Belated Happy 18th Birthday Streams of Unconsciousness! You're Now of Legal Age

The actress Ana de Armas, a friend of the blog

This blog is now of legal age, eighteen-years-old. Its birthday was actually on the eleventh of this month which fell during our recent European vacation. So today’s celebration is very much a case of better late than ever. Late or not....yay!!!!!🥳🎉🎂🎊

I thought it would be worthwhile to look back on all that has gone on since that first post in 2008. I see that many of you disagree. Well, I've never let common sense stop me. Here goes.

When this blog was born George W Bush was still in the White House and would be for another eight months and nine days. Barack Obama had not yet been elected and most of us were blissfully unaware that such a person as Sarah Palin existed. In the months and years to come she would help lower the national discourse with her folksy stupidity. Also in the coming months Joe Biden would be selected as Obama’s running mate and would go on to serve admirably as vice president. He seemed like a wise old hand who’d seen and been through a lot and was appreciated and admired for his efforts. Later would come his presidency during which he seemed at times to be comatose. That said he did a good enough job, though one wishes he would have timed his decision to step aside better. That Obama fella was all right and we’ve been missing him a helluva lot lately as the US teeters on the brink.

In 2008 Donald Trumpy was just a businessman and buffoon with weird hair who appeared occasionally on talk shows. No one was thinking that the blowhard would some day ascend to the highest position in the land and work at destroying democracy.

Back then the U.S. was dropping bombs on brown people in the Middle East. Some things never change.

George Carlin still had a month to live. His comedy today is as relevant as ever and he has come to be rightfully seen as something of a soothsayer.

Michael Jackson had another year on this planet. His departure devastated fans across the globe. His music — as they say — lives on although his legacy has been tarnished. Speaking of tarnishing legacies, Woody Allen has practically been canceled as his adopted daughter re-introduced to the world the false and spurious charges he was long ago cleared of — twice. To study the Allen case in any depth and with objectivity is to realize he is not a molester and that Mia Farrow manufactured the whole story. Back in 2008 Allen was still cranking out films and “everyone” wanted to be in one. He would make excellent films like Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Midnight in Paris, Blue Jasmine and Rainy Day in New York before the Farrow hate machine would slow him down.

In May of 2008 there was no such thing as Instagram, WhatsApp or Tik Tok. Twitter was in it’s infancy and was years away from being taken over by dark forces. People were blogging and when I started I was one of many. Today a blog is a rare thing. I’m a dinosaur. 

In those days Bill Cosby was not in prison or a pariah. It wasn’t until 2014 that the allegations against him became widespread and part of the news cycle with him eventually going to the gray bar hotel.

In 2008 people were worried about climate change coming soon. Now it’s here in what may be the worst development the world has known since Hitler.

There was talk of artificial intelligence and it kind of sounded cool. Little did we know how prevalent it would become and what dangers would be attendant to it.

What about little ole me? What’s gone on with the author these past eighteen years? 

Thanks for asking.

When I started this blog I was still a middle school teacher but only for another month. I spent two years as a sub while I got my TEFL certificate (Teacher of English as a Foreign Language) and the last sixteen years teaching English to people from hither and yon (over sixty different countries) minus eighteen months during the pandemic.

I’ve been at three different schools all of which liked me and all of which I’ve liked. I’ve loved virtually every minute of my job which is in stark contrast to teaching middle school where there were many minutes I disliked, hated or even detested. So it goes.

I have maintained excellent physical health throughout this time. I haven’t had the flu at all and only caught cold about ten times. I’ve had a surgery or two but nothing major and haven’t been out of commission as a result for more than two days. You could accurately say I’ve been lucky, but a good diet and exercise are also contributing factors.

In the world of sports the highlight came only last week when Arsenal won their first premier league title in twenty-two years. There have also been three world series championships for the San Francisco Giants but they’ve mostly been crap since. Cal football had pretty good seasons during the first two years of this blog but they’ve been largely disappointing in the past sixteen seasons. This year however….I’ve made it to London for six matches since the birth of this blog including in each of the last four years. Arsenal have not been mostly crap although they hadn’t won a title until now.

I’ve made seven trips to Europe, six with the missus and three trips to the East Coast since ’08. I’ve enjoyed them all including our most recent trek earlier this month.

