Tremors Beneath Our Proud Tower

On August 23, 2011, I was one of hundreds of consultants and bureaucrats sweating through my suit at midday on the national mall in Washington, DC. Milling about in our evacuation points and surrounded by curious tourists willing to brave the sauna that is our capitol in late Summer, most of us were scared. Minutes ago we were packed into our various conference rooms and cubicles, going about our latest very important discussion concerning our latest very important deliverable we would forget in a month’s time. I remember looking back into a room I had just left to see the conference table I had just used rise and fall like a raft passing over a swell in the surf. Did I just imagine that, or have a dizzy spell from too much coffee? No on both counts. As if in answer to my question, the dusty fire alarms of our aging federal building blared, and down the steps we went, many of us in a panic. 

Nobody believed what we had felt came from a natural source. Many of us were heads-down on our phones, flailing for information we could use about what was really happening. Were we under attack? Was part of the plan luring evacuees from nearby buildings into a concentrated area in the open – one of great American significance? It was 2011 and we’d had nearly a decade to learn that anything was possible. One of our junior analysts, a young woman who was both a talented H1B contractor and a person of tiny stature, began to cry from the anxiety of it. 

Our first evidence that there had been an earthquake and not a terrorist attack was not from the internet, but from a helicopter. Carefully approaching the Washington monument, it began flying a lazy, corkscrew pattern around the obelisk. We started to understand that they had begun a hasty inspection to identify if any severe cracks had formed, which likely meant we had just experienced a minor version of what Californians endure all of the time. Our west coast colleagues had no shortage of fun at our expense in the next few hours, gleefully posting pictures of overturned coffee mugs and lawn furniture, tagging them “scenes from the devastation of the D.C. Earthquake.”

I am not writing this today of all days out of a sudden need to reminisce. Part of the lingering effects of spending a lot of your parents’ money (and your own credit rating) on an English degree, followed by two years of teaching high school, is a chronic tendency towards identifying symbolism and irony and making odd connections between disparate events – sometimes when they aren’t even valid comparisons. I’m fairly certain this one, however, is close to the mark when it comes to where we find ourselves.

For the better part of the past year, Donald Trump has been nothing short of a series of escalating tremors felt in America’s political landscape. Even before standing with the other candidates at the Reagan library for the first GOP debate he has confounded the establishment. I’ve become almost – almost – numb to his seeming invulnerability to blows that would have annihilated his predecessors and primary opponents. Mock the disabled? If Jeb Bush had done it – take a seat. Multiple, gleefully confessed affairs? Enjoy your parting gifts, Ted Cruz. Scores of lawsuits from jilted or shorted partners? Time to be a regular on the Sunday shows, Marco Rubio.

Yet in spite of the hyperbole, the vulgarity, the reference to anatomy – he vanquished them all. I see many reasons for this. The first is the willful fascination of a mainstream media driven by the relentless news cycle and need for revenue, found only by creating excitement at the expense of fact.  As we are also learning through WikiLeaks and the “Podesta emails,” there may have also been more nefarious forces at work. The second is our celebrity-obsessed culture. Who hasn’t seen Trump on television striding confidently in slow-motion from his private plane during the opening sequence of “The Apprentice?” I think I’m safe in betting a month’s salary that it’s significantly higher than those who have ever viewed a congressional hearing on C-Span.  Also vital to mention here is the utter incompetence of the GOP as a functioning organization. For years, they’ve been called the “stupid party” – not for its members, but for its direction or lack thereof.  This year they earned every last syllable of the insult. 

But lastly, and most importantly, is this: Trump saw the ways in which we as Americans are truly, deeply divided – and sought to exploit it.  Mixed into his sizzle was just enough Trump steak. Our immigration system is broken. Over the past quarter-century of its vigorous implementation, free trade has devastated traditional industry while enriching the highly educated of our bi-coastal elite. The subsequent economic vacuum was filled in disadvantaged cities such as my Baltimore with drugs, crime and the misguided policies of corrupt politics. In foreign policy, our nation has witnessed a resurgent Russia dictating the terms of engagement in a brutal civil war in Syria that has become a humanitarian catastrophe and a global shame. Power vacuums left from our Iraqi withdrawal and botched Libyan intervention helped facilitate the rise of ISIS.

