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What it’s like to be GenXer in 2014

This post was spurred by this Salon article from 2013.

GenX article @Salon

It’s Salon, which means it’s not reliable as a news source, but this article feels pretty spot on to me:

“The Xer in midlife is facing the opposite midlife than the Silent Generation,” Howe says. “The Silent experienced claustrophobia. Xers experience agoraphobia — everything is possible.” – Neil Howe quoted in Salon article “Generation X gets really old: How do slackers have a midlife crisis?”

I do not feel like the dude in Falling Down. I do feel agoraphobic. I feel like I’ve been let down by the “American Dream” touted by my parents. They would tell me “you can do anything you want!” then ridicule my college degree and advise me to get an office job when I kept changing “careers” to try to make the best of what I had. I feel resentment at them for still spouting that bullshit at me, EVEN AS THEY GO INTO THEIR LAST YEARS BROKE AS FUCK from refusing to change. They were in the building business and they got crushed. My brother now has a shitty county job that pays less than $30k/yr and he supports ALL of them. He sat around for 4 years spending their savings before he got a clue that he might have to find a new career. My parents fought him all the way. This is my brother all right:

“Studies reveal that a disproportionate number of us are sandwiched between dependent children and aging parents – fending off economic stressers while juggling a heavy load of family responsibilities.”

My brother supports his clueless 17 year old pregnant daughter and two sickly parents. He’ll be supporting his grandkid, too. He feels trapped and he is. But it’s his own fault for allowing our overbearing mother to run his life. I really wonder what will happen when she’s not around to tell him what to do. My brother will be 47 in January and he’s never had an independent life. I couldn’t save him, though I tried very hard. They all resent me because I saw the trap and I fled. None of them were smart enough to do that, so naturally I’m the bad guy.

My parents tell me that it’s MY FAULT that my $100k home became worth $40k. THEY ARE FULL OF SHIT. And out of touch. My father actually said, “There wasn’t a housing bust! I don’t know what you’re talking about! You’re lying! Houses are selling great in Knoxville!” Uh, right Dad, I made the whole thing up and Knoxville fucking TN is immune to the ills of the WHOLE GODDAM COUNTRY and you lost all your retirement money to invisible gnomes. Right. He probably thinks this because he has lived his whole life in a 10 mile radius. They all have. Small towns, small minds. It’s amazing how real their fantasy world is to them. They must work really hard to ignore the news that is on their TVs that are on 24/7. This is why I call them militantly ignorant. It’s hard work to ignore reality like they do.

I have had to start over in my life. And over. And over. I’ve been fucked by the Boomer’s “American Dream”. I went to college. I settled down and bought a house (Nick did this, too). What did we get? BANKRUPTCY. We bankrupted and started fresh three years ago – but we paid off our fucking student loans, at least. It was the best thing we’ve ever done – despite my fucking family telling us we’re losers for not sticking with a failed investment that was killing us with stress. Despite my father (who has always been an entrepreneur) telling me I’m crazy to start up a business and I’m doomed to failure (arcade pub for those new to this blog), that is precisely what I’m going to do. I’ll succeed to spite him.  The last paragraph of the Salon article really does sum it up:

“If we’re going to make the country a better place, more suited to our values, we need to do it ourselves. Middle age is, if nothing else, time to shift out of second gear. If we can’t take a break from the urban farms, put down the knitting and home brewing equipment, and step into politics, business and other kinds of leadership, we’ll deserve our reputation as the generation that never quite showed up. Rather than the sound of silence, we should be hearing our voices – and they should be loud and angry.”

The Boomers are clueless about who we Xers are and the constant stream of CRAP that we’ve dealt with. But I think we can become the leaders we need to be on our own terms. I think if more of us would take chances, we could get something done. There’s no one left to take chances but US. The Millennials are certainly not ready. We’ve got to stop playing it safe and get out there. It’s hard to do, I can attest to that. The fear of failure is real. But when it comes down to it, we have no choice. It’s start over again or live in a box under the interstate. Nick’s Boomer era job is ending. We must reinvent. If there’s anything that Xers are good at, it’s THAT.

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What you get when you poke the Universe.

We decided to move, as you all know. We needed new energy and a new base of operations. We started moving stuff the last week of May and it all culminated in the movers showing up on Sunday to get all the big stuff. We used Big League Movers (Excellent, big shout out to them on Yelp.) We’d wrangled Comcast on Friday the 13th with a full moon during a Mercury retrograde without incident and staged all our crap on Saturday. Sunday went well, but it was a long day. We were exhausted in every sense.

