This is not a blog post

Sorry guys, no blog post this week. That’s right. What you are reading right now isn’t a blog post. Sorry to trick you.

Too busy this week to write something substantial. I’m too busy trying to get my student loan payments reduced, if not deferred. To do so, I have to prove that I’m unemployed.

Have you ever had to prove how poor you are to someone? It’s rather humiliating. I already know I’m poor and unemployed, why do I have to justify that to you?

Also busy taking writing tests for a potential job in the Seattle area. I’m hoping that these writing tests will mean a job interview soon. Wouldn’t that be great if I successfully proved I’m unemployed only to land a job finally? I’m kicking myself I didn’t handle this student loan thing sooner.

Anyway, since I don’t actually having anything for you this week, please enjoy this video of Bane rapping.

I promise to have something good next week.

23

It never officially feels like the New Year for me until I’ve had my birthday, which has now past.
 

I’m now 23-years-old, and as often is the case when I celebrate a birthday, I’ve done a lot of thinking. Thinking about the future and looking back at my past.

Twenty-three is definitely going to have some challenges.

I’m stuck in a sort of existential quandary. I started this blog struggling to find a career in the field of journalism. Now I doubt that’s what I really want for myself. Problem is I don’t know what I want for myself. So I’m stuck living at home like a 23-year-old bum sitting in front of his computer writing blog posts. At least I’m not playing World of Warcraft and my parents don’t have a basement, so the cliché isn’t complete.

It’s not easy getting back into the saddle when every horse has thrown you off, and now you doubt that horse riding is what you really want to do after all. Point is I don’t like horses. No, that’s not right. Point is when you’ve been rejected, ignored, and misled by employers in one particular business for awhile, you start wondering if you're not cut out for this particular line of work.

I have to find a way to overcome my own crippling self-doubt and lack of purpose to find a career path. Find out how I’m going make my way in the world. Lord knows it won’t be through this blog.

I’ve been told this is rather natural for people in their 20s, but that doesn’t change the fact it hurts.

Complicating matters is my very family I now live with again. We’re still poor, we still live in a dirty house we can’t afford, and things are only going to get worse before they get better.

My mother has Stage 4 breast cancer. Some fresh new tumors were discovered two months ago. While she’s never been in remission, these new tumors represent the most serious development since her initial diagnosis in 2008. Heavy amounts of chemotherapy are in her future, the side effects of which are quite devastating in their own right. The family is on edge about it.

A lot of bad days lie ahead for me and my family. There’s no hiding from that, and I might as well be honest about it.

However, through all the bad times past and present, I’ve never been one to roll over and quit. I’ve never looked defeat in the face and said, “I give up.” 

Basically I’m stubborn. I hide it well, but deep down I’m one stubborn son of a gun (so stubborn that I still refuse to swear even in blog format).

I’ve stubbornly held on to hope in the past, and I plan to continue doing so in the future. Even when things are at their bleakest, I’ve always been a man to take pleasure from the little things in life. And there are still plenty of pleasures to be had.

I’ve got a family that will unconditionally love and support me through my time of soul (and job) searching.

I get to watch the Giants defend their World Series championship.

I’ve got a team in the Super Bowl this year.

I get to watch my little sisters as they continue to grow.

I get to continue enjoying the fact the world didn’t end on Dec. 21.

I’m living rent-free while I’m home.

And best of all, I have a girlfriend who makes me feel happier than I’ve ever been in my whole life. More than baseball, more than football, more than family, more than Bruce Springsteen (and that’s saying a LOT coming from me).

Yes, 23 has a lot of challenges ahead. Yes, there are many things plaguing my mind these days. But I’m not going to let that stop me. It never has before.

I didn't fight the law, but this other guy did, and the law won

The sun shines brightly over San Jose as my stepfather walks to the local coffee shop for his routine weekend pickup of breakfast bagels for the family. As he waits in line patiently, all hell breaks loose.
 

A SWAT team pulls up outside and rush out of their van. They aren’t here for bagels.

Within seconds, the whole area is cordoned off. My stepfather is prevented from returning home with his hard-earned bagels.

Back at the house, helicopters fly overhead and police cars fill the street. An officer knocks on our door. He tells my mother and I that there has been a prison break. The escaped convict knocked over a bank and is now hold up across the street from us in an empty house.

“Stay away from the windows,” he tells us as more officers and K-9s sweep through our front and backyard. “And make sure everything is locked up tight.” It’s the first time I’ve seen this many police officers swarming around my home (though not the last time).

11-year-old me is scared out of his wits (current me feels fine about the whole thing. Obviously I survived the whole ordeal. Whoops, *SPOILERS*). Mom isn’t doing much better. This is much worse than the time we were warned three convicted sex offenders moved into our neighborhood. That was more an ominous cloud hanging over my family, prompting lots of discussion on what to do if approached by a stranger. 

This is no mere cloud; this is an active tornado blowing right through my yard! A scene right out of the movies taking place across the street from me!

Minutes feel like hours as the action continues outside. Time slows to a crawl with no resolution in sight. ... Not because I’m terrified anymore … but because I’m bored.

The one thing they never show in the movies is the boredom that comes with standoffs. An 11-year-old can only stay scared for so long before a lack of action becomes too tedious. After spending the first two hours huddled together with my mother and sister, I resumed my normal weekend activities.

I played computer games and watched TV. There’s nothing else to do. If I’m going to die, I might as well stay true to my nature. Not that I was really thinking that at the time, I was just really, really bored at this point and needed something to break the monotony. Mom was doing enough worrying for both of us, so I let her handle that end of things while I played the calm one.

