tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56040335305378222632024-02-26T01:02:47.653-06:00Aaron PolsonNotes from the FieldAaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.comBlogger994125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604033530537822263.post-25030608019072033442017-12-26T06:00:00.000-06:002017-12-26T06:38:44.964-06:00Getting Real About Me (and Anxiety)I've always tried to be honest. I've written this blog with honesty over the years. It started as an exercise for a fledgling writer, and now it remains long after the writer has hung up his keyboard. Maybe another short story or two will find its way from my fingertips, but not just yet...<br />
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I wrote with honesty about my first wife's suicide and her struggles with post-partum anxiety and psychosis. I wrote about my kids, grief, finding love again... all with honesty. I've told stories about my father's cancer and the boy I almost killed in high school.<br />
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Today, I'm mustering that honesty to talk about my own mental health. About two months ago, I began ruminating--the process of going over and over the same mental ground with no resolution. The ruminations grew claws and panic attacks soon followed. On Tuesday morning before Thanksgiving, after a few short hours of sleep and a lot of ceiling gazing, I told Kim (my wife) I needed to see the doctor. I have no idea why anxiety cranked the heat this fall. I've staggered through times of trouble and rumination without my brain and body conspiring in such an insidious way in the past. Life is good right now. Really good... but the bitch anxiety doesn't care.<br />
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I've been on medication for five weeks now--one of those "six to eight weeks for full therapeutic dose" meds. I've gone back to see a therapist I first visited five years ago. <a href="https://www.headspace.com/headspace-meditation-app" target="_blank">Headspace </a>has become my favorite app over the past few days.<br />
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We don't talk about mental health enough in this country--not yet. Not even after mass shootings and rising suicide rates. We don't talk about mental health in real, constructive ways. The disease model has dragged its feet through several incarnations of the DSM. We talk of "illness." Anyone diagnosed with anxiety, depression, OCD, or any number of other convenient labels is often deemed as sick or weak.<br />
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There's not a damn thing <i>weak </i>about having anxiety. It's a bitch. It undermines my good feelings and lets those ruminating lies run free. It's stolen my sleep. It made Thanksgiving dinner a marathon of "getting through" with all the chaos and bustle and family. It kicked me hard a couple of times on Christmas morning. I've kept plugging along, taking my pills, working on mindfulness, reminding myself that I haven't always felt this way and will not always feel this way.<br />
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I write a love letter to Kim every day. I use an add-on to have it delivered to her email inbox every morning. I've been doing this for more than five years now. This blog post is her love letter today. If it helps one person, good. If it reminds one person that they are not alone, good. If it gives one person pause before calling someone struggling with depression or anxiety or you-name-it weak, good. I love you, Kim. You give me courage.<br />
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It's time we all acknowledged that mental health is simply healthcare. It's the real thing to do--the only honest thing to do.<br />
<br />Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604033530537822263.post-17876226248358733272017-10-11T16:00:00.000-05:002017-10-11T16:00:31.776-05:00Loving Hard Through the Horror of Being FiveThis past weekend, my five-year-old son, Elliot, asked me if he was going to die.<br />
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Those words carry weight. "Daddy, am I going to die?"<br />
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The tears came soon after, big eye-welling tears because somewhere in his five-year-old brain, he'd made the connection. Real horror came to my son, and nothing could touch him in quite the same way again. Maybe he'd caught just enough of the news or someone talking about the news to shake his frame. Maybe not. The knowing comes for all of us but in different ways.<br />
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I remember being five. I remember the day an ambulance came and carried my father away, how my mother didn't come home until nearly midnight, and how my brother spoke of dropping out of school and going to work. It was early fall 1980--the beginning of my brother's senior year. A brain tumor had come for my father.<br />
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I remember other things about being young: my grandparents staying with us while Mom was away with Dad. There were trips to see neurologists and CAT scans and other things which seem like bloodletting and leeches now, but delivered state-of-the-art medical care in 1980. Dad changed. He aged faster and vomited often from the cocktail of medications and radiation. He died nine years later, catatonic, in the same hospital where he had been diagnosed.<br />
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I also remember how I cried when I thought Kermit the Frog was going to die at the end of <i>The Muppet Movie</i>. Somehow, my five-year-old brain knew, just like Elliot's. Innocence evaporated. Poof. And no horror is truly greater than the loss of that childish innocence. Once it's gone, there is no return. That has always haunted me more than anything. It's the true darkness in the basement, the stranger lurking outside, or the danger in the woods. For me, it wound around the thing which ate my father from the inside out.<br />
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My son faces new monsters. We've done horrible things to each other. We've built an artificial world with social media used to insult, divide, and destroy each other. We've killed each other with startling efficiency in Las Vegas, Orlando, Newtown... All that horror, all that innocence lost. We can't go back, and I'm not sure how we can go forward. Where would we go?<br />
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What does a five-year-old do after asking, "Daddy, am I going to die?" Where can he go to be safe again?<br />
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I have no magic to restore the world--I can't even change what my son now knows. But we play together. We decorate the yard for Halloween and bake cookies at Christmas. We take trips and awe at mountains, hunting for a glimpse of illusive big-horned sheep. We read books together and hug often. We both know, and that knowing makes us love hard.<br />
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And love, in the end, is the only thing that really matters.<br />
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<br />Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604033530537822263.post-12738097951011433312017-05-24T06:01:00.001-05:002017-05-24T06:01:39.127-05:00Geeking out over The Black Hole (Disney, 1979)Man... how the time flies. Here's the latest Trash Can Gold Mine, wherein yours truly discusses one of his favorite childhood movies and my new favorite toy.<br />
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Yes, I purchased two Kubrick's on eBay: Old Bob and Maximilian from Disney's <i>The Black Hole</i>. Those old timers in the crowd might remember the movie. It's one of my favorites because of the amazing music, the creepy "haunted spaceship" vibe, and the robots of course. <br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_HRwCrsS7_s" width="560"></iframe>Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604033530537822263.post-37269301904792980892017-03-29T06:38:00.000-05:002017-03-29T06:38:07.868-05:00Playing Through my Midlife CrisisI'm officially calling my midlife crisis. About two weeks ago, I started a new hobby which ties together several life threads...<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hEcK89O9XYo" width="560"></iframe>
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Yes, I'm making YouTube videos. I'm an amateur (as my kids remind me), but it's a fun hobby. And it's my excuse to play with toys, buy old stuff, and open collectibles from yesteryear. That was the plan at least. And then Elliot intervened:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PyFjSyvP7gg" width="560"></iframe>
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Oh, there still will be plenty of old junk, but I think Elliot and I will have some fun playing games together. Even at five, the kid is drawn to YouTube and enjoys watching himself on the little screen.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/W5EDIkdKKiI" width="560"></iframe>
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So for now he's my production buddy. I'll do some solo stuff (boring) and some Elliot stuff (awesome). I'll let him play with some old toys from my childhood and go head-to-head with some modern games. This hobby is my chance to hunt for Aaron the Kid while fully engaging in life as Aaron the Dad. And while Owen and Max haven't been featured in a video (yet), they are watching them. This might be a great way to sneak some parenting messages past them...<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4GIKVvFUEPg" width="560"></iframe>
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Please subscribe to the YouTube channel (if that's your thing) and see where this adventure goes...Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604033530537822263.post-87634401546625602982017-03-14T16:15:00.000-05:002017-03-14T18:33:46.562-05:00Making Meaning If you call me the enemy often enough, does it make me one?<br />
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This is old ground... I am a heterosexual white male in my 40s who attends church (mostly) every Sunday and hails from a small town in Kansas. These are details, and maybe they are enough for you to "know" me. These are the details which have kept me (mostly) silent since Donald Trump was elected president. </div>
