Tag: conversations

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personal

Growing into one’s self

Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong

Tree in the West Village

Me: Winston Churchill once said that, “Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.”
Him: Well that’s the thing, isn’t it? (thinking) “If they grow at all?”

Had lunch with my coach the other day and we were discussing this kid in our class. He’s one of the only teenagers we have and we all look out for him for various reasons. The life of a bullied child is a lonely one.

As luck would have it, tomorrow is Winston Churchill day so I thought the quote fitting.

Remember that scene in Forrest Gump where Forrest truly runs for the first time and realizes that the heavy, metal braces that held him back as a child let him run faster and longer than anyone else as an adult?

It made him antifragile.

Without belaboring the point, there were times when I was younger that I didn’t think I’d make it to adulthood.

I’m glad I stuck around because Churchill was right; I’m stronger because of my childhood rather than despite it.

Me: What are your thoughts on dive bars with wings?
Claire: I feel hugely positive about dive bars and wings.

Thought of that again as I had dinner with my friend Claire the other night. She said that she had a friend that grew into himself after college. I think that’s a good way to put it.

The lucky never realize they are lucky until it’s too late.

I should mention that while Claire, who moved here from LA, and I have written and chatted to each other for years, this was the first time we actually met in person.

Her: I’m glad you’re as nice in real life as you are over email.
Me: (laughing) I try to set the bar really low.

Life is made more bearable by the good souls.

As for the kid in our class, I hope he makes it past these hard times. If he can, I hope he’s the better for it.

As for me, my childhood seems farther and farther away these days. I’m turning 40 next week.

Still trying to process my thoughts on that.

Location: last night, my fave dive bars
Mood: sleepy
Music: I was a lonely soul but that’s the old me
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What if there’s a monster?

That’s why they call you Jerkface McGee.

Washington Square Park NYC in early Spring 2013

Her: I’m going away for three days, are you going to miss me?
Me: Yes.
Her: (smiles)
Me: What if there’s a monster? Who am I going to throw at it?

Bag of Doritos

The wife is off for a work thingy this week so that means I’ve:

  • queued up hours of documentaries on Netflix.
  • arranged what I like to call “rum-tasings” but you might just call drinking
  • already scheduled time at my local halal cart for pickups
  • began what I like to call “cleaning out the fridge” but you might call eating whatever I can find

But first, a breakfast of corn chips.

11 servings per container?

Clearly one of us is not good at math, good sir.

Her: …and that’s why they call you Jerkface McGee.
Me: Only you call me Jerface McGee!
Her: Says Jerkface McGee…

Location: regretting my choice of breakfast
Mood: ambitious
Music: I’ll see you when I fall asleep
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It’s not easy being a responsible adult

Lobsters from Maine

Fresh cooked lobster

The wife’s boss lives in Maine and stopped by for dinner on Sunday with fresh lobsters he brought. Did not know that one can just board a regular plane with a cooler full of lobsters and seaweed.

Now, I’ve always liked the guy, but anyone that’s willing to haul a cooler full of six lobsters and about 15 pounds of seaweed across four state line’s a good boss in my book.

Live lobsters from Maine.

Me: (yawning loudly)
Her: What was that? It sounded like a horn from middle earth.
Me: Thanks Hon.

Still fighting the insomnia. It’s been pretty bad lately. Every time daylight savings happens, it seems to be worse.

Got four invitations to watch the GSP v. Diaz fight but had the turn them all down because I’ve been trying to stay on a tight sleep schedule to get a handle on the insomnia and not seem totally loopy on Sunday in front of the wife’s boss.

It’s not easy being a responsible adult.

Which is fine, because I do it so rarely.

Location: Astoria, Queens
Mood: busy
Music: hear your moonlight dancing crash into the ocean
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If you don’t know history, you don’t know anything

These are two people who don’t know the definition of “Great”

Hitler, I am beginning to feel, is a very great man, like an inspired religious leader…not scheming, not selfish, not greedy for power, but a mystic, a visionary who really wants the best for his country….

— Charles Lindbergh on meeting Adolf Hitler (1936)

He’s a great guy.

— Dennis Rodman on meeting Kim Jong Un (2013)

Idiots.

Imagine for a moment that you remembered everything you ever learned. Ever high school lesson, every cooking recipe, everything. You would probably be the smartest person on earth.

But the opposite is also true; if you don’t learn anything from the past, you may end up the dumbest person on earth.

While we’re all stupid on different subjects, the universally stupid seem to be those people that refuse to learn anything about history. Because history is nuthin if not repetitive.

Michael Crichton once said that, If you don’t know history, then you don’t know anything. You are a leaf that doesn’t know it is part of a tree.

