I Hope that I Get Old Before I Die

Clear off the kitchen table, darling.

For on the kitchen table I must lie.

I'm just tired for my wife

Served the banquet of my life

and I hope that I get old before I die.

~They Might Be Giants, "I Hope that I Get Old Before I Die"

This is enduring to the end.

This is remembering that the problems I have are small and manageable and mostly only irritations, compared to the shattering woes of so many, many others out there.

My woes:

1. Oldest son has a dead battery in his van.

2. The tree that got cut down a few weeks ago, there's still a lot of firewood from it in the front yard, and chopping it up with the wedge and sledgehammer is proving to be tougher than I expected.

3. I'm a little tired of the relatively easy, good-paying job that I have.

4. I'm a little tired of the side gig I have, grading papers.

5. It's snowing in the mountains not too far from here, and here is is only early October.

6. The ash in the back yard is being killed by beetles.

7. I still have a lot of sand to haul in and spread to level the back yard.

8. The basement bathroom -- one of four functioning bathrooms in the house -- isn't finished being remodeled yet.

So yeah. It's hard to join this pity party because there's not really all that much to pity here.

Perfect is the Enemy of Good Enough. And of Farah Slacks.

I'm a laid back kind of guy. And am destined to work with some really tightly-wound people.

And that's generally ok. As a laid back guy, I've long learned to bend with the wind.

But sometimes it's like an introvert dealing with an extrovert: the introvert is always asked to get out of their comfort zone and confirm with what the extrovert once. But no body thinks to ask the extrovert to leave their comfort zone and dial things back a bit.

Sometimes the tightly wound would do well to bend with the wind.

See, we did things a certain way for more than a successful decade. Things weren't perfect, but they were good enough. They got the job done.

Now things have to be perfect. And perfect is a good goal. But sometimes good enough is, you know, good enough.

Sometimes angels wear Farah slacks.

Hire Human Beings. Be A Human Being

Reading in Theodore Rockwell's "The Rickover Effect," a biography of Admiral Hyman Rickover, who was a driving force in developing the Nuclear Navy. It's a pretty fascinating look at the man and his role in developing the nascent military-industrial complex, but with the aim of increased efficiency and lower costs. (The bad of the complex came in afterward, I'm convinced.) Anyway, I thought this bit was an interesting look at how Rickover picked people to work with his program:

"Admiral [a subordinate said], I can't figure you out. You just washed eight guys down the drain with the back of your hand, and now you're going to spend hours on the plane tonight to make a possible small difference in somebody else's career. How come?"

"These are my people, [Rickover said]. That's the difference. Dunford, did you ever really look at the kind of people I've brought in here?"

"Yes, sir, of course. And I've heard people from industry and from research laboratories say that this organization has the highest concentration of bright young engineering talent in the country."

"You still don't get it. Our senior scientist has a master's degree in electrical engineering ahd an Ph.D in physics. But he is also an ordained Orthodox rabbi, and highly devout. He has spent many a twenty-four hour day in an airport because the sun had started to set on a Friday and his religion forbade his traveling. Our senior metallurgist is so highly regarded by the Mormon church that I'm afraid they're going to pull him out of here for a top position in Salt Lake City someday. One of our chemical engineers ia a leader in the Church of the savior, a particularly respected evangelical church here in town. And now I've had a request from one of our people for six weeks off so that he may make the pilgrimage to Mecca required by his faith. These are very spiritual people. They are not just technicians, they are highly developed human beings."

Rickover clearly wanted human beings working for him. He wanted people who showed dedication in every aspect of their lives, not merely exerting dedication in certain areas, like work. He wanted people who were well-rounded, who stood up for what they believed in, even if it didn't apply to the technical work they did for him.

The book mentions earlier that the metallurgist in question is Richard G. Scott, who did indeed answer several calls to serve in Salt Lake City, as a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy from 1977 to 1983, when he was called to serve as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles until his death in 2015.

Rickover knew his people well, and wanted to treat them well because they were willing to giver their all. A good example for me to follow.

Checking In

It’s been a while since I wrote about life, the coronavirus, and that blasted bathroom remodel. So here goes.