Trump spent months bloviating on all of these topics. Above all of the noise were his battle cries of "MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!" and “THE SYSTEM IS RIGGED!” Yes, to both. But lying below the obvious cracks are even deeper fissures which have earned almost no attention when attention has been most needed. Our progressive programs and foreign adventures have combined to create a national debt soaring over the twenty trillion-dollar mark – six figures owed by each and every man, woman and child. Despite the statistical sleight-of-hand performed monthly by the Department of Labor, our workforce participation rate – the percentage of American adults of working age actually working – is at its lowest level in forty years. The growth of complexity in federal regulations has been staggering. According to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) in 1960 stood at 22,877 pages. By the end of 2013 the CFR had exploded to 175,496 pages. The US tax code alone is over 70,000 pages long. And as Trump has so clumsily reminded us, it’s full of loopholes.

Does the Trump/Pence ticket even have concrete plans for implementing their agenda to which America can refer? I spent an hour or so perusing the position papers on the campaign website. My best answer to the question is: sort of, if you consider documentation about as deep as marketing collateral “plans.” Some of it scratches many of my Libertarian itches: simplify taxes, pause regulatory growth, roll back the overreach of the EPA, among others. But the details never get below the bullet point level. Absent more information, everything his campaign site (or Clinton’s campaign site, for that matter) promises to change in our country evaporates with a single question: how? 

Attempts at reform (or at least simplification) in our current environment yield little to no result. Decades of rampant Gerrymandering have placed an emphasis on more ideologically “pure” candidates within each party’s primaries, creating a polarized representative branch that vapor-locks upon any attempt at serious legislation. Those lucky, skilled or wealthy enough to navigate the brutal path through a congressional election find an environment best described as a state of permanent campaigning. Current and former representatives tell stories of being led by party members to rows of cubicle phone banks, saddled with the expectation of raising $10,000 per day to be considered competitive in a re-election. This leaves little room for serious legislating or – even worse – connecting with constituents.

This is the type of conversation I wanted, hoped, needed the election of 2016 to provide. We got Trump instead. And like an American Icarus, the longer he remained aloft and ignored the dangers of hubris, the more the sunlight melted the wax in his wings.

He had to know this was coming, didn’t he? Spend most of your adult life as a celebrity and it becomes nearly impossible to hide the worst parts of yourself, especially in our time of pocket-sized devices that hold more information than the best personal computer of 1980. And so in predictable fashion, the recordings and accusations began to drop. The vulgarity. The infidelity. The misogyny. The pettiness. The inference of sexual assault. Most of all, the hubris. After all, when you’re a celebrity they’ll let you do anything, right?

Maybe Trump failed to recognize that the world had changed too much to hide these revelations. Considering his demonstration of media savvy, I doubt it. I think he knew and didn’t care. Worse still, I believe that he considered it a perverse opportunity. The Clintons have their own sordid history. Subject him to a referendum on his character, and he will subject Hillary Clinton to the very same thing. Which is, of course, exactly what he did in the second presidential debate. 

Except there’s a difference. We suspect – hell, we know – that Hillary is guilty of corruption, destruction of evidence, character assassination – yet somehow, amazingly, she has become the lesser of two evils in this election. A media manipulator should understand that perception is reality in 2016 America, and the simple truth is that while she is rightly perceived as a potentially terrible President, it is also true that he presents an image that cannot be reconciled with occupying 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  She has leveraged a system to enrich herself and harm her enemies. You just inflict the harm yourself, Donald. The country barely tolerates the first, but is terrified and disgusted by the second. You lose.

She will be more of the same, insulated by a system that protects and perpetuates more of the same. For Trump, the fall will be long, loud, and obscene. In his collapse is where I believe we find the greatest divide among us. 

To illustrate: two stories from my own life. Sunday mornings in the Fall mean double-header baseball games in my over-30 league. My team is a group of decent, hard-working guys, many of whom work in what might be called blue-collar professions – good jobs, important jobs, but also the kind of jobs that have grown less commonplace. Between innings and waiting on the bench for your turn at bat often affords chances to talk. Since I’m a political junkie and was still hearing the Access Hollywood "bombshell" recording echo in my ears, I asked the biggest questions on my mind: what did you think? Will you be watching tonight? This began a series of loud, angry complaints about Trump – specifically, how Trump was being treated. One team member: “it is just locker room talk!” Another: “You know the media’s just hiding worse about her.”

