Casual Entropy

Tag: life

  • Snitches

    I’ve always loved the word ‘snitches’. Not the act though. A younger me, and I guess still a little bit of me now, was and is a fan of Dr Suess. His imagination and creation of such quirky strange characters. All of them too, from animals to humans, his creations covering his pages in what I can only described as the rainbow explosion of pastel colors. Here though my brain sees the word snitches of course goes to the oh so similar ‘Sneetches”, which by all accounts also suck in a similar way snitches do. Go back and give it a read if its been a minute and you too will agree, they surly are not the well mannered and accepting society of the Whos from Whoseville.

    Small tangent aside, I have realized that a luxury I have always wanted and in some small parts continue to work for, is the luxury of having a personal driver. No I don’t care for a fancy car or mansion that would take a small army to keep clean and dusted, but the idea of never having to drive again is so tantalizing, its infectious in a certain way and just achievable enough that I think I may one day get that opportunity.

    Obtaining a drivers license in Colorado was considered the ultimate goal of any 16 year old. And dammit if within a short while of obtaining that goal did I not grow a deep hatred for driving. Sure, at the age of 15 when I was allowed my permit I couldn’t get enough of the stuff, signing up for the littlest tasks of taking my parents to the grocery store so as to get 20 min more added to my hour log sheet. The idea of total freedom and ability to get out and visit friends that wouldn’t require me to ride my bike for about an hour was a dream I knew that was within reach. Add on top of that the fact girls were seeming to have interests in me, it was something I would smile at every day I got closer to my 16th birthday.

    I don’t recall actually passing my drivers test, I just remember that I was the first one in my siblings to pass it on the first go and I rubbed that in their faces for days. Temporary licensee in hand though, I asked to borrow the car to grab milk from the store, understanding we probably already had milk, and with the permission from the parents headed out on my own. It took all of about three days for the high of achieving my license to disappear. Maybe I had built it up in my mind so long and with such expectations that when I had finally come to the accomplishment I realized that I deeply disliked it. I disliked the outrageously, almost comically long suburban stop lights, looking ahead at the many, many rows of lights changing from green to red; I hated cars that would drive far too aggressive for the suburbs or even far too defensively going 10 or even 15 miles an hour UNDER the speed limit; I hated the responsibility that it takes to sit behind a 4000 pound vehicle while wildlife could run out at any moment; and most of all, the bane of driving, I hated the traffic. And this was 2010 Colorado traffic. When a person living here could still drive from Denver to Summit County in 50 minutes.

    A friend I had made life guarding at a country club had a personal driver. His father worked as, well as he put it, ‘something for Lockheed Martin’. Which means just two things; 1. that his family had money; 2. It definitely came from military contract.

    A few times after work I would chain my bike up outside the country club, hop in the car with my friend and his driver would be up front, playing the Eagles greatest hits CD as we headed off to his place. Sure my friend had all the Colorado toys. A huge house, nice cars, a speed boat and fishing boat, 2 jet skies, and I think his father mentioned that he and his few friends split a private jet out at the Broomfield airfield. But when it came to what really surprised me about their wealth, it was not their toys, but that they had a private driver. That to me was wealth understood.

    One time on the way to his house my friend openly was discussing a party he went to that weekend where he drank his ass off, did some ecstasy, and made out with his crush, all of which was said in front of the driver. When I pointed at the driver as secretly as a teen could, my friend let me know that the driver did not care about this stuff, the driver chiming in almost appropriately saying his job was to not get my friend in trouble but to drive the family when they needed to go somewhere, and to do it safely. Later that night as the driver took me back to my bike, we unlocked it, loaded it up in his car, and then he proceeded to drop me off at home. This, this was a luxury I did not know really existed 12 hours earlier for the elite, yet immediately felt that it was highly underestimated. I guess its because I had always seen people with loads of money driving themselves in whatever hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of vehicles they had. When do you ever read a headline that goes “Brad Pitts personal driver arrested on DUI charge on way home from ‘Feed Africa’ Gala.”

    What finally hammered the last nail in my coffin for hating driving was only 4 months into my new license. It was summer time and I was at my best friends house, spending the warm early June night in his pool. We had rented a river kayak, complete with skirt and paddle from REI (a thing you used to be able to do) and spent hours trying to see if we were any good at recovering. We sat outside switching out, practicing flipping ourselves over in his pool, to see if we had the capability of getting ourselves out from being turned over in water. Our thought was that if we were good enough, we would rent some for the summer and test our metal on the rivers nearby. Exhausting ourselves it was around 1130 at night I started to head home. Just as soon as I was getting in my car my older brother called me and with slurred speech asked if I could pick him and his friend up since they were too drunk to drive. Of course I was not going to let my brother drive so I found out where they were (a shit house party a little out of the way) picked them up, and then headed home. It was now well after midnight. My brother and friend sat in the back of the car, teasing me about my driving skills, asking me to play a CD they had just burned, and all I wanted to do was get home. I jumped on the highway to home as soon as I could. Going honestly 5 miles over the speed limit, I passed over a bridge near Morrison (anyone who has driven that road at night knows how much the police love to hide in a small corner out of sight) when I saw lights appear in my review mirror without a seconds notice. Pulling over the cop came up, asked for my license, and upon providing, he said that I was way out past curfew and grilled me about my actions. I received a curfew and speeding ticket for 540 dollars, and the officer called my house to inform my sleeping parents.