BATHROOM: It is done. We have officially begun using it. Aside from one little glitch with a towel bar that fell down, it’s in great shape. We even like the oval mirror over the square one, and it’s big enough that we can both use it (the fear was with a smaller mirror, it would have to be hung in a way that would cut the top of my head off, but not so). It is a relief to have that project buttoned up officially.

That means, of course, moving on to another project. I had intended for the other project to be the siding, but the youngest son sidetracked us with taking the wainscot out of his bedroom and painting the walls. He had a yellow and orange motif going. Now it’s white and blood red. Can’t say they’re the colors I’d pick but it’s not my room.

This does mean more than painting – there’s been some drywall repair and plastering too, what with the removal of the wainscot. But that’s fine. It was just a strip of trim on the wall, drywall below and above. I think there used to be wallpaper below. Glad that’s gone.

CORONAVIRUS: Restrictions are lifting, but the virus, of course, is still here. We’ve seen a moderate spike in cases since restrictions started being lifted. So we’re being careful. We’re wearing masks, still not going to church, and avoiding large gatherings. Well, Isaac and Michelle did to go to an Order of the Arrow event a few weeks ago and one of the wingnuts there arrived with a fever but convinced the organizers she could stay. So we’ve got those types out there. So far, so good for us. We are meeting as a Scout troop again, but as we’re doing the Cycling merit badge, we’ve been able to do everything outdoors, which helps a lot.

I’m still working from home, and likely will be into July, or so I surmise from the last bit of information I’ve been given. With more people being brought back to work, though, the amount of work I’m doing at home is going up. Not complaining, just thinking it through. Part of me is ready to go back, but with the “masks all the time everywhere” protocols they’re asking us to follow out there, I’m not that anxious to go. Working from home has been nice, with lots more time free in the evenings, since I’m not doing that commute. I may see if they’ll let me telecommute on Mondays, so I can be home in time for our Scout meetings. I’ve been working in town on Mondays for that, so this wouldn’t be that big of a change for them.

LIFE: We’re into our second day of rainy weather. It should end today, but it has meant for a lot of gloom outside, and not much getting done with the garden or other outdoor projects.

I’ve been fighting more feelings of depression lately. Really came to a head a few weeks ago when I was feeling overwhelmed with the English class I’m teaching at BYUI. Had student conferences coming, and I just couldn’t do them. I really did try, but when it came to doing them, I just felt stressed and alone. So they didn’t happen, except via email. Not the way I want to do things, but something had to give that week, and that was it. I think part of it is that by this time of the year, I’m used to being home mostly alone, with everyone else at camp. With the virus this year, no summer camps. So there’s a lot more bodies mooning about the house and I’m out of my quiet routine. I seemed to have a lot of time when they were gone. Not so much with them here. Not that I don’t love them. It’s just that there are a lot more needs and requests and such when we’re all piled into the same house.

GOOD STUFF THAT HAS HAPPENED:

1. The DI reopened, so the pile of stuff we had in the garage is gone.
2. Speaking of stuff in the garage being gone:
a. Liam finally got his room clean enough we could move his filing cabinet up there. More than a year after it entered the garage.
b. A lot of camping gear has been labeled and stowed. More to do, but making progress.
3. Speaking of stuff in the garage being DISCOVERED. Months ago, I misplaced some pots and other camping gear. Figured it had stayed behind at one of our spots. But in shuffling things around, I found the box they were in.

So, How Do You Get an Insurance Company to Apologize?

Dawned on us this week, reading the yearly escrow report for our mortgage, that our homeowner’s insurance is going up by $430 a year. That’s about a 37% increase.

That’s a wallop.

Yes, we did have a claim for the Great April Hail Storm of 2018. Our only claim in more than 20 years of home ownership. I guess we take this as a sign not to make any insurance claims.

But that begs the question: If we can’t make insurance claims, why have insurance in the first place? Legally, it’s not required. We have enough equity in the home they can’t make us insure it. But going without insurance seems like complete folly. As does paying insurance and making claims and seeing the price go up.

I guess this is where you have to sit down and do the math.

The hail damage to roof and siding clocked in at over $10,000. So in another 23 and ¼ years of home ownership – barring any other rate increases or additional claims – we’ll have paid the company back for the money they gave us.

