Monday, June 10, 2013
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Shut Up About The Economy
Pundits love to tell us that the American economy is circling the drain due to the recession and politicians throwing money out the window like it's made of bees. To hear them say it, America is always just on the cusp of a Mad Max-style blasted hellscape.
But in the midst of all that doom and gloom, there are a whole bunch of very smart people saying that things aren't nearly as bad as the inflammatory headlines make it look. Now, I'm not saying they're right (spoiler alert: nobody can actually predict the economy), but there's no reason why we should always assume the pessimists are right, either. So if nothing else, it will improve your mood a bit to hear ...
The myth:
American spending is so off the charts that President Obama has to fly to China every year and beg on his hands and knees for the Chinese president to lend America money. With the Chinese owning most of America's debt, it's only a matter of time before China asks for their money back and we all become slaves to the dastardly communists, because that's totally how it works.
The reality:
First of all, China only owns 8 percent of the total U.S. debt. That's not enough to repossess Rhode Island, let alone the whole United States. And Washington isn't begging China for money, either. The debt that we owe to China comes from treasury bonds, which are kind of like IOUs, which they buy because it helps to keep China's currency low, which is better for trade. And because they sell so much shit to America, China basically has to buy our debt as a way to unload the trillions of American dollars we're giving them.
Also, for those worried about China swinging their economic dick around, China can't just recall their debt. First of all, you can't do that with treasury bonds, and even in a fictitious world where you could, it would be economic suicide for China. What, you thought the "debt" was money they lent because they felt sorry for the U.S. and wanted to bail them out, like lending your buddy $30 until payday? Nope. They buy debt because it's a good deal for them.
And while it's easy to panic about the amount of debt that America owes to other countries, people forget that the U.S. buys other countries' debt too, so much that it almost cancels out the issue entirely. For every dollar the U.S. owes a foreign country, it is owed 89 cents in foreign debt. America actually makes more money off of buying other people's debt than other people make buying theirs. And rest assured, those countries are probably also running terrifying ads about cackling American students making fun of their economy.
The myth:
All the stuff on your desk right now, how much of it was made in America? How about the clothes on your back? Between Japanese electronics and fabrics made in Asian sweatshops, it seems like we import everything. Mom and Dad will remind you that there once was a time when America ruled the world of manufacturing, but then the cold dark eternal winter came in the form of developing economies stealing all of those jobs.
Nowadays, every factory in America is an abandoned graveyard with a permanent ominous black cloud hanging overhead, and the only thing the Midwest produces is clinical depression.
The reality:
Although China managed to edge the U.S. off of the top seat in manufacturing in 2012, American manufacturing is still a powerhouse. In fact, America's manufacturing output is stronger than ever - it has actually doubled since 1970, and is continuing to climb. And U.S. manufacturing broke record profits in 2011, and manufacturing output is currently 35 percent above pre-recession levels. It just takes fewer people to make all of that stuff because of robots. If you want to get mad at somebody, get mad at them.
So why can't you find anything in your house that's made in America? Because America makes supercomputers and jumbo jets, while countries like China produce all of your cheap consumer stuff. Cheap-labor countries base their manufacturing on having a ton of people who can sit in factories for 18 hours a day assembling iPods. America's manufacturing is centered on its high intellectual capital, which produces more skilled workers able to make far more advanced things with far fewer people. It's estimated that American workers are almost six times more productive than Chinese workers. That's why, in 2009, American manufacturing produced more than China with less than half the workers.
And while the recession may have wreaked havoc on Detroit, the auto industry is also coming back with a vengeance. As of now, the auto industry is on track to reach its record-breaking 2007 sales, and the two companies that received government bailouts? Have paid them back. It won't result in as many high-paying union manufacturing jobs as the "good old days" because, well, we've gotten way more efficient at making things.
The myth:
Every year, thousands of illegal immigrants pole vault over the southern border and run free in these United States, feeding off the government teat. Once here, not only do they take jobs from honest, hard-working Americans, but they also suck all the money out of social services and don't pay taxes. It's obvious that, if we ever want to get out of this economic slump, we have to round each and every immigrant up, ship 'em all back to Mexico (even the ones that didn't come from Mexico), and fortify the American border with lasers and electric eels.
