105/365

the deal was that my parents               
would match any money i raised to buy it.

sixteen. recently licenced. road ready.

scanning the classified for weeks        
i need nine hundred and eighty dollars
hours spent at the ice cream shop and movie theatre,
make the purchase possible.

old blue is a spotless
1976 midnight blue
volkswagen beetle
with a latte coloured interior.
these cars never feel completly sealed-
drafts and breezes emitting from every hole.
the clutch: clunky
the breaks: tenuious.
equipped with
a decent tape deck,
mediocre speakers,
and adequate heat.

i best understand america
the first few second
i pull away from my house:
on the road.
gassed up.
ready for adventure.
hard to handle thrusting from the speakers.
i could go anywhere.  
drive to jason’s house.
next best thing to freedom.

over the years,
nearly drive it off a cliff.
square the tires.
fit eight people.
get pulled over.
have sex.
drive to new jobs.
get drunk.
have arguments.
go to parties.
cry.
get lost.
fall in love
in it.

never maintained it
cept’ for putting gas in it.
in the end,
after it died on the 101
just passed larkspur,
i paid the tow truck company
twenty five dollars
to take it to the dump.
i never saw its again. 

Tender Act

Instilling confidence in a 12 year old girl is a tender, intricate and vital act. It is not easy, but everyday we work at it.

_________________________________________________________________________________

You were at your desk drawing tonight frustrated because the drawing wasn’t perfect, and you said, “if it wasn’t perfect nobody would like it,” and although you didn’t say it, I have been teaching long enough and alive long enough to know that your statement actually meant, “if I’m not perfect, no one will like me.”

I am not sure how to prove to you that this thinking is false. Maybe some part of it is is true, there will be people who will not like you. They’ll have a litany of reasons and few of them will have anything to do with you. I know what it’s like to be in seventh grade and want to be noticed, accepted, liked. The alternative feels so lonely. But what other people think matters much less than who you think about yourself.

Everyone else seems so much more beautiful and smart and talented and athletic and artistic. How do they do it? How does the world seem so well put together and you feel so raw and broken and unfinished?

You ready for the secret? The truth?

The answer beyond the cliche bullshit of 10,000 hours of practice and growth mindset?

The answer is that they are not.

The world is a mess and so is everyone in it. We are all riddled with anxiety and insecurity and feeling small and inadequate and imperfect. We all just have different ways of masking it.

The first step is not to care too much what everyone thinks. Then maybe you can move onto not caring what anyone thinks. You are in a state of flux, of growth, of change, of evolution. We all are. All the time. Forever.

You cannot be overly concerned with how you appear to be in the eyes of others, until you learn to love the person you are becoming when you look in the mirror. This is no easy task, but you need to dedicate your life to loving yourself.

I can tell you that you are beautiful and perfect and smart and wonderful and the best thing that has ever happened to me, and I can hope that you will believe me and trust me and love me for loving you, but the road forward can be a lonely one. You will need to find yourself by yourself. I am here to help you and guide you and share my wisdom and experience, and I will never leave you alone or abandon you, but there is only so much I can tell you or show you, before you need to face yourself and accept and love what you see.

You might not draw the way you want. Or look the way you want. Or be as popular as you want. Or have that one true friend, but this too shall all pass. I was a scrawny, lonely, miserable little dude when I was your age, but there was a fire in my belly. I’m not sure where that fire came from or who put it there, but once I felt it’s heat I fanned those flames to see me through the hard times. Even now, as an adult there are days when loving myself is not so easy, but despite my own constant evolution, I am here to help you find a way to recognise your flame and learn how to blow it into an inferno.

I think we both need to be patient. A few things that I hope you keep in mind- the advice that I give you is not nagging or judging or criticism of who you are.  My wisdom is born of experience and delivered from love. From the second you were born, all I have wanted was for you to be who you were meant to be. Lately, I feel that I am letting you down. Every parenting move feels like a misstep, but we are a team and this phase of your life shall blend into the next, and we will work through it together.

Here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Be kind and patient with yourself. 
• Becoming you takes time and can sometimes hurt. 
• Everyone carries a heavy load be nice to them. 
• As soon as you figure one thing out there are a million news things begging to be explored.  
• Music cures most things and what it doesn’t that’s what books are for.
• Most of confidence is just pretending to be confident. 
• No one knows what they’re doing and most people are terrified most of the time. 
• Envision who you want to be and walk toward that person. 
• It’s okay to feel anxious. 
• You are not alone.
• You can always talk to me. 
• I will never judge you. 
• I love you. 

Benefit of Doubt

For some reason, our natural inclination as parents and teachers, might be that seventh graders are: lazy, irresponsible, easily distracted, immature, ungrateful, spoiled, addicted to screens, unkind, unthoughtful, disinterested, selfish and even mean.

And let me tell you as someone who spends a large amount of time with them, some of these traits can be true, but not any more true than it might be for people of any age.

But what if we gave them the benefit of doubt more often than we do. What if we assumed that they are open minded, insightful, empowered, engaged, and kind. What if before we began every interaction, every conversation, we let them know that we respect their thoughts and feelings, that we see them as whole human beings who deserve our love and attention? We didn’t just see them as empty vessels that need teaching or parenting, but we let them know that we understand that they are stars spreading their light too, and that we could learn from them just as much as they learn from us. What if we gave them responsibility and independence, and when they failed we didn’t bury them in disappointment and shame, but rather helped them up and let them try it again?

Earlier this week, as I sat in various classes talking to kids about the effects of social media on self-esteem and body image, or working with kids on creating a literary magazine, or just chatting with individual kids about the things that might be bothering them, I couldn’t help think about what a truly remarkable age they are.

