Gambling With Your Time

Lately, I've been spending a lot of time among the ranks of the unemployed. That means sending out a number of job applications. I've come to realize that every job application is a gamble: it's a gamble of my time. In addition to the time I spend looking up potential jobs, and narrowing down whether I think I can do that job, then it's on to the cover letter itself. I can decide whether to personalize every cover letter, even make a different resume for each job, which can take, say, a half an hour, or I can send out my stock cover letter and my regular resume, and pretty much have it sent out in under a minute. I will have no way of knowing whether the HR person will look over my resume and cover letter with a microscope, Googling names of various companies I've worked for, looking over my resume for any typos or inconsistencies, or whether I'll get a five second skim—maybe the whole thing will get scanned by a computer looking for keywords and it will never even reach the eyes of a real human being. It's a black box. But, I have to take that gamble, and, like most gambles, the house has the edge. In this case, the “house” is the hundreds, maybe thousands, of applicants that are just as qualified as me, that I have to stand out from, but somehow without standing out so much that it makes me look rude or unqualified, all this to reach an HR person who can give me a chance at an interview. My “chips” are my own time.

When you get right down to it, we make these kinds of decisions every day, at almost everything. Which road do I take from point a to point b? Will there be traffic? Will there be a toll? And so on. One time, I looked at my GPS, and decided the difference between taking the New Jersey Turnpike to the GW Bridge, and with it, a ten dollar toll, and the Tappan Zee Bridge, with a four dollar toll, was about fifteen minutes. I decided fifteen minutes was worth that much to me. I ended up hitting a deer and destroying my car. Looks that was a bad gamble.

Any date is a gamble, and relationship is a gamble that the love you get out of that relationship is worth the time you put into it.

If you enjoy playing video games, maybe that's a good way to spend your time, and you'll get better at playing them. You'll kick ass on multiplayer, or online, but...would that time have been spent better writing the Great American Novel? Who knows. I've come to find out that some of the same things that I thought were, if not a waste of time, then at least a glorified hobby—Facebook, MySpace, the newest music trends, video games—turned out, might have helped me get a job.

You can spend your time learning to play an instrument, and get to be a great player. If you never play in a band, or if you do play in a band, and never get a record deal, or, if you do record an album, and it never goes anywhere near the radio or the top downloads, have you wasted your time, or have you spent it well, enjoying the pursuit itself?

Someone once told me that, in high school, he wanted to hit the gym hard, and have a great body. Like, a monstrous, 80's action hero body. But, paradoxically, he was depressed and suicidal. He wondered if it was worth the investment of his own time to have that great body if he was just going to be dead in a year. He's still around, but his body is, in a word, average. I'm glad he decided not to take his own life, but, part of me wonders, if he had decided to go for that body, would the endorphins, the look in the mirror, maybe even the extra attention, change his mind, and his mindset? We'll never know. He never anted up in that department. Such is the paradox of depression.

I think sometimes of certain artists....Cobain, Hendrix, Joplin, Hendrix; by the time they were 27 years old, they changed the world, and died. I'm four years past that, and I haven't even come close. So far, I haven't even so much as signed a lease or mortgage, gotten married, or had a child. I did get on TV once, though. Not that it was about me, but I did get on TV.

And I did get published in a book. That's not so bad, either.

The Litmus Test of a Relationship

Hopefully, you learn from your failures. I'll start this story with a failure. My girlfriend at the time, Nicole, was having a night out with the girls. She called me at some point in the evening, and I could tell she was already good and sloshed. I suggested to her that she slow down, but she instead continued to drink...so much that she was taken to a hospital after stumbling down a flight of stairs.

A few things to keep in mind:

I was in Westchester, she was in the city. It was about three in the morning when I got the call. Her friends had to go to work or something, so they just bailed on her and expected me to pick up the pieces. I drove out as fast as I could to the hospital, but what I was supposed to do there wasn't exactly clear. I didn't bring a change of clothes, a book, an ipod, or anything. In fact, I remember that I parked legally, but did a shitty job, and was way out on the curb. I wasn't sure what to expect, or what was expected of me. That's important to keep in mind.

