John Hattaway

I find myself occupied in ways that (sometimes) don’t include updating my website. Which is not entirely true as I am constantly thinking about what to write here and according to Erin have only started more and more rather than stabilizing the length of what I am writing. Truth told, I am more into the essay than the short sub-300 word blog entry and as a result, the time involved in writing is pretty big compared to what other people may do. And, as I’ve stated before (though not necessarily on this blog) people should not try to write blogs the way I have chosen to write them mostly because, if you are using this medium as one for record keeping and sharing and to write because you write every day, then trying to write thousands of words rather than hundreds or dozens of words is pretty daunting. In short, write what interests you. Stop when you are done. And ignore what I am doing.

What am I doing?

Well, yesterday (or maybe the day before) I moved around some pages and made them sub-pages in the blog. Specifically, if you are interested in finding out why StandingWater Creations no longer exists as the domain and why you ended up here rather than there, I moved that description to http://www.johnhattaway.com/about/sw-c/. If you landed her because of In Order to Write and are wondering why I made that move, I moved that page (wink, wink) to http://www.johnhattaway.com/about/IOTW/. On top of both of those, I also added a contact me page at http://www.johnhattaway.com/about/contact/ where you can fill in some information, copy the CAPTCHA script, and send me an email without having to open anything more than this website.

What I am doing is working, mostly, on school and spending time with Erin and codename: CAMPER. On the school front, I have less than one month before we head east. That is becoming exciting and scary. Because it is one month left, I have a lot of work to finalize before the end of the semester to include a lot more reading and a lot of writing. As a result, when I sometimes sit down to write about Kung Fu Panda or All the Pretty Horses or Wall-E or a lot of other things I don’t finish those thoughts as a result of having more pressing things sitting on my mind. This afternoon/evening I get to write a proposal for a paper I still have to write, and I get to continue outlining a play, and I get to study for a test I get to take tomorrow. As a result, if you don’t hear from me for a couple of days at a time, don’t think I am suddenly following the pattern of most bloggers and deciding not to blog anymore, but that I am legitimatly busy and am working on what I need to be.

Real Heroes Fly

I was asked, today, “Is this your first bachelors degree?” today by a classmate in a class that was canceled for the next couple of weeks so the professor can do one-on-one interviews with the students and so that we have an extra, what, hour and twenty minutes twice a week to work on our capstone projects. This is actually a good thing and I hope to dedicate the time to research, outlining, and writing; but the outcome of going to class and sitting in the conference room where its held was that another classmate showed up and then decided to ask the above question. The outcome was an hour-long conversation about the ideals of life as promoted by the LDS church. To answer to critiques first, I am an active member of the LDS church and my thoughts and internal discussion on what is and is not appropriate does not change my faith or cause me to want to be anything else; and I believe that people should think about and, to some extent, question what is practiced as doctrine in order to determine how best to apply religious beliefs and principles for themselves. As a result of these two thoughts, I also believe that all religions deserve to be tested, thought about, and questioned in order for the membership to determine whether or not what they are being taught is worth living. On top of all of that, I also believe that the current religious practices we follow, generally, are from a Puritan influence and as a result, we often believe that there are a series of good practices and appropriate things and anything that does not fit within the Good Box by extension falls outside of it and is inappropriate. With all of that established, the conversation started with why I, as a mid-30’s-something was working on my bachelors degree at BYU when I should be out in the world working, already with a degree, or doing something else. And, “Yes,” these options were stated, though not expressly.

You see, some years ago my dad sat me down and told me what he (and by extension my mother) thought about what I was doing with my life. What I was not doing, or had not done, was get a degree, have a career, or be married and have a family (or at the very least, be dating seriously). In fact, on the last one, I was not dating seriously, had dated the girl (previous to the dad conversation) entirely for her looks, and broke up with her because she said, and I quote, “You know you love me,” and I had to think about it and when I thought about it for a long time and realized that I “liked her” but certainly could not apply “love” to the relationship I broke it off and she ended up dating another guy and getting married and, even though the conversation preceded her dating the other guy and getting married, caused my sister to talk to my dad who decided it was time to speak to me which in turn turned into a three hour one-sided conversation outlining the three main themes from above.

When I shared these three things with my classmate, and I use these three things because everything else that my dad told me that night are merely extensions of these three main items, he reiterated his question, “Is this your first bachelors degree?”