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Who needs another white, male, heterosexual voice from "rural America"? </div>
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I've kept silent because men like me are the enemy. In Sunday's op-ed (3/12/17), Leonard Pitts all but says I'm the problem. He points out a dichotomy between rural/city and Christian Fundamentalism/Secular Humanism as if clear bright lines separate these groups neatly as conservatives and liberals. His words ruffled me. Maybe because I'm a white, male, heterosexual voice from "rural America." Maybe not.<br />
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In our race to "understand how <i>this </i>happened" to our country, we've lost sight of a fundamental human reality--and a fundamental human need that goes along with it. The universe is a big place, and we spend our lives making meaning in it.<br />
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Personally, I've found solace in knowing I'm really not in control of anything. After Aimee's death, it was a comfort to know life was out of my control. Yes, a <i>comfort</i>. When I think about my father's slow descent and death after a brain tumor, I realize the same strange comfort shaped my youth.<br />
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The universe really is a helluva lot bigger than I am and it really doesn't give a shit what I think.<br />
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I've struggled with spirituality all my life--what my friend Heather calls my existential crisis. I've been a church-goer for most of my forty-plus years on the planet, but I'm not fundamental. Why do I go? It's simple really: I like the community. I like to be challenged. I love a reminder that I am what I am: ash and dust, mortal, small, and definitely not in control. Ash Wednesday is one of my favorite church nights because those messages about mortality are embedded in its very fabric: <i>"For he knows how we were formed, aware that we were made from dust."</i> (Psalm 103:14)<br />
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Do I really believe in God? Some days, yes. Others... Does it really matter?<br />
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The universe is bigger than me and doesn't really give a shit what I think or believe. I'll write here, in this blog, a tiny bit of my thoughts and feelings and my momentary reasons for being, but ultimately, the universe will keep spinning. <b>But we, as humans, need meaning.</b> It's a hole which too many of us fill with addictions and destructive behavior. It's that ache that wealth and status can't soothe. My core desire is to be a part of something bigger than me--bigger even than my "tribe" (which seems to have become a buzzword of late as we frantically try to fill the gaping holes in our lives). Like that line from "Helplessness Blues" by Fleet Foxes: "<i>...a functioning cog in some great machinery serving something beyond me...</i>" It's what I feel deep in my core, wherever and whatever that core <i>is</i>.<br />
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You call me an enemy, but I really just want to be a part of something that is serving the universe beyond me. I can only control what I can control... who I vote for, but not the color of my skin; what I write in this blog, but not the fact that I am a hetreosexual male; who I seek as allies, but not whether or not those allies want me on their side; the lending of my listening ear and empathetic heart, but not whether anyone will speak to me or trust me.<br />
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I am not the enemy nor am I on the other side of any simple dichotomy. I am just a man. A human. A cog hoping for a home in something far grander than I am alone.<br />
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My meaning in life is not to be anyone's enemy--nor will it ever be. </div>
Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604033530537822263.post-45841909065978135982017-03-06T07:00:00.000-06:002017-03-06T07:00:36.848-06:00On Being a "Difficult" ParentI'm officially intransigent. I think that means "difficult."<br />
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The last time Max had an infusion, one of his inflammation markers was elevated. I've learned that predicting a Crohn's flare up can be a <strike>guessing game</strike> er, prediction activity involving a slew of lab results and reports of clinical symptoms.<br />
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He'd just had an ear infection and ten days on antibiotics, so wonky labs could have been innocuous or a "false positive." It was also one result from a few inflammation markers checked every infusion--and the other numbers were fine. Evidently his GI specialist didn't think so, and through a rather uncomfortable round of "let's play triangulating communication" with me and his nurse a week after those labs, I learned he wanted to move Max to a six week rather than eight week infusion schedule.<br />
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Look, I know my kid is sick. He spent nearly five weeks in the hospital last winter before having three surgeries through June. But--and this is pretty crucial--Max hasn't reported a Crohn's symptom since the first surgery liberated him of a very sick colon.<br />
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I don't harbor illusions that my child is healed and cured of this disease. We travel to Kansas City for infusions every couple of months (I guess six weeks now) since last January. We make sure he takes his vitamins and anti-anxiety meds. I monitor how much he eats, his exercise--everything. I am not happy that the doctor is changing treatment based on a single lab result one time and the apparent dismissal of my explanation that Max has been symptom free (through the nurse triangulation channel, of course). I certainly am not happy such a thing happens without any examination or discussion with the patient.<br />
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In fact, his specialist used the word "intransigent" in an email to the nurse with whom we were triangulating to describe my attitude toward Max's symptoms in the past. Go on, look it up. <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=intransigent+definition&rlz=1C1CHWA_enUS643US643&oq=in&aqs=chrome.1.69i60j69i59j69i61l2j69i60l2.1143j0j9&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8" target="_blank">Google that bad boy</a>. Kind of sounds like an insult, right?<br />
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Before Max's hospital marathon, I may have misread some symptoms. I may have not understood the gravity of the disease and how things could spiral quickly. Max also struggles with anxiety, and I know the anxiety contributed to his downward spiral. This is how things happen with chronic diseases as families learn to manage and cope.<br />
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Things are different now. He has no colon. I monitor him more closely. He's receiving treatment and therapy to manage the anxiety And he's been doing well.<br />
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But now I'm a "difficult" parent. Intransigent. Pig-headed and stubborn and, in his specialist's opinion, blind to what's really going on with Max.<br />
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No.<br />
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I live with Max. I know what's going on. I know how many times he has a bowel movement every day. I know how he's feeling and what his worries are. I know what math group he's in and the book his reading group is devouring. I know his favorite Pokemon and the name he uses on Minecraft servers. I know he asked for a pill form of Benadryl before his infusions (given before Remicade) and I know the specialist hasn't bothered to change those orders to meet his request since making that request nearly six months ago. I also know that same specialist never had a conversation with Max's surgeon last spring. I know that's not necessarily how medicine works, but I know that's how I work. I know I expect more communication than a couple of phone calls with a nurse and a naughty note about me from the specialist to that nurse. I know I'm frustrated and sometimes mad as hell.<br />
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And I know, most of all, I love my son and will advocate for him to the best of my ability,<br />
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If that makes me "difficult," bring it on.<br />
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"My dad is pure evil." </div>
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(Elliot, age 5)</div>
<br />Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604033530537822263.post-38356291379255261282017-02-27T07:00:00.000-06:002017-02-27T09:48:53.525-06:00Peeking Through the Keyhole<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">I've had a problem since I was a kid with a single digit age. Back
then, Freddy Kruger, Jason, and their grisly compatriots haunted me. I'm sure
they haunted a lot of little kids, but they really wormed into my brain and set
up camp. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">That wasn't my
problem. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">My problem--all my
own making, of course--came from my inability to turn off the bad stuff. I
never learned to “look away.” If a television ad for<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Nightmare on Elm Street</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>popped up while I watched<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Different Strokes</i> or<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The Facts of Life</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>(simpler times, people), I quickly
turned the channel... and then turned it back. I remember snapping the rotary
dial back and forth, catching snatches of nightmare fuel with each click. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Yes kids, televisions had a rotary dial back then:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">I knew the
commercial would trigger a fear response well into the night, well past my
bedtime and sweaty blankets-clenched-under-my-chin minutes before exhaustion overwhelmed.
I knew what would happen and my first response was to turn off the bad stuff.
