Counting By 7s and Belonging But Not Just Belonging

This morning I woke up rotten. I'd just read Counting By 7s, by Holly Goldberg Sloan, but that's not why I felt bad because Counting By 7s made me feel really good. Since reading it I've been  thinking about it for the blog and had to face uncomfortable things about your boy, your servant, your humble blog writer Howie. The easiest theme to tease out of the book is about the importance of belonging. We'll try to get something more out of it later, but I think I need to talk about belonging a little bit. I don't really feel like I belong. Ever. Anywhere. This probably isn't a rare feeling since there are entire books about that feeling and as you have discovered I read one, but just because it happens to other people too doesn't mean it sucks any less.

At work I'm one of the only people who isn't an avid hunter or angler or both. I'm one of a small minority in a town and state who doesn't think that Hillary Clinton is literally evil. Not misguided, or not just someone they don't agree with, but actively trying to accomplish Satan's plan. I'm not even sure about this Satan business, while we're on the subject. At my old job I was one of the only people I worked with who didn't drink, do yoga, obsess about green tea, and tolerate bluegrass music. At church I often disagree with what's being talked about, but realize that if I spoke up, it might mean that my kids don't have anyone to play with. And when I'm among my non-religious friends I'm a little bristly when I'm told that everything wrong with the world is religion's fault.

I'm an outdoorsman who loves collecting old video games, a feminist who loves football, and a Mormon who loves rap music. I love mountain biking and musical theater. And let's be honest here, you guys, because you read this blog and you might know me personally so you already know this but it might be valuable to know that I am aware of it, too. In the words of Hamilton (the rapper), "I know I talk too much, I'm abrasive."

And that's why I woke up feeling bad. See, in my desperate attempt to receive validation that I exist, I tend to get into Facebook fights. I post controversial opinions. I share articles that I know some of you don't like. Part of it is that I genuinely believe whatever the thing is and hope that maybe this will be the thing that helps other people understand why I've arrived at that conclusion. But really, part of it is that if I start a fight I'll see notifications and get the little drip of endorphins that rushes into my system and reminds me that I'm in fact not a ghost and actually occupy a location in the universe, no matter how small.

Oof. This is too heavy. I'm never going to get a meme out of this.

When you worry about who you are and who you belong with, you start to think that you'll never get along with everyone, so you intentionally narrow your audience down until you finally find that little nugget of people who see the world like you do. You define yourself by one thing. It's not enough just to be a rock climber. You have to be a boulderer, or sport climber, or trad climber, or aid climber. You don't just collect video games, you collect SEGA CD games. That's your thing. People say, "Oh Howie? He's got that liberal book blog nobody reads."

It's easier that way. Give everyone a label so that they know where to stand in a crowded room. Jocks with jocks, nerds with nerds, skaters with skaters, and young Japanese men with their anime dolls.

She said that I was highly gifted.
Are people lowly gifted?
Or medium gifted?
Or just gifted? It's possible that all labels are curses. Unless they're on cleaning products.
In my opinion, it's not really a great idea to see people as just one thing.

So why, if I have a hard time fitting in as it is, do I use every platform I have to make sure that everyone knows that we disagree about stuff? The most flattering voice in my head (the one that is actually very very quiet most of the time) says that I'm standing up for what I believe in, and educating, and attempting to banish ignorance from this world once and for all (remember already that there is a bold assertion here that it is my audience's ignorance and not mine at play). Obviously the way I see things make sense to me, and if you only read this article you would agree and we'd all be nicer to each other and be good friends and you'd invite me to parties instead of just post pictures of them on Facebook.

There's a meaner voice, though, that I hate to admit I listen to pretty actively, that says I'm pandering to a handful of people who I already know agree with me and secretly hoping that those who disagree speak up so I can have something to do other than deal with daily life. I want to belong so dang bad that I'll alienate 95% of people just to get on the good side of that 5%. The 5% differs, by the way, depending on what aspect of myself I want to exaggerate at that particular moment.