Monday we had DirecTV coming out in the afternoon, so we decided to go get the fish tank that morning to get it over with. Moving a fish tank is a royal pain in the ass. We stopped at Chick Fil Hate for some breakfast and that’s when my brother called me. I knew it was bad news because he’d never call me during work unless it was. He told me that his best friend had been electrocuted on the job that morning. We’d known Aron Pack since 1978 or 79. Aron and Ricky were like peas and carrots.

I cried off and on most of the day Monday. My poor brother had lost his one solace from his shitty life. He and Aron would work on their Harleys together and Ricky would go to the lake with them. My brother was closer to the Pack family that he was to ours for sure. He and Aron were brothers in a very real sense.

On top of all this, Rob went on vacation for two weeks, leaving me “in charge” (HA HA!) of the bills for the taqueria. Of course, this normally would be no big deal, but with all the exhaustion of moving and the emotional upset of Aron’s death, it’s been VERY hard. The girl that is basically in charge of the store has fucked up all the orders and keeps asking me for checks EVERY GODDAM DAY. We just got back last night from the funeral (in TN) and she’s calling me asking that I drive over there to bring her a check for some beer that “just showed up”. I told her to send it the fuck back. We’ve never gotten along and she is being a total bitch to me since Rob isn’t around. Ugh.

Aron’s funeral was a typical horrible Southern affair. Open casket (even though he’d never wanted that), receiving line, public display of grief, wails from the wailing room, the whole thing. I refuse to approach the open caskets in general, because I want to remember the person alive, not dead. If I see the body, that’s the only thing I’ll remember. I know, because it’s happened with my cats. I didn’t see my granny and I’m not sorry about that. Anyway, I sat next to my brother for the funeral service and felt the hurt and sorrow flow from him. It was the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced. I’m actually very empathic, but I tend to keep it turned off as much as I can because I find it clouds my judgement and causes me to take on others’ drama. But in this case, I turned it on and tried to take as much of my brother’s pain as I could. Probably not the best thing for me, but I did it anyway. I’ve never seen such hurt in his eyes. Never. (I did pay for it, as I completely broke down last night, again. Nick did his best to comfort me. Thank the gods for xanax.)

My poor brother is a very good guy. He’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he would (and does) do anything for anyone who needs help. His life is a shit sandwich. He’s got a job he doesn’t like and is low paying. He’s got a 17 year old daughter that is hell on wheels, who has done nothing but cause drama for the last several years – especially since her drug dealer mother was murdered. She got knocked up on purpose and is now shacked up with some idiot 20 year old that she’s known for, oh, three months. My brother lives with two parents in their 70s who are in declining health. My father has dementia and emphysema. He remembers nothing. He’s asked me at least a dozen times where I’ve moved to, if it’s a bigger place and if it’s more expensive. My mother has been hospitalized for several weeks for an as yet unnamed neurological disease that has rendered her 75% immobile.

And now my brother lost his best friend. It is heartbreaking. As we stood graveside in the boiling heat yesterday morning, I looked up at the clear blue sky and heard birds singing. It made me even sadder. The world goes on. The most horrible things happen and the sun rises and the birds sing. We adapt. But it sure does HURT.

Aron’s death has scared me, badly. Aron’s wife Tina has lost her husband of 17 years. Just like that. In the blink of an eye. She said goodbye as he left for work like any other morning and now he’s gone. I can’t help but identify with that. If I lost Nick like that, I don’t know what I’d do. I don’t have family support. I’ve got a few close friends, but I am pretty self contained. I tend to not rely on people very much since I’ve had so many people fuck me over (especially the family). I can’t help but be afraid of what would happen to me if I lost Nick. I think I’d sell everything and move overseas. I’d be lost, that’s for sure. Or maybe I’d choose to check out as well. It’s a definite possibility, I won’t lie.

So that’s what’s been going on the last couple of weeks. It’s been hard. I’m physically and mentally spent. We are missing Heroes AND the Atlanta Gaming Expo. I still feel emotionally fragile, like tears could happen any minute. ::sigh::

So, be careful when you poke the Universe, folks. You just might get more than you bargained for.

We’ve got to go to Maplehurst today for the final items: fans, plants, bird feeders, etc. I just want all this to be OVER. We’ve not even touched the boxes here. Don’t be surprised if you don’t hear from me much for the next month or so. I just need to regroup and set up my house. Please don’t call me. You can text or message on FB, but just don’t call. I’m over the phone right now.

