A Letter to Bewildered Friends Concerning the Slow Decline to Sudden Danger

Dear the soon to be judgmental,

A few years ago I needed new brake pads.  I had an older Buick.  That purple wine colored model with the huge trunk.  I'm sure you've seen a few around your town.  Good enough cars but not the height of fashion or performance.  It got the job done for longer than it probably should have and I actually ended up really missing it when it finally died.

Anyway, I'm not talking about when it died.  I'm talking about when I needed new brake pads once.  I had heard the tell tale signs of squeaking and squealing.  I'm not ignorant to a car's needs and knew exactly what I had to do.  I needed to take it in and get the brake pads replaced.  Just take it in.  I even had a place I liked to go.  They recognized me and everything.  So, all I had to do was take it in.  Just take it in, Stephen.  Take it in, Stephen.  Stephen, take it in!  Stephen!  Ste-goddamnit take it to the place to get the thing done!

But I didn't.

I don't want you to get the wrong impression about that statement.  It's not like I waited until they were really squealing loud before I finally gave in.  Nor did I industriously decide to change them myself as a self reliant member of society.  No, see, I rode them, as is, until they were destroyed.  Let me share with you a little bit about what that's like.

At first there was an air splintering squeal that would mellow into a low metallic shutter.  It was the shutter of what was left of the pads and the mount they sat on, also the metal clips that hold the brake pads in place, pushing raw against the metal rotor.  Have you ever heard a train stop?  It's like that.  It's JUST like that.  It's not a single screech, but a few separate pitches of screech all at once.  It was actually a screech NOTE being played from the undercarriage of my car, and oddly enough, not entirely unpleasant.  It was like a loud flute.

When I first set out from a cold start the car actually stopped better than it ever had before.  Cold metal hitting cold metal doesn't give very well and the car would practically stun to a halt.  Then, friction would take hold of the situation and start creating heat.  And more heat.  If slow moving cold metal stunned to a stop, fast moving hot metal sort of glided to a roll, until it slowed, then caught and stopped.  So, the faster I was going the further back I would have to start applying the break.  Remember how I said it sounded like a train stopping?  Well, it kind of felt like a train stopping too.

This "honeymoon" phase of not having break pads lasted a month or so.  I could get around pretty much the same as I always did, but with a lot of forethought.  It actually kept my mind focused on driving like never before because I had to watch for every little subtle change in the traffic to plan that far ahead.  I found that paying attention more meant I had to stop less, and for a while everything was just fine.  Then that heat and friction did what they always do and started to eat away at the metal that was being used to stop about a ton of steel going sometimes upwards of 70 miles an hour.

Yeah, 70 miles an hour.  Don't worry, I'm going to address that, just let me get this out first.

The grinding came next.  At first it was relatively smooth considering what was happening.  It was even and consistent like an axe being sharpened on a stone wheel.  But applying the brakes was starting to mean less and less to the performance of the car.  I rolled faster and for longer, even when pushing the pedal completely to the floor.  I started taking mostly side roads and avoiding long trips.  I started doing things other than applying the brake to slow the car down.  Swerving a little side to side to bleed off speed.  Letting off the gas when going up hills.  Even pulling the car into the grass a little to let the rough terrain kill my momentum.  All the while the grinding got worse, vibrating the car with such a low, sick growl that I couldn't tell if it was the car groaning at the effort, or my stomach from the experience.

Let's take a quick breath.

This is crazy right?  This is the story of a crazy person.  Yeah, I agree.  At no point when this was happening did I think I was doing something good.  At the time we were having financial trouble, and I was convinced that there was no way to afford break pads, and that this was the only option I had left.  I kept the severity of it from everyone.  If I had let slip even a hint of what was happening to any friend or family member they would have instantly it fixed.  I can't even explain where my head was at and why I had practically invented this cross for myself to bear.  Something deep inside told me to endure my situation and that I was doing what I had to to keep us afloat.

Which is crazy as hell.  Don't ever let your car get like that, like ever.  Seriously, someone will help you.  Hell, if you know me, I'll help you.  If anything this is a cautionary tale about being a stupid person that doesn't ask for help.  Ok, anyway, let's hop back in.