My answer to that question is, “Yes,” and (unspoken), “BYU does not admit students into a bachelors program who already have a bachelors degree.”

I said, “I started attending BYU in ‘97 and realized that I was not taking my education seriously and pulled myself out of school to focus on other areas.”

His response, “If you can recognize you are not taking school seriously, why didn’t you change the way you approached school.”

I said, “I had other priorities, I still have those priorities, and as a result, those priorities were far more important to me then, and now, then everything except for my wife and child and family.” I then said, “Over time my priorities changed [and this is why]…” and then I outlined the three points my dad shared with me when I was 29: no degree; no career; and no lasting relationships.

The outcome was that I decided, in a very small period of days, that it was time to make some radical changes in my life. I drove to where my parents live and had a second “conversation” with my dad, but it too was one-sided and a repeat of the first one and my dad restated the same three major problems I was having and, even more upset than after the first conversation, solidified my desires to change, but in different ways than what I think my parents had anticipated.

As an aside, I drove by my mom’s work and stopped to say, “hello,” and, “goodbye,” to her before I left town and, ostensibly, left immediate contact with either parent. The outcome of this was, first, that I told my mom the same thing I’d told me dad a few minutes before, “My friends have asked me to move with them to [insert location]* and I think I am going to move,” and got a different answer from my mom than from my dad. Dad said, “No you’re not,” and he was right only as far as location, we did not move to [insert location]* but ended up somewhere else. My mother said, “Is this what you really want to do?”

Later on, my mom would have a more formal conversation with me about that conversation where she informed shared a couple of family experiences with me that illustrated events where it is appropriate for parents to intervene in children’s lives and that, as an adult, even though time and situations were very different, both of my parents felt it was appropriate to intervene because what what I was doing in my life was not healthy.

Knowing now what I didn’t know then, I think I was expected to give different answers. And yet, knowing what I know now, I had to make radical and hard changes to my life in order to be where I have ended up. Where am I now? Well, I am finishing my degree in one month. But, this is only indirectly related to the conversation with my dad. The direct connection is that I decided I was tired of being close enough where family members and parents could scrutinize what I was doing closely enough that they missed every single thing I was doing and then decided to make quantum leaps in logic to arrive at what I was really doing and then talk to me about what they thought I was doing compared to what I am actually doing. The indirect outcome is that when I ended up in New Hampshire, expecting to end up in Boston, I agreed to go back to school as a condition of living with my friends and their daughters and as a result started the process of getting the degree I was accused of not having. When I got serious about my education and realized that it was time to place education above occupation and as a result started looking at what schools would best offer me the education-to-cost I wanted. I applied to and was subsequently recruited by Boston University and I also looked into Harvard and other places, but, honestly, decided to make the decision based more on playing a game I sometimes like to play and stated something like (to my mother), “What would it hurt me to apply to BYU one more time?” I’d actually been turned down by BYU about four times and wasn’t certain I wanted to do it one more time.

One other things shifted inside of me when I made that statement, I started to plan a move from New Hampshire to Utah. I was offered a job that helped pay for the move and something I wouldn’t want to do for any real length of time. Finally, I came up with an alternate plan for my education if, and only if, BYU decided to reject me one more time. As a result, I had a plan, I had direction, and I had faith that something would happen, though I didn’t know what that something was other than that I would get a degree and figure out what was next.

The problem, though, wasn’t that I was working toward a degree but that I still didn’t have a career (nor a particular desire for a specific career) and I still wasn’t married and didn’t have a family. My desire, believe it or not, is to be on the east coast. I didn’t get excited to move back to Utah or to Provo. I did have the feeling, and this was rather persistent, that my time in Utah would only end after I’d found someone to marry. As a result of that persistent feeling, when people would corner me on why I moved back to Utah, I told them, rather universally (and flippantly), “I am here to get married.” And I believed that. However, even knowing or believing my statement, I have also lost some of the patience my parents have touted about me and after a summer of acting and writing for the stage I’d decided that after the Fall Semester I would move either to Salt Lake City or to Los Angeles, CA and I was leaning toward California.