The reality:
The idea is that these impoverished people cross over, live off the grid, and soak up America's precious tax dollars. But actually it's estimated that illegal immigrants pay $15 billion a year into social services and only take $1 billion out of it. Social services actually relies on illegals' taxes to help the system remain solvent.
How the hell is that possible? Well, for one thing, you can't exist in America without paying taxes - just by living here and buying things, you're paying sales and property taxes. It's true that some immigrants aren't paying income taxes (in America, if your income is low enough, you aren't paying taxes anyway), but somewhere between 50 percent and 75 percent are. On the other hand, very few illegals are able to benefit from Social Security because it's really hard to get it without a legitimate Social Security number.
And then you have the "they're taking our jobs" narrative, but for the most part, illegal immigrants are taking jobs that Americans just won't do - farmers who want to hire Americans are often unable to find people willing to do the work. In Alabama, after they enacted tough new laws to drive out the illegal immigrants, the poultry industry went into crisis because legal Americans would rather be unemployed than spend their days carving up chicken parts.
Then there's the argument that illegals drive down wages, because they're basically willing to work for peanuts, right? Well, it's true that illegal immigrants lower wages somewhere between 0.4 percent and 7.4 percent for low-skilled workers, but for the rest of America, there is virtually no impact on wages. In fact, immigrants actually increase the income of American families a small amount. By taking on the grunt work that Americans don't want to do, immigrants free up skilled workers to do more of the work that they're paid higher wages for.
Boil it down, and the majority of economists agree that illegal immigrants have a net positive effect on the economy. Which seems hard to argue against - if they're "taking our jobs," it means they're working, and getting paid, and spending that money. That isn't bad for the economy - that is the economy.
But while I'm stepping into hot-button issues ...
The myth:
It's a simple principle - if you make $2 and spend $5, then you are $3 in debt and need to tighten your purse strings, Spendy McSpenderson. But Obama and Congress must have been four hours into a rampant coke binge when this very simple concept was explained to the rest of us and they can't seem to get it through their heads. We're in a recession, and yet they still choose to run deficits, because they're big-spending nanny state socialist wackjobs.
The reality:
The big problem when trying to understand deficit and budget stuff is that everyone wants to compare it to their own household budget (a favorite tactic of pundits). It's understandable that people want to try to simplify the issue, but this is one of those times when simplifying makes it wrong.
While it seems absurd to think that a country, a business, or anyone else can "spend their way out of hard times" (because it sounds like a drunk spending more money on gin in order to forget the problems caused by yesterday's gin), for every government, running a deficit is just something they have to do when the economy is bad in order to keep it from getting worse.
It works like this: When the economy goes into recession, people obviously have less money. That means the government has to cut taxes to give people a break. That means less revenue, and on top of that, the government has to spend more on unemployment benefits, food stamps, and such because a lot more people need them now. So basically the government has less money and higher bills. And you want the government to keep spending that money, not because we're all communists who want to be enslaved by Big Brother, but because that spending helps the government to stabilize the downfall.
The biggest problem with an economic downturn is the potential for a death spiral - you lose your job, so you don't have money to spend at McDonald's, then McDonald's closes and all those people lose their jobs, then they don't have the money to spend at the grocery store, then it closes, etc. The government, however, can use its borrowing power to break that chain reaction - you lose your job, but you have food stamps, which you spend at the grocery store, so it doesn't have to close and its employees can keep drawing paychecks. That way you don't get into a situation where everyone is out of work at once - you keep things afloat until people can find work again.
Then once things have turned around - and this is key - you start paying those deficits back. Oh, look at this - the U.S. deficit has been slashed by a third just over the last few months. How about that.
But the point is, this is why the political arguments about the deficit tend to be somewhat full of shit - it's not a war between the hard-working private sector and the evil oppressive big government. It's about how much money the government should pump into the private sector to keep it afloat, versus how much debt it can take on.
Which finally brings me to...
The myth:
The United States is spending money like a lottery winner with terminal cancer and racking up debt much faster than it can repay it. The U.S. now owes $16 trillion, a number so high, we don't even know how many zeroes that is. Politicians frequently use a bunch of fancy graphs to highlight the fact that America is running headlong into financial ruin. Washington, they say, is going to have to curb its spending fast or else we're going to wind up like Greece - utter collapse, followed by rioting in the streets (as a common talking point goes).