So, I came in to see her, she reeked of vomit, she looked like hell, and the damage has been done. So.... now what? Well, I talk to the intake nurse, give her what little info I have on her. At that point it begins to dawn on me that even though I've seen her take tons of pills, and I know some of her physical handicaps, I don't know the names of any of her medications. So, I'm not much help. Once I've done that, I ask the nurse what I should do. There's really nothing I can do to help her at this point, and I've never been very good at just waiting around with no clue how long I'll be waiting, so I decide to go home. Did I make the right choice? I don't know, but it was 4:00 AM, I was dead tired, and I got the impression from the nurse that she'd be sedated for hours.

Then comes the call. Nicole woke up around 7:00 AM, and, as you can imagine, she was scared and angry. She had woken up in a hospital, no one was there for her, she was blackout drunk, and didn't even remember how she got there. Again, I drove as fast as I could to the hospital, but, as I said...the damage had been done.

Let's review the two big lessons here.

First, I've since learned to be prepared. You'll usually find me carrying a backpack, and, depending on the particular day, and time of year, you may find my iPod, a book, a lightweight flannel shirt, maybe some sunblock, eye drops, nasal spray, sunglasses, sometimes a flashlight. Now this may sound like overkill, but anytime the weather got cold and dark, I had my flashlight and shirt.

In this case, it would have helped to have a nice fresh shirt, and, noting how much smaller Nicole was than me, a pair of pajama pants. Maybe if I had a little advance warning, I could have brought that. Hey, maybe even a pillow, or at least a hooded sweatshirt that could be folded up and used as a pillow.

But the real lesson is the mentality. How long you stay with someone in the hospital is a gauge of how seriously you take a relationship. This applies not just to romantic relationships, but any relationship; family, friend, maybe even someone from work. Depending on how serious you are, you might pop in for a few minutes to say hi to someone you know casually, or might stay the whole night, or as stay for as many visiting hours as you can.

Despite my supposed feelings toward Nicole, and how seriously I took her as a girlfriend, when the time came to act, I failed, and failed big. I think part of it was the simple idea that I was supposed to just know, automatically, what I was supposed to do. It's also worth keeping in mind that you can drop everything and go somewhere, or you can gather some belongings, but you can't do both.

Fast forward several years. My mom, just weeks after having major surgery to remove cancers from her stomach, was in agony, an we called an ambulance. My mom was awake, and did tell me to meet her at the hospital with some pairs of underwear and a tee shirt or two. I had the luxury, if you can call it that, of being able to take a deep breath, collect my head and her belongings, and drive to the hospital at a reasonable pace. I stayed with her till one in the morning, when she said it was OK for me to go home. And I visited her almost every day. Looks like I learned something.

Why I Will Never Get A Tattoo.

Why I will never get a tattoo

I have a set of wire shelves. I bought them to hold my growing collection of tee shirts. After I bought them, I figured out that one day, these shelves would make a handy pantry, if I had an empty closet to put them in, which is exactly what happened when I moved into the new house. It occurred to me that these same wire shelves would also be handy for hanging my pots and pans, which is something I wanted to do since I bought them. I might even be able to put food and other items on the shelves, and still have them arranged in such a way that I could hang the pans on the side. Hanging seemed so much nicer than putting them away in the cupboards. My mom, of course, disagreed with that point, and, since it was her kitchen, my cookware would be put away, stacked, sometimes neatly, but usually not, out of sight.

Mom has since moved out, and I'm still here. I've had the place to myself for more than a few weeks, and it dawned on me: This is my kitchen now! I don't have to keep banging my expensive pans on the little door, I can get my wire shelf out of the closet and put it up in the kitchen the way I always imagined. Now, here's where the fun begins.

