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 ]]> http://www.johnhattaway.com/2008/11/is-this-your-first-bachelors-degree/feed/ 0 http://www.johnhattaway.com/2008/11/priorities/ http://www.johnhattaway.com/2008/11/priorities/#comments Tue, 11 Nov 2008 06:31:58 +0000 smokingpen http://www.johnhattaway.com/?p=1496 I am offering the world my list of priorities. These are the things, and to some extent the order of priority, that I take into consideration when making some of the choices I make. Believe it or not, different priorities will leap to the top of the list that seem rather low. That is because I also realize that different people have different levels of need at different times and as a result of that, I will change my priorities accordingly.

What is interesting to me is that I have touched up on this before.

1.) Family:
In this context my priority is specifically Erin and codename: CAMPER. Erin first, CAMPER second. There should be no secrets about this to anyone. “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” (Genesis 2: 24) This scripture is repeated in Matthew, Mark, Moses, and Abraham. What I take from this is that even if I were a self-serving individual, the moment I married my self-servedness would include my wife as religion dictates that we become one (in the eyes of God) after marriage. Not only that, but we agree through the marriage covenant that we will leave our parents and begin doing things together rather than separately. This includes having a family. Where before marriage I should, and rightfully so, be concerned with myself and providing for myself; once I become married I change that focus to include wife and then child(ren). Anyone who considers this an inappropriate or wrong priority needs to refocus on their own priorities.

2.) Religion:
This priority may not be the same one for everyone. But it is one that, given different names, everyone has high on their list. Religion, for me, is literally a religion. In my, and my families case, that religion is Mormonism or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. What we often forget, and what many use as an excuse, is that we find God through religion. And you find God through God’s organized religion and sermons and relationships with others who share similar beliefs. To some degree every faith on the planet regardless of where it exists worships and seeks after signs of a living God. Give that god a name and you will know of whom you seek. However, regardless of religious faith or sect or location or even if your religion is that of the NFL, NBA, NRA, or RNC and DNC you will follow your God. The bible, especially the Law of Moses, talks about not worshipping false idols and when you listen in church sooner or later someone is going to draw attention to the television and people who focus their lives and/or priorities around TV. I think this is accurate for such a small percentage of any population that the connection rarely works, but there are people who are converted to different ideas that don’t include organized religion and in some cases might qualify in this area.

3.) Writing:
I have never hidden the fact that I make writing a priority in my life. Writing fiction and more recently writing essays are one of the more important things to me. This has not changed and at almost all times in my life, when I’ve been around siblings or parents or even (now) Erin and codename: CAMPER, writing still takes a certain amount of my time and there is absolutely no getting around that. This is what happens when an individual is almost solely focused on specific areas. For as long as I can remember and at least all the way back to Virginia when my family lived there all I have ever wanted to be is a writer, all I have ever wanted to do is write, and the outcome is that I am focused specifically in that area. In order to obtain my goals I have to write and in order to write it has to be a priority.

4. ) Work:
Right now my work priority is school. I get up, go to class, read lots of books, write papers, outline projects, and make sure that by December 19 I have sufficiently accomplished my goal by graduating. I will, to a large extent, continue my education after my undergraduate. When it is necessary or essential, I work a job. Recently I’ve gone on terminal leave with the job on campus and don’t honestly expect to be back because of other more urgent needs at the moment. With that said, when I am not in school, my working full-time and providing for myself, my wife, and my child(ren) is the high priority. I wonder at what point in my life I will find a career and be happy for the unforeseeable long-term; however, at the same time, I am happy to get up and do what is necessary to make sure we have the money necessary to pay bills and have a little left over for savings and some of the things that Erin and I want and need to do with our lives. At some point, writing fiction or essays may be how we make our money, but at present reality and life indicate that my priority in this area is that I work jobs that I am qualified for, that fall within my functional capacity, and that my overall and specific flexibility allows me to function within.