I’ll be 70 years old. A little old corporal, probably having gone in in my puberty and come out in my adultery several times by then, if Radar is any indication. So I guess, playing the long game, maybe this isn’t all that bad.

Of course, the rate increase stings now. With an additional 23 or so years under my belt, maybe I’ll be worried less about paying for homeowners’ insurance and worried much more about drooling all over myself.

But that’s not now. That’s not getting texts from Michelle saying she wants the insurance company to apologize, at the end of all things.

So that brings up the question posed: How do you get an insurance company to apologize?

And, having secured said apology through whatever Herculean means necessary, how do you not hear the hollow, evil laughter afterward?

"I Think it Says 'Fragile,' Honey."

Back when we switched our clocks off Daylight Saving Time, I had to replace a battery in the clock that hangs in the stairwell. I succeeded at that mission, but:
1. Did not notice the clock was dusty 2. Left two distinct finger streaks in the dust.
So tonight, my wife asked me to go dust the clock. I dutifully complied and re-hung the clock, which immediately fell off the nail, bounced down the stairs and shattered at the bottom.
I salvaged the battery -- the only functioning part of the now defunct clock -- and told my wife I'd take the rest outside to bury next to the garage.
When I came back in from the trash can, she had Alexa playing Taps, and asked if we had any glue.
I was always jealous of that clock.

What it's Like Being Me

Oh, I had a lively weekend.

Situation One: Up on the roof, stapling underlayment down on the last bit of roof to shingle. In one little corner, a wasp is coming in and out of a gap in the siding. He begins buzzing about my head. Using the only weapon available -- my staple hammer -- I begin flailing at the wasp, mano y vespa. I swat him out of the air. He dodges. I swat with the stapler more indiscriminately. Finally, I staple him dead to the roof. And notice I've got several shingles, a blanket, and a big wad of underlay stapled to the roof as well.



Situation Two: Son insisted on taking Scout Camp jacket, still wet from the laundry, to church. Hands it off to Dad because it's too wet to wear. Dad leaves it in the Relief Society room long enough for the next ward to start. At home, son notices missing jacket. Even though son is still in Sunday clothes and Dad is in a t-shirt, shorts, and slippers, son is TOO EMBARRASSED to go into the room to retrieve jacket.

I barge in, feeling like Fezzik clearing the Thieves' Forest. All eyes on me as my slippers flip-flap on my feet. "I left my son's Scout Camp jacket here," I say. "He'll kill me if he can't take it to camp today." I grab the jacket, naturally in the far corner of the room, and as the lesson has stopped and everyone is staring at me, I mumble "Pay no attention to how I'm dressed."

Showing Up

The phone in my pocket rang. So I answered it. It’s what you do.

Jerome. It’s always Jerome, and he starts a conversation with you by finishing first the conversation he was having before he dialed your number.

He’s talking, and I can hear some numbers. They mean something so I latch onto those numbers, but all the while I can see the sail of the Big Southern Butte in the bus window and I’m confused because it means the bus is going the wrong way.

We’re heading home. Which is confusing why Jerome is calling about these numbers, which identify procedures. We’ll get them out, but tomorrow. I’m going home. Except there’s the Big Southern Butte in the window, and that means we’re not going home.

Did Jerome talk to the bus driver and get him to turn around? It’s possible. The butte is rather green – we had a slightly wetter spring than normal. And it is getting closer.

It’s morning.

It’s Thursday morning. Not afternoon, when we’re heading home.

So I stuff the phone back in my pocket. Jerome was probably done talking anyway. And I try to catch a few more minutes’ sleep.

This is adulthood. What so many of the youngsters want.

They can have it. And all the foggy drowsing on a bus, feet pinched again into steel-toed boots, throat dry from coughing during allergy season, and all the other trappings.

My patriarchal blessing says I should learn to do hard things, as doing hard things can lead you to accomplishing even harder things.

Younger Me assumed – and there’s still some of this assumption left – that this meant I’d be able to write the books I want to write.

More often than not, the hardest thing is showing up.

This morning, for example. After ten hours’ of stress over procedures that have to be revised quickly and then published, followed by a three-hour Scout meeting and then five short hours of sleep, the hard part is showing up.

Showing up.

80% of life, so the Internet says Woody Allen says, is showing up.