I’ve remained married to the same woman which speaks volumes about how tolerant and understanding a person she is. Also, she’s the love of my life. *sigh*

I mentioned my physical health being quite good. As for my mental health…well, I wish. There has been much depression. There’s been too much anxiety. There have been unhealthy obsessions. On the bright side I’ve stayed clean and sober and continued the process of working on being mentally healthy and happy. I’ve proven to be medication resistant and even tried Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation which worked for a few months. In am finding that dark chocolate helps a little.

As for the blog itself well you can see by the labels on the right I’ve covered an array of topics. Most commonly I’ve written about films and in the early days of the blog I wrote almost exclusively about movies. This has been great for me because I’ve become a real student of cinema and fancy myself as something of an expert. At the very least I’m a cinephile and film snob.

I’ve included a fair amount of fiction on the blog though not lately as most of my fiction efforts are going towards the novels I keep writing that keep not getting published (I’m trying).

This will be my 1,743rd blog post (raise your hand if you’ve read them all). I’ve come here when I’ve been happy, sad, angry, inspired and apathetic. The blog has proven to be therapeutic. The reality is that today virtually no one reads the thing (I barely do myself) but I’m a persistent son of a bitch and keep cranking out content that no one sees. Do I wish more people read the blog and occasionally offered comments or asked questions? Yes, of course, that would be nice. But if these posts continue to be met with resounding silence, no matter, I shall carry on. I don’t know any better. I love the process even if no one sees the results.

Happy 18th Streams of Unconsciousness. You can now vote and join the military and get married. Just don’t try to buy any booze here in the States. This is a law abiding blog — if an irreverent one. 

Cheers, y’all.

What We Imagine, Keeping a Healthy Brain and a Few Stories From Mr. Blogger

Just for the heck of it here's Suzi Quatro

When I was teaching at a school in SF a colleague once asked if when I got home after work I kicked off my shoes, poured a glass of wine and turned on the telly. First of all I don’t drink and secondly I don’t turn on the TV when I get home from work unless there’s a football match (soccer game, to you Yanks) on. Another fellow teacher speculated that I lived in the Berkeley Hills. I pointed out that I’d been a teacher most of my professional life so could no more afford a home in the hills than a yacht. 

I suppose these two instances point to how we make up stories about people we don’t know intimately. We imagine what their significant other is like, what kind of place they live in and what they do in their spare time. Or we leave it all blank. I don’t tend to create stories for people I know. Now people I don’t know at all, there’s where I’ll go to town. Sometimes I’ll observe a person perhaps on a bus or in a cafe and imagine their background, what they’re doing and what fate has in store for them. In some of these stories I’ll interact with them. Nine times out of ten I’ll make their lives happy and successful. I might have them overcome some sort of adversity. It can pass the time and is good for the creative juices and the brain in general.

As I’ve gotten older (or, more accurately, old) I’ve been sure to keep my brain busy. I do a few world puzzles on the internet everyday, namely Octordle and Wordle and sometimes Connections. I also do the crossword in the Times. Writing as often as I can, like this stuff right here, also helps. Not to mention the fact that I’m still teaching. In other words I’m doing all I can to ward off dementia. 

I understand that exercise also helps the brain and I go to the gym regularly. It’s one thing to live a long life but we really want the quality to go with it, both physical and mental. I don’t suppose the fact that I’m back in therapy hurts. Reading is good too and I’ve always been a bibliophile. 

It seems to me that scrolling the internet is not particularly good for your brain regardless of your age. All those short bits of info, the quick looks at photos, the memes. Much better to be reading narratives, analyses, extended opinion pieces, personal accounts etc. People used to — likely still do — complain about TV rotting kids’ brains. Surely sitting in front of a set isn’t the best thing for you but I think it better than staring at your smart phone. 

I was just reminded of something again from my time working in SF. This was about fourteen years ago at the dawn of the smartphone. We had a meeting after school one day. I was chatting with two colleagues. One bragged to the other that he didn’t have a smartphone yet. She responded that she didn’t either. It was point of pride to them that they hadn’t succumbed to the latest trend. They were rebels and old school. I rolled my eyes (figuratively, though maybe literally too). During the course of the meeting we were told about a phone number we were required to have in case of an emergency like earthquake, power outage or major fire. It was written on the board. While people were scrambling to write it down I put it in an email that I sent to the entire staff. Took me seconds. I raised my hand and announced what I’d done and received thanks from all around the room. I then looked at my aforementioned colleagues, held up my phone and said, “smart phone,” then I smiled. Within a few months they’d both acquired smartphones. Occasionally there’s a good reason that something is popular. 