The reality:
The raw number is mind-boggling, but that number only matters when compared to the size of the economy. For instance, if you personally wound up $20 million in debt, your only option would be faking your own death and starting a new life in some foreign land. Donald Trump, on the other hand, takes on $20 million in debt on impulse purchases he barely notices. It all comes down to how rich you are, and the U.S. economy is the Donald Trump in that scenario (the total assets of the USA are around $200 trillion).
So for instance, one way to measure just how screwed a country is involves measuring public debt against gross domestic product (to compare their debt to their economy). For the U.S., that ratio is 73 percent, which seems high, but it means we're in better shape than Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, and other countries you don't think of as being on the verge of getting their land repossessed (Japan, for example, is at 214 percent).
The other important thing isn't the amount of money that the government owes, but rather the interest on that amount, which is what it actually pays back. That isn't very much, considering that interest rates are at historic lows - it's very cheap for the U.S. to borrow right now. Also remember that a growing economy can turn the situation around fast - the government took on a lot of debt during World War II, but the growth of the economy afterward made the debt irrelevant.
Now, again, this isn't a "free government jet skis for everybody!" situation. For instance, there is a real problem with the population getting older and the fact that old people are expensive to take care of. But the U.S. is not Greece - the danger is less "Road Warrior apocalypse" and more "higher taxes, later retirement, and possible inflation."
None of those are good things, but let's not abuse the word "crisis" here. It's okay to step back, take a deep breath, and appreciate that things could be much, much worse.
Also, let's remember who put us here.
Ahem.
But in the midst of all that doom and gloom, there are a whole bunch of very smart people saying that things aren't nearly as bad as the inflammatory headlines make it look. Now, I'm not saying they're right (spoiler alert: nobody can actually predict the economy), but there's no reason why we should always assume the pessimists are right, either. So if nothing else, it will improve your mood a bit to hear ...
No, China Isn't on the Verge of Owning America
American spending is so off the charts that President Obama has to fly to China every year and beg on his hands and knees for the Chinese president to lend America money. With the Chinese owning most of America's debt, it's only a matter of time before China asks for their money back and we all become slaves to the dastardly communists, because that's totally how it works.
The reality:
First of all, China only owns 8 percent of the total U.S. debt. That's not enough to repossess Rhode Island, let alone the whole United States. And Washington isn't begging China for money, either. The debt that we owe to China comes from treasury bonds, which are kind of like IOUs, which they buy because it helps to keep China's currency low, which is better for trade. And because they sell so much shit to America, China basically has to buy our debt as a way to unload the trillions of American dollars we're giving them.
 |
| "That'll be $4 trillion dollars, please." |
And while it's easy to panic about the amount of debt that America owes to other countries, people forget that the U.S. buys other countries' debt too, so much that it almost cancels out the issue entirely. For every dollar the U.S. owes a foreign country, it is owed 89 cents in foreign debt. America actually makes more money off of buying other people's debt than other people make buying theirs. And rest assured, those countries are probably also running terrifying ads about cackling American students making fun of their economy.
No, American Manufacturing Isn't Dead
All the stuff on your desk right now, how much of it was made in America? How about the clothes on your back? Between Japanese electronics and fabrics made in Asian sweatshops, it seems like we import everything. Mom and Dad will remind you that there once was a time when America ruled the world of manufacturing, but then the cold dark eternal winter came in the form of developing economies stealing all of those jobs.
Nowadays, every factory in America is an abandoned graveyard with a permanent ominous black cloud hanging overhead, and the only thing the Midwest produces is clinical depression.
The reality:
Although China managed to edge the U.S. off of the top seat in manufacturing in 2012, American manufacturing is still a powerhouse. In fact, America's manufacturing output is stronger than ever - it has actually doubled since 1970, and is continuing to climb. And U.S. manufacturing broke record profits in 2011, and manufacturing output is currently 35 percent above pre-recession levels. It just takes fewer people to make all of that stuff because of robots. If you want to get mad at somebody, get mad at them.
