Life

Failing: Not as Cool as It Used to Be

The weather changed today. More than temporal, it was a grotesque change. It’s cold now. Everything is cold. In response, I’m listening to depressing music and protesting the pile of dishes in the kitchen, taking pity to their grime.

Yes. This is a “I got a bad grade” and I’m going to whine blog. I suggest you leave now.

My economics professor handed back the class’ mid-terms today. When I took the test, I left with an “Uh-oh” queazy feeling; from the moment I first set my eyes on the paper I knew I was a goner. You win some, you lose some, I guess. But I expected some grace. After all, the only different between grace and grade is a “D.” Partial credit can save a semester, man.

I suppose economists don’t believe in partial credit.

Gung-No

My favorite person, so far, on campus at my new school is a chinaman named William. He chose the name “William” when he came to America. I can’t pronounce his real name. He didn’t tell me to stop trying; I just don’t care for the sick look of anguish on his face when I attempt the pronunciation. He also says “Bitchin'” quite a bit which endears him to me.

William is a smart kid. I don’t want to tote the line on stereotypes; I’m sure he’d be smart whether he was a chinaman or not. But he’s bitchin’ smart. In homework, I first refer to him for answers instead of checking the back of the book.

We sit next to each other in Econ. He received his mid-term and nearly jumped out of his skin. “One hundred percent!” He high-fived me and the kid behind him. “What did you get?” I looked down at my paper which was folded and hidden from his view.

Twenty-six percent. “Not a hundred,” I replied. He smiled and nodded. He’s so damn smart, he probably ran the odds ahead of time and guessed it. I felt like a buzz-kill, so instead of focusing on myself I smiled and said “Congrats!”

Picking Up Where I…

This sounds oddly trite, but I’ve never had an F before, not in college, at least. Straight As are what got me in to Rochester! What can I do? Pick myself up and move forward, I guess.

My gut tells me I need to take full-responsibility for the grade. It’s too tempting to compare myself to people like William and say, “It’s not fair.” But it is fair. I’ve received more than a fair share of advantages. Today I feel like shit, but tomorrow I’ll pick myself up.

Here’s what I can do: 

Drop the class and try again… Remove the class from my major and declare a Pass/Fail option… Forget GPA and squeak by with a passing grade… Dress sexy and try to seduce my professor…

Any suggestions?

In high-school I failed my courses quite often. It was “cool” then. You know, to not care? Failing is, definitely, not as cool as it used to be.

Anyway, thanks for staying with me. I know I told you to leave earlier, but I was just a little down and, truth be told, a little hangry.

I’m going to make some food now. Leave me alone. I love you.

The Conundrum of Location Shenanigans (or, A Decade Under the Influence)

The Good News for me: I got a job! The Bad News for leisure: I got a job…

Good news indeed! Yes, very much so—especially when considering my recent exploits of turning down Mr. Ponytail without another viable option. The pay is decent enough, I get to learn something new, and the establishment is conveniently close to my living quarters. It’s a store, but I wont mention the name since my employment is still technically in process. The process, you see, has become a bit of a conundrum.

The wonderful people at my (supposed) new job require a full-background check upon employment. This is fine as I have nothing to hide (my secret-agent/ninja experience was wiped clean from official transcripts). The bummer part? They want ten years of addresses.

Ten years?

I don’t know even know where I live now! Is it Rochester?

My first thought was this: Okay. I can do this. Just track back, right? Rochester, Idaho, California, Idaho… That takes care of this year… Oh Lord. I can’t do this!

I’ve definitely moved around more than the average bear; unless, of course, we’re talking carnival bears. But nevertheless, it’s been a wild ride since high-school ended. My lovely wife pointed out that, stability speaking, I’m in probably the worst ten years of my life: the first ten-years after high-school.

NOTE TO SELF: Next year is my ten-year graduation reunion. Don’t go.

My Ninja Plan of Attack

I have two weeks to complete this background thingamajoo. ASAP would be best. So here’s my plan: Calling on all friends, relatives, and enemies, if you’ve seen me, at all, in the last ten years—any where—let me know where that place* was. *Please include the zip-code. Thank you.

“Kevin, that is not a good plan—at all.”

First of all, who named you Mr. Plandsome? Secondly, yes, I know. It’s a terrible plan. So, three cheers for a new plan! I’ve ordered a credit report, hoping my many addresses will be on it. I’m also open to other suggestions*.

*I accept credit for all good ideas.

Until then, I must keep racking my brain: where the hell have I been these last ten years?

Wish me luck as I go forward.

Thanks for your support, kind readers. You’re the best. Here’s a salute to my (and possibly your) decade under the influence:

Eat, Sleep, Repeat

There’s this album I used to listen to named Eat, Sleep, Repeat. It’s a downer record, for sure, as you can imagine by the title. Lyrically, it explores the cyclicality of life and also the meaninglessness of it.

(I was emo when this came out so BACK OFF!)