Sometimes, showing up is this:



That’s what makes us not want to show up at all. I was teetering on that brink this morning.

But we show up.

Because the brinks we teeter on often are of our own making. And products of our imagination. The brink I faced this morning crumbled as I got to work, got done the things I needed – not as expeditiously as you’d hope, but done nonetheless – and life goes on.

Life goes on.

You show up and life goes on.

You don’t show up and life still goes on.

So show up.

I won’t get into a debate about depression. Paranoia gallops through my family, and paranoia is in many ways different sides of the depression coin. Depression may keep you in bed, but paranoia is likely driving me to a grave earlier than most.

This is me. Either one.



Still. Pain and Panic showed up.

Despite the fog.

Despite the thought that, as that butte came closer, that it was the AM, not the PM.

It’s now 11 am. The brink has continued to crumble, with only one more hillock to overcome before I can peacefully drift into the weekend.

I’m glad I showed up today. Shows I can do hard things. Maybe I will get a book written after all. Though there are other hard things looming that I’m not too happy about. But that’s as it goes.

Stunning Realization

It started out with a door-to-door salesman.

We get a lot of them in this neighborhood. But this guy was selling solar power. Both my wife and I had talked enough about solar power in the past that we thought, eh, we’ll listen to him. I wasn’t home when he stopped by, so she asked him to come by again in a week.

Now on Friday we’ve got another crew coming to take photos of the roof and take measurements to see about getting us fitted with enough solar panels to take care of about 99% of our electricity needs, on average.

This kind of system will take a load of bread to capitalize, so we’ll be taking out a loan. There are some advantages to this program – the company will pay our bill for the first 18 months, and we can get 30% of the cost back in a federal tax credit program (as long as we remember to roll that money onto the loan, we’re golden).

It’s a 20-year loan, however. That’s not the stunner. The stunner, Michelle says, is that we’ll be in our sixties when we pay it off. IN OUR SIXTIES.

But really, we can have the loan paid off in 12 years, which means ALMOST IN OUR SIXTIES.
We’ll both be little old corporals then. We’ll go in in our puberty and come out in our adultery.
But we won’t have electricity bills to pay. As long as the solar panels last.

Doing the math:

The company, Blue Raven solar, says they can get us a system that’ll meet our current power needs for about $90 a month (plus fees of about $7). Currently, we’re averaging just over $80 a month including fees, so up front it’s not a money-saver. But as we can get the loan paid down, the bill would drop to just the fees, so it’s tempting. And we can do some measures in the house to reduce our consumption and sell electricity to Rocky Mountain Power. Until they decide otherwise. But who knows what’ll happen – they  grandfathered in existing solar customers in Utah, while made it a lot less financially feasible for new solar customers to connect to their grid.

We’ll see what they say on Friday.

*That’s* for Employing Me for Eight Years!

So, in a few months I’m probably going to do a terrible thing.

I can’t yet reveal what this terrible thing is – I’ve been sworn to secrecy by those who technically don’t know I’m going to do the terrible thing, per se, but since the terrible thing is connected to a related not-so-terrible thing I can’t discuss at the moment, well, you see what’s going on here.

I say “probably,” because, recently I participated in a rather long discussion on whether or not people like me (or people like me who want to be like other, more advanced people) should do the terrible thing I’m probably going to do. The consensus was doing the terrible thing, while protected by various things we shall in this instance call freedoms, should not be done lest those more advanced people’s feelings get hurt in ways that would suddenly make my efforts to become one of the more advance people harder to accomplish. Words like “thin-skinned,” “vengeful,” and “sometimes petty” were brought up in this discussion on whether or not people in my position should do the terrible thing.

One caveat: This terrible thing has nothing to do with employment. I will still have a job after I (probably) do the terrible thing. And if I don’t it won’t be because of the terrible thing, unless one of the more advanced, think-skinned, vengeful, and petty people to whom I do the terrible thing have a lot of pull and influence in the nuclear waste cleanup world. Which is probably not outside the realm of possibility.

Part of the message in the discussion on whether or not one should do the terrible thing revolved around the insular, closely-connected world of the more advanced people, There exist quid pro quos that if one doesn’t do the terrible thing to another, the other won’t do the terrible thing to you. Even if you deserve to have the terrible thing done to you, or if they deserve it as well.