One last thing. Yesterday in class I showed a video to students related to their reading in the course book. I then asked them to write a reflection in which they could say anything they wanted related to watching the video. A nineteen-year-old French woman wrote a few sentences on the topic then concluded by saying that the video was a little bit long for her. It was eight minutes and thirty-six seconds. When you’re raised on TikTok I imagine eight minutes and thirty-six seconds can seem like an eternity. *Sigh*

All in One Post: Therapy, "Losers," Sports Fans, General Health, The Oscars and Some People Don't Like Movies?

Chase Infiniti one of the possible Oscar nominees

One of the great things about therapy is that you get to ramble on for most of fifty minutes. You’ve got things on your mind? You need to let off steam? Go for it. At a twelve step meeting you’ve got a few minutes then you have to listen to other people babble on. My recent return to therapy has been healing in part because I‘ve been able to get so much of my chest. Talking or writing about what’s going on in your life allows you to gain a clearer picture of what’s happening inside your head. You can see the forest for the trees.

Don’t compare your lives to others unless the person in question is a total loser.

Speaking of “losers” our idiot of a president has frequently referred to individuals and groups as “losers.” It makes him sound like a thirteen-year-old but it also raises the question: what exactly is a loser? Is it simply someone who has a different worldview as you? Is it someone who has failed professionally or whose personal life is a mess? Is it someone who was or is demonstrably wrong about some central tenet? Maybe — and hear me out on this — the real losers are the people who use the word as a blanket term for people they disagree with. Ya know, like Trumpy.

Here’s a tip for you sports fan: if you get angry at the result of a sports event you’re doing it wrong. Are you really going to let what a twenty-two—year-old does on an athletic field ruin your day? Your team losing is really something to throw a hissy fit over? You really want to spend time assigning blame? I realize that you’ve put a significant emotional investment in your team’s success. You derive great joy and even pride in your team’s success, but that doesn’t mean you can’t take defeat with equanimity. It really honestly truly is “only a game” a much as it may feel like the most important thing in the world. Save your anger for the really important stuff like what Trumpy is doing to the country and the world. I speak on this topic as an expert having a couple of teams that I “live and die by.” I also watched my usually mellow father blow a gasket when his team would lose. Always confounded me. Sports should relieve stress, not compound it. 

As I write this it’s Friday morning. Always loved Fridays, last day of the work week. Plus on Friday’s I stop at the Coffee Hut across the street from work and get a decaf latte. Delicious. How my life has changed. Decaf coffee and non-alcoholic beer. A far cry from my younger days when I fueled my mornings with regular coffee then by the evening was drinking scotch or martinis or alcoholic beers. On some occasions I’d fortify myself with cocaine. I'd have laughed at the notion of decaf or non alcoholic beverages. 

In my twenties I was drinking and using, had an erratic diet, often got little sleep, sometimes went months without exercise. Yet I usually felt great. Today I miss an hour of sleep and I’m a wreck. Have ice cream after tacos and my tummy is in an uproar. Miss a few turns at the gym and I feel like a fat tub. So I’ve learned to take care of myself. Physical health is easier to maintain — barring serious illness or injury — than mental health. You have the proper diet, get enough sleep and have some form of exercise and you should be physically fine. But to maintain mental health can be a tough one. It’s so damn easy to fall into bad habits. Unconsciously. Stinkin’ thinkin’ it’s called in AA. Here’s a definition: “Coined by Alcoholics Anonymous to describe reverting to old habits, it's now used more broadly in therapy to identify thinking errors such as catastrophizing, overgeneralization, and black-and-white thinking, which can be managed by challenging and reframing these thoughts.” Maintaining mental health is not easy, especially if you have some condition like anxiety, depression, addiction or PTSD. I have them all!