Another story. Since the release of Trump’s conversation with Billy Bush, my wife has engaged in furious arguments over Facebook, which has been quite the battlefield in this election. A full disclosure about these conversations is in order. Both my wife and I are relatives to someone who was sexually assaulted. Eerily enough, the manner in which she was assaulted was almost exactly what Trump described. While neither of us were Trump supporters before, you can guess my wife’s reaction to these recordings, as well as mine. Her true heat and fury, however, has been aimed at the women in her social network defending Trump. At one point Sunday evening prior to the debate, my wife screamed at her laptop, yelling “HOW CAN YOU POSSIBLY CALL HIM AN AGENT OF GOD!?” No, I said. No one said that. 

Sure enough, they did. And it took me all of thirty seconds of searching in Twitter before I found this example:

And this one:

And this one:

So here we are. In the face of a republic straining under the weight of its own complexity, cost and divergent culture, a significant number of the American people are willing – eager, even – to overlook an obvious sociopath’s flaws in the name of change. They will forgive his lack of character, lack of humility, even his lack of competence – because he can be the one to finally throw all of the bums out.  Michael Moore, a man with whom I have now agreed only once, put it this way: “Donald Trump is a Molotov cocktail that forty percent of the American people want to throw at Washington.”

Trump will fail. Too many Americans see too much danger in it. But we cannot forget it. Viewed in the correct context, in his own ugly, narcissistic, incoherent manner Donald Trump has performed a service for this country. In deference to Mr. Moore’s analogy, I like my metaphor better. Donald Trump has been a political and cultural earthquake. In shocking the system, he has illuminated dozens of fault lines and fractures inside our version of what Barbara Tuchman in discussing nineteenth-century Europe called “The Proud Tower.” 

To our likely next President, Hillary Clinton, I can only say this: don’t ignore the tremors. Make your first priority – before any specific policy agenda to add to your own personal legacy – beginning the hard and sometimes mundane work of inspection, reconciliation, repair. Want to help provide small business relief? Don't simply pepper your speeches with references to it.  Fill your White House appointment book with small business owners. Sit in a room with them and take notes. Fix Obamacare? Learn its effects on real people, both for better and worse. Listen and listen. Then listen some more. Then act collaboratively with Congress. I don't think you would expect this to be easy or pleasant, but pens and phones are shortcuts that close one structural flaw at the expense of creating another. You’ve been around long enough to know that. Don’t repeat mistakes out of mere precedent and opportunity.

To our media, a word of caution: most of you are in desperate need of a dose of circumspection. If you honestly believe America does not realize that your thumb is on the scale for one party or another, you have spent an unhealthy amount of time moving in circles of like-minded people. I know this doesn't happen through statements made that are  actually false; it's far subtler. Too many outlets maintain a narrative, either leftward or rightward, by acting as gatekeepers controlling what facts are provided the most exposure. Much of this is justified by the notion that others show more data from an opposing viewpoint, so rationalizing a response in kind is an easy leap. Get out of your ideological comfort zones. Remember that picture of being a Journalist you carried into college? Be that Journalist. You're running out of time. Among the major institutions of American society, newspapers and television news are among the least trusted according to polling data, right ahead of - you guessed it - big business and Congress.

Finally, to all of us: Voltaire wrote that "history is filled with the sound of silken slippers going downstairs and wooden shoes going up." Most of Europe has been clad in silk for some time, thanks to its welfare state - and its sun is setting. Whole swaths of Asia have strapped on their wooden shoes and are climbing. And far too much of the Middle East simply want all of us gone. Our uniquely American gifts of freedom and self-renewal bless us with an ability rare in mankind - the power of choice. Let's not give in to cynicism, or content ourselves with entertaining distractions. Between the lowest levels of American life - families - and the highest levels of our government, there are middle layers that have weakened over time. We can fix that. We can start ventures, volunteer time, join political groups. And in paying attention to our government, we can follow Sharyl Attkisson's closing words from Stonewalled: "Do your own research. Consult those you trust. Make up your own mind. Think for yourself." 

I doubt much of this will happen - though I do have far more faith in ordinary Americans than our leaders or those who report (or decide not to report) on how they exercise their power. But I fear that all of this needs to begin, right now, to halt our decline. America needs to recognize what has happened: the election of 2016 has shaken every one of our foundations. Find the cracks.  Start the long road to fixing them. Because if we plow ahead in the name of progress – building atop our damaged foundations – I am afraid that our proud tower is coming down.