5.) Family:
Yes. This is a second priority with the same title. And yet, I have more of a family than Erin and codename: CAMPER. This family includes my parents and brother’s and sister’s and to some extent Erin’s parent’s and brother and by a much further extension cousin’s. The farther, genetically, you move away from me (and Erin) the lower this priority falls. However, I do realize and recognize that family is a priority and before marriage siblings (and parents) took a much higher priority in my life because, quite honestly, I had not “[left] my mother and father …,” yet. As a result, I could focus on areas that appeared more important, which also meant that I was more available to run to the hospital and sit with a sick sibling for hours on end, or run to a treatment facility and sit with a dying grandparent, or run to Colorado and help my parents (who, interestingly enough, are not sick), or one of a host of other things to include digging out water mains or dry walling or pouring cement or running cable or watching children or watching dogs or a lot of other things. This priority falls lower not because it is any less important, but it has to be weighed against higher priorities that affect my wife and child(ren) and our future stability.

6.) Friends:
Friendship is an interesting thing to me. I do not combine this with family and I do not prioritize it at the same level as family. That’s because it’s not family. These are people I choose to associate with and under different circumstances, there are people I no longer choose to associate with. The associations with these people are the result of choice and as a result I can walk away from someone whom I consider a friend and not think about it again. Whereas I cannot walk away from family and not consider the consequences of stopping a relationship or even wanting to stop a relationship. There are ways where family, in this context, lowers itself to the level of friends and that is when a family member elevates friendship above family and chooses to support something that, really, means absolutely nothing while ignoring family obligations. The reason this is true is that I will elevate and reprioritize based on immediate need and circumstances and I will de-evelate based on other people’s choices. In this context, I think stating something to the effect of, “I can’t hear you because your actions are screaming louder than your words,” seems appropriate. What is important here is that I will not elevate my friends above family given two equal and immediate needs. Family comes first. And my wife and child(ren) comes first, first.

7.) The stranger on the road:
Yes. This is a priority. It has jumped up and bitten me on my hind-quarters at least once, but I am still concerned with the stranger. Call me a Samaritan. I watch out for other people especially when I am driving. If there is an accident on the road and no one has stopped I will stop. Occasionally, if someone needs a ride, I will offer them a ride. If I am somewhere and it is clear that someone needs money and I have some I will donate money. When I make enough money, I donate to local charities that will use what I donate to help people within the community. On top of that we pay tithing to help the church, and fast-offerings to help people within the church and the community. I recognize this as a priority and I take it seriously. It, however, is one of those things that is prioritized low more because I don’t have the means to always do what I want to do. I hope that this will change in the very near future.

To my way of thinking a list like this should come as no surprise to anyone. Granted, there are people who will assume that because my priorities were different and skewed toward siblings and parents before I got married that I would maintain that as the highest priority. I am sorry to say, that is not the case. I believe that priorities rightfully change over time and as a result, and because it’s not really that convenient, people’s feelings can become hurt. However, it is under these priorities and subsequent obligations that I have made some of the choices in my life because, honestly, at some point in my life, I have to be my own priority.

Real Heroes Fly ]]> http://www.johnhattaway.com/2008/11/priorities/feed/ 1 http://www.johnhattaway.com/2008/09/debating-about-my-reaction/ http://www.johnhattaway.com/2008/09/debating-about-my-reaction/#comments Wed, 03 Sep 2008 04:11:58 +0000 smokingpen http://www.johnhattaway.com/?p=1018 Recently James, one of the younger brothers, started a new website (ostensibly) on Jordan’s hosting account.

The website is about politics, and though this shows my vanity, and in the words of Carly Simon, “You’re so vain, you think this song is about you.” Except in this case, it’s a website, and I think it is in direct response to my pro-Obama stance during this political season. And yes, I am so vain. Since I am not trying to shelter anyone in my response and I am making a direct response to one of my brothers (across the interwebs), I just thought I should let the world know what I was doing.

Specifically, I agree that people need to have forums where they can voice opinions and ideas. More specifically, I think it is a good idea for people to have public forums of debate for politics. Truth told, though, I am not interested in voicing my opinion on James’s website. Instead, I choose to focus, as in so many ways, on responding through my website. More specifically, I choose to talk about some of the things James decided to talk about.

On his site, James announces that he is not interested in the parties but rather in issues. In making this statement, I expected to have some form of debate begin about the issues that really mattered to James and, more specifically, that he would outline the issues and then talk about the two major party candidates standings on those policies. The problem, though, is that rather than discuss the issues (which is what he spends the first couple of paragraphs informing an audience he is going to do) he decides to do exactly what he said he does not do, he dropped into all of the reasons why the Republican Party is better than the Democratic Party. Yay!.

