I spent two hours at a fet gathering Saturday. I am, perhaps, too square for this crowd. Besides the bearded ladies, guys in skirts, and general transgressive sexual expression, I’m not finding men with similar relationship needs. The most relatable person I met was a male sub (I hope he is a man).
So… while I intended to attend a meeting tonight, after reviewing the RSVPs, I’ve tentatively decided to stay home. I’m depressed about this. I had hoped to connect with like-minded folks, but the OKC scene appears queer-friendly to the exclusion of me.
[Update: I attended. “Strange” people overwhelm the scene, but I found something I’ll investigate further before abandoning the effort.]
Work in the last of my moving tasks have occupied the majority of my time for the last few months. The full scope of the job is starting to reach me finally. It’s nice in a way because every day is a little bit different and there’s always some new demand without any effort on my part to introduce tasks. For example today ended with an email question from one of our business partners seeking our opinion regarding a construction detail. I’m genuinely a little bit surprised that he’d even ask and not just come up with a solution, except I do appreciate that we’re supposed to be the experts of the particular product with license and so he may have some expectation that we possess special knowledge that we probably don’t. Even so I’m discovering that in my 50s I know a lot more than many other people due to the bread and depth of experience I’ve stumbled into during my career. It’s almost too easy to reach back into my memory and pull out some anecdote from a prior bit of employment where I was required to solve some challenge which has direct bearing on the current predicament.
Money isn’t tight per se, but there isn’t quite enough to take care of everything as quickly as I would want to take care of things on the personal side. I’m expecting, for example, a reasonably large sum for a tax return this year from the federal government, but it has yet to materialize in my bank account. This puts me with less cash on hand than I’d prefer. It’s not as if I’m struggling, but I’ve been eyeing that motorcycle for years now and it’s starting to really bug me that I can’t quite set aside money for it versus other minor demands of my income. Don’t feel sorry for me: One of those expenses was renting a slip for the wife’s speed boat. In lieu of a beach vacation I expect that we will spend most weekends of the summer pursuing lake vacation.
I teased her earlier this week by sending her an image from my Twitter feed of a bikini clad woman tanning on the netting of a catamaran. I told her that I was satisfied with spending money on the boat slip in exchange for the view that I couldn’t get if she’s riding behind me on the motorcycle. However, I think it’s unlikely that she’ll be riding behind me on the motorcycle anytime soon. Not for lack of a motorcycle, but for lack of trust in my ability to safely drive a motorcycle.
Springtime is here, and Oklahoma has turned color from a decidedly sickly yellow to a much healthier green. This will oblige me to mowing the lawn, but this is nothing nearly so daunting as the acre I mowed with a push mower back in Arkansas. I didn’t time it, but I think it takes me about 40 minutes for the front and back lawns. I’ve got a fair bit of nutsedge ruining the lawn, but I think we’ll have it under control sometime next year. I still think I’m nearly 3 years away from amassing the funds I want to build or buy a house. It seems more than a little depressing at this late stage in life to not have a pile of cash laying about from some highly lucrative home sale, but I think a large part of why that hasn’t happened is due to never quite getting the full income of two people together, and prioritizing the welfare of my children over my accumulation of wealth.
It’s not like we don’t have a pile of cash set aside for retirement. And so I’m not worried about that. And I’m in truly excellent health all things considered. I was listening to my coworkers – have been listening, really – and I’m amazed by how much struggle everyone seems to have well before reaching the age of 70. I stay active, but it’s not anything particularly special. I get to the gym only sporadically, so most of my exercise is just taking care of things around the house, in the yard, or general outdoor activities such as hiking or camping or swimming. It’s not as if I’m a marathoner or triathlete or even some sort of casual sports enthusiast. Probably the most difficult thing I do anymore is hunt, and I’ve missed that for a couple years now at least.