So why can't you find anything in your house that's made in America? Because America makes supercomputers and jumbo jets, while countries like China produce all of your cheap consumer stuff. Cheap-labor countries base their manufacturing on having a ton of people who can sit in factories for 18 hours a day assembling iPods. America's manufacturing is centered on its high intellectual capital, which produces more skilled workers able to make far more advanced things with far fewer people. It's estimated that American workers are almost six times more productive than Chinese workers. That's why, in 2009, American manufacturing produced more than China with less than half the workers.
And while the recession may have wreaked havoc on Detroit, the auto industry is also coming back with a vengeance. As of now, the auto industry is on track to reach its record-breaking 2007 sales, and the two companies that received government bailouts? Have paid them back. It won't result in as many high-paying union manufacturing jobs as the "good old days" because, well, we've gotten way more efficient at making things.
Yeah, Illegal Immigrants Appear to Be Helping the Economy
Every year, thousands of illegal immigrants pole vault over the southern border and run free in these United States, feeding off the government teat. Once here, not only do they take jobs from honest, hard-working Americans, but they also suck all the money out of social services and don't pay taxes. It's obvious that, if we ever want to get out of this economic slump, we have to round each and every immigrant up, ship 'em all back to Mexico (even the ones that didn't come from Mexico), and fortify the American border with lasers and electric eels.
The reality:
The idea is that these impoverished people cross over, live off the grid, and soak up America's precious tax dollars. But actually it's estimated that illegal immigrants pay $15 billion a year into social services and only take $1 billion out of it. Social services actually relies on illegals' taxes to help the system remain solvent.
How the hell is that possible? Well, for one thing, you can't exist in America without paying taxes - just by living here and buying things, you're paying sales and property taxes. It's true that some immigrants aren't paying income taxes (in America, if your income is low enough, you aren't paying taxes anyway), but somewhere between 50 percent and 75 percent are. On the other hand, very few illegals are able to benefit from Social Security because it's really hard to get it without a legitimate Social Security number.
And then you have the "they're taking our jobs" narrative, but for the most part, illegal immigrants are taking jobs that Americans just won't do - farmers who want to hire Americans are often unable to find people willing to do the work. In Alabama, after they enacted tough new laws to drive out the illegal immigrants, the poultry industry went into crisis because legal Americans would rather be unemployed than spend their days carving up chicken parts.
Then there's the argument that illegals drive down wages, because they're basically willing to work for peanuts, right? Well, it's true that illegal immigrants lower wages somewhere between 0.4 percent and 7.4 percent for low-skilled workers, but for the rest of America, there is virtually no impact on wages. In fact, immigrants actually increase the income of American families a small amount. By taking on the grunt work that Americans don't want to do, immigrants free up skilled workers to do more of the work that they're paid higher wages for.
Boil it down, and the majority of economists agree that illegal immigrants have a net positive effect on the economy. Which seems hard to argue against - if they're "taking our jobs," it means they're working, and getting paid, and spending that money. That isn't bad for the economy - that is the economy.
But while I'm stepping into hot-button issues ...
No, Deficits Aren't Always Bad
The myth:
It's a simple principle - if you make $2 and spend $5, then you are $3 in debt and need to tighten your purse strings, Spendy McSpenderson. But Obama and Congress must have been four hours into a rampant coke binge when this very simple concept was explained to the rest of us and they can't seem to get it through their heads. We're in a recession, and yet they still choose to run deficits, because they're big-spending nanny state socialist wackjobs.
The reality:
The big problem when trying to understand deficit and budget stuff is that everyone wants to compare it to their own household budget (a favorite tactic of pundits). It's understandable that people want to try to simplify the issue, but this is one of those times when simplifying makes it wrong.
While it seems absurd to think that a country, a business, or anyone else can "spend their way out of hard times" (because it sounds like a drunk spending more money on gin in order to forget the problems caused by yesterday's gin), for every government, running a deficit is just something they have to do when the economy is bad in order to keep it from getting worse.