But my brain isn't happy with that. No, I've always had the tendency to turn
back. I've always had to “look again” no matter how bad I felt afterwards. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">A glutton for punishment, I guess my mother might have said. She
dealt with the aftermath as much as I ever did. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">My problem with
negative “images” manifests today with Amazon reviews, YouTube comments, and
just about anything on the internet. No good comes from reading YouTube
comments. Ever. But what do I do? I read them. I digest every little piece and
let the negativity and ick seep in. Then, in the night, when sleep doesn't come
easily, I play those negative tapes and let the darkness pour through the
tiniest pinprick. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">The last few months have been especially charged with the election
and aftermath. Freddy Kruger is a creampuff compared to the hate and vitriol
dripping on some Facebook posts or comments on our local newspaper’s web site. God
forbid anyone wander further afield into the world of extreme right-wing or
left-wing “news.” It gets weird fast, people. Weird and scary. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">But I can’t look away. The monsters no longer have claws, but I’m
still pressing my eye against the keyhole and looking for them, checking to see
if they are still there. I’m flipping that rotary dial, click-click-click, and
finding more darkness than I should. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604033530537822263.post-28217161811978135052017-02-20T07:00:00.000-06:002017-02-20T07:00:20.235-06:00Dirt in My VeinsThis is a love story.<br />
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I grew up in a small Kansas town, Clay Center, the county seat of--you guessed it--Clay County. The town has a <a href="http://www.cityofclaycenter.com/" target="_blank">spiffy web site</a> now and a pretty bad-ass water park. When I lived there, the internet needed diaper changes and the water park was a Great Depression-era concrete-lined hole in the ground. Just under five thousand residents lived in Clay Center when I was in high school twenty-five years ago... and the population has been shrinking since.<br />
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Dirt and gravel roads criss-crossed Clay County, most of them laid out grid-like in sections. Drive a mile, and you would find a perpendicular section road. Order lived there, neat and tidy, except for the river. The Republican River snaked from the west to south-southeast of town and disturbed the grid. Driving close to the river, I found abrupt ends to gravel paths and dusty drops of twenty or thirty feet to the slowly rolling water below.<br />
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My heart fed on those roads and the mystery of overhanging trees and quiet fields. I would drive and drive and drive during lazy afternoons. Gas cost less then, less than a dollar a gallon, and my car was a sanctuary. There were secret places and shadowed hollows of public hunting land near river-bottom fields. Dead ends hid in the county's hills--like a cemetery I once found while driving Mom's four-speed Ford Ranger. The poor machine strained in reverse as I straddled ditches on either side for a quarter mile as we backed away from the locked gates.<br />
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Sometimes on lazy afternoons, I would drive away from my small town on a county highway and choose a gravel road to explore. I'd park on the roadside, half in/half out of the ditch, leave my car behind, pick a hill, and climb. I'd be lost to everyone for an hour or two. Alone. Invisible. Gone.<br />
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I couldn't live in Clay Center now. I've grown, and the seventeen-year-old me is long gone. He left a legacy in my veins, though. It's why I don't mind my brief commute through the rolling countryside into Jefferson County. It's why I value slow Saturdays and walks on wooded hillside trails on the edge of Lawrence. Northeast Kansas is a cousin to the home I knew, close but not the same.<br />
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My heart wants these things--hills to climb and grass and trees and time to just be. I ache for a time when I could disappear for a few hours, lost to everyone and everything.There's no magic in my Kansas memories... just gravel and dirt and plowed-under fields and the muddy swell of a river.<br />
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No magic, but plenty of love.<br />
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Hills to climb.<br />
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Roads to explore.<br />
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A love story.<br />
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<br />Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604033530537822263.post-23329752776716152692017-02-13T07:00:00.000-06:002017-02-13T07:00:00.179-06:00On Persistence Today we visit the ghost of words past...<br />
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I had originally written this for the <a href="https://www.shimmerzine.com/" target="_blank"><i>Shimmer</i> </a>blog when they first published my short story, "The House was Never a Castle"--my first and only sale to that market. It's a fabulous publication, and I'm happy to note it is still drawing breath.<br />
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I value all the words, especially those from a time to which I cannot return. Persistence--resilience's first cousin--has so much value in life.<br />
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(Cue flashback music...)<br />
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My four-year-old son, Max, plays with the Soccer Hobbits on Saturday mornings, and no one keeps an “official” score. Soccer Hobbits focuses on playing, learning to love the game, experience, and fun. When Max pursues the ball during scrimmage, however, the look of grim determination on his face speaks all business. Max might not be as big or as fast as some of his peers, but he makes up for his lack of prowess with sheer guts and persistence. One tiny tap of the ball, even if it is stolen a microsecond later, proves enough to keep the fight in his tiny legs.<br />
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I can’t help but draw a parallel to what it takes to stay in the game as a writer.<br />
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Anyone can write. I have to believe as much to survive my day job as a high school English teacher. Some days are harder than others, for my students as well as me. Writing well and developing one’s craft requires patience. Patience requires a healthy dose of perspective. Since I started my writing journey four years ago, I’ve gained as much perspective as any bit of craft. Rejection is part of the game, and I’ve received my share. Each “no” used to sting like a solid punch in the gut, knocking the writing wind out of me.<br />
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But persistence requires a certain level of stubbornness despite little defeats. I listened to editors. I dusted off my knees and worked harder. I read. I’ve read the best in the field, devouring year’s best volumes, retrospective collections, award winners—trying to unlock the magic. Along the way, I identified what I liked, what worked and what didn’t, in the stories I read. I made a mental list. I wrote, too. Every day. Even days when I was too sick or tired or defeated to keep going, I forced at least one hundred words on a page, just as Max forces his little legs to keep pumping on the soccer field.<br />
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I first submitted to <i>Shimmer </i>in 2007. By my count, I’ve beleaguered the editorial staff with 27 manuscripts over the past few years. Persistence requires a writer to believe the next time will be it, the golden message, an acceptance letter with contract attached. It’s a sort of insanity, really, trying to find a home for one’s stories in highly competitive markets. For a writer to stay with the game, a writer must believe each story is better than the last, each story is a move forward.<br />
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And finally, most of all, a writer must be patient—as patient with her/himself as with a market’s submission wait-time. Craft does improve, only with time and effort; no “magic writing beans” exist, no overnight elixirs of brilliance. Stories need patience, too. Patience to develop. Patience for the characters and setting and plot cogs to snap together in the right way. Sometimes patience requires a story be set aside for months, as I did with “The House was Never a Castle.” I’m not the same writer I was when I first submitted to <i>Shimmer </i>back in 2007. I won’t be the same writer a year from now.