The grind quickly turned into what I can only describe as what it was.  The sound of a piece of machinery SCOOPING metal from a trench made in another piece of machinery.  The mounts where all but destroyed and the calipers, which hold the pads around the rotor and are involved in the "squeeze" to slow down, were starting to take the hit.  What remained only acted as a shield to allow the calipers themselves to dig into the rotors as they spun hot dust into the air.  It must have been the reverse of making a clay ashtray on a potter's wheel.  Or like a metal lathe shaving away all the unwanted layers of the only surface that can be manipulated on a motor vehicle to directly slow it's momentum.

Using the brakes had become a supplemental step in how I drove that car.  The brakes were something that kept the car stopped after I had already managed to slow it down through all my previously stated means.  I dreaded driving.  Absolutely dreaded it.  The back roads weren't so bad but I had to navigate downtown traffic on a daily basis, including getting into and back out of a parking garage.

The posts of metal that were digging into the rotors on a daily basis had started to groove the plates and wear down little pot holes in their path so when applied forcefully the car would buck and jerk and rattle and roar until finally the groove was deep enough and I was slow enough that the brakes would hard lock and the car would kind of skip to a stop.

Imagine dealing with that long enough that you started to get good at it.  My dread of driving started to melt away with the routine of successfully driving.  The new way I had to adapt to was becoming all but habit.  I could shoot up, yes SHOOT up, the ramps in the parking garage, accelerating as I went higher and then whip around two corners jerk through a gap between floors, twist the wheel at an empty space, jam on the "brakes", and ride my rodeo horse of a car right into the cavity, lurching to a stop inches from the concrete wall.

During this, I don't know, episode, of my life we bought a house and moved in.  I know this because the first time I turned down the road to view the house before buying it it took me forever to drive the .2 miles I needed to go because I hadn't seen the house yet and didn't know how far back I need to start taking evasive maneuvers.

Driving home, to that house, via the interstate, going 80 miles an hour, is when the robust system of luck and fairy dust finally broke down and 50% of the pedals in my car became absolutely useless.  I was about a mile away from my exit so I jammed down on the break to start my descent.  There was a brief moment that the car pulled back and then it shot forward again with an anti-climactic pop.  The last of the metal had been scoop out and as  the calipers were hydraulically pressed inward.  Now they only rested comfortably in a perfectly shaped trough of their making.  Happy little hermit crabs, snug in their homes.

Queue my life instantly halting as the full situation dawns on me like the beginning of a Road Runner cartoon. I queried my mind, my trusted companion for years, for suggestions and it returned nothing.  I could have, scratch that, SHOULD have put on my emergency lights, pulled off the road, and let the car slow down.  Then I should have called a tow truck and had my wife come get me from the mechanic.  That sounds reasonable and sane doesn't it?  I bet you all would do that thing.  It's nice and human.

No, the lever was jerked down on the one armed bandit in my mind I call "stress related solutions" and the reels came up, "go, for, it."  So, it was decided, by me, that my best option was to try and get home, with NO FUCKING BRAKES AT ALL, GOING 80 MILES AN HOUR!

My exit was coming up, but score, there's a hill right before it and it's long and curved.  I took the exit, and viewed my first obstacle: an almost 270 degree left turn through a red light.  Couldn't do that, but there's a way to slide off to the right.  I had to take it even though it lead away from my house.  To the right does, however, lead straight into train tracks which were thankfully devoid of an actual train that day. I took a little hop over the raised tracks and looked down the road at the few driveways I could see.  Cruising down past the houses I had one goal: steep driveway.  And, as if queued from off stage, one almost immediately appeared.  A perfect specimen that was about 40 degrees up.

I jerked the wheel into the empty drive way.  The sudden turn bled a lot of speed and the incline took the rest.  I let the car glide up the driveway and it hung comically at the top for a second and then I started to fall backwards.  I used the momentum to complete my three point turn and got pointed back in the direction of my house.  I then had to use the gas to push myself towards home which felt ludicrous after I'd just had to use GRAVITY to stop myself.  So, I push back the way I came and I got across the tracks again, and got through the light that had thwarted me the first time and start up one side of the overpass.  The hill slowed me down again a good bit, but my heart sank when I crested the apex and saw not only a red light at where I needed to turn left, but cars stacked behind it and traffic flowing freely on the crossroad.