I set up the wire shelves. I told myself, it was just a proof of concept, that for when I had my own apartment, I could really get it perfect, but for now, I just needed to make sure the pans would fit at all, and I would worry about where each shelf would fit later, as long as I got the general idea. Good enough was good enough. That sentiment lasted...less than a week.

So, with the concept “proven,” I then “measured twice” and “cut once,” breaking down the wire shelves and starting from scratch. This time, I knew what notch to fit each shelf in, to use the absolute bottom row, not just one near it, I figured out exactly how I would set up my pans: Three in each level, two levels; the lower level with the larger pans, the higher level with the smaller pans. I had the shelves set up in such a way that the pans I used the most were the easiest to reach. I set up the top levels to store some food, and, compared to the way I had it before, I had a whole extra shelf. I was set.

I think you can guess where this one's going.

So, the bottom two shelves, they're perfect, but I think that third shelf, where I've got some cans and a big box of candy, well, if anything, it's got too much headroom. And, the other shelf where I've got the soda bottles on their sides, that's probably the right size, but, that top shelf, well...right now, it's got some aluminum foil, and ziploc bags, and I might be able to squeeze in one extra shelf; but even if I didn't, if I can get those bags three inches lower, well, that's the difference between stretching up on my toes, and simply reaching up to get them. Once I find time to do that, I will be set.

Unless...well, unless something else happens, whatever that something is. Some day, I may buy more pans, have a bigger kitchen, who knows? But, it is this constant desire to tweak and switch, and experiment and push the boundaries until I reach some imaginary level of perfection and completeness that makes me the consummate geek.

I get it. There is something magical about getting the thing you want. I used to hate my bed, and I always wanted a memory foam mattress—not just the topper, though that would do, but the full mattress. When my mom threw out the topper when we moved, I gave her hell for it. And I let it simmer and boil until I finally made the bold move and bought a full memory foam mattress. It was partly luck, and partly obsession, that I was on Craig's List at the right time that someone was selling a full mattress for a price I could afford. Stop by Ikea on the way home for some slats (memory foam doesn't go on a coil foundation), and I'm set. But, that didn't stop me from taking a look at larger memory foam mattresses. You know, for one day. Maybe when I have some girlfriend or wife move in. But not any time soon.

But really, is anything ever really done? When you get right down to it, there's always a new computer (Ooh! Solid state drives!) , a new set of pans (Ooh! Induction!), a new everything. I wonder sometimes if I tried to tweak my ex-girlfriend the same way, trying to imagine her in better shape, and I mean both mentally and physically. She's my ex, maybe it worked. I made her too good. Or, maybe it didn't work, and I was being an asshole who was always unhappy with her.

That simultaneous happiness and unhappiness is something that won't be resolved. The only way to come close is to accept it, and move on, thereby eliminating the “unhappiness” factor in the equation. Completeness is a moving target. You will always have problems. Your problems will hopefully become higher quality problems over time, but they never stop coming. In the same way the food that goes on those shelves will be eaten, and the shelves will never stay full, those shelves will, in a metaphorical sense, never be completed. It's like Tetris: sometimes, through a combination of planning and luck, you get that perfect piece, and most of the time, you just have holes to fill. Line by line, you work on them. Until the end.

Which brings me back to the idea of getting a tattoo. I could never get one. I don't feel there's any one idea that will stick with me for my entire life. No phrase, no logo, no band, no picture that sums me up, to have this finite amount of canvass. You have to have everything perfect before you begin: the location of the tattoo, the size, the design, the color. I couldn't commit to something like that. Ever. There's an Ultimate Fighter who has a tattoo of Johnny Cash on his bicep. He got the tattoo before he started bulking up, so now Johnny has a huge chin,and looks more like Fat Albert than the man in black. So the canvass itself, your own body, can change, for the better, or for the worse, over time. I can't imagine someone with an armful of ink getting into an accident or a knife fight.