An Open Letter to The GOP's Former Presidential Candidates

An Open Letter to Senators Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio et al: 

Dear (Former) Presidential Candidates: 

I hope this letter finds you well, but I suspect it will find you in a rather dark place.  I am writing this on May 4th, the day after the Indiana primary and the day that Donald Trump became, both in the eyes of the media and the feckless Chairman of the GOP, the “presumptive nominee” for your party’s nomination for President of the United States.  

You fought the good fight.  Your campaigns were, by and large, driven by a substantive vision for the country and the Republican Party's role in fulfilling it.  Your conduct was with few exceptions the classic definition of presidential.  You waged vigorous debates based on ideas, policies and an understanding of the mechanisms of power in the 21st century.  

Unfortunately, what was unclear to both you and many of us was the mood of the electorate.  In the words of The Federalist’s Ben Domenech, “it turned out that everyone was angry.”  The country’s anger is deep, based on decades of industrial and cultural decline, and sadly has proven itself to be irrational.  And so, through a confluence of events we have come to a point where a narcissistic, billionaire ex-game show host devoid of principle has hijacked the party of Lincoln for his own selfish, incoherent ends.  In so doing, he has all but assured our country’s election of a corrupt socialist and our continued lurch towards the moribund socioeconomics of Europe.

I have spent the entire day in a fog of despair.  A little about me: I’m not a Republican.  I am, however, someone who identifies as conservative.  I believe in both the structure and the limits of the Constitution, and its underlying philosophy that human rights are not granted by a government, but are innate and not to be infringed.  I am worried that these inalienable rights are under attack – not only those found in the second amendment, but also those of the fourth, fifth, ninth and tenth.  I would no doubt disagree with you on some points of social policy; for example, my wife and I have had some life experiences that have led me to the conclusion that a woman must retain a measure of choosing what happens to her in pregnancy.  But in the basic principles of our republic, we are very much allies.

I have voted in every election for which I was eligible since I was eighteen years old.  With each passing cycle, I have resorted more and more to writing in candidates that I believed represented my principles, knowing that the choices remaining to me were anathema to my idea of American leadership.  And I have arrived, in 2016, at a place that leaves me wondering whether or not I should even continue to fulfill my most important duty as a citizen.  I wonder if the words of a late, great radio host of my region are true: “If voting mattered, they wouldn’t let you anymore.”    

Those of us who believe in constitutional ideals are growing increasingly disenfranchised.  There is no longer a prominent political entity that represents us.  This cannot stand.  Because of this, I humbly suggest you consider the following proposal.

  

As prominent members of the Republican Party, I assume that you will have a correspondingly important place at the convention in July.  Please attend.  Perform any and all functions asked of you – until Donald Trump addresses the convention to accept the party’s nomination. At this time, take the best remaining action left to you.

Leave.

Stand up from your seat.  Without a word or glance to a camera, walk away from the podium.  Take as many delegates with you as you can.  I believe that many of them will follow.  

I realize that this will in effect destroy any future you may have in the GOP.  But ask yourself: what are you leaving?  To paraphrase Reagan’s explanation of his departure from the Democratic Party: didn’t the GOP leave you long ago?  What do they stand for other than winning?  In that, how are they any different from Democrats?  This is the heart of what so many of us in America have grown to despise about politics.  To us, there are no more public servants; only opportunists, consultants and lobbyists.  It is, ironically, what explains in part Trump's popularity, though you know most of all that this is a ruse.

Change that.  Walk away from the system that has failed, and the next day call a press conference to disavow the GOP’s nomination and declare your independence from the party.  Start a new coalition based not just on principles rooted in our country’s timeless desire to be free from all forms of tyranny, but on a sincere belief that to lead our country is to serve.  

The GOP will hate you.  The press will denigrate you.  Popular culture will mock you. But I truly believe that history will admire and thank you.

I desperately want to hope for and believe in America again.  Thousands – millions of us – want the same thing.  Step away from the old constructs and find us.  We’re out here… And we know that no one man makes America great again.  We all do.

Washington DC’s Lamest Cover-Up Ever

I’m almost forty-four now, and I figure that I’ve lived enough to have some interesting personal stories.  The go-to’s in the bar or the picnic with right crowd.   A few of mine are funny; a few are not.  Two are tragic enough that they hang around in the corners every day, ready to jump.  But they serve one useful purpose: whenever my day sucks, I can compare it to them and conclude “it isn’t nearly as bad as that.”

Then there’s this story.  It was almost tragic (but wasn’t), funny (at my expense), and definitely one that I can compare to a bad day to remind myself it can always get worse.  It has earned its spot in the lineup as my lead-off bar story. 