The thought of a single human-life being summed up by the words

“Eat

Sleep

Repeat”

can kind of be frightening.

Life can be like that though, so cyclical it often feels purposeless.

Eat, Sleep, Dance!

I’ve realized since the album’s release that the singer (or character of lyrics, maybe) wasn’t condemning routine; he was just down. He was in a valley. He was also an artist.

(Foolish, I feel now, after adopting his outlook as doctrine).

Artists tend to overanalyze life (or under-analyze life) into whatever they want it to be. If they want to be stuck in a hamster wheel, they will build themselves a hamster wheel or color the world as such. There’s an obvious temper of youth which cloaks the music and message; it’s crazy what you identify yourself with when you’re a kid.

I’ve since discovered that life is naturally cyclical, and that’s alright. We can have good days and bad, good years and bad. Many of us see the big picture and can sail steady through it all. I look back at myself and wonder why I couldn’t. I was hyper-responsive, I guess, the type to get stuck in valleys and curse them only to later summit peaks and praise them, all the while missing meaning, missing the purpose of creation, missing consistency.

How are you holding up these days?

One day, I want to write and record another album. I think I’ll title it

Eat. Coffee. Poop. Netflix. Work. Eat. Blog. Eat. Sleep. Repeat. 

And it’s going to be a happy record, one that sees the good in the bad, one that can sail. “Isn’t it pretty to think so?” Yes. Yes, I think so.

Departing Queries:

  1. Are there any outdated doctrines from your youth that you’re still holding on to?
  2. Do you focus on what is true and noble, or are you living only in response to the temporary?
  3. What are the routines in your life that color your identity, make you who you are?

Copeland_-_Eat,_Sleep,_RepeatP.S. I still really like this album.

Relook: The Perils of Landscaping (Kevin Claud Van Damn it!)

You know that awesome, cliché action-movie sequence where the hero jumps out of a car right before it shoots off a cliff? I’m sure you know what I mean.

I’ve always wanted to do that!

Today was going to be an easy day. You know… day off from my main job at the market, do a little side-job yard-work, get a little sunshine. I didn’t realize I’d be jumping off a riding lawnmower as it plunged downhill.

I should explain.

On Wednesdays, I landscape for a really nice lady named Lois. She lives outside of Coeur d’Alene in the “fancy home overlooking the lake on a hill” district. Every summer she rents her house (or yard I should say) for weddings.

She has a nice riding mow, and I genuinely love the job. It’s outside and beautiful and even fun. That said, every landscaper who works a riding mow will mention a turn that makes their teeth grind. My “turn,” happens to have a hill next to it that dramatically declines into wilderness. No problem.

Today, the grass was wet.

Moments

It’s funny how time seems to slow down in radical moments. Looking back, I felt like I could’ve prepped a tuna salad sandwich with the time I had before the fall, which was really only two or three seconds.

I better Titanic off of this thing!

I jumped and hit the ground, soon hearing the mower make a ‘crunch’ sound. I stood up, as slowly as I could muster, and turned my head towards the direction of the renegade-riding mower. God, I didn’t want to look.

“Oh my goodness,” I said. “It’s fine!”

There, downhill, the mower rested in a safe net of bushes. In fact, it couldn’t have had a softer landing. Laughing, I ran down the hill and jumped on the dusty mower and started the engine. I threw the gear in reverse but it wouldn’t go. It tried, I tried, the wheels turned and all, but it wouldn’t go. After a good ten minutes of this back and forth gear shifting, manually lifting the mower, and pushing and pulling in ridiculous helplessness, I rested.

Prayer

I thought about calling some friends, but everyone I knew lived roughly twenty-hours away in California. Lois was gone for a few hours, the only good thing.

“Lord,” I pleaded, “You gotta get me out of this, you gotta send me somebody!”

The hill looks bigger in person, okay?

During the summer, Lois turns her guest room into a bed and breakfast. I thought the house was empty, but I forgot about the B&B guests! Suddenly, I heard a door open.

“Hey! Hey!” I rushed up the hill to the guest’s door with my arms waving. Flustered and bewildered, the man stepped back and threw his fists into a fighting stance (protecting his wife).

“Do you… I… well…” I was out of breathe and apparently lost my vocabulary on the fall. It wasn’t helping my case that the stranger thought me a lunatic. Thankfully, his eyes looked down and saw the green on my clothes and (eventually) the mower in the bushes.

“Did you ride that down the hill?” He asked.

“No… It rolled down by itself.”

His eyes widened and he made the hand gesture of a rolling car. “It rolled?”

“Well no, it roooollllled.” I made the gesture of a smooth downward drift with my hand. I must’ve looked insane. Crazy or not, this answered prayer of a man helped me pull, push, and lift the mower out of the bushes.

It turned out this guy was a saint.

Fin.

