The Girl in the Frumpy Dress with tears in her eyes

This post was borne out of a facebook post that I wrote, but that needed to be deleted because it had the potential to put Meg in an uncomfortable situation.

I wish I could remember exactly what I wrote on that post but the gist of it was sort of like this:

I adore this girl and enjoy watching her performances. This is her final play with this theater group as she ages out. I'm a little disappointed because we thought she'd get a starring role in her final performance but instead she got what I would consider one of her most insignificant roles. Unfortunately the directors tend to give all of the best roles to a select few performers, each of whom are no better or worse than Annie. It's a bittersweet end to a great run.

We've always told her that eventually she'll get a starring role, but that never really happened. The closest she has come to a starring role would be when she played a mother mouse who lost her son. She had a part in that play that brought me to tears. Then last play she was one of a group of 5 or 6 girls all named Jenny. They were the Jennys. It was a good part, but shared among a few girls, not a unique role. In previous plays she was one of several Dancing Tiggers (from winnie the pooh), and one of a few dancing hillbillies, and one of  several girls in wrapped boxes as dancing presents, and one of a handful of dancing Asian dressed narrators. All of this seemed fair and normal as she rose through her years and gained experience, which is really what it was all about, right? But it's my opinion that every child who signs up year after year ultimately deserves one "starring" type role". It's not like there weren't plenty to go around.

In the early days I always noticed it was the same 6 to 8 performers in the best roles, but had assumed it was because of a lack of fifth and sixth graders to have more than those 6 to 8 play the best parts. The reality was that there were twice as many fifth and sixth graders as there were starring roles, but they just favored those particular performers. Was it a coincidence that they were the children of some of the directors and stage volunteers? Or were they really the only ones who could pull off those "difficult" roles?

In the end I've been very proud of Annie's theater run and I appreciate that the program was there for her to join. I think the woman who runs the program does a great job as she basically writes each play, or rewrites it to work with the current cast. But in this final play Annies part was written in for her and adds nothing to the story. The entire story works without her part. And she got 12 lines, where her peers got 30 to 90 lines.

I'm able to see the flaws in my own child... in her dance performance years I would sometimes say "for such a sweet little girl, she dances like a drunk elephant." She's actually a good dancer these days, I specifically noticed it the other night at the play. While other's struggled with some of the moves, she not only hit all of the cues but she did it with flair and style. As she matures so do her performance skills.

When all of the girls got their parts Annie came home crying because it was so obvious that her part was a nothing burger. When all of the girls got their costumes, she came home crying because hers was so frumpy compared to the others. Okay, my girl can be a drama queen, not going to deny it. But she wasn't exactly wrong either. Although personally I kinda like her costume. When a woman involved with the back stage goings on noticed Annie was down she asked her what was up and Annie owned that she was disappointed with her costume. The woman made a comment that this part was written in to give her a part and she should be thankful.

So what... if they didn't add this part Annie would have just sat and watched? Fuck you lady... don't tell my kid something like that. What you were supposed to say is something like "oh really, I love that dress and I think you're going to look great in it." Don't kick the girl while she's down for christ sake.

I gave Annie permission to quit if she wanted to and despite the tears in her eyes she told me she didn't want to and that instead she wanted to be the best frumpy mother of two characters that didn't need her to exist in order to validate their parts this theater group has ever seen. Okay those are my words not hers but that was pretty much the message she gave me with her response. Just another reason for me to be proud of her.

She really has taken to the part and plays the best mutha farquing frumpy mother I've ever watched on the stage goddamit! Even with her measly 12 lines.

I'll see the show again Sunday afternoon. And when it's over she'll be crying and I will be too. She'll be crying because her theater run is over and the girls always cry on the last performance. I'll be crying because she's my baby and I adore her and I'm always touched by her performances, even in the days when she danced like a drunken elephant.

A short ride on the misery train... finding balance between struggle and happiness

On August 15th 2008 my life turned upside down. Well... if I'm being honest my life has been a series of bad decisions and events that continuously turned my life upside down. Its my modus operandi really, and in some ways it's how I thrived, or maybe thrive. Like fuel for a furnace I need a little bit of struggle to power the engine of my existence. If I were ever happy without struggle I'd be miserable and I'm not ashamed to own that.

I digress. On that fateful day I started a new job that launched the last decade of my career and it also marked the beginning of nine years of health issues that led to four and a half years on dialysis and ultimately a kidney transplant in October of 2017.