A reminder that Oscar nominations will be announced in the coming weeks and you should — and I can’t stress this enough — by no means take them seriously. Many people watch the Oscars despite having seen only a few movies all year. Many watch without having seen a single film. Remember what George C Scott said about the Oscars:  "(it's a) two-hour meat parade, a public display with contrived suspense for economic reasons." Amen. Better to see a lot of films and skip the stupid show. That is if you love cinema. Speaking of cinema, have you ever met someone who doesn’t watch movies at all? I have too. Very strange. There’s a lot of things I can understand: not following sports, or not going to museums or eschewing nature, even not reading books, but movies? That seems such a universal art form. Between art films, blockbusters, musicals, romcoms, sci-fi, classics, noir, you can’t find anything you like? Strange. Like I said in my last post: it takes all kinds. 

There's Always Another Day -- I Take Another Plunge Into the Murky Waters of Therapy

Did my intake at the Wright Institute. I’m going to be talking to a therapist regularly again. Spent most of the ninety minutes talking about my life. Mentally ill mother, great dad, sports, addiction, happy marriage, children, depression, anxiety, panic attacks, writing, film, books, big mistakes, big laughs, friends who died, pain and joy and confusion and certainty. 

I don’t mind yakking about myself. I’ve been seeing shrinks of various kinds since high school so I’m quite used to it. Good for me. Good for anybody — assuming you’re honest about it. No use bullshitting someone who’s trying to help you. Imagine going to a doctor because of severe pain then omitting information or embellishing. Maybe I’m on the wrong track, maybe 99% of people are perfectly honest with therapists. How the hell would I know? First of all you’ve got to be honest with yourself. Failure to do so will negatively effect the ability of anyone to help you and badly curb your ability to help yourself.

It’s weird recounting my childhood again. I mean the parts about my mother yelling, cursing, stomping her foot, angry at people who aren’t there. Raving like a loon. Okay so weird was the wrong word, it’s exhausting. You live through something like that then you have to spend the rest of your life recounting it. You can never shake the memory and worst of all you can never forget how it made you feel or in some respects how it DIDN’T make you feel. In some ways I was anesthetized to what was going on. It was at once horrifying but also part of the white noise of my misery. It was ever present.

The worst part was coming home. Just before opening the front door Id be wondering if mom was going to be like a regulation mother or a raving lunatic. And if she was doing the whole June Cleaver bit, how long would it last? You never knew when she was going to go off into the deep end again and swim in the murky waters of batshit crazy.

No kid should go through that feeling. For crying out loud this was happening when I was five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, a teenager. 

So I was the ultimate helpless victim. That’s a messed up thing to realize that you had no power in the situation, helpless, like being in the jaws of a huge and powerful beast. 

To my credit I carried on. I made the most of my childhood despite the secret horror that I lived with. Plenty of friends, a loving dad, a vivid imagination (boy did I do a lot of hiding in that) great extended family. Running like hell through fields, being enthralled by books, laughing at stupid TV shows, making up games with my friends. Marveling at sports and the exploits of athletes. Later there were The Beatles and music and girls (what an amazing discovery!). Life was so rich. There was so much to do, so many experiences to have, so much to learn. School actually seemed to get in the way of my education. Feeding me what they wanted me to learn rather than what I craved, what I needed. But school was a great place to meet friends, to get to know people, to understand my fellow travelers. Sometimes teachers would expose us to things worth knowing. They mostly had good hearts. 

But the pain of my childhood followed me when I went off to college. But boy did I have a way to cope. Booze and drugs cured all. The pain was gone and I was sociable and giddy. Yes, of course the cure became nearly as bad as the disease. Problems, complications. My life ended up going in a wide array of destinations all at once. I didn’t know what I had when I had it and I didn’t know where to go, where I’d been or where I was. 

Mental illness, the consequence of my childhood or a nasty combination of both?

Anyway I’ve struggled through. Loving wife, AA, great children. Good friends. Medical professionals. 

Still have nasty scars and horrible reminders of what was but I’ve spent a lifetime drowning that pain in good times, worthy endeavors and exploring the endless variety of fascinating questions and mysteries that make up our world.

Depression is still an unwelcome companion, as are obsessive thoughts that do me no good. I’m hoping another stab at therapy will help me feel better. There’s always the next day.

A Career Choice Made While Drunk -- Of Course it Worked Out

I was drunk when I decided to become a teacher. (Isn’t everyone?). I was about to turn thirty or -- maybe I’d just turned thirty -- and was sitting on my preferred barstool in my preferred watering hole into my third or fourth hour of drinking when it occurred to me that I wanted something more out of life than to be a proofreader and copy editor. The drinking I was fine with, but being a wage slave is where I drew a line. I’d by this time self-sabotaged my career as a journalist which is another story and rather sad one at that. Another time, perhaps.