Still, I feel as though I’ve not really accumulated the discretionary wealth I should have at my age. I’m sure I’m not the only guy in his ’50s wonders where all the money’s gone. You’re probably reading this chuckling to yourself and thinking, “Didn’t you just say you rented a boat slip?” So I’ve got to admit that it isn’t a complete mystery. We haven’t lived a life devoid of vacations or new cars, but I really haven’t had any of that at any level of significance until the last 5 years. Before that, it always seemed like the wife and I were either both struggling to enter good income, or one of us was severely underemployed. We each used our underemployment to help the kids, but that comes at a personal financial cost. Being Mr Mom, or Mrs Mom, isn’t a lucrative gig. But neither of the kids are on drugs, the girl is married and has her own kid and a husband, and the boy’s just finished his second year of college with a 4.0. So, maybe all the investment went somewhere other than a bank account.
I’ll be visiting the farm for Memorial Day. It appears that the whole family will be there. I’ll go directly from the farm to a client meeting for a couple days and then from there home. I never know quite what to expect at the farm anymore. My parents are definitely too old and unhealthy to manage the place. My dad certainly tries, but it’s just too much. I wish I could be in a place personally where I could help more, but part of the impediment is my parents themselves. I don’t think they understand how to transfer a farm from one generation to another, and I don’t think that my mother’s mother or grandfather knew any better than she does. I’m a broach the topic again Memorial Day weekend if my brother is there too. I may need to say something even if he’s not. My parents will soon both be in their 80s, so this is not a conversation I would be wise to put off much longer.
I was hoping to get to the lake this weekend, but I just checked the weather and it seems unlikely. I could run down there tomorrow. It’s supposed to be a bit hot, and the weather is supposed to hold for the most part, but I was hoping to take care of some miscellaneous business Saturday and then go Sunday. I also feel a bit bad making a trip to the lake without the wife. She’s off traveling next week and this weekend. It’s a ministry trip, so she’s meeting with people all week and then heading home Friday morning. I’ll be left to my own devices all week long in addition to the last half of this week. I scheduled myself a few social outings of the “community” type. They’re all very social hours. The first will be tomorrow afternoon just after lunch at a pool hall. So I’ll go and play bad pool and drink bad beer and try to make bad friends. There’s another gathering I think Monday night which is a more traditional munch and gathering of multiple groups. I’ll try to get out to that one, too. Finally, there’s a gathering Wednesday night as well. This is a second group which seems maybe a little misaligned to my personal values, but it might still be an opportunity to meet people and expand horizons. I’ll attempt a report.
and I use the phrase “can ski” very loosely, then you can ski.
Skied from 10-1:30, ate, and returned to the condo. I discovered muscles I didn’t know I possessed. No altitude sickness, but I’m not fit enough to do a full day on the mountain.
The wife, the boy, and I drove up from OKC to Denver yesterday. It was a long drive which emphasized the relative emptiness of the West, and the vastness of this country. As we crossed Kansas not far from Colorado, I said to the wife, “Can you imagine this trip at fifty five miles per hour?” Her face showed utter horror. Yet, I wasn’t imagining. When I was a child, we drove “Grapes of Wrath” every summer from Sunnyvale to Dallas. It was a three-day travail. I hate Steinbeck because my stories are better.
The hotel and restaurant near and in Lone Tree were a welcome respite after the long drive. We crossed the last stretch on highway 86, stopping for gas at Coyote Market in Kiowa. The “scenic route” was more sparsely populated open grassland, but it was pretty sparsely populated open grassland.
The following day, I drove us the remaining two hours up to Breckenridge. The mountain town is a tourist ski village. I don’t recall ever coming this way across the Rockies, although I recall two road trips to Denver, one as a child (I think) and another during college. [The college trip was eventful: we rolled a car down a hillside near Devil’s Tower.] I’d almost forgotten the immensity of the Rockies, and the immense wealth necessary to own and occupy the homes dotting the hillsides; I guess it’s funny how these places bring out my envy.
Everything tastes like ash, literally and figuratively.