Understand that as a conservative individual, I am interested in politicians who match some of the points-of-view that I have on different issues. From James, these issues can include gun control, free speech, and higher education. All three of these issues, to some extent, hold a place in my political agenda. For example, I own a handgun. I don’t necessarily care to own the handgun and the reason I purchased it around a decade ago was personal and because I felt it was a good idea. I keep it, now, for equally personal reasons. And yes, I’ve had offers for it; and no, I am not interested in selling it.

However, ownership of guns (especially handguns) is something I do have opinions on and feelings about. What this means is that when I listen to a politician I give a percentage of my ear to discussion on what the politician thinks about gun control. Obama, by the way, is for gun control, but he is not for removing the Second Ammendment Right of ownership. That would require a Constitutional Ammendment which, in turn, requires that 35 states agree that guns needs to be banned. Since at least that many states have gun laws that allow not only for ownership but also for concealed weapons ownership, it is logical to assume that an ammendment that would ban gun ownership is not going to pass. Mr. Obama knows this and he has never come out against gun ownership, he is for additional laws that limit what kinds of guns someone can have (e.g. sniper rifles). He has publicly stated that.

As the Republican candidate McCain really hasn’t made a statement about gun control. But the tacit agreement in his relationship to the party is that he is for guns in the hands of people. Great. That does not mean, tacitly, that he is not for gun control. Nor does gun control mean that anyone is against people owning handguns, especially for home and personal defense. As I stated, I own one. I will not sell it. I know how to use it. And at some point in the near future, my wife will know how to use it. Part of the responsibility of gun ownership is knowing how they should be used and when. When you go to McCain’s website, and look up the Second Ammendment Issues stance, he is not for any control and believes (at least on paper or online) that everyone should, essentially, be able to own anything in any caliber. That is a bit of hyperbole, but the stance reads a lot like an NRA pamphlet on gun ownership.

On the issue of Free Speech, I think it is naive to assume that someone like Obama would be opposed to it. Without Free Speech Obama would not be where he is today. His parents would never have been allowed to meet let alone get married. And in the long run forty-plus years of civil rights changes and the movement itself would be moot. Obama is the direct result of Free Speech and the debates that exist not only on collegiate campuses but also within the public sector and politics. As a result, he has shown himself to be rather pro-Free Speech. And yet, only Obama, on his website, even touches on Civil Rights, while McCain is, amazingly, mute on the point.

The issue of Free Speech is a moot point as a Constitutional Ammendment it is protected by the very basis of our laws and the way this country is governed and has so many Supreme Court rulings in favor of it that to argue against it is stupid. Granted, this is often challenged and changed. G.W. restricted and continues to restric speech about things he is not comfortable with and in one case had a judge cite Lewis Caroll where he states in a poem, “Say it three times and it is true.” G.W. has a tendency to restrict Free Speech, McCain has borrowed almost all of G.W.’s policies, and Obama is a product of Free Speech. I am under no illusion of current policy changing under a McCain presidency.

And finally, Education. Obama is all about improving Education at all levels in this country as is McCain. They have different plans and you can go to their individual websites to check out what both have to say; but what Obama states (and this is something I care about) is that No Child Left Behind failed for various reasons, one of them being that the program was never properly financed. He wants to reform the program and make something that actually works. G.W. never created a program that does work and McCain states that things need to be reformed. Now, there is no direct evidence, on his site, about his tacit support of G.W.’s policy, but by extension and as a result of listening to his policy advisors on NPR, he has directly adopted a lot of the current president’s policies and would continue No Child Left Behind except to try to apply bandages. And at no time does McCain suggest additional support for Higher Education. Obama is all about providing additional sources of federal funding for higher education and for reforming current lower education practices in the country.

How will they reform (individually) public schools? I don’t know. What I do know is that we have to trust one of them to do something.

Unfortunately, what James ultimately does in his blog is to focus his attack against the Democratic Party rather than specific policies. He specifically states that he chose not to listen to Obama’s acceptance speech for the Democratic nod for President and as a result, doesn’t know enough about what is going on to speak coherently about it. Unfortunately, as a result, instead of speaking about issues, James distilled his argument into a diatribe against a party, ignored the issues, and showed that he is Republican rather than someone who is interested in what someone thinks about the areas that are important to him. Instead, we now know he is a Republican, he is the child of a pair of Republicans (we have the same parents), and even though he doesn’t have the historical descent from the Civil War, he is still a legacy participant in the very example he chose to share.