Then the Fall Semester hit and I was taking a class through the philosophy department on Moral Storytelling. I noted Erin because she said she was from Massachusetts. That interested me. Though, admittedly, I didn’t expect much to happen even though I did think, repeatedly for some weeks, that I needed to get to know her, specifically, better. Except, I hadn’t been on a date in a couple of years, when I did date it was being setup by a girl who didn’t know me at all and insisted on setting me up with incompatible girls, and when I asked different girls out I would be turned down, all of this so that when I finally got up the nerve to try and insert myself into Erin’s life it was done so backwardly and awkwardly that I am surprised we dated, got engaged, that I flew to Massachusetts for New Years, met Erin’s family, was accepted, and eventually had a child together.

Meeting Erin solidified my staying in Utah and in Provo and at BYU. I was ready to leave regardless of what I’d promised anyone else.

So, by making the hard choices in my life, e.g. moving and then starting school and by extension removing myself from the full-time work environment, I met and married my wife and we started a life together and because I met Erin, we also focused my attention on getting a degree sooner rather than later. As a result of the conversation with my dad my priorities have shifted, though they have not changed, and I placed my education and the opportunities involved higher than I was placing a career or even the search for a career. The outcome of this rather complex relationship between New Hampshire, conversations with my parents, and returning to BYU and Provo and meeting, dating, and marrying Erin is that I have taken care of two of the three problems my dad decided to share with me. I have a degree (or will very soon), and I have a family.

What I don’t have is a career, so let me qualify that. I believe I have a career objective. The objective is to write. I can define further what I mean by writing, but without going into a great deal of detail about the process of getting from my goals and priorities all the way to my career, I want to write fiction. Writing for a corporation is an acceptable short term answer to my overall career goal; but, it is exactly that, a short-term answer. For the long-term, I am actually planning on more education and pursuing, to some extent, advanced education in two other areas, one more than the other**.

I am under no illusion that writing fiction as a career objective is, at best, foolish. There are far more up-and-coming authors than there are slots on a publishers schedule to accommodate. There are a lot of very talented writers. Every tom, dick, and sherry wants to be published and thinks about it and dreams about it. Making a living as an author is not always possible. Because making a living is not always possible, I realize that I have to follow other interests that have carried my attention for numbers of years. Because I know that providing for family is first, I will pursue more education beyond an MFA-Writing where I can teach at a very higher level within the college-university environment. I expect to find myself going to school for quite a few more years and learning things I have ignored or chosen not to follow before now. The outcome is that I am not done with school, my career is to write, and I plan to get more degrees that will allow me to translate what I am studying into what I am writing and supplementing all of that with teaching. In order to follow this, I pursue my goals and my priorities in a fashion that allows me to provide for my family and support my wife in her interests and endeavors.

As a result of making the hard decisions some years ago, I am now in a position where my dad’s critiques are not as applicable to my current situation and where I am better able to move forward both in a fashion that my parents might approve of, but also in a way that shows that life and experience has taught me something about how to live life and how to approach other people whose lives I touch in some way.

The outcome of a lot of things is that I believe in having an ideal. For me, writing is an ideal. For me, being married is an ideal. For me, having a family is an ideal. For me, providing for that family is an ideal. For me, pursuing my interests is an ideal.

I, like everyone else, live in a world of ideals. I also live in a world of reality and at some point one must marry reality with the ideal. The reality of a lot of things falls outside of the Puritan influences Good Box. They are ideas and directions and writing and a whole host of other things that define are not, by extension, wrong or inappropriate or evil or sinning. My having a different view of the world or even a different view of my religion than the classmate with whom I held the conversation that influenced this post, and having different ideas or even questioning why I believe what I do does not make me a bad person nor does it mean that I don’t believe that what is in the Good Box is any less valuable than the other directions I choose to pursue with my life.

For this classmate, the outcome was an argument that it is appropriate to allow my wife to follow her dreams for an education, a career, and for a life and that it is my job to support her in those areas and to help her be as successful as she can be. Because I believe things like this, I can also argue that it might be appropriate for Erin to pursue a career and for me to stay at home with the child(ren) and that our religious beliefs and even the Good Box allows for use to have this happen. And that it is specifically the influence of the cultural beliefs of the community that we would be judged if this is the path we chose to take.

At no time does this change my faith, nor does it change what is good or appropriate, nor does it affect ones ability to be an active and strong member of the LDS church or to serve when asked to. Rather, the way we pursue what we pursue in our lives and how we choose to communicate that with other people and in other places is tantamount to the way we choose to live our lives and by questioning whether or not the Puritan influence and the Good Box are the only way to live a religion.