Unfortunately, if Facebook has taught me anything, it’s that people have zero sense of history. Yet they’re part of a greater collective, a greater tree of stupid.

This worries me.

Then again, I can hardly count myself amongst the truly smart.

Her: Didn’t you just say those chips were making you feel sick?
Me: Yes.
Her: They why are you continuing to eat them?!
Me: (mouthful of chips) I’m not.

———-

My buddy Ji just started a blog too so here’s a little plug for him – Better Pickled.

And while I’m at it, please check out artist Dana Burns, who left NYC to be an artist in France and posts in both English and French! Grenobloise

Mood: busy
Music: He’s so simple minded he can’t drive his module
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Tribes

We spend our lives looking for our people

Saint Clair Cemin's - Portrait of the Word Why -in Verdi Square
Said once that the people that you choose to hang around with are mirrors to some aspect of yourself.

If you are a boxer, chances are high that you have a lot of boxer friends; if you are pianist, chances are high that you have friends that are musicians. Trekkies know trekkies.

It’s because we connect with people on narrow lines and as we get to know them, we find that we have more connections or less connections than we originally thought.

If we have less, these people fade away; if we have more, we find ourselves more and more involved with their lives.

I think it goes:

  1. stranger
  2. acquaintance
  3. friend
  4. close friend
  5. tribe-member
  6. family

Somewhere, we end up cutting or tightening the relationships between 2 and 4. And we all know people that should have cut and tightened instead and we also know those that cut that shouldn’t have.

Ultimately, we spend our lives looking for our people – looking for others in our tribe. Sometimes it cuts along racial lines, sometimes, religious, and sometimes something else entirely.

It’s quite something when you find your people, your person, and your poison.

When you meet your people – even if it’s not said – there’s the thought, “Where have you been this whole time?”

Me: Have you ever heard this song?
Her: Are you kidding, I love that song!

Mood: sore
Music: You and I travel to the beat of a different drum
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A trip to the Museum and a birthday

Our Global Kitchen exhibit at the Museum of Natural History

Been so busy these days that I forgot to mention that the wife and I went to go see the Our Global Kitchen exhibit at the Museum of Natural History since we’re both becoming a lot more conscious about what we eat.

The museum is right by our pad so we try to go every once in a while. It was a pretty cool exhibit so if you get a chance to go, it’s very eye opening.

If nothing else you’ll learn that corn is our biggest food export, bananas are our biggest food import, and that cod is getting a lot smaller because of over-fishing.

Me: Now I want a banana.

Also went to see my friend COB for her birthday. She’s actually the woman I met in this conversation. This is a good time to point out two things:

  • If you stick by the rule that: Leave people better off having met you then you will get more invitations in life, the occasional email penpal, and some homemade gifts such as the above, which she made for me and my wife.
  • Sometimes people ask me if I make up some of the things I write, like the conversations. I always tell them that I’m not that creative.

Met her fella and a bunch of her friends that day. Nice people – I would have stayed longer but I had a previous engagement. Still, it was good to get out of house for a bit.

Her: That’s the thing about California, you really need a car to get around and I didn’t have one.
Me: Did you consider car-jacking?

Mood: artistic
Music: Liebe ist so wie du bist
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California 2012 Travelogue: Day 3

A broken chair, ramen, and home

Jet Blue airplane in Burbank

Her: Morning!
Me: Morning – I need coffee and Mexican food.
Her: We have lots of leftover pizza.
Me: OK.

Wake up early. Damn insomnia. Sit down to chat with my brother’s girlfriend fiancee in the morning. As we’re talking about me falling down the stairs yesterday, my chair breaks and I come crashing down on that same knee.

Man, I swear I’m darned.

Broken chair in LA

After icing it for a bit more, putter around the house. Wanna keep it low-key so I give my buddy Lorin a call – we’ve not seen each other in years. He drives over and we go to a local coffee shop to catch up.

I tell him of the troubles and he tells me of his.

Him: …and then I got remarried.
Me: Good, I’m glad. You happier now?
Her: Much happier. You?
Me: Much.

Coffee Shop in Pasadena

We don’t stay long and soon I’m back at my brother’s pad. After trying to get some writing done – and hitting some really bad writer’s block – my brother, his girl, and I head out to the local Ramen joint. It’s closed.

Him: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

…but we find another joint around the way. Pretty good. Scarfed down the whole thing with a plate of fried tofu.

Bob Hope Airport, Burbank

I’m too beat to walk around so we head back early. Finally manage to get five hours sleep. We wake up the next morning and he drives me to Bob Hope airport.

Him: Thanks for the surprise.
Me: Ditto!

Pretty quiet trip. I walk out into the NYC summer heat, make it home, and call the wife.

Me: I’m home.
Her: Logan’s home!

