseless death and we deserve better than to be told to get over it now in the name of Jesus (who, as I recall, did say in Matthew 5:4 that those who mourn are blessed because they will be comforted).

We follow the flow of mourners past a smiling woman offering a tray of Swedish meatballs. I find this peculiar and I am about to leave, but Amber takes one. I do as well and we are subsequently led into a room full of cakes, breads, cookies, and punch. It feels like a junior high dance.

"Is this what happens at memorial services?" I ask Amber, as I fill a small plate so as to have some reason to stick around longer.

"I don't know, I haven't been to one in a while. It seems like churches have this kind of food every time I am in one."

I bite into my cupcake and then say, "I was not aware, I have never encountered this at a church. It's usually much more about eating crackers made of Jesus."

People approach us on occasion, greeting me as I try to mentally age them a decade and cover them in fake blood to figure out who they are. This is closer to what I wanted, though some seem too nervous or relieved (that this service is over, not that Kelley is dead). I cling to Amber, chatting with her intermittently about Kelley and mortality but mostly about any other subject I can contrive.

Xenography: Contracts

01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 EST

If you are anything like me - and why wouldn't you be? - the idea of publishing contracts fills you with a cold panic. While writing is an art for you, it is a business for your publisher. They would like to make money. As pro-writer, as friendly, as positive as the publisher may seem, you are well advised to assume that they are out to steal all your characters and give you no royalties ever. If this happens to not be the case in the end - as will almost definitely be true - you are welcome to be pleasantly surprised.

Here is my advice for any serious contract:

Follow Yog's Law: Money should flow toward the author. Any contract that wants money from you - upfront, in installments, whatever configuration - is a crock and you absolutely should not sign it. Frankly, you should not deal with any company that wants money from you because they are a scam vanity publisher and beneath you. (Of course, you do have to pay for copies of your own book that you resell at signings and events.)
Get a lawyer. I know they are scary. They wear suits and carry briefcases. Unless you are James Patterson, you likely treat your fictional lawyers as little more than pompous punching bags. But this is the one moment in your life where you genuinely need them. Consider it, if you must, as a lesser of two evils situation. I know, you are a poor writer. If you got an advance (I never did) you imagine that most of it is about to go to some law firm. Not so. First of all, Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts will be willing to chat with you for free, thus the "volunteer". (A slight warning: the last time I had to deal with Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, it was over a month later - well after I had sent the contract back - before they called me in reference to my voice mail. They are busy people and, if you need to see someone right now, you are likely going to have to pay for the privilege.) Secondly, though they may not be experts in entertainment law, most lawyers have looked at a contact before. Some advice and guidance is better than none.
Your publisher will be willing to negotiate, if you are any good. They want to keep you happily churning out sequels and not complaining. Further, they do not want you to seek out other publishing houses if you are a lucrative prospect. If they are willing to let you go, it is either a power play (at which point, you are dealing with short-sighted jackasses and would be better served with a more mature and professional house) or you aren't as good as you would hope and they do not mind losing you.
Most importantly, your publisher will be willing to negotiate if they are any good. Good publishers have dealt with all this before and have thought ahead for potential objections and solutions. Any publishing house that reacts unprofessionally to a request for clarification or a request to amend something is either very new or about to file for bankruptcy.
Check any percentage against what other authors get. If it seems low, ask your publisher why. Dealing with a contract - a legally binding document - is not the time to develop a streak of meekness. Again, if your publisher is remotely worth their salt, they will be not only willing but eager to discuss this with you. Doubtlessly, you are not the flakiest writer they have dealt with. As long as you are not a prima donna pain in the ass, they will work with you and allay/address your concerns.
If you see clauses that say they gain copyright of your book or characters, don't sign it. If you think "I can just write new characters and getting my name out there matters more" realize that the contract might specify the publisher owns any characters you create and that will be a costly bitch to fight in court. You want to retain all rights to your work, otherwise you can end up trapped. (My publisher specifies a five year renewal period; if either party is dissatisfied after this, the contract is not renewed). If the company goes under, you might be stuck with a property you cannot legally market.
As another author, Deborah Lipp, reminded me when last I had to deal with a contract (for the film rights to my first novel), "The important parts of the contract are not the money bits, but the rights and responsibilities. Are you indemnified from their malfeasance? Their contract will make damn sure that they're indemnified... if you turn out to be a plagiarist... Make sure the clause protecting you is as strong as the clause protecting them."
Everything in the contract is negotiable.