It begins with how I almost killed a cop.

Not funny, but I’ll explain.  I HAVE to explain that sentence before I trip some sort of search engine that sends the boys in body armor through my windows.  I wasn’t TRYING to kill a cop.  I’m a gainfully-employed, family-raising, functioning adult.  More or less.

It was an accident.  Literally – a traffic accident.  This particular one happens to be the last of many I’ve had, and ever since has prompted me to drive like an eighty-four year old.  It happened in Washington DC and was borne out of many things of which I am intimately familiar: bad decisions, DC traffic, and DC bureaucracy. 

This was in early winter of 2006; despite what happened my memory is terrible enough to be unable to recall the date.  I have no doubt that’s because of my son, who was two at the time.  Let’s be clear about something: my now 11 year-old son is awesome.  He is really an upgraded me: Mom’s good code, Dad’s good code, all neatly packed into a freckle-faced interface with 20/20 vision (which is better than Dad’s by a factor of nine).  But early product development was rocky.  Until he was almost ten years old, when other parents asked us at what age he started sleeping through the night our anger-laugh response was “we’ll let you know!”

So in his terrible twos my commutes south to Baltimore and workdays were a semi-comatose haze.  On this particular evening I was meeting my boss to entertain a client at the International Spy Museum. (If you’re in DC and have the time, go.  It’s fun if you’re into that stuff).  This past year Inrix rated Washington DC as the worst traffic in the nation.  Higher than Los Angeles; higher than New York.  Nobody who drives there LIVES there.  Those living there don’t drive, and their ain’t much in-between about it – they’re either riding public transportation or have a title in front of their name and are being blasted through traffic lights in black armored cars.  (Still the best opening ever to a White House Correspondent’s Dinner routine: Stephen Colbert tells the crowd “before we begin, would the drivers of 14 Black SUVs please move their vehicles; you are blocking 14 Black SUVs that need to get out.”)

So zombie Dad is working until five and headed into the heart of Northwest DC just when the caravan of starched collars in BMWs is dog-piling it in the other direction.  I’m sure you’ve seen DC on a map and know it’s more or less a square on three sides.  The streets are cross-hatched almost exactly to these, and the intersections have traffic lights that often rest on short poles at the corners, not on overhead wires.  I call these “intersections,” but in reality during rush hour they’re “parking spaces.”  Oh – are you looking to turn left?  Is THAT what this space that exists between perpendicular directions is for?  Goodness; I had plans to stare straight ahead and pretend you don’t exist.  Sorry!        

I had finally shoehorned my Jetta’s front end into the crossroads of New York Avenue and D Street.  I was behind one more car looking to turn left; the light was turning yellow and we both began palming our steering wheels to make a break for a space that had appeared between a sedan and a delivery truck.  Yes, there should only be one car in the intersection and what I’m doing is technically illegal.  But for fuck’s sake, the last time there was an opening to turn was ten minutes ago, and zombie Dad’s not really into making good decisions these days anyway. 

Car #1 makes it through with me hot on his bumper as the light flicks to red.  Here’s where the cop comes in. 

And by “cop,” I mean motorcycle cop.  And by “in” I mean in the intersection flashing his sirens.  Around the OUTSIDE of the delivery truck.  Where neither of us can see each other until… Let’s just say I knew he needed a shave and a boot shine. 

I slam on my brakes, he slams on his, and I watch in ultra HD as this very large police officer flips over his very large Harley’s handlebars and disappears, head first, in front of my Jetta’s grille.

I don’t know how many times in your life you’ve experienced pure terror.  I sincerely hope your answer’s “none except for the little kid stuff”.  Regardless, I’m pretty sure you’ve heard the expression “oh my god, I pissed/shit my pants I was so scared!”  I can tell you – those are not the only options.  They’re just doors number one and two.  Door number three’s the ass pucker.  I swear that after his boots vanished under my windshield my first coherent thought was “I think my ass just swallowed itself”.

I was too terrified to even register if I had hit him.  I backed up, turned and eased my car onto the right shoulder of D Street.  There was suddenly a LOT of drivers giving me space. 

When I stopped and shut down the engine, I knew what I needed to do.  I needed to look behind me into that intersection.  I am fully expecting to see a dead body and what will likely be the end of whatever I was hoping to do for the next ten to fifteen years. 