People have their own reasons to pierce this, or tattoo that. But for me, the idea of having one chance at something, no matter how much preparation goes into it, and then having the result be permanent...well it goes against everything I can be. My canvass is intensionally blank.

Time Will Test Any Warrior's (or Lover's) Mettle

A relationship can end for any number of reasons; one person can change, both people can change, distance may be a factor, or money; maybe one day you just look around and say “I thought this was what I wanted, but now that I have it, I found out it wasn't.” But what hurts even more than the missing of the other person, is the hurt of losing someone's trust.

Trust is not something you can put on a shelf and forget about. It's not something you can steal, but it is something you can lose. It can be broken, and it can be repaired, but never be the way it was. Trust is a verb. It is something you do. Treat it like something you do, not something you have.

I can't tell you the right way to break up with someone, but I can tell you the wrong way. Don't try to “game the system,” because there is no system, and what you call “the system” is made up of people. And I'm pretty sure it's made up of people you say you care about.

Don't try to schedule a breakup before or after a birthday, anniversary, or holiday (Christmas and Valentine's Day come to mind) because you want to receive, or, avoid giving some gift or physical favor. Just don't schedule it at all. A good relationship should have a continually-evolving, multi-dimensional, omni-directional open system of communication. This doesn't mean be an asshole and say every bad thing about your partner that comes to mind. But when your racing thoughts about your partner are keeping you up at night, it's time to open your mouth and start talking. Don't make a plan B, don't pack your escape pod, and don't even think “it's better to ask forgiveness than permission.” Be kind, be aware, and be open. Just tell the truth, and work it out. And if you can't work it out, then leave with your head held high.

Don't make any subtle hints that you're unhappy with your partner. Come out and say them. If you're going to a strip club, say you're going to a strip club. If you want to try out some crazy kink and don't know how she'll react? Don't just leave your web site history open, what should be open is your mouth.

The less you say, the more the other person can imagine. Cut them off, let them stew, they'll think there's someone else, or they just aren't good enough. It's going to hurt no matter what, but there's no need to twist the knife. The simple fact is, it will break someone down more than you can ever imagine not to have some sort of closure on a relationship. It will affect them, it will change the way they think about themselves. It may inspire them with anger, or simply build up to a direction-less rage.

Time will test any warrior's mettle. It will test any lover's mettle as well. There is nothing that will quite end a search for happiness like finding it. But, then what? You have your boat, where will you go? You got what you wanted, now what will you do with it? Will you spend your life making yourself unhappy, even if you don't realize it, by always looking for the next thing, thinking you can do better, even as you convince yourself that the other person will never do better than you?

It's a bad gamble to take, my friend, a very bad gamble. Because when you lose, you'll be the one with all the questions that don't have answers. You'll be the one forced to take a good look at yourself and try to change without knowing what to change to, or even from. What lessons will you take from the experience, and will they be the right ones?

You invest in a relationship. You invest your time. You invest yourself. You invest your imagined future. And when it ends, that future goes with it. So, the more you invest in a relationship, the more it hurts, because you're mourning multiple things at once: the person's companionship, the loss of trust, and the future you thought you'd have. Nothing is so hard to make and so easy to lose as a future.

Which means, inevitably, you must focus on the present. Whatever stage of a relationship you are in, including just looking for one, you have to appreciate the process itself. Appreciate the hurt of a relationship gone wrong, and how it can inspire you; appreciate the process of finding, of weeding out what you don't want, and how to better find what you do want, whether it's what to say at a bar (or stay away from bars), what to say on an online profile, and even appreciate the free time you have to focus on other things, instead of making someone else's happiness your priority; and then, when you have that moment, that perfect moment, when you realize you found someone who not only can appreciate you for who you really are, but who you can make happiest by being yourself, and can bring out not just the best in your, but more of yourself than you ever imagined...hang on to that moment. Hang on to it because there's no guarantee it will last. But know also that that moment can last for years.