Four hours pass. Everything works out fine in the end. The police successfully coax the armed man out of the house and return him to custody without resorting to violence. My stepfather returns home with breakfast (now lunch). I achieved a new high score, didn’t have to take a bath, and watched Tom and Jerry beat the crap out of each other. Everyone’s happy. Except for the convict, I suppose.

Just another routine weekend. Only downside was the bagels were stale.

A brief bout of insanity

Note: This story was originally meant to be published on Dec. 17, however, in light of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, I decided to postpone it. The following story involves my old elementary school and a time I flew off the handle. It didn't seem appropriate at the time. I present it now, however, as I originally intended.

 

4^th grade was a transitional time for me. I had a new school, it was my second year living in the South Bay with my mother and new stepfather, and I my personality was fluctuating. Gone was the bully who terrorized kids in the schoolyard. Professional counseling was starting to turn me into a pushover, but I still wasn’t the nerdy introvert of today.

The word that best describes my 4^th grade teacher would be “dictator.” She was a tyrant unlike any I had yet encountered. A blond giantess from South Africa, she was quick to dole out punishment for the slightest rule-breaking.

She did, however, allow one indulgence in the classroom. During any breaks or recesses, kids were allowed to listen to music on a boombox she kept in the room. 

This one gift for my classmates proved to be the ultimate torture for me.

For whatever reason, the girls in our class dominated that boombox. Us boys just didn’t care enough to fight the girls for control of the music, so they always raced to it and played what they wanted. It was a first come, first serve process – and the same girls always rushed to be first.

This means I got a healthy dose of exposure to Radio Disney. Enough so that, for a time, I was even brainwashed into thinking it was a good radio station and became a regular listener for a couple years.

Needless to say, I spent a lot of time listening to *NSYNC and Backstreet Boys during this time. But worse than those One Direction forerunners (shout-out to my sister, the biggest One Direction fan in the world) was one artist the girls in my class went nuts for. A singer whose music I had to listen to day-in and day-out against my will.

Britney Spears.

This was the height of Britney-mania. And I was caught right in the middle.

Imagine you are a young boy or girl – so sweet and innocent, hardly a care in the world, very impressionable age – and every day (or every weekday anyway) you were forced to listen to the same songs over and over and over and over again. Songs you didn’t particularly like or dislike, but had no say in whether or not you got to listen to them or not. 

“You Drive Me Crazy,” “Oops! I Did It Again,” and “…Baby One More Time.” Every day, multiple times per day. And we rarely heard anything other than those three songs! One of the girls in my class owned a CD or two, and it was those same songs that were played over and over again. There they were, like clockwork. Sometimes I could go outside and avoid it, like during lunch break, but sometimes I couldn’t. Sometimes I was trapped in my own personal Hell.

I longed for a permanent end to my suffering. I dreamed of taking a club and smashing that boombox to pieces. I went from “This music is quite catchy” to “I LOATHE BRITNEY SPEARS!!!!” 

Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I had enough.

The exact date escapes me, but it must have been April or May. I remember the warm sun shining brightly, birds singing, children laughing (OK, given my teacher that last one might be an exaggeration). It was the end of the school day. I always had to stick around for after-school. As soon as that final bell rang, a gaggle of girls ran for the boombox, and before the first chord of Spears song could play … I snapped.

I don’t remember exactly what happened. Just that there was suddenly a lot of yelling and crying. All coming from me. I remember the entire room stopped, as if time itself had slowed, and everyone looking at me – staring wide-eyed. 

In summary, I was officially filing my complaint against the musical choices of certain classmates who unfairly monopolized the airwaves of our mutually shared classroom and, what was supposed to be, a mutually shared music playing device.

That was the point I was trying to make, anyway. I didn’t quite articulate it as such.

As I finished my rant I wiped the foam away from my mouth, felt the color return to my face, and noticed for the first time that my desk was now firmly lodged in the wall opposite of me. Everyone sitting around me had backed away and the whole room was still staring as my teacher finally gathered up the courage to walk up to me and ask if I wanted to step outside.

That was the nicest my 4^th grade teacher ever treated me. For the first time I detected a softness in her voice as she asked what was wrong. I started crying again as I more delicately explained I was tired of hearing nonstop Britney Spears every day I came to school. From that point on, she treated me with a great deal more care than her previous self had. 

Music in our classroom became a very rare thing. And on those rare occasions, there was more variety in who got to choose the music and what we listened to.

The event did earn me some unwelcomed attention. School officials quietly asked my parents if anything was wrong at home. They had the typical “He’s so quiet. We never expected something like this!” reaction usually saved for serial killers. 

Indeed, my therapist suggested there might be something wrong with me. He was ready to prescribe all kinds of fancy drugs and lengthier (i.e. more expensive) counseling sessions (I don’t know how he could have diagnosed me with anything. I hardly spoke to him, preferring to play with the toy soldiers in his office). 

My parents reacted by switching me to a therapist who worked at my school (she was nice, and kind of cute. She got me to open up more through snacks and games of checkers).

To this day I haven’t gone on any rampages and I don’t have a collection of dead animals and/or humans in my basement (and not just because I don’t have a basement). Poor self-esteem and rampant paranoia, sure, but no violent tendencies. 

Although to this day I maintain a seething dislike for the music of Britney Spears. Not the woman herself, just the method by which she makes her living. In Pavlovian fashion, the sound of a Spears song used to set me off – my face would turn red, fire would light in my eyes, smoke would pour from my ears and nostrils. 

But I’m better now; I’m a forgiving person. My Radio Disney days are far behind me. Shortly after the incident, I discovered the wonders of rock n’ roll. From the innovators such as Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry, to the poets like Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, to the bands that carry on the tradition today like The Hold Steady and The Gaslight Anthem. 

That, more than any therapy, cured a soul made sick by pop music and Britney Spears.