If I were single, then I’d find a way to fill the time, but I’m married so I’m in a holding pattern. Too much ships in the night lately. Sleep seems pointless, like eating seems pointless. We’ve been apart since Tuesday, we’ll get one day together, then apart again, then family visits, then maybe two weeks at home, then more family for ski trip, then who knows.
I’m on the road today but I haven’t posted for a very long time so I thought I’d take it this opportunity of solitude to record some of what’s been happening with the last month. I may not take the time to edit this. As a result you may be stuck reading whatever the speech to text can capture.
January and February so far have been both uneventful and eventful at the same time. The wife is already made two trips back to Arkansas for ministry and other reasons. One in February and one in January. For my part I’ve been doing the regular wake go to office work go home change clothes go to gym come home shower and then lay down and relax for a few hours before going back to sleep and starting it all over again. Which isn’t to say that that’s been terrible. It’s been a very good month. So far I only have one trip under my belt and it was just a day trip up to Kansas. However next week we’ll be a little bit more significant. I make a trip to Orlando to take part in my first technical committee session. Hopefully this doesn’t docks but you just by saying that little. The guy on replacing will accompany me for the trip. He has quirks to make him incredibly annoying, but he’s also very accomplished in his area of expertise and so, much as it pains me to admit it, his assistance and advice will be much welcome over this next week.
I’m beginning to become accustomed to some of the rhythms of this new job. There are parts of it that I’m still not engaged yet, especially the work out in the lab. There is a literal tile of tools that I am only now starting sort through. Some of that effort is just been trying to find. The guy I’m replacing was notorious for working on something stopping Midway and leaving everything associated with the task wherever he stopped working. As a result I’m having to go find catalog and then file all sorts of equipment parts tools. Beyond that the work isn’t too terrible, The boss is accommodating, and although expectations are high, they are also clear and well defined. Is company also doesn’t suffer from any kind of cash flow issues. There are a few tasks that recur and I’m starting to get a very good handle on those and figure out how to do them more efficiently will also improving quality. All in all I’m having no regrets although I do miss some of the old building design tasks which I had become accustomed.
I did go to the trouble of vetting and membership to a local kink group Do not think that this is necessarily going to be a good, viable, are useful association. So, I don’t see much way around it as it means to connect with some like-minded men. I’m certainly not going to find the kind of men I’m seeking at a church. In any case, I’ve moved through to that first step. Unfortunately, I’m not able to attend any upcoming meetings. Which really disappoints. For instance I’m missing something tonight which would be a very good opportunity to get to know people but instead I’m driving down to Texas for my mom’s birthday. Yes it is my mom’s birthday and yes I do need to go This is one of those big tent birthdays, but at the same time I’m still a little selfish when I think about it and really wish I didn’t have to go this weekend. there will be be other opportunities.
In other news, I’m accompanying the wife and boy skiing at spring break. I think this will be my third attempt at skiing. To be clear snow skiing. Took my first trip to a little hill in Wisconsin while I was in college. My girlfriend at the time taught me how to ski on that trip. It wasn’t a bad outing, but it was just one night ski. My second trip was, of all things, my honeymoon. In hindsight, that could have gone very, very badly. For one thing we made this snow ski trip in April. The ski resort had nearly closed for the season when there was a large snow storm. Not only did the storm dump a huge pile of snow, but there was just enough time between the storm and our arrival for all the roads to be cleared including the passes from Truckee over Donner and then from Truckee over to the lake. So, I got the ski Donner pass among other resorts, and got enough practice in that I felt comfortable on the blue slopes as well as the greens. I think it is very unlikely that I’m going to be touching a black slope anytime soon. All of this say that I’ll be up in Colorado at the end of March and that I bought some ski boats for the occasion and will probably buy some more gear before I go.
A quick aside. I’m driving through one of these East Texas towns with which I am so familiar although this one I don’t think I’ve ever passed through. There’s an architecture that’s common among the houses, businesses, and institutions that I don’t often see outside this region of the United States. I suppose you could describe it as ” southern unquote, but there’s a particular character to the Texas towns that you don’t see in for instance Georgia. I think it has a little to do with the slightly drier air and climate.