I am neither Republican nor Democrat. I won’t even register as an Independent because, on state rosters, it counts as a political party. I choose to vote for the person I think will do the best job with the resources at hand and the best job under the most foreseeable circumstances. In this case, McCain has no more experience as an executive than Obama. He has more years in the Senate, but that is as a part of a legislative body. His VP choice has more executive experience than he does and less over all experience than both he and Obama. Obama has a senator VP choice who has more experience (non-executive) than McCain and more international experience than all of the other participants combined. As a result, neither candidate is a great choice as executives if experience is a prerequisite, and its not. The outcome then comes down to a popularity contest. Who do you like more?

Had James come out and said, “I am a conservative with leanings toward the Republican Party and I don’t care to listen to Obama,” I would’ve had more respect for his opinions when it comes to the question at hand. However, he didn’t directly say that and worked himself into a logical corner where his conclusion is not adequately supported by his assertions. The outcome is a rather invalid argument for supporting the Republican Platform.

As an acknowledged conservative, I am interested in policy that leans toward the conservative. However, since I am an observer, and I observe the political divide that has been tearing at this nation for a lot of years now, I want a president who will stand up and inspire more than a president who will stand up and stand for something I disagree with. I disagree with the current president. I think, like many others, that he has done a very poor job and that his policies should’ve died in committee. I am still baffled that the legislation he has introduced still passes. I also disagree with the Iraq conflict and am willing to support the man who promises to get us out the soonest. McCain is an ardent supporter of the current president and his policies. In his more than 20 years in the Senate, this is the closest he’s ever come to actually voting with the Republican Party consistently.

In the short run, I agree with James in that he has a right to voice his opinions and that he should write about them. However, I disagree with his assertion that he cares more about the issues than about the party because if that were true he would learn what all sides of an issue are, what he actually thinks about those issues, and how the different parties approach those issues. At present, I have a sibling who supports the Republican point of view and that is perfectly okay. You go brother.

Obama’s website: http://www.barackobama.com/, http://www.barackobama.com/issues/

McCain’s website: http://www.johnmccain.com, http://www.johnmccain.com/informing/issues/

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Real Heroes Fly

What all of this really means is that I go to school full time – and am now changing some personal plans on where I will be attending come next fall, I work full time, and I have been trying to tackle the feat of writing a solid first draft of a novel in the hours between school, work, sleep, and my church responsibilities (i.e. councilor in the elder’s quorum).

The thing that has happened, of late, that really bothers me (and I am not bothered) is that I have tried to toss dating (on occasion) into the mix and finding a suitable car for the money I have (on hand) that I can invest in said. The car, just so that people know, is my means of further establishing some measure of independence and personal worth over having to bum rides places from Andy and Debbie. Fortunately, since getting out here, my needs have been pretty small, light-weight really, but with dating, work, school, church, and the feeling that I need to start mentally moving in a slightly different direction than I had been – along with the writing, school, and work – I am a little swamped. Sunday roles around and after church I pretty much wind down, try to nap if time permits, and pretty much don’t think of anything because that is the one day of the week that I don’t do school work, I don’t work, and (gasp!!!) I don’t write. It’s become a sort of sacred day of literal rest for me. In truth, eventually I would like to get to the point where I don’t use my computer or get online either.

Now, I know that this is my place to tell you all about my life, about writing, about the future and what I believe it holds for me – as well as what is happening in other avenues of life; however, life has to change slightly before that can happen. Truth told, I am literally searching for a miracle to happen so that I can slow down just a little and focus on what I keep thinking I need to focus on. The fact that my life was tossed into the stratosphere this past week first by the girl I went out with (did you know I have a lot of unresolved, personal issues (and no, she doesn’t either)?) and secondly by an unexpected revelation from my brother Justin that was confirmed by my father and then, once I can get down the broad details (e.g. that “it” happened) he decides that after being closed mouthed about it for 40 or so years he is going to tell all of the siblings. As a result of things like that I have not written this week, I’ve been reticent to go to school and do the necessary work there, and going to work (outside of my spending three days sick in bed – literally) I’m now a week behind on my deadline with Debbie.