Back to the barstool ..... Okay, Richard, I reasoned, you’ve always loved history, why not try teaching it? Fair enough, I responded. Mind you I’d never given being a teacher any thought. Not for a second. But when intoxicated I was liable to imagine myself  in all manner of scenarios like being married to Linda Ronstadt or Cybill Shepherd. This idea of being a teacher had a tinge of respectability and believability to it.

The damnedest thing is that when sober the next day I still managed to envision myself teaching. I thought something along the lines of: let’s go for it. So I did.

No one I mentioned the idea to burst out laughing or screamed, “for the love of god don’t do it, the humanity!” Not even my level-headed girlfriend. Maybe I was on to something.

A few months later I was enrolled in school completing a degree in history (I’d minored in it when I got my journalism degree). I enjoyed my courses and had some good professors and for the first time in my life I was enjoying school — that is, the classes part of it. I’d always enjoyed the extra curriculars of school from kindergarten through college, but the class time had bored me silly — with exceptions here and there. Now I was looking forward to classes and diving headlong into the reading, studying for tests and researching/writing papers. 

After two semesters I was the proud possessor of my second bachelor’s degree. Not good enough. I wanted to further my studies, both for my own edification and also to make me an even better prepared historian when I began teaching. But I was in a bit of a rush so made the seemingly foolhardy decision to try to complete my two-year Master’s program in half the time. I was warned against this by the head of the history department and two trusted professors. But I was on a roll.

The following year was, to put it mildly, intense. I scheduled virtually every second. I maintained a calendar which specified how much (to the page) reading I was to do each day. I stuck to it. (Remarkably my career as a drinking alcoholic continued apace as I even scheduled when I could get drunk.) By this time I’d quit my job and was a full time student and I loved it. Indeed, I loved that academic year and if you’ll excuse the expression, I kicked ass. I became only the third person to complete the schools’s MA program in one year and to top it off, not only did I not struggle, I graduated with distinction. That I received this honor in doing two years in one made me a positive marvel to my professors. Two of them convinced that I should continue my studies by pursuing a PhD. They assured me that I would get into any program I chose. I had applications sent to the University of Wisconsin and Boston University when my girlfriend (now wife) convinced me that if we were to start a family it might be best that I stick to my original plan and get a teaching credential. She was — as has generally been the case — quite right. I’d have been ill-suited for academia, besides which my particular kind of energy was then ideally suited for teaching younger folks. 

I was not enamored of the credential program classes. It quickly became obvious that when it comes to teaching you learn by doing. I’d always intended to teach high school but when our program visited a middle school something clicked. I connected both with the age group and the particular school. In fact I determined that I would absolutely HAVE TO teach at that school. I did my student teaching there and it went well, especially the day I did a lesson on the Great Depression by dressing as if an elderly hobo transported from that era. Right down to a fake beard, cane and tattered clothes. Students and adults were enthralled.

Alas there were no openings for history teachers at the school, nor for that matter, anywhere else. I spent my first year as a credentialed teacher subbing, though mostly at my preferred school. After another half year of subbing they had an opening and I had a job. 

By this time I’d also gotten sober and become a father. I was all set to be an adult with a career.

I was at the school for twenty-two years in total. They were not all smooth, especially at the end as I’d ran afoul of administrators on far too many occasions. I was oppositional and rebellious fighting both important battles and unnecessary ones. As faculty adviser of the school's student newspaper I'd once sicced the ACLU on the district when they threatened to censor the paper. This put a large target on my back.

Two things are true about my middle school teaching career: 1) I was loved by and an inspiration to many students 2) I often showed a lack of judgment and maturity and constantly struggled with discipline. I was handicapped by struggles with mental health issues. Indeed it’s remarkable that I was as successful as I was given that I was improperly diagnosed and given a series of the wrong medications many of which had problematic side effects. (Sometimes I wistfully wonder how my career would have gone if I’d been properly diagnosed as being on the bipolar spectrum and been prescribed my current medication for panic attacks from the beginning.)