Further bulletins as events warrant.

Jury Duty

Getting ready for jury duty. I could say I’m calling on the experts for tips. Like this:

But really I’m not. I’m off the hook for the coming week, per the call I just made, but I do have to call back next week.

I’ve served on a jury before. Was one of twelve angry beings who sent a shoplifter up the river. He’s probably getting out of jail round about now, and has all our names on a list somewhere. It’s probably a good thing I’ve moved since then.

I may have to watch this movie this weekend:

And while I know the 1997 version has Ossie Davis and George C. Scott (and Tony Danza!) I can’t pass up the 1957 version. Give me John Fiedler and E.G. Marshall and Jack Klugman – and that staging.

Although this might be more fitting . . .

Mental Ward

It's been more than a month since Mom passed away. I'm finally getting around to putting away "the stuff" I collected from her home the night we all went over to talk and begin cleaning things out.

Right now, only one thing feels like it has a home -- the cheap joke "Mental Ward" sign we had hanging in our green family room for years, then got moved to the new house to hang over the entrance to the front room there. I put it in the basement, over the closet that houses our books. I think it likes it there.

Another has gone up -- a pen-and-ink drawing I brought home form my mission for Mom and Dad. It took the place of a painting that I vaguely knew had a family connection, but I didn't know what. Found out through the miracle of Facebook that it was painted by one of my cousins' aunts, who also recently passed away. It's back in their family now.

To make room for the stuff, we either have to shuffle and store other stuff. Or get rid of stuff.

I'm glad that painting became a memory -- a person -- rather than more stuff stored in the garage.

I helped our daughter clean her room today. She, like the rest of us, has a lot of "stuff." I look at it and think she can't possibly need any more stuff. I don't need any more stuff either. Because I can look at the vast majority of stuff that I have, and know that it's just that -- stuff. If it were lost in a fire or flood, I'd go out and replace it. But for 99.9% of it, it's just stuff. Much of it is useful stuff, don't get me wrong. But it would only take money to replace it if it were lost.

Only a few things hold memories, and while the stuff that holds those memories is there in the memory itself, the palimpset that is the greater memory shows me the people I was with when those memories were made.

Memories are people. Sometimes memories are triggered by things. But memories are people.

Maybe that's what the scriptures mean it's easier to lead a camel through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter heaven.

Suburban Workout

Good workout idea:

LEGS:

1. Buy a two-story home with full basement.

2. Take tools to the upstairs master bathroom to fix leaking shower valve.

3. Go all the way downstairs, shut off water.

4. Go all the way upstairs.

5. Go all the way downstairs to retrieve forgotten Phillips screwdriver.

6. Go all the way upstairs.

UPPER BODY:

1. Strain for ten minutes to remove shower valve from wall.

2. Remove pajama pants so you can kneel in the tub without getting pants wet.

3. Strain for another five minutes.

4. Go to the kitchen, only partly clothed, startle 16-year-old doing homework with your hairy legs, retrieve forgotten pliers.

3. Go back upstairs, remove copper restraining clip, remove valve in a trice.

LEGS:

1. Go all the way downstairs, startle 12-year-old with your hairy legs, turn on water, wait for five seconds. Hopefully, that's long enough to dislodge broken rubber washer from previous valve that was preventing new valve from shutting completely.

2. Turn water back off. Go all the way upstairs.

UPPER BODY:

1. Fist pump when you see dislodged washer fragment in the bathtub.

2. Put valve back in wall, straining for ten minutes to do so.

3. Replace copper restraining clip.

4. Replace handle, and wonder why it freewheels 360 degrees when it used to stop at 180.

5. Remove handle, replace chrome handle stopper.

6. Replace handle.

LEGS:

1. Run all the way back downstairs, turn on water.

2. Run all the way upstairs to observe valve still leaking slightly, but not nearly as bad as it was before. Tap valve. It shuts off.

3. Abandon tools in bathroom for cleanup later.

4. Run all the way downstairs.

COOL DOWN:

1. Post about it on Facebook.

That was a good half-hour workout. Who says men in suburbia don't exercise?