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Starting a new chapter

We just rented a house in Tucker. It’s OTP (Outside the Perimeter aka I-285 for those not Atlanta based) and the neighborhood is great. The house is, too!
Ivanhoe!
Just wait until you see the BACK yard! It is beautiful. This place is SO awesome!

It’s my first foray into OTP living, which is SCARY, but I’m sick to DEATH of the ghetto shit. Living in a neighborhood that is lily white will be a nice change after 25 years in the ghetto. It’s just a few miles OTP, but OTP nonetheless. It’s going to take some getting used to! I like Tucker and I’ll be close to TEV, which is nice. Nick will be close to work and can get there without touching 285, which is VERY nice. So I’ll put up with being away from Decatur and Downtown in exchange for nice neighbors and QUIET.

I will not miss loud ass bass w/ offensive rap coming from a Buick with 22s rattling the windows at 2am. Not even a little bit.

So, back to the house. It’s a 1965 ranch basement, which is my favorite style. It is very similar to the house we almost bought a couple of months ago. It’s got carpet in the front room, living room and hall, but hardwoods in the bedrooms. The three bedrooms are small, but doable. It was billed as a 2 bath, but it’s actually 1.5. The bathroom is a dual, with two toilets/sinks and one tub separated by a door. It’s kinda cool! So the master BR has the full bath and the hall is the half, with a door so the tub is shared. Crafty! The basement is partially finished, which is what we wanted. There’s no carpet in 3/4 of it, which is perfect for working on projects like arcade games or messy art. There’s a small room with carpet down there that we are making the exercise room with the treadmill and weight bench.

Needless to say, we’ve not got enough furniture for such lavish quarters! Down the road I think we’ll get a Sleep Number bed for us and move the regular bed to the guest room. The other bedroom will be the office. The room next to the kitchen (which has the sliding door to the deck) will be full of bookshelves and the front room will be our TV room. The kitchen is eat in and very roomy and there’s a laundry room at the end of that. I’ll need a china hutch for sure. I’ll also need two large rugs and one long runner to cover up that WHITE carpet. WHITE. GAH! I’m scared to death I’ll spill fucking wine all over it. I tell you what, tho, having carpet in the TV room will break us from eating at the sofa – I hope.

The landlord might be open to yanking up the carpet at some point. He’s very cool about us modding the house, mainly because we all have very similar taste. He knows we are used to owning, and we’ll treat his house like it’s ours. He’s fine with us running ethernet to the AppleTV, even! Thank the gods that this place has updated electrical so that’s not a worry. I think he’s down with the mods because he wants to live in this house and the stuff we add will benefit him in the long run. Which means we are ALL happy. :)

The downside is that the kitchen is old skool, which means an electric cooktop and in-wall TINY oven (too small for a half sheet pan!). Suck. It also has brown linoleum. Brown. The landlord – who is AWESOME – has already said that I can add a gas range if I like. LOVE HIM! So, we’ll see. I just might take him up on it if the electric is as heinous as I think it’ll be. I could get a decent gas range and slide it in, just like I’d planned for the house we almost bought, or I could go super easy and just get a gas cooktop. The landlord will buy the hardware if I pay to have it installed, which is totally fair. I might even install the Jenn Air and leave it with him when we eventually leave. He said I could if I wanted! He appreciates a good stove!

Another small downside is the fairly steep driveway. I hope my car doesn’t drag every freaking time I back out. >:( But other than being OTP, the kitchen and the drive, this place is SWEET. We are IN LOVE. The bennies FAR outweigh the problems.

So, yah. We are moving to IVANHOE! WOOHOO! We will miss our awesome friends Noah and Wes TERRIBLY, but we gotta do this.

As much as moving sucks ass, I don’t even care. We can take our time and then get some big strong boys to do the heavy lifting when we’re ready to bolt outta here. We need this SO badly. If this doesn’t shake up our energy, nothing will. Oh, and Wells Fargo can CHOKE on this place. ;)

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DJ: Dec 17, 1997 – May 3, 2014

Our sweet DJ had a seizure and passed just a few minutes ago. I’m glad it’s over for him, he was barely hanging on. I think he hung on until I got back home. He even gave me a weak purr yesterday. The nice people at Deceased Pet Care are meeting us at their crematory in a little while.

DJ in sunbeam, Feb 27, 2014
DJ in sunbeam, Feb 27, 2014

This is the last good shot of DJ before his final decline. He was an awesome cat. He was sweet and always had a purr for anyone who’d pet him. I’m grateful to have had him in my life for 16 years. He will be missed. May he rest in the warmth of Bast and always nap in a sunbeam.