I said before I'm not completely ignorant about cars, and that's true.  I know all sorts of little bits of trivia about how it all works together, I just don't have much experience with repair and upkeep other than topping off fluids and replacing burned out lights or clogged air filters and replacing what feels like over a hundred tires in my life time.  Something I do know, and also knew back then, was that when you put your car in park an actual physical pin is pushed between the teeth of the gears so that they are completely restricted from spinning.  It's called a pawl and it looks about the size of a big key.  Your brakes are just gripping the wheels but there's not obstruction, only friction, but with the parking break a piece of metal has been laid down between other pieces of metal and it locks the whole system.

I was rolling uncontrollably towards a group of cars.  There was no fancy little driveway trick here, I just needed to stop.  There was only one other thing I could think of that would stop the car from moving forward.  There was a slight hesitation as my mind played out the picture of a thin piece of metal breaking off and getting twisted around in the churning fluid of my transmission.  I pulled onto the grass to my right, and I through the car into park at about 35 mph.

Jee-zuz Christ.

It sounded like I was dry firing a Gatling gun.  I thought the brakes had been making a racket.  No sir, THIS was a noise to write home about.  I was SURE I was listening to my transmission act as a circular saw as it cut deftly through the tiny, insignificant parking pin.  Or worse, the pin was made of some kind of undestructium and was shearing the teeth off the gear.  I could only hope that it slowed me enough to keep me off the road.  The buzz was blasting away my sanity as I watched the ditch (my LITERAL last ditch effort to stop) get closer and closer.  And then the car stalled and locked and skid to a quick stop in the muddy grass.

At that moment I didn't pray, because I don't pray, but I did apologize profusely to my poor Buick Century. I should never have let it get this far, I knew that now, and if she could just limp home, just 1.3 miles, I would take care of her.  I promised.

She started back up with the first turn of the key.  I waited for a giant lull in traffic and I pulled out and drove down the road.  I took the corner onto my street and I coasted home under the power of the idling engine.  I rolled to an exhausted stop in our gravel driveway.  I put her back in park (it still worked!), and I turned her off.

Silence.  Just pure silence.  The silence of space.  The silence of calm.  The silence of a baby after it's cried itself to sleep.

The car sat right there where it had rolled to a stop for a while before a friend of ours came out and swapped our the rotors and calipers (actually just one caliper if you can believe it), and put fresh break pads on.  He also calibrated the rear brakes so that they were actually catching the inside of the drum instead of doing absolutely nothing, as they had been the entire time this was going on.

"Oh, right," I said.  "I'm supposed to have four of these."  He gave me that look that men give one another when they know someone has survived something IN SPITE of themselves.  And, he only charged us for parts.  He's a really good guy.

So, why?  Right?  Just why any of it.  I don't know.  I honestly don't know why I went through that.  Was there a part of me that was terrified of being the reason we had to spend money?  Was there a part of me that was just THAT lazy?  Dear god, was there a part of me that was just curious to see what would happen?  How far I could take it?

All of the above, I think.  I could have gotten the money somewhere.  I'm lazy but not THAT lazy.  I had to have known that eventually I was going to end up in a situation exactly like the one that happened.  I've tried to distill down a reason or a thought process and there just isn't one.  The recorders were turned off for this one.  I remember actions completely devoid of intent.  It's like when people describe being possessed.  I could see myself being a complete idiot, but I couldn't do anything about it.

Also, I would be lying if I said I didn't look back on all that happened, the exciting climax especially, with a sense of adventure.  I've been of the mind for a while that for an adventure to count there has to be at least a small risk of danger.  Well, then a huge risk of danger should do it, right?

It's something out of a pulp novel or a bad movie.  The brakes are out?  Are you serious?  But, I mean, I DID that.  Something happened to me in real life that is considered a movie cliche'.

I'm sorry if I sound excited by that, because it was actually pretty awful.  It was stupid and dangerous and irresponsible to myself, my family, and the other people on the road.  It was all around a pretty dipshit thing to do, and the fact it took MONTHS to get to that point is just, well, we can start with embarrassing and work through the worse ones as we go.

But.

But, at the same time, it is a priceless and irreplaceable experience in my life.  I could have wrecked my car. I could have been arrested.  I could have hurt myself.  I could have died.  But NONE of that happened.  I made it home.

I made it home.