You see, the cool thing there – and I truly believe this may be the key to what is happening right now – is that Debbie and Andy have told me that they will float me for a couple of months if I can show them that I have a solid first draft of a publishable book. The book, just so you know, is highly publishable and is somewhere around 55% to 65% of the way done (first draft wise) I just have to get back to work on it. Given that I have/had some personal issues, I have to deal with seeing my father in an entirely different light, and, well, life is pretty much always throwing me curve balls when the expectation is supposed to be fast balls or knuckles or I should stop trying to write a baseball analogy, I think I am handling things pretty well.

Oh, and if I don’t update every so often and someone, for whatever reason, logs into my account (Jack) then the screen will show only the latest entries that are not older than two or three weeks… I don’t remember how long. Give me another two weeks and we will see how well I can update and keep people informed.

Real Heroes Fly ]]> http://www.johnhattaway.com/2004/11/needed-update/feed/ 0 http://www.johnhattaway.com/2004/10/experiences-and-sleep/ http://www.johnhattaway.com/2004/10/experiences-and-sleep/#comments Thu, 14 Oct 2004 05:39:16 +0000 smokingpen http://www.johnhattaway.com/?p=27 Have you ever just had one of those experiences that, no matter how hard you try, you just can’t get to sleep? Or, if you do get to sleep after an hour you wake up and can’t get back to sleep and so you lay about, or read, or do something else until you are so tired that you sleep, again only to sleep for an hour and start all over again. Yeah, I don’t sleep a lot at night. This is not something that is comfortable to me since I work, I go to school, I have my own projects I am working on and want to move forward with, and in the end I am frustratingly inactive during the vital parts of the day and asleep when I need to be awake – and forcing myself to be awake to try to get sleep regularly isn’t working either.

Now comes the part where people offer advice. And I think that’s great. A co-worker suggested yesterday that I take some pills to help me sleep, and barring that, I use some weird root that will help make my sleeping patterns more normal. That’s great. If not drugs something that will alter my metabolism in such a way that it will allow me to sleep.

There have been other suggestions. People like to offer opinions and I like to listen and then think about and eventually ignore what is going on. What gets me is that before I moved east the advice I was offered was that I needed to concentrate on sleeping during the night and being awake during the day. That seemed like odd advice, at the time, and now seems rather sagacious as I look at how I am reacting to the changes that have taken place. Moreover, the days are different here. I realize that may seem weird of me to say, but they are. I am farther (to distance) north now than I have ever lived in my life and I think that is playing games with my circadian rhythm. I am off now and I don’t know what to do to get it back on track.

I share all of that because I finally got frustrated at several things this evening. For instance, in a period of a week I have finally started beating my sinus infection (a plague of months) and have also gotten a cold. The sniffles, runny nose, that were signs of positive change in me – meaning that my sinuses are finally draining – have turned into a curse of coughs and sore throats and my lymph nodes are also a little swollen. In other words, I have a head cold and I am working backward on a sinus infection, I don’t sleep at night because my circadian rhythm is totally off, and I work way to freaking much… oh and did I mention that I have about four writing projects and a letter (long one) to my mother all in the works on top of school assignments…. Maybe I should just shut-up now.

Anyway, things are good. Books are great. Hundreds of titles pass through my hands daily and I seem to ignore every single one of them. I could not tell you, from one customer to the next, what titles people are buying other than to say that a certain look of a certain book has passed by me multiple times. Beyond that, I don’t see the books. Of course, that is going to change next week when I start to assist customers in finding books and magazines and music; but hopefully my resolve not to spend thousands of dollars on books will be enough to get me through the temptation (now if only I’d remember that on the employee appreciation weekend coming up as we get 40% off books and music for three days and I have a box).

School is also proving to be interesting. I signed up for a World Lit. course next term, financial aid should be progressing as of today, and I also take a philosophy class. All of this so that by January I can transfer to days and overload my schedule with as many credit hours as they will let me take. Oh, and I need to buy a car so when financial aid really does kick in I will be paying for a used car (maybe a Honda) very soon. Which reminds me that one of the girls at work had to replace a tire on her car because it was tracking wrong only to have the right front axle go out on her because the CV (constant velocity) joint had gone bad and then had warn all the way through the axle. I’d asked, when she was talking about the tire, whether or not she had other problems with that wheel and she’d forgotten to mention that one issue. And now I’ve offered to help her save money and change her oil for her (and she’s not even my type).