Because my dad sat me down and told me what I wasn’t doing right I had the opportunity, and took it, to access what was happening and in some cases to be in different situations where circumstances caused me to make a right choice. Because I started making those choices I was able to get married. Because I got married I realize that even though there are culturally defined roles that are not set in stone and can be altered to fit our specific needs. And as a result of the changes in my life, the choices I made ten or more years ago and my priorities, and because I have goals and specific focuses these don’t interfere with my faith or religion or responsibilities and as a result of all of that and a belief that ideals are important, I can live my life and do what I need to do and still be the kind of person I think I am meant to be.

The outcome to the conversation was, in part, that I don’t fit traditional molds for education and for marriage and for a career, and just because it may not make sense to someone or that I would make decisions that might appear to be counter-intuitive to someone doesn’t make them counter-intuitive or wrong and that, ultimately, I have lived a life that is right for me. The outcome is that ideals are nice, but that we need to begin to accept that the things that lie outside the box can be nice and appropriate too.

*[insert location] is intentional and, “Yes,” I do know the location, and, “No,” I don’t care to share.
**not sure I am sharing this one, at least in this post.

Real Heroes Fly

The Big Three Automakers (e.g. the three largest auto makers in the United States) are begging congress for a bailout. CEO Rick Wagoner told the Senate Banking Committee that it was not a lack of management, lack of vision, lack of leadership, and etc. that is causing the Big Three to lose money, but a failure in the overarching financial institutions that is causing their problems.

Mr. Wagoner, you are absolutely incorrect. Let me tell you why. First, the vision of the Big Three has been on bigger and bigger vehicles and not on smaller more lightweight and more fuel efficient vehicles. As the prices per barrel of crude oil started rising the production of the SUV and larger car has not diminished. Only after gas hit $4.00 a gallon and oil more than $120 a barrel did the major manufacturers decide to do something. Instead of going back to the drawing board what you did, and not even successfully, was to advertise the line of more fuel efficient cars and not actually produce a fuel efficient vehicle. Granted, an SUV makes more money than a sub-compact; but the money made does not justify the lack of response to the changing economy and as a result does not equate to having a vision. Yes, you saw money and profits, what you should’ve been seeing was a method of lightening the economic burden of the people you are trying to sell cars to.

Foreign manufacturers, because of oil and gas prices, have been producing better cars for a long time. The Big Three in the United States have chosen not to compete with Toyota or BMW or Honda or Subaru or others. The outcome is poor strategy on the part of American auto makers. As a result, and starting in the 70’s, the American people have been screaming for better and more economic cars and have been fed larger and less economic cars. Part of the reason for the alleged apetite of the SUV is they become necessary in a world of SUV’s because the consumer has never been taught or trained to drive them. This is actually your fault. You and your cohorts and associates in the automotive manufacturing. This is not a cause of poor economic times, but the outcome of poor management and poor vision.

Workers are paid for too much money to work in the plants. As a result, the cost of employing workers is passed onto the consumer. We, as consumers, are tired of paying way too much money for cars when the value and reliability of an American car is far less than the value and reliability of a foreign car company. Guess what, your cars, your employees, and your plants aren’t worth it. Sure, your hands are invariably tied by the unions, and you continue to allow the unions to rule the roost and dictate manufacturing deadlines, wages, salaries, and more. This is historically poor management, and currently should be considered poor management. When the cost of a line worker with little to no skills far exceeds the salary of most middle class workers in the rest of the country you are doing something wrong.

I am not comfortable with the notion that your businesses are so important that they can affect the rest of the economy. Yes. It is true they will. But the outcome of greed (see previous paragraph) is an inability to balance costs with sales and as a result, and because part of the income for your companies are the interest rates on new car sales and leases, you lose money hand over fist by paying your employees too much money. You don’t produce anything truly innovate or exciting. You don’t produce low-enough-end products to appeal to a large portion of the population. And you don’t adapt to the current trends and needs of your customer base.

Your problems are not the result of the economy slowing down. No. Rather, your problems are a historical precendent of bad decisions, poor management, and a lack of vision and leadership at all levels and stages of the process. As a result, you don’t deserve a bailout and even though it will ultimately hurt, we don’t need the Big Three Automakers anymore because, quite honestly, you cost way too much money.