Throughout that time I was a slave to my health issues and the myriad jobs that I held especially because it was important to have health coverage even if I hated the company I worked for. Not that I always hated those companies, but there were times, let me tell you. Lets just say it certainly hasn't always been easy to do something I enjoy for companies run by people, and that employed people who loathe the president that I love and like the president that I despise. In some way it makes perfect sense too because these same people hate what I do and why what I do is even being done. It used to be different but its not anymore and they don't like the change, but they need a guy like me to do what I do and its with these companies that I can make the best salary. So we put up with each other for different reasons... or maybe not so different reasons. They need a guy like me to win the jobs that pay big money and I need them to pay me what I need to survive in modern times. I suppose that makes me a sellout, but remember, I did it to support my family through hard times and to maintain the health care that I needed to stay alive. Literally. But it also fed my need for struggle to keep my furnace burning... happiness without struggle is misery. And in the end I DO like what I do for a living.

During the years I was on dialysis I looked forward to my post transplant life. When I could start to do things that I couldn't do because my health prevented it. But in the four months that have passed since the transplant I've felt my life slipping into old habits. Letting go of the things that are important to me for the sake of others or the company. Its all slowly spiraling out of control and I won't be able to unbake the cake.

There are things about my current job that are perfect like the commute and the fact that no one ever stands over me and watches what I'm doing. I'm trusted to get my work done and I usually do.

But I work for a couple of gorillas. I like to think of them as cranky Laurel & Hardy or Fat Man & Little Boy.

One of them is about my own size and weight and he's always grumpy or angry. The other is probably 75 lbs heavier than me with a barrel chest. He's a lot more jovial until he becomes angry, then he explodes in a way that makes his grumpy brother seem pleasant.

The gorillas have been getting under my skin recently and I've got to figure that out. I'm just not sure that we have compatible solutions as to how to fix this.

Since returning to work following my transplant and short lived recovery period (I'm actually still officially in recovery) they've been stacking more and more work on my plate and expecting me to figure out how to get it all done in a timely fashion. Meanwhile they have little tasks they throw at me as well... one to three hour jobs that they just need me to get done quickly so we can get paid.

Oddly, two or three of my current jobs are asking for me to do on site weekly meetings. The industry standard for the last decade has been for 95% of the meetings to be online meetings with a few on site meetings here and there when required. To get to three meetings, sit through three meetings and return to work from three meetings consumes a minimum of 9 hours of my week. I'm expected to still get 40 hours of CAD time done against the jobs despite having lost nine hours supporting these jobs in other ways.

Typically a CAD Coordinator can handle two jobs without flinching, three jobs with a hint of struggle and an occasionally missed deadline, but four or more simultaneous jobs and the work starts to become noticeably beneath the standards expected and deadlines are constantly being missed.

There's a rule in our industry, especially in my job, where you can't ever give the excuse "well, it's not like your job is the only job I'm working on." Even though everyone knows its true, you're supposed to always make it seem like that job is the only thing that matters and there's nothing more important to you right now. Which again.. between two to three jobs is generally manageable. But when it's four or five jobs and other tasks are being thrown at you as well... its a near impossibility.

Even as I, for all intents and purposes, finished up one of those jobs this week, I was made aware that a new job has landed on our plate as of this coming Monday and it will be the most important job and needs to be done immediately. So just as I saw the potential to get it all under control they've thrown a wrench at my monkey (thrown a monkey wrench into the works... but you got that, right?)




I'm faltering. I'm flailing. I'm putting in far too many hours and I'm exhausted come the weekend and all I want to do is rest and watch TV. I'm worried that between my post transplant medically impaired immune system and the long hours I'm going to end up sick or worse, losing my kidney and ending up back on dialysis, possibly permanently. But I can't just stop. I have to figure out how to get it all done in some kind of balanced way.

I'm stressed at work, which stresses me out at home and that's unfair to my family, especially Annie who has her own struggles as she is becoming a young adult, a young woman, and that's got to be a hard enough struggle for her to navigate.

Its fine that she is annoyed by her boobs and worries that people might notice them, but she doesn't need to be worried about my health at one end of the spectrum nor should she be walking on eggshells around me in fear that I might explode at her if she messes up. And I'm almost certain that I have in recent months.