God, just breathe in that air.  Breathe in that air of a planet where stupidity and triumph can live together in harmony.  Where things can go to hell and you can survive.  Where it can even be your fault and you can still survive.  Where you can make mistakes and still make it home.  That's the electric, rarefied that air gusts past you, only for a moment, after you've had an adventure, no matter how ridiculous the circumstance.

Sincerely,
Chiggie Von Richthofen

A Letter to The Wilderness Concerning Hypersleep

Dear vast, untapped thicket of my near and distant future,

I'm 29.  Right now when I'm writing this, I'm 29.  I feel older, but then how the hell could someone know what they feel like when they've only ever felt younger?  So, I guess I DON'T feel younger than 29.  I can say that with confidence.

I want to talk to you about how I've been having to use a machine to breath at night for the last few months.

I'm not severely injured or even really sick.  I suffer from the "don't work rights" which plague so many hard working Americans.  When I go to sleep my "stuff" doesn't "work right" and I stop breathing.  Like, a lot.  Like, enough that when the doctor looked at the sleep study results she furrowed her brow and said, "I'm going to call the medical supply place myself.  Right now.  And, you need to go today."

It's interesting isn't it?  You're alive almost 30 years, thinking that you function more or less the way you should, and then someone in a lab coat, younger than you, says, oh yeah, you'll be needing a sleep robot right away!  Can't be trusting you to stay alive just with the use of your own body can we?

Suddenly.  A little computerized compressor, a water tank, a hose, a mask with neoprene straps and I look like I'm ready for a bacta-tank every night.  It's not as big of an ordeal as the sleep study setup was.  That was a bigger mask (it actually rubbed the skin off my nose), a larger unit, wires coming off of my head and chest, a two way com system, and the inability to stop what was happening.  No hopping up to take a leak or get a drink of water.  The study was like, well, being studied, I guess.  Also, my CPAP ebbs and flows with my breathing, while the one at the study just pushed constantly so I had to fight to breath out, which was not pleasant.

All in all the little CPAP unit is not that bad.  I even took it with me on a trip and it wasn't a huge pain in the ass to travel with.  They even have special rules about assisted breathing apparati at the airport to make it LESS of a hassle to have it with you.  It's easy to clean.  It's easy to use and adjust. The mask is relatively comfortable and everyone involved has been very helpful.  Most of it was even covered by insurance.

So, why am I unhappy with the change?  Don't I feel better?  I suppose I do.  I can feel myself a little less on edge lately and I don't nod off at bad times like I've done my whole life.  Aren't I glad that my heart isn't under stress?  Sure, that's good to know.  I've been a little more health conscious lately, so this is one less thing to worry about.  So, what's the big deal?

The big deal is that I need a robot to sleep!

Having a robot do something for you is great.  I delight in robotic things.  I even still enjoy using our electric can opener.  It evokes such deep, thought out quotes from me as, "isn't this thing nuts?  I opens cans!"  I love robots; I know this about myself.  Something else I know is that I get a kick out of robots, mostly, because the ones I deal with on a daily basis are not required for me to function.  They are a luxury or a novelty.  I do have an electric can opener, but 9 times out of 10 when I need to open a can in my kitchen I use my Leatherman.  It's there with me all the time and I don't have to hunt for the right thing or worry about where it goes.  It goes in my pocket.

That's how I like to live.  I have a few things I carry with me all the time that I consider needed and that frees me up to consider just about everything else a convenience.  Now, obviously this has a limit.  I need a place to live.  I need something to keep my food cold.  I need something to heat my water up.  These are not luxuries, and I can't put them in my pocket, but deep in the back of my mind I know that those items are so common that I'll surely make due along the way, and if need be, I could fashion what I needed from things I found.  Make a fire, build a bivy, what have you.  Making ice would be tricky, but if you walk far enough North it just falls from the sky.

Is this kind of an extreme way to look at the world?  Who's to say?  No, that's an expression.  It means nobody knows.  No, I know you think you know, but--OK it just means shut the hell up!  It's fine.  Anyway.

There's a part of me, a big part, that likes knowing that in the case that I lost everything, and was left with bare hands on bare earth, that I could still make it.  That I could fashion an existence out of what was around me.  It's a romantic day dream I like to get lost in from time to time, and also a mental toolbox I like to work on when the mood strikes.  Learning how to live with as little as possible, even going out and trying it, can be a deeply rewarding experience.  I also don't mind what it's done for my perspective on most things in life.