What is more important is that you are not as essential as the banks to keep the country alive, or to save the economy from a recession or depression. You are a corporation. They have a life span like most entities. As a result, corporations die. Fortunately, what will happen is that a foriegn company will buy you out and your brands will still exist. You, Mr. Wagoner, will hopefully be out of a job. And to that, I say good riddence.

Unfortunately, for America and for the tax payer, and for the global economy, congress will eventually help you out.

– updated Tuesday 4:11 p.m. 11/18/08

AlGore’s An Inconvenient Truth shows the numbers of efficient cars to profits and capitalization and how foreign companies are doing better as a result of more efficent cars than United States auto manufacturers who are far behind and below legislated standards set up in different countries that are not the United States. Our emissions standards are worse than China’s and people claim China is the worst poluters in the world. Though I am sure many people would disagree with this, AlGore’s premise and the science is supportable and even though I have a friend who lost funding because AlGore, as vice-president, didn’t exactly agree with the nature of the conversation (e.g. that plants grow better and are more abundant as a result of some global warming) the conclussions don’t account for positive and drastically negative side effects (e.g abrupt warming always results in massive cooling and more C02 means better crops).

Also, the New York Times ran a report on the requested bailout for the auto-industry (requires account to login). The reason this is important is because the union and the owners of the Big Three and the union or collaborating on their approach to getting more money. This is a marriage of, effectively, two evils to make sure that wages and the status quo doesn’t become interrupted. The death of the union and the resetting of wages, much like the resetting of housing prices and the stock market and gas prices is all essential for a healthy economy. At present wages and costs are too high for American auto makers to have any hope of competing.

Real Heroes Fly

J. Michael Straczynski wrote a book on writing screenplays titled, The Complete Book of Scriptwriting, wherein he outlines how to outline writing for movies, television, plays, and more. I have actually found this method of outlining to be interesting in that you deal with a lot of plot and a little dialogue and you essentially work through the ideas before you work through writing an actual screenplay or teleplay or stage play or whatever. I’ve actually come across some other methods of outlining that are similar to this, but since this is germane to what I am currently working on, the J. Michael Straczynski outlining method, which may not actually be his method but I am applying this name to it, seems to work for me.

With that said, some weeks ago I came across Paperback Writer’s Novel Outlining 101 post that kind of uses a bit of what Straszynski does and a bit of what was presented to me by a professor at BYU in building up a story from an idea. This also includes some of what Sol Stein’s method’s as illustrated through How to Grow a Novel and Stein On Writing where Stein talks about developing the story from conception through final product. Sol Stein was an editor who made it is his business to make sure that author’s had the best possible success in creating stories that not only worked but were well written and formulated and functioned like a story should. (For the morbidly curious, more information about the professor and his methods can be found here.)

In my case it is taking the basic outline (that wasn’t exactly basic) of my one-act play and expanding it with more plot oriented details and some cues for dialogue that will need to be written. Since it is a play, the majority of the story is told through dialogue and acting. The audience shouldn’t see most of what is happening. On top of that, because of the project, I am also having to work on an afterward that talks about the influences of the play and how it connects with Western Literature and western lore. This needs to include a historical basis for what I am writing about that, in turn, includes research. Interestingly enough, I’ve found a museum that has a library in Colorado that I might be able to contact and see if they can provide some of the historical connections that need to be made. On top of which, speaking with my mother, I found out that spur lines (for the railroad) connected lots of southwestern Colorado communities together combined with my understanding of the people who built the railroads (I need to know who was actually hired for these areas) combined with some more simple understanding of various world mythologies (as analogy) and the outcome is that I have a complex piece that is slowly building itself together.

My hope, though, is that I find a way to combine it all before the end of the semester because one of two things will happen: either I will finish a draft of the play and then present the project as mostly complete; or I will not finish the project and the present on why I didn’t finish the project.

In either case, things are moving forward.

Real Heroes Fly

I am taking a brief brain breather to post that I have started and stopped several posts. They get about two paragraphs into a thought and then realize that it’s not what I am really thinking about and then delete the post I am trying to write and move on to something else. At present, I am doing some simple searches for various wilderness-type writing and essay’s that help illustrate the points I am trying to make about Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, a book that outlines a single seasonal cycle in Virginia for Dillard during her early years after college. According to the professor I have who has been going on about the genius of various people, a genius I, in many cases, disagree with, Dillard gave him, once, a reading list that, twenty years later, the professor is still working on reading his way through. Either the professor is a slow reader, which is possible, or that Dillard’s reading list, though impressive, is not what the professor is actually interested in reading.