Another thing that some possible to ignore when you’re driving through Texas or the highway speeds. I’m driving down a straighter than usual country road that probably dates to the 50s. Yet the posted speed limit is 70 mph. Oops now it’s 60. Anyway, you get the idea. There are these long stretches of Texas highway that aren’t particularly built for very high speeds yet that’s the speeds that are posted and that’s the speed the people drive.
Looking ahead to the next poster right, or dictate, I really need to lay down my thoughts regarding something that’s been bugging me for a long time and I’m struggling to put into words. There’s a assistant idea floating ill described among many SAS, bloggers, pundits, social advocates, and other publishing folks regarding public and private lives of women. Even though I am a man, I have given considerable thought to this because I think everybody is missing some very subtle ideas which I will only barely touch on here in this short span I have. First among these is that women are especially limited in their public laws. I don’t think that is true. The limitations lie elsewhere, not necessarily in the perception of women, or a particular woman, by her peers or superiors. To be clear, I do not mean men when I speak of superiors, although that would and does align with my general opinion of such things. I’m speaking instead of the idea that women are somehow restrained from activity due to status when it is not status that is restraining them. Inasmuch as status is not the restraint, it then becomes important to understand what the actual restraining force is which women perceive as being related to status. To that end, I’m hoping to spend my next post trying to describe what I think causes restraint, describe whether that restraint is for the good or for detriment, and then propose a way forward. I will attempt this with humility, because I, like many other men, have a daughter, and a granddaughter, and the wife, and the mother. I want what is good for them. I don’t think they’re getting it, I think the reason they’re not getting it, the good, is because we’re all misunderstanding what keeps them from it.
Some shit happened this week. Maybe I’ll write about it here, or maybe I won’t.
I work today with absolutely no motivation. Yesterday I did manage to clear out a fair portion of the garage. I think I said that wrong. I cleared out some boxes we piled on one side of the garage where I hope to park my car. I emptied a bunch of boxes, move some boxes into the house, and ferried a pile of boxes including ones opened earlier over to the recycling bin near the center of town. So there’s still a lot of boxes in the garage, and I’ll still need to do a lot of work to clear them out, put stuff where it belongs, and get my car in the garage. Okay, that’s better.
Today I managed to get out of bed (yes, that is an accomplishment), cook and eat breakfast, and… nope, that’s it. In my defense, it’s still morning. I expect to get up in a little bit, get a shovel, and dig out the gutter through my driveway. Maintenance on this place I’m renting has been… absent. The landlord hired some folks to do a little refresh on the interiors. That included some touch up for the worst of the scratches on stained wood, and what appears to be some general painting. The painting was poor, and that’s probably a kind description. It’s obvious they didn’t bother to remove switch covers or tape the trim. It’s also interesting to see the choice of paint where the original paint is still visible. I think the original color was much superior. Oh! I almost forgot to mention the toilet. Per usual sloppy jobs They didn’t remove the toilet tank to paint behind it. Worse, they painted the toilet, too! There’s so much in this house that I want to fix. Some of it is maintenance, so I can make the excuse that, for instance, I need to clean the gutters in the driveway so that when it rains I won’t have a drainage problem. But other stuff, like the toilet tank, I struggle to avoid.
There’s a papist church nearby. On the one hand, the hourly bells are a pleasant reminder and addition to the environment. On the other hand they’re a constant annoyance, especially today, being a Sunday. I don’t want to give you the impression that I spend a lot of time thinking about it. But it is like a chime sounding during an exam: it provides a constant reminder of time passing, slipping away, out of your grasp. I had taken for granted what it was to sit quietly and read, or study, or contemplate and completely lose track of time. Especially those days when the house is empty and there’s no demand for my attention. I’m reminded now as I talk about this of the mantle clock at the old farmhouse. It is since a dead clock. When I was a young man and well into my adulthood my grandmother would wind the clock on a regular schedule and care for it very carefully. But it’s her time came to a close, and the clock became truly aged, I think she lost track of when to wind it until finally it wasn’t ever wound. I don’t recall now whether it broke under her watch, or later when that was a task my mother and father managed. But in any case, the clock now sits silent its hands stuck at a time I should perhaps mark somehow. Like so many things at the farm, It is in dire need of repair having been neglected. And so I think that is part of why the church bells anger me a little. They remind me that I must get up and move or the things around me will fall into disrepair. Worse, they are already in disrepair and if I do not move quickly, then I won’t be able to salvage them.
