I've spent a lot of time at work these past few days talking to people -- maybe all of us are trying to distract ourselves from the heat. Anyway, someone in a book I read recently said there's a reason people talk a lot about the weather. It's always relevant and human, automatic common ground: "Hey, you're sweating? Me too!"
On Sunday a couple of guys sat at the patio bar to smoke and eat hamburgers and watch Ari and I empty melted ice out of a six-foot beer canoe. It was so hot and if I'd been at home I would have been soaked by the end. As it was, we were toying with the line where it became throwing ice water at each other. The one guy was pretty chatty, obviously the alpha male. His name is David and he told me that he grew up in this town -- his first job was at Pizza Man, right next door. He left to go down to the Cities and work, but he's back now. "I swear I never wanted to come back here," he said, "but now I am." I got the feeling there was more to it, but I didn't push him because the point was the feeling that you can never escape.
I said I knew what he meant and told a story about coming back to college in Minnesota after moving far, far away when I was 7 years old, but I was really thinking about Amsterdam, and how a huge part of me wants nothing more than to go back. But those of us who have figured out how to escape for real often wrestle with an opposite problem: how to return from self-exile. Lupe Fiasco is singing about going to war for the ghetto boys and girls, which is something Ludacris also sang about once upon a time and maybe still does -- but that's a bit of a different ball game from hoes in clubs and ridiculous suits and cars.
The couple who came in after David and Mike had a son who just graduated from St. Thomas, who now lives at home and doesn't have a job. They seemed concerned about him, jealous and impressed that I have found a way to use my time and energy constructively. (The conversation went kind of like, "Well, you didn't study to wait tables..." To which I replied, "Yeah, but I need a break!" They smiled and said, "Good for you!") They expressed envy at the emphasis our generation places on studying abroad, and said they wished they'd had the opportunity to live Somewhere Else for a couple of months. I told them about my parents picking up and leaving, and I told them about Woodstock... But they've lived in the Twin Cities for most of their lives, and probably always will.
On Monday it was just me out front and Eric in the kitchen and a guy came in and ordered a Canadian Crown 7 and a chicken sandwich. He knew Eric (half the people who come in seem to know Eric) and came to pick him up to run equipment. But while Eric finished up a few orders, we got to talking. He told me how he spent the morning roofing and at 11:30 they called it quits because it was just too hot to stay up there tarring shingles. Turns out that's his day job -- his night job is bartending at the Tavern, and he gets his 8 hours of sleep in one- or two-hour chunks throughout the day. "What I need to do is get a new job so I can quit both and just work that one," he said.
"So if you could do anything," I said, "what would it be? What's your dream job?" Thinking that's the kind of question people stop asking once you're halfway through college. Because we're too scared to answer it once we know the stakes.
"Welllll... I used to have an auto body shop," he said, and told me how he turned it around from losing $10,000 a year to making $40,000+ per year. Two years back, he told me, he got caught in some "corporate downsizing." The guy who works his job now makes half as much as he used to. "But if I ever did auto body again, I'd have my own shop. I'm not working for anybody again." He'd been burned and was obviously still nursing the scars, like someone heartbroken who can hardly believe in love anymore. He perked up after a moment, switching tack: "A guy I graduated with works for a boat company and his only task is to go out on the weekends and test out boats, just tool around on the lake all day. So I guess my dream job would be to test drive motorcycles and ATVs, that kind of thing. But if I had enough money I'd retire and have fun, do all the things I don't have time to do now."
At Logger's last night Ann and I met a bunch of actors from the theater. A jolly gray-bearded man with glasses who'd come into the restaurant the day before asked the same question: "So you didn't study to wait tables...?" (I love the phrasing. Never fails.) And in turn I gave the same reply: "I'm just figuring it out. I'm not worried about it." I used to say that defensively, to cover up the fact that I actually was worried about it. But now I actually mean it. I'm not worried. I'm making more money than I spend so I can put some away. I'm in shape, eating well, having fun, meeting people every day. I hardly blink at ticks and flying insects anymore. I haven't cried in at least a week, which in my case is sometimes more a sign of dysfunction than success, but mainly my life is keeping a pleasant rhythm and tempo these days. I'm in tune, overall, and I'm gathering steam and ideas to take on the next step when it comes. But I'm not running to meet it. "Hey, I'm still figuring out my life too!" said the gray-bearded man. "These kids are all worried about what they're going to do with their lives but really, we're all just figuring it out!"
We struggle with dreams, because sometimes they don't come true and then we feel like idiots. We can't seem to situate ourselves at the happy medium between shooting for the stars and getting comfortable. So many of us spend our lives striving for something so far-off we never get there, and then we never are anywhere for a second. On the other hand, so many of us get stuck in not being worried about it, to the point of doing nothing ever.