What I pointed out to a friend, who has also been a professor in a couple of the classes I’ve taken over the years, is that a successful author, regardless of capability, will often be hired by a university and allowed to teach creative writing because the writer is a name and many universities want to promote the fact that they have a name who is also successful. On the (to me) interesting side of things is that this friend has written and has had published a couple of books and he is currently writing another book, and that his research efforts include his travel and research for the creative project he is working on, with the outcome being that he has extra money paid by the university to write a novel.

There is a part of me, in all of this, that makes me want to write something rather overtly religious. I have not, as yet, in part because it touches pretty directly on a conversation Erin and I were having earlier in the day. And yet, when I sat down to think about what I would like to share I didn’t come up with anything. What makes this interesting to me is not that I am writing about this, but that this touches on what I think Writer’s Block is. Whether or not something else needs to be written is less of an issue to me than sitting down and working through some of the things that I need to be working on.

I don’t know what needs to be really worked on. I do know there are books to read and papers to write. My English Language professor announced that he would be discussing a paper we had to write for his class. That looks to be interesting to me. One more paper to write. I also get to write a paper on The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli. Take a test later this week. And write the one-act play. This semester is coming to a close. It is coming to a close very quickly.

Maybe, and this is me spitballing, I think I am beginning to feel the pressure of the projects and educational responsibilities that are coming to an end. Must be why I need to focus in other areas.

Real Heroes Fly

I was writing a post on some of my opinons and views of the white powder that was sent to two of the LDS temples last week. I think the argument was pretty good. But, after sitting on it for a few days, I’ve decided that when it comes to same-sex marriage and the homosexuality issues that seem more prevalent today, I am done. Let me qualify that: I am done talking about it, though I am completely willing to support movements to define marriage as only between one man and one woman. I will write why I think redefining marriage is wrong. But, beyond this post, I will not give voice to any thoughts that give light to what is happening in that world. I am done.

Real Heroes Fly

I started writing a review of Kung Fu Panda the other day and didn’t get around to finishing it before Erin and I had to drop codename: CAMPER off at the neighbors so they could babysit him whilst we went to Salt Lake for The Hotel Cafe Tour to see Lenka in concert. Of course, she was performing with five other women (an all girl concert) all of them using the same band and my least favorite performer not using a band and kept talking about getting back to Hip-Hop while she “sampled” a lot of noise and played a violin and ukalele and made weird noises into her mics and mimicked movements that would’ve been appropriate for a male black rapper more than a very white bread priviliged girl. In fact, as I have started in on the criticism, the artists name was Emily Wells and lacked in almost every area. Interestingly enough, for me, she was new to the tour as of Denver, two nights ago, and didn’t really seem to fit in to any of the collaborations that were taking place. When I finally found her myspace page last night, late (CAMPER didn’t want to go to sleep and I was staying awake with Erin for a while), and even though she did not expressly state it, Emily Wells was raised in a somewhat affluent environment and even though she likes to experiment with sound by using odd instruments, failed in her attempts to be a hard-edged rocker chick in Hip-Hop, even though the rather stoned girls in front of us were moving and dancing in a way that wanted me to grab the worst offending by the neck and say, “You understand what beat is but you don’t know the first thing about appropriate dance movement for the kinds of songs that are being played,” and then scare the living hell out of them.

Regardless, the point of the night was to see Lenka perform. According to The Hotel Cafe tour website, each artist will perform a set of about 15 to 20 minutes each. As usual, in situations where I don’t instigate what is happening, I had no idea what to expect. Nor did I really think about the fact that the venue for the performance is a rather interesting building in Salt Lake City that has housed independent films, other-oriented films, and other venues for a lot of years, that the place would pretty much be a hole in the wall… or, essentially, a venue with wooden boxes for seats and cold. On top of which, I didn’t have any idea what to expect from the performers or how they would come out. I am not a big fan of concerts having been to (before last night) four concerts. This is not an environment I enjoy, though I often enjoy listening to music, the live aspect doesn’t really appeal to me. In fact, most music is really made for the studio experience and even though some artists (Sarah McLaclan being the stand-out in my mind) create an experience in a venue that is as close to the studio sound as possible, the point is that most music sucks live. On top of which, Erin and I really planned to only be out until about 10 p.m. since we have a baby and didn’t want to leave him, on a work and school night, with the neighbors any later than we needed to. So, we ended up driving up, sitting on a front row of the venue and then standing up with the crowd that was blocking out view of the performers, until about 9 p.m. when we decided to call the experience a wash and headed out.