Remember Crocodile Dundee?  Remember how lame you thought he was?  Yeah, well I'm not you, and I friggin' loved that guy, and wanted to be him for a good part of my young life.  I'm sure you all know someone, or ARE someone, who shares the idea that if you needed to drop everything and go play Jeremiah Johnson, after a bit of fumbling around, you'd eventually be able to.

Enter: THE ROBOT THAT I NEED TO SLEEP.

What an antithesis to the romance of the Undiscovered Country.  I'll be perfectly healthy out in the bush.  I just need distilled water.  Oh, and air filters.  Oh, and anti-bacterial soap.  Oh, and fucking electricity! Also, I need a flat bed that keeps my spine straight, and a pillow, but not like a big pillow because I have to be able to align my head right to allow my throat to open, but not like a super small one either otherwise--STOP!  Just, for the love of Jesus, stop.  I know.  I know I need all this bullshit.

It's an anchor, you see.  It's not fun, or novel, or convenient.  It's required.  Now, even taking a nap entails an equipment check.  When I fantasize about a life free of the unnecessary I never thought to leave a little space in my dream for the continuous positive airway pressure machine.  Rocking chairs and a wood pile, sure, but the Darth Vader mask never felt like it needed to be added to the dramatization.

I even tried to make a game out of it.  If it was ruining one fantasy I thought maybe it could enhance another.  Since I was a little boy I've wanted to travel the stars on a spaceship.  It's pretty standard procedure now to describe most of those flights through suspended animation.  Every sci-fi hero starts their story with a breathing mask on in a deep hypersleep.  So, I lay back and take in the cool, moist air and think about how when I wake up I'll be a trillion miles away.  Will I be awoken by a distress beacon?  Will the on board computer go insane?  Will a small asteroid pierce the hull in mid flight and cause the remaining, surviving crew to have to fight monsters on an uncharted planet?  What is that noise?

No, seriously.  What is that noise?  It sounds like scratching.  Is it scratching?  I sit up, throwing my blankets askew and creaking my twin bed (the sound of the machine and my constant fiddling with it at night was, ironically, destroying my wife's sleep rhythm).  I look over at the hole in the closet where a pipe burst last year and I haven't fixed the drywall yet.  Are there mice again?  God, it's going to be that nightmare all over again isn't it?  But, then I see a piece of wrapping paper from this Christmas.  Unused and forgotten it gently flutters from the breeze of the fan and lightly taps on the bookshelf.

I take in a deep breath of relief and my "hypersleep gear" overcompensates and jams a gulp of air down my throat causing me to cough, which jams more air, and I just have to rip the whole thing off to get my bearings so I can reattach it and start all over.

It really is an anchor.  As I let my imagination drift off, which I am especially want to do during the last few blinking moments before sleep, I can't slide too far down river before I have to make an adjustment to a strap or tinker with the humidifier settings and I feel the chain go taught and snap me back to the dock of my actual life.

A life full of complication and stress and hard decisions and consequences.  A life where you can't fix every problem with a multi-tool or a bit of cord.  A life out of reach of adventures in the stars.

I don't know.  Maybe it's all a good thing.  Maybe it's good to remember that you're not a wilderness man or a space marine.  Maybe it's good to be reminded that you have a mortgage and chores and you like to play video games and watch Netflix.  That's what I've been telling myself, lately.

That this machine isn't ruining who I want to be, but it's just bringing sharper definition to who I am already.  At want point does my legitimate fear just become incessant whining?  I hem and haw about the burden of it, but I don't even put it on sometimes.  I've snuck a few naps on the couch since I've gotten it.  I could go camping without it if I wanted.  It would be just like when I went before I even knew I needed it.  The only burden is the knowledge of why I have to have it.

I think what I might not like about it is how coldly honest owning the thing has turned out to be.  I didn't go out and get the newest iPhone.  I can't grow as a person and realize I don't need it.  I just need it.

I have severe sleep apnea and I need a CPAP device to make sure that my heart isn't overtaxed during sleep and to make sure that my brain goes through the proper sleep cycles to recover for the next day.  It's just...damn, that's a hell of a thing.  That belongs with sentences like "I am currently making under industry standard for my position and profession," or "My dog needs prescription food that is three times the cost of store bought because of a recurring bladder condition."  Just one of those very plain, unfun things that you have to say when you reach the ripe old age of, oh I don't know, say 29.

