These things take time

My apartment has become a terrible mess, but I'm getting it a little cleaner every day. It's taking longer than I want because I have a lot of other stuff to do and the mess is pretty bad, but it's happening, albeit slowly. It didn't get this way overnight, and it's not getting fixed overnight. I just have to make every day a little less messed up than the day before until things are how I want them.

Yes, this is also a metaphor for life.

Preach it, Troy

"I used to be a sweet dude, now I'm so angry
Look at what these girls and these fake n***** made me
Cry when I'm writing, I don't really know why
I think its cause I can't really see myself an old guy
And that scares me, I wanna be around a while
But I feel my purpose goes beyond having raised a child
Bright lights, they tend to burn out fast
So I shine bright, but I'm scared that it won't last"

"Friends of mine are over it, people say I changed
And I tell them that I'm glad, cause I don't wanna stay the same
Cause I used to be poor, I used to be unconfident  
I used to hate these haters, now its just the opposite  
Not only have I changed, I'm becoming something better  
And revenge is for the weak, so I have settled my vendettas  
With all of the kids who made my early life a living hell
And I hope you're doing well and feeling better 'bout yourself"

Other people's tomatoes

I got a book out of the library called "The Buddha Walks Into A Bar." I took it as an exploration of Buddhism for non-pious people. The author went to Wesleyan (of COURSE he did). I'm in no way religious, but I do like me some ancient wisdom from time to time, especially when it comes from people whose philosophy has room for beer and sex.

Check out this parable from a meditation center the author spent a summer at:

The point being that when you put your own bullshit aside, you can just do what needs to be done in a compassionate manner. I dig it.

But after a while, if all you're doing is picking up other people's tomatoes, you need to find a new place to hang out.

The equivalent of AC Transit even sucked in 1873

Dorks like me like to romanticize how great it must have been before all our cities were redesigned around the automobile, but this description of Berkeley public transit in 1873 made me LOL.

"Most students and faculty [of UC Berkeley] chose to live in Oakland, commuting to classes on a horsecar line that proceeded up Telegraph Road and Choate Street to the south entrance of campus. The car moved so slowly that patrons often walked alongside for variety. Students seeking diversion would lean one way and then the other until they knocked the swaying car off its tracks. Then everyone would get out and lift the vehicle back into place."

-- Berkeley: A City in History by Charles Wollenberg

Go hard. Then go home.

During my short tenure teaching at that high school in South Central where I literally feared being violently killed every day, I had a conversation that I have been thinking about lately. This other teacher was a 30-something honkey like me, but he'd been teaching since college. Sort of. He explained that he would teach for a few years, burn out, then go do something else for a while (travel, freelance, work a whatever job) and then come back. Inner city schools were happy to overlook resume gaps like that because, well, credentialed teacher with a pulse.

At the time I thought that was sort of nutty. Now I realize that is a variation on the way I've worked for a living for my whole working life. (NO, I'm not about to say I'm going back to teaching. Hell to the fuck no.)

For someone who has never felt it important to have a Career(tm), I sure do emotionally overinvest in every job I've ever had. A dot-com colleague of mine used to say "drive the car until it's out of gas." I drive every car until it's not only out of gas but on fire and wrapped around a tree.

One way to view it is that I work myself into burnout every time. Another way or looking at it is that I work until the passion is gone and then I do myself and everyone else a favor and look for a job where I can work like I'm on fire instead of a job where I plod along like blah. I can't tell if I suck at working for a living or I'm great at it.

I pretty much got my dream job right out of college: professional writer. I like to blame the recession, the dot-com bust, offshoring, and your mom (hey, I'm on a roll) for the demise of this career. What I'm less likely to admit is that I didn't care about business or technology anymore, I felt like a fraud for talking about those things like an expert when I was really just a 20-something who was in the right place at the right time, and I didn't have it in me to keep hustling for freelance jobs in a down economy at a time when I lacked self-esteem to begin with. I slunk back to the service industry and had a robust quarter-life crisis.

So began my streak of always being the oldest one at an entry-level job.

We moved to LA and I tutored for nonprofits until I decided Making A Difference needed to pay more than $11 an hour.  I decided to become a "real teacher" and pay some bills. I knew deep down from the first month of my credential program that it wasn't right. I made few friends in the program and felt out of place. But I gave it 100%. That's what I do. I was a textbook case of teacher burnout. Looking back, I don't see how it could have gone any other way.

Now let me just say 36 is not the best age to become a bartender. It doesn't matter how many service jobs you've had, how many beer festivals you've poured at, or how in shape you USED to be. Did I wreck myself trying to keep up? Yes. I busted my ass, got more and more responsibility, learned more and more, did more and more volume. People kept telling me I kicked ass but I just felt like I got my ass kicked. But I gave it my all and I did my best and now I need to be done, while my knees and back still (kind of) work.

I don't know if I'll bartend again, maybe somewhere a little a lot less high-volume. I do know I'm going to try to stay in the beer industry somehow. It's a silly thing to shape my life around compared to educating at-risk kids, or even writing computer manuals. But you don't get to choose your passion, any more than autistic kids pick that "thing" they know everything about. Weird smart people get into subcultures, and when they find one(s) where they feel accepted and normal they dig in deep. This is mine.

Maybe I could have been an editor at the Wall Street Journal by now or I could have been a sixth-year teacher doing great things. I don't know how it would have worked out if I'd stuck with anything ever. I do know I have a lot of years ahead of me to become a world expert on fizzy beverages. An actual expert, not a fake one like when I was 24 and CNN was calling me on a landline to ask me what I thought about the Microsoft ruling. Unlike teaching and biz/tech writing, this one feels like home.

I don't know what I'll do for work next. If the pattern holds, I'll do it hardcore for a couple of years and then I'll need to go. Those few years, though -- they will be the most epic, powerful, ass-whoopin' few years at work since the last few and the few before that. I look forward to figuring it out.