Now the highest grade I ever got in a college math class was C+, but even I can do that math here. Pretty quickly I'm going to end up with zero. You "liked" the rad hawk picture I took at work, then frowned at my devastating take down of third party candidates. Or you're on board with my opinion about what a scumbag Brock Turner is, but a hawk carried away your dog. And one time I made fun of people who spend more money on their dogs than I do on my children and you're looking at the receipt for your dog's massive empty casket funeral (complete with marble statues). Listen, I'm sorry about your dog. Let's move past your dog. I know you loved him or her.

Too soon? Dangit, it's too soon, isn't it?

You guys, how am I supposed to know if your dog is a him or her? Why must you correct me so assiduously? Do you know how hard it is for me to pretend to like your dog, let alone know what sex it is? Why did you have a dog so small it could be carried away by a bird that's the same size as my cat?

I said let's drop the dog and let's drop it.

I'm sorry that the hawk dropped your dog from that height and that I just reminded you of it.

Also, while we're talking about birds, did you know that the "noble" bald eagle often doesn't hunt, but instead eats carrion and steals food from other birds? Oh right. You found that out the hard way. Sorry about that.

When's the funeral? Dang. That's my fantasy football draft. Save me some potatoes.

Anyway now that dog guy's gone, let's talk about this book.

You could ascribe a lot of adjectives to Willow Chance. She's brilliant, but socially awkward. She's never been a teacher's pet, and she isn't shy about expressing frustration or disinterest with school. She's adopted, she's black, she's a gardener, she is obsessed with germs, she loves animals. She has a pretty good sense of humor. “It would look pretty messed up," she says, "to be a social worker and have dried kid blood as a permanent stain in your vehicle.”

Her parents love her, but also worry for her. On her first day at her new middle school she wants to make an impression, so she decides to wear her gardening outfit, complete with floppy hat. She takes a test on the first day and scores the highest in the state and is promptly accused of cheating.

I'm not spoiling anything, because it's in the first three pages or so, but Willow's parents are killed in a car accident. This is pretty common for young adult fiction. What's uncommon is that we don't quickly fast-forward to when she's moved on with her life and ready to begin an adventure. We spend a lot of time with Willow. We grieve with her. We cry (or at least I cry) right along with her. Oh my gosh you guys do we grieve with Willow.

I have seen trees that survive fire.
Their bark is burned and their limbs are dead branches.
But hidden under that skeleton is a force that sends a single shoot of green out into the world.
Maybe if I'm lucky, that will one day happen to me.
But right now, I can't see it.

But grieving isn't really a luxury because she also needs a place to live, and it's hard to find a place to live for an eccentric black girl who is at maybe the most awkward age of human existence. “People usually find a good place for stray dogs, or for the elderly when they can no longer go up stairs or use a can opener. Finding a good place for a kid seems like a much bigger challenge.”

Willow, who at her core is built of human kindness and a growing sense of perception of what it is to be a human, becomes a nucleus for a seemingly random group of people: a Vietnamese family, an unambitious hoarder of a school counselor, a taxi driver, and a pretty unlucky cat. The way Willow touches their lives without realizing it is probably familiar to regular readers of young adult fiction, but I have no problem with boilerplate storytelling if I'm enjoying myself. She's such a unique and well-drawn character, it's no wonder people like being around Willow. I miss her already.

Her counselor, being lazy, creates a system for dealing with all of his students. This consists of color coded folders labeled things like "oddball," "lone wolf," and "weirdo." Each student he lumps into one of those categories, and then generates pre-filled reports to send on to the district. He seems to get along just fine that way.

A lot of us think we're getting along just fine that way, too. We think we've got the gun collector all figured out, for example. 'MURICA, am I right? But we don't realize that he also spends a couple of hours every week teaching English to Mexican immigrants. You can be a chill dude and still like sticks that go bang and put holes in stuff. Or check this out. I went to school with a Jeff Spicoli pothead looking guy who never wore shoes and rode a skateboard everywhere, but he regularly shot the biggest buck of anyone I knew. Also he was a survivalist and the first person I'd put on a zombie team.