It works like this: When the economy goes into recession, people obviously have less money. That means the government has to cut taxes to give people a break. That means less revenue, and on top of that, the government has to spend more on unemployment benefits, food stamps, and such because a lot more people need them now. So basically the government has less money and higher bills. And you want the government to keep spending that money, not because we're all communists who want to be enslaved by Big Brother, but because that spending helps the government to stabilize the downfall.
The biggest problem with an economic downturn is the potential for a death spiral - you lose your job, so you don't have money to spend at McDonald's, then McDonald's closes and all those people lose their jobs, then they don't have the money to spend at the grocery store, then it closes, etc. The government, however, can use its borrowing power to break that chain reaction - you lose your job, but you have food stamps, which you spend at the grocery store, so it doesn't have to close and its employees can keep drawing paychecks. That way you don't get into a situation where everyone is out of work at once - you keep things afloat until people can find work again.
Then once things have turned around - and this is key - you start paying those deficits back. Oh, look at this - the U.S. deficit has been slashed by a third just over the last few months. How about that.
But the point is, this is why the political arguments about the deficit tend to be somewhat full of shit - it's not a war between the hard-working private sector and the evil oppressive big government. It's about how much money the government should pump into the private sector to keep it afloat, versus how much debt it can take on.
Which finally brings me to...
No, America Doesn't Have a Debt Crisis (Not Yet, Anyway)
The United States is spending money like a lottery winner with terminal cancer and racking up debt much faster than it can repay it. The U.S. now owes $16 trillion, a number so high, we don't even know how many zeroes that is. Politicians frequently use a bunch of fancy graphs to highlight the fact that America is running headlong into financial ruin. Washington, they say, is going to have to curb its spending fast or else we're going to wind up like Greece - utter collapse, followed by rioting in the streets (as a common talking point goes).
The reality:
The raw number is mind-boggling, but that number only matters when compared to the size of the economy. For instance, if you personally wound up $20 million in debt, your only option would be faking your own death and starting a new life in some foreign land. Donald Trump, on the other hand, takes on $20 million in debt on impulse purchases he barely notices. It all comes down to how rich you are, and the U.S. economy is the Donald Trump in that scenario (the total assets of the USA are around $200 trillion).
So for instance, one way to measure just how screwed a country is involves measuring public debt against gross domestic product (to compare their debt to their economy). For the U.S., that ratio is 73 percent, which seems high, but it means we're in better shape than Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, and other countries you don't think of as being on the verge of getting their land repossessed (Japan, for example, is at 214 percent).
 |
| Hm. I have no idea why. |
Now, again, this isn't a "free government jet skis for everybody!" situation. For instance, there is a real problem with the population getting older and the fact that old people are expensive to take care of. But the U.S. is not Greece - the danger is less "Road Warrior apocalypse" and more "higher taxes, later retirement, and possible inflation."
None of those are good things, but let's not abuse the word "crisis" here. It's okay to step back, take a deep breath, and appreciate that things could be much, much worse.
Also, let's remember who put us here.
Ahem.
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Touche.
"Fuck."
"What's wrong?"
"I just... fuck. I just smashed my toe."
"Little toe?"
"Little toe. On the fucking coffee table. God... dammit..."
"You all right?"
"...yeah. Just... fuckin' hurts. Ow."
"Neil. I need to tell you something."
"Ow. What."
"No, this is serious. You need to hear this. It's very important."
"What."
"You don't need that toe."
...
...
"Oh fuck you."
[we laugh]
"What's wrong?"
"I just... fuck. I just smashed my toe."
"Little toe?"
"Little toe. On the fucking coffee table. God... dammit..."
"You all right?"
"...yeah. Just... fuckin' hurts. Ow."
"Neil. I need to tell you something."
"Ow. What."
"No, this is serious. You need to hear this. It's very important."
"What."
"You don't need that toe."
...
...
"Oh fuck you."
[we laugh]
*********************
"Did we just say, 'Suck on that,' at the same time?"
"Eeeyup."
"Oh no. We're fucked."
Sunday, May 26, 2013
"I love you, too."
"There's only one explanation for two people as self-aware, street smart, full of common sense and intellectually ahead of the curve as we are: Love. Stupid, blind, stubborn, prideful, brimming with brand new emotion love."
"Yeah."