Now that I actually sit down and think about it, it makes a lot of sense for me to have it.  It didn't interrupt a playboy lifestyle.  Yesterday I wasn't feeling well so I went and used a bow saw to cut up tree limbs and burned them.  That's what I did as a pick-me-up.  After that I ate a subway sandwich and drank a hard cider while I watched Parks and Recreation.  An episode I had seen at least three times.  Even today I had two separate people ask how I was doing, and after listening to me say my piece, suggested I should start wearing suspenders.  The suggestions weren't given as a joke, and I took them to heart.

That's just who I am.  So, as much as I hate what this means for me becoming Sheriff Longmire in the future, it actually is probably right on track with exactly how my life is going.

I don't regret much.  I've had good friends.  I've caused my fair share of trouble, and when I got older I fixed my fair share of it too.  I've been to Paris with the woman I love.  I could have done a lot worse, and I probably won't do a lot worse in the future.  I guess a CPR computer isn't the end of the world.

Oh, hey.  Maybe it could run off of a solar panel.  And, I should learn what I need to distill my own water.  Just in case.

Sincerely,
Chiggie Von Richthofen

A Letter to Joshua Concerning Understanding

Dear WOPR,

When I was in junior high I was conscripted into a highly structured and regimented branch of French life steeped in tradition and commanded by regulation and fear.  The Junior Cotillion.  Like the Boyscouts my involvement in this was not voluntary.  Unlike the Boyscouts, though, I did not come to enjoy this new, exciting society I'd been thrust into.

It was held at a local country club.  The first one I had ever been in.  A building that reeked of the seventies with tall wooden paneling and flat, hard carpet.  Although, after spit balling the average age of the people there I would imagine the building looked like a spaceship to them.  The women seemed to be running the show for the most part and they talked with that deep Southern drawl that sounds like an old guitar announcing the winners of a cat fashion show.

I've lived in the south full time since I was 5 and have an accent that wavers between west coast television and northeast Louisianian (which is just Texan.  Get over it everyone!  We basically live in Texas.  I can almost see Texas from my house.  Accept it!), but anyone down here knows of that sickly sweet speaking pattern that these plantation era, rich old bags use to communicate with other people.  You hear that come out of someone and you have a pretty good idea where you are: surrounded by money and paintings of Jesus.

They started us out with the basics like how to set a table for serving 800 people.  Then they went on to things like the proper technique for bullwhipping your "staff", how to yell at the chefs for cooking exactly what you asked them to, and also how to properly bow.  Please, I saw Rising Son, I know how to bow, move on.

The entire thing was like a Monty Python sketch.  Boot Camp for Twits.  The severity of the execution juxtaposed starkly with the silliness of the activity.  Always place the forks in this order. ALWAYS. ALWAYS!!  Don't you DARE put that fucking fork next to that spoon!  Why is your left foot turned towards the door?  You can't use your left foot for your door foot!  Don't smile after your third drink, savage!  BUURAAAAAGHH!  That's a slight exaggeration but it captures the spirit of the truly bizarre people that ran this, this, I don't know how you'd describe it.  Let's say, cult for dish worshiping ghouls.

It wasn't all bad.  Well, no, IT was all bad, but some good things came from the experience as a result.  When I was stolen from my crib in the night and given to these perfumed, pearl wearing practitioners of the impractical, I was joined by two friends whose parents also thought that the foxtrot would bring them success and riches when they went to the Governor's court after the harvest.  With these particular two gentlemen our friendship had always been in its beginning phases, and this horrible waste of time we had to endure became a kind of bonding experience.  Tittering behind old women's backs and purposely rearranging silverware became, in a sense, a show of solidarity.  As much solidarity as boys that are all of about twelve can have with one another anyway.  It also helped me crawl out of a shell a little bit.

I had always been a shy boy around girls.  So, the Cotillion also brought something new into my life: close proximity with girls my age.  As we learned how to dance in a way as to not tread on our debutante's sword scabbard all the steps and rules did have the one thing in common which is that you had to do them WITH someone.  For a boy that hadn't so much as bumped into a girl in the hallway at school, all of a sudden I was hands-on-hips familiar with a number of pretty "young ladies."  I would guess that I cultivated up to 6 new intense crushes in the course of my service in the Junior Cotillion (which felt like years but I'm sure was all of 4 weekends in July).