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Max can keep playing soccer as long as he loves it; I’ll hammer away, story after story, page after page, word after word, putting my patience and persistence to the test.<br />
<br />Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604033530537822263.post-24693925659617360272017-02-06T07:00:00.000-06:002017-02-06T15:03:43.343-06:00Pencils<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I heard a story once, and whether it is <i>real </i>or not is irrelevant. It's true, and that's all that matters. A college freshman (smart guy, 30+ on the ACT, gifted program in high school, etc.) went to his first final of his first semester with a pencil. This was twenty-some-odd years ago when pencils held a little more relevancy.<br />
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He surprised his roommate by returning ten minutes after the test started. </div>
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<i>Roommate: Easy test?</i></div>
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<i>Smart Guy: (holds up broken pencil) My pencil broke, so I quit. </i></div>
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Astonished? The first time I heard the story, I nodded with understanding. The smart guy had been a good friend of mine in high school, so I knew school wasn't really his thing regardless of IQ score. The story really isn't about pencils or college or intelligence or even truth. The story tells us about resilience--or the lack of it.<br />
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Resilience goes by many other names: grit or determination or willpower or being "scrappy." It's the ability to stick with something when roadblocks mount in front of you. It's what helps you over, under, through, or around those roadblocks so you can keep going. It's how you answer the big questions in life, like: </div>
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What are you going to do when your pencil breaks? </div>
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I taught English in a small northeast Kansas high school for thirteen years. Pencils, or the lack of them, were a common theme. Some students marched into class sans pencil (or other writing utensil) like the Light Brigade rode into the valley of Death, banners flying. Some students sulked into class without a pencil and tried their best Harry Potter with invisibility cloak impression in the back of the room. A student without a pencil is like a carpenter without a hammer, at least "way back" then. A former colleague would engage in a five to ten minute verbal sparring match with some of these kids as if yelling at them would make pencils magically appear. </div>
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I found it easy enough to leave a container of pencils at the front of my classroom. Problem solved and roadblock circumvented. We all need a healthy supply of resilience no matter our age, role, or lot in life. What are you going to do when students show up without their pencils? What are you going to do when things don't go your way? </div>
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Because they won't. Not most of the time, anyway.<br />
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I worry about my own kids all the time. Owen, my 8th grader, has decided not to use the pencils I bought for him at the start of the year. He has made it his goal to find pencils on the ground at school and use those instead. He has all year. Am I mad? Worried? No. I consider it training for a day when he's going to need to be resourceful--for that day when a roadblock arrives and he must conquer it. Pencils are fragile and sometimes forgotten. We all need the ability to keep going.<br />
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So what <i>will </i>you do if your pencil breaks?<br />
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Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604033530537822263.post-57085914307597148062017-01-30T07:30:00.000-06:002017-01-30T07:30:31.499-06:00Rule #1: It's Not About YouI started writing fiction in the summer of 2007. Somewhere in the deep, dark recesses of this blog's history, I'm sure you can find a story of how and why. It involved the birth of my second son and publication of the 7th Harry Potter novel.<br />
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When I started, I knew I would be famous. There may or may not have been fantasies involving fame/fortune and rock 'n' roll style groupies. I might have made up that last part. Or maybe not.<br />
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I wrote a book in the summer and fall of '07. For an hour or two each evening, I sat at a computer in my basement and hammered words onto digital paper. I told a long and meandering tale about a boy, a girl, and a small town. Reality bent in funny ways in my small, not-so-imaginary town (it was a near carbon-copy of my real birthplace). Ghosts hijacked the bodies of football players and the main character may have been dead the entire time. Or not. Sometimes reality is slippery and hard to pin down.<br />
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I edited the book, crafted a trillion revisions of a query letter, and proceeded to be rejected by all the literary agents.<br />
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All. Of. Them.<br />
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Short stories called to me. I landed my first paying publication early in 2008. I wrote for an hour or two each night for the next few years. The stories remained strange, for the most part. I developed this blog and met some wonderful travelers on the road. I became a better teacher. Through writing for publication, I gained insight into the importance of the written word.<br />
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All these "I"s... sounds pretty self-centered. Where's Rule #1?<br />
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At some point in the midst of my heyday as a short story author, I stumbled across a blog post titled "The Egoless Writer" by a science fiction author named Mike Brendan. I'm not sure if Mr. Brendan still writes or what has happened to him in the intervening years, but it's a useful list for writers of anything. So useful, in fact, I shared it with my students. We incorporated "The Egoless Writer" as a mantra for making our writing better.<br />
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No rule on that list has been more meaningful than #1:<br />
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<i><b>It's not about you. </b></i><br />
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In writing, it's not. "It" is about the audience. "It" is about the writer and audience working together to make story happen. Once you "get out of the way," the stories have lives of their own. Rule #1 made me a better teacher, but it didn't stop there.<br />
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I *hope* it's made me a better person--more thoughtful, present, and empathetic to those around me. Maybe Rule #1 was already in *here*. Maybe my brain just needed a snappy phrase, "It's not about you," on which to latch.<br />
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I became a school counselor a year or two after learning Rule #1. It has served me well, allowing me to really listen to students with whom I may disagree or find the common ground with angry parents. Once we learn to put our ego in its proper place, then and only then can we be fully present with others. Empathy comes easier. Resilience even comes easier because you realize the universe isn't being vindictive when you have a bad day. It's not about you at all. Or me.<br />
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But I'm pretty sure "it" is about <i>us</i>.<br />
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Next time, Rule #1 meets another man's moccasins. Stay tuned, faithful travelers.<br />
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<br />Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604033530537822263.post-84677904576784083152017-01-23T07:30:00.000-06:002017-01-23T09:23:04.198-06:00The First Rule, a Pre-History<b>1. It's not about you. </b><br />
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Rule #1 almost ended my first marriage before it began.<br />
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I was twenty-five, a second-year English teacher in a small, northeast Kansas town. I carried my heart on my sleeve and struggled with classroom discipline as many young teachers do. The students, after all, were only seven years younger than me, and many seniors had already kicked me around the previous year as juniors. The slippery slope of taking everything personally called like Homer's sirens.<br />
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When they misbehaved, I struggled. I raised my voice. I yelled. I made hollow threats and moved desks, sent students to the office for any provocation, and gave them plenty of ammunition to "stick it" to Mr. Polson. I did everything wrong--especially the amount of their baggage I decided to carry on my back. Everything became personal. Every voice out of compliance slapped me across the face; every touch of disrespect to <i>anyone </i>cut dagger-sharp into my gut.<br />
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I had it all wrong.<br />
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The truth comes easily after one's eyes open. All classroom discipline problems germinate from anger, frustration, and stress students carry into the room and/or baggage from home or their social lives. In my novice classroom, they translated that stress and baggage into rude comments, insults to me and other students, jeers and foolish acts and just about any other means to push my proverbial buttons, but none of it was personal. Stumbling at both life and teaching, I was the one who took <i>everything </i>personally, but it never started that way.<br />
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Back then, I didn't know. I was an easy target who didn't understand one of the most basic principles of living a good life.<br />
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I carried my frustration home and dumped all that inherited baggage on my fiance, Aimee. One day, she'd had enough. We went for a walk in a small, local arboretum, moonlight and stars playing on a pond. There, in the November chill with black lines of trees looking on, she gave me the ultimatum.<br />
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"Stop complaining about the students' behavior. Do something about it, but stop complaining. I don't want to marry someone who carries all their stuff home. It's not personal, you know."<br />
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I still remember those words. They crystallized in my brain. They tore at my heart. I'd already had one failed engagement, and now I felt the edge of this one slip beneath my feet. She hadn't uttered the sacred mantra of Rule #1, but her words came close. The meaning was there.<br />
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She could have easily said it: <i><b>It's not about you. </b></i><br />