    Upon arriving home not 10 minutes later, my parents were already up waiting in the kitchen, single light above their heads turned on, and my drunk brother and friend squeezed by me quickly to head to his room downstairs.

    “how dare you be out past curfew”; “What were you thinking”; “Why are you holding swim trunks”; question after question came out their mouths furious with me.

    The one that stumped me was “why didn’t you just spend the night at Mitch’s house?” They knew my friend, and knew I had spent the night there on multiple occasions, not understanding my actions to drive home so late. What they didn’t know was that I left early enough to make it home before curfew ended, I just was not expecting the second part of my late arrival. Some might say the most crucial aspect was that I forfeited my opportunity to get home before curfew, so as to pick up their drunk son and friend to avoid them from getting behind the wheel.

    Hell yes I too was furious. A part of me imagined dragging my brothers ass upstairs and sit him in the chair while I slide on the other side of the table where my parents sat so I could grill him on it. I wasn’t just upset that I had not only received a ticket for about three weeks worth of work for me, but that I was now also getting in trouble for doing what in my mind was the right thing to do. And I know in that moment I could have simply said, “well I picked up your other son and his friend because both of them are smashed and I didn’t think they should have driven home”. In which case my parents could have gone downstairs at that very moment and found my brother, head in a trashcan as his friend took the toilet, vomiting up the different cheap liquors they had ingested that night. I could have been scot-free and maybe convinced my parents to have him pay for my ticket. I could have snitched.

    Sitting in the dimly lit kitchen, both parents firing questions at me still, wet swim trunks in one hand and a ticket for half a grand in my other, my mind wandered to the moment in the car with my own friend and his driver. How the driver looked in his review mirror at the two of us and with a reassuring smile, stated how he was not there to get anyone in trouble, just make sure everyone was safe during transportation. And the care he showed me when he would drive me back home. Not just dropping me off to pool so I could grab my bike and ride the twenty minutes home on the dark on curvy mountain roads. How he took care of me even though I was not a member of my friends family as though I was.

    “I don’t know I guess I just was tired and wanted to sleep in my bed.”

    I thought that was a good enough reason to get my parents off this whole situation but it really just started another litany of scolding’s from “that’s the worst time to drive at night and as a new driver” and or “you could have had maybe his parents drive” and so on and so forth.

    I was grounded for 1 month only being allowed to go to work via bike, as my driving privileges were taken away until I was able to pay off my curfew and speeding ticket. There I was at 16, brand new driver, right at the beginning of my first summer with the freedom only a car could provide, trying so hard as to remember why I was so excited to get my license.

    And I can’t be too upset. That summer riding my bike was amazing. My love for riding a well built bike was deepened because of it (I was on a fast road bike that was my mothers old college road bike). And honestly that summer of riding my bike planted the seed for me wanting to purchase an expensive bike when I headed off to college, one in which I still own and ride religiously today even after over a decade of owning it. Riding my bike to and from work on those Colorado summer mornings and evenings were as gorgeous and lovely as one could imagine. But it helped solidify a simple conclusion in my brain. I hate driving.

    *years later my brother at the age of 20 went to a fraternity brothers wedding and had 2 glasses of champagne. On the drive home he was pulled over and received a DWI (Driving While Intoxicated), simply because he had drank alcohol before the age of 21 and was driving. Story short, if you are ever driving through Morrison, just know the cops literally have nothing better to do.

  • Cry Me a River

    When I was 13 years old I sat in front of a Dr who was describing to me that I had an affliction passed on from my parents, ADHD. While he was talking he made mention that this was why even during our conversation, I would stare out his window of his small mountain town office, while he was trying to explain to me, a 13 year old, how the brain synapsis fire wrong. That due to the ADHD and due to my ‘other’ genetic issues, these “fire-ing’s” were not meeting with each other giving me a lapse in my attention. He stated (all in full seriousness) that this trait was a positive thing if I were “a hominid living in the dawn of man because I could help give awareness of the oncoming danger around” but was ultimately useless in our modern day world. This Dr’s daughter and I went to the same school at the time, and two days prior to my appointment, she came to school and placed a bloody knife in the locker of her then boyfriend with a note that stated something along the lines of “this is how you make me feel when you don’t call or talk to me”. I asked the Doctor what part of the brain would lead a person to do this.

    I think that was the moment the Dr started to dislike me.

    After each medication I would try, at some point mounting to an avalanche of little white pills, the Dr and I would have a “visit” to discuss the medications and what was wrong with the last one. I was about 3 months into one of my medication choices, Vyvanse (a very popular ADHD drug), when I stopped taking it in secrete because it would destroy my appetite for the entire day. I am sorry but even I could tell the benefit of paying attention to whatever movie the substitute chose this time was not worth the hunger pangs I would get when the medication would wear off around 4 that afternoon. The Dr told me this was fine and normal and should continue to take the medication regardless. I insisted we should try a new medication as the patient.