Church should prove to be interesting. Andy accepted a new calling and now has gone to great pains not to speak to me about the what’s and where-with-alls about it. He met with the High Councilor, Branch President, and possibly the past person with that calling last night (while I was at school) and is very mum about the outcome. I don’t need to know details, but at the same time, I have told him that whatever he needs me to do I am there to do it. Period.

On top of all that I think I am doing pretty snazzy. Apparently in the couple of weeks I’ve been at work I have become the life of the registers. People are trying to keep up with me and to banter like me and I think that is about as funny as it gets. On the other side of that we have a girl (Angel) who was hired and trained about a month before me who is an exceptional employee (and a looker) and who just does what she is supposed to do as a part of her job breaking ground for me. Instead of be the wunderkind that I normally am (because I go to work to work) I am merely another good employee and I am grateful for that.

Finally, mostly because I am tired, I want to do a shout-out to Rebecca (little sis) and say, just because I don’t answer a comment for a few days or weeks doesn’t mean I cannot or do not know what to say. Some comments are best left for when it is appropriate, or more accurately, when the speaker (me) is prepared to deal with that. For instance, this evening we were talking about conundrums. Which came first the chicken or the egg. Catch-22’s. And as a result of that one of the guys standing around said, “The chicken had to come first otherwise there was no egg.” When I said, “I believe both have always existed simultaneously,” the group became uneasy at the idea until I added, “a woman is born with eggs already within her, as is a chicken, the eggs already exist when the woman, or chicken, exists, though they are not fertile, therefore both the chicken and the egg have always existed together and not separately.” There is no other answer to that conundrum.

I also came up with the dating conundrum. Or, I don’t date because I can’t date the girls I am meeting and I am only meeting girls I can’t date, so I don’t date. Which isn’t entirely true. I am picky, selective, I won’t always just go out with anyone, and the person, or persons, I am willing to go out with have reasons why I cannot ask them out at present.

Oh, the Catch-22 conundrum is Yosarian stating, (paraphrasing) “You have to be crazy to fly these bombing missions, but if you are crazy you cannot fly the missions, but if you know you are crazy then you aren’t crazy; but to fly the missions is crazy and if you’re crazy you cannot fly the bombing missions.” To do one thing another has to already exist. But that one thing can’t exist unless the previous item also already exists.

My next imponderable is: If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it does it make a noise?

I have a personal answer for this one, but I am curious to know what Rebecca thinks first.

Real Heroes Fly ]]> http://www.johnhattaway.com/2004/10/experiences-and-sleep/feed/ 1 http://www.johnhattaway.com/2004/09/another-week-down/ http://www.johnhattaway.com/2004/09/another-week-down/#comments Sat, 18 Sep 2004 22:51:26 +0000 smokingpen http://www.johnhattaway.com/?p=18 Yup, I have survived another week in New Hampshire and things seem to be going okay. Not exactly great, but okay. I start work on Monday at Borders books. It’s been a few years since I’ve worked in retail, but some job is better than no job; and I completed week two of classes and signed up for at least one class for next term. So, things are okay.

I do get to write a critical essay this weekend for my British Lit class. I believe that I am going to take several stanzas from The Fairy Queen by Edmund Spencer as an allegory to the attributes of Satan from a religious perspective. The sad part of it is that I don’t really want to write the essay yet. Instead, I am updating my Blog site. Go figure.

There is always a list of things that I can be working on and yet, as is to often true, I sit here doing as many other things that don’t mean much of anything because I can and because the other stuff is not immediately important. It’s like that essay. I can write it Monday or Tuesday and still have it done on time.

On top of that I start a new calling at church tomorrow. They called me to be the Elder’s Quorum Secretary. I don’t have a problem with the calling I have a problem with the meetings. There are always meetings associated with callings like this and man, I’m not hip on to many meetings. I guess I can be happy that they didn’t call me to be Elder’s Quorum president since that would equate to a lot of meetings rather than one after church on Sunday’s.