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Working on my classroom structure would take time. I couldn't fix student behavior or classroom environment overnight. But something did change inside me. Motivated by fear or love or a little of both, I sloughed away the baggage my students brought to class. No matter how wicked those students, their misbehaving really <i>wasn't </i>about me personally. A switch had been thrown deep inside and I would never be the same again in the classroom. Angry commands melted into patience and empathy. Demanding what I wanted morphed into quietly but consistently waiting for students to demonstrate compliance with my requests. Classroom expectations became clear. Over the years, it became easier for all of us, students and teacher alike.<br />
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It would be another eight years before Rule #1 formally came into my life, but I'd learned a lesson and learned it well.<br />
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Aimee and I were married the following summer, and Rule #1 helped me through the darkest parts of the journey ahead.<br />
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<br />Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604033530537822263.post-51513568620253419632016-11-10T21:12:00.000-06:002016-11-10T21:12:04.741-06:00Fly-Over CountrySeveral years ago, I wrote a story titled "The Way of Things in Fly-Over Country." It was a zombie story without being about zombies... and zombie stories are very hard to sell.<br />
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I eventually did sell the story to an anthology, and I'm sure a few people may have read it. It even matriculated to James Roy Daley's <i>Best New Zombie Tales</i> volume 3 despite not really being about zombies. It takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, one in which teenage boys sneak out of an fortified encampment to challenge their manhood on the "outside." No spoilers here, but if you ask, I'll send you a PDF copy (just drop a message to aaron.polson(at)gmail.com).<br />
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I've spent my whole life in fly-over country--Kansas--and I've voted in six presidential elections here since my first in 1996. (I was a senior in high school when Bill Clinton was elected, but couldn't vote in the '92 election as I was seventeen at the time... a world away). The state in which I was born, the state I love despite her faults, always goes red. Kansas and her six electoral votes always go to the Republican candidate, regardless of the fact that I have never voted Republican. Does my vote count?<br />
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It doesn't always feel like it, just as I'm sure a Republican voting for president in California may feel the same. Just over 400,000 voters or 36% of votes cast in Kansas went to Hilary Clinton. When I look at the electoral map of the United States, the largest swaths are red in every election, despite any percentage won by the other side.<br />
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Fly over country. There aren't enough of us here to matter. The electoral system makes us a lock for a Republican candidate even if he has never seen the Republican River. (Which, by the way, ran just south of my hometown of Clay Center. I've written stories about that river.) I'm not sure even one Republican--or Democrat, for that matter--nominee in my lifetime could find the Republican River on a map.<br />
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I love my state. I love the sound of a field of wheat in a spring wind. I can still hear the sound of grain elevators running all night during harvest season. I love the dust-tinted sunsets in orange and pink. I cherish the quiet afternoons I spent with fishing rod at that river or some farmer's pond. My formative years unfolded on dirt roads and with shotguns and too many fireworks. We used to shoot cheap shaving cream cans just to watch the spray and white foaming explosion. I am Kansas through and through, regardless of my vote.<br />
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I live in fly-over country. You look at an electoral map and hear newscasters say words like "uneducated." I see people I worked with at the grocery store in high school. I see my uncles farming in Nemaha County. I see the faces of the students who I help enroll in technical college to learn a trade and find a good job. I see my co-workers and the parents of those students. I see humans, my brothers and sisters.<br />
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I may not agree with their politics, but I stand with them as a Kansan. I stand with all of us in fly-over country. National politics have disaffected so many of these Kansans. The politics of our state have hurt many of them. They are ordinary people. They love their children. They work hard. They care deeply. And, right or wrong, they believe.<br />
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Our country is littered with hate right now. I don't feel comfortable with the president-elect, but that is the subject for another day. My feelings will not change those of his supporters, either. Here in fly-over country, we have opinions, too. All of us. And we don't always agree.<br />
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Even so, our strength is together, not apart. Our division is killing us. Failing to see each and every human in this great nation as just that--a fellow human--is killing us.<br />
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I'm done blaming. It's time for work. I want to use my voice in this red wilderness, a barbaric howl from fly-over country, until we can look each other in the eye and realize we are, all of us, family.<br />
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<br />Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604033530537822263.post-81491226109236885312016-10-17T06:00:00.000-05:002016-10-17T06:00:00.175-05:00The Demon Speaks!I'm the villain some are talking about. I'm a white man in his early 40s, heterosexual, and I go to church most Sundays. Hell, I'm even from a small town in Kansas and I'm angry (because of this damned election). You might see where this is going. Those are words and labels, but here are some details:<br />
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My mother's family goes back... way back. Not Native peoples back, but back like Mayflower back. Like my great-grand-something fell off the Mayflower. He was an indentured servant to one of the families on the boat. I heard this called a "debt bondage" on NPR the other day, and most indentured servants never survived the repayment of their debt. It was slavery with a sunset, and even forced slaves were "indentured" at first. (I feel another post coming, one about <a href="http://www.pbs.org/race/000_About/002_03_f-godeeper.htm" target="_blank">the history of race in America </a>and the current state of affairs in this country citing nefarious laws around the time of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacon%27s_Rebellion" target="_blank">Bacon's Rebellion</a>, but that's for another day.)<br />
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But I'm white. Euro-American. Swedish/French/English-American. And a man. Words, words, words.</div>
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So yeah, I'm the villain. The devil. Fear me. The white, hetero, Christian guy who you may assume would vote for "he-who-must-not-be-named" but shares a first name with a certain cartoon duck. Maybe that's why certain people put "the" in front of it. The Donald is not as easily confused with Donald Duck. </div>
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You see where these words could take us, right? </div>
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You see where <b>any </b>of these easy stereotypes take us, right?<br />
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Words have power, and the words we're choosing at this point in history worry me.</div>
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Please understand I'm a lover of words and my First Amendment rights. Years ago, in college, I had this great Rock the Vote T-shirt which proclaimed "Censorship is Un-American." You might remember the one:</div>
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Yeah, well, I've not said a word about this God-forsaken election cycle because I've been cautioned. I'm a public servant, see, and shouldn't go too political. That's the professional thing to do. It's also the Un-American thing to do. </div>
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We know all about Un-American things, right? Like threatening to jail one's political opponents. That's just not something <i>we </i>do. Like turning our back on our values and convictions because we've been made to fear. "I know what he says about (and maybe does to) women, but I'm <i>afraid</i>." This fear raises its head in polls all the time. It wears the mask of security and protecting our borders. It hides the shameful villainy of misogyny and bigotry.</div>
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I'm done. I don't like living in fear and I certainly don't like what fear has done to this country. I also feel like it's pretty damn Un-American to equate our country with a post-apocalyptic hell for political gain. The rhetoric of this election has taken us to the linguistic breach. The words our political parties have chosen--and no one is completely innocent here--have seeped into our collective dialogue. Our words become our thoughts and shape our reality. Reality has become a little bleak.<br />
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When our words are reduced to hate and fear, we all lose. I am no demon. I am a human, just a human. I go to church--a pretty liberal, open and affirming UCC church in a college town--almost every week because I need to be part of something bigger than me. I care about my wife and my kids and their gay uncles. I can't change my whiteness, my maleness, or my hetero-ness, but I can chose the words I use and which words I choose to follow. I would never vote for anyone who makes me feel fear because fear is the real enemy.<br />
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I worry for this country. I worry for my children and my grandchildren, but I will not prostrate myself to fear. My great-grand-something served his years of indentured servitude nearly four hundred years ago, and we are--<i>all of us</i>--still crawling toward freedom.</div>
Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604033530537822263.post-69472408959216265322016-06-15T13:00:00.001-05:002016-06-15T13:00:27.645-05:00When You Attack My Family<br />
Tears came as I drove my four-year-old son home from preschool yesterday. I had been doing a good deal of processing since the heinous attack on an Orlando nightclub early Sunday morning. Many voices have risen, and mine is perhaps the least important among the crowd. After hearing commentary from the Justin Torres of the <i>Washington Post </i>yesterday on <i>All Things Considered</i> as we drove home, the dam broke.<br />