"And I'll tell you something that proves it: We fucked each other up so badly, the we - of all people - genuinely turned to religion briefly. That's how hard we hit each other. How much we're connected."
"...I DANCED WITH A CAT!"
"Yeah."
"And I'll tell you something that proves it: We fucked each other up so badly, the we - of all people - genuinely turned to religion briefly. That's how hard we hit each other. How much we're connected."
"...I DANCED WITH A CAT!"
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
"It's easy to give up something when you're satisfied."
When you had no friends;
When your family gave you ultimatums;
When your peers turned their back on you;
When you lost everything;
When you had nothing;
When you stumbled half drunk to your ex-boyfriends house at 3am and pounded on the window in his backyard and argued till he called the cops;
When you sat in the church parking lot, crying and alone;
I answered your call. I kept you company. I made you laugh again. I kept you warm in my car. I drove you home. I wished you well.
And for weeks after, your face and number lit up my cellphone at all hours of the day, night and morning. You called every day, just to talk, just to laugh, just to learn, just to ask for help, just to admit how much you missed me, too.
The one person who should hate you more than anyone else...
The one person who should have ignored you...
The one person who should be relishing in your agony out of vengeful spite...
The one person who should have been so angry at you that they never spoke to you again...
And I answered every one of your calls.
But now I know you were just trying to find peace for yourself. Self-vindication. Redemption. You wanted to "feel comfortable again," because it gave you a sense of stability; And you knew - deep down to your core, you knew - that out of everyone on this planet, I would be the one person that would always talk to you, still listen to you.... still allow you that chance.
You're fine now. Stronger. Better. Moving on. Leaving for a new job.
And I am once again disposed of.
And this is, very truly, not your fault at all.
It's mine.
- n.
*******************
"Call me if you need anything."
"I always do."
Friday, May 3, 2013
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Pings.
"Having a shot of wheatgrass is... a very, very poetic experience."
Go on.
"It's like... drinking grass. It's very earthy. It's fantastic. You feel like home. It's amazing. Almost magical. It reminds you of a freshly cut lawn on a summer day. And, when you're done, you realize why dogs and cats vomit all over the place after eating grass."
That E.E. Cumming or Frost that you're quoting? I can't put my finger on it.
[laughs]
Whitman. It was Whitman, wasn't it.
*********
You were the best I ever had.
"...hashtag: Ditto."
Friday, April 26, 2013
So much for the afterglow.
This is the part where someone gives me the "plenty of fish in the sea," and all that. Spend a few days or weeks watching sad movies, listening to sad songs, binging on terrible food, and lock yourself away and grieve. This is there part where I'm supposed to call up some friends who can surround me and tell me how victimized I was and assure me of how bad of a person - and therefore a fit - she is. Where we go back and relive it all and pile on all the bad stuff and trivialize all the good. This is where I Google inspirational quotes and pictures and memes and sew them onto my heart as a temporary personal slogan to live by - at least until the sutures heal.
And this, eventually, is where I'm supposed to start tempering the sting of loneliness by thinking outside the box and focus on learning and extracting wisdom for the future instead of simmering in doubts, regret, and painful imaginations.
But I don't feel that.
I don't feel sad. I mean, I know I am sad. But it's... more than that.
Something broke this time.
I'm supposed to take solace in trying hard, subscribing to the theory that, "If you gave it your best shot and left it all out on the field, you have nothing to be ashamed of." Which I can see how it could be an alluring philosophy. Except that it also proves one agonizing fact:
Your best wasn't good enough.
100% of everything you have didn't meet the requirements. You were doomed from the start. Every ounce of patience, logic, and salt in your body was a lost cause. Every time you tried "just one more time," and gave her "just one more chance," and every moment you laughed in bed, on the carpet, with her in your lap, sitting by the sidewalk eating lunch, eating breakfast by the pool, cuddling in the car, walking hand-in-hand around the city... every wonderful moment will end up meaning nothing. Because I wasn't enough. Or I came around at the wrong time. Or she was just in a weird place. Or any other reason.
That's a fairly awful sensation. Not a fan.
But these days and moments will fade into a haze of memories... first the little ones will go... the winks and smirks and middle of the night cuddles...