And maybe some people balance the equation.
On Sunday a couple of guys sat at the patio bar to smoke and eat hamburgers and watch Ari and I empty melted ice out of a six-foot beer canoe. It was so hot and if I'd been at home I would have been soaked by the end. As it was, we were toying with the line where it became throwing ice water at each other. The one guy was pretty chatty, obviously the alpha male. His name is David and he told me that he grew up in this town -- his first job was at Pizza Man, right next door. He left to go down to the Cities and work, but he's back now. "I swear I never wanted to come back here," he said, "but now I am." I got the feeling there was more to it, but I didn't push him because the point was the feeling that you can never escape.
I said I knew what he meant and told a story about coming back to college in Minnesota after moving far, far away when I was 7 years old, but I was really thinking about Amsterdam, and how a huge part of me wants nothing more than to go back. But those of us who have figured out how to escape for real often wrestle with an opposite problem: how to return from self-exile. Lupe Fiasco is singing about going to war for the ghetto boys and girls, which is something Ludacris also sang about once upon a time and maybe still does -- but that's a bit of a different ball game from hoes in clubs and ridiculous suits and cars.
The couple who came in after David and Mike had a son who just graduated from St. Thomas, who now lives at home and doesn't have a job. They seemed concerned about him, jealous and impressed that I have found a way to use my time and energy constructively. (The conversation went kind of like, "Well, you didn't study to wait tables..." To which I replied, "Yeah, but I need a break!" They smiled and said, "Good for you!") They expressed envy at the emphasis our generation places on studying abroad, and said they wished they'd had the opportunity to live Somewhere Else for a couple of months. I told them about my parents picking up and leaving, and I told them about Woodstock... But they've lived in the Twin Cities for most of their lives, and probably always will.
On Monday it was just me out front and Eric in the kitchen and a guy came in and ordered a Canadian Crown 7 and a chicken sandwich. He knew Eric (half the people who come in seem to know Eric) and came to pick him up to run equipment. But while Eric finished up a few orders, we got to talking. He told me how he spent the morning roofing and at 11:30 they called it quits because it was just too hot to stay up there tarring shingles. Turns out that's his day job -- his night job is bartending at the Tavern, and he gets his 8 hours of sleep in one- or two-hour chunks throughout the day. "What I need to do is get a new job so I can quit both and just work that one," he said.
"So if you could do anything," I said, "what would it be? What's your dream job?" Thinking that's the kind of question people stop asking once you're halfway through college. Because we're too scared to answer it once we know the stakes.
"Welllll... I used to have an auto body shop," he said, and told me how he turned it around from losing $10,000 a year to making $40,000+ per year. Two years back, he told me, he got caught in some "corporate downsizing." The guy who works his job now makes half as much as he used to. "But if I ever did auto body again, I'd have my own shop. I'm not working for anybody again." He'd been burned and was obviously still nursing the scars, like someone heartbroken who can hardly believe in love anymore. He perked up after a moment, switching tack: "A guy I graduated with works for a boat company and his only task is to go out on the weekends and test out boats, just tool around on the lake all day. So I guess my dream job would be to test drive motorcycles and ATVs, that kind of thing. But if I had enough money I'd retire and have fun, do all the things I don't have time to do now."
At Logger's last night Ann and I met a bunch of actors from the theater. A jolly gray-bearded man with glasses who'd come into the restaurant the day before asked the same question: "So you didn't study to wait tables...?" (I love the phrasing. Never fails.) And in turn I gave the same reply: "I'm just figuring it out. I'm not worried about it." I used to say that defensively, to cover up the fact that I actually was worried about it. But now I actually mean it. I'm not worried. I'm making more money than I spend so I can put some away. I'm in shape, eating well, having fun, meeting people every day. I hardly blink at ticks and flying insects anymore. I haven't cried in at least a week, which in my case is sometimes more a sign of dysfunction than success, but mainly my life is keeping a pleasant rhythm and tempo these days. I'm in tune, overall, and I'm gathering steam and ideas to take on the next step when it comes. But I'm not running to meet it. "Hey, I'm still figuring out my life too!" said the gray-bearded man. "These kids are all worried about what they're going to do with their lives but really, we're all just figuring it out!"
We struggle with dreams, because sometimes they don't come true and then we feel like idiots. We can't seem to situate ourselves at the happy medium between shooting for the stars and getting comfortable. So many of us spend our lives striving for something so far-off we never get there, and then we never are anywhere for a second. On the other hand, so many of us get stuck in not being worried about it, to the point of doing nothing ever.
And maybe some people balance the equation.
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