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Mr. Torres uses the word "sacredness" to describe the club in his <i>Post </i>essay (<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/in-praise-of-latin-night-at-the-queer-club/2016/06/13/e841867e-317b-11e6-95c0-2a6873031302_story.html" target="_blank">In Praise of Latin Night at the Queer Club</a>). On NPR he says "people talk about the gay bar like it is church."<br />
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Look, I'm a white, middle-aged straight man from Kansas. On the surface, I'm as far from Latin Night at Pulse as anyone in this country. But I've been there--different city, different club--and I've seen that sacredness first-hand on the face of some of my closest friends.<br />
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No, not friends. <i>Family</i>.<br />
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When you realize this attack was on us, our family, it changes everything. Those weren't "just" gays, or Latinos, or whatever-box-you-might-try-to-put-them-in-to-make-you-feel-safe. They were us. Our brothers and sisters and <i>family</i>.<br />
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My heart breaks when I hear of this tragic event bastardized into Islamophobia or a rallying cry for the gun-crazed Right and their "out of my cold, dead hands" mentality. Our Muslim brothers and sisters are family, too, and they've suffered at the hands of men who look a lot like me. I grew up in a small town in which everyone owned guns, hunting was a way of life, and shooting cans of Barbasol to watch them explode in a cloud of foam was just "something to do" on lazy Saturday afternoons. The sacredness of church, mosque, synagogue, or gay club does not stop at the second amendment.<br />
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I shed tears on the drive home yesterday for all of us--gay, straight, Muslim, Christian, Latino, black, white, whatever-you-are. I shed tears for the sanctity of life and how awfully easy it is to have that life stolen. I shed tears for all of us, our American family, and how God-awfully dysfunctional we can be.<br />
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I'll pick up my son again this afternoon. There will be more NPR coverage of Orlando. He will one day grow old enough to talk about such tragedies. I hope and pray I can help him understand what the word sacred means in exactly the context Mr. Torres used it. I hope and pray he will know the meaning of family, too.<br />
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<a href="http://www.npr.org/2016/06/14/482055778/these-are-my-people-writer-reflects-on-orlando-attack-in-washington-post" target="_blank">Listen to "'These Are My People': Writer Reflects on Orlando Attack in 'Washington Post'"</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/in-praise-of-latin-night-at-the-queer-club/2016/06/13/e841867e-317b-11e6-95c0-2a6873031302_story.html" target="_blank">Read "In Praise of Latin Night at the Queer Club</a><br />
<br />Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604033530537822263.post-24267297850347521652016-05-15T03:10:00.000-05:002016-05-15T03:10:25.993-05:00My Soccer RiotI'm going to own something publicly of which I am not proud.<br />
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Yesterday, my oldest son's soccer team played for their end of the year championship, something the local league calls the "classic cup." I love my son. I love watching him play. I work hard to be positive, cheer for the team, encourage them, and leave my passion on display.<br />
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There are certain lines I will not cross--and yesterday was no different. I will not yell at or berate the children on the field. I will not shout profanities. But my passion is on display. It always has been, and yesterday was no different.<br />
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The local league reminds us each year of general rules for parents. I've supported this league with thousands of dollars over the years so my children can play and learn the value of teamwork, hard work, and losing. The value of winning comes easily; it's losing which requires character. I am proud of my son and the character he displays regardless of any game's outcome.<br />
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A friend once told me there are three teams on a field during any sporting event--and no one is rooting for the third. The officials have a hard job and often face abuse from angry fans. I am human and as such fundamentally flawed. I am not above my passion bubbling over when officiating begins to affect the outcome of a game even though I try, with all my being, to teach my son that officials, for better or worse, are part of playing.<br />
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Maybe it was the goal scored from an offside position when the linesman was out of position to call the play (I generally watch from our team's defensive sideline). Maybe it was the foul called against one my son's teammates as he was shoved to the ground (if you are confused, so was I). Maybe it was the fact the head referee taunted the aforementioned player with a red card after he questioned the call. Maybe it was the several shots taken at my son while he carried the ball or other continued violent play without recourse. Maybe it was a combination of these miscues which bubbled over as another one of our players was ejected with a red card and my passion spilled over.<br />
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Again, I did not swear or curse or target a kid from the other team. I simply said the officiating was "bush league" and "sorry boys, looks like you're playing against two teams today."<br />
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I'm not proud of these things. Maybe part of my brain knew I wouldn't be because I certainly did not shout them at the top of my lungs. Another parent fired a few remarks in my direction after my comments, the kindest of which was "calm down."<br />
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I've grown tired of the world in which I must counsel young people through the insults they heap upon each other from a position of anonymity. Social media and the privilege of distance has eroded human decency. Spend a New York minute reading comments on most popular YouTube videos and you have a quick and dirty lesson. And yes, I recognize I flung comments onto the field with relative anonymity, too. I am not proud or innocent.<br />
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I walked over to the man for a face to face and asked if he had anything he would like to say to me. I was angry, seeing red, but by God, after forty-one years of life simply taking it, I was not going to take it any more. I am not proud--but a little conflicted because there reaches a point when we must own our actions.<br />
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I did not use profanity or insult any of the children. I simply wanted the opportunity to face someone who clearly had something he wanted to say <i>about </i>me if not <i>to </i>me. I am not proud it came to that opportunity. I am happy I walked away a moment later because anger rarely gives birth to anything positive.<br />
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My son's team lost the game 1-0. He is my role model for life, teaching me that winning and losing come in equal measure. I am proud of him and everything he has weathered in less than thirteen years on the planet. As I walked to the medal ceremony, a felt the sting of a few more comments aimed in my general direction. The moment of heat and passion gone, I continued walking. There will be more games and thankfully more opportunities for me to do it better.<br />
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We must do our best to recognize humanity in others. If we don't, no one will.<br />
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<br />Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604033530537822263.post-51812653031800320302016-04-19T08:41:00.000-05:002016-04-19T08:42:07.134-05:00Living in FearMy son, Max, turns ten at the end of the month. In December 2011, only about a week and a half after his youngest brother, Elliot, was born, we rushed Max to Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri because of blood in his stool, a positive test for malicious bacteria, and some joint pain. Five days, several blood tests, a colonoscopy, and sundry medications later, Max was discharged with a diagnosis of Crohn's disease.<br />
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He's had struggles over the last four years, little Crohn's/Colitis related things that anyone familiar with this monster will know well. Things took a nose dive this past December, and between mid-December and the end of January, Max spent five weeks in the hospital. The doctors tried new meds and more meds, but in the end, my almost ten-year-old had his colon removed on January 20th. All of it.<br />
<br />
I do not like to live in fear. Show me the monster, and I will meet it head-on. Now that Max has had a very necessary surgery, he's living with a "temporary" colostomy bag. Temporary in quotes? Yes. He's had one subsequent surgery to resection/restructure his small bowl, and we should have another to "reconnect" his "parts" down the road. Here's the fear and frustration part: his GI specialist and surgeon disagree as to the timing of this final surgery. The GI doctor is full of "what ifs" and "possible problems." Talking to him is a lesson in bodily horror, something with which I struggle, both as a writer and a human. Yes, there are possible problems if we reconnect. The surgeon is more optimistic. Neither agree--neither have even spoken to each other as of this writing--but we are faced with a decision: When to do the final surgery.<br />
<br />
I do not like to live in fear.<br />
<br />
I've learned all too well that life will bring tragedy regardless of what we do. I lost my father to brain cancer, my first wife to postpartum psychosis, and Max has this awful disease. None of them "asked" for it with dangerous living. This isn't another story of someone "getting what he deserves." I cannot and will not believe in a prosperity gospel when two good, caring adults and one innocent child face such monsters. Bad things happen to everyone, and we are defined by how we respond.<br />
<br />
So what to do about Max? In two hours, I'll listen to his surgeon make a case for re-connection. Max has expressed his lack of love for the bag--something that if things do not go well after re-connection, he may have to live with, anyway. I've always been one to steer into the storm rather than trying to run. The storm is coming either way, and when we lie to ourselves about having control... well, that's a fast track to fear.<br />
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I will not live in fear.<br />
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<br />Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604033530537822263.post-30767175116586199922016-03-30T10:42:00.000-05:002016-03-30T10:42:18.579-05:00Getting Up*My oldest son competed in his first middle school track meet last night. When I was in high school, we called various members of the team hogs, dogs, and frogs--throwers, runners, and jumpers. Owen decided to try a little bit of everything: shot put, long jump, and the 200 meter dash. So I guess he was a hog-dog-frog... the image is a little terrifying.<br />