What I see is a very much alive police officer, forearm only slightly cut, standing up his damaged motorcycle and walking towards me with a wave and a smile – A SMILE – yelling “I’m fine!  I’m fine!”  The relief is unlike anything I’ve experienced.

The not-dead cop is at my window now, asking me to get out of my car.  For a moment, I click back into pucker mode. I’m thinking it’s time to join that wonderful minority of guys in suits sporting handcuffs.  But when I get out – no handcuffs.  No yelling.  This guy is NICE.  “Are you OK?” he asks. Am I OK?  This is the almost-vehicular manslaughter victim checking on me.  I’m not really processing much, but I am dimly processing the oddity of this.

So there we were on the shoulder: him with his bleeding forearm and me without handcuffs.  I’m still shocked about how not in trouble I am.  I think if it had stayed the two of us, we would have made certain both of our vehicles were drivable and been on our way, as unbelievable as that is.  I don’t understand why this is heading in that direction, but I’ll take it. 

It does NOT stay the two of us.  To this day, I am convinced that something happens in a command center somewhere when a police motorcycle tips over.  It’s either that or traffic pattern karma had REALLY decided to bend me over.  Because over the next five minutes, the following parks across from us: two patrol cars, one fire truck, and one CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION VEHICLE.  I swear I am NOT kidding here.

All of the occupants get out, call over my forgiving not-victim and begin a heated discussion next to one of the patrol cars.  I’m asked to stay by my vehicle on the other side of the road, so I can’t hear what they’re saying.  There are lots of animated gestures.  My blackberry begins to accumulate a series of “where the fuck are you” messages from my boss.  Passerby are staring.

This, folks, is where I shit my pants. 

No, I didn’t full-on let go.  I’m not a toddler.  But, well, I added a new set of skid marks to D Street.

A good ten minutes pass.  The confab of cops settles down.  I’m waiting, standing next to my car, marinating.  Finally one of the other patrolmen approaches me with two pieces of paper and a pen.

He says more or less this: “Sir, we’re terribly sorry for the delay.  I do need to write you a warning, but it’s just a formality.  You can go home and throw it away.  Since this involved a vehicle occupied by an officer, you’ll need to write a brief statement of what happened, ok?”

What the fuck?  After a near fatal miss, a small parade’s worth of hardware (why was the fire truck EVER there?), a mini FOP convention and a pair of soiled underpants, the end result is two pieces of paperwork?  Why?

I get my answer when I lay the statement form onto the roof of my car and start to bring the pen to it.  I’m stopped by a very large police officer with a cut forearm.  And when I look up at him, he is glaring at me like I thought he should have from the start. 

And he more or less says this: “Here. Is what.  We are saying. We did.”

I’m reasonably certain there is only one explanation here.  Back when I almost killed him half an hour ago, I had assumed that he was plowing through the intersection, sirens blaring, to get somewhere.  I’m pretty sure that was the shit HE was full of.  He was headed home and didn’t feel like waiting at another cocked-up traffic intersection.  Just like me. 

We spun quite the tale, the two of us.  That statement was Tom Clancy precise.  We referenced exact distances.  Sunset glare in mirrors at specific angles.  Reaction speeds.  For the time it took to write it down, we were partners – partners in the lamest, most pathetic, least significant cover-up in DC history.

I eventually made it to The Spy Museum after an emergency stop for pants (and boxers) at a men’s store.  I had hastily pounded out an almost nonsensical explanation to my boss, and filled in the gaps when I arrived.  He took one look at me, walked me to the bar and ordered me a double.  Of which I had five more. 

I still have the warning in my glove compartment.  It’s a ridiculous little memento of the single most absurd thing to happen to me.  Most important, though, is that it’s a reminder.  Whatever stress or anxiety I might have had in my day, I have not almost killed a cop.  I have not shat myself.  And I’m a bona fide Washington co-conspirator.  Life is okay.

The Chemical Hard Reset

Hello, World.  Again.

 

I had all of the best intentions to re-start a blog with gusto in the past week.  However, I’ll make it clear very quickly why that didn’t happen… and why it’s very possible that the title of this blog may become more than a bit ironic.

  

Ever wonder about the official definition of a “hard reset?”  Here’s what you find when you google the definition:

“A hard reset, also known as a factory reset or master reset, is the restoration of a device to the state it was in when it left the factory. All settings, applications and data added by the user are removed.”

Strictly from a chemical perspective, my brain ran headlong into its own version of a hard reset this past week. 