For those that are reading this, I took a break of sorts from reading other blogs this week. The shit that happened this week isn’t earth-shattering, or necessarily noteworthy, but it struck me in a way that elicited sadness and melancholy. Objectively, my life is good. But subjectively, there are some missing pieces that I’m struggling to assemble. My worry is that building will require breaking. And so I find myself procrastinating certain tasks which leads to procrastinating additional tasks which leads to a general sloth which I suspect isn’t so much sloth as avoiding a decision. Action has a tendency to lead to more action. If I get up and clean the gutter, then that momentum will lead me to finish clearing out the garage so I can park my car. Once I’ve parked my car that may lead to more momentum where I empty out the many boxes of books which comprise my library and realize I will need bookshelves. If I need bookshelves then I will go out to a store and I will buy bookshelves and then I will bring them home and then I will assemble them and then I will place all my books on shelves. And once that portion of my life is organized, then I will need to move to the next portion of my life that isn’t clean and tidy and make it instead what I want it to be. But unlike sorting books, cleaning garages, and cleaning gutters, there are real consequences to cleaning one’s life.
And so I’m lying in bed. And I will get up. But I don’t want to.
Movers loaded the truck Monday. We traveled Tuesday. Movers unloaded the truck Wednesday. That night, New Year’s Eve, exhausted, we opted for takeout. This was my fortune.
My Only Superstition
My fortune cookies are always apt, if not outright prophetic. The wife complains that hers always lecture. They do.
“You make your own luck.” Which is true, but not the whole story. A man must tip events in his favor: inaction kills. As much as this place seems “meant to be,” I had to do something to get here. To stay here, I’ll need to work. But success isn’t a result of perspiration.
My employer is a closely held family business with two shareholders: a widow and her stepson. The widow is a silent-ish majority shareholder, while her stepson owns the remainder of the shares of the company his father founded and actively oversees the business.
All that is background for the coincidence that the stepson knows the father of my sister-in-law’s husband, and worked with him for decades. All that would make sense if we’re all from the same town, or county, or state, or region, but this is a coincidence spanning the entire country and decades of time. It doesn’t happen often. And I’d be foolish to think that just my resume and handsome smile got me both the job and the salary to make the move possible.
A financial advisor once remarked to me, “Random chance and geography more strongly influence the network of business partners and friends a man collects than any action he takes to find good people.” That’s been my experience, and it’s played a large part of my decision to change my geography. Already I’m realizing how much nicer people are here than where I left, more courteous, and more friendly. The streets are cleaner, the retail stores better organized, the wait staff genuinely polite, automobile dealership service representatives more thorough. I feel as though I just climbed free of a third world country, and I had no idea how bad I’d been living for so long. Expectations are simply higher.
A decade ago, we discussed with the boy’s school administration the potential to skip him to the next grade. They advised against it, not because he lacked the ability, but because the older cohort themselves lacked the capacity to help push him to a higher standard. [He later advanced while at another school.] I think that’s been my struggle for decades now: I’ve allowed myself to lower expectations by staying in a place and with a people who don’t want anything more than they have already.