We're so dang similar, all of us. If we weren't, funny memes wouldn't spread like they do. And from sitting in the park and watching Pokemon Go zombies fans hang out, we genuinely want to like each other. But maybe we're scared, too. Maybe in order to avoid being rejected, we reject first and mock instead. That way at least it's our choice. And then we find someone else, and that someone else's only thing in common with us is that we both think their losers. We look at those guys having a great time finding fake monsters and we make eye contact and roll our eyes and say "these guys, right" and then we go back to trying to get strangers to like us on Instagram. And then we feel like we belong.

The real Pokemon pros know where to look

Who's having more fun?

NW and More Sad Stories

NW is the postcode for North West London. Like how Americans sometimes fixate on certain zip codes or area codes, NW is shorthand for a neighborhood filled with council estates (similar to American housing projects). It's poor, racially diverse, vibrant, sometimes scary, and difficult to escape. The book follows four people as they negotiate growing up in NW, sometimes try to get out, and find themselves pulled back in.

There's a lot of talk about race, which I've talked about a lot, and class, which happens to be something I've thought a lot about lately. This election in particular seems obsessed with it. There's this great article I read last night about the persistence of a white underclass that just fascinated me. I plan on reading both the books the article analyzes, so look forward to that, I guess.

I've talked recently about privilege, and white privilege specifically, and I do this because I'm white and I'm trying to be aware of it. I hope that in those talks we've had I haven't been so one-sided as to infer that I don't empathize with the white poor. And listen, this is coming from someone who has spent a significant amount of his adult life well under the poverty level. I've experienced some of the crushing despair that comes from not having enough money. I have faced legitimate threats of losing my house. We've stood in lines for free food, gotten reduced school lunches, and written checks to the grocery store that we know won't cash them for a few days. I've been rejected for car loans, and as an adult, had to ask my parents to cosign. It sucks being poor.

But even in those struggles I have to constantly remind myself how lucky I am. When stuff was real bad a few years ago and I was underemployed and we didn't know where our next house payment was coming from the specter of losing it was legit for a minute there. But we also knew that we wouldn't be homeless. Also, when I found a new job and we had to move, I was in no position to pay a deposit and first-month's rent. I had to ask my parents, which is humiliating and sad and deserving of whatever scorn you want to heap on me. Thank heavens for it, though.

No complaints

All of this has been psychologically trying, and when I think about buying another house I get a little bit of PTSD. But things have been pretty good for us, all told. In recent years, due to volunteering, I've started to get deeper and deeper glimpses into the lives of people who don't have the support structure I have, who are trying to navigate this unforgiving world without the safety net I took for granted, and who are just getting hosed.

I talk to people whose parents died very early, or who were abandoned, or who lived in their grandparents' house with their mom, a revolving cast of guys who calls themselves stepdad, a couple of aunts and uncles, some random friends, and a bunch of kids. There are drugs and alcohol and someone is always in jail. Some of them don't have jobs but others work constantly and still don't have money. There aren't clean clothes for school, nobody cares if you shower, and you're scared every time you try to fall asleep.

I talk to people all of the time who have gotten out of those situations and done something amazing with their lives which is humbling to me and makes me feel like I've squandered my opportunities. But also, you guys? I talk to a lot of people who didn't. People who tried to get out, but due to domestic violence, or addiction, or getting involved with crime, or a bad job market, or predatory loans, or aggressive credit card companies, or multi-level marketing schemes, or oh my gosh the medical bills, or a trillion other reasons end up in that same house with their own kids and wondering what happened.

Do you get it, though? How hard that can be? Junior high school and high school are a nightmare in the best of circumstances. Try it when you smell like cigarette smoke and wear dirty clothes and never get a hair cut and have bad dental care and none of that is your fault. My guess is that you're going to end up hanging out with other kids like you, because they get it. And they look out for you when the rich kids corner you. So you learn to fight and be scary. And without be a lot of parental supervision or cool stuff in your house to keep you entertained like ping pong tables and video games you walk around the streets and you're bored and there isn't a lot of consequences for what you do so you do dumb stuff. And nobody cares if you do your homework.