Patience

Back in 2005, I quit my job at the newspaper, and didn't really have an employment plan to make up for the loss. I worked the summer with my brother laying brick -- that was a blessing -- and then worked at Target and at call centers, trying to pay the bills.

Our truck threw a rod one morning on the way to work -- and there I was, stranded in the rain at 4 in the morning with a cell phone I was trying to charge off the truck battery.

I'd applied for job after job after job and got nothing for it. It seemed like the only thing I was good for was stocking light bulbs and listening to people complain about their cell phone bills. I was at a low ebb. And i was tired of talking to God about it -- because he wasn't listening. At all.

As I sat there in the truck, waiting for my wife to come rescue me, I decided to pray one last time. It wasn't going to be a happy prayer at all. But before I started, I heard one whispered word: Patience.

And I was through. Patience?

Patience, the word came again.

Then my wife pulled up. I got in the car and she took me to work. It was a Tuesday, so I only had to work until 9 am. One -- and only one -- good thing to look forward to.

Patience.

I was still rolling my eyes.

I heard the word a third time: Patience.

Whatever. I guess I could be patient. Nothing else was going right, so, yeah, patience.

Several months later, on another Tuesday, we were on a walk. Michelle took out our cell phone on a whim to check the messages -- something she typically only did on the weekends. There was a message. A job offer.

As I listened to the message, I flashed back to that crappy morning on the road in a broken truck, and I heard that word for a fourth time: Patience.

I had been pretty faithless, I admit.

Not Michelle.

She'd been praying for me the whole time, even when I'd stopped.

Maybe the word I kept hearing wasn't meant for me.

Surrender Dorothy . . .

My answers, she says, are too simplistic.

But they work.

Michelle checks in, once in a while. “You’re sure you don’t resent that I don’t have a job.”

Of course not. And I mean it. And we also mean it when we discuss she does have a job – Mom to three kids, volunteer with the Boy Scouts of America. They’re jobs. She doesn’t get paid for them. She doesn’t care. I don’t care. We have enough. More than enough. We have enough to pay the bills and to set aside for retirement – the thought that her parents have laid aside just over a million for retirement doesn’t faze us. It’s a goal.

But my answers are too simplistic. Too limiting for my wife. Though they are her answers too.

Jessica Grosse, writing for Slate.com, says I’m hindering my wife’s career prospects by having her stay at home to be a mom:

The other response is that one parent should stay home if a family can’t afford childcare. But that too is a simplistic answer. Childcare isn’t the only expense—most families need two working parents to feed and clothe their offspring. Also, if one parent—and yes, it’s usually the woman—stops working for a prolonged period of time, this has a ripple effect on the future earning potential for the entire family. For every two years a woman is out of the workforce, her earnings fall 10 percent.

Her solution is to have government subsidize daycare so both parents can work and earn money to provide for the family they now both see only a few hours a day because both parents are working. Emphasize quality time over quantity time.

I’m not sure the government owes us anything. And after thirteen years of being a parent, it’s become apparent to me that the quality time with my kids comes only because we as parents have a lot of time in which to find those quality moments.

I don’t disparage mothers who work, or fathers who stay home for that matter. What Grosse says, in part, is true. Most families need two working parents to feed and clothe their offspring. We’re lucky in that we do not.

Or is it luck?

I have two jobs – a full-time job as a technical writer, and a part-time job as a university instructor. Both jobs pay the bills and let us put money away for a rainy day.  We’re lucky in that.

But we’re also pinch-pennies. No cable TV. No smartphones. No car payments  -- our vehicles are old and paid for. We don’t dine out a lot. We bargain-shop for everything. I can’t recall the last time we paid the suggested price for a piece of clothing. Neither one of us have expensive hobbies. Most of the maintenance work at home we do ourselves, barring the stuff we can’t do. And we learn to do a lot of what we can’t. Two years ago, installing a sprinkler system would have been an impossibility. Now it’s nearly done, and all I’ve done is pay attention when my brother helped set up the initial works. And I paid for the parts.

Maybe my answers don’t work for everyone.

But they work.

What other answers are there?