It’s easy to be frustrated and fed up, trust me I am no stranger to the roller coaster that is grade seven, but this post is a reminder to me and their teachers, as well as you parents, to remember that these kids are changing in radical ways every single day. We must remember to engage with them in new and authentic ways. You might be surprised and amazed at what wonderful beautiful people they are. But then again you probably already know.

The Day After

It’s Saturday morning. 7:46am and I woke up to a stunning view of Mt. Tampalpais from Jason’s childhood bedroom. The same room that as teenagers we would fill with laughter and farts. The same room we would fill with adolescence and misdirected testosterone, playing video games, “giving each other shit,” being boys pretending to be men.


I am alone in this room and fear that it might be too early to rouse Jason and his dad from their slumber. I slept soundly and completely last night. After the service Jason and I came home and watched some of the Raider preseason game. We chatted about this and that and then this again, never dwelling too much on the events of the day or the loss of his mother. We both needed some space to simply be for a few hours.


The service was beautiful and perfect and necessary. 300+ friends and family and ice and cream and memories. I am too cotton headed at the moment with fatigue to do it any justice with words. We laughed together and cried and shared memories about a women who people described as “a force of a nature, courageous, generous, funny, kind, and loving.”


The house is quiet and empty without her. This house that holds so many memories and fingerprints of her chaos and tenderness. I keep expecting her to yell out, you awake yet? Let me get you something to eat. But the sound of traffic beyond the hill is all I can hear.


We will find something to do with our day in her empty house. She is still here in every sense, but the one we cherish the most.


My daily posts are as discombobulated as I am, so I am going to crawl back under the warm covers and try to get a few more hours of sleep, or at least some quiet under the cover of darkness.

Gangly and Awkward

There are very few things in the world that are as remarkable and awe-inspiring as the human adolescent child. The middle school aged human- aged eleven to fourteen can do and be just about anything if you show them some love, respect and trust. Ironically they are viewed as a race of hormone deranged mongoloids by those who don’t understand them, but take the time to listen to them and talk to them and you will see that they are filled with passion and humor and an intensity that is truly inspirational. Sure they are gangly and awkward. They might be slightly manic and neurotic and riddled with self-doubt and angst, but they are just begging for responsibility, independence and a chance to show what they can do it. Whatever it is that is put in front of them. I feel so honored to have the privilege of being let into their world.


We launched our lit mag tonight and I was on the verge of tears for most of the night. The details will have to wait as I can’t see straight from fatigue, but I do want to say that it was one of the best events I have been a part of in my career. Student run. Casual. Well run. Artistic. Organic. Honest. Fun.


Paula and I never once went on stage or said anything. The kids did all of it and we nearly sold out our magazine. We will most likely break even on production costs and the kids were jazzed about reading, writing, words, music, art, expression and a community of writers. There is so much I need to say about the night and the entire process, but I will just say that it was a beautiful thing and I am so proud to be a part of it. I love this work beyond words and cannot imagine doing anything else. It is easy to complain in the day-to-day of work, but it is moments like tonight that make the work we do worthwhile. I will stop gushing, unit I formalize this experience in a proper blog post.

…

Prince. Fuck.





I have my stories. My memories. I will write them soon. Not tonight but this weekend for sure. In short, Prince allowed me to be a man on my own terms. He taught me that masculinity can be draped in purple sequence and ass-less chaps. More to come I hope, but right now I am enjoying these words, the empty white screen, a glass of wine and the guitar solo at the end of Purple Rain. This man defines soul.


…

Looking forward to taking a step back and spending the weekend with Mairin and the kids. It feels like a while since we could just relax and spend time as a family. We’ve got ice-slain birthday parties and maybe sometime by the pool. This is a well deserved weekend. Bring it on.

Speaking Of Gay

When I was in eighth grade, pretty much the worst thing you could be was gay, or at east that is the way I perceived it. I was a scrawny poor kid from the wrong side of the tracks who loved Depeche Mode, The Cure and The Smiths. I loved wearing my mom’s lipstick, cross dressing for spirit days and wishing I could be Robert Smith. I wad pretty sure I had to be gay, and like I said- that was the worst thin one could be.

Like many boys who did not feel too comfortable with my alpha-male status, I over compensated in the masculinity department and probably ended up looking like a confused jack ass. I am writing a novel about this struggle, so stay tuned.

My point is that, the one thing we boys wanted to do when I was in middle school was to proved that we were the farthest thing from queer as possible.

But today, at our school, we were celebrating Little Pink Dot, where almost half of our middle school dressed in pink to help celebrate and support the LBGT community that might be in our school.

In middle school I wasn’t a gay kid, but I still felt assaulted, so today when I saw so many members of our community show love and acceptance for anyone who might be questioning their sexuality or have identified as LGBT, made me so happy and proud. We have come a long way toward acceptance, tolerance and love. These kids today do not have the same hang ups as we did.

…

Speaking of gay, I went to watch Singapore Professional Wrestling with a bunch of my dude friends and it was so much fun. We screamed and drank and cheered and had a great time. It is late again, after 1:00am. I taught four classes today, had an accreditation meeting, watched wrestling, had a few drinks and am now home. It’s time to close this day off.

It was another good one, but it is time for the long sleep.

Too Much

Start here...hit play:

It's 1987, 88? I am in grade seven or eight. Alone in a room. A record crackles. I'm lost in its jacket-- contemplating madness. Seems so appealing. Exotic. A free exit if it ever gets to be too much.

It's my dad's record. It was, but it's mine now. I've absorbed it from him and all the baggage it carries. Not sure who I am singing it to, but it feels necessary....like a hobo in the snow. Who have I let down in so many ways? I glimpse a future. There's a mirror, some makeup, a smile, some emptiness.

My old heart is still a mess...

Are you gonna love the man, when the man gets home....