It’s good to be home.

———-

Logan Lo and his brother in NYC in the 70s

For those of you that’ve read this blog for years, you might recall when I wrote the difference between Grace and Mercy:

  • Grace is when you get the good things you don’t deserve.
  • Mercy is when you don’t get the bad things you do deserve.

Anywho, I always think of my brother and sister when I think of that. Could use some of both these days for reasons we’ll get into some other time.

Even as a child, I’m stuffing my face. No wonder I broke that chair…

Location: my bed, writing this
Mood: anxious
Music: two American kids growing up in the heartland
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Comfortable shoes

Time Square Subway nyc

 

Me: When I can’t sleep, I look at the clock and hope it’s close to the time I gotta wake up. This means I got some sleep.
Her: Not me, I hope that it’s early yet, this means I can sleep some more.
Me: That’s a major difference between the two of us; you know you’ll probably fall back asleep. I know I won’t.

Been running around the city like crazy these days. In court again, but not for myself. Clients. It’s interesting because most lawyers never go to court. Figure it’s about time I did. Like most things you find as an adult, it’s a lotta Hurry up and wait.

The grandeur of being a lawyer’s a lot less when you see 100 of them crammed into a small courtroom yelling at each other.

One of the main things I’ve learned is to invest in more comfortable shoes.

That’s probably true for most occupations, actually.

Location: my new brown (p)leather chair
Mood: busy
Music: We get ever so hot (Whether we like it or not)
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Disappointment

It’s really the disappointment that wears you down

Sitting on a street curb in NYC

 

Me: You don’t care at all about that? It’s part of what makes a woman attractive.
Him: (laughing) Some like the attic, some like the basement. I’m a basement man, you’re an attic man.
Me: Well, that’s certainly a colourful way of putting it.
Him: (sighing) I still love her, y’know. Even though she’s evil.
Me: She’s pure evil. (patting him on shoulder) But I know. It’ll get better.

Take a lot of classes. Classes for wrasslin, fencing, law, etc.

Was talking to one of my instructors the other day, who’s been doing his thing for 20 years. We’ve known each other maybe seven/eight years. Told me outta the blue that he’s gonna be calling it quits soon.

This surprised me.

Me: Why?
Him: I can’t take the disappointment any more.
Me: (confused) The disappointment of your students quitting? Or the disappointment of them not practicing? Or of them not caring?
Him: (nodding) Yes.

It’s sad but true. My friends don’t wanna date cause it’s really the disappointment that gets you. Others have stopped looking for work. Still others have stopped trying to take those chances.

It’s bound to happen some time. He’s in his late 50s so maybe it’s time.

Still, it kept me up the other night. Something about teachers requires that they hope that someone listens, someone cares – no matter how many times they’re disappointed. It’s a hard and often thankless job.

So, climbed outta bed and practiced quietly in the dark. 1, 2, 3…

Location: in the back room
Mood: pensive
Music: It’s too late – much too late, too late for the young gun
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Let it burn

Sometime we have let go of the old things we love to let in the new

A roof on fire in the big city.

 

Did you ever wonder why NYC’s, NYC? That is to say, how it became the biggest city in the world? Why not Boston, Philly, or DC?

In 1776, this massive fire occurred and pretty much wiped out the city as it was.

Afterward, the city made a decision in 1811 to set up the grid pattern we all know in NYC – doesn’t sound like much until you think that most everything past 14th street was forest.

Other places, like Boston, would have been like, “Well, there’s a tree where the road should go, and no one’s here anyway, so let’s just build a road around the tree.” But the plan said to cut down any tree and fill in any stream in the way of the streets – which most people thought of as insane and wasteful.

But cause they did that, the city grew in an orderly fashion and immigrants – like my folks – that couldn’t speak a lick of English could get around the city. So they came here.

Another one of my buddies called me today:

Me: What’s the dilly?
Him: Flipped the company. For $100M.
Me: Oh, NICE! Are you rich? More to the point, do you owe me money?
Him. “Yes,” and “no.”
Me: Wait – $100K or $100M?
Him: $100M.
Me: Do you need a manservant? I can be like Cato.
Him: That would be awesome. “I’m home!” WHAM!

He too had a hard life, as did Sheridan. Something about suffering makes y’want to succeed, to make things better.

Chris Rock once said that, “There’s something about being picked on that makes you work harder to make a reality where no body picks on you.”

It’s not true for everyone; some people that suffer stay broken. But the ones that get better – oftentimes – get a lot better. Bendy. The broken ones tend to get more broken.

If you’re the former, sing it with me – We don’t need no water, let the @#$@#$ burn…

 

Location: near Grand Central
Mood: ambitious
Music: she all fly But I can take the heat
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