 

Monday morning, September 21.  Unofficially, the first day of autumn… and I was in a foul mood.  I often am as the fall begins.  I love summer.  Baseball, lighter Northeast traffic during rush hour, grilled meats… what’s not to love?  There were more specific reasons for my mood boiling on the surface.  Not important for this post, but maybe more some other time.  This is about chemicals, first and foremost stimulants.

 

Ah, stimulants.  My second favorite drug behind depressants, and my favorite for mornings.  For fun, let’s start keeping score of the stimulants Mr. Coffee Dog imbibed on this lovely morning.  Leading off, as always on a weekday, is 72 mg of Concerta, a.k.a. Methylphenidate, or Adderall. Before you ask: yes, it’s legal.  I’ve had a valid prescription since Middle School.  I washed down the pills with a cup of Donut House coffee straight from my morning girl Friday, the Keurig. 

I was chasing this buzz at 5:30 am, with every intention of exercising.  That didn’t happen.  One cup of coffee down, and my fourteen year-old daughter awoke early to run an old-fashioned, between-the-tackles play from the teenager playbook:

a) Stop what I was doing, RIGHT NOW, and 

b) Go get her money to pay for something she needs to pay for TODAY. In this case, it was Homecoming Dance tickets.  She has a date.  God help me. 

So goodbye workout, and hello errand.  Off to the Wawa for a free ATM.  By the way, Wawa has amazing coffee.  Never pass it up.  

(Stimulant score: 72mg Concerta, 34 Oz. of coffee.) 

The errand turns into dropping off the children to school, which turns into being late for my hour-long commute.  I arrive at my office in Owings Mills late for a 9 A.M. meeting after rolling out of bed before the sun is up.  Not cool. 

This is the top of the frustration cake.  There are other layers, many of them.  And like a good tiramisu, I tend to soak them on a daily basis with various morning coffees and evening cocktails.  Or to get back to the technology metaphor – I’ve got a pharmaceutical app for that.  

The reset came about 10:30 am.  

I hung up from a conference call and noticed a ringing in my ears, along with a little dizziness. Neither of these things are unusual for me, especially with caffeine and seasonal allergies.  But the little feeling of vertigo was just a warm-up.  The world began to turn like a playground wheel that the class clown dares everyone to stay on no matter how fast he turns it.  In the space of sixty minutes I had gone from shrugging off the start of a head cold to cold sweat.  I called my wife, and without even listening to my words she heard my tone of voice and said: “I’m coming to get you.” 

All I needed to do was get to my office elevator and meet her in the lobby to get to a doctor.  Instead, I stood to walk out, dropped my hands to my knees and felt the worst vertigo of my life. 

A little something about me: I have a loud, loud voice.  It isn’t that I talk loudly on purpose; I just have big, German-Welsh vocal cords I inherited from my Dad.  Even when he raised his voice, the window glass of our living room shook.  So when I throw up, I’m a bit of a screamer.  It’s purely involuntary, completely unavoidable and (I’m told) akin to the sound you would imagine a person makes if they’re being turned inside-out like a reverse-able sweater.  I scared a lot of people.  Three co-workers picked me up and carried me downstairs to my wife, who drove me, still ralphing nothing but air, to the ER.

The rest I remember like a bad hospital drama episode where the director tries to be “edgy” and films from a first-person shaky-cam perspective.  Except, since the vertigo was relentless, the camera can only point straight down.  Head CT.  Cardiac enzyme tests. IVs, waiting for a bed to be admitted.  You’ve seen TV.

They ruled out the big stuff that can kill a guy in his forties – heart attack and stroke.  Narrowing down the symptoms, the verdict came in late Monday evening: a severe attack of viral vestibular neuritis, or labyrinthitis.  I was prescribed high doses of anti-vertigo medications and given a lot of fluids (apparently I was dangerously dehydrated – imagine!).  And then I did what everyone in hospital rooms do: waited to feel better.  Slept when I could.  Changed channels.  You’ve seen TV.

What I didn’t understand while trying to keep the world still was that aside from the anti-vert and normal things a human needs to stay alive, I hadn’t noticed what I wasn’t getting anymore: my regular doses of legal uppers and downers.   Whatever withdrawal might have come my way was drowned out in the nausea and dizziness from the virus chewing on my right inner ear.  By the time I returned home, those doses had been reduced enough for me to notice that the buzzes I gave my brain were gone.  I’ll be honest – it had been so long since I had felt… even.  Probably before the kids were born and had colicky infancies, thus giving birth to my nickname.  My energy was even, level, like when I was a kid.  Reset.  