So yeah, you start to look at the world as antagonistic and that nobody gives a crap about you. It's hard to hear someone tell you that you have advantages based on your skin color. Your experiences with police are also fraught with complexity. You get harassed because your car is old, because you have unpaid tickets, because your car isn't registered, because you aren't insured. When your sister tries to report a rape or domestic violence, the police don't believe her. Or are scornful. They threaten a battered wife that if she calls one more time, it will be she who is arrested, because she keeps going back to the scumbag. But the scumbag has a job, and a house, and she has kids who need to eat, and maybe it's worth taking a few shots if it means they get a meal that night. 

Last post I talked about how hard it is for people of color to pull themselves out of a quagmire that is slavery and segregation and separate but equal and institutionalized racism. I don't take that back one bit. But if you read that The Atlantic article I linked up there, we're dealing with hundreds of years of oppression of a white underclass as well. We often see them as villains (think Bob Ewell in To Kill a Mockingbird ), and the last group we can all feel good about mocking. 

As conservative writer Kevin Williamson of the National Review said,

The truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that they deserve to die. Economically, they are negative assets. Morally, they are indefensible. Forget all your cheap theatrical Bruce Springsteen crap. Forget your sanctimony about struggling Rust Belt factory towns and your conspiracy theories about the wily Orientals stealing our jobs. Forget your goddamned gypsum, and, if he has a problem with that, forget Ed Burke, too. The white American underclass is in thrall to a vicious, selfish culture whose main products are misery and used heroin needles. Donald Trump’s speeches make them feel good. So does OxyContin.

Oof. He got some criticism for that, so another writer stood up to defend him:

These are strong words, but they are fundamentally true and important to say. My childhood was different from Kevin’s, but I grew up in Kentucky, live in a rural county in Tennessee, and have seen the challenges of the white working-class first-hand. Simply put, Americans are killing themselves and destroying their families at an alarming rate. No one is making them do it. The economy isn’t putting a bottle in their hand. Immigrants aren’t making them cheat on their wives or snort OxyContin. Obama isn’t walking them into the lawyer’s office to force them to file a bogus disability claim.

Let me tell you a short story about a person I've met. He is an amalgam of several stories, because I have no way to ask for permission to tell these stories. But this story is a good representation.

A boy grows up in a house full of relatives. His uncle deals marijuana. The boy plays football and is good at it. He gets recognition from his peers. He feels like he's a part of something. But he gets injured. The school's insurance covers his initial operation, but not the pain medications. Tylenol works ok, but he's in constant discomfort. Nothing works like pot does, though. So he starts to smoke it regularly. Everything else is fine. Still playing football. Keeping good enough grades to stay on the team. Cute girlfriend (they don't know yet that she's pregnant).

He graduates with a scholarship at a small college. His family can't believe they're going to have a college student. There's a big party before he leaves. Everyone calls him college boy. He's a little drunk and he gets on his bike to ride to the gas station to get some more beer. Police notice that he's riding erratically and they pull him over. Because he's underage and drunk, they search him and find a small bag of marijuana. Because this is Utah, he goes to prison. In prison it's way harder to smoke and he's in pain all of the time until he sees some guys snorting Oxycontin. Man, does that work. When he gets out and has to buy Oxy with money instead of trading favors, he realizes how expensive it is. He had always said he wouldn't try heroin until he did. It's all over the halfway house where he's staying.

You know what? This guy made a lot of bad decisions. I get that we want to hold the poor accountable for their decisions, but I've seen people make much worse decisions and coast through life as if they're coated with butter and going down a waterslide of bacon fat. They inherit their dad's construction company and build their mansion and make some lawyers very happy and wealthy. Or maybe they're kind of middle class like me. They don't inherit a business, but they have health insurance. They don't live in a house filled with drugs and porn magazines. They have a support network of healthy people who are decent role models. Oh, and then there's this guy.

New feature: Inspirational Memes

Did the economy put a bottle in their hand? Not exactly. But it didn't keep it out of there, either.