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Hairspray

I just had my memory joggled by a FB post by a friend, so I thought I’d take a moment and jot down my memories of my mother’s beauty shop that was one half of our renovated 2 car garage when I was a kid. The other half was the Red Room, which I’ll also describe for you.

In the late 60s – early 70s, my mother did hair in her shop at our house. She’d gone to cosmetology school in the early 60s (one of two choices: cosmetology or business school) then gotten married and proceeded to pop out me and my brother. My father worked at Robert Shaw – Fulton in Oak Ridge [TN] as a machinist. This plant was a part of the war effort and also the space exploration effort. My father worked on a steel box that was used to collect rocks from the moon. Isn’t that the coolest?

My mother opened the shop to make money while my father’s union was on constant strike circa 69-71 or so. I don’t remember why (money, no doubt) but I do remember my parents being stressed out and my dad being home all the time. So they converted the 2 car garage and mom opened the shop. My father left Robert Shaw – Fulton around that time and got into the real estate biz.

Anyway, my mother had this shop, complete with a full wall station w/ washing sink, hydraulic chair and two hair dryers. My brother and I used to play on the hydraulic chair. I remember the coating of hair spray on the back of that chair. You could flake it off like plastic. The station filled the whole wall on one side and had a black sink. The hydraulic chair and hair dryers were lilac and white.

My mother taught me how to wash hair properly as soon as I was tall enough to reach that sink. She’d do my hair in a bouffant and I remember sitting under the dryer with rollers in my hair. I have a picture somewhere of me asleep under the dryer. Since it was a bit past the hey day of the bouffant, my mother mainly had old ladies coming to the shop. I think she charged $4 for a wash/set. They’d come in once a week. (The thought of not washing my hair for a week makes my skin crawl!! I’ve always been a daily washer. I’ve got a greasy head.) One lady I can vaguely remember was Nelly, who had tinted red hair and wore a short bouffant. I think she was one of my mother’s favourite clients. I remember her as being tall, but I was only 5 or 6 at the time.

The door to the shop went into a laundry room, then another door went into the Red Room. The Red Room was a large family room with a fireplace along one wall. The hearth went almost to the ends of the wall. The house was white brick (which I love to this day) and the fireplace/hearth was made of the same brick. The room was paneled with grey paneling that had black seams. Red carpet ran wall to wall. It was a mediterranean themed room, so the furniture was low and fat, covered in red velvet. It was a sectional, with a low square black topped table at the corner. All the cushions came off that sectional, so we used them for forts and such. There was a huge square black lamp on that corner table that looked like it was carved from lava. We also had a large console TV in there and we always put the christmas tree in there – displaced from the front room, where it had previously lived until the new addition.

This was also when we got a new, 7′ fake tree from Sears. It was my job to put it up every year, which I did until I left home in the 80s. When my mother decided she didn’t want that tree any more, I snatched it and now it is MY tree. This thing is at least 40 years old by now, and still looks awesome. And it’s still my job to put it up every year. :)

I remember riding our pedal tractors (got of pic of those, too, somewhere) in there before the carpet was laid – probably the first Christmas it was built (I’m thinking it was probably 70-71). I also remember being stung in the eye by some insect in there and being stung on the hand by another insect at a different time.

The most important thing I remember about the large console TV in that room is the day they reported Elvis was dead. It was summer (yes, Aug 16, 1977) and I was watching something on TV, when a crawl came across the bottom announcing that “Elvis Presley was found dead in his Memphis home, Graceland”. My mother was in the laundry room or the (now defunct) salon and I ran to tell her. She came out and we stood in front of that console TV and cried over Elvis.

My mother did hair until the mid 70s. She was having trouble with her eyes, so she went to the ophthalmologist and it was decided that the hairspray fumes were causing the trouble, so she closed the shop. Of course that wasn’t the problem, my mother has posterior uveitis, an inflammation of the uveal tract that causes the pupil to deform (hers looked like a crescent moon), blurred vision and floaters. Once it was more or less under control, she’d have occasional flare ups and I remember her steroid eyedrops in a little pink labeled bottle (I believe it was Pred Forte.) The disease caused her to have cataracts which she had removed a few years ago. As it turns out, my mother has had several auto immune diseases (ITP for one) and a current one that is ravaging her motor control and has ruined her mobility. Of course her sub par doctors have no idea what to do, so she takes Lyrica for the symptoms but they are not doing anything to stop the disease. Buuut, my healthcare rant can wait for another day.

I just wanted to write about the hair salon that I grew up in. This is why I know so much about hair. My mother taught me all about colour and stuff when I was kid. I’ll dig through the archives and see I can find some pix of the salon and Red Room.