I have to tell you, it’s like reconnecting with an old friend.  Even during the last two weeks while still recovering my vision and balance, I woke up when I needed to and went to bed without my usual restless struggle into sleep.  Walking a straight line and holding my attention to a piece of writing (like this one) is still a challenge, but it’ll come.  None of the specialists have used code phrases like “setting proper expectations” or “permanent damage.”  This will go away.  

What I don’t want to go away is the hard reset of the chemicals that make up how I power my thoughts up or down.  Gone are the mornings of filling the thermos with three k-cups of dark roast.  Because they only lead into the residually stressful evenings that demand a stiff Jack and Coke. And the system gets clogged again.  I like even – more than I thought I would. 

Of course, lurking beneath this newly zen me are the old layers of stress, demanding to be heard, only now without a little liquid energy or courage.  I’ll have to square my shoulders and lean into them, caffeine-free and sober.  

Wish me luck. 

The Waiting Place

"...for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or the waiting around for a Yes or No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for the wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting."

Odds are if you grew up in the last twenty years and attended some kind of graduation ceremony, you have read Dr. Seuss' "Oh, The Places You'll Go."  You might have received it as a graduation present or read it to your young children (although a lot may go over their heads, depending on how young they are).  I know it's practically cliche at this point, but I believe that things become cliche for a reason; this little book captures so much of the reality of our ventures into the adult world.

As an man in my forties and mid-career, I have found that the economy of the last decade has had an almost gravitational pull towards Seuss' waiting place.

My last two weeks have been a perfect case in point.  Driving towards a client meeting in Kansas City, my cell phone lit up with an unrecognized number from a town near my home in Bel Air.  On the other end was a recruiter, who excitedly described to me a position that had opened up for a large corporation.  An interview followed, followed by verbal offer, followed by a written one.  Last week, I had gone to the point of completing new employee documentation.

Let me back up for a second.  I am currently, gainfully employed, and have been in the same position for some time now - a fortunate place to be, with only one exception.  My boss is what I consider to be the DSM definition of a Sociopath.  Sure, everyone's is, right?  True story: one of my co-workers was leaving a meeting in DC to head to a metro station.  Passing by in his Jaguar convertible (another red flag, in my opinion), he stopped and offered my colleague a ride.  After picking him up, he traveled a few blocks off of my colleague's normal route before checking his watch and, realizing that he was late for a meeting, turned to this man and said: "I'm running late.  You'll need to get out."  He then left him to find his way to another metro station.

Did I mention this colleague of mine was blind?

Suffice to say, there have been enough incidents with someone of this mercurial behavior to merit a certain desire to leap from the bucking mechanical bull that is my professional life.  Expectations to front my own travel costs and slow reimbursement of expenses come to mind.  So the speed at which the phone call from this recruiter turned into a job offer was not only unexpected, but thrilling: the prospect of finding a little NORMAL in my working world was enough cause for celebration.

Then came a message that looked a little like this:

"Thanks so much (insert potential new employee here), we're excited to get going... we'll let you know when we receive the purchase order from our client instructing us to proceed."

In other words: we've just added you to the inventory, pal. We'll let you know when someone pulls you off the shelf and buys you.

Out of all of the things that have changed since the early 2000's in my profession, this has been the largest and most frustrating.  There was a time that companies hired ahead of demand, keeping a positive mentality that the work was coming for a person to step into.  Today - just like Wal-Mart or some other retail giant keeping their product inventory low - companies practice "just-in-time" hiring policies.  They will recruit, interview, evaluate and even make offers.  But when the time comes to pull the trigger, no one moves based on expectations of new business - only when the ink is dry on the contract.

I appreciate the logic of this.  We ARE living in lean times.  They've been brought on by a combination of hubris in the stock market, globalization of the labor force and uncertain, escalating regulations.  Employers maintaining a scarcity mentality is understandable.

But the effect on the human side of the ledger is one where there are some of us - how many I honestly don't know - who are existing in a weird zone of "maybe" with potential employers.

Which brings me back to the waiting place.

I act like everything's normal with my clients.  Can I come out for my next Kansas City site visit the week of the 24th?  Sure I can.  Work on that proposal?  You bet.  But will I be around to go anywhere or work on anything by then?

I don't know.  I'm waiting around for a Yes or No.