NW follows four characters struggling with class and race in Northwest London. Keisha is black and brilliant, Leah is a fair-skinned redhead with more of a social penchant and a tendency to want to save the world. Felix is a reformed drug-dealer trying to rebuild his life after winning the love of a smart, ambitious woman, and Nathan is the adorable, charismatic 10-year old that Keisha and Leah obsessed over as kids, but in grown-up criminal form.

When being bullied Keisha Blake found it useful to remember that if you read the relevant literature or watched the pertinent movies you soon found that being bullied was practically a sign of a superior personality, and the greater the intensity of the bullying the more likely it was to be avenged at the other end of life, when qualities of the kind Keisha Black possessed– cleverness, will-to-power– became ‘their own reward,’ and that this remained true even if the people in the literature and movies looked nothing like you, came from a different socio-economic and historical universe, and– had they ever met you– would very likely have enslaved you, or at best, bullied you to precisely the same extent as Lorna Mackenzie who had a problem with the way you acted like you were better than everyone else.

The narrative follows Leah, then Felix, then Keisha, with Nathan's story interwoven throughout. It drastically changes tone throughout, as if there are three different people writing it. This kind of feat from an author always amazes me. I can only write the way I talk. Also, Zadie Smith's ear for authentic sounding London dialogue is endlessly delightful. I'll bet these are fun audio books. 

There is some part of me that thinks that I need to tell you whether I recommend a book or not, and another part that doesn't really think that matters. I've read books that I didn't, in the end, enjoy, but got a good discussion out of. There are themes to be teased out of bad books just like the good ones. And maybe the theme wasn't even in the book but it triggered something in me that forced me to look at something in a new way.

Philosophy is listening to warbling posh boys, it is being more bored than you have ever been in your life, more bored than you thought it possible to be.

NW is a good book, but I didn't love it. It's one of those books where the individual pieces are better than the overall product. Do I recommend it? Sure. It's filled with good things, and maybe if the whole taken together is flawed, there are enough moments within that make it worth reading. There are amazing insights throughout.

Don't you think they're as bored as you are? You think you're somebody special? You think I wake up everyday so happy to see you? You're a snob, just in the other way. Do you think you are the only one who wants something else? Another life?

The cereal part of Lucky Charms is gross, I think we can all agree on that. And unless you are some crazy person, the marshmallows by themselves are pretty nasty, too. But together? That bowl sings. I don't know if that metaphor holds up but honestly I just really want some Lucky Charms right now.

Why not?

Hi guys, this is an excerpt from a novel I once wrote. If you want to read more, go here. If you have free time and/or experience and would like to help me format it to for e-books, that would be fun maybe.

Anyway, regular blog coming next Monday.

His leg hurt so badly. He somehow registered this before awakening. His eyes shot open and he doubled over and held onto his thigh, squeezing hard and trying to flex the leg. His whole body was rigid and tight, but the leg was immovable. Gasping from the pain of it, he slowly worked the muscles. Bending and forcing it to bend, he made almost no progress.

Arch collapsed against the pack and looked around, still flexing the muscles in his leg, making almost imperceptible movements that seemed to cost him everything each time. He found the wall of the cart and hauled himself up, pulling his lame leg up under him and igniting more deep soreness and pain as his body sagged against it, and looked around.

Carter looked at him and looked down at the ground.

“What’s up, buddy?” Arch said quietly.

Carter looked at him again. Then at a spot in the ground Arch couldn't see.

Arch sighed. He sat up in the cart and with his arms, pushed his way to the edge. His stiff leg protested as it reached the edge of the cart and Arch forced it down with his hands.

In the snow there was a pile of blankets, coats, and sleeping bags. Arch looked at it quizzically for a moment before picking out a spray of dark hair among the colorful fabrics.

He fumbled for the rifle and found it, he pressed the barrel into the ground and rested his armpit on the stock before easing himself down. Favoring his wounded leg he hobbled to Tawny’s side and sank to his knees with a groan. With trepidation he watched the pile for movement, signs of breathing. Then he leaned forward and gingerly pushed a blanket aside.