Of course, I’ve served in callings where there are a lot of meetings and I go and participate and serve to the best of my ability. It’s just one factor that comes with willingness to serve.

Andy, Debbie and the girls got home this week. Debbie and the girls were in Florida right in the path of hurricane Ivan and Andy had spent a week in Washington D.C. finishing his master’s program by meeting the movers and shakers from Utah in that city. He told us that on Sunday his group had gone to the Holocaust Memorial in Washington D.C. After they’d got back from that he’d turned on the History Channel and ended up watching Band of Brothers which ended up being a rather powerful experience for him.

I actually spent about two pretty long days going through my MP3 collection changing the data structure of the files. When I ripped most of my CD’s I’d ripped them in a way that would allow WinAmp to recognize name of track, artist, and CD so that I could play them and know what was being played. After doing that I discovered that there is a layer within the MP3 that stores track information, year released, album, artist, and genre of music. In most cases some of this information was filled in, but not in a form that would allow any MP3 compatible audio player to read the files and take the information. My Neuros MP3 player didn’t recognize the information in the same way that WinAmp did. So, I spent hours and hours reworking the data so that it could be read by other audio applications without having to edit it within those apps.

Now, I can just rip music and add it without having to play the edit game in other places.

I finally got my copy of Half Magic which is a children’s story. Read it between Thursday night and Friday and thought that it was a rather good book. Quick synopsis, four children with their widowed mother live in an Ohio town and wish they were like other children who spent their summers at the lake. They find a magic nickel that grants wishes but quickly discover that the nickel only grants half a wish. What can you do with half a wish?

Other than that I have been dealing with a sinus infection that just won’t go away. This is, unfortunately, affecting other aspects of my life and I am not really happy about that.

Jared and Emily had their baby girl this week. They named her Cadence Leigh Hattaway. No opinions on life, pink, or other things though the original Star Wars trilogy is being released on DVD this week and I think I’ve finally accepted the notion that George Lucas can mess with his movies as much as he’d like (I still own the original cuts and versions in widescreen (letterbox) on VHS) and will probably buy them. I would also like to acquire Joseph Campbell’s interviews on Mythology and Mean Girls this week. You can probably bet on Star Wars and Mean Girls.

Real Heroes Fly ]]> http://www.johnhattaway.com/2004/09/another-week-down/feed/ 0 http://www.johnhattaway.com/2004/09/what-a-weekend/ http://www.johnhattaway.com/2004/09/what-a-weekend/#comments Tue, 14 Sep 2004 04:58:16 +0000 smokingpen http://www.johnhattaway.com/?p=15 I took Andy, Debbie and the girls to the airport last Friday. On the one hand its nice to not have to deal with the shrieking and screaming of two little girls, on the other I’ve discovered that I don’t like being alone. Being alone is no longer very comfortable to me. This is new, maybe it is a surprise, probably not but maybe, and sitting around has only caused me to consider the cosmos a little more of late.

Considering the cosmos is really not a good thing. I mentally head off to a place that most people don’t understand and cannot relate to. I start to ask questions and pose problems that sometimes may broach on anti-religious, anti-social, and anti-everything else. There are a lot of other indicators of my slipping into cosmos mode, but they aren’t important.

Anyway, spent Saturday working on a new idea that is directly connected to a vein of thought that has been a recurring dream for years now and got some good pages written, I think. I opened up a couple of other writing projects and didn’t do much with any of them – though I did start a second draft on a science fiction short I’ve been working on for a while, thinking about, creating back story of, etc. Don’t know why there is a lot of work going into something so short, but here, I am planning on submitting some of these things for publication (read money) and the better it is the more likely it will be published.

There are a couple of other writing projects that I’ve spent time on. One of them, if I gave the working title would give to much of the story away, so let’s just say it’s speculative in an interesting direction. And the other stuff, single story right now, is for children. “You know, for children.”

About a year ago I was thinking about writing a series of stories based off of experiences and observations on my older sisters children. The idea wasn’t something I abandoned and it’s not something I’ve pursued either… until lately. Just remember that names have been changed to convict the guilty.

I also received the registration information for StandingWater Creations for the state of New Hampshire.

