Not the band, though I love them a lot.
My birthday was today. I was alone, but that was fine by me. I actually enjoy my own company and though it would have been fun to spend some time with a couple of the recent acquaintances in my life, I had a fine time on my own. Like many people, I consider my birthday to be basically New Year's. This last year has been a turbulent one to say the least, even if you ignore everything happening in the larger world. Let's be frank. I'm in the process of divorce and moved to a new city a few months ago, took a new job, basically had a lot of major life changes. Had to get used to living alone again. I feel like I've gotten through it really well. I discovered I enjoy living alone. I started dating/chatting online and have made friends all over the world. I've started new types of creative projects I've never done before. In so many ways, life has never been better. My job kind of leaves something to be desired, just due to typical shitty government job onboarding, but that's to be expected.
At any rate, I had fun today, visiting new parts of the city, taking photos, petting a dog, and drinking a lot. Then chatting with friends online. I've been casually dating and I'm sure there will be more of that in the future, but I'm perfectly fine with myself right now. So there....
Friday, July 31, 2020
Sunday, July 19, 2020
The Joe Jackson girlfriend
When I was in high school, I had the idea that someday I would become a corporate lawyer and move to a big city such as New York. I listened to far too many Joe Jackson records in 9th grade--not the early ones that everyone knows, but the later ones like "Body and Soul" and "Big World." I'd listen to the instrument "Loisaida" repeatedly and imagine what I thought my life would be like in 15 years or so. I knew I'd have some kind of girlfriend that was some kind of professional and we'd go to fancy parties and it would look like the opening montage of Saturday Night Live [the one they had back in the late 80s.] A world of all night restaurants, diners, and jazz clubs. We'd have dinners with friends and I'd make funny remarks. The complete opposite of life in rural Oklahoma.
I figured my future girlfriend and I would fight and eventually break up, since that's what always seemed to happen in Joe Jackson songs---lovers were always under stress and tired. It was a fast changing world, and love rarely could withstand it. I remember constantly listening to "Not Here, Not Now," and mourning the end of a relationship I didn't even have. The fantasy really grew for me once I started reading Bret Easton Ellis and Jay McInerney [though I never could quite get into him as well.] I didn't really know what a corporate lawyer did, but I figured I could do it.
Of course, none of that exactly happened. I can't remember when I lost interest in law school, but it was pretty early in my undergraduate career--though I considered it again in my late 20s at once point in a potential escape from the Post Office, which thankfully I ended up not doing after looking into it more and realizing how bad the outlook was for most law school grads. I also took a practice LSAT and bombed it...not just in the "didn't study well enough" sense, but in the sense of "have no idea what this is even about" sense.
So now it's nearly 1:30 AM here and I am going to be a bit closer to 50 at the end of this month and I'm listening to some of those Joe Jackson songs for the first time in probably 20 years or so. I think about what an odd duck I was then even outside the normal realm of oddness. I enjoyed punk rock records and other things weird kids in smaller towns liked, but I had this weird affinity for the jazzier Joe Jackson records--basically white people jazz. I wanted to be a yuppie because it seemed completely different than the world around me, where very few people even worked in offices or had jobs at all. I feel fortunate to have escaped that, and to have escaped my life at the Post Office. I also admit to myself that I am much happier being single again. I became an accountant and at least was able to work in areas where I cared about the mission of my employers. I live in a large city that I enjoy so far, though it doesn't seem that big.
No real point to this trip down Memory Lane, though sometimes I think I'm still looking for that worldly, difficult woman so we can break apart and leave me with with a life of torture and regret.
I figured my future girlfriend and I would fight and eventually break up, since that's what always seemed to happen in Joe Jackson songs---lovers were always under stress and tired. It was a fast changing world, and love rarely could withstand it. I remember constantly listening to "Not Here, Not Now," and mourning the end of a relationship I didn't even have. The fantasy really grew for me once I started reading Bret Easton Ellis and Jay McInerney [though I never could quite get into him as well.] I didn't really know what a corporate lawyer did, but I figured I could do it.
Of course, none of that exactly happened. I can't remember when I lost interest in law school, but it was pretty early in my undergraduate career--though I considered it again in my late 20s at once point in a potential escape from the Post Office, which thankfully I ended up not doing after looking into it more and realizing how bad the outlook was for most law school grads. I also took a practice LSAT and bombed it...not just in the "didn't study well enough" sense, but in the sense of "have no idea what this is even about" sense.
So now it's nearly 1:30 AM here and I am going to be a bit closer to 50 at the end of this month and I'm listening to some of those Joe Jackson songs for the first time in probably 20 years or so. I think about what an odd duck I was then even outside the normal realm of oddness. I enjoyed punk rock records and other things weird kids in smaller towns liked, but I had this weird affinity for the jazzier Joe Jackson records--basically white people jazz. I wanted to be a yuppie because it seemed completely different than the world around me, where very few people even worked in offices or had jobs at all. I feel fortunate to have escaped that, and to have escaped my life at the Post Office. I also admit to myself that I am much happier being single again. I became an accountant and at least was able to work in areas where I cared about the mission of my employers. I live in a large city that I enjoy so far, though it doesn't seem that big.
No real point to this trip down Memory Lane, though sometimes I think I'm still looking for that worldly, difficult woman so we can break apart and leave me with with a life of torture and regret.
Sunday, July 5, 2020
The book as time travel device.
Even as a younger man, I had an affinity for “middle aged man in trouble” novels, of which there are many. I especially enjoyed those of Larry McMurtry, who wrote excellent novels of male ennui when he wasn’t writing Western [as in cowboy] novels. I especially enjoyed his “Thalia cycle,” which chronicled the lives and loves of the people of a small Texas town through oil booms and busts, beginning in the Fifites and ending in the 00s over five novels written over a four decade span. I believe I've written about them in past posts here.