What do we give up for the so-called career? I’m reading another article today that offers this:

The summer before I left for Oxford, I found myself back home, drinking beer with a high school friend in a pickup truck parked next to the river. His name was Karl, and he'd stuck around to lend a hand on his family's dairy farm. Most everyone else from our crowd had moved away, part of the ongoing small-town diaspora that will someday completely depopulate rural America. Our old buddies worked on salmon boats in Alaska. They dealt cards in Las Vegas. They sold Fords in Denver. Some, having grown fed up with low-wage jobs, were studying computer programming or starting small businesses with borrowed money. I had a hard time imagining their lives, especially if they'd married and had kids, but I didn't have to: they were gone. I was gone too, up a ladder into the clouds. Up a ladder made of clouds.

"So, what are your views on Emerson?" Karl asked me.

We'd been discussing books, at his request. He'd looked me up that night for this very purpose. While I'd been off at Princeton, polishing my act, he'd become a real reader and also a devoted Buddhist. He said he had no one to talk to, no one who shared his interest in art and literature, so when he'd heard I was home, he'd driven right over. We had a great deal in common, Karl said.

But we didn't, in fact, and I didn't know how to tell him this. To begin with, I couldn't quote the Transcendentalists as accurately and effortlessly as he could. I couldn't quote anyone. I'd honed more-marketable skills: for flattering those in authority without appearing to, for ranking artistic reputations according to the latest academic fashions, for matching my intonations and vocabulary to the background of my listener, for placing certain words in smirking quotation marks and rolling my eyes when someone spoke too earnestly about some "classic" work of "literature," for veering left when the conventional wisdom went right and then doubling back if the consensus changed.

Flexibility, irony, class consciousness, contrarianism. I'd gone to Princeton, and soon I'd go to Oxford, and these, I was about to tell Karl, are the ways one gets ahead now—not by memorizing old Ralph Waldo. I'd learned a lot since I'd aced the SATs, about the system, about myself, and about the new class the system had created, which I was now part of, for better or for worse. The class that runs things. The class that makes the headlines—that writes the headlines, and the stories under them.

But I kept all this to myself; I didn't tell Karl. He was a reader, a Buddhist, and an old friend, and there were some things he might not want to know. I wasn't so sure I wanted to know them either.

My cynicism had peaked, but later that summer something happened that changed me—not instantly but decisively. A month before I was scheduled to fly to England and resume my career as a facile ignoramus, I came down with a mild summer cold that lingered, festered, and turned into pneumonia, forcing me to spend two weeks in bed. One feverish night I found myself standing in front of a bookcase in the living room that held a row of fancy leather-bound volumes my mother had bought through the mail when I was little. Assuming that the books were chiefly decorative, I'd never even bothered to read their titles, but that night, bored and sick, I picked one up: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Then I did something unprecedented for me: I carried it back to my bedroom and actually read it—every chapter, every page. A few days later I repeated the feat with Great Expectations, another canonical stalwart that I'd somehow made it through Princeton without opening.

And so, belatedly, haltingly, and almost accidentally, it began: the education I'd put off while learning to pass as someone in the know. I wasn't sure what it would get me, whose approval it might win, or how long it might take to complete, but for once those weren't my first concerns. Alone in my room, exhausted and apprehensive, I no longer cared about self-advancement. I wanted to lose myself. I wanted to read. I wanted to find out what others thought.

Education and career, it seems, aren’t limited to schools and the grand office-buildings of the Zeniths of America. It seems the same things many strive for are many of the same things they mock when they read Sinclair Lewis’ Babbitt. The posing. The aspiring, The aping.

But I know families where both parents work. I don’t look down on them. I don’t know their situations. What works for us may not work for them, and what works for them may not work for us. To say there is one definition or one lifestyle that stamps us all the same is to be as rotten a liar as those who say the lifestyle my wife and I are leading is stifling.

Humans never cease to surprise me with their adaptability. We find ways to deal with what life hands us. Most of us. Some of us don’t cope. But most of us do. And our ability to cope waxes and wanes – it’s never constant. Circumstances change and what was once a simple situation is now complex and overwhelming.

Walter Kirn’s most valuable lesson comes in the last sentence of his essay: He wanted to find out what others thought. That’s what we need to do, before we judge, before we launch edicts. What does the other think? That’s different than saying you think you know what the other thinks. Because you don’t. Unless you talk to them. Which most people won’t.