I'm living it and I'm watching myself live it, but I can't seem to escape it. I've jumped onto the misery train and I don't know how long it can continue down this track before it all explodes in a fiery mess. I don't know how to switch tracks to get on the path to a comfortable struggle. At this point I could probably drive my own train, but I need affordable health care for the rest of my life and that doesn't seem to meld with self employment. I could look for new work, but 90% of the jobs out there mean driving into Boston or Cambridge daily, which comes with an entirely different stress. And if I'm being honest, there's a part of me that wants to beat the struggle and find a little happiness, without the misery.

I wanted to know something... (or How many times can I say smartphone?)

I wanted to know something.

The world we live in allows us to know the answer to any question in mere moments. The answer quite often is literally at our fingertips, at arms length and as easy as asking our smartphone the question.

I wanted to know something but I was in the middle of  doing something else. It wasn't important, but it was what I was doing at THAT particular moment and the smartphone was in the other room where I would also be as soon as I finished what I was doing. And so I arrived in the room with the smartphone, with my tea and toast.

That's what I was doing... making tea and toast. I make tea and toast every morning. My routine is identical every morning. I roll out of bed, I dress into some clothing, I have my morning visit to the toilet, then I head to the kitchen to make tea and toast. I follow that process up by heading to the living room and turning on my TV and either watching some CNN or I watch a show on demand that I had missed in the previous two or three days. Occasionally I just surf through Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Prime for something new to watch.

There's something comforting about routine, but routine is a gateway to laziness. Routine is cyclical and life was never meant to be cyclical. Or was it? The sun rises and sets every day. Winter is followed by spring and then summer begets autumn and the whole thing repeats itself year after year. But given the choice between cyclical and linear, which is the better option? Imagine never living the same day twice. Could you even literally do that? I mean waking up in a different place every single day of your life is a near impossibility. Feeding yourself and the people you've made almost demands the cyclical. Loving one person for 20, 40, 60 years is the core of a cyclical life. So routine and the cyclical are the foundation of a successful life and the very bulwark against loneliness and despair.

I wanted to know something.

I was in my living room drinking tea and eating toast and looking for something to watch. I had settled on a movie with Ben Stiller called "Brad's Status". I connected with Brad. I often get stuck in my own head, pondering the multifaceted world we live and the part I'm supposed to play. I think I narrate my life to myself as I live it and often wonder if I've ever accidentally narrated out loud. Has anyone ever heard me telling myself how I felt at that moment or heard me imagine a future version of myself enjoying the fruits of my own success? I can so easily get distracted in my own thoughts that I often miss the things that people around me are talking about. In fact I've learned to laugh in public situations based on tonal cues from the person speaking even though I have no idea what they just said.

While watching "Brad's Status" I noticed Ben Stiller's hair has grayed over the years. My own hair has grayed, but mostly my side burns and my beard. Isn't it funny that my facial hair has gone completely gray but my hair on my head is still the same color it's always been? Over the last year my hair has thinned. I'm not bald, but you can see the skin of my scalp through my hair now. I've always said that if I ever start to go bald I'm just going to go all in and not try to hide it through creative brushing of my hair. I told Meg and Annie that I intend to shave my head bald soon and they're both adamant that I don't. They think I'll look terrible bald. "Oh, thanks for the support guys." Feel free to voice your own opinions on whether or not I should just shave my head bald. I had done it once before in my 30's as seen here.

Anyway, I wanted to know something so I picked up my smartphone.

I looked at the time. It was 9:00 AM. My pill alarm usually goes off at 7:00 AM, but it didn't this morning. I was wondering why it hadn't and I recalled that I didn't hear it last night either at 8:00 PM when it usually goes off.  So I went to the clock app, checked the alarm section and they were all gone. Oh right, I was cleaning up my phone yesterday. Going through every app in the settings and clearing the data and cache. I didn't really think about the fact that this would erase all of my pill alarms and early morning meeting alarms. I had received a gift at Christmas, one of these devices that allows you to interface with the internet through first calling out the name of the device, then asking it a question. Basically a smartphone that isn't a phone so much as a stationary device that lives in the house with you and acts like a smartphone. Before you can set it up you need to download an app onto your smartphone. I tried to do that a month or two ago but there wasn't enough room so I've been meaning to get around to cleaning up my smartphone.

I took my pills.

I wanted to know something. It's so easy to get the answer to any question these days. You simply press a button on your smartphone, or call out the name of your device if you've set it up, speak the question out loud, and your smartphone or device gives you an answer, or perhaps several options. But there is nothing that you can't find out about by simply asking your smartphone or smartphone like device.

I wanted to know something, so I picked up my smartphone pressed the button, but could no longer recall the question.