    During another visit the Dr told me to stop being ‘Sad’. Round of applause for this guy am I right? I can understand I was a little shit at this point and can take some fault; he was only trying to describe to me the next new drug I was to be taking and I upset him by only responding to whatever he said with ‘Fair’.

    “this medication will maybe have some adverse reactions including a diminish in your appetite”

    ‘fair’

    “if you think it is affecting your sleep stop taking it or contact me”

    ‘fair’

    “do you understand that this medication should and is against the law to share with anyone else in your school”

    ‘fair’

    “this is serious and you need to stop saying Fair to me and tell me you understand me”

    ‘fair’

    See, little shit. But also, if a 15 year old with ADHD and Dyslexia and whatever other things I may have been diagnosed with gets under your skin as a Dr, (someone with his own children), maybe look into something else or reevaluate your job? I would say it is very rare I get flustered to this level and I think I am still half his age now as he was then.

    One time on the drive home my mom asked why the Dr. thought I was depressed. She made mention that maybe I should be tested and if I had any dark thoughts. Ones where I wanted to hurt myself.

    I am not sure the look I gave her but she dropped the conversation very quickly. Dark thoughts? That part of the world had never even come close to crossing my mind. If anything, I was probably thinking about something along the likes of “that Starfire character from Teen Titans is kind of hot” or whatever was to happen that coming weekend seeing as school at that time had little to interest me besides English and science class.

    What I do recall though is I was and still am at times a little melancholy. And in even writing that I would like to state that I enjoy being melancholy from time to time. I miss being able to feel this way without being judged or considered depressed or in need of therapy or medication to make me happy. I recall that very thought over 15 years ago even now. Why does everyone need to be ‘happy’. Is it okay to want to just sit and think and be pensive? Do we need to drown out the moments in our lives that make us a little or even fully uncomfortable?

    My girlfriend right now is uncomfortable at the fact that I don’t really cry either. She has in fact stated that she “savors the day” she will get to see me cry. Let alone I think that’s a little strange, the want to see someone so hurt they cry. Do I feel judged for not crying when others tend to? I mean who wouldn’t. Its not like sit around and judge those who cry at the slightest happenstance like a video of a tiny kitten sitting in a teacup.

    I think the last time I cried a little was a friend of mines wedding. He looked so over joyed with happiness and love and when his soon to be wife walked down the aisle, there was a sense of pride I felt for him, his wife, and even a little for myself, that I should be so deeply honored to be a guest and an individual at such a special occasion.

    But just a day ago, a man I grew up with, an Uncle of mine who was while not blood to my father, a best friend of his, past away after a few years of battling various painful ailments and sicknesses. I respect my friends for asking me if I am alright, which I am right now. I had not talked with my uncle in years and seeing as most information I got about him came from my father who is a little estranged in our family, his passing is sad to me, but not tears sad. At a funeral for my best friends mom a little over a year ago, I recall crying a bit at the funeral. Kay was a pseudo mother during my high school years who showed me nothing but kindness and care whenever I was ever over there or even hundreds of miles away checking in with me a couple times while I was away at college.

    But now the cycle is about to repeat. I inform friends and girlfriend that a family member from my youth has passed away and I will be inundated with questions of:

    “are you alright?” “Its okay to cry, we understand.” or “that sucks, let me know if I can help in anyway, do you need a moment to yourself?”

    Again I appreciate this, but how do you tell people who cry so easily, that crying to you just isn’t something that happens all that often, and in some way that they understand this without judging you or even worrying more about you.

    I am not a person who was raised in the environment where crying was deemed “unmanly” or not the thing “boys” do. I watched my own father and father figures of mine cry on several occasions and never thought any less of them for it. I cried a fair amount as a child as well.

    But why cant a person just be okay when they say they are.

    Maybe there was just a massive shift in the other direction from when I was younger. Like because so many kids grew up in the households where men do not cry and boys don’t cry, we are now on the other side of swinging pendulum where everyone HAS to cry. Can we not take a moment and look at this as the spectrum that it is? If there is someone who can look at a flower in bloom in spring and shed sobbing tears because of its beauty, and that is perfectly fine thing to do, then someone who needs a lot to cry is also an acceptable way of emotional status?

    Again I am not trying to say I am hurt about anything above. I guess I just miss being a person who could be melancholy, or not worry that the movie didn’t make me shed tears when everyone else is sobbing, without having to explain myself to others again or thought of a someone who was not in tune with their emotions. That maybe someone would look at me and think, “that’s a fine thing to be.”

    And maybe eliminating the constant stress on some induvial to always be the “most focused” “most happy” “most in tune with societies emotions” may create a positive change in our communities. The ability to look at someone and eliminate the phrase “resting bitch face” and rather say “that is Sam”.

    And maybe at the very least we wouldn’t have a Dr sit across from a teenager and tell them their brain is wrong.

    *Big Fish still gets me teary eyed at the end