In any event I eventually resigned when trumped up charges got to be too much to bear. (It should be noted that while the bastards at central administration were determined to be rid of me, no one at the school who’d actually saw me teach wanted me to go. I was, despite it all, a valued member of the school community.)

In the moments, days and weeks after my resignation I felt an incredible lightness as if — excuse the cliche — a tremendous weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I quickly decided on a new direction as a teacher and thus returned to school to get a Teacher of English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) certificate. I would teach English to students visiting from other countries. Though I’d never done the like before, it seemed a grand idea and sure enough it has been an absolute joy these past thirteen years. I’ve never been happier professionally. I have a mutual admiration society with my students. Administrators revere me as a veteran teacher who always shows up, is professional and popular and an integral part of the school.

I was at EF in San Francisco for seven and half years before deciding (foolishly) to retire. Retirement lasted three months before I took a job at LSI in Berkeley where I was for four and half years, leaving the school last week to return to EF next month. I’ll be 70 in February so can’t be sure how much longer I’ll continue to teach, certainly another two years seems reasonable. As long as I’m ambulatory and have the power of speech I can keep going. I love it. I love doing something that I’m good at. I constantly push myself to innovate and improve. I’m there for my students and never mail it in. 

Who’d have thought that a decision made in the throes of drinking spree would — despite a few bumps along the way — work out so well? 

I've had hardships but gracious it's been fun and rewarding.

A shout out to my good friend (all the way back to high school), Phil. He did go into academia and was a positive marvel at it. He is likewise a marvel as a person.

Death, Existential Angst, Aging Are All Discussed in a Surprisingly Upbeat Post

The author as a young father

You don’t have to think very hard to realize that our dread of both relationships and loneliness, both of which are like sub-dreads of our dread of being trapped inside a self (a psychic self, not just a physical self), has to do with angst about death, the recognition that I’m going to die, and die very much alone, and the rest of the world is going to go merrily on without me. I’m not sure I could give you a steeple-fingered theoretical justification, but I strongly suspect a big part of real art-fiction’s job is to aggravate this sense of entrapment and loneliness and death in people, to move people to countenance it, since any possible human redemption requires us first to face what’s dreadful, what we want to deny. — David Foster Wallace

There was a time that I didn’t think about death. I was young and morality was a vague concept. It was something that happened to other people in other families in other circles. I knew my father was going to die someday though at times I doubted even that. He seemed indestructible in the same way I’ve often thought of myself recently. He’d gone on so long and stayed so healthy that it was almost impossible to imagine a world without him. Eventually a freak fall did him in but not until he was past ninety. 

I’ll be seventy on my next birthday — less than six months from now. Have I got another twenty good years? What guarantee is there that there going to all be “good”? I suppose I should adopt a one-day-at-a-time mantra as one learns in twelve step programs. I should be enjoying the hell out of today, it being all I’ve got. I spend too much time in the past often re-living bad moments. Those times I did the wrong thing, failed to say the right thing, didn’t see what should haven been obvious, made the wrong choice. If you’re going to live in the past, stay in the happy moments, those times when everything was clicking, when you seemingly had it all together. They existed and they were good. Why wallow in past miseries?

I’m adopting a new program — actually a revitalization of an old one — in which I assign myself writing 500 words a day — minimum. It’ll be good for me. Good for my writing, good for my brain, good for my soul. 

Writing used to be a lot easier. Nowadays I need a topic and a damned good one at that. I also need to be in the right mood in the right place with no distractions. That’s ridiculous. You’ve got to be able to write under any circumstances. Still, maybe 500 words a day is overly ambitious. But I’ve got to try.

I remember coming home when I was a kid and hesitating at the front door before opening it because I didn’t know what awaited me on the other side. What was Mom going to be like? She could perfectly fine doing her cheery June Cleaver bit, asking about my day. Or she could be a raving loon, yelling at light fixture. If it was the latter would she break character for a minute to acknowledge me or would she go on nonplussed or would she turn her ravings toward me? It was the uncertainty of the moment that was so horrible.

The hesitation was always momentary. I had to face whatever music was playing. If it was really bad I’d retreat to my room or quickly make a u-turn and go outside. Thankfully I had a vivid imagination and could lose myself in it. Reality was too difficult to bear.