Now, with all that said, I really actually enjoyed the music, though buying tickets for another one of these isn’t (probably) going to happen any time in the future. There were a couple of disconcerting events: First, the crowd was all ages. What that means is a group of sub-18-year-olds is in attendance. This was illustrated to Erin and I as they filed past us in gaggles to be as close to the stage as possible. Second, people lighting up and smoking controlled substances that also resulted in behavior that is, honestly, socially unacceptable (see above comments). On top of which, the venue was a dive and the artists, even though I am enjoying Lenka’s music and have enjoyed Rachel Yamagata’s music for several years, isn’t worth the hassle of the environment. And in truth, I enjoy the studio performance more than I enjoy the live performance (even though I like buying some artists live albums (again, Sarah McLachlan anyone???)) and prefer that over… oh, I don’t know, dealing with crowds of people who have their own sense of what is and is not appropriate.

What I did learn was that I liked music by Meiko (unfortunately, the nature of Meiko (and I hope Erin does write about this and if she does this will turn into a link) turns Erin off) and especially the song she played for the concert last night that she’d not recorded yet. At the same time, as I listened to Meiko, and I probably liked her music because of this connection, it occurred to me that I needed to contact a few people I know who teach at the different age group levels and see if we can distill down certain kinds of music different age groups are listening too. This is for a project that, when I finally can attack it, I can create a music list (or write lyrics along the lines of) the kinds of things that different age groups are actually listening too. Granted, the plans call for a fictional group that ties the music of the project into the mythology of the project; the point being that there is a sociological connection (and to some extent psychological) between what people choose to listen to and their life choices and by listening to Meiko I made a connection that requires some additional research on my part and questioning different age groups as to type, tone, and color of music. I didn’t buy any of her music last night.

We did get home and purchase The Hotel Cafe Tour - Winter Songs and Thao’s A Bag of Hammers. Speaking of Thao, of all the performers, and I didn’t really enjoy her, she was the most drunk, the most realistic, and the most punk or rock or real of all the performers. On top of which, none of her movements were large, they were all small and close to her body, but at the same time her movements were harsh and jerky and forceful and she is a performer. Erin liked A Bag of Hammers, and I have to admit of her songs that was the one that got me going as well, but her overall presentation was less than pleasing. And yet, the music… it’s all about the music.

Over all, and along with the conversation that didn’t include paying attention to the noises and crying of CAMPER, the night was good. Erin and I had the opportunity to discuss all sorts of things. We had the chance to be alone for a few hour and our neighbors were excited to take care of CAMPER for us. All-in-all me thinks a good night.

Real Heroes Fly

As you might already know, I am married to Erin. I can’t adequately express the joy this causes me, just to think that after so long I am married and that together we have this little baby. There is something about being married that makes aspects of my life seem more complete, more full, and more real. I didn’t know, before I met and dated and married her that I was missing so much in my life. In fact, as I sat in church the other day and thought about what I would say if I were asked to talk about how my life has changed since getting married and since having a child what I would say.

You see, before I got married I went through a lot of things that, honestly, would’ve been easier had I had someone right there to hold and tell me (and for me to tell) that everything would be okay or would (eventually) work out okay. At different points in my life I took stock of what was happening and what I was doing and whether or not there was room to allow for additional growth or change and whether or not that growth and/or change would cause a different or new affect in my life. You see, as a single man in his thirties, and at one point in my late twenties, when I’ve taken stock of what is happening or should be happening in my life I have found it difficult to imagine a scenario or series of events where I could possibly learn more about who I am or the world around me or how to deal with people. I knew that when invidivuals, like my parents, talked about marriage, it was terms of, “You have to wait to find out what it’s like,” and those vaguarities made it difficult for me to fathom what it meant to get married and to start a family. And even though I am relatively new to the post of husband and (even newer) father I find that the depth one can be submitted for growth is a lot larger than when I was single.