Sunday saw me awake about two hours before I needed to and at church about 40 minutes early. I like to get to church early. Got to give the opening prayer in sacrament meeting and finally received a calling – not that I’ve been in this branch very long. I was hoping to see the CES fireside and tried to find a place to watch it, but found out that this stake doesn’t show the firesides on the days they are broadcast, saving them for a break the fast get together later on. This was VERY frustrating.

I did get to spend a lot of time during the day contemplating my place in life. It gets frustrating to be 30 and single. Especially in a Mormon environment. My contemplation wasn’t directly related to my singleness, and it didn’t exactly stay away from the subject either. One of the biggest frustrations with this move has been that I am single, I just moved to New England from Utah, and I have not been on a date since two days before I moved out here – and that was a blind date with a girl that thought I was all peaches and cream and totally loved talking to me. During that meeting that I should never have let happen I realized I was going to be bored so I told a lot of stories. I made her laugh and kept her laughing. Guess there are reasons why some people, a lot of people, call me the life of the party. I don’t believe it, but then I live inside my own head.

Contemplations extended to other areas. You know, all of those important things. My weekend. What has been happening? Why me? Why now? Why here? Why. Why. Why. I can probably ask that question a million-million different ways and never get tired of doing it. Part of the problem with asking that question, though, is that if you ask it to much you start to sound like you are totally dependent and faithless. I believe that I have a right to ask and pursue answers, but at the same time I understand the need to show some measure of trust in the system.

By the time I was done I’d written pages in my journal, added some impressions I’d received during the day, wrote down some other stuff, and had some feelings in areas that get to sit on a shelf indefinitely because I’m not sure I like the feelings. Okay, it has nothing to do with liking or not and everything to do with my personal ability to accept what is going on. Needful to say, Boston isn’t out of the mix even though I am living and going to school in New Hampshire, I think I have found a small bit of direction toward a career (though this will undoubtedly change) and then there were feelings about things I may do someday that I thought were in my past rather than still in my future. Sit them all on a shelf, wait, pray, contemplate, go to the temple (not as easy out here as in Utah), and wait. In truth, a lot of things just get to happen before I may ever know.

Oh, and I finished ripping most of my CD’s. Now I have a series of classical music CD’s that need to be ripped, but I don’t recall where that CD case is so… it’s not imperative at present. And I would really like to start acquiring heavy beat, fast, dance music. Saw an ad on television the other night for some compilation CD’s and considered buying them… but not one second before I acquire the next expansion for Killer Bunnies with the Zodiac cards.

Because I received the registration certificate on Saturday I was able to go and finish setting up a business checking account. What this really means is that I have one more checking account I have to pay attention to.

When I got home from the bank the phone was ringing and it was Borders books. Borders actually broke the silence and interviewed me maybe a week ago and I had pretty much written them off as an employment possibility. Garth, the manager who did the initial interview, called to offer me a part-time position with that company. Because I need to be working somewhere at something I accepted the position. It will be a hybrid position between the cash registers and the café. I am a little tentative about this, but at the same time I need to be doing more so here it goes.

I did write a piece on one of the tellers. This lady was… uhm, stacked. When she walked past me I saw her headlights before I ever saw her. On top of that there was this hottie who stood right next to her and in the end (I got to wait for over an hour) I created a comparison between the two that seems like it belongs in some kind of a story. Truth told, I will probably save it and sit on it indefinitely.

Justin called last night to tell me he was sending me a paper he’d worked on. My opinions don’t matter, but I did rework large parts of it, sent him the process I use to write and the drafts and questions I asked to get to what I was working on, and he said he was going to call me but that hasn’t happened.

I did start to read, out loud, Much Ado About Nothing a Shakes piece that is due for my Lit class this week. Reading out loud, for me, doesn’t always denote getting what I am reading. Reading to myself is a lot faster and I get a lot more of it. But, the teacher likes to pick on me, I like to pick back, and he has me read when I am sitting there. Have to get used to Shakes and his writing because last week it was A Midsummer Nights Dream and we will go through Richard III, Hamlet, Julius Ceasar, and others. Two months doesn’t seem like enough time to go through Shakes.

Beyond all of that I am ready to find something… and I sorta know what that something is, but how to get to the something I don’t know.

Real Heroes Fly ]]> http://www.johnhattaway.com/2004/09/what-a-weekend/feed/ 0