“Is she dead?” Carter was at his side.

Arch placed his hand on her cheek gently. Then up to her forehead. The skin was very cold.

“No,” Arch said finally. “We need to set up a tent and get the stove going.”

Carter kept pulling at his coat. “Is she sick?”

“Yeah,” Arch said. “I think so.” He brushed hair from Tawny’s face. “Get the tent.”

Carter moved then and soon dropped the bundle next to Arch. Arch looked at it forlornly. “Buddy,” he said finally, “I think you’re going to have to do this. You helped us before, and I can talk you through it.”

The boy looked like he might protest, but his hands fell to his sides and he nodded. Arch pulled himself to his feet and made his way to the cart. He pulled a pack to the edge and watched Carter as he unfolded the tent carefully. The boy’s movements were deliberate and slow, with long pauses between actions. The actions were true, though. And Arch focused on his task.

He unpacked the big stove and the pots and filled the pot half-full with water from a flexible container. He filled it the rest of the way with snow and turned on the burner. The water heating, he rummaged through the first aid kit for more ibuprofen and put two of the big tablets in his mouth, chewed them absently as he filled a second pot with snow and put that on the other burner.

He looked back at Carter and saw the tent taking shape. Carter looked up then and Arch returned the look. Their eyes locked, Arch nodded his approval and Carter smiled slightly before returning to the task. He moved quickly, organizing containers, then finding the fabric strips he’d ripped from old clothing. There were some Nalgene bottles of various sizes and when the water neared boiling, he filled them and wrapped them in the strips of fabric.

“How’s the tent coming, Carter?” He let a bit of urgency enter his voice, hoping to motivate the boy without scaring him.

“I think I’ve got it,” he yelled back.

Arch looked the tent over and thought it looked alright. “We’ve got to get your mom in there. I’ll need a lot of help.”

He returned to Tawny’s side and knelt as well as he could. The two moved the unconscious figure to the tent and worked her through the tent door.

“Run and get the water bottles,” Arch told Carter. “Hurry. And then bring me the blankets and stuff we left out there.”

Carter hurried.

Arch pulled aside the blanket that had dragged along with Tawny as they pulled her to the tent and began stripping layers from her. He moved as quickly as he could and Carter dropped the bottles near her. He looked concerned at his unmoving mom before turning and running again. When he returned Arch had stripped Tawny to her underwear, wincing a little at her cold skin.

“We have to get all of this wet stuff off,” he explained. “As soon as her clothes are off I want you to dry her as much as you can with this blanket.”

Carter nodded.

“Get a tarp and some sleeping bags. Lay the tarp down, then some of those bags and we’ll roll her onto them.”

Carter did as he was told and when Arch had undressed Tawny, he rolled her onto the bed they’d made. He quickly covered her body with blankets and began placing the warm water bottles near her. Under each armpit, between her legs, at her feet, under each hand. Then he wrapped the tarp around her, enveloping her in a plastic cocoon, an opening about six inches wide for her face. Carter lay next to her and pressed his face against his mother’s, watching her closely.

Arch unzipped another sleeping bag and enveloped the two in the insulating bag, tucking it around them. He ran his hand through Carter’s hair and, wincing at the pain of it, moved to Tawny’s other side. He gently took her chin and turned it towards him and pressed his lips against hers, blowing warm air into her lungs. He heard Carter softly crying.

As the sun moved overhead, the tent warmed more. Arch continued supplementing Tawny’s oxygen and Carter fell asleep pressed against her. Her body was warmer and Arch noticed her eyelids fluttering. He pressed his hand against her cheek and ran his hand through her hair.

He began to speak, in a low voice, just saying soothing things. “There you are,” he said, and “Carter’s right here. He’s right here with you.”

Her mouth parted a little, and she whispered. Arch leaned close to her and listened but couldn’t make it out.

“What’s that?”

She breathed out again and this time he heard it.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

He didn’t answer. Then finally, “you want some tea?”