Then the inside jokes will be forgotten... the clever ones, the perfectly timed jabs, the endless puns, the ones that will never make any sense to anyone else but us...
Then the words and voices will dissolve and we'll forget what the other sounds like over the years... but strangely, not the laugh...
And then the dates and moments and lunches and evenings spent making love, watching movies, going to the park at night, driving around, the showers, the kisses, the mornings next to each other in the bathroom mirror, the trips to the market, the wine, the sex... the sex...
Until finally, one day, all we will be to each other is a chapter in each other's story. Something that gets encapsulated into an quick anecdote that starts with an, "There was this guy," and ends with, "I wonder..."
But I didn't want her to just end up being a story. I didn't want her to be a lesson. I didn't want her to be relegated to a simple cautionary tale that I share with some friends years from now or end up being a sit-down conversation with the girl I'm explaining my past to.
I just wanted her.
Very simple. Very pure. Very true.
No one's perfect. She wasn't. She isn't. I'm not. Nor did I ever expect her to be. I love who she is. Everyone has a past and baggage full of mistakes and wishful mulligans. But with her, for the first time in my life with anyone, I acknowledged my past with her in full disclosure - and it allowed me to not only accept the things I cannot change but also to accept what we were and gave me the desire to move forward; It was refreshingly liberating. By opening up and letting go of the burden of my past, the weight was suddenly gone, and I wanted to take her hand and fly.
Forward.
But she couldn't stop looking back. She couldn't stop going over things ended before with her ex. Even going so far as to not even really end it, but to keep in contact with him, go to dinner with him, call and text him, argue with him, and...
And I fear it has ultimately sank us both.
There's an engine in both of us that draws us to each other, like magnets. It's wonderful and frustrating and - given the proper circumstance - is something absolutely amazing. But it requires confidence
Monday, April 22, 2013
Monday, April 15, 2013
The Conundrum: Love and Logic :: Death and Life?
"Why do we make conscious decisions to take actions that we know will later hurt us? Does the logic of our heart secretly want to hurt us, or to test our rational decision-making skills? Is this then proof that we are really the idiots we make fun of everyone else for being?
"Meet a guy at a party, and you'll have a fun, light-hearted relationship that tears at your heart strings.
Meet a guy at a bar and you'll have sex. Chances are 50/50 that it'll be decent, on a good day.
Meet a guy on the street and a romantic comedy unfolds in your head.
Meet a guy in your apartment building and you'll have to move.
Meet a guy at school and you'll fail the class. Unless he's the studious type, and then you'll never go on a real date.
Meet a guy at work and it will be amazing for a week, a month, a few months, and then it's awkward. And then you might get fired.
Meet a guy at the grocery store and you'll be miserable for half of your twenties.
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Never Give All The Heart
Never give all the heart,
For love will hardly seem worth thinking of
To passionate women if it seem certain.
And they never dream
That it fades out from kiss to kiss;
For everything that's lovely is
But a brief, dreamy, kind delight.
O never give the heart outright,
For they, for all smooth lips can say,
Have given their hearts up to the play.
And who could play it well enough
If deaf and dumb and blind with love?
He that made this knows all the cost,
For he gave all his heart and lost.
- W.B Yeats
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.
"I don't understand how you can sit here and look at everything she did and tell me she's a good person."
"I didn't say she's a good person, per se. Just that she's just not a bad one."
"She's selfish."
"Sure. Probably. Very. And impulsive. Careless."
"You need to get angry at her! Stop being sad and just be mad. I'm tired of seeing you not eating or sleeping or anything and just nothing all the time. We all want our Neil back. She deserves to just be yelled at and told off."
"I'm not going to do what ev -- Look. Here's what I'm not going to do. And I hope any of my ex's give me the same courtesy: I'm not going to hate her just to make it easier to move on."
"I understand that, but what she did - everything - was seriously fucked up. Remember how we stood outside here last year and you told me how stupid I was being for putting up with my man and constantly making excuses for him? That's what you're doing with her. Right now."
"No. I'm not making excuses for her. I'm defining reasons. Excuses are something you use to get out of shit. I don't condone a lot of what she did. I'm just saying... it wasn't all from a bad, horrible, mean place. I just understand her. You guys aren't privy to the side of her that I saw. She's not a bad person. A stupid girl sometimes, yeah. But not bad. She has a good heart. She just tries so hard to be mean sometimes. I think because she feels she has to be."