When I was twenty-eight I remember sitting down and considering the choices I made in my life. For those keeping score, this was before my dad sat me down and spoke to me about the series of choices I’d made and how I was failing at almost every turn (though I am not sure he would agree with my assessment). Some six or so months before that, when I thought I’d met someone I could be in love with and someone I thought I could marry, I thought about work and school and writing and decided that even though I’d failed to get a degree (at that point) or to date someone who wanted to marry me and whom I wanted to marry, and had had some poetry published (yuck!!!) but not any fiction. My assessment was different from the people around me and even though I held onto the notion of going back to school and getting a degree, what I realized then (and now) is that I don’t handle working multiple full-time (or part-time) jobs very well and the one thing school is, is a full-time job. Even if your work load is relatively light, you still have the burden of the work and job and responsibility.

However, what I did come up with was not what my parents had come up with. What I came up with was that I was on track and even though my path to completing my goals was slower than, say, cold tar, a turtle, snails, evolution, mountain building, and substantive change at BYU, I had nothing to worry about. What my parents came up with was that I had reached a point in my life where it was time to take responsibility for my actions and by extension it was also time to start making the hard decisions when it came to the choices I had been making in my life (to that point). What was coupled with this was my finally paying back money I owed, moving to New Hampshire, trusting that if I wanted to succeed in the field’s and area’s that I said were important to me it was time to take a few steps back and start over as an undergraduate in college, working low-paying jobs to help make ends meet, and eventually to accept the inspiration that maybe I needed to give Utah and (ouch!!!) Provo one more chance before I moved on.

None of these choices were easy. Especially when you consider that I have made, at times, a lot of money and often stand out in the environments where I work. Considering other choices in my life, to take the plunge and go back to school, to trust that BYU is a better choice for me (at the time) than Boston University, to believe that I am better of out of the work force full-time for at least three years are all important and all required a degree of faith. I had to extend that faith to my life and believe that if I wanted to advance in what I was doing I also had to trust that I could do what I had always said I wanted to do.

Enter Erin. She is my life. I cannot imagine life without her. I cannot imagine learning many of the things I have, since marriage, without her there. I am a more full and better person because I have a wife in my life. There are things I would’ve like to be different before marriage. Little quirks that I didn’t see in my life (and no, these are not things that my parents or siblings would actively know about) that needed someone who loved me and wanted to see me be better and who was patient with me so that I could recognize them and remove them. At the same time, because I am dealing with an individual, I am also dealing with someone who has completely different needs than me, I have had to learn how to communicate with her and by extension communicating with other women. The depth that accompanies marriage is something that I was unable to fathom and once I was tossed in, unaware of how scary it really is.

During the birth of our child Erin asked me to stay with the baby. I followed him out of the room and to the NICU. I had to start making decisions that affected his life immediately and the doctors and nurses didn’t care that I’d been up for more than twenty-four hours and didn’t feel capable of rationally agreeing with what the doctors wanted and signing what I needed to sign. As a result of this, I discovered that the capacity for love, in most people, is infinite and even though, at times, I wonder how I could possibly love someone as much (and in very different ways) as I love Erin, or even increase the depth and breadth of my love for Erin, it is and it changes you as you realize that the reasons you are making the choices you are is because of that love.

I have also learned that love does not conquer all. It is a factor in the choices I have made and the reason I am married, but it requires a lot of effort to be married and to make other people’s needs more important than an individual’s wants. There are times when I would love to walk out the door and spend a lot of money, mostly because I can, and partly because, before marriage, I did. Now, I have to pay attention to the current and up-and-coming needs of our family. I really believe that it should come as no surprise to people who have known me for a long time that I would place my wife and family above everything else. Before marriage I often canceled things with friends when my siblings called or were in the hospital. Even when I lived with my parents in Colorado, I seriously considered driving to Utah to watch one of my siblings kids for a few days so that sibling could take spouse and go on a little honeymoon vacation. That would’ve been a considerable investment in time and money and the only reason I didn’t do it was because my parents suggested it was a bad idea and there was a better solution to the needs of that sibling.

The point to all of this is not a review of the decisions I’ve made in my life, but to state that I am in love with my wife. I love to be around and with her. Yes, we don’t always agree. Last night she told me I had no fences to sit on and if was sitting on a fence it was one of my own construction way off to the side of everyone else’s fence. I am a passionate person. And I passionately love her. On top of that, I passionately love what she does for me. As a result, it should surprise no one that my wife is my highest priority and my greatest joy.

Real Heroes Fly