Getting out of the bushes was only half the battle, but I will spare you the rest of that crazy story (it included ‘off roading’ further down). All in all, the mower was fine. I even got it back in the yard and finished mowing before Lois came home. I wasn’t sure how to bring it up. “Hey, I took your expensive (brand new) riding mow on a joy ride to the lake.”

I didn’t say that.

My conscious got the best of me, and I did tell her. She took it great and actually laughed when I gave her the story. She felt bad for me, could you believe that?

Epilogue

What’s the moral to this tale? Hmmmmm…

Watch out for wet grass?

Don’t cut too close to the edge?

God answers prayer?

Before I left, I took one more glance at the spot where it all went down. The soft breeze was blowing and the sun was finally shining. Down the hill, the bushes were tromped and a freshly made ‘mower size’ trail existed, showing my fateful path. I stood and looked, both triumphant and stupid, gazing with astonishment, and thinking only “Man, that was bad ass.”

[NOTE: This blog post came from 7/28/2011. It has been slightly edited and reworked. I hope to get back on track next week and share some new thoughts. Until then, I hope you enjoy some of my older (odder) tales.]

ReLook: Numero Hill & The Sinking City
It’s my first week at the University of Rochester. Since I’m adjusting to my new schedule (and homework-work-load), I thought I’d revisit some old blog posts. Some stories deserve a second telling. Some deserve a better telling. In a happy (yet horrid) affair, I edited, cut, and rehashed this post. I hope you enjoy! 

Numero Hill & The Sinking City

Think about this: You live in a small town; you’ve been there your whole life. One day, it just disappears, vanishes (maybe “Vanish” is too much; how about this: “It drowns”). The city drowns.

The waters rise. All you can do is head uphill.

WASHington

Last weekend, I was asked to lead worship in Entiat, Washington by my friend Gar Mickelson who was guest speaking. The church’s usual “worship-person” was on a retreat. I’m not sure who he was retreating from; they didn’t tell me.

Gar gave me advice to keep it simple: “It’s a small church in a small town.”

On the three-hour drive to Entiat, Gar spoke to us—us includes my wife; Josh Hardy, the guitar and piano accompaniment; and myself—about some of the history of Entiat, WA, a tiny town along the Columbia River, near Wenatchee. “In 1960, most of the town had to move and relocate to higher ground, due to the Rocky Reach Dam, built just a few miles north on the river. This dam would be so powerful and so important, it would provide power all the way to Coeur D’Alene and beyond.”

The dam fulfilled its purpose and benefited many towns, unfortunately, at the cost of Entiat. The waters rose and she was of covered. The locals who stayed had to resettle uphill.

The Number Entiat

Pulling into the church parking lot, we noticed a steep and flat cliff on the side of a big hill which overlooked the town. “Numero Hill,” said a local. (more…)

Dancing with Confidence, Tripping Over the Shoes of Fear

Upon walking out of a Wegmans the other night—a Rochester based grocer Megan and I have come to fall in love with—we observed ferocious, grey clouds pouring into town from every direction, pari passu, slowly and ominously withering the last of our daylight. Directly above us were some stars, a few clouds, a slight breeze, but nothing more. It was peaceful.

That’s how I feel now. I’m entering “Calm before the storm” mode. That’s what I’m choosing to call it, anyway. Right now, life is serotinally peaceful; I know it wont last long, and that’s okay. Classes will start and homework will pile. It’s what I signed up for.

Around me are weathered students, all of whom waiting for the storm to begin. As a Junior, I’ve seen some weather too; however, I still doubt myself. I don’t know why.

Like an iced-kicker, I psych myself out of the confidence I know I possess.

Philosophy Steve

The other day, over the telephone, my uncle said something that stuck with me. He said “Kevin, the unknown fools us.”

I stopped him in the middle of his next sentence: “Steve, that was deep, man.”

It’s true, isn’t it? The unknown fools us. It grabs ahold of our fears and lies to us; it calls us names and exploits our insecurities. Call it what you want—a lack of control, a lack of confidence, whatever the insecurity may be—the unknown seeps in and plants fear.

My confidence moved me to the other side of the North American continent in pursuit of the best education I could attain. So yes, I possess confidence. I’m no Ron Burgandy, but you know, I’m getting there. (It’s all in the mustache?)

Yet, truth be told, my doubts creep in. Butterflies show up from time to time. They fly around in my stomach, sometimes regressing into caterpillars, causing me to cowardly hide underneath fallen leaves.

Three Important Reminders

  1. Insecurities are not concrete, but a fluid which evaporates with wisdom and experience. Don’t define yourself by your temporal troubles.
  2. Fear is a great motivator and a terrible bed-mate. Keep her off the pillow and away from your dreams.
  3. “The unknown fools us,” but only if you let it. Lead the dance and kick off the shoes of fear.

Whether we want it to or not, most major decisions (changes) require a little uncertainty, a toe-to-toe dance with the unknown. What if, instead of running away, we tried to lead the dance?

I’ve never been a good dancer, but I guess I can give it a shot.

How about you?