"How is that different from what I was saying about my husband?"
"Because you were going back to him."
"...and you wouldn't get back with her?"
"Off the top of my head? ...my body would love to. Of course. But I know I probably can't. I know myself. I have an impossible time trusting, and... You can lie to me, hit me, yell and scream and hide things, insult me, argue, whatever. I can talk it out, connect dots, negotiate, compromise and rationalize with calm and logic forever. But the cardinal sin is cheating. In her words: That's a bell you can't un-ring. I don't think I could go back to that. Put all my eggs in the basket with that one. It's all gone now."
"Because she's an awful person inside! You're defending her, and I can't stand it."
"I'm telling you, everything she did wrong, she feels bad for. Somewhere. I know I do. She'll never say it to me... or admit it... or even show it. But she feels awful about it. When she cried to me apologizing for everything, asking me for another chance and everything... there was make up everywhere and we both sounded awful. She made mistakes. I did, too. But when it comes to feeling regret and wishing we didn't fuck up, we're both genuine. She fucked up, true, but I just... I'm telling you. She's not bad."
"And what if you saw her again?"
"...honestly?"
"Of course."
"I'd probably be paralyzed."
"Like, scared of her?"
"No... no, more like... I dunno. Paralyzed. Unable to speak. Think. Move."
"What do you think she's doing now? This second?"
"Now? Well... if I know her at all... probably doing the whole boot strap thing."
"I don't - I don't know what that means, hun."
"Boot straps. Pull yourself up by them. That whole thing. Probably went back to her parents and ex and just confessed and dropped all the bombs on them and everything - her version, where I'm some bad guy - and hoped for the best. Her parents would never abandon her. They'll help her out, emotionally, whatever. Scold her for a bit. But she's too smart and pretty enough that the world can't refuse her for too long. So she's probably doing some reset button action where she looks back at me like some big mistake. Compartmentalizing the whole thing to trivialize it. Probably doing the whole eating-right-and-working-out-again cliche. And I'd wager she's going to do the, 'I'm single now so let's take advantage of it, I'm a woman hear me roar' thing where she goes out and... does what pretty girls do. ...I really don't want to think about it."
"She doesn't seem like a very humble person."
"Ah, no, she hasn't quite learned that element yet."
"I'm sorry, hun."
"But... for now, the memory of us is probably going into a box in the attic of her mind where she can ignore it for a while."
"No, she can. She has a very strong will to suppress things she doesn't want to deal with. She's fantastic at ignoring stuff during the day. But at night... when she's alone in her bed... or, god forbid, not alone... if her and I are anything alike... I'll pop up in her mind. I know that... It'll always make me sad."
"You're still inside your little box, hun. A little bubble. You can't see it all. She was awful. I really think you can't see what we all see."
"I can. In fact, the fact that I'm not going to just make it black-and-white and say, 'Fuck that whore!' and move on, should show you that I'm analyzing it pretty well. There are a lot of shades of gray and subtleties that I can't explain. 99% of the time it was amazing. She was amazing. We were amazing. It's that 1% that killed it; That you're all aware of."
"That still makes her a bad person, hun. If she did what she did, I don't care if it was once or twice or a hundred times, she did it. She made her choice. She's not a good person."
"I just... don't think she's a bad person. A bad person would be happy or proud of what she did. I guarantee you, wherever she is, somewhere out there, she isn't. A bad person would do it all over again exactly the same. But I bet my life that if you were to rewind time, show her this current reality as only a possible ending, she would avoid it. I don't know how far back she would rewind, but she wouldn't hurt me like this again."
"I think you're probably giving her too much credit."
"I don't think you're giving me enough."
Thursday, February 7, 2013
You're guiltless and free; I hope you take a piece of me with you.
“I was trying to feel some kind of a good-by. I mean I’ve left schools and places I didn’t even know I was leaving them. I hate that. I don’t care if it’s a sad good-by or a bad good-by, but when I leave a place I like to know I’m leaving it. If you don’t, you feel even worse.”
-H.C.
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