It was a difficult way to grow up — boy that’s understating it. I normalized it. I knew none of my friends were going through the same sort of shit but I also knew I was better off not thinking about. How did this affect me? What peccadilloes of mine can I attribute to this bizarre and horrible upbringing? Did it lead to my alcoholism? Did it lead to my crankiness? My anxiety? My panic attacks? My variously mistrusting or overly trusting people? My misjudgments? How exactly did it fuck me up? Who would I be today had my mother been perfectly sane? 

Perhaps the more important question at this point is: why trouble myself with these questions? I’ve done the whole therapy bit — many times. Better not to look back and wonder. Better to look ahead and wonder. After all I’ve got a new novel that I finished that I believe is quite good. There’s much to look forward to including another European vacation in the spring. 

Tomorrow will mark thirty-six years clean and sober. It’s amazing that I’ve been a sober alcoholic longer than I’ve been alive as anything else. I can barely remember what intoxication was like. I’ve got a sense of what having a bit of a buzz going was like. I’m a lucky man to have gotten sober when I did — just weeks before my wife found out she was pregnant with our first and just as I was embarking on my teaching career. Lucky.

I’ve got blessings to count. I’ve got bright days ahead. Depression can go fuck itself.

It's Better to be Lucky Than Good

That's me with the ball after my team won the Noir Cal championship

If knowledge hangs around your neck like

pearls instead of chains - You are a lucky man!

Takers and fakers and talkers won't tell you.

Teachers and preachers will just buy and sell you.

When no one can tempt you with heaven or hell-

You'll be a lucky man! -- From O Lucky Man by Alan Price

I can’t believe I once shook hands with Muhammad Ali.

I can’t believe that I stood in the North Bank in the Seventies at London’s Highbury Park and watched Arsenal play.

I can’t believe I scored the winning goal in overtime of my sixteen and under soccer team’s state cup championship victory.

I can’t believe that my father sent me to Finland when I was sixteen to visit relatives and I spent a third of the time traveling alone around the country.

I can’t believe I saw a helicopter tear gas me and thousands of others in Sproul Plaza on the UC Berkeley campus.

I can’t believe I was a founding member of the Chico News and Review, a paper that is still a going concern over 45 years later.

I can’t believe I have two such intelligent, beautiful, loving and professionally successful daughters.

I can’t believe that I had the privilege of being a public school teacher for twenty years.

I can’t believe that I completed a two year master’s program in one year and graduated with distinction.

I can’t believe that I was at one of the most iconic college football games ever played watching Cal improbably defeat their arch rivals on a four-lateral kick off return through a marching band as time expired.

I can’t believe that I’ve been clean and sober for over 35 years.

I can’t believe that I’ve survived PTSD, drug and alcohol addiction, severe depression, devastating panic and anxiety attacks and yet managed a successful teaching career and been a good father and husband in the bargain.

I can’t believe that I saw Willie Mays play baseball, Joe Montana play football, Jason Kidd play basketball, Bobby Orr play hockey, Thierry Henry play soccer and Bjorn Borg play tennis.

I can’t believe that such an incredible man as Aimo Hourula was my father.

I can’t believe that as a child I saw Present John F. Kennedy speak.

I can’t believe that I’ve been married to the same incredible woman for 36 years and that we love one another more today than ever.

I can’t believe that for the last twelve years I’v been teaching English to people from all over the world.

I can’t believe that I’ve spoken to Liv Ullman, Ethan Coen, Jerry Brown, Willie McCovey, Jane Fonda, Joe Kapp and Pete Rose.

I can’t believe some of the incredible friends I’ve had such as Rick Grizzly Brown (aka Saad Muhammad), Paul Tjogas, Kevin Lindsey, Keith Bray, Carnell Broom, Ed Burns, Mark Norman and Phil Rosenzweig — to name but a few.

I can’t believe that I enjoy a loving and wonderful extended family that includes seven darling grand nieces and nephews.

I can’t believe that my second self-published novel found so many readers who enjoyed the book.

I can’t believe that I’ve been lucky enough to travel extensively seeing such places as London, Hawaii, Paris, Mexico, New York, Rome, Oregon, Berlin, Boston and more with a trip to Spain scheduled for next year.

I can’t believe all the great literature I’ve read, all the great music I’ve listened to, all the great films I’ve watched and all the great museums I’ve visited.

I can’t believe how lucky I am.