I can still remember that first sensation of warmth as I felt their skin through their impossibly ruffled and pinned dresses.  I remember the same sensation of their hand on my shoulder.  I remember noticing the moisture of their breath and that stale, but not totally unpleasant smell of CO2 as they exhaled.  I could smell their mother's perfume and was close enough to see that they were wearing makeup (the dance floor was always hot and brightly lit transforming the carefully applied blush and concealer into something like a sidewalk chalk drawing in a rainstorm).  The entire dance experience had a very humanizing effect on creatures previously viewed as totally forbidden.  It was intensely pleasant.

Of course afterwards I was still extremely nervous around girls, but at least now I knew that I really liked them and WANTED to be with them, but just didn't have the balls to do anything about it, so you know, THANKS Junior Cotillion!

More important and lasting than any other result of this experience was what it reinforced in my view of the world: the suspicion that I actually new better than most people.  As we stood through lessons about where things go, what color they should be, the order in which you should use your individual teeth, and how much of a tablecloth you can let touch your leg before you are deemed "pregnant", it wasn't hard for me and my friends to look at each other and just say, "no.  This doesn't matter."  It's almost thrilling to have a realization like that when you're barely in your double digits of age, and it can be a very powerful tool for a young person to acquire.

It is a frame of mind that was a real core pillar of my personality.  The idea that something isn't important just because it has been labeled so.  That all things deserve to be examined, understood, and judged by us as individuals before being taken seriously.  And that's not to say that that process has to be long and drawn out.  Examination, understanding, and judgement can be very quick depending on where you are.  If I'm in the ocean and I look over and say, "that looks like a shark.  Shit that IS a shark!  Fuck that shark!" well then there's all three in the space of about half a second.  The Cotillion was one of the first big events that solidified my resistance to established ideas.

Fast forward about four or five years to the middle of high school and we settle into yet another summer where I had been recruited into an institution of learning.  This time it was a summer school where I had been charged to make up a semester of English from the school year that had just ended.  This wasn't the first time I had found myself in summer school.  That specific summer school, even.  And just like the Cotillion, again I was being taught what the majority viewed as proper and, again, I was with friends (not the same friends, but some of my closest at the time) that shared my disgust and mockery of our situation.  This was a make up class I was having to take as a result of my evaluative approach to life partly started by those classes at that weird club.  Having put public school to the test many times and found it lacking in my own personal court of law, I deemed my participation in the activity pointless to the state, and even damaging to me, so I whenever I could miss class I would.

I missed 21 days in a single semester and learned that the truancy department will send you multiple letters asking why your kids aren't in school, but never seemed to follow up after the postage was stamped.  This, of course, caused me to evaluate and subsequently dismiss the truancy department as pointless.  It was a magical time of naivete where the only things I took seriously were the things that made sense to me.

When I was told that because I hadn't lived up to the school's standards I would be going to more school, my reaction was, "fine.  It will probably be bullshit, and I'll ignore that too."  And, my god, the summer school did not disappoint.  That semester we had been required to watch and digest a movie version of West Side Story.  So, for this class, that was the task we were to repeat.  Watch a video and fill in some bubbles on a test.  That's all we had to do.  The teacher turned off the lights, popped the tape in, pushed play, and then proceeded to thumb through a magazine before the FBI warning had left the screen.

When the opening credits to Blade Runner started we spoke up pretty quickly.  It's not that we wanted to watch West Side Story, it's just that we didn't want to be tested on something we hadn't seen.  Here's where it gets good.  She had to have known that the movie on the screen, the futuristic cityscape with flaming towers, Vangelis loudly playing, and half the people speaking something closely resembling Chinese, was NOT what we were supposed to be watching.  I can't imagine a dimension where that wouldn't have been painfully obvious.

But, she was the teacher.  She was the teacher that had given up her summer to educate us, the slackers.  We were telling her she was wrong and that is NOT how it works, boys and girls.  So, she looked out at the classroom (the FULL classroom, I'd like to add).  She gazed at us: the uneducated, the impolite, the interlopers.  She looked us right in the eyes, told us WE were wrong, and sat back down.