When I was around 18, I loved the second book, Texasville. In that one, the main characters were in their late 40s. I was especially interested in the various crises and dramas of Duane Moore, the oilman who did not seem to particularly enjoy the oil business, his family, or much else. The occasional affair gives him a momentary spark, but then it’s back to melancholy. He is not in touch with himself, as a man who most likely rarely thinks of such things and perhaps thinks they’re for other people. For whatever reason, as an 18 year old I identified heavily with Duane without understanding why. Perhaps I thought this was what adulthood was like; being tired of things and having the occasional affair to spice things up. Young adult ennui also matches up with middle-aged ennui, despite different motivations. I know some would say that younger people’s angst can’t compare to the stress of the older set-- faced with mortgages, kids and other family pressures, but I’d say their worries are no less valid, just different. But Texasville doesn’t have the same appeal for me it once did—it’s a very dialogue heavy novel, with a lot of short scenes. It’s a very funny book, and I think the charm of it is that despite financial and marital pressures, no one in the book seems to really take anything too seriously. Going broke, ending marriages, having affairs, or feeling like your life has become a movie of which you’ve long ago lost track—none of those things seem to really weigh on anyone in the book except possibly Duane. I’m the same age as Duane in the novel, and perhaps the reason it no longer works as well for me is that I know it’s a glossed over version of what tends to really happen at this age. Things bruise and sometimes even scar. The events of life take a toll no matter how stoic we try to be.
The jewel of the series is the third book, Duane’s Depressed, written in 1999. Without realizing why, Duane suddenly decides to walk everywhere, almost as an act of rebellion against his entire life up to this point. He eventually ends up in therapy. The character is in his early 60s at this point. I was in my late 20s when this book came out and I enjoyed it, but I became especially attached to it in my early 40s and still read it every couple of years. I like the notion of evaluating your life and deciding it isn’t enough or that at least it’s time for something different.
Proust also figures heavily in this novel, as Duane’s therapist advises him to read all of Proust as part of his therapy. In many ways, these [and other] books are like madeleines for me, though when I indulge in them I am specifically trying to invoke memories and imagine the type of person I once was, my routines, responsibilities, and concerns. Life was easier and somehow more difficult at the same time, if that makes sense. My responsibilities were few, but my cares were many, and I seemed less equipped to manage them. I suppose it makes sense that I’d find refuge in the story of someone who suddenly decided they were done with whatever they’d been doing up to that point. Duane’s Depressed speaks to me especially now, as I go through so many personal changes which seem to difficult at first but have already felt worth it. I hope to eventually be as Duane at the end of the book, prepared to travel to places he had always dimly imagined wanting to visit but had never taken the steps to do so. Maybe in another 10-15 years I’ll feel the same about Duane’s Depressed as I do about Texasville, but I doubt that will happen.
When I was around 18, I loved the second book, Texasville. In that one, the main characters were in their late 40s. I was especially interested in the various crises and dramas of Duane Moore, the oilman who did not seem to particularly enjoy the oil business, his family, or much else. The occasional affair gives him a momentary spark, but then it’s back to melancholy. He is not in touch with himself, as a man who most likely rarely thinks of such things and perhaps thinks they’re for other people. For whatever reason, as an 18 year old I identified heavily with Duane without understanding why. Perhaps I thought this was what adulthood was like; being tired of things and having the occasional affair to spice things up. Young adult ennui also matches up with middle-aged ennui, despite different motivations. I know some would say that younger people’s angst can’t compare to the stress of the older set-- faced with mortgages, kids and other family pressures, but I’d say their worries are no less valid, just different. But Texasville doesn’t have the same appeal for me it once did—it’s a very dialogue heavy novel, with a lot of short scenes. It’s a very funny book, and I think the charm of it is that despite financial and marital pressures, no one in the book seems to really take anything too seriously. Going broke, ending marriages, having affairs, or feeling like your life has become a movie of which you’ve long ago lost track—none of those things seem to really weigh on anyone in the book except possibly Duane. I’m the same age as Duane in the novel, and perhaps the reason it no longer works as well for me is that I know it’s a glossed over version of what tends to really happen at this age. Things bruise and sometimes even scar. The events of life take a toll no matter how stoic we try to be.
The jewel of the series is the third book, Duane’s Depressed, written in 1999. Without realizing why, Duane suddenly decides to walk everywhere, almost as an act of rebellion against his entire life up to this point. He eventually ends up in therapy. The character is in his early 60s at this point. I was in my late 20s when this book came out and I enjoyed it, but I became especially attached to it in my early 40s and still read it every couple of years. I like the notion of evaluating your life and deciding it isn’t enough or that at least it’s time for something different.
Proust also figures heavily in this novel, as Duane’s therapist advises him to read all of Proust as part of his therapy. In many ways, these [and other] books are like madeleines for me, though when I indulge in them I am specifically trying to invoke memories and imagine the type of person I once was, my routines, responsibilities, and concerns. Life was easier and somehow more difficult at the same time, if that makes sense. My responsibilities were few, but my cares were many, and I seemed less equipped to manage them. I suppose it makes sense that I’d find refuge in the story of someone who suddenly decided they were done with whatever they’d been doing up to that point. Duane’s Depressed speaks to me especially now, as I go through so many personal changes which seem to difficult at first but have already felt worth it. I hope to eventually be as Duane at the end of the book, prepared to travel to places he had always dimly imagined wanting to visit but had never taken the steps to do so. Maybe in another 10-15 years I’ll feel the same about Duane’s Depressed as I do about Texasville, but I doubt that will happen.
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