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This happened during the 200:<br />
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Yes, that's my son on the ground. He's fast on the soccer field, but a straight sprint might not be his thing. After the race, he was worried I'd be upset because he didn't perform well. Think about it for a minute, especially those of you who are parents. Would you be upset?<br />
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My answer--which came in the form of a question as my answers often do**: What did you do after you fell?<br />
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Owen: I got up.<br />
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Me: And then?<br />
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Owen: I finished the race.<br />
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That's all that mattered to me. I felt for him. Going down hard in front of a stand full of parents and your peers is tough, especially in 7th grade. Maybe I broke some parenting rule when I shared this photo, but no, I don't think so. I'm much prouder of a boy who crashes hard and still finishes than one who wins all the time. No one--anywhere/anyone--wins all the time.<br />
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Life is more about what you do when the bad shit happens.<br />
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*I really, really despise the word "get," but here it feels somehow appropriate. Forgive my lazy verb choice.<br />
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**I wonder if it's difficult to have me as a father? Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604033530537822263.post-90041233541403470292016-03-20T20:42:00.001-05:002016-03-20T20:43:05.550-05:00So... About My DemiseSo you may have noticed... I stopped writing for a while.<br />
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Stories. Books. This blog.<br />
<br />
I completely stopped writing everything except for day-job-related minutia and a few other important bits.*<br />
<br />
When I started my writing journey during the summer of 2007--yes, almost nine years ago now--I had big dreams. I thought I would be able to conquer the world and find some kind of fame as an author. I was trying to escape some very sour realities at the time. The first year or so after my second son, Max, was born challenged me like nothing else had in life. If you need details, they're all here in the archives of this blog.<br />
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I had started writing with big dreams, and reality intervened. I played the agent game with my first book and garnered more rejections than I care to count. It wasn't a very good book and my query letters sucked, too. I started writing short fiction and found I had a taste for it. Goals evolved. Someday, maybe, I would qualify for a writers' group. I set my sights on the HWA and became an affiliate member.<br />
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And I wrote another book or two, played the agent game again and even came just a little closer.<br />
<br />
What if I could become an active member of the HWA? It would only take three professional sales...<br />
<br />
I published more stories than I should have, some of them mildly embarrassing in hindsight, but they are all my progeny, ugly or not. The rejections piled up, but so did my little black ribbons--those publications I chased and chased and finally caught. Some of them are defunct now, <i>Nossa Morte</i>, <i>Necrotic Tissue</i>... I finally made the pages of <i>Shimmer</i>. I sold my first two professional rate stories to <i>Shock Totem</i> and the HWA's <i>Blood Lite II </i>anthology.<br />
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And then my third son was born and my wife committed suicide. My writing sputtered to a stop. It's all here if you want to dig. It's all here to read and process--right in the archives of this blog.<br />
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But what you will not find is how I lost my writing way. Chasing publication in honored magazines and anthologies made me a better writer. I cared, once. My first wife's death didn't end my writing career. I did.<br />
<br />
You see, once upon a time, there was a gold rush. Ebooks happened in a big way. Self-publishing happened. Money sang a siren song not unlike that which led a deluded young writer during my first year. I no longer wrote for the right reasons.<br />
<br />
Here's a hint: it's not about money. It never has been, and if organizations like the HWA expect professional pay to be a gatekeeper in the active society, it isn't because that pay means more than the commitment to achieve that pay. Members should care that much about their craft. The writing--the stories--are everything.<br />
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I've written a little since then. I've dabbled. I published a few stories a year or so back and sold my third professional rate piece. I could be an active HWA member, but I'm not. I've always needed a goal in front of me, not behind. I need that distant shore, something to chase, something to make me better again.<br />
<br />
And I found it. The stories are there. I just need to tell them, right.<br />
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My son asked if I still blogged. Here's your answer--and I don't even know if blogging is something one does anymore.<br />
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*you can ask Kim about the asterisk<br />
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<br />Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604033530537822263.post-14463943422107197062016-02-02T10:02:00.001-06:002016-02-02T10:02:16.831-06:00Whispers and RumorsRumors of my demise have been slightly exaggerated.<br />
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(shhh... don't tell anyone)Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604033530537822263.post-47683326212748883512015-04-25T00:30:00.000-05:002015-04-25T00:30:01.518-05:00The Problem with Living Forever The conversation started one late night (or very early morning) in the summer of 1994. I was unemployed, between my freshmen and sophomore year at Kansas State, stuck between art and English education. My best friend and I spent those long summer nights driving aimlessly through our small, sleepy hometown. We played amatuer philosopher during those drives, questioning God, the universe, everything.<br />
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"I don't want to live forever," I said.<br />
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"Neither do I. Not on Earth, anyway."<br />
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"No," I said, "I don't want to go to heaven either. I mean, that's just nuts. Forever is a long time."<br />
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My friend laughed. "It's not like heaven's just clouds and harps and shit. I don't think you understand what it would be like."<br />
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No, it's not like that at all. I've seen death in my life--death and a lot of change. I remember every one of my grandparents' funerals, my father's, my first wife's. I remember standing in the basement of the Warren-McElwain mortuary in Lawrence, KS deciding on a casket for my wife at age 37.<br />
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The funeral director, a relatively young woman herself, stopped in mid sales pitch/product description, and said, "You're too young for this."<br />
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Yes, and no. And maybe. <br />
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Death is a part of life. Our mortality is what binds us together, and to rob anyone of death is to steal the very essence of what it means to be human. Death is not the worst thing to come for us. Death is our oldest friend. Death reminds us to live, to enjoy, to laugh and have fun, and to love well. Death taught me well from a young age. This is what is the end to which we all must go. This is what gives value and rarity to your life. <br />
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I've carried those lessons with me. I have no desire to live forever--and I fear immortality in world not built for it much more than my own death. Maybe heaven isn't harps and clouds and "shit." Maybe I can't comphrended immortality. I do know this: on Earth, I'm happy my time is limited.<br />
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It's much more valuable this way. Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604033530537822263.post-43106749360180579702015-04-13T11:34:00.003-05:002015-04-13T11:34:53.471-05:00Hello? <center>
Time to clear some cobwebs and dust off this blog.<br />
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Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604033530537822263.post-65436922576285814492015-01-01T05:11:00.003-06:002015-01-01T10:59:29.773-06:00On BullyingI know I've written about bullying before, but recent events have hurt someone dear to me. Please forgive. I'm starting this at 4-something in the morning because I'm mad. In my neck of the woods, we sometimes say "pissed" when one is this mad. Not "pissed" drunk like our friends across the pond, but "pissed off."<br />
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I am.<br />
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I'm tired of bullies. I'm tired of them at my job as a middle school/high school guidance counselor and I'm tired of the unfortunate reality that bullies exist as adults, too. Once upon a time, I believed in some fairy tale version of adulthood in which all the bullies matured and shed their evil skin. Like all fairy tales, this one is fiction.<br />
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Bullies are everywhere and every age, and if they've shed any skin, it's only to grown a more insidious one in its place. <br />
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The bullies at school are sneaky. A teacher turns away and one boy punches another. They wait until I pass during lunch duty, and call their target names. In many ways, the girls are worst. I could relate scores of personal examples from my job, and it wouldn't take much to do a simple Google search and find stacks of digital articles on the subject.<br />
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Females--girls and grown women--like to do their bullying in different ways than boys. They often ostracize and exclude. They post hideous untruths online and laugh when their target's life falls apart. They've found ways to belittle via social media I shudder to recall. The motives are varied, but one constant keeps surfacing: if one is the bully, it steers attention to someone else. In the bully's mind, as long as someone else is the target, it's not her.<br />
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It hurts me to watch the cruelty at my job and hurts me in my neighborhood. <b>Yes, my neighborhood lives in the shadow of a bully and I'm tired of it.</b> Just like the girls at school, adult bullies ostracize and exclude. They manipulate and maneuver to make sure the target is not them. Sometimes the cruelty wears the most subtle cloak--for example, repeatedly leaving someone's name off a mailing list about neighborhood activities.<br />