We broke for lunch right after Deckard shot Pris in J.F. Sebastian's apartment.  I don't know if you've ever seen Blade Runner, but that scene is not quiet.  Gunshots, screaming, writhing on the floor WHILE screaming, it's a big to do.  We thought for sure that when we came back from the courtyard that the jig would be up and we'd have to go back to coloring maps of the United States with crayons (that's not a joke,  I actually did that in summer school the year before.  The coloring was pass/fail.).  But no, we were still on Earth and pride was still stronger than correctness, so on with the exciting finale of Blade Runner!

After the movie was over she started passing out tests to West Side Story.  There was some protest.  At first it looked like we were going to get the same "fuck you" style of education we had gotten when we protested the first time, but now something was different.  Now, her screw up would effect her instead of just us.  We reminded her that when we all failed that test, and we'd make sure we did, that there would be questions as to why, and we would happily inform the school officials of all the details they needed to know.

She had us hand the tests back, threw them in the garbage, and we all got A's.

This is exactly what I had wanted summer school to be.  I thought school (not education, but the institution that we call public school) was bullshit, and that means that summer school should just be summer bullshit, which is exactly what it was.  The whole thing gave me that old thrill I could remember from the Cotillion and a hundred other things before and after.  It was all reinforcement of the idea that I knew better.  That I had figured it out.  And, that everything from this point on was just going to be me reasoning my way down easy street.

But it's not like that, is it?

One of the greatest disservices I ever did to myself was how I interpreted all those events in my life where I played Russian Roulette with "the system."  I viewed them as "I was right."  What I should have done was viewed them as "they were wrong."  It's a subtle yet powerful difference that I didn't have a real firm grasp on until maybe even as little as five years ago.

I had hit on one concept that's important, which is people don't know a lot about a lot.  What I didn't consider was that I was included in that figure.  When you're smart, but not a genius, there's a tendency to rely on your natural problem solving to kick in whenever you get into a pickle.  What you don't realize as a child in a middle class family is that you never really actually had any problems to solve when you were growing up.  So, when you move out and become an actual person and an actual problem comes up like, say, we only have enough money for food OR gasoline, things go tits up.

You draw your gun, pull the trigger, the hammer clicks, and nothing happens.  Then you call Mom and she tells you that you need bullets.  You tell her you don't know where to get them, and she takes you to the store and shows you.  Also, she buys you a laundry hamper because you forgot that.  Also, you need detergent.  And, more clothes, for Pete's sake what have you been doing, taking a shower with them on and just driving to work with the windows down?  Yes, Mom, that's what we've been doing.  It doesn't take long to realize that the end of your childhood is just another way of saying the beginning of your life.

That's the moment that humiliation turns to humility.  I don't care if your 60 or 12, if you screw up and get called on it and put your hands up and say, "that was my fault.  I didn't even realize I was doing that," then you're a grown up in a very important way.  You realize that you can't just figure your way out of stuff and that there are going to be times when there is just no right answer, like when it's gas or food.  Or, our personal favorite from the last few years, car or house.

I've probably said stuff like this before, but I think even then it was me congratulating myself on how clever I was that I figured out another aspect of life.  This time it feels more real, more rooted in how I make decisions.  I still evaluate everything and make my best call, but now there is an often used option for admitting that I'm probably going to choose wrong a lot of the time and that my decisions, along with my dilemmas, fall under that evaluation process too.

It's a scary thought, to realize that I am probably going to make more mistakes than right choices in my life.  But, it makes me pay attention more.  It makes me back off and think about where I am.  And, in a way it can be a good thing.  I miss the thrill of knowing I'm right, but when I assume that I'm wrong, there's a calming effect to the process I hadn't known before.  There's a problem, I try solution A, it doesn't work. Before it would be instant frustration.  Why doesn't it work?  That doesn't make sense!  I figured it out ahead of time!  Now when A doesn't work, well hey, I didn't really expect it to anyway.  Let's see what I missed.

All that fuss and worry earlier in my life over achieving some kind of peace or zen, thinking that it would come from a place of understanding, that all I had to do was understand and the universe would come to me, is just moot.  Now, for the first time in my life I'm feeling the edge of that vast event horizon to some kind of calm, and it's after I've decided that part of understanding things is accepting that sometimes, or most times, I won't.

Sometimes the only winning move, really, is not to play.  I swear the older I get the more that movie speaks to me in a way that was probably never intended.

Sincerely,
Chiggie Von Richthofen