My son has been sick. So after struggling for several days, a wife scheduled an appointment for him at a local clinic that’s part of a larger network, nominally Baptist. The whole experience for them, as they shared with me, was that a level I might call “concierge.” At reception to this walk-in clinic, they were offered beverages, ushered immediately back to a room, and treated with care and concern I haven’t observed from medically trained personnel in my entire life. It’s as if they landed on a planet where doctors actually care about patients. The largest delay of the entire experience for them was treatment for excess ear wax, and a long personal and a long conversation about my son’s current pursuits. They departed armed with a prescription for azithromycin and steroids. The only hiccup on the entire spectrum of that day was a slight delay for filling the prescription. The wife and I ran some errands ( household goods ), then picked up the prescription on the way home.
The three of us keep remarking to each other how nice everyone is that we meet. I think I’m repeating myself now. Yet I suppose this bears repeating. As I’ve said different ways before, I feel as though we just landed on a planet where people are nice. It’s very, very strange to me. I think it’s worth clarifying that I don’t mean “midwest nice” But the genuine niceness that you need when you’ve had a really bad day, or in my case a very bad decade, and you need someone to actually care about you. It’s the little things, like a smile, or chuckle, or a little extra that somebody gives you among the other things that you purchased.
Tomorrow I start work again. I’m actually very eager to start producing stuff. There’s a wide open list of projects, or potential projects, along with a lot of incoming tasks that will need to be accomplished. First on the list will probably be cleaning. There’s a small warehouse space behind the smaller office which has been collecting materials for two decades. Boxes, files, material samples, prototypes, and even old machining equipment and lab devices are scattered throughout the space. My colleagues are eager to clear out the old junk. I may need to restrain them at least long enough for me to assess what we have and come to my own conclusions about what I’ll need going forward.
Another “people are nice” aspect of this job has been the two weeks of near vacation during Christmas week in New Year’s Eve week. I’ve become so accustomed from three decades of work to spending precious vacation days to enjoy the Christmas season that, like all the other things that are pleasant about this job and move, I’m struggling to believe it’s real. I think I’ll need another week at the office working as I should without any comment about how I wasn’t working the last two weeks to believe that I was permitted the time off, albeit one week of moving.
The rental house is pretty nice, but it’s funny how moving three times during the last several years has informed my opinions of what should or shouldn’t be in a house, or particular floor plan improvements, or how big a laundry room should be, or if there should be a garbage drawer in the kitchen, or how big the bedroom should be in the master suite, or if the water pressure is good enough,… I think I’m going to have to build when we leave the rent house or I won’t be satisfied with the next residence. Rich people problems.
I meant to have a theme, or at least a subject, for this post, but I may have lost the plot. I’m trying to say that sometimes you, reader, are in the wrong place, you need to leave that place, and you need to find a better place. More likely than not, the problem is not the place as such, but the people in the place. And you’re not going to be able to clear out the people in the very nice place – and the place itself is very nice – and so you’re going to need to go to another place where those people are not, even if that other place, the place itself, isn’t as nice because you will find better people in the other place which make that place the nicer place.
Also, if I have to speak for my fellow Americans, I will say that this is a very American thing to do. We leave a place, and we go to another place. My father’s family relocated from Europe to America during the early 20th century, then from the Dakotas to Oregon. My mother’s family came over before Independence, but they have moved from the Carolinas down to Florida and then across the Texas and points in between. I had hoped, unreasonably, to arrive in a place after college and to stay there. That was a mistake. Don’t make my mistake. Go west. Or east. But go. You don’t have to live that way.
We’ve packed most of the house. The big parts remaining are the kitchen and art, and the art is stacked. Movers arrive Monday. If all goes well, then we depart Monday night, perhaps stopping in Arkansas, or perhaps driving through to OKC.
The family came and went for the holidays, and aside from a few minor challenges, the three days passed without incident. Yesterday I emptied the storage unit into the garage. Today I packed much miscellany, clothes, and disassembled the garage shelving. Tonight was chili, and we’re resting for the remainder of the evening.
By New Year’s Eve, we’ll be in Oklahoma City, unpacking again. I’m still struggling to comprehend how quickly my life changed. I’m amazed. Here’s to the New Year, and here’s a Mushoku Tensei screen capture.
A Life Un-Lived 
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