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I was the target of bullying in middle school. The ride from my school to the high school for band class in 7th grade was especially agonizing. We would load the unsupervised bus--because let's be honest about the driver's ability to both drive and make sure passengers weren't being douche bags--and take a five minute jaunt from one school to the other. I heard "fag" and "gay" more times than I could count during those five minutes. A group of boys a year or two older than me would hound me after school during an arduous walk home. The walk was only four blocks, but it felt like four hundred.<br />
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Sometimes I feel so powerless when confronted with bullying at my job. It's especially difficult as an adult in my own neighborhood. No one--not one living creature--has the right to make anyone else feel like those ass hats made me feel in middle school. It turns my stomach that so many continue their cruelty long after the bus engine has gone cold.<br />
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So what do we do? Talk about it... write about it. Stand up and be counted among those who will not tolerate such behavior. There are more victims than bullies, and like most forms of darkness, this one cannot stand the light.Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604033530537822263.post-74085360615205927722014-09-15T07:30:00.000-05:002014-09-15T07:30:01.766-05:00For My Future GranddaughterI bought one of these on eBay a few weeks ago:<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">LEGO 21110 Research Institute</span></div>
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I paid a premium, quite a bit higher than retail. The set, rather small and originally retailing for just $19.95, has made quite a few Lego resellers fat stacks of profit as they scooped them by the cart load and flipped on eBay, Amazon, and other you-sell-it sites. I'll admit I do a little Lego "investing," too, but not on the scale as major resellers. I've held onto a few Star Wars sets and made a few bucks. Kim can tell you about the Monster Fighters Haunted House on a shelf out in the garage. (Or maybe she can't... it's packed neatly in an inconspicuous brown box.)<br />
<br />
One of the big rules of Lego investing is one should enter at a low price. It's frighteningly like the stock market, at at web sites like <a href="http://brickpicker.com/">Brickpicker.com</a>, it's treated as such. Buy low and sell high. Hold for the long term or occasionally find one of those glorious penny stocks which appreciates rapidly and can be sold short term for huge profits. The cheapest Research Institute available on eBay US as of this writing will cost you $70.04 including shipping. Yes, more than triple the MSRP.<br />
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So why break such a cardinal rule to get my hands on this set? Do I see the price rising even higher?<br />
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Sure, maybe. But this one isn't for sale. I wanted to grab a RI for my granddaughter. (This is where the audience gasps, thinking something like, "Isn't your oldest kid like a freshmen in high school?")<br />
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Look, this isn't a family blog, <i>per se</i>, but no one here is pregnant. <br />
<br />
I'm looking down the road here. Waaaaay down the road. Lego's Research Institute made a huge splash largely because... look closely at the box... it features three female scientists. It garnered a lot of media attention last month, including <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/22/business/short-lived-science-line-from-lego-for-girls.html?_r=0" target="_blank">this article</a> from the <i>New York Times</i>, <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/ct-lego-girls-stem-petition-balancing-20140827-column.html" target="_blank">this op-ed</a> in the <i>Chicago Tribune</i>, and <a href="http://consumerist.com/2014/08/27/petition-asks-lego-to-realize-that-science-isnt-a-limited-time-job-for-women/" target="_blank">an online petition</a> to resurrect the set after its too-short life. <br />
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So I mentioned I'm looking down the road. Waaaaay down the road, but the RI isn't about "investing" in the traditional sense. I want to gift this to my future granddaughter because her world (hopefully) will be different than the one in which we live. I want to give it to her and let her know how happy I am she is able to do whatever she wants. I want her to know how happy I am she lives in a world in which a toy set featuring female scientists is no longer a big deal because everyone knows women can kick ass at anything they do.<br />
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That's the best investment I can imagine and a world in which I want everyone to live.<br />
<br />Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604033530537822263.post-66021363431610823032014-08-27T07:37:00.000-05:002014-08-27T07:37:00.058-05:00On Being from KansasHere come the <i>Wizard of Oz</i> jokes...<br />
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And that's the first thing you need to know about being a Kansan. You and your home state are often the butt of jokes--stale, tired jokes which are told with impunity.<br />
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"Where's Toto?"<br />
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"Where's Auntie Em?"<br />
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"Where's [insert any <i>Oz </i>character name here]?<br />
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When I worked at a grocery store in high school, one "import" family would shop wearing matching "We're not in Kansas anymore" t-shirts. True story. They'd come in on a weeknight around 9 PM, an hour before close, and wander the aisles in those shirts.<br />
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(sic 'em, Toto)</div>
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It goes beyond <i>Oz</i>. I've known folks from more populous states/the coasts who really, truly seem to believe we still use Conestoga wagons for transport. Ha ha. Our state is flat as a pancake... a few years ago, one mathematician "proved" Kansas, relatively, was <i>flatter </i>than a pancake. And it's not as if our state government helps us much. We've suffered embarrassing State Board of Education fights over evolution and passed legislation requiring voter ID, because, as you know, massive amounts of illegal immigrants flock to Kansas so they can vote illegally. I hear they're bused in, in fact. "It's all those damn Democrats' doin'!" wails the old man with belly-length beard next to the spittoon. <br />
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I say "we," but I never voted for such a thing. Maybe our collective unconscious remembers a time when "illegal" voters did arrive in our fair state (before it was a state). But that, dear friends, was before the American Civil War... back when Kansas meant something progressive and on the edge. <i>Bleeding </i>Kansas. In the years leading to the most deadly conflict in United States history, the first shots were fired here. Legendary terrorists like John Brown murdered in the name of abolition and William Quantrill burned my adopted city, Lawrence, to the ground.<br />
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(A Painting Depicting Quantrill's raid from the <a href="http://www2.ljworld.com/photos/2005/aug/06/62192/" target="_blank"><i>LJ World</i></a>)</div>
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Our state motto, <i>Ad Astra Per Aspera</i>, reflects on the struggle to join the Union.<br />
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To the Stars Through Difficulty.<br />
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That's good stuff. That's why I'm proud to be a Kansan despite the jokes and hayseed assumptions. I'm proud to be a Kansan despite our own failings and weaknesses. This is a place where people understand suffering and sacrifice. This is a place of good, hearty people who tell the truth. Honesty is valued here and hard work, too.<br />
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Maybe it's because of our position as butt of so many national jokes that Kansans have become so patient. There's intolerance here--unfortunately more than I want to believe at times--but when you meet a Kansan one-on-one, the facades of bigotry often melt away. Not always, but often enough to know something good lies within. We know we have warts. We know we have scars. But, from my experience, we own them. Maybe not every individual... but a collective "we." One cannot have suffered repeated offenses without developing a degree of humility.<br />
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A Kansan knows it isn't very humble to speak of one's humility. We know we are broken as much as anyone else, but we are also aware of our humanity. We want good, honest stories more than we need grand lectures from any pulpit--even a secular one.<br />
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I work as a guidance counselor in a small, Northeast Kansas high school. Every year, we receive at least one new student from some other portion of the country--California, Florida, Michigan in the last few years--and are charged with the care of this adolescent. We joke that we're supposed to "save" them because we are used to being the brunt of jokes."Send the boy to Kansas. They'll learn him right. And if not... there's nothing to do out there, anyway."<br />
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We take this "orphan" in an make him our own. We care for her and teach her how to be good to other people and that she matters. We build relationships. We listen. We try again when we fail because we know--thanks to lessons from our rough climate won by generations of farmers and ranchers--failure is coming.<br />
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But so is triumph, little victories of the most mundane, everyday variety.<br />
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Go on. Make fun of us. Ask about Toto (the dog not the band). Try and win us with golden tongues and well-formed words. Just be honest. Genuine. Flawed and human. If you are, you just might belong here:<br />
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<a href="http://img.posterlounge.de/images/wbig/jim-richardson-die-flint-hills-in-kansas-aus-der-luft-gesehen-167982.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://img.posterlounge.de/images/wbig/jim-richardson-die-flint-hills-in-kansas-aus-der-luft-gesehen-167982.jpg" height="266" width="400" /> </a></div>
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The Flint Hills of Kansas seen from the air (Jim Richardson, National Geographic) </div>
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(Flat as a what?)<b><br /></b></div>
Aaron Polsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15173267932358617304noreply@blogger.com1